0 comments/ 7602 views/ 0 favorites The Bar By: AnonyCat2000 She went to the same seedy little dive, every month, on the third Sunday for the last 14 years. Any other day, she was in the real world, working 8 or more hours a day, going home to her empty house and doing the same monotonous thing day after day after day. But on this one Sunday, she would be transformed...she took great pains on preparing herself, her hair, body, clothing, perfect. Her scent, just the way he liked it. Her lover for the past 14 years. Entering the dark, smoky establishment, she walked to the corner of the scratched, wooden bar and sat on her stool. She would order one Chivas on ice and then wait...soon she would shiver, the hairs standing on end...the slight movement of the air flowing across her body and closing her eyes for a moment, the thrill deep within her body would start. Opening her eyes and staring into the wall mirror behind the bar, she would see nothing but the few drunks seated at this or that table, the bartender, a ragged looking soul wouldn't give the time of day to anyone..except just to stare with dark, beady eyes and ask what poison you wanted. She takes a sip of her drink...the fire flowing down her throat as the first touch is felt...and the hot breath upon her ear...like hell itself, but a hell that made her feel so alive... 'My Love...' he whispers...with the feel of his lips on her earlobe, she shivers deep again, a wetness seeping from between her bare thighs...he liked it that way...she crosses her legs, the whisper of flesh upon flesh as her legs touched sounds so loud...so sensual...she squirms a bit on the stool, the short skirt she wears, slipping up her thighs just a bit. He whispers into her ear..."No, do not cross them...leave them open...' She parts her legs...his breath still by her ear...his tongue flickering out to lick...she shivers again as his hand moves down the side of her body...she watches the mirror..transfixed, feeling every touch..every movement...on her thigh...a small squeeze..then moving so slowly..teasing...up between them...she parts her thighs more..a slight moan escapes her lips.. 'No my love, no sounds...' Again she closes her eyes for just a moment and feeling a bite on her lobe, she opens them quickly as she knows he wants her to watch, to watch her face as the pleasure continues. His hand, moving up more as he whispers what he will do, 'I shall do as I wish, and you will do as I say...remember that...' Biting her lip, she feels his hand as it moves closer to her...his fingertips just brushing over...making her wimper just a bit and her legs open wider...wanting to feel his touch...her wetness spreading, feeling it flow as his finger touches her...not entering, but running slowly up to her throbbing clit...she shudders deep, spreading her legs wider and hooking the heels of her pumps on the middle rungs of the bar stool, the skirt riding up more, the feel of the worn leather on her bare ass...for he liked her to come to the bar without panties...open to him, always...he slips a finger deep inside...telling her how warm and silky she feels...telling her that he wants to smell her, to taste her...he raises his finger to her lips...she opens and gently licks...his whispers telling her to suck...she obliges. The thrill of him saying those things to her...of being in public drives her wild, her mind, screaming out..please...please go on! His hand slips between her legs again...entering her deep in one thrust...circling deep as he tells her that he will make her come, again and again....he is here for her pleasure, as another finger goes in deeper, her breath catches as he slowly starts to move them in and out of her...his thumb circling her clit...slower, then harder...and faster...she breaths deeper, feeling his fingers deep inside, the wetness flowing more..her legs spreading wider...she moves her body to the edge of the stool as he pumps in and out of her, his mouth on her ear, still whispering to her...'I will make you come...' she nods her head as she feels herself, her body building up..the pressure ...building..building...his bite on her neck...and the sucking...she watches as her face begins to flush...his thumb moving across her clit...faster, the fingers feeling like a cock..in and out....she bites hard again on her lip...breath ragged...her nipples hard as she moves her hands up..and pinches them...body leaning back...closing her eyes..for just a moment and then opening wide as a silent scream emerges...her mouth open in an 'o' as the first climax hits her...legs shaking...his biting, his sucking, the fingers fucking her hard...as she comes again and again...her hands gripping the bar..nails scratching....then while the throbs within her continue...her vision clears, she looks into the mirror...her face flushed...the smell of her sex permeating...panting as she looks for her lover....the one she never see's... The next few days would be a hell for her, she had gone to many doctors in the past, wondering why the headaches would come, her hate of bright sunny days, the soreness in her neck...her paleness...which all the many tests would show nothing. The same answer...'We do not know...we just don't know..' She really didn't know either, thinking to herself as she sat at her desk, but her mind would then wander, waiting for that third Sunday... The Bar Finally it was Friday night. I thought it would never get here, that this week would go on forever. It was a brutal week, nothing would go right for me at all. I had to deal with a system administrator who knew nothing at all about computers and then to top it of, a simple network fax application upgrade turned into a nightmare because of a poorly written and documented program. But that was all behind me now. You told me to wait for you at home and all would be right. Vicki, I can't find the words to tell you how much you mean to me. No matter how bad things are, how bad I might screw up, you are always there for me to lean on. I can only sit here and wonder what the night holds for me. Will you tie me down and do as you please to my body? Or will I be an active participant in whatever you plan? Either way I will find release and freedom from the outside world. Just being your property gives me a piece of mind that nothing can truly harm me. Right now all I can do is sit by the window and watch for you. I want to please you when you get home, so I dressed in my normal goofing-around-the-apartment clothes that you like so much. I put on a simple white t-shirt with no bra, extremely short jean cut-offs, and tied my hair back into a ponytail. I feel like a Barbie doll when I dress myself for you. It is a great feeling for one who needs to be objectified. Finally I see your car come around the corner and pull into a parking space. You get out of the car and I smile as I look at you. My goodness you are so gorgeous!! Your face is so soft and beautiful, it's hard to believe how tough you really are. I love your shoulder length dark hair with its slight curls. You look so Goddess-like with your tight jeans and that red t-shirt that accentuates your well-shaped breast. You look up at the window, smile, and wave at me as you walk to the entrance to our apartment. My heart starts running at top speed and my chest suddenly feels light and warm. Goddess how I love you!! I wait as you open the door and then leap the length of the living room to greet you. My hands wrap around your waist and I kiss you deeply. Your tongue thrusts into my mouth as your arms wrap around me in a tight hug and push your way into the apartment, closing the door behind you. You finally pull out from my kiss, smile, and ask me "What has gotten into you?" "I'm just glad to see you. You *did* promise to make me feel better after this horrible week I've had," I reply, a big grin on my face. I hug you tighter and kiss you again, feeling life return to me as your tongue wraps around my tongue and your hands slide down to my buns and squeeze. I lift up slightly in response to your squeeze and press my body harder against yours. Are you going to fuck me here in the living room by our front door? After what seemed like an eternity you let go of me and go into the bedroom. I follow you and ask "What do you have planned for us tonight?" "I have a lot planned for you tonight sweetie. Now shut up and put on your cheerleaders uniform," you tell me. I smile as I imaging what you will do to me shortly. I obediently do as told, asking "Should I wear bra and panties?" You tell me "Yes, put on your underwear tonight." I put on my underwear, then put on my cheerleader's uniform. It's white with a red and black trim and a large black "G" on the front. I put on white, black, and red socks and my white Reboks. I ask you "How do I look?" and smile when you tell me, "You look as beautiful as always." I run a finger lightly down your spine and ask you "Now what do you have planned for me? Please tell me." "We're going to the club tonight, we have friends to meet." I shudder and argue, "I can't go out like this!!!" You quickly slap my ass hard enough to cause me to stumble forward a few steps and hiss, "You will do as you are told girlie." I meekly respond, "Yes ma'am, as you wish." You continue in a more gentle tone, "Besides, the girls all want to see you as a cheerleader, and I *know* you want them to also. Most importantly, *I* want them to see you like that. I'm proud of my property and want to show it off. Now go into the living room and wait for me." After a couple of minutes you come out wearing the same jeans and red t-shirt. "You are such a Goddess Vick," I tell you. In your most arrogant tone you say, "I know little one." Then you smile that wicked smile of yours and tell me to get my coat and go warm up the car for you. I do as ordered, then come and let you know that the car is ready. You grab your coat and we go to the car. . . . . . . . . After a thirty-minute drive we arrive at Bedrox, the local bad-dyke bar. You pull into a parking space and we go into the club. You lead me towards the back of the bar. I ask you, "Who are we meeting?" "You'll see Sarah, just follow me and...," you look at me for the end of your sentence. "I smile and answer you, "I know, I know....follow you and shut up." You smile at me and respond, "Good girl." We continue to the back of the bar and at a table in the corner I see who we have come to meet. It's Ruth and her pet Atara. I smile and wave to them as you lead me to the booth. They both look beautiful. I can't help but admire their large breasts and dream of having a weekend to nuzzle them. We exchange hellos and Ruth says, "Glad to see you two can make it. Now sit down and we'll get some beers." You order me to take off my coat and I do as directed. Both Ruth and Atara smile and laugh when they see that I'm dressed as a cheerleader tonight. Atara says, "I've been wanting to see the cheerleader Sarah. I'm taken by her." Ruth adds, "She is a pretty sight. You take good care of your property Vick." You thank them and take off your own coat. We sit down and order our beers. I hold your arm and listen to you and Ruth as you talk about work and other subjects. I love listening to you and hang on every word. Ruth changes the subject and says, "Your Sarah is certainly a sweet looking cheerleader. Is she a good girl?" You tell her, "She is a pretty thing, but she can be a bad little girl at times. She actually questioned *me* when I told her she was going to wear that tonight. But I convinced her that I was right. Isn't that true Sarah?" "Yes ma'am," I quietly respond. Ruth continues, "She's certainly being a good girl now. You have taught her well." "Thank you Ruth, I've worked hard with her," you tell her. "My Atara has been flirting with her for a long time. I can see why. She is a pretty thing," Ruth says. I blush at all the attention being lavished on me. You see my happiness and start to build on it. "She is a pretty little thing. She has the nicest tits. Would you like to see them?" Ruth and Atara smile and both acknowledge that they do. You lift my top up and slide my breasts out of their cups. You take out an ice cube from a glass of water and rub it on my left nipple. It immediately gets hard and you move to the right nipple. "Aren't they nice? Look at her, she's loving this," you tell them and smile. I blush even more as you trace small circles around my nipples with your finger. I let out a barely audible gasp as you tease me. You stop, return my breasts into my bra, bring down my shirt, and continue. "You know, she hasn't always been a good little girl like this. When she really was a cheerleader, she used to fuck boys to please them. She was quite the little slut back then." Ruth and Atara laugh and Ruth replies "Go on Vick!! She was probably an innocent little virgin." "Oh no, don't let her innocent facade fool you. She was a little slut. Her only purpose in life is to be a fuck toy. Isn't that right little one?" you ask me. I reply "Yes ma'am. I'm only a slut." "You see. Let me show you," you tell them, "get on your knees before me Sarah." I do as you order and get on my knees before you. You unbutton your jeans and pull out a dildo. "Now Sarah, I want you to show Ruth and Atara what you did to the boys," you tell me. I say, "Yes ma'am," and go down on your dildo. I take my tongue and slowly circle the tip, as I grab hold of your "cock." As I start to suck on it I feel my cunt grow warm and moist. I love to perform for you, and it only adds that we have an audience. You tell Ruth and Atara, "Look at her. She is the accomplished cocksucker, isn't she?" They agree with you and laugh. "Now Sarah, don't forget to show them how you would suck their balls," you tell me. I do as I'm told and lick on the balls to your dildo. You, Ruth, and Atara watch and enjoy my performance. After a few minutes of sucking on your dildo you order me to return to my seat next to you. You ask me, "Did you like that sweetheart?" "Yes ma'am, I love to suck on your cock." You tell Ruth and Atara, "See? What did I tell you? She is a slut!!" They agree with you, which makes me hotter. Atara asks, "So what else does she do that makes her a slut?" "Do you really want to know?" you ask her. "She can get really nasty when I want her to be." You turn to me and ask "Sarah, what can you do to prove to everyone what a slut you are?" I know the answer to that and smile. "I want you to butt fuck me Mistress," I reply. "Very well little one, get up please," you order me. "I want you to bend over that table with your ass facing us." I do as ordered and wait for you. You continue, "Pull up your skirt now, let us see your panties." I pull up my skirt so that everyone can see my red panties. You shout for all to hear, "Look at how wet her panties are. She is such a slut!!" "Now please pull down your panties," you tell me. I slide my panties down until they fall to my feet. I feel exposed and helpless in front of you, Ruth and Atara. That feeling brings me to the edge of orgasm. I live to be an object like this. You ask me, "Now Sarah, tell us again what you want." I answer, "I want to be butt fucked...please ma'am. Fuck my ass." "Not yet slut," you tell me, "Show us how much you want it. Open your ass for me. Show Ruth and Atara what a slut you really are." "Yes ma'am," I answer you and slip a finger into my cunt to lubricate it. I pull my finger out and place the tip to my ass. Slowly I enter, feeling the slight ache as my ass opens to accommodate my finger. My cunt is hot and as I finger fuck my ass in front of Ruth and Atara. As I slide my finger all the way in, I shake with my first orgasm. I start to slowly fuck myself, building up speed as my ass becomes accustomed to my finger. I hear Ruth and Atara start to kiss as they watch me, only increasing my desires. "What a good girl you are Sarah," you tell me, "Ruth and Atara love your little spectacle. Should I fuck you now?" "Yes ma'am, please fuck me now!!" I beg of you. "Just a moment, let me lube my cock," you answer. You get up and stand behind me. I feel you place the tip of your cock at the opening to my ass and grab my waist. You pull my ass towards you slowly, the dildo entering me. My ass opens even more as you shove your cock into me. I gasp and slowly rise to my toes as you enter deeper into me. I look up at you and whisper, "Please fuck me Mistress, fuck me now!!" Your reply is to pull the dildo back, almost out, and then shove it back in faster this time. You shove my back so that I lay face down on the table, then bend over me as you continue to thrust into my ass. You whisper for all to hear, "You live for this don't you? Tell everyone what you are." I cry out, "I'm your fuck toy!! I am your property!!" and a sudden relief comes over me. I feel I am where I belong, being fucked, treated as an object only to please you. I can't tell you how much I owe you for being able to surrender my body and soul to you. My only wish is to please you as much as you please me. You suddenly stop butt fucking me and pull your cock out of my ass. I feel you reach for something with one hand as you start to play with my cunt, fucking me with three fingers. You stop and I look back. You are covering one hand with lube and you look me in the eyes. "Little one, I'm going to fist fuck you here, in front of our friends," you tell me. "Please Mistress, I want you to, for all to see," I reply. You start to slide four fingers in my cunt, opening me up. I look behind me at Ruth and Atara. Ruth has one hand in Atara's shirt, massaging a breast, and her other hand is somewhere under the table. Both of them are watching us as we fuck like animals. I close my eyes as you slip your thumb in and slide your hand in up to the knuckles. Oh Goddess how I feel so full!! You ask me "Are you ready Sarah? Are you ready for me to go in the rest of the way?" I answer, "Yes, please," barely able to get out the words. You add additional lube and open me up with your other hand. Suddenly you slide in and I feel an incredible fullness like nothing I've known before. I let out a yelp and shudder as you start to move your fist inside me. I feel my orgasm building and start to cry from the most incredible emotions. I can't see everyone staring at us, but from the sudden quiet I know we are the center of attention. You slowly rotate your fist in me. My whole universe is focused on my cunt and you. Every small movement you make I feel in my cunt, I even feel your breathing. We are truly one at this moment. We are one and everyone can see that. All these feelings and emotions quickly build up to a mind shattering orgasm. I cry out as I come and finally go limp, drained from the emotional and physical rollercoaster you have taking me on. You pull out of me and pull my panties up. I feel you lift me and carry me to our seat in the booth and hold me close. I'm shaking and crying, my cunt feels so open and warm. I finally open my eyes and see Ruth and Atara smiling at me. I look around and see everyone staring at us. I squeeze you tighter and place my head on your shoulder. You soothe me and rock me gently. I know I've pleased you tonight and feel an incredible sense of accomplishment. As you continue to hold me, Ruth finally say, "Well Vick, I guess your right, she is a slut." "A nasty little slut," Atara adds, "She is *very* lucky to serve a mistress like you." I smile at that, knowing how right she is. The night goes on and we down a few more beers, nothing more being said about our little show. Finally last call is announced and it is time to leave. You pull me to my feet and hand me my coat. We say our good nights and Ruth allows me to hug Atara. My cunt is still open, a reminder to a most incredible fuck. As we walk to the door, the other girls smile at us and thank us for the show. I feel my entire persona stripped. You have shown off your property and the feeling of being an object rings true in my heart. The drive home is a blur and I only remember you leading me in. You take me into the bedroom, lay me down, and undress me. As you undress you tell me, "You have been a real good little girlie tonight. I will let you please me with you tongue and mouth." I gasp, "Thank you Vicki, I hope I please you as much as you have pleased me tonight." You kiss me and reply, "I know you will little one, now shut up and get to work." The Bar Slowly approaching the door, the roar of the Coliseum still echoing in my head, 'Maximus!... Maximus!... Maximus!'. I need my escape... I need Syds'. Opening the door in a wide arc, letting the initial scene wash over me... ah... my people. Frolicking in the tub, couples becoming intimate in the shadows, the usuals sitting at the bar, drinking and laughing... basically having a good time. Entering, I receive more than my fair share of greetings and kisses, even a few wanton leers, as I make my way to the bar. Settling in, behind, I take a quick assessment, 'Who's here?' and 'What has to be done?'. Noting who is not here let's me take care of the glasses, piled high from the last tender. Once the arduous task is complete, I take care of the little things. Restocking the cooler with the many types of beer we serve, topping off the juices in the speed tray( easy access for those drinks that need a splash). Looking up, in to the crowd, seeing that she isn't here, I resume. Wiping down the bar top, and then placing bowls of snacks for the crowd to enjoy... nothing special (popcorn, chips and pretzels) but they seem to enjoy it. Occasionally getting a drink order, trying to serve it quickly, getting ahead of the crowd. Then filling the fruit tray, using only the freshest. Placing a bowl of cherries and strawberries in the fridge, for those who prefer a different type of snacking. Turning quickly, almost forgetting the olives. With everything at the bar set and between orders, I check the thermostat for the tub. Taking a casual stroll out, across the room, bringing a tubber or two something to ease away the days' stress. I find myself at the closet. Pulling clean towels and robes out... leaving them out on the bench. Returning to my station, taking a moment to rest, maybe enjoy a cold O. J... watching the crowd... waiting. Then the door opens, and the room cries out for my baby. Sauntering in, men and women flock to her side, wanting desperately to run over myself, knowing that I can't, only allowed a simple greeting. But we both exchange a knowing glance, one of longing, of desire. Effortlessly mixing her favorite drink, feeling her hand touch mine as I serve it to her. I try to conceal my blush, but she can see right through me. As she turns to a friend, i move down to answer another order. Every so often, looking over to her, marveling at her beauty, not feeling guilty when she catches me stealing a peek at her. The night carries on, our eyes constantly meeting, and it is an endless torture. To be so close, to hunger for her touch, the feel of her skin, the want of losing myself in her gaze. Briefly rewarded with a whisper or gentle caress, whilst no one is watching. excited more and more by each others touch. Memories flooding back of more private times. By this point, my baby excuses herself, much to the disappointment of the crowd. A moment later, I hear her soft voice in my ear, feeling her breath on the back of my neck. Her hands snaking up my chest as her bosom press against my back. I swoon, moaning softly with my yearning, hoping the crowd doesn't notice that their bartender is in a trance. Slowly, I turn... mouth slightly open... in awe of the goddess before me, eyes fixated on her loveliness. So close, our breathes intermingling, feeling the heat radiate from our skin... knowing the time for words has passed as we close for a kiss... a kiss forged in the fires of passion... filled with a hunger for each others taste... a kiss that stirs the desire in us both. A tender kiss, with teasing, playfulness, but with fury and excitement. A kiss with just a glimpse, that leaves our bodies aching for more. The Bar You walk into the bar and see me sitting on a stool. I am wearing a long silk midnight blue dress, slit up to my thigh on one side. My legs are crossed and as I chat with the bartender one leg swings back and forth, my shoe hanging from the tip of my toes. I'm laughing at something he said as you walk towards me. I sense you at my side without even looking around. I can smell your after shave mixed with the scent of your desire. My shoe falls to the floor. you kneel down, pick it up and slip it onto my foot your hand running up the length of my leg as you stand back up. your eyes move to my breasts as you watch my nipples harden. I say thank you in a breathless voice and watch you walk away to a table in the corner. Should I follow you? Picking up my drink from the bar I slowly walk over to your table and ask if I may join you. Your smile lets me know you aren't expecting anyone to join you and are very happy to have my company. You stand up and move out of the booth and let me slide in then you follow. I feel the warmth of your body as you move to face me - our arms and thighs touching. Your eyes look me up and down making me quite breathless. My tongue slowly licks my now dry lips then I raise my glass to take a drink the ice clinking as I take a long gulp, trying to steady my nerves. I finish my drink in one gulp nodding to you as you motion the bartender for another J. D. and coke for me and a beer for you. There is something in the air tonight I feel very uninhibited and free. As you hand me my glass our fingers touch - electricity sparks between us. I watch as you lean your head closer to my lips as if to kiss me. Instead you move slightly to whisper in my ear; would you care to dance. You take my hand pulling me out of the booth to the dance floor. A slow sensuous song is playing. You draw me close pressing your body against mine your hand goes to the low part of my back as you move me around the dance floor. I feel your cock harden as it presses into me - my nipples rub against your chest as we move together as one. The music is slow and has an erotic beat that seems to keep time with my heart. The palm of your hand is seared into my back. Your lips brush the nape of my neck. I feel your teeth nibbling the lobe of my ear. This is driving me wild. You have me wrapped in your arms tight, our bodies barely moving now as we stand and sway to the music - not caring what is going on around us - your cock stiff pushing against my pussy trying to move my legs wider apart as if to slide between them here on the dance floor. My body obeys your every move; I have no control over it. In the darkness of the room I watch as you bend down slightly to suck my nipple thru my silk dress quickly - listening to my gasp of pleasure - then back up before anyone noticed. My pussy is so wet right now - your lips reach mine as you kiss me slowly with your tongue sliding into my mouth gently, then leaving me begging for more, you come back to me this time with more pressure and long deep kisses over and over. If you touched my pussy lips right now I would cum all over your fingers. The music has stopped and you lead me back to the table. My legs are unsteady as we walk to the table. You help me slide back into the booth - grinning in a very maddening yet sexy way as you stare at me making me blush. You slide next to me as close as you can get, our lips barely touching, as you ask if I want another drink. My head nods no as you motion the bartender for another round. Your hand dips down to my lap, your fingers caressing my thigh as you run your hand up my leg moving the slit of my dress to the side. My gasp of pleasure is all you need to continue your journey. My legs move slightly apart as I hold my breath in anticipation. I feel your fingers probing my pussy lips noticing the look of desire in your eyes as you realize how wet I am for your touch. The bartender brings the drinks and makes a hasty retreat not wanting to intrude. I try to take a drink but your fingers are teasing my clit and fucking my pussy, making me loose control. God I want you now right here. I am so nervous, so aroused, I spill a little of my drink, feeling you inside me as we sit in this public place - laughing inside at all the people in the bar who aren't enjoying themselves like you and I. my long tapered fingers reach to your cock - rubbing it over your pants with my palm - looking around and seeing how really dark it is in this bar. First the button then the zipper - so quickly I have taken care of them you barely realize your cock is standing stiff and straight - with my hand grabbing it and starting to stroke it before you can say a word. We are in our own little world now and god I want to suck you. You remove your fingers from my wet and aroused pussy, bringing them to my mouth, watching in fascination as I slowly suck my juice off your fingers one by one. Your cock thickens in my hand at the sight - drips of precum show on the head of your cock. You kiss me hard and deep then glancing around, you press down on my head lowering my mouth to your cock. Your moan as I first take you into my mouth - deep in my throat - makes me cum. Your hand guides me - up and down - sliding your cock in and out of my mouth. I can feel you ready to explode - a big hot load in my mouth. Not here though. Where will you take me? You pull me from the booth - my clothes in disarray and we run out the back door laughing and panting. The back parking lot is dimly lit with a few cars remaining. Now you turn to me cupping my face in your hands giving me a long slow deep sensuous kiss that makes me weak at the knees. You lead me to your car but before you are able to unlock the door I put my hands on your chest and gently shove you against the door. I see your eyes widen in anticipation - my body presses into yours against the car door as we kiss once again. Suddenly without warning you twirl me around, scoop me up by my ass, and sit me on the hood of your car, your head buried between my breasts as you move my legs apart with your knee. There is a heavy fog rolling in - moisture in the air - my nipples harden in the cold and with anticipation. Nearby we hear the whistle of the train that rolls thru town twice a day - lights are on in the individual cars - knowing no one could possibly see us from the train - but wondering if perhaps they can - very erotic; a moan escapes my lips as I watch in agony/pleasure? As you lower your head to my pussy - wet and creamy with juice between my thighs - I feel your tongue lick me ever so gently - almost like a breeze touching me - so erotic Michael - I can barely stand it - your devilish laugh rumbles against my pussy lips as you take great pleasure in making me so wet. Your tongue -stiff and hard - dives deep into my cunt- my back arches as I raise my ass up off the car - begging you for more - my muffled scream of pleasure is all you can hear in the still night air. I feel your teeth bite me gently on my clit - swollen and hard - then your mouth sucks on it with abandon as I take my hand to guide your mouth down lower - lower Michael please. Your fingers part the moist folds of my pussy as your tongue moves down to my sweet asshole - puckered and tight you lap at the entrance while your index finger slides inside my pussy, finding my g-spot and rubbing it hard. Your hand is coated with my juice as you fuck my cunt with you finger faster and harder. Your tongue is teasing my ass - my body is on fire I cant get enough of you now - I reach to my tits pinching my nipples - as I moan your name. Your cock is rock hard now - the power you have over me right at this very instant makes it stiff and straight - the tip poking out of the waistband of your pants. Michael - I moan louder now - mmmmmmichael please. Your tongue continues its teasing and I can't take it any longer. My hands force your head deep into the V my legs make - fuck me Michael - excited beyond anything either has felt before your head moves from my wet sticky pussy and ass and kisses my mouth - such a wonderful long sweet sensual kiss - tongues meeting and twirling around each other - mmmmmmmmm - you pull my hips down to the edge of the hood - holding my ass in your hands to steady me - you reach down with one hand and unzip - god there it is - your cock slides into me in one swift motion - full and thick it makes my pussy shiver in pleasure as you stay inside for a second - not moving - both of us slowing down - fuck you are so masterful Michael. Your balls are smashed against my ass - you look deep into my eyes then lightly kiss my lips, the tip of my nose, my eyelids, before returning to my swollen mouth, taking it with force, almost making me cum right then. My sighs of pure pleasure rumble against your lips - mmmmmmmmm please fuck me now - I'm so close god your cock is so hard in me. My begging whispers set you off and you start to fuck me right there harder than I have ever had - deeper and so intense - your eyes close and your head goes back - fuck me over and over - slamming into my hot tight pussy - I cant take this any more - grabbing your shoulders to hold on I meet your thrusts - yes Michael fuck me now - stroke for stroke our bodies slam into each other - your cock builds - I feel it ready to explode - yes yes please faster I'm so ready fuck NOW Michael... both of us cum in an explosion of wet sticky cum - your cock pulsates over and over - holding each other my pussy throbs and lets loose with a orgasm like I have never had before. mmmmmm... The Bar and Grill AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'll be honest: This isn't a pure Loving Wives story. Sure, there's a divorce and all that crap, but I wanted to explore some different themes. In my first LW story, I wrote a suspense story about revenge on the cheating wife. In the second, I wrote about how a husband deals with the immediate aftermath of discovering his wife's infidelity. Here, I wanted to take a longer look. I wanted the husband to question whether the relationship was doomed to fail from the beginning, whether his own make up contributed to things, and whether he can learn from past mistakes and move on. So I guess this really could've fit into any of several categories. I picked to post this in LW for several reasons, though. First, DanielQSteele's current "When We Were Married" saga really got me off my ass to write something a bit longer and more involved. No, this isn't as involved as that one, but it's the longest thing I've written in some time. Second, as usual, I really love the comments in this section. Call me a comment whore, but they really tend to be more numerous and more in depth. (Hats off and many thanks to HarryinVA, Angiquesophie, Harddaysknight, Ohio, DanielQSteele, Curiouss, Juanwildone, Bruce22, and so on and so on.) Third, my last epic (choke sputter) work was a 9-chapter story published in Novels/Novellas, and nobody read the goddamned thing. At least in LW, I know it'll get read. Finally, I confess to pandering. To those who complained not enough sex in the last one, this one will have a few sex scenes. (If you want too much sex, then read the aforementioned 9-part Knox County series; it's loaded with sex.) There is no sex, though, in this first part. I think you'll see why. I'll do my damnedest to get this written as quickly as possible and post as soon as I can, but no promises. Sorry. Thanks again, and please take a moment to comment when you're done. * ONE It was 2:30, the dead time between the lunch rush and the dinner crowd. The bar was damned near empty, and the waitresses had already cleaned up and gone home for a few hours before the dinner shift. In other words, the perfect time to either make up the evening's specials or work on new recipes. And that's what I was doing now: Trying to come up with the perfect carrot soup. Sounds easy, you say? Not really. Sure, I could cook a ton of crappy, woody carrots in some water mixed with salt-drenched soup base, puree the whole crappy mess, stir in some cream at the end and call it carrot soup. But that's not what I do. No, the perfect carrot soup needs to taste like a silky mouthful of carrots. Okay, not really carrots the way you think of them. Think silky carrots on steroids, carrots where you can taste the sweetness and have a velvety mouth feel that makes you want to lick the whole damned bowl clean and say, "Holy shit, I never realized I liked carrots that much!" When you've done that, you've come up with the perfect carrot soup. And when your produce purveyor has given you a great price on several boxes of farm fresh carrots, this is what you do. I had been working on this half the morning and for the past hour after the kitchen clean up. What I'd come up with so far was cutting the ends off the carrots, running them through a mandoline to shave them to an eighth of an inch, saute over medium heat in butter, then add some minced shallots, celery, and garlic, quickly add some cinnamon to allow the oils to come out, then top with stock and simmer until it was all soft and the flavors melded. Once done, blend the whole thing, run it through a fine mesh strainer, and add some cream. Reheat the now smooth, orange, velvety goodness, and taste. It was still missing something. "Taste this," I said to Clara as she strode past me toward the back door. She got a frustrated, I-need-to-get-the-hell-out-of-here look, and leaned over the steam tables with her mouth open. She took a slurp and let it sit in her mouth before swallowing. Then she raised her eyebrows at me and nodded. "Close," she said. "And?" "Fennel bulb," she announced. "Try some fennel bulb with the saute." We'd been doing this