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When We Were Married Ch. 01

By: DanielQSteele1



(c) Daniel Quentin Steele – 2010

Author's note: There is a real State Attorney's Office headquartered in Jacksonville. Facts about locations and elements of the office organization has been changed, because it makes for a better story. This time I'm taking a chance by submitting without Lady Pine Rose's input since she's tied up elsewhere so I hope readers will forgive any mistakes on my part. As always, I hope readers enjoy the story and I welcome your input.

April , 2005

Four words wrecked my marriage and my life. And they're not the four words you're probably thinking about.

Not "we have to talk," or "baby, I've met somebody" or "our sex life sucks" or even "You're not giving me enough." Actually that last is five words, but hey, who's counting.

It was a lot stranger, and simpler than that. I had come into our bedroom on a Tuesday night after finishing a "law and order" re-run on cable and was getting ready to take a shower. I tend to watch a lot of cop and lawyer shows. Coals to Newcastle, really. 

I should have gotten enough of that stuff in my day job as an Assistant State Attorney in the Duval County State Attorney's Office. To northerners, that's the same as the District Attorney's Office.. We are the people who prosecute bad guys and put them away when we can. Anyway, I like those kinds of cop shows. Even after 10 years on the job, I still like what I do.

Anyway, Debbie was in bed, lying back on a scrunched up pillow, looking through some travel magazine. She usually brings back a ton of student papers to grade from UNF where she's an associate professor in the College of Business. They generally take a couple to three hours to finish. But she's conscientious and it was 11 p.m. and she was relaxing.

I enjoyed the view. Even though we had been married 17 years, I still enjoyed looking at her. A tall blonde, hair cut fashionably movie star style with Jennifer Anniston bangs, she looked 10 years younger than her true age of 39. The robe she wore was as sexy as a potato sack, but I could still see the curve of her D-cup breasts underneath it. I could also envision her long legs.

I thought about trying to get a real look between them, but stopped myself. She insisted I take my evening shower and brush my teeth before I even tried and she was usually too tired on weeknights to even consider the idea. I looked down at myself. I was five foot nine, Debbie five-ten, and where she was still fairly svelte from working out at the gym, I'd already developed the class middle aged paunch of a guy whose only exercise was getting out on the links every few months. And I only did that when office politics absolutely demanded it.

I walked into the bathroom and stripped off my tee shirt and shorts that I generally wore around the house. We had a full length mirror and I took inspection. Hair thinning and a real bald spot was beginning to develop where I could barely see it at the rear of my scalp. 

Then I look at my midsection. Jesus, pasty white and flabby. No wonder Debbie preferred on the increasingly infrequent times when we did have sex to keep the lights off. I looked like a fucking old lawyer. I looked like those old guys my friends and I used to laugh at when I'd started lawyering. I was only 41, not 61. I made up my mind at that point. I'd always told myself that I didn't have the time to join a gym and I had gently teased Debbie about being a little vain. To hell with that. If I was a woman, I sure as hell wouldn't be too eager to have sex with me.

I took my shower and came out freshly scrubbed, but I didn't wear my normal underwear and white tee-shirt. I came out with a towel around my middle and found a pajamas set in the drawer on my side of the bed. I thought Debbie glanced over at me and there might have been a little smile flickering on her face, but that might have been my imagination. 

With my pot covered, I slid into bed next to her. I leaned over to kiss her. I tried for the lips but she moved her head slightly so I planted a kiss on the side of her face. She smiled absent mindedly at me.

"The kids asleep?"

Bill Jr. was 14 and Kelly was 16. Bill I'd left trolling on the computer for skateboarding or as he called it shredder sites, but I was pretty sure he was looking for porn. What the hell, he was 14 and had discovered that girls were delightfully different creatures. I had the computers set up with tracking programs. I trusted the kids, but I'd been prosecuting scum too long to be happy and ignorant about what they were up to. 

Kelly was, I'm pretty sure from the way she'd lowered her voice and moved as far away from me as she could and still stay in the den, talking to one of her boyfriends. I know she had more than one, because she was a luscious junior edition of her mother.

"No, but they know the rules. I'm sure they'll be in bed in an hour or so. Hey, those were great pictures. Where was that beach, the one with the Tiki hut things near the water?"

"Oh." 

She glanced over at me as if surprised that I'd noticed what she was reading. She held the magazine out to me. It was "Travel" with the pages turned to "The best beaches you've never heard of." The beach was on an island I'd never heard of and I couldn't even pronounce the name.