for the nine years I'd owned the place, and she somehow always knew how to make something better. Still, fennel bulb? "Really?" She nodded. "Not too much," she said, shrugging into her jacket. "But definitely fennel bulb." And with that, she was gone until the next morning. And me? I went back to square one and used fennel bulb. A half hour later, I was nodding my head in amazement. In my defense, though, it was better with the wild fennel bulb than with the regular old fennel bulb. More mild, but still adding a depth of flavor that accentuated the sweetness of the carrots. I was crumbling a molasses cookie into the center of a soup bowl--the crunchy texture and warm spice of the cookie chunks would contrast nicely with the soup--when the bartender stuck his head in the kitchen. "Phone," he said, then turned and walked back to the bar. I ladled the soup around the cookie, grabbed a handful of spoons, and carried it out to the bar. The usual after work crowd was just drifting in, and they perked up at the sight of the bowl in my hand. "What're we trying today?" Lonnie Mackie asked, sitting straighter on his barstool to get a peek. "Carrot soup," I said. "Carrot soup?" he said, the disappointment etched on his face. "Try it," I said, placing it between him and his workmate, Charlie Ford. "Good for your eyesight." "Fuck my eyesight," he grumbled, picking up a spoon as I walked toward the phone behind the bar. "It's Nina," Mitch said, handing me the phone before pulling out some beers for the regulars walking through the door. "Hey babe," I said into the phone. "What's up?" "Not much," she said, sounding nervous. "I was wondering what time you'll be home." "Sixish." She paused, and I decided to wait her out. She'd been like this for the past few weeks, all quiet and pensive and skittish. My first few attempts to bridge the gap had not gone over too well, but the last week had taught me that patiently waiting her out went miles toward soothing the tensions. "For sure?" she finally said. "Pretty much," I responded. "Why? You need me to get something?" "No," she sighed. "I was just wondering if you could watch the girls for awhile tonight. I've got a party to go to." "A party?" "Yeah," she said, sounding defensive. "You know. One of those Pampered Chef things." I chuckled. Pampered Chef? Overpriced crap. "How about you stay home instead? Maybe pamper this chef?" "It's a girl from work," she continued, ignoring my comments. "She's doing it to save up for a car. I just thought, you know, maybe I could go get some things from her." "Yeah," I said. "I don't see a problem there." Well, maybe I did see a problem. Still, the mood she'd been in lately, I thought it better not to complain. Better to just let her unwind however she thought best. "Please be home by six, okay?" "Sure, babe," I said. "Six it is." "Thanks," she said, sounding relieved for the first time since I'd come on the phone. "I really . . . well . . . thanks, Tim." "Sure," I responded, wondering what she had almost said. "I'll see you then." And before I could say more, she hung up on me. Not even so much as a 'Bye,' let alone an 'I love you.' I shrugged, turning around and looking at the now full bar. Six or seven of the guys at the bar had polished off the soup, and Mitch was picking up the empty bowl and filling it with the dirty spoons. "Well?" I said to Lonnie Mackie. He smiled. "What can I say? It was good for my eyes." That was secret Lonnie Mackie code for a home run recipe. Not that he was too picky, as his three hundred pound frame attested. Nevertheless, the man knew good food when he had it, and I'd more than once adjusted recipes based on his input. So back to the kitchen I went to make up batches of carrot soup for the next day's soup special. TWO I'd been in the food business for about nineteen of my twenty-nine years. Mom and Dad owned the Bar and Grill before me, and I'd been busing tables, doing dishes, waiting tables, and cooking since shortly after my tenth birthday. Sure, parents can get in shitloads of trouble over things like that, but not in Grant City. There were only five thousand people in town when I was growing up, and everyone knew everyone else. If you got in trouble at school, you begged the principal to just belt your ass; no matter what, you begged him not to call the folks or you'd get it way worse at home. Teenage drinking party? The cops pretty much left you alone so long as you kept the noise down and no one did anything stupid like vandalize the neighborhood or drive their drunken asses home. No, Grant City parents didn't mollycoddle their young 'uns. And child labor laws in Grant City? You're kidding me, right? We were surrounded by dairy farms, and those poor bastards were milking cows and shoveling shit and baling hay from age seven on. Nope, nobody really noticed me working the relatively cushy restaurant jobs my folks had me doing. If anything, they all considered me lucky. Ah, life in small town middle America. Unfortunately, shortly after my twentieth birthday and just as I was wrapping up culinary school, my world went completely to hell. On a warm evening in early May, two pieces of shit from two towns over, all strung out on meth and looking to get their next fix, decided to rob the Grant City Bar and Grill. When Dad tried to talk them down, they opened up with their shotguns. When Mom screamed in terror, they screamed in terror, too, and turned the guns on her. Even through their meth-induced haze, the scumbags realized they were in a world of hurt and fled, leaving the full till untouched and tearing out of the parking lot. Trying to put many miles between themselves and Grant City, they forgot all about the new guardrail at the T-intersection of Cypress Knoll Road and Blandings Farm. Old man Blandings had long since grown tired of drunken pisspots blowing through the intersection and tearing up his front lawn, so he'd petitioned the Township to put up a steel guardrail. Highway Supervisor Blandings--yes, his son--was tired of listening to his daddy bitch, so he'd installed a guardrail that would stop a Sherman Tank. The morning after the crash, Supervisor Blandings had looked upon the dented guardrail with pride. It had held up like a champ against the 1979 Firebird going almost a hundred miles an hour. The Firebird was a scrap of heap at his feet, but he wouldn't need to replace the guardrail. Thus, by paying such close attention to detail, he'd saved the taxpayers the expense of putting in a new guardrail. His work on the guardrail had also saved the taxpayers the expense of at least one trial, too. Apparently, nutjob murderous meth heads not only forget where new guardrails are installed, but they also forget to put on their seatbelts. They found the driver splatted against a tree like a bug on a windshield. The other little prick was damned near to the front doorstep of the Blandings farmhouse over a hundred feet from the guardrail. Apparently, hitting a guardrail followed by going through a windshield and connecting square with a hundred-year old oak tree is not a pretty sight, and tree boy was dead. Moron number two, meanwhile, had broken his back and was paralyzed for life. Judge Connerly didn't really feel too much sympathy, though, and didn't hesitate to put the bastard on death row. Oh well, sucks to be them. (Moron number two subsequently had his sentence commuted to life without parole, but I figured he'd have even more fun being a paralyzed pin cushion for fifty years than dying peacefully after ten years or so.) Being an only child, I'd inherited everything when Mom and Dad died. House, cars, bank accounts, retirement plans. The whole kit and kaboodle. They'd owned the Bar and Grill for almost forty years, and it had long since been paid off in full. I figured I'd learned enough in culinary school to take over the business, so I came back home and tried to figure out whether I could make a go of it. My first problem, obviously, was that I was now the proud owner of the Bar and Grill, but still a year shy of my twenty-first birthday. Sorry, they'd told me, but you can't operate a liquor license until you're twenty-one. Uncle Jack had stepped in, though, and put the liquor license in his name, which our lawyer assured us was perfectly legal so long as I stayed out from behind the bar. Staying away from the bar was fine by me, though. All I wanted to do was introduce the people of Grant City to real food. No more of the crappy meatloaf dinners with salty, soggy canned green beans, instant mashed potatoes, and gravy made from a powder mix. Soups would be made fresh, not purchased pre-made or--way worse--made up from soggy leftover vegetables and saltier than hell soup base. (Notice how everything's salty? Welcome to pre-made products.) Granted, Mom and Dad had never cooked that way. No, they'd offered a simple menu of hamburgers four or five different ways, tomato soup in the summer and chili in the winter, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, and a vast array of pre-made, frozen appetizers. Oh, and the Friday night fish fry, which I will grant was one of the most popular in Lincoln County. Everything on the fish fry was homemade, from the beer battered cod to the potato pancakes, coleslaw, and salted rye bread. Mom made one hell of a salted rye bread, and it became my most treasured inheritance when I found the recipe after they died; taking a bite of buttered, salted rye fresh from the oven always brought back her smiling image in my mind. So Mom and Dad's food was better than the diner fare crap served at the other places in Grant City, but not by a ton. I wanted to make every meal like the Friday night fish fry: Homemade everything and nothing from a freezer except--maybe--out of season vegetables in the dead of winter. Might as well give it all my own little spin, too. You know, minor gourmet tweaks here and there. Uncle Jack was indispensable in helping me implement my changes to the restaurant. "Go slow," he'd warned. "They're going to give you a chance up front. Feel sorry about your folks and all. But they won't put up with too much up front. So keep it simple and hearty and don't throw any of that small plate, crazy greens, and weird sauces on them too soon." He was right, of course. Though Grant City was quickly growing as the urban sprawl from Chicago spread ever further outward, we were still comprised mostly of farmers and factory workers and other folks who thought Thai food was what you nibbled off a titty if you could talk your wife into bondage. Also, Grant City has never been a hub of the rich and famous, so raising prices more than a little would cause a major decline in the business. So go slow it was, but fresh it became immediately. This was where all of my culinary school training came into play. "Don't buy frozen chicken breasts," the instructors had drilled into us. "Buy the whole damned chicken, cut the breasts off, use the wings for your appetizer, the hindquarters for soups, and the carcass for stock. No waste, and way cheaper than pre-made. Tastes better, too, which helps." (Quick note on making homemade stocks. Never, and I mean absolutely never, allow it to boil. You need to keep it at a bare simmer, just a few bubbles breaking the surface, or the whole thing turns cloudy and greasy and you'll never fix it. I'm serious here.) Granted, it was way more work to cut up fifty chickens at a time twice a week, but you get real good at it after a few months. And like I said earlier, there's a lot of down time before the lunch starts and between lunch and dinner. I kept myself hustling that whole time, and within six months was busier than hell. As a matter of fact, Uncle Jack confirmed that the Bar and Grill had never made so much money. So there you go, how to be successful in the restaurant business. All you have to do is have a couple of lowly pricks murder your parents so you can inherit the whole thing free and clear, then have the town feel sorry for you long enough to give the place a try. Then, of course, work twelve hour days seven days a week, and pretty soon you've got something. All told, I'd rather just have my folks back. But I wasn't given that choice. THREE I got home by ten to six. Nina met me at the door, dressed to the nines. "Dressed like this for a Pampered Chef party?" She forced a smile. "Just felt like getting gussied up for a change." She looked hot, I'll give her that. Short and petite, short-cut light brown hair, smallish, perky breasts, nice ass, tanned and toned legs beneath the simple, form-fitting flowered dress. Her dark brown eyes were sparkling with what seemed a mixture of apprehension and excitement, which confused me. The smile on her pixie face began to grow into a real smile, though, and I was inwardly relaxing to finally see her coming out of her two-week funk. "Whatever it takes," I said, leaning over and kissing her. "Good to just see you happy again." Her eyes flashed at that, and the corners of her smiling lips tightened a touch. Just a fleeting second, mind you, but I swear it looked like guilt. "I'm feeling better," she said, leaning in and giving me a hug. "Okay," she said, breaking the hug when my lips brushed against her neck. "I'm off. The girls and the dog have been fed, so just make sure they finish their homework before they watch the tube." Before I could respond, she was sliding into her car and pulling out of the garage. I walked into the family room and saw that the girls had already flipped on the TV, their schoolbooks, pens, and paper sitting ignored on the coffee table before them. My pug Ernie was snuggled into Nadine's lap, snoring as she lightly stroked behind his ears. I cleared my throat, but was ignored by all but Ernie, who raised is eyelids but didn't move his head away from Nadine's petting. "Emily, Nadine," I said. "Quiet, Tim," Emily said. "It's almost over." I looked at the wall clock and saw she was right: There were only three minutes or so left until the latest, crappiest re-run of Saved By the Bell ended. Might as well let them finish it, I decided. Ah, the joys of being a stepparent. Emily and Nadine, ages nine and seven, were Nina's children from her first marriage. They called her ex-husband Dad. I was Tim or, more frequently, You're Not My Father and You Can't Tell Me What To Do. Granted, Nina rarely let them get away with the latter when she was around, but they had just taken to using it when she wasn't within earshot. Given that I wasn't their father, I usually let them just get away with it, too. Really, what was I supposed to do? They already treated me like crap no matter what I did. The problem was that the girls somehow blamed me for their parents' divorce. Didn't matter that Nina and I didn't even know each other when she and her ex divorced. Hell, it didn't even matter that Nadine had only been three when they divorced, and she couldn't even remember when Nina and Steve still lived together. Instead, Nadine picked up on Emily's anger and resentment and, trying to be like her big sister, treated me the way she saw Emily treat me. I don't want to make this all sound worse than it was. Actually, I usually got along great with the girls. Problems only arose when I didn't let them do whatever they wanted or actually demanded they do something they should be doing. In other words, when I failed to spoil the shit out of them like their mother, they got pissed. "Okay," I said as the ending credits rolled, "time to finish up your homework." In response, Emily picked up the remote and changed to another channel. The Bar and Grill Pt. 02 AUTHOR'S NOTE Here's Part 2. If it took too long, I'm sorry. For those of you who commented on Part 1--or even bothered reading it, for that matter--thank you. It should go without saying that if you haven't read Part 1, you should do so now. Again, any and all comments are most appreciated. NINE The next morning at seven found me at Uncle Jack's doorstep. "You look like shit," he grumbled, holding the door open for me. He, of course, looked like he'd been awake for three hours, which he probably had. "Got a few minutes?" I mumbled, walking past him. "Coffee's in the kitchen," he said, following me into the home. It hadn't changed since they'd moved back after his retirement. Looking around, I expected Aunt Aileen to poke her head out of the kitchen and rush over for a big hug and wet kiss on the cheek. Funny, I thought, but his home was still a home all these years after Aunt Aileen's death. Mine already felt like just a building with bathrooms, and Nina and the girls were still there when I'd left. Sleeping peacefully. Uncle Jack waved me toward the kitchen table while he poured me a cup of coffee and topped his own off. He was settled and sipping his coffee before I spoke. "I'm getting divorced." He nodded, sipping his coffee. There must be something about military coffee that prepares men for swallowing molten lava in great gulps. I could barely slurp the smallest amount after blowing on it, but he was nearly halfway done with his cup before he spoke. "So she's finally gone back to him." Somewhere deep in his chest a rumbling rose up that passed for a laugh. "Poor bastard." "Him or me?" "Him, of course," he said, surprised I had to ask. "You're the lucky bastard." Seeing the dismay on my face, he softened his voice and marched on. "I know it doesn't seem that way right now. I know this sucks. You feel rejected and lost and all that sad shit. Like you'll never get laid again. She's cast you aside, so now you're damaged goods." He sipped his coffee before continuing. "The thing is, you'll get over it. Pretty quickly, too. And you'll move on with your life. You'll find someone else, someone to start a family of your own with. Then all of this will just be a pathetic little learning experience. Sure, you'll wonder now and then how they're all doing. What're those little goddamned monsters of hers doing and how they're getting along." I raised my head up to defend the girls, but old Uncle Jack was on a roll and he cut me off. "It's not their fault they're monsters, Tim. Jesus Christ, boy, don't you see that? It's her fault. And her husband's, for that matter. But it doesn't change what it is. Who gives a shit who's at fault? Either way, they're still monsters. Monsters that will only get worse and make your life even more miserable." He put his now empty mug down to the side and leaned over the table, staring me down before continuing. He smelled like Old Spice. Just like Dad, Uncle Jack was an Old Spice man. For some reason, this memory perked my attention and helped me focus in on what he said. "Think about this, Tim. Don't answer right away, okay? Think first." I nodded. "Every day toward the end of your shift. You know, just before you have to go home. Know what it's like? We're just picking up and starting to turn out the plates. Can you see it in your head?" I could see it. The rush of adrenaline as we get the first dinner rush caught up before I take off. "You always dawdle," he said. "Ever notice that? You always try to come up with just one or two more things that need to be done before you take off. Right?" He was, and I nodded. "You ever wonder why that is?" I tried to smile. "Because I don't want you to fuck it all up." He slammed his hand on the table top, jarring the smile from my face. "I'm serious here," he said. "So think about it for a minute. Don't just answer, but think about it. What're you thinking that last half hour before you leave to go home." He swiped his mug from the table and stood to get more. Turning back with his full mug in one hand and the coffee pot in the other, he looked at my still nearly full mug before topping it off to near overflowing. "Figure it out yet?" he asked as he sat back down. I shook my head. A sad smile came over his face. "Because you don't want to go home, Tim. That's what it is." I started to say something, but he raised his hand to silence me. "When I was in the Corps--when I was working any job, for that matter--I could never wait to get home. I wanted it more than anything in the whole damned world. Not just after the long cruises, but those times we had regular shore duty with nine to five jobs. I still couldn't wait to get home." He leaned into me again and fixed me with his words. "And I loved my fucking job, Tim. I lived and breathed the goddamned Marine Corps." I nodded. He'd been mopey for months after they finally forced the mandatory retirement he'd managed to delay for three years. "And yeah, there were times I worked late, too. But only if I had to get something done. Otherwise, I was home as quick as I could get there. Because I wanted to be with my wife and my kids." The impact of his words drove home. He didn't even have to say it, but I was prepared, and even agreed with him, when he did. "You dread going home, Tim. And not just because you love working in the kitchen so fuckin' much. No, you dread the stress." A brief smile played over his lips. "Maybe not so much on Thursday nights, huh? I can guess what that's about." I tried to smile with him, but the impact of the realization froze me. How had I never seen this? "When those little girls are there, you worry about what you're going home to, don't you?" I nodded without thinking. "Because no matter what they do, you're all but forced to just shut the hell up and deal with it, right?" I kept right on nodding. "And it galls you, don't it?" "But they're her kids, Jack. She's supposed to love them more than-- " "And you're her husband," he said. "She's supposed to make them respect you. Make 'em listen to you and mind you. But she doesn't do those things, does she?" "But they've been through-- " "Big fuckin' deal," he thundered. "I'm sorry, Tim. Life's unfair, the world's unfair. It's not their fault, either. But they've been dealt a shitty hand with a couple of self-centered parents. And now those same parents expect everyone to bow down and kiss those little girls' asses because they're hurting. Don't work that way, and you of all people know it." What could I say? He was right. "Nina's been playing the victim--and encouraging the girls to follow right along with her--for so long she forgets that she's the one who started all of this mess. And now the girls expect everyone to be so goddamned . . . so . . . well, you know what I mean. They expect to get away with murder and expect everyone to just smile and pat their heads and tell them it's okay. Don't worry about it because your family broke up and we don't really want to force you to deal with it." He gulped the last of another mug of coffee before finishing. The man's belly must be a cast iron cauldron to drink so much scalding coffee so quickly. "No, Tim. You didn't want to go home because you didn't want to deal with the bullshit. And you felt guilty--you still feel guilty--because you've bought into Nina's load of shit. You actually believe you need to tiptoe around those little girls for the rest of your life because of what they've been through. But hey, here's a fucking newsflash: How about you and Nina just start raising them to be responsible little girls? Who'll maybe grow into responsible, well-adjusted young ladies?" Uncle Jack stood and took my still half-full mug away from me and poured it into the sink. "And here's another idea. How about you tell Nina to quit her fucking moping around and just learn to be happy with the bed she's made for herself? Time for her to quit crying about a bunch of shit she did four, five years ago and start living in the present." He turned back to me and finished. "Sorry, Timmer, but you weren't really her husband. You never came first in her life, you know it, and you've always known it. Sure, she has kids and they've gotta come first. Fine. But that doesn't mean you need to be treated like shit in your own home by a couple of snot-nosed little brats. And by a wife who really looked at you as nothing more than a shoulder to cry on and comfort her and tell her she was pretty and it would all be all right." Uncle Jack slumped before finishing. I guess so much talking had really taken it out of him. "Think about it for awhile, Tim," he said. His voice was softer now, sad. "Give it some time and really think back on what you had with them. Ask yourself if she treated you as well as you treated her. Or if she even tried to treat you as well as you treated her and the girls. Think about the last time she comforted you rather than the other way around. The last time she noticed you had had a bad day and just gave you a back rub or a hug to make you feel better." I swayed in my chair. I didn't need to think about it. Uncle Jack was right: My marriage had been completely one way. I'd spent my every waking moment trying to make sure she was happy, but she'd rarely noticed my down moods unless they somehow clashed with her upbeat moods. When I'd been stressed, she'd always get pissed off and tell me to get over it. "And when you've thought all of this through," Uncle Jack concluded, "ask yourself two questions. First, do you really give a shit that she's gone?" He leaned in for the grand finale. "And second, why were you so willing to put up with this for so long and still think it was undying love?" My eyes went wide at that one. Game, set, match in two simple questions. What the fuck was wrong with me? TEN I decided to stay extra late at work that Friday night. I wanted to make sure Nina and the girls had plenty of time to get moved out, and I didn't want to see them--any of them--when I got home. Nina would just make a scene, and I didn't want to have to say my goodbyes to the girls. This was their happy day, the day all three of them had been waiting for for so long. No sense in ruining it with any tearful farewells or anything. Fine. I was a pouty fucking coward. Sue me. So I worked an extra long day, cooking from open to close, and sat at the bar having a few beers while the kitchen and dining room staffs did their clean up chores. Two sips into the second bottle of Lite, Clara approached me. "Heard about Nina," she said. I nodded. Clara stood there for a minute, fidgeting nervously. Then she stunned the hell out of me by leaning over and giving me a tight hug. "You call me if you need anything, hear?" she whispered into my ear. "Anything at all, you just call, Tim Franklin." "I will," I managed to gasp out through the tight hug. When she broke the hug, Clara's eyes were misting. I tried to smile, but that seemed only to upset her more. Without another word, she nodded, turned, and left. For the first time in a day, I felt sorry for someone else more than for myself. Poor Clara seemed really broken up by this, and I couldn't figure out why. It's not as if she ever really liked Nina or anything. To the contrary, she'd always been cool around Nina. "She thinks the world of you," the cool voice behind me said. I knew without turning that it was Nicole. "She talks about you like you walk on water," the voice continued. "That's why she started me here without even asking you. She knew you'd never say no. Knew you wouldn't even need to hear the whole story to let her bring me on." I swivelled the barstool around to face her. She, too, seemed concerned. For the life of me, though, I couldn't picture her actually leaning in and hugging the breath out of me. "Want a beer?" I offered. She shook her head. "Thanks, but I've gotta get home." "You living with your mom and dad?" She nodded, her face turning to stone as she did so. "Gertie watches your boy while you're here?" The mask dropped briefly, a faint smile playing over her lips and her eyes when she nodded. "Alistair," she said. "His name's Alistair." I grinned. "Your family has a knack for . . . um . . . different names, don't they?" She stifled a laugh. "Yeah, I guess we do. But I didn't name him. His daddy did." "The fella in Frontier City?" I said, regretting the question before the words had left my lips. Her eyes went wide. "No," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. "My husband." The questions raised by this must have been written all over my face. Really, folks, I'm not very good at bottling up my emotions and keeping my mouth shut when I should. But Nicole ignored my reaction and with a tight "'Night now," and a brisk nod of her head, she was gone. I watched her go. Husband? I thought. She's married? Divorced? Then there was that brief thought intruding that embarrassed me even as I thought it. He left that incredibly perfect ass? Knowing the upcoming weekend shifts were mine, I soon decided to finish my beer and go home. It was almost eleven, and there was no way Nina would've waited around with the girls this late. Walking into the kitchen from the garage, I spotted the manila envelope in the middle of the counter straight away. I ignored it while I fed Ernie and got myself a beer. Then I picked the envelope up and took it and the beer into the adjacent living room, plopped on the sofa, and opened the envelope as Ernie plopped onto me. There were two letters inside. "Dear Tim, "I know you won't believe me, but I really am sorry. I love you still, and this is the hardest thing I've ever done. You were right, though. My mind was made up. Steve wanted to get back together, to try to be a family again, and I couldn't pass up the chance to again offer Emily and Nadine the family I took from them. "I'm only sorry that you are being hurt in the process. "I wanted to talk with you again, but it's getting late and I know you're not going to come home. I don't blame you since that's probably what I would do in your shoes. "I met with an attorney this morning and told him what I wanted him to do. He agreed to draw up all of the paperwork to get this done as quickly and easily as possible. I'm only asking to keep the things I've already moved out today along with my car, retirement and checking account balance. I'll also be responsible for the credit cards in my name. You should be getting this paperwork in the mail next week. The attorney told me that if you sign it and get it back to him, we'll be divorced in a month or so. After what you said last night, I'm pretty sure this is how you want it to be. Fast and painless with a minimum amount of drama. "In closing, I again want to apologize. My days with you were filled with love and happiness. You did nothing wrong and everything right, and I hope you never beat yourself up over this. It is not your fault, and you could not have done anything to change this. "I know you don't believe this now, but I will always love you. "Nina" The other letter were handwritten farewells signed by Emily and Nadine. Cute, but I doubted they were all that sincere. "So there you have it, Ernie," I said, looking down at his wagging tail and happy brown eyes. "It wasn't my fault. Shit just happens, right?" Ernie continued wagging his tail as he trotted along beside me back to the kitchen. He even wagged his tail while I threw the letters into the garbage can along with my now empty beer bottle. He wagged his tail the most, though, when I gave him a dog treat before crawling into bed. Within ten minutes, the tail wagging was over and Ernie was snoring on the pillow next to my head. "I want to be you, old sport," I said to him before falling into a troubled sleep. ELEVEN Bright and early Monday morning, I pulled into the parking lot behind the Bar and Grill. Nicole was already there, though, standing outside the kitchen door in the drizzling rain. "Why didn't you wait in your car?" I said as I approached. "I don't have a car yet," she said. "Aunt Clara couldn't give me a ride, and Mom and Dad are out of town with Alistair." "You walked?" I said, unlocking the door and holding it open for her. She nodded as she passed me inside. Christ, her parents lived down the road from me, at least four miles out of town. "What the hell is wrong with you, girl?" "I'm on time, right?" I shrugged. "Still, it's raining and all. Why didn't you call me? I'd have given you a ride." "You've got problems of your own." I don't know why, but her leave-me-alone-and-let's-get-to-it attitude was pissing me off. "Yeah, well now I've got another problem, don't I? I've got a cook who's soaked to the goddamned bone and not dressed in any condition to put in a ten-hour shift, don't I?" She started to say something, but I cut her off. "Take these," I said, tossing my car keys at her. "Go home and get into something dry and get on back here. We're both early, so it's not going to put us back any." She looked at the keys, then back to me. "Twenty minutes," she said. I nodded. "See you then." I went over the weekend receipts and order lists while she was gone. And true to her word, she was back in less than twenty minutes. "Here's my numbers," I told her, handing her a slip of paper. "You need a ride--anywhere, anytime, even if it's just to get some diapers or something--you call me, okay?" Her face was impassive. "I start giving you all these extra hours and duties, I can't have you getting sick on me or getting kidnaped or anything. I live just down the road, so it's not a big deal. Okay?" She pressed her lips together and stared at me for a moment before answering. "Okay." I sighed. "Good. Now let's learn how to make soup, shall we?" She smiled for the first time that day, and we got busy pulling ingredients from the cooler and the pantry. August is always a great month for corn chowders. It's common sense: Corn and tomatoes are reaching their peak in August, and I can get both for next to nothing from the local farmers. Therefore, the first soup Nicole learned to make was corn and sausage chowder. Nicole knew her way around a kitchen, that much was obvious. She could peel and chop garlic and onions almost as well as any short order cook and far better than your average homemaker. She also had a working knowledge of how to make broths, dice vegetables, grill sausages, and saute aromatics. The only time I threw her for a loop was when I started opening a big can of creamed corn. "Canned corn?" she said. I nodded, smiling. "I thought we used fresh everything here. Nothing from a can." "Rules are made to be broken, little girl," I said. "And this is one of those times to break that rule." "Why?" "It's the best way to thicken the chowder while boosting the corn flavor. If we use cream or cornstarch, that'll only take away from the sweetness of the corn. We'll use a little bit of cream at the end, but not much." She nodded, and we got the rest of the soup made. I showed her how to blend a hot liquid--always keep a towel over the top or the whole thing will explode scalding liquid all over--and strain it through the chinois back into the pot. Next, she learned how to eyeball how much cream to add and how long to simmer it all to get just the right color and consistency. Finally, we sliced the grilled bratwurst and slid all of that into the pot. "That's it?" she said when we were done. I smiled. "What about garnish?" She chewed her bottom lip, giving the matter some thought. A few times she started to say something, but stopped herself. Coming up with nothing, she turned to me with right eyebrow raised. The Bar and Grill Pt. 02 "What did you almost say there?" I asked. She shook her head. "Won't work." "Tell me anyway." "I was thinking about freshly roasted corn sprinkled on top." "And why won't it work?" "Because we'd have to roast it all now and keep it stored someplace for every bowl of soup. And because there's already corn in there, and it's already yellow, and the bratwurst are already grilled. So it doesn't really add anything." I smiled. She'd come up with every reason I had why roasted corn was a bad idea, including the storage problem, which wasn't easy for an amateur to spot. She knew more than she was letting on. "Where'd you learn all of this?" I asked. She avoided my eyes. "C'mon," I prompted. "This isn't your first time, that's obvious." "I like to cook," she said. "That's all. I've been doing it for Mom and Dad and my brothers and sisters since I was a little girl." I laughed. "But you never cooked stuff like this, did you?" She shook her head. "So where did you learn?" "I've been reading. Cookbooks and stuff." "What cookbooks? By who?" She turned around and started picking up dirty utensils, stacking them in the dishwasher. "I'm not going to quit asking until you answer." "Charlie Trotter, okay?" she said, naming one of the premier chefs in the country before naming a few more. "Jacques Pepin, Thomas Keller. I went on line and read some of their stuff. Then I bought a few of their cookbooks." "How long have you been doing this?" "Since Aunt Clara told me I'd probably be working in the kitchen with you so I'd better brush up on how to do it so I wouldn't make a fool of myself." I was standing behind her as she said this, and I placed my hand on her shoulder. She tensed, and I almost pulled my hand away. For some reason, though, I kept it there, and she soon relaxed when I spoke again. "Then tell me how to garnish the soup. What would Charlie Trotter do?" She snorted. "He'd probably use caviar or something. Maybe a fresh grilled prawn." I chuckled. "Not very practical for this kind of place, right?" She shook her head. "So what would you do?" "A small dollop of creme fraiche topped with finely diced red bell pepper and chopped chives," she said almost immediately. "The creme fraiche wouldn't overpower the corn but would add a tang. The pepper adds color and crunch, but it's still sweet enough. And the chives add more color and a fresh taste." My hand slid off her shoulder as she turned to face me. "Well?" she said. "I hadn't thought of the creme fraiche," was all I could say. A smile flickered at the corner of her lips as she turned back to the dishwasher. "You've been thinking about this?" I asked. She nodded. "Yep." "How long?" "Since Friday when Aunt Clara told me we'd be getting in a shipment of corn on Sunday night. Which, she told me, meant corn chowder would probably be the first thing I'd do here." I nodded. "And you spent the weekend thinking about this?" "Yep." "Wow." What could I say? She at least gave a shit; that much was obvious. So we spent the rest of the morning getting the evening special made up and prepping the vegetables for salads and sides. With the exception of the occasional questions from her and words of instruction from me, we didn't talk much for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, I was amazed how quickly time had passed when Uncle Jack showed up at quarter to five for the dinner shift. And I was more amazed as I sat at the bar an hour later, beer in front of me, that I hadn't thought of Nina all day. Being around people and keeping busy seemed to be the answer. So knowing Nicole had a ride home with Clara, I cut out of there halfway through that first beer and went home to enjoy Ernie's company while I cleaned the house top to bottom. This kept my mind busy until I went into the two bedrooms formerly occupied by Emily and Nadine. Bedrooms that had once been typical, bright, little girl rooms, but were now stark shells with no pictures, empty dressers, and bare beds. That's when the sadness came back. And the anger. TWELVE My routine was jarred on Thursday afternoon at about two. "Tim," Clara said, peeking her head in the door of the kitchen. "There's someone out here asking for you." I wiped off my hands and went into the dining room. There was a short, stocky man, mid-fifties, leaning against the wall. "May I help you?" I said when I approached. "Mr. Timothy Franklin?" he said, standing. I nodded, extending my hand. Instead of shaking my proffered hand, he thrust a manila envelope in it. "I'm told you've been expecting these," he said. "You've been served." With that, he turned and left. I watched him go, stunned. Nina had promised she'd mail this to me, not have me served with the papers. "You okay?" Clara asked, seeing the anger cloud my face. I ignored her and sat at one of the tables in the now-empty dining room. I tore open the envelope and pulled out the papers. One of them was entitled "Summons." Another was "Petition for Dissolution of Marriage." There was also a "Marital Settlement Agreement" and a cover letter from some attorney in Lima, the Lincoln County seat. The letter told me the documents were simple. The Petition was to get the divorce started, and the Marital Settlement Agreement would split the marital assets and conclude the divorce once the assigned judge signed off on the agreement. Her attorney directed me to review these with my own attorney before signing. At least Nina's attorney seemed to have my best interests in mind, which was more than I could say for Nina. Serving me at work? What a fucking bitch. A half hour later, I was seated in Jammer's office, the door closed, while he flipped through the documents. Jammer was James McNally, Attorney at Law. We'd gone to school together, and he'd been practicing law now for four years. I knew he did divorces, and this one didn't seem particularly difficult. So what the hell, give a good friend and loyal patron of the Bar and Grill some of his beer money back, right? "You can smoke in here," he said, putting the Petition aside and picking up the Marital Settlement Agreement. I lit up a cigarette, my second of the day, while he flipped through it. He didn't seem to be reading every word, which concerned me. He was done with the five-page Agreement before I was half done with my smoke. He looked at me and shrugged. "All pretty simple and straightforward," he said. "But you didn't even read it all," I countered. "This shit's all boilerplate, Timmy," he said. "Seen one, seen 'em all. Divorce like this? No kids involved? The only real important parts are the property settlement and alimony provisions. And those are pretty clear cut. She keeps the personal property she's already taken and you waive all claims to her 401(k) plan and retirement. You get all of your stuff, your checking and savings accounts, and she makes no claims against any of your retirement plans. Both of you waive alimony. It's a pretty simple deal." "What would I get from her 401(k)?" He shrugged. "Maybe 40% of the amounts she's contributed since you were married. What's that? Couple of grand?" "Still," I said. He shook his head. "Then she can go after any earnings you've put into your own accounts during the marriage, too. And that's probably more than her contributions to her retirement over the past three years, right?" I nodded. "So go with it. You'll never get such a good deal if it goes to court. And you'll pay a couple of grand--minimum--to be worse off than she's offering." "What about that irreconcilable differences she claims? The part where it says we've lived separate and apart for the past six months and waive the two-year separation period? Jammer, we lived together up until last Friday, for Chrissake." A brief smile played over his lips. "Well," he started, lighting a cigarette of his own. Exhaling the first drag, he continued. "That's a little legal fiction we play in these situations. 'Living separate and apart' doesn't mean you've been living in separate households. It means you haven't been . . . uh . . . having . . . ." "Screwing?" I offered. He grinned. "Exactly." "And if we have?" "Then don't tell the judge and he'll sign off on this and you'll be divorced." "And if I do tell the judge?" He took another drag from the cigarette and blew it out, staring at me the whole time, before answering with a question. "What're you looking to do here, Tim? You looking to prolong this shit? Maybe try to get her back?" I sighed, crushing out my cigarette and looking out the window. "I don't know, Jammer," I said. "This is all just going so fucking fast. Know what I mean? Shit, last week we were happily married. Now I'm looking at being divorced in a few weeks. It's just all so fast is all I'm saying." He nodded. "So we slow it down," he offered. "That what you want? Maybe see if she'll come back?" I shrugged. "I don't know. Haven't really thought about it much." "Okay," he continued, "we slow it down. Things don't work out between her and the ex. She comes back to you. After she's been living with him for what, three, maybe four months? You gonna take her back like nothing ever happened?" He leaned forward over his desk and spoke with more urgency. "And you're gonna wait for her? You're gonna live like some kind of fuckin' hermit hoping she gets over this little fling with her ex-husband?" He sat back, shaking his head. "No way, Timmy. No way you're gonna forget this, and there's no way she's coming back. And if she does, you're gonna already be moved on, got it? Swear to God, I'll make it my sole mission in life to get you laid as many times as it takes to make sure you get over this bitch." I was stunned by his anger. Jammer was usually a happy-go-lucky guy, at least as merry as an attorney could be. He was almost never this upset. "What the fuck, Jammer?" I finally said. "I mean, you don't need to-- " "Bullshit," he shot back. "I've been doing this for four years and I've never seen anything this fucking cold. You forget, Tim, I've known you for years, and I've been there to see how you treated her. First chance she gets to dump you and go back to him, she takes it. You do anything to deserve this shit? I don't think so. You treated her like a fuckin' queen." He lit another cigarette and took a deep drag, settling down as the smoke whisped back out of his mouth and nostrils. "No sir," he continued. "I haven't been doing this that long. I'll give you that, okay? Still, I've done dozens of these by now. I've seen where they leave for abuse or affairs or money." He laughed, choking on the smoke he'd just inhaled. "Seen one where he left her for another man. Try that shit sometime you wanna question whether you're still pretty or not. Poor chick." He stared off at the wall to our side. "She ain't coming home, Tim. Get that through your thick skull right now. She ain't coming home. But if I'm wrong--if she does try to come home--you stay the fuck away from her. She's bad karma, man." "It's the kids," I tried to explain. "She's always felt guilty about the kids and all." "Then she needed to get over it," he said. "But she didn't. And now she's screwing you over to try to fix her last mistake." He slid the papers in front of me and tossed a pen on top of the Marital Settlement Agreement. "So what's it gonna be?" he said. "You wanna move on with your life before it's too late? Or you wanna wait around, prolong the misery, and hope she comes back to try fixin' this mistake with you once she sees she can't fix the last mistake with that poor bastard?" I looked at him. Jammer was the second person in a week who'd referred to Steve as the poor bastard. He was the one getting her, I was the one losing her, and he was the poor bastard. "She's fuckin' boogered, Timmer. So sign the goddamned Agreement already, willya?" I signed. Six weeks later, we were divorced. I didn't even have to go to court. Jammer covered it all for me. He told me she cried while she gave the brief testimony. "Like she was already having second thoughts," Jammer described her. Yeah, well fuck her. Jammer was right: We were done, and there's no use in crying over spilt milk. She made her bed, now she could sleep in it. With Steve. While I slept with Ernie. I can't help but feel I may have gotten the short end of the stick on this one. And Ernie, too. Maybe he was the poor bastard. THIRTEEN The good thing about living in a small town is that everyone is there to help you when things go wrong. The bad thing about living in a small town is also that everyone is there to help you when things go wrong. You see, it's nice having friends and family to rely on. And not just work friends, either. I'm talking about friends who you've known your whole life; friends who remember your first girlfriend and breaking your arm in football, friends who remember your folks and remember when Uncle Jack was a hellraiser in high school before he quit drinking the hard stuff and joined the Marines. The problem with such tightly knit groups, though, is that there reaches a time when you need to quit being reminded that your life has gone to shit. There comes a time when you just want to be anonymous so you can forget and move on. Unfortunately, that becomes difficult when everyone looks at you with a mixture of sympathy and embarrassment, maybe a touch of sadness thrown in, and tells you that things will get better. Or tells you that you're a great guy and you'll soon find that special someone. Or tells you that you're better off without Nina or that Nina will live to regret leaving. All told, it didn't take me long to tire of the endless sympathies and withdraw from people. Two months after the divorce, I was still squirreled away in the kitchen all day and home alone all night. I spurned Jammer's pleas to go out chasing skirts and turned down endless offers for a drink at the bar or a party at someone's home. Instead, I stayed with people who left me the hell alone. In the kitchen, there was Nicole all day, Uncle Jack at night, and Clara flitting back and forth to pick up orders. Nicole had never mentioned my divorce, which made sense where she barely knew me and had never met Nina. Uncle Jack had already said his piece, as had Clara, and neither seemed inclined to raise the issue further. And of course, there was Ernie. Though he couldn't talk, I will admit that Ernie's eyes looked at me with sadness and sympathy: He was sad about the longer times between his morning and evening meals and sympathized that I probably hadn't eaten lately, either. So there was my routine. Get up at six, feed Ernie, get ready for work, and get there by seven-thirty, an hour and a half earlier than before. Get a ton of paperwork done until Nicole showed up, silently work with her prepping the meals, cook lunches, clean up the kitchen, then do the afternoon prep. Soon, I was staying later and later with Uncle Jack, which visibly alarmed a hungry Ernie, then go home about seven-thirty or eight. Once home, time to feed Ernie, enjoy the comfort that only a spoiled rotten ball of wrinkled fur can provide, and go to bed by eleven. Get up the next day, repeat cycle. Weekends were the worst, so I started working them as well. All of them. I'd get all of my housework done, splitting up what needed to be done between Saturday and Sunday mornings, and be back in the kitchen by nine. There wasn't much to do on weekends; the high schoolers we had managed the grill, and all that needed to be done was roasting some prime ribs and baking potatoes on Saturdays. Sundays we had no special, so I spent that time getting my shit together for the upcoming week. Before the divorce, Uncle Jack and I alternated working weekends. Steve had alternating weekend visitation, so Nina and I both scheduled ourselves to work on those weekends and spend our evenings together. With no kids--or Nina--to keep me busy on the open weekends, though, I decided to take over for awhile and give Uncle Jack a chance at getting in some late autumn golf before the snows arrived. Then I had an epiphany that started with a refrigerator full of rotten food. It was early on a Saturday morning in mid-November, just shy of three months after the divorce, and I realized I was hungry. This was the first time in a long time I could even remember being hungry. I had been eating nibbles here and there at the restaurant, cruising along on autopilot so far as food was concerned. But this particular Sunday morning, I was hungrier than hell, and I got out of bed and shuffled to the frig to find something to make. When I opened the refrigerator door, the smell of spoiled food damned near knocked me unconscious. I was stunned, staring at the packages of meat molding under the cellophane wrappers and the milk spoiled so bad it was clotted. And that's when I realized I hadn't eaten at home--hadn't even opened the refrigerator door--in months. Shit you not, I was embarrassed at how pathetic I had become. After wheeling in the garbage can from outside and emptying everything in the refrigerator, I jumped in the shower, got ready, and went into town for some grocery shopping. I was standing in the produce section, sorting through the baby red potatoes, when I heard him behind me. "I'm getting the feeling you don't like me anymore," Jammer bellowed. I turned, as did nearly every other head within twenty feet, and smiled. "Hey." "Hey yourself, my man," he said, wheeling his cart straight for mine. There had to be fifteen bottles of booze in the cart along with a couple of cases of pop, drink mixes, and some bags of lemons and limes. "Party?" He grinned. "What gave it away?" I shrugged and smiled. "Just a sixth sense." He narrowed his eyes. "Is that the same sixth sense that tells you when I'm dropping by and helps you clear out before I get there?" "You sayin' I'm avoiding you?" "Precisely." "Okay," I said, "guilty as charged." "But you're doing better now?" His voice dropped, all serious now, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I nodded. "Yeah, I'm getting better." He slapped my arm. "Good. Then you'll be at my house about seven, right?" I started to say something, but the look on his face stopped me. The look got more intense, and he put his hand back on my shoulder and squeezed until it hurt. "Right?" he repeated. "Of course," I said before my arm went numb. He released the pressure. "Good," he said. "Then bring the beer. Maybe five cases." "You're not getting beer?" He laughed. "Not now I'm not," he said. "You're in charge of it now. That way, you don't show up there'll be no beer. I'll tell everyone you blew them off and they'll get all pissy with you instead of me. Capisce?" "Capisce," I responded. "Then we'll see you tonight," he said, turning his cart back toward the checkout lanes. I finished my shopping, wondering the whole time who would be at Jammer's party. He was known for having some real blowouts, which was to be anticipated given his predatory single male status. Young, handsome, successful, unmarried lawyers seem to have few problems attracting female attention. If only I was more handsome. And unmarried instead of divorced. Why did the divorce feel like a stigma, like a stamp that I was a failure in relationships and with women in general? FOURTEEN I lugged three cases of beer through Jammer's front door at ten to seven that night. Looking around, I was amazed to find out the party was already in full swing. Nirvana was belting out "Come As You Are," twenty or more people were standing around chatting and drinking beers, and Jammer was in the corner surrounded by three ladies. The Bar and Grill Pt. 02 "Over here, Timmer," he called when he saw me, waving me toward the cooler on the floor to his right. I lugged the beer to the cooler, opened it, and started putting the cans in. "Ice?" I said. "Back in a sec," he said to the women. A minute later, he was back with a big bag of ice. "Just three cases?" he said, pouring the ice over the beer I'd already stacked in the cooler. "Rest is in the car." "C'mon," he said, "I'll help you." "Just three left," I said. "I'll get it." He ignored me and took off through the door. He had two cases in hand by the time I got to my car. He nodded at the third case still sitting on the back seat. "I tell you to bring five cases, you bring six," he said. "Gotta tell you, I love the way you think." It was easy to relax with Jammer's outgoing cheeriness, and I felt my nerves calming as I followed him back into the house. "Thought this didn't start until seven," I shouted above the music. "They usually can't wait," he shouted back, coming to a stop in front of another empty cooler. "People started showing a couple of hours ago." I looked around, recognizing most of the faces in the crowd. There were people we'd gone to school with, a few older couples, and at least a half dozen younger women. Jammer was never one to waste an opportunity to get single women drunk and in his house. Having a big party to get them drunk while already at his house was like luring moths to the flame. "Oh my," Jammer said, looking over my shoulder. "And just in time, too." I turned around and saw Jenny DiMarco step in the door and appraise the crowd. Jenny DiMarco, the Miss Everything of the Class of '99. Class president, Homecoming and Prom Queen, All-State Girls' Volleyball, State Finalist in the 440-relay. Oh, and did I mention incredibly intelligent and even more incredibly drop dead, tuck-your-tongue-back-in-your-mouth gorgeous? And looking at her standing there, I quickly noticed that the years since high school had been more than kind. She had gone from looking like a teenage version of Sophia Loren to the adult version without missing a beat. Classic Italian beauty without the mustache and dowdy housedress. "She's back in town," Jammer said in my ear, speaking low enough so that only I could hear. "Divorced, fed up with city living, and back here to stay." "How long?" I asked. "Three weeks ago. She was at your place the night she got in. That's where I saw her. Kind of why I'm having this little soiree." I nodded. Jammer and Jenny had dated quite a bit during high school. The look on his face told me he wouldn't mind a chance at getting back into her pants now. "You dating her?" He shook his head. "Perish the thought." From across the room, her eyes turned and met mine. There I was, like a deer in the headlights, unable to turn away. Jenny DiMarco, the featured star of my adolescent masturbatory fantasies, was looking me dead in the eyes and . . . holy shit! . . . she was beginning to smile and walk toward me. I turned to Jammer. "Is she-- " "Looks like it," he said, smiling with resignation. "The ole Jammer strikes out again." "Hey Jammer," Jenny said, leaning in and pecking his cheek before turning to me. "And you. Tim Franklin." She leaned in and kissed my cheek. She smelled like silky spice, and her lips were cool and soft against my cheek. "Hi, Jenny," I managed to choke out. She stood back and took me in. "My my," she said. "You seem to have grown up quite a bit since I last saw you." I had been a runt in high school, my growth spurt not hitting until half way through my senior year and continuing for another two years. Jenny had disappeared to college, marriage, and a career by then, though. We hadn't seen each other since high school graduation, and I doubt she even bothered to look at me then. "How about something to drink, handsome?" she said to Jammer. "Coming right up," he said, disappearing into the kitchen. "So, Tim, how've you been?" I shrugged. "Good." She looked down, then back to my eyes. "How long has it been?" she said. I stammered. "C'mon," she said. "You look like you haven't eaten a decent meal in forever, like you haven't slept well in even longer, and the indentation on your ring finger is still there." "Little more than five months since she left," I said. "'Bout three since the divorce." She nodded. "And you forgot to take off your wedding band until about six or seven weeks back, right?" I nodded, looking at the faint circle around my ring finger. "Figured as much," she said, slipping her arm through mine and pulling me through the crowd toward the kitchen. "C'mon, let's go find someplace with fewer people." The kitchen was crowded, too, and I couldn't make out who all was in there. Something smelled delicious, though, and I realized I was hungry. There were plates lining the countertops, neat arrangements of hot and cold appetizers, and I reached over and plucked two of something as Jenny grabbed her drink from the passing Jammer, then pulled me through the crowd and out the back door. Once outside, I handed one appetizer to Jenny and took a bite of the one in my hand. Chopped chicken liver pate on a toasted slice of sourdough baguette with a crackling of what looked and tasted like crunchy, smokey chicken skin on top. "This is really good," Jenny said, chewing. I nodded. "Great idea with the chicken skin on top. Really great idea." Jenny walked toward a garden bench at the edge of the outdoor lighting, sat, and patted the bench next to her. I followed her command and sat. I sipped my beer, she took a drink of whatever was in her glass. "Heard you just went through the same thing," I said, taking the initiative. She nodded and turned away, looking into the darkness as she spoke. "It was final seven months ago." "Bad?" She nodded. "Took over a year." "Why? You have kids?" She snorted. "I don't," she said, emphasizing the first word. "Turns out he has two, though. Both fathered while we were married. So I told my lawyer to go after him for anything he could get me. Damn the torpedoes and all that." "And?" She turned back and looked at me. "And I should have taken Jammer's advice from the get go. I called him when it all started, get a referral in the city. He told me to just get out of the marriage as soon as possible. Instead, thirty grand in legal fees later, I ended up getting an extra fifty grand above the original offer." "So it paid for itself." He eyes focused in on mine and held there as she spoke, her voice a hiss. "It was more than a year of pure, unmitigated hell for another twenty grand. So no, it didn't pay for itself. I'm still pissed off, and I'm as mad as ever because it just dragged everything out a lot longer than it needed to be." I wasn't even thinking when I took my jacket off and draped it over her shoulders. I definitely wasn't thinking when I then pulled her into my arms and held her spicy, warm softness against my chest. I must've been in a fugue state when I reached over and kissed her forehead and said, "Well, it's over now. Might as well quit being pissed off about it." It was strange, like I was alone and talking to myself. Jenny DiMarco in my arms was forgotten as my own anger and hurt and sorrow vanished for a moment in the chilly evening air. Really, I told myself, how long could I go on being pissed off and alone and all that shit? I was shaken out of my reverie by a pair of hands stroking my back. "You're getting chilly," she said. In response, I pulled her tighter against my chest, enjoying the warmth of her breath against my neck. "I haven't been laid in months," she whispered. I froze. She kissed the base of my neck, flicking the tip of her tongue against the skin. "You don't have to hold your breath," she said between kisses, her lips brushing up toward my earlobe. Have you ever been in a situation where all of your dreams looked like they could come true and you were suddenly scared shitless that your dreams would come true? That's where I was: Jenny DiMarco, more gorgeous than ever, previously totally unattainable, coming on to me. And there I was, terrified to move for fear I'd wake up and the dream would end. The kissing stopped, and I looked down into the deepest, darkest eyes in the universe. "I don't really want to stay here," she said. Her fingertips found my crotch and traced lightly over the outline of my excitement. "Doesn't seem like you want to stay here, either." My mouth opened, but no words came out. This couldn't be happening. "Say something, Tim," she whispered. Her face was going taut, her eyes pleading for me to say yes. "But you're . . . and I'm . . . . What about Jammer? You're his guest. His date, right?" She shook her head. "Jammer told me you'd be here. Called me this morning and said if I wouldn't go out with him, at least I could hang around the party and try to keep you company. Cheer you up and get you out of your shell." "Is that what this is?" I said, my voice uncertain. "Try to cheer me up? Was this his plan?" "No," she said, pulling away from my tone and huddling in on herself. "I figured I'd show up, say hey, chat for a few minutes here and there, and get home early." "So what changed?" Her eyes went soft when she spoke. "When I walked in," she said. "The look on your face when you saw me. The way your eyes followed me the whole way." "But there were twenty guys looking at you the same way." She laughed at that. "Oh no there weren't. There were twenty guys mentally undressing me as I walked across that floor. There was Jammer trying to figure whether he could get a quick score in tonight. But your eyes, they were different." "How so?" "They gave a brief glance at the rest of me, then stayed on my eyes. The others looked at me with lust, Tim. And you looked at me with admiration. With . . . ." "Enchantment," I said. She smiled. "It's been a long time since someone looked at me like that. And besides, you're a helluva lot better looking than you were in high school." We sat for a few minutes, just staring at each other and trying to figure out what the other was thinking. I finally broke the silence. "But we barely know each other." She shrugged. "I'm not asking for a date here, big boy." She gave a sad laugh. "God knows neither of us is ready for that yet, right?" I nodded. "I don't know," she continued, sorting it out in her mind. "It's like I've been alone and pissed and . . . just not wanting to be with someone for so long that I think I owe it to myself to get over it. At least take a step." Her face got all mischievous on me, a glint in her eye and a pleasant curling of her lips exuding her intentions. "And I've got urges," she whispered conspiratorially. "It's been a long time since I've been with someone. A man. Especially a man that looked at me like you did tonight. Like something other than a piece of ass. And . . . well . . . you know . . . it's really been a long time." I smiled. "I know." "You, too?" "Yeah," I said. "I suppose I have urges, too. And tonight is the first time in a long time that I remembered those urges." Her eyes flashed at this. "So you want to get out of here?" I stood and held my hands out, helping her from the bench and walking hand in hand with Jenny toward the front of the house. Who the hell was I to turn down a dream I'd had for fifteen years? I shot a quick glance toward the kitchen as I left. Nicole was standing over the sink, washing some pots and pans. Her eyes were following us, the expression on her face unfathomable. Curious, I thought. What's she doing here? My thoughts were broken when Jenny squeezed my ass and said, "So, your place or mine?" "Mine," I answered. "And last one there loses." "Loses what?" I leaned in and kissed her before answering. "Loses their clothes first." She kissed me again, her tongue finding mine as she pulled me close and kissed me nearly to death. Her hands were all over me, and I was lost in the intensity of our passion. Then she broke the kiss and started laughing. "What's so funny?" I said, disappointed at the sudden break in the kiss. She held up my car keys, dangling them in front of her. "Guess who's getting naked first?" she said, tossing the keys onto the front porch before turning and running toward her car. "You cheated," I yelled to her fleeing back before scrambling toward the porch. FIFTEEN Ten minutes later, I turned into my driveway and parked behind a black Porsche. "Took long enough," Jenny called from the front porch. I walked down the sidewalk. She was sitting on the top step, her feet on the sidewalk and her upper body leaning back, her arms behind her. Her jacket was unbuttoned, and I sucked in my breath as I took in the slim legs in tight jeans and proud breasts straining against her blouse. "Not fair," I said, coming to a stop in front of her and looking down at her grinning face. Her brown hair was cascading loose around her shoulders, her smile an evil grin promising great things to come. "Strip," she said. "Here?" She nodded. "A bet's a bet. Now strip." "It's forty-five degrees." "Oh well." I kicked off my shoes, then started unbuttoning my flannel shirt. "Slower," she said. Her eyes were traveling up and down my body now, sparkling with excitement. Her grin was bewitching, her tongue sliding over her lips hungrily. I complied with her direction, pulling my shirt from the waist of my jeans before going back to my shirt buttons. I felt the goosebumps popping on the skin of my chest and belly. "You've sure gotten mighty good looking, Tim Franklin," she said, gazing at my now exposed chest before looking a little further south. "And grown in all the right places, I see." I laughed, finishing with the buttons on my shirt but leaving it on. "The socks," she said. "Get the socks off next." "No," I said. Her eyes flashed at mine. She was enjoying the game. I unbuttoned my jeans and unzipped. "The socks first," she repeated. I stepped closer to her. "Help me." Her face told me that this was a good answer. She leaned forward, her palm feeling my chest and leaving blazing heat in its wake down my stomach. Her other hand went around behind and cupped my ass, while her palm continued its journey downward, over my straining cock, and down the inside of my thighs. "The longer it takes you to get out of those socks," she said, leaning in and kissing my hardness through the underwear, "the longer until I get to play with my new toy." Fine, I bent to her extortion. I peeled the socks off and stepped closer to her. My crotch was so close I could feel her hot breath against my abdomen. "I like," she said. Then her lips were kissing my belly. I felt a tugging at my waist, and my jeans were sliding down my hips and over my legs. "I like a lot," she murmured. She pulled my underwear down, still kissing my belly and flicking her tongue against my skin. Forty-five degrees might as well have been ninety-five. I couldn't remember when I'd been so aroused, and my body temperature was near boiling. The goosebumps were gone. I kicked out of my jeans and underwear, leaving them in a pile on the front sidewalk. Say what you will, but there are definite benefits to living on three acres in the country. Getting naked with a goddess in your front lawn without prying neighbors tops the list of country living benefits. Jenny's hands continued stroking my torso and kneading my ass, her mouth tasting my hips and stomach. I was past excited, suddenly worried I'd let loose before getting a chance at doing more. "Let's go inside," I pleaded. In response, she slowly stood as her mouth moved back up toward mine while her hand brushed down under my cock. "Not yet," she whispered into my ear before sucking in my earlobe. "Now it's my turn." Not sure how she wanted to do this, I decided to take over the lead. Now that I was naked, save for my open flannel shirt, it was time to get her equally disrobed. I started slowly, pulling her blouse from the waist of her jeans while I leaned in and kissed the side of her neck. Her skin was silky smooth, cool, and taut. Her breath sucked in a bit when my thumbs brushed over her nipples on the way to the top button of her blouse. I continued kissing and nibbling on the side of her neck and around her ears while my hands made leisurely work of her buttons. "Please," she whispered into my ear before sucking on my earlobe. "Please what?" I said. Her blouse unbuttoned, I pushed it open and again brushed my fingertips over her hardening nipples before looking down at the sexy, lacy fabric of her white bra. "Please hurry," she responded with a slight shudder at the movements of my fingertips around her nipples. I ignored her request, kissing her full on the lips and seeking out her tongue with mine. She groaned into the kiss, and I felt her hands going to the buttons on her jeans. "Slower," I murmured, pushing her hands away before cupping her ass and pulling her into my naked hardness. She met my grinding hardness in kind, rubbing her crotch up and down while kissing me deeper. Breaking the kiss, she warned, "I can't wait much longer." "Too bad," I said. I slid a hand up the naked skin of her back and flicked her bra strap, freeing those perfect, pale olive-skinned orbs from their lacy white encasement. The contrast between her skin and the white bra was mesmerizing, and my lips were drawn to her dark nipples. I sucked in first one nipple, then the other. Jenny ran her fingers through my hair, keeping my mouth on her breasts. Her breathing quickened when my tongue swirled around her small, dark brown areolae and outward to the sides and bottoms. "Please, Tim," she repeated again. "Tease me the second time, not the first. I'm really, really . . . oh." My hand was pinching one of her nipples hard while my mouth blew the frigid night air onto her wet nipple. The effect on her was electric. Her eyes rolled back and she ground her pelvis harder into mine. She was almost ready, so my mouth went to her ear and whispered, "Strip. Now." Jenny didn't have to be asked twice. She shrugged out of her blouse and bra and had her jeans off within seconds. And the vision that greeted me caused me to suck in my breath. Jenny's dark skin was smooth and taut, stretched over beautiful, proud breasts and flat belly that ended at the white line of her white silk thong. Her legs were likewise toned and smooth, dancer's legs if ever I'd seen a pair. "Cat got your tongue?" she teased, her hand grasping my happy soldier and pulling me toward the front door. I followed like a lovesick puppy, my pecker throbbing in her tight grip. Once in the living room, I kicked the front door closed behind me before picking Jenny up by her ass and carrying her--her legs entwined around me and tongue locked in feverish battle with mine--to the couch. Setting her on the couch, I broke the kiss, pushed her shoulders back, and trailed my lips and tongue down to her panties. Her hips jolted in shock as I kissed over the small triangular patch covering her mons. I looked up at her face, and her eyes were locked on mine, staring intently. Her lips were barely parted, her face begging me to get on with it. "Who's in charge now?" I said, grinning. "Don't push your luck," she said. I traced my tongue in lazy circles over the silky triangular patch, her breath coming in gasps as I got closer to the small bump of cloth covering her clit. "Say you cheated," I said. "Never," she gasped, her hips jumping as I flicked over the nubbin of her clit. I circled my tongue away and to the soft sides of her inner thighs, tickling the downy softness of her flesh. The Bar and Grill Pt. 02 "Say it," I whispered. When she said nothing, I traced the tip of my tongue slowly over the material covering her lips, stopping short of her clit before going back to her belly and then legs. "Say you cheated," I insisted. She was whimpering with the anticipation, but she refused to break. That, of course, was fine by me. Experience had long since taught me that anticipation heightened arousal and response, and I was enjoying playing her like a fiddle. So I upped the ante my brushing my fingertips around her breasts and areolae, carefully avoiding the sensitive flesh of her nipples. "Tim," she murmured, her eyes half closed, "I swear to God that if you keep this up I'm going to rape you." "Then say it," I said. "No," she said. And like a shot, her hands were under my arms pulling me up and over until I was flat on my back on the couch. Before I could react, I felt the intense wet heat of her mouth sucking in my cock and saw her hips looming up over my face. The intense sensations were almost too much. I almost lost it immediately. Then the musky, spicy scent of her pussy inches from my face focused my mind elsewhere. My hands darted to Jenny's asscheeks, pulling her to my mouth. One finger slid the thong aside, and my tongue started darting at her pussy. I felt her moaning around my cock, and her hips started rocking against my assault. Within seconds, I felt her take me to the back of her throat and hold me there as she moaned and gasped around me. Then, as I concentrated on holding myself back, she broke contact with me and sat up straight, crying out in her orgasm as she mashed her soaking pussy into my face. After ten or fifteen seconds, Jenny wheeled on me and kissed my face, ignoring the juices coating my lips, chin, and cheeks. I kissed her back hungrily, my hands cupping and kneading her ass. "Oh my God," she murmured through the kisses. "That was . . . . Oh my God." I just kept kissing her, letting her set the pace now. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long. Within minutes, I felt her hand reaching back and grabbing my prick, guiding it to her entrance as she sat back on me. We both moaned into the other's mouth as she sank on me. "I'm not gonna last long here," I warned as her ass came to rest on the top of my thighs. She ignored me and started grinding slowly against my pelvis. Not an up and down movement, but a circular grind around and around. Her breath was coming in short gasps, speeding up as she continued grinding into me. I watched her lean back and rest her hands on my legs, throwing her head back and picking up her breathing, her breasts thrust high as her grinding increased in urgency. "I'm close," I warned, reaching up to palm her breasts, squeezing her nipples. "Like that," she said, starting to rise and fall on me until she was going up and down the full length of my prick. "Jen," I again warned, "I'm close." "Go ahead," she said, leaning into me. "It's safe." She covered my lips with hers and I felt her hot breath shooting into my mouth as her orgasm neared and she clutched me tightly by the shoulders. I reached back and grabbed her ass with both hands, setting her pace faster as my cock erupted and I came with a long groan. That triggered Jenny's orgasm, as well, and she groaned long and low as she clutched me tighter and mashed her breasts into my chest. We held like that for a few minutes after we were done, Jenny hugging me tightly as we both caught our breaths. "That was almost worth waiting for," she murmured into my ear. "Almost?" I said. She chuckled. "I don't care how good you are. Six months is a long time. No one could totally make up for such a long dry spell." I stroked her back, kissing her neck. "You know," she said, pushing herself up and grinding her hips around my softened cock. Then she screeched. "What?" I said, turning to follow Jenny's eyes as her screech turned to laughter. I saw Ernie sitting on the recliner, watching the two of us. "He looks so sad," she laughed. "Probably scarred for life," I offered. "Go outside," I said to Ernie. He ignored me, looking at us with those play-with-me-now eyes. Jenny stood, grabbing my softened member and giving a firm tug up from the couch. "Let's take this away from prying eyes," she said. I let her lead me into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. It had been months since either of us had done the naked tango with another, and I'm pretty sure we both did our damnedest to turn our dry spells into floods in one night. As for me, I succeeded. I hadn't been more thoroughly laid in ages. Jenny seemed sated, too, which probably guaranteed me a repeat performance. The repeat, if any, could wait a few days, though. I was seriously afraid Little Timmy was going to fall off from excessive use and abuse. SIXTEEN We both awoke at about the same time, seven or so. "Breakfast?" I offered. "Something light," she murmured. I hopped out of bed, pulled on my boxer shorts, and went out to the kitchen to make some omelettes. Ernie saw me, heaved himself off the couch, and followed. "Food?" I said to him. He looked back at me like I was a piece of shit for leaving him alone all night. Flat tail, dark eyes boring a hole through me, impatient look on his muzzle. "Suit yourself," I said, turning my back. Ernie gave a light woof as I pulled some eggs, cheese, and butter from the refrigerator. "You can wait until we eat, Mr. Attitude," I said to him. "Who you talking to?" Jenny called out. "Ernie." "Oh," she said, like my answer was natural. A few minutes later, Jenny joined me in the kitchen as I whisked the eggs and small chunks of butter together. "I said light," she frowned, seeing the butter in the eggs. "It is," I said, smiling at her. Jenny was dressed in one of my t-shirts. And nothing else. I thought at first she had replaced her thong, but then she stretched and the t-shirt rode up her belly, exposing the small tuft of darkened pubic hair just above my dream world. "Quit staring," she said through a yawn, smiling as she did so. I did, pouring the eggs into a nonstick pan and stirring them briskly for a moment before turning off the heat and covering the pan. "What's for breakfast," she said. "French omelettes, toast, and juice. It's light, I promise." Ten minutes later, we were settled at the dining room table, eating our breakfast while Ernie scarfed through his bowl of food at our feet. "So," I said between mouthfuls, leaving the word hanging. "So," she responded. "Does this mean we'll see each other again?" She took a bite of her toast, looking at me while she chewed. "Probably," she said after she'd swallowed. "Probably?" She looked at me a moment, her face unsure. Then she put the toast down, crossed her arms in front of her breasts, and leaned over the table. "You're not, like, in love with me or something, are you?" I hesitated. Honestly, I'm not sure what I was. Somehow, though, it just didn't seem-- "You're a knight, aren't you?" she said, interrupting my thoughts. That caught me by surprise. "A what?" "A knight. You know, a knight in shining armor. Chivalry. Save and protect the damsel and all that crap." I didn't know what she meant, and my face must have made this clear to her. "We talked about guys like that--like you, I think--in a support group I was in while the divorce was going. Knights, the therapist called them. Guys who, if you sleep with them, they tend to fall in love almost immediately." I shrugged. "I'm not saying it's love here," I started. "Still, it's something, isn't it?" She laughed. "Sure, Tim, I guess it could be. But you promise you won't make it more for awhile, okay?" I couldn't hide the disappointment on my face, and Jenny reached over and put her hand atop mine. "Listen, Tim, we don't even really know each other, right?" I started to say something, something about how we'd known each other since we were little, but she cut me off. "Think about it before you speak. You don't know what foods I like, what movies, books, my favorite color. None of it. You don't know what aggravates me, whether I'm a bitch at the end of a long day. These are important things here." "But I'll get to know those things. You'll get to know those things. I'm pretty easy to get along with." She smiled, but I couldn't tell if it was pity or sadness. Either way, it wasn't happiness. "Tim, you're more than easy to get along with. That's part of your problem. You'll put up with me being a bitch for the rest of your life just so you can make me happy and provide for me." I pondered this. She sounded like a sex symbol version of Uncle Jack. And everyone else, for that matter, who had described my marriage with Nina. "The point is," Jenny continued, "you deserve to be happy, too. That's the problem with knights. They put their own happiness ahead of everyone else's. You shouldn't do that, Tim. You don't need to do that. You deserve to be happy, too." I thought about what she was saying. And I thought again for the millionth time about my marriage with Nina. Had I ever really been happy? Or had it just been satisfaction that I could provide for them and make them happy? Was I some kind of pathetic fucking martyr? I looked into Jenny's eyes. "Okay," I said, my lips curling into a smile, "if I promise not to fall in love with you, can we still spend the occasional night together?" Her smile now turned to one of genuine happiness. "Well, I know I don't want to go another six months without." "It's settled then," I said, pushing our plates and leaning over the table toward her. I kissed her, long and deep. I could taste the toast and strawberry jam she had just eaten, and for some reason it fueled my fires. I really liked toast and jam this way. "To seal the deal," I said after breaking the kiss, "how about we break in the dining room table?" She laughed before pulling my head back toward her suddenly passionate mouth. She pinched my nipple and I yelped into her kiss. "You just be a little more gentle this time," she mumbled. "I'm a little sore down there." She twisted my nipple harder to reinforce her point. In my defense, I tried to be gentle. But toward the end, she was egging me on to go faster and faster. Still, I really did try. Any problems she had walking for the rest of the day were as much her fault as mine. And there's no need to go into how much therapy poor Ernie was going to need after having to again watch us go at it in front of him. SEVENTEEN When Nicole showed up in the kitchen on Monday morning, I was humming an old Hank Williams tune while chopping onions. "Someone's in a good mood," she said. I turned and looked at her, tears from the onions streaming down my face. She laughed, surprised and delighted at the tear-streaked face smiling back at her. This was a first: The first time in all of these months I'd seen Nicole in a moment of unguarded emotion. She was normally so tightly in control of herself it was impossible to figure out what she was thinking or feeling. I liked it. "You seem to be in a pretty good mood yourself," I said. She shrugged. "It was a good weekend." I remembered something I'd seen on Saturday night and spoke without thinking it through. "Jammer's," I said. Her body went taut and the smile vanished. "You datin' him?" Her eyes told me I'd missed the mark by quite a bit. "Like I'd ever date that pig," she said. "He's not that bad," I defended for my friend. The friend I agreed was a pig where women were concerned. "Not that bad if you're looking to get used and cast aside," she shot back, hands on hips. "Whoa there, little girl," I said, surprised at her vehemence and trying to settle things down. "Did he try something?" Her look told me he had. "What happened?" She stared at me for a moment before answering. "He's been chatting me up lately," she said. "Getting my tables and chatting me up. I mentioned I really liked this." She swept her hand toward the kitchen equipment. "Cooking, y' know? So he says he's having a party and, if I'm really good at it like I say, maybe I can cater the party. He'd pay me." "So you were catering Saturday night?" I said, remembering the appetizer that was so damned good. She nodded. "I had the night off, and I really need the money. So I agreed to do it. He'd pay for the supplies, and then he'd pay me fifteen bucks an hour for the cooking, serving, and cleanup." "I only tried one thing," I confessed. "It was incredible, though." She nodded at the compliment, but no smile was forthcoming. "Later in the evening, way after you and . . . whatever her name was . . . way after you left, I was cleaning up. Maybe around ten or so. Jammer came in to help and was a bit handsy." "You told him to stop?" She nodded. "Did he stop?" "No until I dumped a tray of meatballs on him and left." I laughed. "It's not funny," she said. "He hasn't paid me yet. I'm out almost two hundred bucks on the food, and he owes me another hundred and fifty for the work." "He'll pay you," I assured her. "He may be a pig, but he still wants a shot at you. He'll pay you to keep that gate open." "He'll never have a shot whether he pays or not." She tied on her apron and muttered something. "What?" I said. She ignored me and we passed the morning cooking in silence. She made the butternut squash soup and some homemade cinnamon and sugar croutons for garnish while I concentrated on the Hungarian goulash special for the day. (And I mean real Hungarian goulash with seared chunks of chuck steak and caramelized onions and button mushrooms in a fragrant, spicy paprika-infused gravy to serve over egg noodles. I realize it doesn't go the best with butternut squash soup, but both had enough adherents among the clientele that I didn't dare change a thing.) Nicole was back in the kitchen after the lunch rush, helping me clean up, when we next spoke. "So that liver pate you made Saturday night," I started. She only grunted in response. "Was that chicken skin on top?" "Yep." "It was really good. I mean really, really, really good. And a good idea." She stopped scrubbing the pots and pans, her back still to me as I washed down the stainless steel counters. "Thanks, Tim." She remained still, like she wanted to say more or expected to hear more. I decided to take a stab at it, hoping I guessed right this time. Would I say the right thing or just piss her off? "You got any other ideas like that you'd care to share with me sometime?" She wheeled around. "You'd be interested?" I nodded, pleased with myself. Score one for Tim, he'd finally said the right thing today. "Tomorrow," she said. "I'll show you something tomorrow." "Why not now?" She shook her head. "Tomorrow." "You gonna give me a hint here?" "Nope." I laughed, and she smiled for the first time in hours. Just before we were done cleaning, Nicole spoke up again. "You were right," she said. "About what?" "Jammer," she said. "He came in for lunch and apologized." "And paid you?" "Yeah," she sighed. "Fuckin' men." "Men?" I teased. "Plural?" "Pretty much all of you, it seems." "All of us? Even me?" She didn't answer, though. She didn't say anything to me the rest of the time she was there. Nicole was one hard nut to crack. Every time I thought we had a rapport going, she closed in on herself. Nevertheless, she was an excellent cook. Better than Uncle Jack. And way better to look at, too. EIGHTEEN Nicole was already in the kitchen, cutting up the Tuesday delivery of fifty whole chickens, when I got there the next morning at seven-thirty. "Bit early," I said, hanging my jacket and pulling down my apron. "You wanted me to show you some ideas," she said, concentrating on the chickens. "You just go and do your paperwork and come back up in an hour or so." "I'll help," I offered, tying the apron strings and picking up a knife. She stopped chopping and looked at me. "Out," she ordered. I complied. No use arguing with a woman holding a knife. Fifty-five minutes later, I wandered back into the kitchen. "You're early," she said, not bothering to look up at me or the clock. Nicole was threading strips of chicken skin onto wooden skewers, and a sauce was cooling on the stove behind her. "What're you doing?" I said, then pointed to the saucepan with the mysterious sauce. "And what's that?" "Just wait," she said, her face a mixture of flustered and nervous. She took eight skewers and laid them across the grill. The air was immediately filled with the scent of sizzling chicken, and I watched as she turned the skewers after a few minutes. "Glaze," she said, picking up a brush and spreading the glaze over the grilled side while the other side cooked. When the heat hit the glaze, an exotic smell hit the air. It was ginger and cardamom, some chiles of some kind, and a sweetness I didn't recognize. I leaned back against the wall behind me, folded my arms, and watched. Once the glaze was on all of the skewered skins, Nicole drizzled some vinaigrette over some julienne cucumber, carrot, and red bell pepper in a small bowl. Using her hand, she mixed the veggie mixture, then mounded some in the middle of each of two appetizer plates. Her movements brisk and experienced, she sprinkled some chopped peanuts onto the veggies before turning and taking the skewers off the grill in two pairs, fanning four across each appetizer plate. Finished, Nicole looked up at me while slowly pushing one plate across the counter toward me. She was in full Nicole mode: No words and no emotion. I looked at the plate before me. It was attractive, which is underrated when creating a dish--particularly an appetizer. The colors in the salad mixed nicely and added brightness to the dark, crispy skewers of chicken skin. The peanuts, I knew, would add crunch, contrasting nicely with the cool salad and the hot, crackling skins. I grabbed two forks to my left and slid one over to Nicole before picking up a skewer and taking a bite. The flavor of the grilled chicken skin exploded in my mouth. There was, first and foremost, the flavor of the skin itself, initially crisp, but yielding to a chewy, chickeny flavor with mild, caramelized sugar undertones from the glaze. Then the rest of the glaze hit, more an afterthought than an up front punch. Taking another bite to finish my first skewer, though, I felt the heat from the glaze building. Not an inferno, mind you, but I took a forkful of the salad to see what the cucumbers, carrots, and red peppers would do. The fresh crunch of the cooling vegetables, contrasted with the salty chopped peanuts, was the perfect accompaniment. Holy shit! I thought. Without a word I polished off the rest of the appetizer in quick dispatch. I looked up at Nicole. She was staring at me, waiting for my assessment. She had eaten only one skewer and a small bit of the salad. Her fork was sitting across the plate, indicating she wanted no more. So I gave her my assessment by stealing her plate and eating the rest of her's. Finished with both plates, I waited for the tingling of the peppers in my mouth to fully cool before speaking. The heat dissipated, then fully disappeared in a few minutes. Perfect. "Price?" I said to start. "Five bucks." "Why?" To most of you, this will seem a silly, pointless question. To a chef--or experienced person running a kitchen--this question is all important. Think about it: I'm in business to make money. The simple formula for a restaurant, particularly one like the Bar and Grill, is to charge three times the cost of the food, thereby covering food costs as well as all associated salaries, overhead, equipment, utilities, and so on. So the real question here is how expensive were the ingredients she used, and could we justify making and selling this appetizer for the five bucks she proposed? The Bar and Grill Pt. 02 Nicole was prepared, though. In response to my question, she reached under the counter, pulled out a ragged notebook, flipped it open, and slid it across to me. I looked down and read. She had written the complete recipe, a simple sketch of the presentation with notes, and a complete tally of the costs of all aspects of the dish--veggies, sauce, vinaigrette, skewers, and--zero cost noted because we just threw it away before or tossed it into broth where it added little or nothing--chicken skins. The four pages were covered in notes showing the progress of the dish, ideas crossed out and others with exclamation points. All told, she had been thorough and spent quite a bit of time on this. "Will it sell?" I saw a smile curling her lips. She knew I liked it and that she had been completely prepared. Now she gave me the simplest answer, the one she knew would prove her preparations thorough. "We'll see when Lonnie Mackie shows up, won't we?" I laughed, shaking my head at the same time. "Fuckin' chicken skins. Who'd a thought, huh?" She shrugged, her smile turning into an all too rare full-fledged grin. "So you like it?" "No," I said. "I love it. It's better than anything else we currently have--for my tastes, at least--and you manage to fully justify charging four times the food cost. And I don't think anyone will squawk, either." Then a thought hit me, and my joy turned serious. "When have you been working on this, Nicole?" "When I get home at night." "But you've got a little boy to spend time with," I said. "Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate this, appreciate your hustle and all. Still, I feel a little guilty that you're doing this at home on your own time." Her grin faded to a simple smile. "He's with me when I'm doing it." "That's not enough," I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out some cash. I took a hundred dollar bill and slid it across to her. "Take this. Please." She looked from the bill in front of her, then back to me. "That's not why I did this, Tim." I shook my head. "Then why did you do it?" "To see if I could." I nodded. "Well, it's official. You can. And now that you know that, you should get paid for it." She shook her head, but I insisted. "Listen," I reasoned. "I'm going to make money off of this. If my guess is right, this will be our most profitable appetizer, one we'll be running out of because I can't justify more chickens just to get the skins. And if you help me make money, especially if you do it on your free time, then that time shouldn't be free. You should be paid. If you had done it here, you'd have been paid." She said nothing, just looking at me now with a face that had again become a mask. "Besides," I said. "I want you to keep doing this. Preferably here at work when we can squeeze in the time. And if I pay you for it, you're more likely to keep doing it for me. Okay?" She only nodded before picking up the money and thrusting it into her pocket. "Thanks," she mumbled. And without another word, she turned and started in on the few remaining chickens waiting to be cut up. I watched for a minute, trying to fathom her thoughts and read her reaction. But I was unsuccessful, as I'd been with Nicole from day one. If she was a book, she was written in a language I'd never seen and could not fathom. I soon learned, though, that others could read that language. People like Jenny. The Bar and Grill Pt. 03 AUTHOR'S NOTE. This is part 3 of 4. The final installment is now done, and it will be posted as soon as I have some time for some final editing. Thanks to everyone for their comments, both good and bad, on the first two parts. I know this is different from what's normally posted here, but you can't say you weren't forewarned. As always, I really would appreciate your thoughts and comments on this installment and how you think it's coming along. * Two weeks after Nicole introduced me--and Lonnie Mackie--to the joys of Thai grilled chicken skins, my life took a dramatic and unexpected turn. It all started out innocently enough on a Wednesday night at seven thirty. I was leaving after another long night, and I spied Nicole at a table in the dining room, taking an order from her parents while stroking the blonde hair of a little boy in a high chair. Curious, I decided to butt in on the proceedings, so I ambled over to the table to say my hellos. "Gertie, Willie," I said, nodding to Nicole's parents. "Hey, Tim," they said almost in unison. "And is this the famous Alistair?" I said. Nicole nodded, her face on her son. "He's a handsome little fella," I offered. "He is that," Gertie said. "He's a Sanderson through and through," Willie said, staking his family's claim to the boy's genetic benefits. "He has his father's eyes, though," Nicole whispered, still smiling and looking at her son. I was surprised and more than a little curious. I'd never seen this side of Nicole. The only time I'd ever heard about her husband, the boy's father, she'd turned to ice. Yet, she looked at her son fondly while speaking about him. I realized I still knew almost nothing about this sphinx of an employee. Was she divorced? Widowed? What did she like other than cooking and, obviously, her son? And that's when I said it, not even thinking before the words were out of my mouth. "Y'know, I'd like to maybe all get together for dinner sometime if that's okay with all of you." "Sure," Willie and Gertie chimed. Nicole's face looked troubled, though, as if she was torn between the joy of stroking her son's hair and the fear of socializing. Was it socializing in general, or just socializing with me? I decided to press on before she could refuse. "Have you tried the appetizer Nicole came up with?" A little misdirection to get the ball rolling. "Which one is that, dear?" Gertie said to Nicole. "You probably wouldn't like it," Nicole mumbled. "Maybe, maybe not," I said. "I think you should try it, though. On the house. See what your little girl can do." Willie was intrigued. His stocky frame indicated he liked food, but his ordering history leaned heavily on meat and potatoes. Still, the notion--maybe even fatherly pride of some sort--that his little girl had developed a real restaurant menu was breaking down his natural inhibitions to try something beyond meat loaf, fried chicken, or pot roast. "Let's give it a shot," Gertie urged, and Willie nodded. "Yeah, let's." "So what's this about dinner?" Gertie chirped, getting the conversation back on track. God bless her. Nicole shot me a don't-you-dare look, the first I'd seen from her in months. I smiled back at her before turning to Gertie. "Why don't you all come over to my place Saturday. I'll get Jack to cover for me, and I don't think Nicole is working. Nicole and I will plan a menu, and we'll all just eat and drink and have a relaxing evening. Bring whoever you want. Barry's still at home, right?" Gertie nodded, smiling brightly. "Hell," I went on. "Go ahead and invite Clara and Leon and the boys, too. Matter of fact, I'll invite her in just a minute." Gertie was bubbling with enthusiasm of a family meal she wouldn't have to cook. "Nothing too weird, right?" Willie ventured. I shook my head and laughed. "Whatever we make, you'll like it. I promise. Right, Nicole?" I turned and looked at the mask that had, once again, descended over her face. She held my eyes for a minute, her lips tight, then turned and strode to the kitchen to place her parents' order. "What's wrong with her?" I asked, turning to Gertie and Willie. Gertie pooh poohed the reaction. "She's like that a lot," Gertie said. Willie's eyes had followed her, and I don't think he even realized speaking. "'Specially since Alistair was killed." Seeing a piece fit into the puzzle, I decided not to waste the opportunity. "How was he killed?" "Murdered," Gertie whispered. "They never caught him," Willie added, looking sadly at Alistair as he spoke. I felt like an incredible asshole. Here they are, trying to enjoy their dinner in my restaurant, spend some time with their grandson and Nicole when she can snatch a few moments with them between tables, and I'm dumb enough to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong. Gertie stopped my shame from overwhelming me, though. "So," she chirped up, "what time on Saturday?" "Five okay?" Gertie looked at Willie, who nodded, then back to me. "And Nicole? If she's helping you, she'll probably need to be there earlier." I shot a look at the kitchen door, then back to Gertie. "Maybe I should-- " "Nope," Gertie interrupted. "You try to work it out with her, she won't even be there. You tell me what time, and I'll get her along so you two can whip us up something really nice, okay?" "Two o'clock?" I offered. Gertie nodded. "Two it is." "And she should bring Alistair with her," I rushed in. Gertie just smiled and shook her head. "Smack dab in the middle of nap time." I nodded. "But nothing too fancy, right?" Willie said. I laughed. "Sold." I left them to their dinner and moved to the bar, where I invited Clara and her clan. She was surprised, but quickly accepted for just her and Leon. The boys had a dance or some such thing. I thought back on my conversation with Gertie and Willie. Sure, having your husband murdered is going to scar the hell out of any woman, so it went a long way toward explaining Nicole's behavior, particularly what had to be her first boyfriend after that took to beating on her. It all fell into place now, and the mystery that was Nicole was clearing up. Then I thought about Gertie at the end of the conversation. Let's get something straight here, folks: I'm not completely stupid. Gertie was clearly pleased about Nicole and I spending time alone in my house cooking dinner. I wasn't sure whether she was pleased to just be getting Nicole out of her shell or whether it was romantic plans for the two of us. It seemed she wouldn't have minded it either way. And that led to my final thought. Namely, I was now looking at Nicole as something different than an employee and fellow lover of the culinary arts. For the first time ever, I was looking upon Nicole as more than just eye candy to glance at occasionally in the kitchen. No, now I was seeing a beautiful woman that I'd--maybe--like to become more involved with, spend time getting to know as more than just an employee. Then the doubts started creeping in. Was Jenny right? Was I looking at Nicole like this because I wanted to play the knight in shining armor and make it all better for her? That, of course, made me think of Jenny. Oh, that and the fact that Jenny just happened to stroll in with Jammer as I was finishing my beer and getting ready to go home and feed Ernie. TWENTY We were seated around a tall pub table in the bar area, taking the first sips of our beers. "You haven't called me back," I started. Jenny smiled. "Warned you," she said. Seeing my hurt expression, she softened and went on. "Really, Tim, I've been busier than hell all week. Only reason I'm here right now is because Jammer was driving past as I got off the train and dragged me up for a drink." I nodded. She did, after all, work in the city. That meant an hour plus commute each way. And with her job, there was no doubt she worked twelve hour days. She'd barely had enough energy to screw me unconscious the past two Saturday nights we'd spent together. Still, it wasn't a boyfriend-girlfriend thing going, and I was beginning to want more. "Chill, dude," Jammer said. I smiled at him. "You moving in on her?" I teased. He sipped his beer. "What makes you think I haven't done so already?" "Boys, boys," Jenny chided. "Settle down here, willya?" She turned to me and put her hand on my forearm. "If it makes you feel better, Tim, he's never gotten past second base with me. Ever. And that was in high school. I'm not seeing him behind your back, okay?" My startled expression turned to laughter at Jammer's hurt feelings. "Jenny, you're ruining my reputation here," he protested. "And if you ever want to get past first base again," Jenny continued, ignoring Jammer, "you won't tell him what base you reached." "Oh, I know what base he reached," Jammer proclaimed. "He's got a whole new spring in his step lately." We chatted about old times for a while, about people we'd gone to school with and who had kids and who else had divorced and so on. Our conversation was interrupted when appetizers materialized on the table in front of us. "I thought you all could use something to eat," Nicole said, briefly smiling before turning away. "Nicole," Jammer called after her, "come back here, honey." I saw her back tense at his voice, and she stuttered her step. But she kept walking back to the kitchen. "That girl," Jammer said, turning to me. "Nicole. What's the story with her?" "Helluva cook," I said, pushing the chicken skins in front of him. "Try for yourself." "I know she's a helluva cook, Timmer. Everyone at the party complimented her stuff," Jammer said, picking up a skewer and taking a bite. "You're right. Good." "She came up with it," I said. "So why won't she give me the time of day?" Jammer asked. He turned to Jenny. "You're a woman. What's her problem?" I turned to Jenny to hear her answer and saw her staring at Nicole across the room on her way to the kitchen. "Jenny," Jammer insisted, breaking her reverie. "You're a pig," Jenny said, "and she's looking for something else right now." "That hurts," Jammer said as I laughed. "What's so funny?" "That's what she called you," I told him. "Monday after the party." Jammer got flustered at this. "It was late," he whined. "I was drunk. Hell, Timmer, you know I didn't mean anything by it." "You're not what she needs," Jenny insisted. "She looks like she's been through a lot. She doesn't need a quick roll in the hay with someone." Jenny turned to me with a weird look on her face. "What?" I said. "It's you," Jenny said. "Me what?" "That she wants," Jenny said, turning back to look as Nicole strode from the kitchen to the bar to get drinks. "If I didn't know any better," Jenny continued, her eyes still on Nicole, "I'd say she has a crush on you. Or at least is curious about you." I tried to laugh it off, and Jenny said nothing. Jammer, though, wasn't one to hesitate putting in his two cents. "What the hell is it about him lately?" he asked Jenny. "Some chick dumps him, divorces him, and he's waist high in more premium trim than I can get on my best day." "He's not a dickhead," Jenny said, smiling at Jammer. "You think I'm a dickhead?" She laughed. "No, Jammer, you're not a dickhead. I was just teasing." He seemed relieved. "We've already agreed you're a pig, okay?" His sheepish grin turned to fake pout. Say this for Jammer, he could take as well as he got. Frankly, if I was a chick, I'd find him cute and endearing and funny and all of those things that women seemed to want in men. And he's definitely better looking than me, so I found it hard to stomach Jenny's assessment. Jenny seemed to be reading my mind, though. Maybe staring at Jammer with a pondering look gave it away. "Listen, boys," she said. "Neither of you really has a clue what a woman wants. You both have a general idea what women want, but not what an individual, specific woman wants, okay?" Jammer seemed game, and I was willing to play along with it, so we waved her on. "It's like this," she said, leaning over the table and talking lower. "You, Jammer, you're like the little boy that women want to play mommy with. You're petulant, funny, you can take a joke and laugh at yourself, and you don't take things all too seriously. You need someone--and I mean if you're thinking long term here--you need someone who's like you. Someone who needs to keep things light and fun and spontaneous. Anyone who says opposites attract is full of shit. Opposites attract initially, but end up getting on each other's nerves after awhile. So that's the type of woman you need." Jammer seemed to actually give this some thought for a moment. "So you're saying," he started, "you're saying . . . . If she's really smart and intense and ducks in a row on everything, she's not going to find me attractive?" Jenny shook her head. "Oh no," she responded. "She'll find you attractive, all right. Hell, you're a good lookin' guy. A lot like Tom Brady without the dimpled chin. Big, handsome, great smile, dark hair. The whole package." Jammer preened like a prize swan at this, but her next statement shot him right down. "But she'll be the one to dump you. Not the other way around. You'll keep going to the well so long as you get laid, but she'll dump you regardless of how good the sex is." Now the fawning chest puffery was gone. Jammer actually thought about this, then shrugged. "And if I don't want to find someone and settle down? If I don't care if it's long term?" "Then you need to decide, on those nights when there is no warm body next to you in that big old house of yours, whether you're lonely or alone. Some people don't mind being alone. Some people, though, get lonely when there's no one else to tell about their day." "Jesus," he said, gulping his beer. "I didn't drag you here tonight to think about all this serious shit." Jenny and I grinned at his discomfort. "But as long as we are," Jammer said, taking the last gulp of his beer, "why don't you tell me what type of woman is perfect for our little Timmy here." I held my hands up defensively. "Whoa, fellas," I said. But Jenny's eyes had fixed on me. "Someone who cares about him as much as he cares about her," she said. "A bit trite, don't you think?" Jammer challenged. "Why don't we start with his looks. If I'm Tom Brady, who's Tim? Barney Fife?" Jenny shook her head. "Jackson Browne." "The singer?" Jammer said. "Folk dude from the seventies?" She nodded. "He looks a lot like him. Hair's shorter, but the build and face are about the same. But it's more." "How so?" I asked. "He's more introspective. The silent watcher type. Enjoys company, but doesn't need to be--doesn't want to be--the center of attention." Jenny took a sip of her beer, looking at me as she spoke. Her eyes seemed troubled, like she didn't much like what she was describing in me. "He's the kind of man a woman--the right woman--doesn't want to baby or mother. She just wants to hold him in front of the fire on cold winter nights. To just enjoy being with him. To cook dinner with him and laugh together about their day." Jammer and I were silent when she finished. Her telling of it was so sad, somehow, and I knew why. I'm pretty sure Jammer picked up on it, too. Jenny was an achiever. She loved her job, the stress, the long hours, solving all of the problems in the office. Sure, she could screw like a minx on a Saturday night, but that was only after putting in another six or seven hours at the office. And she had taken off early on the three Sundays we'd been together, which meant she'd probably gone home and prepared for the shitstorm her week was bringing. In other words, she'd never be the kind of person for me. Maybe not for Jammer, for that matter. "Cheer up, Tim," she said, putting her hand atop mine. "I was honest from day one. Now that I know you a little better, I'm pretty sure I've hit the hammer on the head, right?" I nodded. She was right, and I saw that. "So Saturday night is off?" She nodded. "It'll only make it harder