"Man, that is beautiful. What about it, would you like to go there this summer when the school is on break? I know you weren't planning on teaching this summer."

She looked at me as if surprised.

"That's – sweet, Bill...but...I had meant to talk to you. I was thinking about teaching this summer. Larry Carter usually teaches the summer session but his wife talked him into taking her to Hawaii and they need someone to fill in."

"When did this come up? I hadn't heard a word about it."

She looked into my eyes and then away with an expression I couldn't place.

"About a month ago. I'd meant to mention it, but I kept forgetting. Sorry. I didn't think we had any firm plans. You're always working on some case or other. And we haven't gone anywhere exotic in a long time."

"I know, but-"

She dropped the magazine to her hip, then rolled a little so one big luscious breast bulged out against her robe and said, "I'm sorry Bill, I pretty much already told them I'd take the summer session. But, look, we went to some wonderful places when we were married and next summer I promise I'll leave time so we can go somewhere nice."

No one at the office has ever accused me of being slow on the uptake, but it took me a minute after she finished patting me on the hand and then picked the magazine back up before it sunk in.

I said the words to myself silently and ran them over and over, jumbling them up and trying to figure out how I had misunderstood my loving, blonde and very sexy wife.

"...when we were married?"

She looked back at me from the magazine with a slightly puzzled expression on her face as if she'd only heard part of what I said, and asked, "What did you say?"

I didn't realize it then, but from the expression that slowly grew on her face I realized a storm cloud must have appeared on mine as I slowly, with great emphasis and the beginnings of real anger, said, "You said we went some nice places WHEN WE WERE MARRIED. Is there something going on I don't know about?"

An expression consisting of equal parts surprise, embarrassment and what appeared to be shock appeared on her face.

"What are you talking about Bill? You must have misunderstood what I said."

"No. You said it very clearly and distinctly. WHEN WE WERE MARRIED! I kind of thought we were married. That's why I asked if there was something I wasn't aware of."

She shook her head and tried to look me in the eyes.

"I couldn't have said that, Bill. That's crazy. "

"No, just weird. I know we're married, babe, so where did that come from?"

"I don't – oh. I must have meant we've been some nice places since we've been married. That's what I meant to say."

"Oh."

I rolled it around inside my head and I knew she was lying. 'Since we were married,' and "when we were married" aren't close enough to make that kind of mistake. And she hadn't been thinking when she said it. It had popped out without her thinking about it or apparently even realizing what she was saying.

In the office we call those Freudian give-aways. Most people call them Freudian slips. When people's mouths outrun the control of their minds, they can say things that wind up sending them to prison or the death chamber at Raiford. 

Any prosecutor or cop knows that no matter how tightly controlled a person may be, the unconscious mind is always perking away down below. And when you're guilty about something, what the unconscious mind is doing is trying to confess something the conscious mind wants to keep hidden.

What was she thinking about, I thought, glancing at her beautiful face and realizing she was still focused in with a laser-like stare on my eyes. She was trying to read me the way I was reading her. Only I was better at it because I'd done it for a living for a long time. 

And then I realized with an acidic burn in the pit of my stomach, I'd never looked at her in our 17 years of marriage and two years of dating before that this way: the way I'd stare at a suspect, a scum bag, a perp as our brethren cops dubbed them. I didn't like the feeling I had about her.

I made myself laugh, although it came out as a dry chuckle.

"You're right, babe. Anybody can garble their words. I even do it once in a while. I have to admit, you gave me a fright there. I was wondering if we'd ever been legally married. Was there a problem with our marriage license? Or did you secretly divorce me?"

I tried to make myself laugh again but all that came out was a dry cough.

She searched my eyes intently as if trying to see if I was telling the truth. But after ten years of working a courtroom, I've got that poker-stare down pat. She wouldn't get any hints from my face.

She reached over and did something that shocked and scared me a little. She took my hand and brought it to her lips and kissed it. Such a simple thing. But I couldn't remember the last time she had ever done it. Even when we were getting ready for sex it was kissing on the lips and her jerking my dick and my licking her luscious pussy until she was wet and ready.

But a simple gesture like kissing the back of my hand....it was something lovers did. And I realized we hadn't been lovers in forever.

If she had looked up then, I know she would have known and the game would have been over and our lives would have gone very differently. Because my eyes flooded with tears as I realized the shit that our marriage had become while I was too blind to see it happening in front of me. If she had looked me in the eye then she would have known something was terribly wrong and I would have told her the truth about what I was thinking and our marriage would have changed forever- one way or other.