for you if we keep up, don't you think?" Jammer decided now was the time to introduce some levity. "So that means you'll give me a shot?" he trumpeted, slapping his hand on the table. "It's about goddamned time." I smiled. Jenny, of course, was right. I could already feel myself becoming too attached. I'd been disappointed we never talked or spent any time together doing anything but screwing. Jammer could do that; he could just have casual sex with someone and not need more. I now realized, for the first time, that I just wasn't wired that way. Sex is awesome, particularly with Jenny, but it left me wanting more. The real problem was whether I'd ever change to become more patient. Every time I got a blowjob, did the donor have to get an engagement ring? Was sex enough to just hook me into thinking I was in love? "So what d'ya say, Jen?" Jammer continued. "Saturday night?" She laughed, shaking her head. "No, Jammer," she said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm gonna need a lot more time than that to recover from my bouts with Tim here." I flashed Jammer a grin at this one. "Still friends?" Jenny said to me. "Forever," I said, squeezing her hand now. "And thanks." "Don't mention it," she said. "Though I can tell you, I'm definitely going to miss-- " "Oh no," Jammer whispered, interrupting her. We looked at him, then followed his eyes to the door. Jenny said, "Is that-- " "Nina," I confirmed. And she had seen us and was walking straight at our table. I felt Jenny's hand squeeze mine again, then start to disentangle. But I held onto her hand, not letting it go. I wasn't sure I could do this alone. But then another thought occurred to me, one that I decided to act on. I stood, letting go of Jenny's hand and turning to both of them. "Night now," I said, and started walking toward Nina. As I approached, her smile got brighter and she raised her hand to wave. I couldn't help but notice that there was no wedding ring on her finger, which surprised me. I knew she and Steve had married within weeks of the divorce. "Hey, Nina," I said, approaching her. "Hi, Tim," she responded. And I just walked right on past. Before she could react, I was disappearing through the kitchen, out the back door, and into my Jeep. There you go, Nina. Take that. How's it feel to have someone you supposedly love blow you off with nary a care? Sucks, huh? TWENTY-ONE Nicole was even more quiet than normal the next morning. All efforts to get her to talk were met with monosyllabic responses and grunts. By the time afternoon clean up arrived, I was tired of it. "Fine," I said to her back as she loaded the dishwasher. "I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have gotten you roped into a dinner party without asking you first. I just thought, you know, it would be fun to just get together and cook for some family." Her shoulders slumped as she went still. "C'mon, Nicole," I continued, pleading. "I'll do it however you want. You want to cancel the whole thing, no problem. You want just me to do the cooking? That's fine, too. I just thought . . . . Well, I don't really know what I thought. I just don't need you all pissed off about it though, okay?" She turned, her face nervous, and leaned back against the counter, her hands on each side of her ass. We stared at each other for a few moments, her mouth starting to say something several times before she managed to speak. "I've never cooked any French food," she finally said. I smiled. "You got anything particular in mind?" "Beef bourguignon?" I nodded, running through the timeline in my mind. The Bar and Grill Pt. 03 "Perfect for a cold winter night. But that takes quite a bit of time," I said. "I can probably start it in the morning, though. You can help me finish it when you get there in the afternoon." She shook her head. "No. If I'm going to learn to make something French, I should be in on it from the beginning, right?" I nodded. "Suppose so." "Is ten too late?" "About perfect." With that, she turned back and finished the dishes while I mopped and wiped off counters. The next day, Friday morning, we cut ten pounds of chuck roast into two-inch cubes and made a simple burgundy wine marinade with crushed garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaves. That night, I told her I'd swing over to her parents' house the next morning to pick her up. And before I knew it, Saturday morning was there. The start of the day that would change my life. In ways both good and bad. TWENTY-TWO We entered the kitchen through the garage, and Nicole stopped to take off her snowy shoes and layers of jackets. December in northern Illinois can get cold. "Hey, little man," she murmured as Ernie did his best to jump into her arms. She bent down and petted him. "What's your name?" "That's Ernie," I told her, throwing my jacket over a stool and going to the refrigerator to pull out the marinating beef and other ingredients we'd need. "This is nice," Nicole said, holding Ernie in her arms as she stood and walked into the kitchen. Ernie was doing his best to drown her in vigorous licks all over her face. I followed her eyes, pleased I'd gotten up early enough to get the house cleaned. "Tour?" I offered. She nodded, putting Ernie down before he licked her skin off. We went from room to room of my home. Okay, house. It was still lacking any personal warmth after Nina and the girls had packed it up and trucked it off with them. Ernie followed Nicole like a, well, love sick puppy dog. Traitor. You'd think I didn't spend every night trying to sleep over his rumbling snores. Once done with the tour, we went back to the kitchen and got started. Two hours later, the bourguignon was braising in the oven; the dough for the cheese puff appetizer was resting; the pears for dessert were cooling in their poaching liquid; and the croutons and chunks of slab bacon for the Salad Lyonnaise were prepared. "So that's it, huh?" Nicole said, sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar across the counter from me. "That's what?" "That's all French cooking is?" I laughed. "No," I said. "That's all French bistro cooking is. Simple ingredients prepared simply." "That salad, though. Salad Lyonnaise. Croutons, bacon, frisee, and poached egg? An egg on a salad? I mean, you promised to go easy on my dad, right?" "Wait 'til you taste it, little girl," I said. "It's like bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast except it's in a salad." She laughed. "Figure out a way to melt a pound of cheddar cheese on it and he'll really like it." Nicole was cheery, which surprised me. She'd originally seemed upset about doing this, but now she was as relaxed as I'd ever seen her. I decided not to push it, regardless of the number of questions begging to be asked by me and answered by her. So we said little when she got up and we cleaned the kitchen together. By one-thirty, there was nothing to do except wait until five when everyone showed up. "Ideas?" I said. She shook her head. "Want me to run you home? Come back and get you in a few hours?" She pondered this before answering. "No sense in that. They're probably all napping in front of the television." "Wine? Beer?" "Too early." "Lunch?" "Too late. We'd never eat this monster meal we just prepared." I stood looking at her, waiting for her to offer some ideas of her own. She sipped her coffee, which was cold as ice by now, and waited me out. "You're not helping here," I said. She smiled. "Wanna just talk?" "Sure. About what?" "Your life," she said over her shoulder, walking into the living room and sitting on the love seat. She curled her stocking feet up to the base of her bottom, cradling her legs in her arms. I followed, splaying out on the couch with my feet on the coffee table. "What about my life?" I said. "Well," she started, drawing it out while she chose her words. "I suppose I already know all the . . . the bad parts. Why don't you tell me about the good parts? The things you like to do and stuff." "Fair enough," I said. "So long as you tell me your favorite things, too." "Deal," she agreed. And that's how it started. Two hours of talking about our favorite things. Colors? Blue for me, yellow for her. Music? We both liked classic rock and most modern rock. We agreed rap is evil, and we disagreed on classic country; she liked the female singers like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn while I loved Waylon, Willie, Merle, Johnny, and--of course, seeing as Ernie was named for him--the incomparable Ernest Tubb. She loved Italian cuisine, my preference was Thai. However, we both loved sandwiches, the weirder the ingredients the better the sandwich, and all movies in all genres. Her favorite movie was "Singin' In the Rain," mine was the John Wayne classic "McClintock!" All told, I was amazed how many things we seemed to have in common. And there were enough dissimilarities to keep the answers real enough to be believed. Somehow, the afternoon just slipped away with the two of us talking and reminiscing about fond memories and the like. Things took a strange turn, though, when I asked her what she wanted to do with her life. "Meaning?" she said. "You know," I explained. "Career wise." She looked troubled. "Well, I really like what I'm doing now," she started. "Particularly the cooking part of things. Can't say I'm too thrilled with waitressing, but I really like the cooking." She smiled. "It took me by surprise, to tell the truth." "Don't see why. You're really good at it," I admitted. "A little professional training, you could run your own place." She nodded. "That's not gonna happen, though." "Why not?" She looked at me like I was a dumb ass, which I was. "Tim, I've got a little boy to raise. Money's not growing on trees here, and I've got to make sure he's taken care of before I worry about everything I want to do." I nodded, trying to smile like I understood. "And now," she continued, her voice going softer, "it's about to get way worse." "How so?" She looked at me, her lips tightening in thought before she spoke. "Mom and Dad are putting the house up for sale. Downsizing once my brother's gone in June. Once they sell it, I'm gonna have to find a place of my own. That's gonna make things even tighter." I pondered this for a few moments. I was really giving her as many hours as I could. Sure, I could take away some hours from Uncle Jack, and he probably would be glad to be rid of some of them, but they wouldn't be enough to make up the difference. "Your Mom and Clara still gonna do the babysitting after the house sells?" She nodded. "They're staying local. Neither of them wants such a big house anymore is all. They want something that won't take so much of their time to keep up." "Well," I said, drawing out the word while deciding whether to spill my initial reaction out loud. She raised her eyebrows at me. "You could move in here," I finally said. "You and Alistair, that is." If the last you're-a-dumb-ass look was obvious, this one was over the top. Then she laughed. "I'm serious," I said. "There's plenty of room. You've seen it all. There's two bedrooms all the way across the house from my bedroom. Full bath between them. You could live here with no problem." "Oh yeah," she scoffed, "and just what would I have to do in exchange for this? Huh?" I knew what she meant, and it both bothered me and pissed me off. "I'm not asking you to sleep with me, Nicole," I said. That was only partly true; I admit I was becoming intrigued by the notion of at least dating her. Still, I wouldn't ask for such a tit-for-tat, so to speak. She seemed skeptical at my response, though. I sighed. "Listen," I said. "Do I like you? Sure. Yeah, I like you. Do I think you're pretty? No doubt. But am I telling you to move in here so I can . . . charge you. . . ." "Then what's in it for you?" she said. "Why?" "It won't be totally free," I said. "I'll make you pay rent--probably the gas bill or electric bill, which is about three hundred a month total in the winter--and I'll want you to keep it all clean. Frankly, cleaner than I clean it. I'll do the outside stuff, lawnmowing and snow plowing and stuff, and you keep the inside clean. It's just me here, and this is a big place to take care of on my own. You'd be a real help." She smiled. "Your laundry?" I shook my head, relaxing at her sudden change in demeanor. "I don't want you anywhere near my dirty underwear, if you don't mind. A man's got to have his secrets." She nodded. "And how do I know you're telling the truth?" she said. "About the other part." "You don't. Then again, you're free to leave at any time, too. And if it was because of shit like that, you'd be telling everyone and I'd lose friends, business, and your Aunt Clara. You really think I'd risk all of that?" She shrugged. "Just think about it, okay?" "Okay," she said. "But if I say yes, when would I move in?" "Whenever you want," I said. She nodded, then looked at the clock. "Shouldn't we be checking on something?" she said, getting up and going toward the kitchen. We spent the next hour making final preparations for the dinner guests. Final touches on the food, setting the table, decanting some Burgundy wine for the main course and Port for the dessert. The cheese puffs--gougeres, if you're French and are getting pissed off that I used bacon in the Lyonnaise--were just finishing as the doorbell rang. "What smells so good?" Willie asked, the delight obvious in his voice. "It's got cheese, Daddy," Nicole told him. "Then you know it's gonna be good," he said, walking past us into the kitchen and the smell of heaven. TWENTY-THREE The dinner was an unqualified success. Both Willie and Leon agreed that them French maybe knew a thing or two about beef stew and salads and such. Clara was amazed at how well Port went with spiced, poached pears with Roquefort. "Never understood that whole wine and cheese thing until this," she'd noted, her eyes wide open at the realization. Willie, Leon, Nicole, and I were sitting around the coffee table, drinking beer, chatting, and watching college basketball from the corners of our eyes while Gertie and Clara--who insisted they had to contribute something--were putting the leftovers into tupperware containers and loading the dishwasher. When the phone rang, Clara called out that she'd get it, and I let her. "Tim," she said, appearing in the living room with a frown on her face, holding the phone toward me. I gave her a look. "Nina," she said. Jesus Christ! I thought. A perfectly enjoyable evening shot to shit. I stood and nodded toward the bedroom. "I'll get it in there." Clara nodded, and I excused myself with promises to return in a minute. "Yes, Nina," I said into the phone. "Tim?" "Yes, Nina, it's me." "Are you," she started, fumbling, "do you. . . . Is this a good time?" "No," I said. "I've got guests over." "Oh." Then she was quiet. After a few moments, I lost my patience to wait her out. "You called," I reminded her. "Did you want something?" She took another moment before answering. "Tim," she said. "I was wondering if . . . . Can we get together and, well, maybe talk about things?" "Like what?" I said. "We're divorced. There's really not a whole lot to talk about, you know?" "Things have changed," she said. I could hear her sniffling her tears, trying to maintain her composure. "I know now that I've made a huge mistake. I was wrong. Wrong to do that to you. Wrong to try going back to Steve." I waited her out, too angry to respond. Now she sees it? Seven fucking months after springing it on me and four or five months after we're divorced? "The girls," she continued over my silence. "They really want to see you, Tim. They miss you." I gave a derisive snort at that one. "Yeah. Sure. They miss walking all over me and treating me like shit." "It wasn't like that, Tim," she pleaded. "They were just confused and hurt. By the divorce and all. And they maybe took it out on you too much. But they loved you. They still love you. And they want to see you." "It's over, Nina," I said, trying to keep my voice low. "You made sure of it, okay? This was your choice, and you made it." She was crying now, hiccupping as she tried to speak. "I just want to meet with you. Talk with you, Tim. Is that too much to ask? Just once? I mean, after that night . . . . I wanted to tell you I was sorry. But you didn't even come home, Tim. We've never talked about it except that night." I closed my eyes listening to her. She was hurting. A lot. She now saw what everyone--including Uncle Jack, who you'd think was just an insensitive, gruff old codger--saw from the day she'd left me. A part of me wanted to climb through the telephone line and hold her, hug her, and tell her everything would be all right, she'd get through it. Another part wanted to climb through the line and choke her dumb ass to death for leaving me for this dream of hers. "I've got guests right now," I said. "Please," she begged. "I'll think about it," I said. "That's all I'll promise, okay? I'll think about it." She sniffled a few times. "Okay, Tim." "Good night, Nina." "Good night, Tim," she said. "Hope I didn't spoil your night." "Don't worry about it," I said, because she had. I went back to the living room where most everyone did their best to pretend nothing had happened. Gertie was now next to Nicole on the love seat, and they were talking in low whispers. Willie and Leon were watching the basketball game drinking their beers. Clara was the only one to look me in the eye when I returned. "What did she want?" I shook my head. "Nothing." "Tim," she said. "Really, Clara, I don't want to talk about it now, okay?" "She wants to get back together, doesn't she?" Clara's mother hen feathers were out. "Yeah," I admitted. "She wants to meet." Clara nodded. "And?" "And what?" I said. "You think I'd want to go back with her?" Clara's face told me she thought this possible. "You're just so . . . you know." "Gullible?" I offered. "Dumber than a stump? Jesus, Clara, no way, okay?" She smiled. "Okay." So for the next hour, we all sat around chatting about this and that, here and there, and all sorts of stuff I don't hardly remember. All I remember is when they got up to leave. After everyone had said their thanks and either shook my hand or hugged me, Nicole stayed back for a moment. "That thing we talked about earlier?" she said, a pensive look on her face. I only nodded. "You think maybe I could bring Alistair over sometime? To meet you? Maybe see if the two of you are comfortable around each other?" I smiled. "Sure. Good idea. Just let me know when, okay?" She hesitated for a moment. "What?" I said. "Tomorrow morning maybe?" "Breakfast?" I suggested. "He likes French Toast," she said, the barest trace of a smile curling her lips. "French Toast it is," I said. "Be here by eight thirty." "Until eight thirty then," she promised. TWENTY-FOUR I won't bore you with the next morning. Suffice it to say that little Alistair took a shining to both Ernie and my French Toast, and he seemed okay with me. Nicole seemed to relax about the whole thing, and she told me she'd like to bring him by a few more times to make sure everything was good with Alistair. "I can't run the risk of putting him into a situation like the last one," she explained before leaving. Given that the last prick had beaten her--the last time in front of Alistair--I didn't blame her one bit. In the twelve days leading up to Christmas, Nicole and Alistair dropped by and started spending more time around the house, the time spent there increasing with each trip. Alistair got used to Ernie, Ernie got used to Alistair, and Nicole seemed to be getting comfortable with the whole idea of moving in. It was interesting watching Nicole with Alistair, too. She was far different with her child than Nina had been with the girls. For example, the very first morning, she corrected Alistair several times on how to hold his fork and to chew with his mouth shut while eating his breakfast. "You don't think he's a bit young for that?" I asked. "You're never too young to learn manners," was her simple response. "Even if he can't really do it now, it's important that he learn what to be shooting for, dontcha think?" When Alistair ignored my questions or Nicole's comments, she took his chin in hand, stared at him, and repeated herself or what I had said until he answered. Finally, when she caught me talking down to him--not quite baby talk, but close--she corrected me. "Please don't do that," she said, almost embarrassed, but firm nonetheless. "Do what?" "Talk to him like an adult," she instructed. "Like you'd talk to me. The best way for him to learn to speak properly and act properly is to be spoken to and treated properly. He'll imitate your speech to him and keep talking like that far longer than he should." I only nodded. Jesus, a mother who didn't baby her child, who actually demanded he behave and made no excuses. Granted, she wasn't beating him or overtly punishing him. Still, he was still not yet three years old. All told, a dramatic change from Nina's spoiling of Emily and Nadine. Seeing Nicole and Alistair a few weeknights here and there made those two weeks fly by. Before I knew it, Christmas was upon us. The Bar and Grill, along with every other restaurant and tavern in Grant City, closes at five on Christmas Eve. As a result, the afternoon was packed with factory workers and everyone else off for a few days eager to cram in some drinking before spending the holiday with family. Nicole and I had been run ragged in the kitchen, and once the doors closed we sat at the bar with a drink before tackling the cleaning. "What're you doing tomorrow?" she asked. "Relaxing." "You're not going anywhere? Having anyone over?" I shook my head, then took a sip of my beer. "Orphan." "Well," she started, but I interrupted before she could continue. "No, Nicole. Christmas is for family, not interlopers." "You're not an interloper," she said, her voice soft. I started to say something, but she continued. "We got you a present. Me and Alistair. Not much, but I'd like to give it to you." She turned and looked at me, holding me with her gaze. "You've been real good to us. All of us. I don't like the thought of you at home--alone--on Christmas." Great. I'd gotten nothing for them. Way to make me feel like an asshole. She seemed to read this on my face. "You've already done enough for us, Tim. Really. And probably a lot more, too." That really didn't make me feel a whole lot better. "Dinner?" she pressed. "One?" I held her eyes and saw she wasn't going to leave it alone. I nodded. "One it is. I'll bring something." "Appetizer," she said. "Something good." I chuckled. "I'll try." Ending it there, we went back to get the cleaning done so we could get out of there, her back to her family and me to whatever store was open so I could get some gifts. TWENTY-FIVE At ten the next morning, I was home wrapping the gifts I'd purchased at the last minute when my doorbell rang. I looked over my shoulder and saw Nina huddled there, shivering in the cold on my front porch. The Bar and Grill Pt. 03 Visibly pissed, I went and opened the door. "Merry Christmas," she said, trying to smile. She leaned up to kiss me, but I dodged her efforts. "Sorry," she said. "It's just that, being Christmas and all-- " "Merry Christmas," I said. "What do you want?" She looked around the house. Ernie was on the sofa, his eyes on her but otherwise ignoring her. My pathetic Charley Brown Christmas tree was glowing in the corner, and Christmas music was playing on the stereo. Johnny Mathis singing "O Holy Night." She looked at me, starting to unzip her jacket. She looked a combination of sad and uncomfortable. "You didn't call me back," she said. "No," I said, enjoying her discomfort and making no move to take her jacket. "I didn't." "I was hoping that-- " "Where are the girls?" I interrupted. "With Steve. I had them last night and this morning. Dropped them off with him for the rest of the day." Her eyes were pleading with me to make this a bit easier. Call me what you will, pussy whipped loser or the Spirit of Christmas Present, but the eyes got to me. I took her coat, threw it over the back of the love seat, and waved her into the living room. Seated back on the couch, I resumed wrapping presents when she spoke. "It didn't work, you know," she said. "Me and Steve." I was tying a ribbon around a stack of Disney DVDs for Alistair, not really in the mood to say anything in response. She needed to get something off her chest, let her do the talking. See? I didn't go totally soft here. "Aren't you going to say anything?" she said. She was sniffling, the sign that tears weren't far away. I slid Alistair's presents to the side and looked up at her. "What do you want me to say?" I said. "I'm sorry for you? You and the girls? I am, okay? I'm sorry your marriage with Steve failed. Again." "I want you to say you'll give us another chance," she said, the tears now welling up in her eyes. "I was more than willing to give us a chance," I said. "It was you who never gave us a chance. Instead, you decided to give your ex-husband another chance without really giving us--giving me--a chance. Instead of making yourself happy with me, you decided to toss me away and give him the chance." "It wasn't like that," she pleaded, the tears now spilling over and streaming down her face. Emotions swept through me. I really didn't need this on Christmas morning, and it pissed me off that she'd shown up unannounced on this of all mornings to force the issue. On the other hand, I felt for her. She'd made a mash of things, and now she was paying the piper. Most of all, though, I just felt plain tired. I'd been beating myself up for months over the divorce, over her leaving me to go back with Steve and re-make her family. "Let's be honest here," I said, my frustration coming through. "What we had really wasn't that good. Why the hell would you want to come back to it?" She looked like I'd slapped her. "What do you mean?" she protested. "We were happy. Everything was great." "Yeah. Great. So long as I put up with your shit and with the girls' shit. So long as I was always there to give you everything you wanted and needed and stayed out of the picture when you were busy pining for your lost love." "It wasn't like that," she said, anger flashing in her eyes. "I loved you. I still love you. And-- " "But not enough to give us a real chance," I argued. "Not enough to put aside your first husband and concentrate on me. Not enough to make your girls actually treat me with a little bit of respect in my own fucking home." "I told you: They're angry and confused." "And what did you ever do to help them not be angry and confused? They got to sit here and see you constantly feeling guilty about Steve, constantly apologizing to them for me actually trying to make them listen and behave and do their homework and shit." "It's not that simple." "Bullshit," I yelled. Nina jumped in surprise and a touch of fear. In all our years together, I could count on one hand the times I'd raised my voice. Now, though, my fatigue at her denials was turning to anger. "Will you listen to yourself?" I pressed. "Your whole goddamned notion of how good we were rests on how good it was around here for you and the girls. Fuck me. You could care less how it was for me." "That's not true," she said. "The hell it's not. Tell me one thing about how it was good for me." My eyes flashed, daring her to come up with something. When she said nothing, I continued. "You thought so fucking little of me that you decided to move out and back with Steve without giving me the courtesy of even telling me. And now that your little dream turned into a nightmare, now that it didn't come true, you want to come back here and just move back in and act as if nothing's happened. Like I should just suck it up and go back to kissing your ass." "You didn't even fight me on it," she said, half anger and half sorrow. "Maybe if you'd tried." "Then nothing would have changed. You'd have still moved back and I'd have felt even shittier about it. No thanks." "So I wasn't worth fighting over?" "Not after you went on dates with him while I was babysitting for you. Not then you weren't." She said nothing, and I let my anger cool as I reached over and slid the jewelry box in front of me. "Who's that for?" she said, seeing the stamp of Lorenz Jewelers on the box. I looked at her, then back to the box in front of me. My answer was automatic, and even surprised me a little. "Someone special," I said. "Do you love her?" I picked up the box and flipped it open, looking at the small gold bracelet within. "Don't really know her yet." "Do I know her?" I shook my head. "So maybe we've still got a chance?" I shot a look at Nina in response to this. "I'm just saying," she said. "You maybe haven't found anyone yet. Maybe you'll just, I don't know, consider dating for awhile? Give us a chance at having a real relationship." I flipped the box shut with a clap and reached for the wrapping paper. "Please?" Nina whispered. "No," I said, cutting off a strip of paper big enough to wrap the bracelet in. "There's no chance." "Can you tell me why?" I didn't look at her, concentrating on the wrapping. "Please tell me?" "You remarried him," I said, trimming the paper and taping it before reaching for the ribbon. "We weren't divorced three weeks and you were remarried. Like you couldn't wait to replace me. Here I am, my whole life falling apart with no one, and there you are. Remarried before the ink dried on the divorce decree." "But I . . . . We were . . . . You knew what was going on." "What happened?" I asked. "Why did it fall apart this time? You start cheating again?" Okay, that was unnecessarily mean. The shock on her face told me she thought so, too. I was tiring of this, though, and wanted to make my feelings plain. In short, maybe if I'm a big enough asshole she'll leave me alone. Nina settled down, though, knowing she couldn't get through to me if she got pissed or stormed off. "Well?" I pressed. "It was real good at first," she said. "The girls were happy. Happier than they'd been in ages. And Steve and I were getting along real well. Not as happy as we were--you and I--but getting back into the groove of things. But as the day of the divorce neared, he started getting angry. He'd snap at little things, be angry for no real reason. Mostly at me, at first, but then at be and the girls." She stood and walked to the window, looking at the snow blanketing the back yard as she continued. I put the present aside and watched her as she continued. "I just thought it was nerves at first. You know, like he couldn't wait for the divorce to be over so I'd officially be his again." She turned and looked at me. "And sure enough, he settled down once the divorce was granted. I was pretty relieved, like maybe everything was behind us and we could get on with our lives." She looked back out the window now, avoiding my gaze. "Then he came home about a week later and said we needed to get married. If we were going to really give it a shot again, we needed to be married. He wasn't going to just have me running off like Brenda did. He wanted us officially together. I tried to tell him no, it was too soon, but he insisted. And he told the girls. They were all excited, and so was he. Like they were making the plans without me. So I went along with it. 'What the hell,' I thought. It was, after all, why I'd left you. So I could get married again to Steve." "So it was his idea that you get remarried so soon?" I said. She nodded. "And we did. And then it started again, only different this time. It started with our . . . well, in the bedroom. Steve's not like you. You're all wild and excited and rambunctious, like a kid in a candy story every time. Steve's different. Sometimes he's slow and methodical, patient, tender. Other times, he's aggressive and in control." She looked at me and caught the look on my face. "Kid in a candy store?" I said. She smiled. "Trust me," she replied. "That's a compliment. The way you are, I always knew I turned you on. It made me feel pretty and sexy and loved." "But he's tender and romantic?" "You're both romantic," she flustered. "Just in different ways. Your's was a mix. There was always tender, but it was mixed in with everything else, you know?" I didn't, but I didn't really want to hear about it any more, either. "So anyway," she continued, looking back out the window, "the tender and romantic disappeared altogether. Every time we . . . . He was aggressive. Every time. Quick, to the point. It was angry. When you've been with someone long enough, enough times, you know. And he was angry, using our bedroom to take out that anger on me." She turned to look at me, then walked back to the couch. She was reliving the re-collapse of her remarriage, and it was visibly taking its toll. "Then the anger started again, at both me and the girls. When I tried to talk to him about it, he told me to get over it. He wouldn't talk. When he would talk, he'd say things like, 'What's wrong? Leaving me again?' Stuff like that." Nina brushed some tears from her face. "Then, about a month ago, while the girls were with my folks, we had it out. And he told me I was a useless cunt. I'd cheated on him and destroyed our marriage. When I told him I was sorry, that we were together again now and I wouldn't do it again, he called me a fucking liar. Said I'd done the same thing to you I'd done to him, so how could he trust me. He'd trusted me once and I'd ruined it. You'd trusted me once and I'd shit all over you. Now I expected him to trust me again, but I hadn't really changed." She fixed me with her eyes, her face earnest. "That's when I knew I'd been a fool. That's when I really saw how bad I'd treated you and given up my best shot--and the girls' best shot--at a really happy, loving family. Steve and I, we'd never be a loving family again. You, though, you were the one who gave me happiness." "Bingo, Nina," I snapped. "I gave you happiness. I gave the girls happiness. You could give a shit whether any of you actually gave me any happiness." "But Tim," she pleaded, "we were so good together. Even you have to admit it." "Were, Nina," I said. "Past tense. That's over now. Water under the bridge. Don't you see that?" She shook her head. "No, Tim, not past tense. We can be happy again. All of us. Don't you see? You're not Steve. You can forgive. I've seen it in you. You're patient and caring and loving. You know why I did this, and it wasn't to hurt you. You know that." "But it did hurt me," I said. "Intentions don't count. Actions count. And you ripped my heart out without a thought." "But I did think about you. I did hurt. You think I wanted to hurt you?" I shook my head. "No, you didn't want to hurt me. That wasn't your goal. But you damned well knew when you went back to him that it would hurt me, and it didn't stop you. Hell, if you shoot a machine gun off in a crowd, you may not intend to hit anyone, but you should damned well know that you will, right?" Just then the buzzer went off on the stove, telling me my sweet peppers were done. I stood, looking down at her. "Sorry, Nina. You just can't take some things back. Sometimes when you break something, it just stays broken." I went into the kitchen and took the peppers from the oven. I heard Nina's footsteps following me. "But you won't even try, Tim? You won't even try to fix it?" I busied myself pulling antipasto ingredients from the refrigerator and arranging them all on a platter. Prosciuto, capicolla, shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano, marinated olives and mushrooms, meatballs, and sweet peppers. I spoke as I worked. "Didn't you learn your lesson yet, Nina? You and Steve got divorced and you married me. Then you left me and married Steve. That didn't work out because too much had happened. And now you're looking to come back and remarry me? After all that's now happened in the last six, seven months?" I looked at her as I placed the finished platter on the counter in front of me. "That's one merry-go-round I'm not interested in getting back on again, okay?" I said. Her lips quivered as she held back her tears. "Please?" I shook my head. "Sorry, but I'm not the same Tim you left seven months ago. I'm the new Tim. The Tim that wants someone who puts Tim toward the front of their list." I got out the huge, fancy ice cream maker to start freezing the pumpkin pie ice cream. (Quick aside, but you really need to close your eyes and just savor the thought of a spicy pumpkin ice cream with chunks of gingersnap crusts. Sounds really, really good, doesn't it? Trust me, it is.) "I've changed, Nina," I continued as she started crying. "I forgave you a lot while we were married. I was content then with being second fiddle. But I'm not content now. I'm not someone's second fiddle. Not to their children and definitely not to their dreams. Don't get me wrong. I expect the children to come first, but not to the degree they did when we were together. Not to the point where my needs and feelings--my self-respect, for Chrissake--are totally ignored." I poured the chilled pumpkin custard ice cream base into the machine and flipped it on to churn. That done, I walked back to the living room, standing there as Nina followed me in looking all hang dog. "I'm sorry," I continued. "I really would like to have given you a better Christmas present here. But you're asking for one present I'm not giving you again." She nodded through her tears. "I'm sorry, too," Nina said. "I just wish you'd give me another chance. At least think about it." "Wishing won't make it so," I said. Nina bundled back up in her jacket and scarf. She looked tiny and fragile, her eyes red with crying and her lips trembling as she tried to hold her emotions in check. I wanted to take her into my arms. Swear to God, I forgot everything I'd said over the past half hour and just wanted to comfort her and tell her it would be all right. She placed her hand on the door knob, then turned to me one last time with hope in her face. I felt the pull, felt my body wanting to go to her, but I remained frozen in place. "Merry Christmas," she said, and was gone. TWENTY-SIX Nicole and Alistair moved in on New Year's Day. It was the easiest day to get her cousins to help with the heavy lifting, and it gave us some time to get her stuff set up before going back to full-time busy the next day. Shortly after moving in, Nicole and I discussed some changes to the scheduling to make everything easier for everyone. First, while she waitressed two nights a week--she was back to just Tuesdays and Fridays and alternating Saturday nights, cooking the rest of the weekdays--I agreed to pick Alistair up at her mom's house and take care of him until she got home at nine thirty or so. This saved having him staying so late with Gertie and Willie, and it was easier to get him to sleep at an earlier time. Selfishly, as well, I missed having something to do on those nights, and little Alistair was a welcome bundle of energy to feed and take care of and read to. Downside? I got pretty tired of Disney cartoons. I mean really, how many times can someone watch "Aladdin?" With Nicole and Alistair in the house, I also took to cooking at home again and eating more regularly. Nicole was upset at first because she wanted to pay at least her and Alistair's share of the groceries, but that was impractical. I just took things home from the restaurant to cook and wrote it off as a business expense. (Please don't tell the IRS!) And with the exception of milk, which I rarely drank and Nicole usually bought anyway, Alistair didn't eat enough to really make a difference in costs. So there we were, like a family in some respects but more like roommates living our own separate lives. On the nights and weekends we were all home together, we all did our own things. I usually watched the same boring shit on television or old movies on DVD while Nicole read to Alistair and, after he was put to bed, stayed in her own room reading. Gradually, though, things started to change. I'm not really sure when, but it was early March when things got strange. "Nic?" I said one Saturday after coming in from snow blowing a late snowfall from the driveway. "Yeah?" she said, barely looking up from the book in her hand. Neither Alistair nor Ernie were there; they were down for their nap together. Ernie hardly slept with me anymore, preferring to snuggle into little Alistair. "Who's that car outside all the time?" She froze. "There's been a car around here a lot lately," I said. "A black Toyota." She put the book down and got a really scared look. "How long's this been happening?" I thought it over. "Three, maybe four times a week for the past month or so." She didn't say anything, but her jaw was grinding. "Something wrong? Someone you know?" "I think it's Randy." "Who's Randy?" She turned away before answering. "My ex. The one who used to . . . . I should have told you." I sat on the sofa next to her. "Might as well tell me now, huh?" I wasn't angry, but this didn't sound so good. The look on her face when she looked at me was a mixture of fear, embarrassment, and nervous energy. "I met Randy just before Alistair--my husband Alistair--was murdered. Maybe three months before. I worked with him in the office at TelCof. He's maybe four, five years older. He was always coming on to me, but in a kind of innocent way. Nothing ridiculous, and I always blew it off. I was married, y'know?" I nodded. Standard workplace games that don't really mean shit unless someone acts on them. "He always said he'd make me his forever," she continued. "I thought he was joking. The way he said it then, it seemed like a joke. But it wasn't." She took a deep breath. "Anyway, then Alistair was . . . he died. And I was really frantic, y'know? Here I was, twenty-two, little baby boy less than six months old, my husband of a few years is found . . . found dead in an alley behind his factory. He was working third shift then. Someone stabbed him, just left him there. They found him a few hours later." Her face was the emotionless mask I'd seen so many times before, her voice low and steady, like she'd told this story so many times she had it memorized and could get through it without breaking up. I put my hand on her forearm and gave her a reassuring squeeze. She tensed, her eyes flashed at me, then she bit her lower lip, relaxed, and went back to her tale. "So at first, Randy was just there. Consoling. Always dropping by my desk to make sure I was doing okay. Then he started dropping by my apartment. I was alone. In Frontier City. Mom and Dad got over a lot, but they couldn't come over all the time. And when they weren't there, he started turning up. He was real good with Alistair. Patient, playing with him. Even changed his diapers a few times." The Bar and Grill Pt. 03 She looked at me and smiled. "How's that going, by the way? When you babysit?" "He's almost potty trained," I said. "Thanks be to Jesus." The smile got a little brighter, then slowly faded. "So maybe seven or eight months after Alistair died, he starts taking me out for a drink or two. Then it's dinner here and there. Pretty soon, he kisses me. And I kiss back. Then . . . you know . . . ." "I know," I said. "You can skip this part." "So we moved in together, and that's when it started. Real slow at first, but then the comments started. 'You were sure giving ole Johnny the eye at work today,' or, 'So, you gonna try fuckin' your way to the top the way you're hanging all over Stafford?' and stuff like that. Joking at first, kind of, but getting nastier and a lot more frequent as time went on." Her eyes started welling up with tears, and she brushed them away with her hand. "Then he hit me. Hard. A backhand across the face. We'd been out, and he'd been drinking. He said I was a slut who was chasing after every guy there. I wasn't, but he wouldn't listen. He just got madder and madder and then, out of the blue, he knocks me across the room. Then he's over there, over me, and his face is a mask of hatred. But then, it must've been the look on my face or something, but then he just gets a look of horror, too. What he'd just done. And he's crying and begging me to forgive him and everything." Her eyes turned to the television screen. "I should've left the bastard then," Nicole said. "Right after that first time. But I didn't. I believed him, that he was sorry and it wouldn't happen again. And for a month or so, it didn't. But then it did. It did happen again. When I told him I was going to leave, he told me he wouldn't let me. He'd find me and he'd kill me. Or he'd take Alistair and I'd never see him again." She turned and faced me. "After that, he knew he'd won and the slaps and punches and kicks were a lot more regular. Coffee not ready when he got up? Punch Nicole in the stomach. Smile at any man, no matter why or even if I'm just laughing at a joke? Take a belt to the slut Nicole and teach her a lesson. And on and on." "Why didn't you tell someone?" I asked. "Who?" she said. "My parents? What're they gonna do? Tim, you don't know what it's like. What it's like to be all alone with your baby, then you aren't anymore. And when you move in, and everything's going good for awhile and then it's not, it's like you almost just accept it. I mean, I just leave, where the hell was I gonna go? And then, to make it worse, I saw his face. He meant it. I didn't really care what he did to me, but he threatened to take my baby. And he was serious." "So what happened?" I asked. "The last time he went overboard," she said. "I don't even remember what set him off. Just a bad day at work or whatever. And he really went after me, put me in the hospital. And Alistair was there. He'd always done it when Alistair was with my folks or babysitters or at least asleep in the other room. But this time, he was there. And that's when I knew I couldn't take this anymore. That sooner or later, whether I stayed or not, he was going to do something to Alistair. So I pressed charges." "What happened?" "He was thrown in jail. His lawyer got him a real good plea bargain, but he still had to do some time. Six months. And I was given an Order of Protection. He's not allowed to come near me or call me or anything for two years." "That's still in place, right?" She nodded. "Another thirteen, fourteen months or so." "And the black Toyota?" "Yeah," she said. "That's what he drove." I nodded. "I'm sorry," she said. "I should've told you this before we moved in. I just didn't really think . . . I didn't . . . I thought he'd stay away." I shrugged. "Don't worry," I said. "I'll take care of it." "How?" "I just will," I assured her. "You don't worry about it, okay?" So the next day I called Jammer. And he called somebody--a pal in the State's Attorney's office--and he called somebody with the coppers, and they started staking out my place when they had the time. Every time I saw the black Toyota, I took down the license number, date, time, and where it was and called the cop's name I'd been given. The cop told me to keep doing that so they could show a pattern, and he'd drive over and nonchalantly drive past the house. That usually led to the Toyota--and boyfriend-of-the-year--taking off. But Nicole was a lot nicer and more open from then on, too. It was like a weight was being lifted now that someone was doing something about Randy. Soon, our evenings were spent chatting about our days or movies or books or how soon until Alistair would be out of diapers for good. We became less like roommates and more like a family. Without the sex, of course. Then again, Uncle Jack always said that getting married wasn't exactly the perfect cure for a nonexistent sex life. And with the exception of three exciting weekends with Jenny months before, my sex life was nonexistent. TWENTY-SEVEN I was just getting ready to leave the Bar and Grill on a Friday evening three weeks after the black Toyota conversation when I heard arguing at the bar. I made my way through the dining room, where every head was turned to the bar, and saw Nicole trying to break free of a guy about my size and age. "I said we need to talk, Nicole," he was hissing as she tried to free her arms from his grip. A few of the regulars--big, middle aged factory workers with beer bellies and massive forearms--were hovering nearby, making sure things didn't get out of hand and ready for direction from Moe or me. "We got a problem here?" I said as I approached. "Not your business," he said, not bothering to turn my way. "'Fraid it is my business," I said, "since it's my bar you're making a scene in it, mister." He held the struggling Nicole tightly, but his face turned to me and sneered. "This your shithole?" he said. "You Randy?" I said. He was surprised for a brief second, then he smiled. "So you know. You know this ain't none of your business." "But it is my business," I said. "First, because she works for me. Second, because she's a friend of mine. And third, because you're doing this in my place. Any of those three things say I can pretty much deal with this however I want to." "Yeah?" he said. "And what the fuck're you gonna do about it?" I turned to Moe and said, "Call the cops. Tell them there's a guy here, driving a black Toyota, license one jay three two two, and he's violating an order of protection, trespassing, and committing . . . Jammer?" I said to my buddy in the corner. "That would be battery and unlawful restraint, Tim." "What he said," I said to Moe, who was already dialing before I'd finished speaking. Shooting a look at my bartender calling the cops, Randy let go of Nicole and turned to me. "You shouldn't be gettin' in the middle of this," he said, turning his shoulder back in preparation for a punch. Before I could react, Lonnie Mackie, Bill Shelton, and another big guy they'd been bringing in with them lately had Randy held tightly. "I think we need to go outside and wait for the police," Lonnie rumbled into Randy's ear. "Don't you?" He tried to twist away, but they held on tight and dragged him through the door and to the parking lot. "You okay?" I said, turning to Nicole. She wasn't. She was shaking like a leaf, her face a mask of terror. "C'mon, babe," Jammer said, placing his hand on her elbow and guiding her toward the kitchen, "let's get you something to drink and settle you down." He looked at me and jerked his head to the parking lot, then guided her toward the kitchen. I saw Clara unfreeze in the dining room and start telling everyone the excitement was over, and most of the heads turned back to their meals and their dinner companions. I went outside to wait with douchebag, Lonnie, Bill, and the other Samaritan. "You kick me one more time you little fuck," I heard Lonnie say from fifteen feet away, "and I swear to God I'm gonna knock your fucking teeth down your scraggly ass little throat." That didn't seem to stop Randy from fighting against his temporary jailers, though the sight of me did. "So you're the one she's fucking now," he said. "Who the fuck you think you are coming to my restaurant and pulling this shit?" I said. "You're gonna regret this," he said. His face looked crazy. Hatred, anger, fear, laughter, it was all there at once. "I'm gonna get you fuckers." The big guy I didn't know hit him in the guts, hard, and poor Randy looked ready to puke. "You ain't gonna do shit, dickhead," he said. "We ain't little girls like she was. You wanna pick on someone, you pick on men. Not women and babies and old ladies and small puppies, you pathetic little fuck. Y'hear me?" "Fuck you," he said, spit flying from his mouth. A cop car pulled in and Sgt. Moss stepped out. "Evening, Tim," he said. "Lonnie, Bill, Ted." We all nodded in response. "This him?" Moss said. "They hit me," Randy shouted. "Right in the stomach. Probably got a bruise." "Shut up," he said, then turned to me. "What happened, Tim." "You know Nicole, right? The one that's been working here for awhile?" He nodded. "Clara's niece. Sure, I know her." "She has an Order of Protection against this asshole. Still active. And he came here tonight and grabbed her and wouldn't let her go. When I told him to stop and leave, he wouldn't do it." "That where these fellas come in?" "Yeah," I said. "He was taking a swing at me. They restrained him and brought him out here." "We just stopped him from hitting Tim," the guy named Ted said, "and from getting away before you got here." "This all true?" Moss said to Randy. "I'm not saying nothing," he spat at Moss. "I get a lawyer. And I'm not saying nothing without his say so." Moss nodded, then turned back to me. "The girl inside?" I nodded. "Why don't you go see if she's got a copy of that Order on her." I did, and she did. A minute later, Moss was reading the Order. "You just fucking stupid or what, son?" he said to Randy. "Seems pretty clear to me you're supposed to stay away from her, right?" Randy just glared at him in response. "Okay," Moss said, pulling his handcuffs out and walking around Randy to cuff him, "here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna arrest you and charge you with violating this OP and battery and unlawful restraint and trespassing and anything else I can think up between now and the time I get all of this paperwork drawn up. You're gonna wait in the jail while I get this. But this is Friday night, so we probably won't have anyone free to get you down to the county jail in time for Saturday morning arraignment. Matter of fact, I can promise you we won't get you there on time, got it?" "I wanna press charges," Randy shouted. "These fuckers punched me and hit me. I want them arrested." "Shut the fuck up," Moss said, his voice bored. "Anyway, because we can't get you there on time for arraignment tomorrow morning, that means you're gonna be sitting in jail until Monday morning until your bail is set. So you're gonna spend the weekend in jail. Got it?" "You can't do that," Randy protested, the weekend in bars now looming big. "Watch me," Moss said, taking Randy by the arms and getting him in the back of the squad car. "Thanks, fellas," he said. "Have the girl come down after work to swear out the complaint." "Does she have to?" I said, not sure Nicole was up to it. "I didn't see it, so someone who saw it all will have to do it," he explained. "I saw it all, Mike," I said. "So did we," the three big guys chimed in. "Can any of us sign the complaint?" He shrugged. "So long as you saw it all, sure. Don't make no difference. She'll probably have to testify, though. Sooner or later." "Call me at home," I said. "I'll swing in and sign whatever you want." "Okay," he said. "I'm working a double, so morning's good for me. About eight." I nodded. Back in the bar, I caught Moe's eye and pointed to Lonnie, Bill, and Ted. "Free drinks all night," I said. "And a gift certificate so they can take their families out to dinner. Whatever they want to eat." "Sure thing," Moe said. I looked at Ted and remembered the punch he'd given Randy. It was a good punch. "Get Ted two of them gift certificates, okay?" Ted got a great big, ear-to-ear grin. He knew what it was for. So did Lonnie and Bill, but that didn't stop Lonnie from complaining. "Jesus, Tim, I'll go punch the little prick right now, in front of Moss and the rest of the coppers, if it'll get me another gift certificate." I laughed, then shook their hands while patting their backs and thanking them for covering my ass. What I said somewhere toward the beginning of this tale about good friends in a small town? This is what I meant. None of them went to school with me, were related to me, or had ever been to my house for dinner. I'd only learned Ted's name after he helped me. Sure we have our shitheads in small towns. But we also have people who cover your back when the shit hits the fan. If you got that kind of crowd in the big city, then maybe you're as lucky as we are here in Grant City. The Bar and Grill Pt. 04 AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, here it is, the fourth and final part of The Bar and Grill. Thanks to everyone for bearing with me as this got written and posted. In my defense, though, I haven't kept you waiting as long as DanielQSteele has for "When We Were Married." (Really, DQS, will you please hurry up? We're dying out here waiting to find out what the hell happens next!) Then again, this story is neither as long, complex, nor emotionally packed as DQS's masterpiece, so I should note that it wasn't particularly difficult to write. If you haven't figured out yet by my comment on the first part, this is based on true people and true events. Truth be told, it's based on me. I'm Tim. Sure, I've changed some things here and there--most notably my profession because I wanted to write something more quirky and original than my previous efforts--and I've embellished, added, or deleted facts in numerous places to heighten the drama or humor or, most often, the flow of the story. Still, Tim was me. (HarryinVA, don't feel bad for saying in your comment to part 1 that you hate me; I'll admit I was a dumb ass for much of my life, and the residuals are still there for all to see to this very day.) I'll leave it to the reader to figure out what happened and what didn't in real life, but ninety percent of this is true. That's also why it was so easy to write. I hope you've all enjoyed reading this, and now you probably all understand a little better why I'm as fucked up as I am. In closing, I ask that you all take a moment to comment on the story. Comment on whatever you want: The writing, how much you hated the continuous use of recipes, which characters you liked and disliked, how horrible my own choices in life are. I'd really appreciate your feedback, even if it is just to call me a pathetic wimp. TWENTY-EIGHT By the next morning, the county cops had heard about Randy's arrest, and they filled Moss in on all the other sightings. It was thin, they agreed, but Moss decided to go ahead and draw up separate complaints on each time Randy had been parking outside our house and a final complaint for felony stalking. All told, I signed almost two dozen separate complaints, and Moss told me bail would be set high. All told, I was in an amazingly good mood by the time I returned home at about nine. Both of us had the weekend off, and I was looking forward to making a big breakfast for Nicole, Alistair, and me before spending the day outside getting the landscaping beds cleaned and prepped for the Spring that was now falling upon us. When I walked in the door, I heard the shower shut off in the hallway bathroom. Good, I though, Nicole is up. I went into the kitchen to get going on breakfast when I saw Ernie trot past me down the hall and toward the bathroom. I watched him, smiling. He sure had taken a shining to our new roommates, Nicole almost as much as Alistair. Getting to the door, Ernie scratched at and pawed the door, trying to get Nicole to let him in. She hadn't closed the door all the way, though, and I smiled as the door slowly swung open. Cold pug nose on wet, bare skin had often made for an early morning shocker in my life. The door swung all the way open, though, and my smile quickly changed. Nicole was standing in front of the mirror. Brushing her long wet hair. Totally naked. I watched her reflection in the mirror. The long slow strokes of the brush down her hair, her proud, upturned breasts--little more than a handful but shaped as if by a master sculptor--her flat, taut belly flaring to her slightly jutting hipbones, the bubble of her perfect ass rising. And her mons. Shaved bare, completely without hair. I'd never seen one shaved all the way, at least not outside a porno flick. When my eyes traveled back up her body, though, my wonderment turned to horror. Her biceps were a mass of dark bruises where Randy had held her. He'd really been gripping hard, I realized, and I was amazed she'd not been crumpled at his feet the night before. I took all of this in in little more than a few seconds, but I couldn't look away from her arms. Then Ernie's nose got to her, and I saw her jerk and look down. My eyes went from her arms to her face in the mirror, and she looked up and saw my reflection staring at her. Her face remained a mask, staring evenly back at me for a moment before reaching over and closing the door. I stood there for a moment, embarrassed. Then I did what I did best. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out the ingredients for French Toast and French omelettes with gruyere cheese and fresh chives. Fifteen minutes later, Nicole walked into the kitchen, fully dressed in jeans and an old sweater, her hair still wet. Alistair was in her arms, slung across a hip with his face buried in her wet hair, and Ernie was trotting dutifully behind. "Breakfast?" I said. "Smells good," she replied, smiling. "French toast?" she said to Alistair. His face remained in her hair, but his sleepy head nodded. I didn't know what to say about seeing her. I was embarrassed, ashamed, worried. Hell, let's face it, I didn't really know what I was. Nicole seemed to sense this, and her reaction was strange. She was neither quiet nor boisterous. Rather, she just acted like nothing had happened. Like it was no big deal and I shouldn't be so pensive about it. But I was. TWENTY-NINE A half hour later, I was in the front landscaping beds raking leaves from the mulch. "Want some help?" Nicole said. I stopped and turned. She was in a stocking cap, old tennis shoes, light jacket over the sweater, and had gloves on her hands. I smiled. "Outside work's my responsibility, remember?" "Yeah," she said, "but the house is already clean, laundry's going, and the dishes are done. Alistair's watching cartoons with Ernie, and I'm bored." I looked at her for a moment. She seemed amused, her eyes dancing and a smile playing at her lips. "Jesus, Tim," she said. "You act like you've never seen a girl naked before." My eyes went wide and I felt the blush creeping over me. She laughed. "You're embarrassed," she taunted. "Well I . . . it wasn't . . . I didn't mean to-- " "What?" she teased. "You think I'm afraid you've taught Ernie to go opening doors so you can catch your peek? I mean, I can just picture it. 'Ernie,'" she whispered, a hand cupped to her mouth. "'Quick. She's in the bathroom. Get over there and open it up and let's see what she's got.'" Nicole was laughing so hard by the end of that she was snorting. It was infectious, and I started laughing with her. She'd never much shown a sense of humor, and I'd definitely never seen her laugh this hard. And I realized that, for the first time since I'd known her, her defenses were totally down. It was like I was seeing the real Nicole for the first time, the Nicole from before her husband was murdered and her boyfriend had put her through months of terror and hell. I couldn't take my eyes off her as our laughing died down. "Cat got your tongue?" "Just never seen you like this before," I said, turning back to raking leaves. She scooped a pile of leaves into the wheelbarrow. "Like what?" she said. "So happy. Playful. You know." She didn't say anything, just kept piling leaves into the wheelbarrow, pressing them down as she did so. "You okay after last night?" I said. "I mean, I saw the bruises." "Yeah," she said. "I'm good. The bruises aren't really that bad." "And everything else?" She only nodded, but the peaceful look didn't leave her face. Not a smile, mind you, but not the usual silent mask, either. She seemed content. We worked in silence for a couple of hours, Nicole bopping back into the house now and again to check on Alistair. The chilly, damp day was exhilarating, and it was relaxing being outside for so long after a winter stuck inside. Unfortunately, it also got us both to do more physical labor than either of us had done in months, and we were wiped out by the time the work was all done. "Swear to God," I said to her as we put the rakes and wheelbarrow away, "I may need a nap." "Me, too," she agreed. Then she raised her eyebrow at me. "What?" I said. She only smiled, then shook her head. "Nothing. Just thinking of something." "Thinking of what?" Then she started giggling. "Tell me," I insisted, pleased her mood was lasting. She only shook her head, her giggling going on. "I'm going to tickle you if you don't," I warned, stepping toward her and reaching to her ribs. She tried to block me by pulling her arms in, but she was unsuccessful as I rubbed my fingertips over her ribs. "I'll tell you," she said, backing away with a shriek. "I'm waiting," I pressed. Nicole tried to stop her giggles, looking at me and trying to keep a straight face. Then her eyes roamed from my face down my body and back up again, and her giggles started anew. "C'mon, what's so funny here?" I said, stepping toward her again. "It's what Jennifer said," she shriek, covering her ribs with her arms. "Jennifer?" "That girl you dated," she said. "What did Jenny say?" "We were talking last week. I was her waitress. Her's and Jammer's. They were out to dinner together. He was asking her what was so special about you, why she couldn't get you out of her mind." "Okay," I said, waving my hand for her to continue. "Well, she saw me standing there waiting for their order, and she invited me to sit down with them. 'Ask her,' she said to Jammer, but I didn't know what she was talking about. 'Tell Jammer what Tim's like in the sack,' she said. I laughed and told her I didn't know. It wasn't--we weren't, aren't--like that." I nodded, feeling my face flush as she spoke. I knew where this was going. "So she gave you details, right?" I said. Nicole nodded, her giggling starting again. "A lot of details," she confirmed. I was . . . . Hell, I didn't know what I was. Angry, embarrassed, upset, pissed at Jenny for shooting her mouth off and at Nicole for teasing me about it. Was I really that bad in the sack? I had to get away from her, and I fled into the house and into the bedroom. "Tim," Nicole cried out behind me, "it's not like that. Really." But I was in my bedroom with the door closed behind me before she could catch up. I sat there, confused. Why should it matter? I thought. Because I liked her, that's why. Because I was falling in love with Nicole, and I didn't want her to laugh when she thought about being with me. And now Jenny had betrayed me. Whether intentional or not--and I couldn't believe she'd done it intentionally--she'd said enough so that Nicole laughed at the very notion of going to bed with me. After five minutes of sitting on the bed, I stood and moved toward the master bathroom and the hot shower I needed to relax and clean up. I was in the shower, feeling the water cascading down, when I saw her shadow outside the frosted shower door. "Nicole?" I said. "I didn't mean anything by it," she said. I saw the shower door start to slide open. "Nicole," I warned, placing my hand on the handle to keep the door shut. "You got to see me," she said. "Yeah, but that was-- " "It's only fair," she interrupted, her voice gleeful and the pressure still trying to slide the door open. "Give me a minute," I said. "Let me finish first, okay?" "Okay." "It'll be a few minutes," I continued, feeling the pressure leave the door. "I still haven't soaped up yet." "Okay," she said. The pressure on the door was gone, and I reached for the shampoo and lathered some in my hair. Then I felt a breeze shiver over my body and turned to the shower door. "I thought I'd help you," Nicole said, stepping into the shower. Her cool hands pressed against my chest. "Soap up, that is." She looked into my eyes as the water cascaded over us. "You think this is a good idea?" I said. "Yes," she replied, leaning in to kiss me. Our lips met, wet and soft and hungry. In a flash, I was harder than a rock, and she pressed herself into me. Her breasts pressed against my chest, and her hips pushed into mine. With one hand, she held the back of my neck and with the other she pulled my lower back closer to her smooth, taut body. The kiss was soft and slow, and I let her set the pace. After a moment of brushing her lips around mine, I felt her lips part and her tongue seek mine. I responded, our kiss building as I reached my arms around her and stroked the smooth skin of her wet back. She broke the kiss and laid her cheek on my shoulder, our hands sliding over each other's body. "She said you were the best she's ever had," Jenny murmured, tracing a fingernail up my spine as I massaged between her shoulders. "Then why was it so funny?" I said. "Just picturing it, I guess." I said nothing. She was holding back, but I didn't know why. "And how specific did she get?" Nicole chuckled into my shoulder blade. "Very." "Uh huh," I said. My right hand snaked around the front and brushed over Nicole's breast, lightly past her nipple. She shivered. "And you thought you'd give it a try?" I asked. She turned her head back to face me, a smile on her lips. "That's what I was hoping." Her face got earnest. "Hoping for quite awhile now." "And if Alistair walks in?" "Napping with Ernie. Just put them to bed." "So you've got this planned out," I said, now palming her breast with my hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. A look of pleasure swept her features, then she nodded and leaned in to kiss me again. "Okay," I mumbled through the kiss. "But I don't have any . . . ." "The pill," she mumbled back. "It's pretty safe." So we got down to cleaning each other up. In very intimate detail. I've long been convinced that there's a difference between naked and nekkid. The former is when you're in the shower, the latter when you're in the shower with someone else doing naughty things. We'd started out naked, and it stayed naked for a long time as we stroked and massaged and kissed. But then it turned to nekkid when I rubbed the soap into the washrag and began to get really intimate. She was content to use the soap without the wash cloth, and I appreciated her decision when she made sure my cock was clean as a whistle. "You know what I want to do?" she said. I shook my head as I rubbed the washcloth down her back and toward the crack in her amazing ass. "I want to wash you everywhere I want to taste you." Here eyes had a gleam as she said this, stroking my cock with one hand while soaping up my balls with the other. "Sounds like a good idea," I said. "So you know where my lips and tongue are going to be before they get there, okay?" she continued. "And turnabout's fair play?" I asked. She nodded, then looked down at her hands. I soaped up my free hand and moved it to her breasts, taking my time as I soaped them up. I squeezed her breasts and nipples, and her eyes moved to my hand as her faint pink nipples grew in my hand. With the other hand, I moved the washcloth over her stomach and hips, rubbing slowly. "Ditch the washcloth," she whispered. I did, rubbing the soap over her breasts and torso with my bare hands, enjoying the feeling of her smooth, slick skin and tight, hot body against me. She leaned in and kissed the base of my neck, and I felt her hand leave my cock and go around to my ass, squeezing and sliding. It felt good, and I slid one of my hands back to her amazing ass, ready to burst at the sensations. "I like your ass," she said through her kisses. I felt a fingertip tracing down the crack between cheeks, slowly. I tensed as she got closer, and I decided to give her some of the same. My fingertip began its own journey down the crack of Nicole's ass, and I felt her hot breath increasing against my neck. My other hand moved down her stomach and cupped her mons. The feeling of her slick, shaven pussy was like no sensation I'd felt. Well, no sensation I'd felt, that it, until my finger traced down a little further to the furrow at the top of her lips. Her clit was hard and her pussy was on fire, wet and hot. Her breathing increased against my neck and I felt her hand on my ass pressing downward and against my clenched opening. "You ever been kissed there?" she whispered, pressing around the knot. My breathing was now increasing, as well, and I couldn't answer through the sensations. Instead, I started rubbing my finger over and around her clit while my other hand sought out her backside. "Are you going to kiss me everywhere?" she said as I circled her rosebud and clit with my fingers. "Yes," I gasped. "If you'll let me." Then her lips were again on mine as she pulled my ass into her. Her breath was coming in gulps, and I kept circling her with my fingers. "Let's get out of here," she urged between kisses. "The bed." I slammed off the water and slid the door open as fast as I could, stepping onto the shower rug and pulling her out with me. Then she was back in my arms again, all slippery and hot and frantic. I lowered my mouth to her breasts and sucked in her nipples, and her hands went to the back of my head to keep me there. I knew what I wanted to do, and I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. I lowered her to the bed, my mouth now traveling over the hollow at the base of her neck. "Like this," I said, breaking from her and turning her over before pulling her legs off the bed. She didn't fight me as I maneuvered her. Her arms were flayed out above her head, her face turned to the side and framed by her hair spilling all around her head. I went to my knees at the base of the bed and, with my hands, spread her legs and leaned in, kissing her inner thighs as my hands went to her ass and kneaded that perfect, pouty posterior. "You like my ass, don't you," she gasped as my tongue got closer and closer to her core. "I love your ass," I corrected her. "You're always looking at it," she whispered through her panting. She gasped as I ran my tongue the length of her slit. Enough talking, woman! "That's so good," she murmured as my tongue traveled up and down her length, softly and slowly. Then my lips and tongue kissed, licked, and gently bit the firm, perfect globes of her ass. Her moaning increased with the hunger of my attention, and I pried her ass cheeks apart with my hands, seeing the crinkled knot of her anus in front of me. Oh well, she'd said so long as I cleaned it for her, I thought, tracing my tongue toward it. She gasped, her hips twitching, as the tip of my tongue brushed over the tiny furrowed ridges of her rosebud, the knot clenching and unclenching. She groaned, not turned off by my actions. Rather, her hips started a gentle roll, her undulations driving her ass harder then softer on my tongue. My hand found its way to her pussy. My fingertips teased up and down her puffy lips before a finger eased slowly into her opening. My thumb brushed lower, finding and then circling her clit as my tongue lashed at her ass and my finger felt around the walls of her pussy. Without warning, Nicole groaned and her hips pushed back on my assault, her ass unclenching as she did so. I felt my tongue sink in--just the tip, tasting a musky soapiness--and her groan increased as her hips started rolling faster. I stayed unmoving, allowing her to fuck herself against my tongue and finger, and her quickening breath told me it was the right move. Then her body went rigid, clenching on me, as a long "Uhhhh" escaped Nicole's lips. In response, my tongue left that perfect ass and went to her clit, circling and sucking on the engorged flesh and drawing out her orgasm. After nearly a minute, her orgasm