But she didn't and I was able to squelch the emotions and quickly wipe my eyes with my free hand.

She kept her face tightly against the back of my hand and kissed it again. Without looking at me, she said, "I'm sorry for saying it that way, Bill. You know I love you. You're the only man in my life. I love you more now than when we married. You're the father of my children. This is crazy. It was just a slip of the tongue and it didn't mean anything."

But I couldn't take my prosecutor hat off. I wondered why she wouldn't look at me when she professed her undying love. And I found myself listening to and weighing her words, her tone. I'd listened to thousands of depositions and thousands of witnesses on witness stands. And I found the professional side of my mind, not the husband, weighing her words.

And over and over, my mind went back to the same question. It told me that when she said, "When we were married," she was talking in the past tense. That meant in the present tense, in the now, we weren't married. At least in her mind. Or was it that she simply didn't WANT to be married to me anymore. Or was she planning to make herself un-married in the near future? Was a divorce in the offing?

Which inevitably led to the question: was she simply tired of me and ready to toss me in the garbage and make a new life for herself with another man? Or had she already found my replacement? Was she fucking another guy right now? Was that why our sex life was infrequent, so boring, so bland, so..vanilla. Was that why we had been mom and dad a hundred times more than we'd been lovers, sex partners. 

Of course, a part of me kept telling me this whole train of thought was stupid. She had just mixed up her words. Tomorrow morning things would be back to normal and in a day or two I'd laugh at my own paranoia. I had simply been a prosecutor too many years looking deep into the worst of humanity, and it colored the way I looked at everything, even my wife and my marriage.

I wanted to believe that, but everything felt...wrong. It was a simple mistake, but why had she reacted the way she had? If it was nothing she'd simply have laughed it off, went back to her reading and teased me about taking it the wrong way. But she hadn't. She had acted worried, disturbed and now she was acting in an unusually loving manner.

She let my hand go and put the magazine on the drawer by her side of our king sized water bed. She reached up and turned off the nightlight on her side and told me, "Turn the light off, honey." As I reached over to my right to turn off the light on my side I saw her stand up out of the corner of my eye and I held off turning off the light.

By the time I had rolled back to her the robe had dropped and she was stepping out of her panties. Her heavy breasts had fallen with age and gravity, but they were still incredibly swollen and juicy melons even with the nipples pointing down at a 45 degree angle. But I lost focus on my favorite part of her when my eyes drifted down to her pussy.

I couldn't understand what I was looking at first. I found myself looking for the golden fuzz that surrounded her vagina, but it was gone. It was as smooth as baby's bottom. Just the pink of her outer lips and a hint of the red interior. After a minute I realized she had shaved down there. Gotten rid of all her public hair. Why, and for whom, I wondered. I had never suggested it. I'd heard about it from friends, married and bachelor, and it might have been nice but it was never anything I would have brought up. Not in recent years, anyway.

She looked at me, read the expression on my face, and said with a timid smile, "Do you like it? A lot of the girls at the school, especially the younger and single ones, told me this is really hot and men love it."

I just looked at her for a moment, and then I couldn't stop myself from saying, "I bet they do. Have you gotten any compliments?"

She just stared at me until what I'd said sunk in. Now the tears appeared in her eyes.

"How can you say that, Bill. God, how can you say something that mean...when I did this for you?"

The anger that was percolating inside me was coming out and I couldn't stop it.

"And just when were you going to show me your new look, baby? After you finished your article? Or watched the late news. Or were you going to just strip and jump on me, the way you usually do. Oh, that's right, I forgot. You never do that. If I'm going to get any action, I have to give you notice, shower, shave and brush my teeth and get you in the mood first. When was the last time you just stripped and jumped me?"

I pretended to think.

"Oh, yeah. Never. So what's different about tonight. Oh and how long ago did you shave it?"

She climbed onto the bed on her hands and knees, her breasts dangling down like ripe fruit. She knew that almost made me hard as a rock. She reached out and closed her hand on my cock. It was already rigid and I couldn't help release a little groan of pleasure.

"I don't want to fight, Bill. I want you. Inside me. The way it used to be. I'm sorry I've let things slide. I've been so busy with the kids and work and friends that I let the main thing in my life go unattended to. And that's you. I shaved because I wanted to excite you. I wanted you to grab me and throw me down, spread my legs and fuck me the way you used to. We used to love it, remember?"