complete, Nicole went limp. I brushed my tongue away from her wet, puffy lips and kissed her inner thighs. The Bar and Grill Pt. 04 "That was so good," she murmured into her outstretched arms. I looked up, standing as I did so. "You liked?" "I liked," she said, her eyes closed. "Well let's see if you like this," I said, guiding her hips to turn over until she was on her back. I gazed at her smooth pussy, mesmerized. "I've never seen," I started, then let the words die as I leaned in to kiss her bare mound. From there, I trailed my tongue and lips up her flat belly to her breasts. She'd be too sensitive for my lips to continue their assault on her clit, and I wanted to get familiar with the rest of her. Nicole's hands found my head, and her fingers brushed through my hair as I sucked on her nipples and all over her breasts. Then I felt her hands tugging my hair, and I followed her direction and was assaulted by her mouth, her tongue frantically searching then attacking mine. "Hurry," she urged, a hand going down between us and guiding me toward her. I allowed her to guide the tip to her opening, easing just the head into her. She was an inferno, and I gasped with the sensations. Her hands went to my ass, trying to pull me in deeper, but I resisted. Instead, I withdrew slowly before again pushing just the head into her. I kept this up, teasing her with bare penetration and making sure I rubbed against her clit with every re-entry. Nicole's panting turned to whimpers of frustration, and I smiled down at her. Her mouth opened to say something, and I chose that moment to slide the rest of the way into her. Her words were lost as her head tilted back and a long, soft moan escaped her lips. I leaned in and kissed her neck, then up to her earlobes. "You're on fire," I whispered into her ear, holding myself fully inside her and grinding my pelvis against her. Nicole gave a brief "Oh, oh" in reply. I felt her walls clamping around me, her fiery, spasming core driving me to the edge. My God, it had been forever since I'd been laid, and I was doing my damnedest to hold back. Then her hands were in my hair, her lips and tongue seeking mine as her pelvis started bucking and her upper body went tight. "Oh Jesus," she moaned into my mouth. As her slick, silken walls convulsed around me, I felt my resistance shatter and I groaned as I came. Her right leg clamped over and around me, her hands going to my ass and holding me deep inside her as I shuddered with the force of my release. Her lips were all over me, kissing my face and neck and ears as my tension released and I relaxed atop her. I looked down at Nicole, and she was staring back at me with eyes wide open. "That was pretty fucking wow," I smiled at her. She nodded, her face a mixture of sated and exhausted. "I've never . . . ." Her thoughts seemed to be mixed, and she couldn't get the words out. I stayed above her, my weight on my forearms and my softening cock still inside her. "Was it as bad as Jenny told you it would be." "That's not what she said," Nicole said, closing her eyes and her smile getting wider. "'Excitable boy.' That's what she called you. She said you're like no one she's ever been with before. More than once, at least." "How so?" I said, my embarrassment gone in our postcoital bliss. Nicole opened her eyes and stared at me, her eyes twinkling. "She said you're like a little boy in your excitement. Not slow and methodical and tender, but not rough and aggressive, either. It's like every time's the first time for you." "Is that a good thing?" "Oh yeah," she said. "Now I know what she was talking about, and I can tell you from firsthand experience now that it's a real good thing." "So you don't prefer that I be more, what, tender?" She shook her head. "This is just fine, thank you." We kissed a couple of times, me still atop her and her not seeming to mind. Then she snorted into a kiss. "What?" I said. "Just thinking about some things." "Such as?" "Jennifer said you were like a kid in a candy store." "And?" I prodded. "I'm just thinking how right she was. Like my body was for you to toy with however much you wanted, and you were really turned on getting to do it. It makes me feel beautiful. Sexy." She paused, her voice getting lower. "And I was just remembering how you got to taste some candy that no one else has ever tasted before." "You mean when I?" My eyes traveled around her side toward her beautiful bottom. She nodded. "Did you like it?" I asked. "Oh yeah," she said. "Which surprised me." I withdrew from her and laid on my side, looking at her face while stroking her belly down to her legs. "So maybe we'll get to do this again sometime?" I asked. "Like right now," she said. "I still owe you some kisses, don't I? Some areas we got you all sparkling clean, right?" She slid down, kissing a trail down my belly to my softened cock as she did so. I felt my excitement returning as I watched her, my hands stroking her back and shoulders as she licked up and down before taking me fully into her mouth. I'm pretty sure I acquitted myself well in the second bout. I mean, she napped for at least an hour afterward, and the smile never left her sleeping face. So that's good, right? THIRTY Sunday morning, I awoke early. Nicole was sleeping next to me, and I felt a feeling of tenderness as I watched her. "What're you looking at?" she mumbled, her eyes still closed. "How'd you know I was looking at you?" "I just do." A faint smile played over her lips. "Banish those thoughts from your mind," I teased. "I couldn't again if I wanted to. And I do, but I'm pretty sure I can't." Her eyes opened and stared into mine, an evil glint sparkling as her lips turned upward more. "How do you know that's what I was thinking?" "I just do," I said. She nodded. "Get up," I said. She moaned. "Why can't we just stay in bed for awhile?" "Because I want to get an early start." "On what?" "I want to take you and Alistair to the zoo," I said. "Show him the gorillas and giraffes." Nicole said nothing, her lascivious smile transforming to simple pleasure. "He's never been to the zoo," she said. "Then let's have an adventure, okay?" "An adventure?" I nodded. "I'll pack us a picnic, and we'll take him to see the wild animals." "You always like this?" she said. "Like what?" "So . . . so nice. All happy, and trying to make sure we're--Alistair and me--are happy all the time, too." I chuckled. "No. Usually I'm a prick. But you've managed to bribe me with your . . . your incredibly hot body . . . and I'm trying to get in your good graces." "I should be saying the same," she whispered. I raised an eyebrow, hoping she'd continue. Seeing my look, she explained. "I never really knew how it could be," she said. "Alistair was my first. He was . . . well, he was pretty good. But we were young, not much experience. And he was a bit of a prude. You know, unwilling to really push the envelope." Her smile went tender at the memory, like any deficiencies he may have had in the sack didn't matter because she loved him anyway and, by virtue of that, it was special every time. Then her face lost all happiness. "And Randy," she said. "Let's just say with Randy, it was all about Randy, okay?" I nodded. "And with me?" "I've never come like that," she said. "From just having it in me, you know?" I didn't know. "Is it different?" I asked. She nodded. "Yeah. Not better, but different. Every other time, I'd come from, you know, fingers or from . . . kissing down there. But never from just having it in me." She was blushing as she spoke. "Not without some help from fingers, at least." It was cute, her shyness in talking about sex. The difference between how she had been the day and night before--completely unreserved and more than a bit naughty--was at odds with her reluctance to openly discuss any of it. "And it's way different with you than with them," she continued. "Not just, you know, how excitable you are." A giggle twitched at her lips as she remembered Jenny's description. Then she looked up, her shyness leaving and her face getting earnest. "I trust you, Tim. Like I've never really trusted anyone before. I don't know why. Can't explain it, really. But I do. And that makes it . . . you know, us . . . in bed . . . it makes it different. Like no matter how wild you get--we get together--it's gonna be good. You won't hurt me. It'll be really good." I smiled. Then I leaned in and kissed her forehead, brushing her hair from her face as I did so. "Well," I said, "it's pretty special for me, too." And I realized I was telling the truth. I wasn't just saying this to make her feel better or because it seemed the thing to say. Moreover, it wasn't like I was now in love with her because I'd slept with her, which is what Jenny had pretty much accused me of falling for in the past. No, I was pretty sure I was in love with her before she'd joined me in the shower. But that didn't seem right, did it? I mean, come on, she'd rarely let her guard down around me, so I still didn't know if I knew the real Nicole. Then again, our months together, both in the kitchen and then as roommates, had allowed me to get to know her in ways I'd never known another woman before falling in love, or lust, with her. We anticipated each other's actions and needs and could almost finish the other's sentences. The way she treated and raised little Alistair was spot on, too, at least so far as I was concerned. She loved him, but she was a parent rather than a friend. And she was neat, and getting easier to talk with, and her moods were getting predictable, and-- "What're you thinking?" Nicole said, interrupting my thoughts. I shook my head. "Tell me," she urged. I took a breath, hoping I wasn't going to scare her away. "I'm thinking," I said, "that maybe I love you." "Maybe?" Her smile told me she wasn't afraid of this announcement. "Okay," I said. "Probably." "Not definite yet?" "We'll see how you do at the zoo," I said, getting out of bed. "Tim," she called as I padded down the hall toward the shower. I stopped and turned around, looking at her as she swung her legs off the bed. "Just wanted you to know," she said, sitting there with her hands in her lap and her face a touch pensive. "Know what?" "That I love you, too," she said. "Definitely." I felt a rush of warmth wash through me. "Well," I started, looking at her and seeing the look on her face. She was nervous. Why? "Well what?" she said. I gave her a lopsided grin. "You're still on probation until I see how you do at the zoo." She flashed her eyes at me. "You shit," she said, picking up a pillow and tossing it at me. I chuckled as I got undressed and hopped in the shower. I gasped when she joined me a few moments later. I groaned in ecstasy as she did her best to get little Timmy up for another round before getting dressed. She mewed in excitement as I reciprocated on her with my mouth. The noises and sensations after that are just a blur. Is there any better way to start a day than by telling the person you love that you love them; then having them say they love you, too; then each of you proving your love to the other with a spirited romp under the sheets, all by seven in the morning? If there's anything better than all of that, I'd never before been privy to such an experience. Not with any of my past girlfriends. Certainly not with Nina. THIRTY-ONE I won't keep you in suspense: The trip to the zoo was a lot of fun for all involved, and I confirmed upon returning home that my love for Nicole was pretty definite by that point. "Just pretty definite?" she smirked. "Not definite definite?" "Don't get cocky," I warned. "Oh, don't you worry about that," she teased. "I won't be getting any cocky of any kind until I know where I stand here." So, of course, I crumbled. Immediately and without further ado. Call me weak, call me spineless, call me the poor victim of sexual blackmail. Guilty as charged. Yet, for the first time in my life I felt real love. Or, at least, what I assumed was real love. Love beyond wanting to get in someone's pants and shag them silly. Love beyond wanting to please someone like an attention-starved puppy dog. Without a doubt, this was a love where I couldn't wait to get home to be with Nicole and Alistair rather than dreading coming home to Nina, Emily, Nadine, and a house full of tense drama. Love where getting Nicole to smile was now reciprocated with her getting me to smile even bigger. Where the fuck had I been all these years? Apparently, the change in both of us was tattooed across our foreheads. "It's about time," Clara smirked bright and early Monday morning, a frown playing over her lips as she tied her apron strings, watching Nicole and I playing grab ass around the onions we were chopping. "What?" I protested, tears from the onions streaming down my smiling face. She only huffed and walked out. Nicole and I shrugged at each other. Later, Uncle Jack came in and took one look at me and Nicole prepping plates for some early diners. "Jesus," he rumbled, "what the hell took you so long?" I gave him my best innocent, earnest look. "I always knew you were slow, Timmer," he continued. "For a while, though, I was beginning to think you were seriously fucking stupid." Nicole punched my arm at that, laughing. "You're supposed to defend me here," I said. "Why?" she said. "He's right." I laughed. The next night, Jammer and Jenny were all smiles at their table watching me kiss Nicole good night before I took off to pick up Alistair. "Well?" Jenny said to Nicole. Nicole beamed. "You were right," she said. "Wow." "Told you so," Jenny laughed. "For Chrissakes," Jammer moaned. "Will someone tell me what the hell is so special about this shithead? You both praise him like he's some kind of fuckin' porn star." "Close," Jenny replied. "Then again, I've never been with a porn star. Maybe he's better, right?" Nicole got a serious look, contemplating the question. "Probably better," she finally said. "Don't worry," I said, slapping Jammer on the back. "I'll write something up for you. You know, like a list of pointers on how to do it right." "Eat shit," he said, taking a slug of his beer. "So you two?" Nicole said, her finger wagging between Jenny and Jammer. "Taking it slow," Jenny said. "But I've got her coming home early at least one night a week," Jammer boasted. "And staying out of that goddamned office on Sundays." "Well, well," I said, realizing I wasn't upset with them getting together. Jenny seemed relieved by my reaction and smiled. "I guess people can change a little, huh?" I nodded. But some people don't change. Not even a little. People like that rotten prick Randy. And that's a lesson I was about to learn the hard way. THIRTY-TWO It was Friday night, and Nicole was going to be waiting tables after her shift in the kitchen. Nicole and I were prepping the final pieces of cod for the fish fry when the conversation turned in a direction I didn't see coming. "You really do . . . ," Nicole stuttered, her face getting red and her eyes avoiding mine. "Your favorite thing on a girl." I turned and smiled. "Any girl or you girl?" "Both," she said. "It's . . . you really get turned on by-- " "Your ass," I confirmed. "Don't get me wrong, you're beautiful. The whole package. I mean, the face is the first thing I look at, and you're absolutely stunning. And the rest of you is perfect, too." "But you really get turned on by . . . my bottom," she said. "You can say ass," I teased. "I won't wash your mouth out with soap. Promise." She smiled, but it was a shy smile. "So that first time," she pressed on. "First time what?" "You know. Last Saturday. When you kissed me there. And touched me there with your fingers." I nodded. "Yes?" I encouraged. "Have you ever. . . ." Her voice trailed off. "Nicole," I said, lifting her chin with my fingers and staring into her eyes. "Don't be embarrassed. You ask, I'll answer. Anything." She nodded into my chin, but still said nothing. "Have I ever what?" I encouraged. "Done more? You know, with a girl's . . . ass." "Like what?" I said. I knew what she was asking, but I was taking a perverse pleasure in trying to draw her out, trying to get her to speak more openly. "I don't know," she muttered. "Like maybe put your finger in there for awhile?" "Sure," I said. "A couple of times." "With Nina?" she pressed. I laughed aloud at that. "No, never with Nina. That area was strictly off limits with Nina." "Jenny?" "Never tried with her," I said. "We weren't together that many times." She nodded. I could tell she wanted to say more, but her lips were pressed together, as if she was forcing herself to keep the words in. "What?" "Have you ever, you know, put your . . . done a girl there?" I raised an eyebrow at her. She had hit on my ultimate fantasy. Being an ass man, I'd long dreamed of trying anal sex, but I'd been shot down with the four women I'd been with, and I was afraid to go too fast in bringing it up with Nicole, the fifth woman. "Why do you ask?" I said, my voice lower. She looked away. "I lied to you," she said. "That time--the last time when Randy beat me--that's what it was. He came home, dragged me into the bedroom, and told me that's what he was going to do. Put it there. And when I refused, when I fought back, he got really mad. Madder than I'd ever seen him. Like my body was his to do with as he liked. Like I had no right to refuse him." God, I wanted to strangle that fucker. He'd ruined my shot at it before I'd even met her. "Did he?" I whispered. She shook her head. "He'd have hurt me," she said, turning back to me with anguish on her face. "I've never done it, but I know you can't just go right to it, you know? He'd have just . . . torn into me. And hurt me. He liked that." I put my hand over hers. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to do, okay? Ever. If you don't want to do something, you just say the word and I'll stop." She nodded. "But I'm thinking that maybe I want to try it sometime." She was looking straight into my eyes as she said it. I couldn't read her reaction to her own words. "Why?" I asked. "Because," she whispered, "I know you won't hurt me. And I can tell--when we're together--I can tell you really want to do it. And I want to make you happy, to give you something special. Something I know you really want." This was it, when I really knew I loved Nicole. No, you shallow bastards, not because she was offering me my ultimate fantasy. (Okay, it took me a moment to realize that, too.) No, the reason this was when I realized I really loved her was because she was willing to try something that she dreaded, that she had come so close to having brutally inflicted on her. And she was willing to do it just to make me happy, damn her own fears and needs. Contrary to what I'd told Nina four months before, sometimes intentions really are way more important than the actual actions. "What I really want," I assured her, "is to love you. To make you happy. I don't want to force you into anything. I don't want you doing something you really don't want to do just to make me happy. You're . . . well, you're the best goddamned thing that's ever happened to me, okay? And just knowing you'd even consider . . . after all you've been through-- " "Don't you understand?" she said. "Doing something for you, something that really makes you happy, that's what makes me happy. That's what makes it special." There are really women out there like this? I thought. Women who really thought this way? Where the fuck have I been my whole life? The Bar and Grill Pt. 04 "But if you're afraid," I said, still unsure what my reaction should be. She shook her head. "That's just it," she said, her eyes soft and her lips turning into a melancholy smile. "With you I'm not afraid. You'd never hurt me." "But it would probably hurt the first time," I warned, inwardly wincing as I tried talking her out of giving me what I really wanted most to try in the bedroom department. "The first few times at least. It'll probably hurt you know." "Still," she said, "I want to try sometime. If I get used to it--if you go real slow--then maybe I'll like it." She smiled a little brighter. "I know I liked what you already did there. A lot." I paused, staring at her. She was serious. "Where did this come from?" I asked. Her smile got wide at this. "Face it, Tim, you're not exactly the go-getter type. We'd spend the rest of our lives together and you'll never make a move on it. Never even bring it up, right?" I nodded. She was right. I'd been shot down so many times before that I'd never take the initiative on this one. Jammer told me once that chicks either liked anal or they didn't. Those that did would make it clear; those that didn't would make it even more clear if you tried to go there. Nicole seemed to be the in-between chick, the one that was interested in trying it to find out which camp she fell into. Then my eyes narrowed at the thought of something she'd also just said. "The rest of our lives together?" I said. She bit her lip. "I just meant," she said. I beamed. "So you're considering that?" She nodded. "I'm not trying to scare you or anything. Pressure you. That's. . . . It just kind of slipped out." "Boy," I said, "you're right. Maybe I should start taking a little more initiative, huh?" She leaned over and kissed me. "I don't want you to change. I love you just the way you are. It's cute." I pulled her in for a tight hug. "I love you more. Way more." Later, I kissed Nicole on the cheek as I pulled on a windbreaker and got ready to go pick up Alistair. I was still on cloud nine, amazed at the speed--or lack thereof--with which my perfectly shitty, post-divorce life was sorting itself out. "Goin' home?" Lonnie Mackie said as I approached the bar, which was next to the exit. "Yep," I said. He was standing, too. "I'll go with you," he said. "Get home to the boss." We were outside, turning the corner into the parking lot and heading toward my car, when the idea of a Spring cookout came into my head. "Any plans this weekend?" I said. "You know," he said, "same old-- " His words were lost in a sudden, searing pain in my back and deep into my chest while something pushed me forward and to the ground. "What the fuck," I said, seeing the ground rise up to meet my face. I could sense something, someone, behind me. Hot breath on the back of my neck and a hand on my left shoulder, pushing it forward as whatever was causing the searing pain in my back was withdrawn, leaving a deep, empty ache. Everything after I hit the ground was a blur of noise, movement, screaming, and pain. "You fucker," I heard Lonnie Mackie screaming. There was a crunch, and the weight was off my back as something fell to my left. Someone said to call an ambulance. And call cops. I tried to talk, but no words came out as everything started getting weird, dizzy. Then feet, a lot of feet, were running all around me. I felt them on the blacktop parking lot and heard them near my head. The images were going blurry, though. Sirens started in, then I heard a loud scream. A wailing scream. Nicole begging me to be alive. I am alive, I tried to tell her, but I didn't hear anything come out. My mouth just kept moving noiselessly while everything else got darker. THIRTY-THREE My other senses worked first. I felt the crappy, scratchy sheets encasing my body. My mouth was impossibly dry, my tongue cracked, and I tasted the worse morning breath in history, morning breath so bad it almost blocked out the antiseptic smell of the room. I didn't open my eyes until I heard the click clack of shoes on the tile floor. "Good," a stout, middle-aged nurse announced. "You're awake." "How long have I been here?" I asked, my eyes sweeping the three-walled room. The fourth side was open to a bank of nursing stations. Intensive care unit. I'd been here once before, when Aunt Aileen was dying. "It's Sunday morning," she said, picking up a chart. "And you were admitted after surgery at about eleven on Friday." "Surgery?" I said. The dull ache in my chest and the itching on my back, just below the scapula, reminded me that something had happened on Friday night. Still, I had no idea what had happened. "The doctor will be by in awhile," she said, ignoring my question and walking out of the room. I heard a faint rustling to the right of my head and tried to turn and see who was there. "Hello?" I said when the person said nothing. In response, I heard the sniffling of tears. "Nicole?" I said. "You had us so worried." "Nina?" She was in front of me now, looking down at me with tears running down the face that was smiling in relief. "What are you doing here? What happened?" "I work here," she said. "Some friends called me the second you were brought in. I agreed to take turns with the others babysitting you." "The others?" "Nicole, Jack, that great big guy from the bar. Larry." "Lonnie," I corrected. "Where are they?" "Nicole will probably be here soon. She and Jack ran to the restaurant to get things set up, then she's coming back." I was a little disappointed. Somehow I pictured her holding bedside vigil. Nina saw the look on my face and read it accurately. Can't slip shit like that past someone you've lived with for four years. "Don't be upset," she said. "They left about three hours ago, and it's the first time she's gotten out of here since you were brought in. She needed a bath, some clean clothes, and to help Jack get the kitchen set up." I nodded. "So what happened? Why am I here?" "You were stabbed leaving work," she said, surprised I didn't know. "Someone you threw in jail a week or so ago. Nicole's ex-boyfriend?" I nodded. Randy. He'd finally bailed his sorry ass out and decided to kill me for the inconvenience I'd helped impose on his life. "How bad is it?" "Touch and go for awhile. You lost a lot of blood. The knife nicked some ribs on its way to your right lung. The lung collapsed, which led to the surgery." "Recovery?" "Barring infection, you should be up and at 'em in a couple of weeks. The musculature in your back, which is also stitched up, will be pretty sore for awhile longer. So will the bones that got cut. But you should be good as new in no time." I nodded, exhaustion beginning to cascade over me. "And Nicole? She's all right?" I saw a flicker of disappointment play across Nina's lips, but she kept up the facade for me. "She's scared, Tim. And tired." I tried to smile, but I'm pretty sure the effort was wasted. "Tell her I'm fine, okay?" I didn't hear her response before sleep overtook me again. The next thing I remember was voices. Jammer and Nicole, chatting softly. "It's not your fault, Nic," Jammer said. "I was afraid Randy would try something like this," she said, her voice weary. "I should've stayed away. Taken Alistair and just moved." "Don't say that," Jammer reassured her. "He loves you. Trust me. I've known him since we were knee high to a frog's ass, and I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Jenny included, and he had the biggest crush on her since kindergarten." "Why would I be mad?" I croaked, my throat hurting with the effort. I felt Nicole's hands on my forearm in an instant, her warm breath on my face. I opened my eyes and looked at her. "Don't cry, little girl." She was torn between trying to smile for me and trying to hold back her tears. "It's gonna take a bigger prick than Randy to get me out of your life." "Told you so," Jammer said from behind her. "He's right," I continued, the pain searing my throat. I coughed. To my left, a nurse hustled in. "Good," she again announced. "He's awake. Give him some of these." She pushed a glass and a spoon into Nicole's hands before picking up the chart and taking writing down a bunch of stuff from the machines surrounding me. "Open up," Nicole said, pressing the spoon against my lips. Ice. Who ever knew a chip of ice could be so goddamned good? It melted against my tongue, coating my mouth and throat as it slid down. I opened my mouth again, and another chip was dropped in. After five minutes of this, I felt well enough to talk again. "What happened to Randy?" I asked. "He's in jail," Jammer said. "They're gonna resist bail this time. The State, that is. The judge will probably go along with it since he was out on bail when he attacked you." "He just stabbed me once?" Nicole smiled. "Lonnie Mackie knocked him out cold." "Yeah," Jammer added. "One punch to the side of the head and he was out like a fuckin' light bulb." "He says you owe him two gift certificates now," Nicole said. "Not just the one like last time." "Tell him he can have three," I said. "I heard that," Lonnie said, shuffling in with his wife and three little kids in tow. "You okay?" "I'll be fine," I said. "Thanks to you, I'm told." "Little prick," Lonnie said. "Should've killed the bastard the first time." "Lonigan Marvin Mackie," his wife said, "the children." I chuckled, then coughed. "Don't get him excited," the nurse warned. "We need those stitches in his lung to do their job." "Thanks, Lonnie," I said. He seemed all sheepish, like it was no big deal. His wife, though, was proud of him. It was written all over her face and the way she clung to his arm and looked at him. Even when she'd corrected his language, she was almost playful about it. "You okay?" I said, turning my attention back to Nicole. "I'm sorry," she said. "Don't be. At least he's gone for good now, right?" She nodded, brushing away tears. I tried to reach up and help her, but the lines running in my arms wouldn't let me. "Hey, really, you need to settle down," I tried to reassure her. She nodded, trying to smile. "Just stay the hell away from Jammer until I'm out of here, okay? He's pretty well known for taking advantage of these things." "Hey," Jammer protested, but I didn't hear the rest of what he said. All I heard were Nicole's words before I again fell asleep. "I love you so much, Timothy Franklin. So much." THIRTY-FOUR Three weeks later, I was at home, cooking tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for Alistair and me. Alistair and Ernie were sitting on the sofa, watching some kid's show on public television, when the doorbell sounded. "Police man," Alistair yelled. I was surprised. Police? Then I was worried; had something happened to Nicole? I turned off the stovetop and went to the front door. "Hey, Mike," I said, opening the door for Sgt. Moss. "Can you come out here for a sec?" he said, his eyes shooting to Alistair. I felt a pit in my stomach. "Is Nicole okay?" I said, stepping onto the porch and closing the door behind me. "She's fine," he said. His jaw was chewing gum about a mile a minute. "What's wrong?" "Just got back from county," he said. "Something's come up and I wanted to let you know on my way back to town. Before it gets out and all." "Okay," I agreed. "What's up?" "It came up right after the assault on you," he said. "I was in court a few days later, for the arraignment. A cop from Frontier City was there for a case he had. We got to talking, what we were there for and all. I told him about you, how you were attacked." I nodded. So? "Anyway, the whole Randy and Nicole thing rang a bell with him. Later, that afternoon, he calls me. Randy was a suspect in the murder of Nicole's husband. He was stabbed outside of his workplace a few years back." "Yeah," I said, now seeing where this was going. "So they sent some detectives over the next day, Tuesday after you were stabbed. Gave us a lot of their stuff on the murder." His jaw tightened. "We'd have never done it, see? Tested the knife or anything. I mean, hell, we had him at the scene with witnesses and his hand on the knife. No need to test the knife for blood, okay?" I saw it, saw where this was going. "Alistair's blood was on the knife, wasn't it?" Moss nodded. "Up inside the handle. Probably would've never still been there, except he used a folding knife. Stupid fucker. And used the same knife in his attack on you." "So you guys charging him on that one?" Moss smiled. "Already done. That's what we were finishing up this morning. I started the interrogation--stupid fucker even had a lawyer, but she didn't see this coming--and the Frontier City guys sit down and pull out all the paperwork and lab tests and shit. They even found Alistair's blood in his car and apartment. Laundry room carpet. They zeroed right in. Got him to say that no, he didn't even know Alistair before he died; no, Alistair had never been in his car. Or his apartment. Then they put all of that in front of him and he just exploded. Before the attorney could even shut him up, he's screaming about how Alistair had it coming and he wasn't man enough for a woman like Nicole and all that." He smiled, but his smile looked weary, like it had been a long morning. "He'll die in prison, Tim. So I wanted to tell you that and maybe hoped you'd tell Nicole, too. It'd be easier coming from you, right?" "Sure," I agreed, not really wanting to tell her. When she breezed in that night, the look on my face pulled her up before she could plant a kiss on my cheek. "What's wrong?" "Come on," I said, walking into the dining room away from Alistair. We sat at the table, her next to me and our knees touching while I held her hands. And I told her. She cried. Cried for her poor dead husband, for the father her son would never know, for the fates that had foisted Randy into their lives without her even knowing what was happening, for the tear at the scab in her heart that had only so recently healed. I held her, telling her everything would be all right. I'd been there too, though, and I knew it would take a long time for this to all get better again. If ever it did. THIRTY-FIVE Three days later, on a Saturday morning, the three of us were sitting around the dining room table eating our stuffed French Toast. (Try this: Take a block of softened cream cheese whipped together with some vanilla and confectioner's sugar, stir in a handful of chocolate chips, then spread it between two pieces of good white bread. Dip it into your typical eggy french toast batter and cook it on a buttered griddle. Trust me, it's beyond incredibly good!) "Mommy," Alistair said with a mouthful of food. "Don't talk with your-- " "Are you almost done being sad?" he said, ignoring her reprimand. She looked at him, then at me. Her face had been a mask of anguish or sadness since I'd told her about Randy killing Alistair. Now, for the first time, I saw something else seeping in. "Because I really want to go to the zoo today, Mommy," Alistair plodded on. "And I don't really want to go if you're going to be sad anymore." "Mommy's just-- " "Do you love me?" he said. "Of course I love you." She was taken back at the little tyke's verbal barrage. "And Tim? Do you love Tim, too?" She nodded, looking at me with tears welling up in her eyes. "And Ernie?" She looked at the lovable mug of the begging pug sitting at her feet and laughed. "Especially Ernie," she said. Her glistening eyes warmed, and her tears seemed to be tears of relief and--almost--happiness. And maybe the realization that Alistair had died three years ago, and she now had a new family that could again give her happiness. Okay, maybe I'd just like to take a touch of credit here. "Then don't be sad anymore," Alistair said. "Ernie thinks you're mad at him." She reached down and scratched behind Ernie's ears. "I'm sorry, Ernie." "See? Now we can go to the zoo." With that, Alistair was done saying his piece. Of course, I'd like to tell you that this got Nicole out of her funk like a bolt of lightning, but that would be bullshit. She did try to be happy, though, and I'm pretty sure that's the best way to get over being unhappy. We can all feel sorry for ourselves and the shit sandwich that this thing called life serves us sometimes. But, like Uncle Jack always says, "The true measure of a man is not the heights he rises to, but how well he picks himself up after being knocked on his ass." It seems Alistair's little diatribe had shaken this reality into Nicole. So, little by little, she started picking herself up. I could see she wasn't totally out of the woods yet, but she at least tried to smile and give hugs whenever Alistair and I were around. Ernie appreciated her more frequent ear and belly scratching, too. Then, one Tuesday night when I was at home babysitting Alistair, Nicole came in late and awoke me with a camera flash. "What?" I said, lifting my head from the couch and reaching for the remote to turn down the television while I focused my sleepy eyes on her. "You've got to see this," she said, her smile ear to ear. She handed me the camera, and I turned it around to look at the picture. There I was, zonked out on the couch. Alistair was sound asleep, too, stretched the length of my torso with his cheek on my chest. Protecting us both was Ernie, laying at the top of my head with his neck and fore paws curled around my neck and his black muzzle almost nose to nose with Alistair. "My three princes," Nicole said, chuckling at the thought. "All cuddled together." Sure, the picture was cute. But cuter, and far better, was the look of genuine happiness on Nicole's face. It was a look we hadn't seen in some time, and I felt myself relaxing. "You better now?" I said. She nodded. "Yeah. Way better." "I love you," I said, sitting up and scooping Alistair into my arms for a trip to his bedroom. Her eyes were welling up. "I love you more." She was the first woman who had ever said that to me and looked like she meant it. THIRTY-SIX Well, not much more to tell, really. Nicole and I were married three months later. Lonnie Mackie, Uncle Jack, and Jammer stood up for me in the simple ceremony. I tried to pick a best man, but gave up after deciding they had all helped to get me where I was. Jenny, Gertie, and Clara stood up for