And I wanted to believe her. I wanted to remember those nights when we were first married and I couldn't get enough of her. I wanted to believe she had shaved herself for me. I wanted to believe that she had been planning to surprise me with incredibly hot sex out of the blue tonight.

Unfortunately, I couldn't. I grabbed her hand and pulled it off my rock hard cock. It was probably the hardest thing I'd ever had to do.

She looked at me as if I'd gone crazy, and she probably thought I had.

"Babe, I really don't know what's going through your mind right now. I don't even know if I know you anymore. One thing I do know. There was no way in hell you were planning on having hot sex with me tonight. You'd have gotten rid of the kids somehow. It's easy enough to farm them off on somebody. You wouldn't have let me waste the night in front of the tube. You wouldn't have been in bed with your –no touch- robe on. You'd have had me shaved and cleaned up a long time ago.

"No, this was just an average, every day kind of night. The kind of night a middle aged, long married couple spend most nights; reading, television, maybe a cuddle, then check on the kids and get enough sleep to get going tomorrow. That's been our life."

I looked at her curiously. She wasn't crying, just looked stunned.

"Everything changed a few minutes ago. When you said those four words....you started loving on me, stripped, showed me that new shaved pussy of yours I had no idea existed, and then you grabbed and started to jerk. I can't remember the last time you ever did that.

"I don't know what's going on, Debra, but something is. Are you going to tell me what it is?"

She put her hands together and cupped her fists as she tried to hold my gaze and then dropped her eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Bill. I just wanted to ...to make love to my husband. You're acting so crazy over what's nothing."

"Are you fucking somebody else?"

At that she did cry. Then she wiped the tears from her eyes, got off the bed and slipped her robe back on. There was real anger on her face.

"You are an asshole. I try to make love to you, to bring us a little closer because God knows we've drifted so far apart, and you accuse me of cheating on you. Fucking another man, to use your words. That you could say that, that you could even think it, shows me our marriage is in really, really bad shape."

I didn't say anything, because she had said it all.

"I'm going downstairs to sleep on the couch in the den, you bastard. I don't think I could stand looking at you or touching you tonight. And tomorrow, try to get out of here without saying a word to me or even looking at me. You think you can do that?"

"I think so."

And she was out the door.

##############################    



The next morning I got up early with the alarm set for 5. I'd already taken a shower. I grabbed a suit from our bedroom closet, slipped out the door without stopping for coffee and in other words, got out of Dodge while the getting was good. I didn't bother to turn on the light in the den but I could see a dark shade huddled under a blanket on the huge couch that is the main feature of our den. That along with the largest big screen television allowed under the law. As I walked past the door to the darkened room, I tried to remember the last time we'd made out on that couch. I couldn't remember.

When I got to work I quickly slipped into the usual routine. A wealthy Ponte Vedra trophy wife had apparently, according to her lover, faked her own kidnapping to extort 1.5 million from her elderly husband. I had to decide what charges to file. 


When We Were Married Ch. 01



A 75-year-old husband had been tearfully arrested after a coroner found five times the lawful level of painkiller in his dead wife's cancer ridden body. He swore he hadn't fed her the extra drugs to speed her end. We had to make the decision on whether to charge or not to charge him with mercy killing. Which is basically homicide with a good chance of mercy from the judge after a guilty plea.

The Jacksonville Sheriff was bugging the hell out of our junior assistants and working his way up to me pleading for a little mercy in the case of respected patrol officer who had shot his girlfriend's husband and two brothers to death when they showed up at his house trying to take the girlfriend home where they said she belonged.

Of course there were three of them, and the cop was pleading fear for his life, but he had blown them away with his Glock and they, unfortunately for him, were unarmed when they were shot to death. Oh, and one brother had two bullet holes in his back. Kind of hard to argue fear for your life when you shot a man in the back as he was running away from you.

But, there's a symbiotic relationship between cops and prosecutors and the Big Man who signed my checks and wanted to be Governor of Florida someday did not want the cops getting pissy with our office and subtly sabotaging our cases because we'd screwed one of Jacksonville's finest.

As one of the three top assistants under the Big Man, the case got dumped in my hands and I had to make a Solomon-like decision. 

And, of course, all the while these fairly routine matters were on my mind, in the back of my head the thoughts and fears aroused last night kept swirling and swirling. As usual I didn't have time to get out of my office so I had a Camel Rider sub with cheese and chopped up hamburger and onions delivered to my office about 1 p.m.

When Cheryl, my secretary for the last five years, brought the lunch in, I told her to call the front desk and tell them that unless God called in with an emergency over the next hour, all my calls were to be held.

She stepped back into the office and looked at me expectantly. I never held calls like that. I looked her over. Five foot six, red haired, dressed demurely in a light red dress that was short enough to be provocative but not enough to be slutty and out of place in a work environment. She wore glasses and her hair up in a bun, but I'd been around a few times when she let her hair down, figuratively and literally, and I knew there was a wild mane of red hair almost down to her ass that was almost hypnotically strokable.

"Do you need anything else Mr. Maitland?" she asked.

"Take off the secretary hat, Cheryl, and I'll take off my boss hat. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

She looked at me oddly for a minute, then relaxed. We'd been to a few office parties and I'd seen her on her ass drunk and even taken her home once and she knew I'd never touched her when I probably could have touched her anywhere I wanted. She'd never said anything overt, but I got the impression she admired me for not messing with her when I could have.

"What's wrong, Bill?"

"Something has to be wrong for me to talk to one of my favorite secretaries," I said, trying to smile.

"You never hold your calls for an hour, I can't remember the last time you asked me in here for some private time, and anyone in here can take one look at you and tell something is bothering you."

That hurt my pride.

"I'm that transparent? And I was priding myself on my poker face."

"Usually you are pretty inscrutable. But when you walked in the door this morning, I knew something was up. And knowing you, it's personal. You are too cool when it comes to legal stuff. So it's either the kids or Debbie, and if I were a betting woman I'd say Debbie. You guys have a fight?"

I looked down at the Camel Rider and tried to make myself acquire an appetite. I needed some food inside me.

"I wish."

An alarmed expression flashed across her face and she quickly grabbed a chair and pulled it up to within a foot of my desk, close enough she could reach out and touch me.

"Oh, shit, Bill. Is it that bad?"

"I think it could be."

"Tell me."

I thought about it, but in the light of day I couldn't bring myself to give her the details. The more I thought about it, the whole fuss over a single word seemed even crazier than Debbie has said last night. If you weren't there, if you couldn't see her eyes, couldn't hear her voice, it did seem like I was very much exaggerating what had happened."

"We just had a – a – like a fight. Over something stupid. But..."

"What?"

"It doesn't matter. But, I want you to answer me honestly. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Can you do that. I won't get mad. Or upset. I need a woman to talk to, honestly."

She licked her red lips for a moment before answering.

"I hate this kind of thing, Bill. You say you won't get upset, but honesty always hurts."

"I need brutal honesty, Cheryl. I think I've been a good boss, and a good friend. And I think I proved to you that I like and respect you enough not to do anything – that would jeopardize our friendship. I'd like you to do the same."

She reached out and took one my hands in hers. 

"You have been a good guy, Bill. Ask away."

"Have you ever thought – when you weren't drunk – about going to bed with me? Would you sleep with me if I really hit on you hard? And do I excite you – as a man – at all?"

She just stared at me for a moment.

"I swear to God I'm not hitting on you. But I need to know."

She looked down at the table, then faced me squarely.

"A few times. When I was between boyfriends or really, really horny. But honestly, I never thought about you seriously. You're not on my short list. You're male. But, you don't – shit this is hard – you really don't excite me. I admire you. I like you. But, I don't get – I don't want to be indelicate, but I don't get wet thinking about you. I guess the bottom line is I could see us in a situation where we might wind up in bed. Another office party might do it. But it would only be a one-time thing."

"So I don't really excite you? I'm not a hunk?"

This time she looked down at the desk a lot longer before raising her eyes to mine. 

"You're not a hunk, Bill. Sorry. You're a little overweight, and flabby, and you're losing your hair and no matter what women say, that's important. Bald is not beautiful to most of us. You're a tiger in the courtroom, and professionally everybody looks up to you, but in the bedroom...I'd say you're just another out of shape middle aged guy."

She squeezed my hand and looked for a moment like she wanted to cry.

"That was probably too much honesty, right? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

I was able to smile at her, even though it had hurt.

"What about Debbie. And I want you to be just as honest. Is she as hot as I think she is? And have you ever seen guys hitting on her at parties? How did she act when they did?"

This time she took a lot longer to answer.

"She's hot, Bill. What can I say. She's tall and blonde and she's got those big boobs and gorgeous legs. Every party I've ever been at where the two of you were there, guys hit on her all the time when you're not around."

"I'm not surprised she's popular. She is hot. Now for the $64,000 question. And this is where I need you to be honest. What does she do when they hit on her?"