Nicole. Again, they'd all played their part, and none was the maid of honor. Alistair looked cute as a bug in his little tuxedo, striding down the aisle with Ernie prancing along beside him bearing a pillow holding the rings. Okay, Ernie tried to mark his territory in the vestibule, but a slap from Sgt. Moss stopped that. On our honeymoon, Nicole gave me that fantasy she'd been curious to try. What can I say? Fucking amazing pretty much sums it up. Just make sure you go real, real, real slow and use lots and lots and lots of lube. By the third time, she assured me she likes it, too. Randy got sixty years for killing Alistair and another twenty-two for trying to kill me. The sentences run concurrently, so he'll be about a hundred before he gets out. Good luck, prick. Nina? Not a clue. She drops by the Bar and Grill every so often with some other nurses, but we don't talk much. I know she tried making a run at Jammer, but he and Jenny seem to be getting real serious, so it didn't go anywhere. Everyone else seems to be pretty much the same. Uncle Jack is still going strong, as are Clara and Gertie and the gang. "You happy?" Nicole said to me one night. The Bar and Grill Pt. 04 My one hand was wrapped around a sleeping Alistair, holding him close. With my other hand, I rubbed her swollen belly, feeling the tiny kicks. "Happier than I've ever been before," I said. "Me, too," she said, leaning into me and snuggling against my chest. Ain't life grand? P.S. Don't forget to drop by the Bar and Grill. Our honeymoon to New Orleans gave us some really great sandwich ideas. Can I recommend the Roast Beef Po Boy? It's the tastiest, messiest sandwich I've ever had. Friggin' amazing! The Bar and Grill Deciding it was best not to get into a knock-down, drag-out fight with a nine-year old, I walked over and pulled the plug from the television. "Now," I said. Emily glared at me. Nadine looked from me to her sister, then back at me with a matching glare. "Mom said we could watch TV," Emily said. "No she didn't." "Yes she did," Nadine piped in. I smiled. "As soon as your homework's all done and checked, you can watch TV until bedtime. Until then, no TV. Got it?" I walked from the room leaving two spoiled rotten munchkins to glare at my back. "And don't even think about plugging it back in," I called back to them from the kitchen. They didn't, thankfully. I needed to relax, and playing games to get them to finish their homework would only keep the stress level high. Once in the kitchen, I rummaged through the refrigerator for something to eat. I wasn't that hungry, but I knew I would be before bed. Best to eat a little now instead of eat a lot just before bed. Ten minutes later, the remains of a roasted chicken, red pepper, and pesto sandwich on the plate before me, I was flipping through cookbooks looking for ideas on carrots. Soup was not going to use up three boxes of them. (Quick note on gourmet sandwiches: Think of a sandwich as a meal between two pieces of bread. Preferably good bread. So don't just have baloney and mayo on Wonder Bread. Instead, take last night's pot roast, slice it into chunks, chop up the left over root veggies, and slather it all with some good stone ground mustard, heat it briefly, and now you really have a meal. Try it sometime. It works particularly well with Thanksgiving leftovers.) "Tim?" I looked up. It was Nadine, standing in the hallway with her schoolwork in her arms. She was a mixture of embarrassed and shy. "Yeah, honey." "Can you help me with fractions?" I smiled wide and patted the seat next to me. "Come on, let's get crackin' so we can watch some TV, okay?" Her relief was evident, and we spent the next half hour going over fractions. Times like this made all those aggravating times really worth it. Spoiled or not, I loved them to death. FOUR Ernie was laying across my belly, and his snores finally cut through my sleep. I was on the couch, covered by both Ernie and a blanket, and it was just past midnight. I hadn't heard Nina come in, but the blanket told me she was home. She must've gotten home late, too, because I remember the weather from the end of the ten o'clock news. I sat up, tumbling the pug off my belly, and folded the blanket. Ernie watched drowsily as I set the folded blanket back on the couch. Once done, I lifted Ernie onto the blanket. What the hell, he might as well be comfy, right? And comfy he was; I could hear his snoring resume before I reached the bedroom door fifteen feet away. The room was dark, but I could sense Nina's presence. Not wanting to awaken her, I stripped to my undies at the foot of the bed, tripping in the darkness. "You looked so peaceful," she said. Her voice was wide awake. And sad. "Just you and Ernie, sleeping so peacefully." She tried to laugh, but it sounded forced. "Have fun?" I asked, sliding under the sheets next to her. "Yeah," she said. "Guess so. You know." Truth be told, I didn't know. And judging by her tone, she didn't know, either. My hand reached toward her in the darkness, finally finding and resting on her shoulder. "Please, Nina, tell me what's wrong." In response, she rested her cheek against the top of my hand. After a few minutes--remember, I'd learned the hard way to not press for answers--she spoke. "Just a lot going on, Babe. It's not you, so don't think that. Okay?" I grunted in response. "And no matter what happens, just remember I love you, Tim." "But what's going to happen? What-- " I felt warm tears against the top of my hand, and she pressed tighter. "Just go to sleep, Babe. I'll be over this soon. Promise." But sleep didn't come as easily as it should have. I was too scared. What was going on here? She'd been in down moods before, but none of them had lasted this long. And the way she was talking was . . . ominous. Like something bad was going to happen. No way she was cheating on me. I took that for granted. Was she in trouble at work? Had she done something illegal? I just as quickly put both of those out of my mind, as well. No, I had no goddamned idea what was going on here. To understand my confusion, you'd have to know Nina. We'd met three and a half years before. She was out with a bunch of the other nurses, and they came into the restaurant for some administrator's going away party. After the party, she and a few others helped me with some of the basic clean up. Once the dirty dishes were stacked in the sinks in the kitchen for the next morning, we all returned to the bar area for a few drinks and some light conversation. I don't know when I really picked up on it, but I remember seeing her more and more around the Bar and Grill. She may have been coming in before and I'd never noticed her. Given her looks, though, I found that hard to believe. After a month or so, we started having drinks together and chatting nearly every time she dropped by. Nina had been through a rough patch the year preceding our first meeting. She was a registered nurse in the trauma unit at Lincoln County Hospital, recently divorced, had two little girls she loved more than anything, and overwhelming guilt over her affair with a doctor that had caused the break up of her marriage. Nina and Steve had been together since she was in nursing school. Twelve years, all told, and married for six of them before he discovered her brief, two-month affair. Though she'd gotten custody of the girls when the final judgment had been entered six months before I met her, she was still crushed by the burden of her shame and what she had lost. She and Steve had been perfect together, she repeatedly told me. That was why the affair was such a mystery to her. Sure, she told me, Steve had been working long hours and she had been working long hours. Worse, she had yet to lose all of the weight from giving birth to Nadine. Steve never cared, though, said he liked her with a few extra pounds. Nevertheless, she felt ugly, lonely, overworked, and stressed out, and she needed to feel attractive. Steve thought she looked great because he loved her; she wanted someone else to confirm she was still beautiful, someone who didn't already have a vested interest in finding her beautiful. "Unfortunately," she told me all those years ago, "my pride didn't goeth before my fall. No, only after Steve found out did I realize I was acting like some goddamned immature little high school tramp. But by then, it was too late. The fall came, Tim, and it ruined everything I had. And the girls had. And then my pride went, and here I am." She cried telling me about the girls. Nina was constantly torn by Emily's sudden angry outbursts and, worse, Nadine's confusion at the disaster that had become their modern American single-parent household. So when Nina told me she'd never, ever, under absolutely no circumstances cheat again, I believed her. She knew what it had cost her and would cost her again, and there was no way she was going to put her little girls through another trauma like that. That's why she spoiled them so much: She felt so guilty about taking their family away from them, and she was determined they not go without anything else ever again if she could help it. In addition to spoiling her girls, Nina's blue funks every couple of months told me she still lived with the pain of what she had done to her first marriage and her family. So after a whirlwind courtship, we somehow found ourselves married within six months of first meeting. Simple ceremony: Judge at the courthouse, party for friends, relatives, and customers at the Bar and Grill afterwards. And with the exception of the occasional two- or three-day depressions every few months, we'd all been pretty happy together. Only later, looking back on it all, did I realize that there was a small flaw in my unbound faith in Nina's fidelity. A real small flaw, but I should have spotted it at the time. FIVE As the waitresses appeared the next morning just before the lunch crowd, Clara approached me. "You know Jenny's leaving Friday, right?" I looked up from the prep table where I was running cucumbers through the mandoline for salad garnishes. (Kitchen Safety Tip No. 15: If you're not a professional chef, always use the safety guard when slicing on a mandoline. That, or make sure your health insurance is paid up and you won't need your fingertips for anything else ever again.) "Hadn't heard," I said. "Means we're one waitress short." I nodded. "And I've been going through the applications folder, see if there's anyone who'd fit in here." I smiled. "Don't keep me in suspense, Clara." Her lips tightened. Poor old Clara. She didn't even smile much around the customers. It was a wonder she made any tips. Her brisk efficiency seemed to make up for her lack of joy, though. And God knows I couldn't run the food side of things without her. "Well, my sister's girl, Gertrude--" "The sister or the girl?" "Huh?" "Is the sister's name Gertrude? Or the girl?" "My sister," she sputtered. "You know that." I grinned because she was right: I did know that. Clara's parents had saddled all their kids with old-fashioned names. Besides Clara and Gertrude, there were Ethel, Myron, Veronica, and Cyril. Pretty strange bunch of names for a group of kids born in the first half of the Sixties. "Anyway," Clara continued, glaring at me to quit interrupting, "Gertie's oldest, Nicole, has run onto some hard luck. She's back in town with a little one, and she needs a job real bad." "She got any experience waitressing?" I said. "No." I shrugged. "Sounds about par for the course." Clara said nothing, waiting for me to say more. I went back to the cucumbers instead. After almost a minute, Clara couldn't wait any longer. "Well, can I hire her?" I stopped again. (Kitchen Safety Tip No. 16: Best not to use a mandoline unless you're paying attention. Even if you're using the safety guard, it's still a great way to lose a fingertip.) "Clara, have I ever told you who you could and couldn't hire?" She shook her head. "Then why're you making a big deal about it now? You want to hire her--think you can train her and she'll do okay--then go ahead and hire her." I wasn't angry; I was exasperated. She knew the deal. "Well, I might need to get her some extra hours, Tim." "Doing what?" "I don't know. Maybe tending bar some. Or cooking." "She got any experience tending bar or cooking?" Clara shook her head. I laughed. "Well, once I see how quickly she picks up on waitressing, I'll give it some thought. Okay?" Clara's shoulders sagged in relief. She reached out and almost touched me and, swear to God, a smiled damned near popped onto her face. Then, without another word, she turned and left to set up the dining room. This seems a good time to tell you about how I run the Bar and Grill. To be honest, I don't. I run the kitchen, and barely get to call the shots there. First, obviously, there's Clara. She's in charge of the dining room wait staff. She's in her early fifties, solid but not fat, and tall, nearly six feet. Clara is married to a truck driver named Leon Burton, and they have two teenaged boys. The boys are bruisers, just like their old man, and starting linemen, offensive and defensive, for the Grant City Generals. Clara has been at the Bar and Grill since about the time I started nineteen years before, and she knows how to train wait staff and wait tables. She isn't surly, but she's certainly no-nonsense. Her motto with customers, always unspoken but noted by most nevertheless, is "Sit down, shut up, eat up, pay up, and get out." We had a high volume dining crowd, and most people have the common sense to free up the table shortly after finishing. If they want an ice cream drink, there are tables in the bar area to sit and keep right on chatting. Next comes Moe. Don't ask me what it's short for; I don't know, and he's not telling. Moe LeRouche is how his checks are made out, and that's how he endorses them. Moe runs the bar end of things. Thank God, too, because I'd be lost in my ordering if I couldn't turn to him. Moe is in his late thirties, divorced, graying crew cut hair, square jawline, and a touch of a pot belly. He teaches math at Grant City High during the days. At nights, Monday through Saturday, he's tending bar for us from seven to closing time. Child support for three kids will do that to you, particularly when you're always slipping the kids a few extra bucks in spending money. No one knows why he and Elaine divorced, particularly since they are beyond friendly with each other every time they meet. Anyway, every night, Moe checks inventory and leaves me neat lists of what we need to order and what's overstocked and should be avoided. I shake in fear--shit you not--when Moe takes his annual ten-day fishing trip and leaves me in charge of the bar supplies. Finally, there's Uncle Jack. He'd always putzed around the Bar and Grill, filling in as bartender, waiter, and cook whenever we were shorthanded. Uncle Jack was a retired Marine, and thirty-three years in the Corps had left its imprint on his looks and demeanor. He was no nonsense, a touch vulgar, and liked all of his ducks kept in a row. He also kept his Marine Corps physique: Narrow waist and barrel chest, arms like cannons, clean shaven, and a gray crew cut that never seemed to grow even the smallest fraction of an inch. I honestly think he cuts his hair every day. When Aunt Aileen died six years back, though, he quickly found out he was bored out of his mind sitting home alone. In the home they'd shared since his retirement fifteen years before. Staring at memories of his life. Worse, his life in the Corps made him a generally impatient and energetic fellow. Three months after Aunt Aileen's passing, Uncle Jack was waiting for me outside the door of the Bar and Grill one morning. "What's up," I'd said. "Need a job," had come the gruff reply. "Doing what?" "Anything." "Don't pay much." "Don't care." Over coffee and my morning prep work, we'd negotiated the terms. "I'd rather work nights," he'd said. "Really." Nod. "Don't laugh, but I've taken a liking to golf. A few of us old fellas meet every morning. Membership's cheap, you know. 'Specially if you're a senior." "What about winters? Can't golf then. Still gonna wanna work nights in the winter?" "They told me I'd like ice fishing. And other things." "Other things?" He hesitated. "Fuckin' bingo and bridge." The look on his face told me he didn't really believe them when they'd told him he'd like these. Miracle of miracles, though, he liked bridge--probably because it involved gambling--and ice fishing. As a result, nights it was, which finally allowed me to have a life. One thing about Uncle Jack, though, is he's not much of a cook. I don't mean he's lousy or anything. It's just that he doesn't do any of the soups or the specials or the sides. What he does is cook burgers and steaks, fish and chops to the ordered temperature, plates everything precisely, and gets it out quickly. What that means is that his evening shifts are actually more grill and fryer work than my day shifts, but my shifts are a hell of a lot longer because I'm doing all of the grunt work. I don't care, though, because I like the grunt work--inventing specials, making soups, and chopping and slicing garnishes and accompaniments mostly--and I have really come to love having my evenings free. So I stick around with him for the first hour of the dinner shift every night, and a high school kid helps him keep up on Friday nights. What I do with Clara, Moe, and Uncle Jack is I let them all run their own show. They know how it's supposed to be done; they know their people way better than I do; and they show me a degree of loyalty my instructors at cooking school told me was damned near unattainable. I think it was General Patton who said, "Don't tell them how to do something. Just tell them to get it done and let them figure out how to do it." Smart man, that General Patton. SIX Steve has visitation with the girls until about 8:30 every Thursday night. Thus, I try to get home as early as possible every Thursday night so Nina and I can spend a few uninterrupted hours screwing like rabbits. Don't get me wrong, Nina's got a great personality. She's funny, bright, hard working, incredibly empathetic and caring, and easy to talk with. I'd love her to death even with a more mundane sex life. But we did not have a mundane sex life. Put simply, Nina loves to screw. I swear that woman can do more tricks on six inches of cock than a monkey can on twelve feet of rope. The only thing off limits is assplay. No touching, licking, or--"Don't you even think about it, Mister"--anal intercourse. Her enthusiasm for all other things sexual, though, made this a minor issue. Thus, Thursday nights and alternating weekends are the real highlights of my calendar. Sure, we do it far more often than just those few times, but we can't really let it all go. Got to keep down the noise level, and the accompanying acrobatics, when the girls are in their bedrooms on the other side of our ranch house. There were no such restrictions on Thursday nights and alternating weekends, though. Thus, you can imagine my disappointment when I got home and found only Ernie waiting for me. I checked the answering machine and, sure enough, there was a message. "Tim," she started, sounding harried. "Sorry, but we just had a big one come into the unit. Five kids in a car accident or something. I'm not gonna get out of here until late." Then she paused, and I could hear the sounds of the emergency rooms around her with people yelling out drug directions and room directions and all of that crap. "Sorry, Babe. I love you." She sounded stressed and pressed for time, but she didn't seem too disappointed about missing the Thursday night gala I had planned to get her out of her funk. With a sigh, I looked down at Ernie. The chubby pug was sitting at my feet with his tail popping back and forth, his soft wheeze and big, brown eyes begging for attention. "Okay, little man, let's eat." Let's get this straight, pugs are bright dogs. Ernie is, anyway. You can tell because the minute he hears any word related to food, he goes to his bowl and waits for his food. Lonnie Mackie at the bar is a lot like that. I looked around the empty house, listened to the silence--save Ernie's loud snorts as he inhaled his Kibbles and Bits--and decided to go back to the Bar and Grill for dinner. Once back at the Bar and Grill, I grabbed a seat in the corner and waited for Clara to notice me. She was busy with another waitress--one I didn't recognize--at the soda station. The girl next to Clara was tall, though not as tall as Clara. Probably about equal to my five ten. She was slim, too, with long legs and narrow hips, her shoulders only slightly wider. From behind, I could only see long, straight, dark brown hair. What I really noticed, though, was her exceptional posterior. Might as well get this up front now: I'm an ass man. Tits, while nice, can be too big in my book. Legs are great, and long legs greater, but--aside from the face and eyes, which are the first thing I look at--the one thing about a woman that really gets my motor running is a great ass. Nina has a great ass, pert and cute and it could almost fit in a buck's track. This ass, though, was the very essence of a great ass. Perky and proud, a slight bubble that shouldn't otherwise be on a woman with such narrow hips. The kind of ass you just want to hold and squeeze, knead, lick, maybe even give a nibble or two. The Bar and Grill When the waitresses turned, I saw a beautiful face, too. Not beautiful in the classical sense, but beautiful in the sharpened model sense. Remember those French chicks dancing with Robert Palmer in those cheesy mid-Eighties music videos? That's what she looked like, except the longer hair and a way better ass. Her face even had that impassive look, the look that takes in its surroundings without changing emotion. Or showing any emotion at all, for that matter. Clara spotted me, saw me staring, and turned and said something to this vision of beauty. The woman turned her head and looked at me, then started walking toward me, pulling out her order pad at the same time. "Mr. Franklin?" she said. Her voice was medium, not girlish or high pitched or husky. Neutral. She looked mid-twenties, four or five years younger than me. "Call me Tim," I said, reaching up to shake her hand. She hesitated, a skittish look flashing in her hazel eyes, then clasped her hand in mine and shook. Her hand was cool and dry, the handshake just shy of manly firm. A nice handshake. And a really nice hand. "And you must be Nicole." "Yes," she said, poising the pen over the order pad and raising her eyebrows. A tiny smile curled her lips. "Would you like to hear our specials?" I grinned. "Thought you weren't starting until tomorrow." "Aunt Clara's been sneaking me in for a few days now." I shot a look at Clara, who suddenly turned away and found something else to do. "Few days, huh? Like, since before yesterday?" "Since Monday, actually." "And you start when?" "Six-thirty." So they were all in on it. The whole place knew about the new waitress starting her shift every night just after I left. "Well," I said, shrugging, "I'm just the boss. Don't really see a need for me to know things like this, huh?" I saw the smile leave and her face go impassive. She started to say something, but I cut her off. "Relax, Nicole. I'm not angry. And I need to get you back to your duties. So I'll just have a bowl of soup and a side salad with bleu cheese, okay?" She nodded, wrote down my order, and strode to the kitchen. Five minutes later, I watched her push through the kitchen door with soup and salad balanced across one forearm, a small basket of bread in her other hand. What was strange was the look on her face when she nudged the door open with her hip--it looked a lot like a wince of pain--and the concentration on her face that evaporated when she set the bread down then took the soup and salad off of her forearm. It was a look of relief. "You okay?" I asked. There was a small rivulet of sweat beading down her temple. "Fell," she said. Her eyes avoided mine, and her voice was little more than a mumble. "Must've been a helluva fall," I said. My voice went lower. "You sure you're okay?" She only looked up at me, held my gaze for a second, and nodded. "I'll be okay." I nodded. "You need to take some time off, it won't-- " She shook her head. "No, really, I'm okay." She tried to smile, but it didn't work like she planned. Then, without another word, she went back to her other tables. I ate my soup while it was still hot, nibbled on the bread, and ate about half of the salad. I was laying my napkin across the table in front of me when I heard Clara at my side. "So," she said, "what do you think? She working out okay?" I turned and saw Clara giving me a hard stare. I waved my hand to the seat across from me, and Clara turned to make sure no one else was busy before sliding into the chair. "What's wrong with her?" I asked. "What do you mean?" "She's hurt." Clara bit her lip at this. Her eyes darted to Nicole, then back to mine. I decided to wait her out, eating my soup and looking at her. "It's her boyfriend," she said. "Ex-boyfriend now." "Beating her?" Clara nodded. "That's why she's here. She left him after the last beating. Packed up her boy and her things and came back home." "Where's he at?" "Frontier City," she said, naming a town about thirty miles down Highway 92. "How long's she been back?" "Last Saturday." I smiled. "Didn't take you long to get her set up here." Clara fidgeted. "Settle down," I said. "I'm not angry. It's just . . . you coulda told me, you know?" Clara nodded. "I will next time. Promise." I sat back and sipped my iced tea, thinking things through in my mind. Once it was all sorted out, I spoke. "Tell her to be here Monday morning at nine." Clara looked at me in confusion. "I'll train her for kitchen work," I explained. "She can start covering some weekend shifts." Clara's relief was evident. "Thanks, Tim." "You think she'll be okay by then? A little less sore?" Clara actually smiled, teeth and everything. "She'll be ready." "Okay," I said. "And her kid? She'll have someone to watch after him?" Clara nodded. "Between me and Gertie, we should about have it covered." I shrugged. "I guess it's all set then." With that, Clara rose and bustled about the dining room with renewed vigor. See, that's how easy it is to inspire loyalty. Your employees and your customers have their own problems in their own lives. Try to give a shit about them and try to help them out where you can. Who knows, some day I'll need that help. Maybe then they'll try to help me out, right? Thing is, I didn't realize I'd need that help so friggin' soon. SEVEN I got home from the Bar and Grill just before eight. Steve was already home with the girls, and he was sitting on the front porch when I pulled into the driveway. "Hey, Tim," he said. "Steve," I responded, nodding at him. "Where are the girls?" "In the house. I didn't want to leave them here alone." "You could've waited in the house," I offered. He just shrugged. I looked at my watch. "You're early," I said. "Sorry, but I didn't . . . ." "Don't worry about it," he said. "My fault. Should've called." "Beer?" He shook his head. "Where's Nina?" "Stuck working late. Big accident just as her shift was ending." He nodded. He knew the deal after being with her for so long. "You want me to have her call you?" I offered. "Nah," he said, standing up. "It's nothing major. I'll catch up with her sooner or later." I just nodded, and he left. Strange, I know, but I've always liked Steve. He seemed so lost when I first met him, like he'd survived some horrible catastrophe like a tornado or something. Always had that faraway look in his eyes. And every time he'd drop the kids off at the end of his visitations, he'd damned near cry watching them run into Nina's arms. The divorce had definitely not been good for him. You could see it in his whole posture whenever he saw Nina; you could tell he regretted divorcing her. Like maybe he should've given their marriage a chance, tried counseling or something. Either way, he was always pleasant to me. He didn't talk down to me or get in my face or pull any of that other shit I'd heard about from various friends and customers in the same new husband boat as me. Also, the past year and a half or so, Steve had really begun to come out of his shell. Mostly because of Brenda, of course. She'd moved in with him about then, and he seemed happy again. Tonight was different, though. First, and most obvious, Brenda wasn't with him. They'd been inseparable since being together, and she was always with him when he picked up and dropped off the girls. Second, and more troubling, he hadn't smiled. Or talked much. He seemed sullen and pensive, like something was eating at him. I hoped for his sake and mine that everything was still going well with Brenda. For his sake because he'd already been through enough shit, and a happy Steve made for happy Emily and Nadine. A sad and depressed Steve made for angry and churlish little girls. For my sake, too, because a happy Steve kept Nina from feeling guilty again. And a guilty Nina made for a depressed Nina. Depressed Nina like she was now. In a two-week depression that she wouldn't talk about. My lips tightened at the realization. Entering the house, I saw the girls sitting on the sofa watching television. They were obviously upset, and even Ernie was keeping his distance from them. I sat on the love seat perpendicular to the sofa and looked at the girls, trying to make eye contact. They ignored me, their glazed eyes watching the television. "Everything okay?" I asked. They didn't respond. I reached over and picked up the remote, turning down the volume. "Girls, is there something you want to talk about?" Emily ignored me, her lower lip pushing out into full blown, I'm-pissed-at-you pout. Nadine couldn't contain herself, though. Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to me with a look of agony. "Brenda left, Tim," she whispered. "She moved out." I nodded. This explained a lot of things. Worse, it had apparently been coming for some time. For more than the past week at least. I now had the reason for Nina's behavior. Or at least I thought I did. And it only took a few more hours of pondering the whole mess to figure out the whole story. EIGHT I finally got the girls to bed at nine. A beer in my hand, Ernie and I sprawled out on the couch watching Law and Order re-runs, waiting for Nina. She didn't get home until nearly midnight. She tiptoed around the couch and picked up the remote to turn down the volume on the television, scratched behind Ernie's ear, and whispered to me. "Get up, honey." "I'm awake," I said. My voice was monotone. Amazing how watching crappy legal melodrama while petting a lazy, attention-seeking dog for three hours will focus your mind on things. "Sorry I'm so late," she said. "It was really bad, though. We lost two of them." I was sorry to hear that. "Anyone we know?" She shook her head. "Some kids on their way to the strip clubs up north. From the 'burbs." I nodded. I pulled up into a sitting position, pulling a groaning Ernie onto my lap as I did so. Nina sat at the other end of the couch, curling her legs up and looking at me. "When were you going to tell me?" She tilted her head. "Tell you what?" "That you're going back to Steve." She said nothing, her head turning to the flickering television screen. "Well?" I pressed. She turned back to me, and I could see the tears streaking her cheeks. "I'm confused," she said. Her voice was breaking. "About what?" "About us. About the girls. What's best for everyone." "What's to be confused about? You either love me or your don't. You either want to be married to me or you don't." She brushed the tears away. "It's not that simple, Tim." I pulled Ernie closer to me. I needed closeness--to feel needed and appreciated, even if only by a chubby little ball of snorting fur. Ernie was more than happy to oblige. "Okay," I reasoned, "then tell me what's so complicated about it. Steve lost a girlfriend. The first serious girlfriend he's had since the divorce. And now you see an opening to get back together with him, and you're thinking about taking that opening. You're thinking about it so much that you went out with him last night. And you volunteered to stay late tonight so you could avoid being with me. Having . . . sleeping with me." Her eyes told me I was right. "How did you know? About last night?" I snorted. "Because you don't get all dolled up to go to a house party with a bunch of women. And when you go to a Pampered Chef party to help a girlfriend buy a car, you actually buy something. The fuckin' beer bread mix or some crappy bakeware or something. But you didn't." She nodded. The tears kept coming, and so did my deductions. "Then tonight I find out Brenda's gone. And Steve's here with the girls early. Not talking to me." I scratched behind Ernie's ears and listened to him groan his approval. "Jesus H. Christ, Nina, he could barely look me in the eye. He at least feels like shit about this." Nina sobbed at that. "You don't think I feel-- " "No," I hissed. "I don't think you feel the least goddamned bit guilty about any of this. You're just trying to figure out how to get out of here--how to get away from me and back to him--with the least amount of drama. Which would be a goddamned first for you, by the way." "How can you say that? How can you even-- " "Because," I interrupted, my voice dropping to keep from waking the girls, "when I started putting two and two together, I called the hospital to find out whether there'd been any accidents." "But there was," she sniffled. I nodded. "Yep. Fortunate for you, huh? Unfortunately, the accident didn't happen until fifteen minutes after your shift had ended. But you were hanging around, trying to keep from coming home to have sex with your husband. So when the call came in, you jumped right in, didn't you?" "It wasn't like that," she pleaded. But the look in her eyes told me it was exactly like that. I said nothing, preferring to glare at her as I stroked Ernie's sides. Thank God he was my dog and not her's or he'd be abandoning me to try cheering her up. God knows I felt the pull to hug her and comfort her, try to relieve her agony. "I just don't know what to do," she finally said, her voice quiet as she wiped the tears from her cheeks for the millionth time. "Yes you do. You know exactly what to do, and you've already done it." She looked at me, her face a mask of horror at the implications of what I'd said. "You think I could . . . you think that last night we . . . ." "What I think," I said, "is that last night you had me--your husband--babysit your girls so you could have dinner with your ex-husband to decide whether you wanted to take those very same girls of yours and leave your current husband to go back to the ex-husband. That's what I think." The look of horror became a look of shame and embarrassment. I decided to drive the point home more clearly. "That's right. It was a good thing I was available to babysit YOUR children while you went out and betrayed me." She was shaking her head. "And then," I continued, going for the kill shot, "once you decided that's what you wanted to do, you made sure that you wouldn't again betray your now ex-husband by having sex with me. Your current husband. The one you supposedly love and are so torn up over." The look on her face told me I'd hit the nail right on the head and she couldn't believe I'd seen through it. "What's more," I continued, on a roll now, "I'm pretty sure last night wasn't the first time you've seen him about this or talked with him about this. Is it?" She shook her head, sniffling through her tears. "That's actually why you've been down for the past two weeks. Because you've actually been thinking about it--and planning it with his help--for that long, right? It just took you 'til last night to finally make the decision, right?" She couldn't look me in the eye, instead gazing sightlessly into the flickering courtroom melodrama playing out on the television screen. "So what we're going to do," I continued, "is call Steve. Right now. And then you're going to call the hospital and arrange to take tomorrow off. And then you and Steve can pack up everything you want here and move back in together and be one big happy family. And you'll get all of this accomplished before I get home from work tomorrow night. Got it?" My voice was cracking, and I could feel tears burning down my cheeks as I continued. "There's no sense in continuing with this farce. You've made your decision, and there's no sense in prolonging the fuckin' drama, okay?" She stared at me, hiccupping through her tears. "You're not even going to try to talk me out of this?" I laughed. "I've been trying to talk to you for the last two weeks. But you didn't want to share any of it then, did you? Now that you've completed your mission, you want me to beg you not to do what you've already decided to do?" I leaned toward her. "Is this going to be that much easier for you if I beg you to stay and you can crush me that much more when you go anyway? Is that it?" She was thunderstruck by what I'd said. It was like she hadn't even seen it that way. She expected--hell, seemed to want--the begging and heartfelt pleas and tears. Well fuck her. "Like I said, gone by tomorrow at six. Okay?" She nodded slowly, then fled to the bedroom. I sat in the darkness, relaxing to the rhythmic snores of the tuckered out pug on my lap. "Guess it's just you and me now, Ernie," I whispered. I didn't bother wiping the tears from my cheeks. Better to wake up with a reminder that my marriage was over.