She looked down again.

"I really don't want to answer this, Bill. Please don't make me."

"I need to know."

"Is this what it's all about. You think she's – with somebody?"

"I don't know, but I think she could be."

"I guess I've been at six or seven office parties where you guys have shown up, and there was that one year you invited me and my date to that Christmas party at UNF. Like I said, guys are always hitting on her, putting their arms around her, patting her ass, trying to sneak a kiss. Usually she just shrugs it off, puts their hands where they're supposed to be, gets them laughing and walks away. She's pretty good. 

"A few times, very few, I've seen her in what seemed to a pretty good clinch in a corner or a hallway, but it's not a deep throat and the guys don't have their hands inside her clothes. I've seen a few of them petting her. But, Bill, to be honest, unless you want to walk about with a cattle prod most women have had that happen to them. That's why you wear stiletto heels. They're wonderful for cooling off guys who get too hot.

"And to answer what I think your real question is, I've never seen her jerkin off a guy or rubbing his dick. I've never seen her out of control to where it looked like some guy could talk her into leaving the party with him. I can't say for sure she hasn't done anything wrong, but I've never seen her do anything you'd divorce her over. And that's what we're talking about here, right?"

She reached out to grab my hand again and squeezed.

"She is a very beautiful woman, and very hot. Trust me when I say that she's like most hot women. She could have a different man every night without doing more than giving them the right kind of smile. And if she was doing that, I don't think there's any way you wouldn't have found out by now. Maybe she's cheating on you, but if she is, being very careful and selective, and I really don't think she is. Just an impression."

I leaned back in my chair and let out a deep breath. I couldn't eat a bite because I had no appetite.

"But what you're telling me is she is a very hot woman who has guys throw themselves at her every time I'm not around, and I'm a dull, sexually unattractive, old man who doesn't excite women. Something seem out of kilter about that picture?"

"People don't stay together just for sex. They stay together for love and companionship and their kids. You guys have built a life together. You think she'd throw that away just for sex?"

"Women do it every day, Cheryl So do men. It may be only sex, but it's the glue that holds marriages together. And we don't have it anymore." 

She just looked at me sadly. I guess there's a limit to how encouraging you can be when you're facing a really shitty situation.

For the rest of the afternoon I waded through the common litany of treachery, stupidity, violence, lust, and lawbreaking that is the lot of any prosecutor and tried not to think about what I'd face when I got home. That was the part that was really beginning to hit me hard. My job is stressful. There's too much violence and filth and ruined lives to deal with every day. Home had always been my refuge, where I could be assured of the love of my wife and children and convince myself every night that the world I lived and worked in was not the real world. And now that refuge, that dream of love and loyalty had started to develop cracks.

I got home at 6:30, not real late for me. A lot of nights I'd be tied up until 8 or 9 and Debbie almost always left a dinner in the fridge or microwave for me when I got home. Sometimes she was home. Other times she'd be out at some meeting or other. There were always a lot of meetings, some business, some more social, but it's all part of the office political game you have to play in any institution. I'd accepted it and even when she came home at 12 or 1, sometimes 2 a.m., it hadn't bothered me. Drinking went on, but it had never bothered me. 

I've handled enough cases of infidelity leading to murder or mayhem to know the signs. She had never been exceptionally secretive – taking quick showers or concealing her undergarments or trying to hide her body – or exceptionally sexy, wanting to fuck me when she walked in. I had never checked up on her, it had never occurred to me to, but had inadvertently found out many times from other people that she was where she had said she was supposed to be, and doing what she had said she was doing.

What hurt worse than anything else was the unbidden suspicion that now colored the way I thought about her. Where was she now, and who was she with, and how would I know she was telling the truth if she told me? I felt the anger in me growing again. The stupid bitch! All she had to do was laugh off the mis-statement of the last night, make a joke of it, and I would have forgotten about it. Even if she was cheating on me, I'd be fat, happy and ignorant. 

Tonight she was out and both the kids were out as well. That was no surprise. I looked around. She usually left a note on the fridge or microwave letting me know where she was if she had to go out. There was nothing. I stood there and just listened. Nothing is as silent as an empty house that usually is filled with the noise of talk, laughter, television shows and radio broadcast songs.

I went to the liquor cabinet and brought out a bottle of Goldschlager. I had never heard of Goldschlager until a few years ago when a friend of Bill Jr.'s had smuggled one into a party for pre-teens. I found it, confiscated it, tried it and found that I loved it. So I always kept a bottle in the cabinet. Of course, it usually takes me three to six months to go through a bottle, but it's great for an occasional drink.

I sipped and walked through the house, making a detour by the two-car garage. Her 2004 Nissan 350Z was parked and cold to the touch. Wherever she was, somebody had come and picked her up.

Eventually I found myself in the big easy chair across from the couch and cattycornered from the Big Screen Television from Hell. I punched it on and settled back into my cocoon with cable news of all the terrible things happening around the world and tried my best to forget about Debbie and where she was and who she was with.

At 9:30 p.m. Bill Jr. blew in through the front door, alternatively talking and texting on his cell phone. I called his name a couple of times and when he continued upstairs toward his room I bellowed, "BJ, come here. Now."

He gave me a startled look as if he hadn't even known I was there. After a moment he said into his cellphone, "Gotta go. Old man wants me. Talk to you later." Then he texted a few words and clicked off. Then he looked at me, without moving away from the staircase.

"What?"

His tone irritated me, but he was a teenager.

"Just wanted to talk to you for a sec. You know where your mom is?"

He glanced at me for a second then shifted his gaze back to the staircase. It was obvious he had more important things to do.

"Haven't seen her. That's not unusual, though. She's out a lot."

He gave me a look with the arrogance and worldly wise contempt that only a 14-year-old can muster and said, "She's your wife. Why don't you know where she is?"

I could have done what my old man would have done at that point and popped him upside the head, but my old man had been a 6-2 inch, 240 pound coal miner from West Virginia and he had lived in a simpler time. Bill Jr. was almost as tall as me and sure as hell, if I left any marks Social Services would be out by the next day, I'd be arrested and my mug shot would be plastered on the front of the TU with a headline saying, "Top SA Assistant Arrested For Child Abuse."

So I just shrugged and said, "You got your homework done?"

He was going to turn around and ignore me when I said, "Walk up those stairs without answering that question and you're under house arrest for two weeks."

He stopped and turned in mid-step and looked at me as if I were some grotesque bug that had crawled out from under a rock.

"You're not going to-"

"Try me," I said, using the tone I wield when informing an opposing attorney that the deal I was offering was going to be off the table in 30 seconds.

"Mom won't-"

"What Mom says doesn't count for shit, and you can tell her I said that. You answer my question or forget about running with your friends for two weeks. And if I have to come home early for two weeks, I will."

He took a deep breath. "I got 20 pages to read in English and two pages of problems in Algebra."

"Alright, get upstairs and start on it."

He turned around but he said just loudly enough that I could hear but he could plausibly deny, "God, what a dick. No wonder Mom stays out so much."

He turned around to look at me slyly and I just grinned at him. I think that's what really pissed him off.

The next time I heard a car in the driveway I heaved myself out of my chair and glanced at the clock on the Wall. 11 p.m. I walked out to the front of the house and looked out through the window into the driveway. A sporty Audi model, a two seater, had pulled up into the circular drive. The car idled for a moment. I could make out two figures inside. 

Then the one with long hair leaned over and it might have been, probably was, a kiss, brief but a kiss, and the passenger side door opened. As I expected, my blonde wife slid her long legs out and then got up. She bent over to wave goodbye to the driver and in that instant I saw a youngish dark haired guy at the wheel. I wasn't sure, but I thought he was another assistant professor in the business department.

As Debbie walked to the house I was pretty sure she hadn't gone to work teaching in that outfit. The blouse was low cut and tight, drawing attention to the globes of her breasts, and the dress itself was cut at above the knee. Not quite a mini-skirt, but it would ride high enough when sitting in a car. Not a teacher's outfit. So she had come home and changed, assuming she had gone to work, and then gone out for a long evening.

Doing what, I wondered, and with whom. But I decided I was going to try to be civil.

I went back into the den and sat down in front of the television with a few sips of liquor in my glass and switched between Fox and MSNBC to watch the arguing talking heads. I heard the front door open and then her steps came through the house. The steps stopped as she approached the door to the den. I knew without looking back that she had stopped and seen me sitting there.

I wondered if she was going to say anything. As I'd halfway expected, she didn't say a word, just continued up the stairs obviously heading for our bedroom. After awhile I heard the shower going. Then nothing.

At midnight Kelly came in, gave me a glance in the den and wandered upstairs as well. I sat watching nothing in particular until 12:30 when I realized I had to go to bed. I had been putting it off as long as possible. I turned off the TV and went up the stairs. When I got to the bedroom, all the lights were off. Only the light from the outside hallway showed me a shape on Debbie's side of the bed.

She didn't say anything as I walked in. I had planned to say something, but then thought the hell with it. Let her start the conversation if there was anything she had to say. She was the one who had told me she didn't want to see or hear anything from me that morning.

I took a quick shower, dressed in the walk-in closet, again with pajamas and walked silently to my side of the bed. I slipped under the covers and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. Beside me I heard Debbie breathing slowly and rhythmically. She was pretending to be asleep but I could tell she was awake. Her breathing was too slow and rhythmical. I wasn't going to look over at her to see if her eyes were open.

Finally I rolled on my side away from her and somehow I fell asleep. The next morning I was up early again, dressed and out of the house without saying a word to her. I grabbed a egg bacon biscuit at Hardy's on the way to work. I dived into my world of murder, deceit and mayhem and actually enjoyed the work, probably a little more than usual. I never heard from Debbie, cell phone, office phone, nothing. It was as if I didn't have a wife.

The only thing that brought her to my mind was when Cheryl stopped in my office for a moment and said, "How did things go, Bill?"

"They didn't."

"What did she say?"





When We Were Married Ch. 01



"Not a word."

"How-?"

"When I came home she was out. She rolled in about 11 o'clock in a car belonging to good looking young professor that works with her at UNF. I think she kissed him goodnight. Then she walked in, took a shower and went to bed. Not a word."

"God, Bill, I'm sorry. But why didn't you-"

"Didn't feel like it, I guess, Cheryl. I'm starting to think there's not much doubt about what's going on here. And she's the one who needs to start clearing the air."

Cheryl just gave me a look then said, "I know it's going to be hard, Bill, but you guys have to talk. Hell, you're an attorney. You know things have to be talked out."

"I'll take it under advisement."

I knew I should have gone home, but I couldn't make myself do it. I was looking around for a bar and on the way home to my Mandarin home I saw one that had just opened up a few weeks before. "The Last Call." It was a fairly big bar near a small strip mall. On an impulse I stopped and went in.

The inside was modernistic, all dark wood and mirrors, chairs set at small tables, a long bar, greenery in the corner. There was a slightly raised area at one side with a piano so there would obviously be entertainment at some times. Fortunately there was nobody there right now because I wasn't in the mood for music.

A medium height Hispanic guy with a big head of black hair came to my seat at the bar, introduced himself as the owner and offered me a free drink on the house as part of a first week celebration. I told him to bring me a beer. I could afford maybe two, and then I was heading home. I couldn't, as a high ranking SA, afford a DUI arrest.

I nursed the first beer as long as I could watching the customers come in. The place had gotten fairly full in the two hours between 6 and 8 p.m. Then I ordered that second beer and nursed it until nearly 10.

My cell phone hadn't rung the first time. Debbie was used to my running late, but usually by 8 she had checked in with me to find out when I'd be home. I wondered if she hadn't called because she was out of the house with her young professor.

I couldn't put it off any longer and got back on the road and was home in 20 minutes. The lights were on in the kitchen and in the den. I used my key to enter the house and checked in the kitchen first. There was a pork chop and some rice and vegetables on a plate in the microwave. As before, I didn't have an appetite. I was tempted to dump it in the trash but I put it back in the fridge. Maybe the kids might eat it tomorrow.

As I walked by the den I glanced in and saw her sitting in the chair in front of a large glass coffee table. It looked like she had papers out grading them. She had a glass filled with what looked like white wine and she had a favorite album compilation of Cranberries and Human League songs on the stereo. She didn't look back at me as I walked by and I didn't say anything to her.

I went upstairs, took a shower, and hit the bed. I don't know why, but I was suddenly exhausted. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. When I woke up in the morning, I was alone in bed and it didn't look like she'd been in it all night long. I looked in the den as I prepared to leave the house and saw she had curled up on the couch. She was still wearing a blouse and skirt combination that looked like what she'd worn to work. It was wrinkled as hell.

As I stood there, she suddenly raised her head, shook it a little and opened her eyes staring into mine. I think we were both equally surprised. After a moment I walked out with my briefcase and got into my Escalade and drove to work.

It was a Friday and we were just preparing for a round of trials that were going to kick off with jury selection the next Monday. There are always ten million little details that have to be ironed out on that kind of Friday so I worked my ass off and I didn't even turn the lights off in my office until 10:30 p.m. 

It was 11:30 p.m. before I got home. As usual the house was dark and silent. I looked on the fridge and saw notes from Bill Jr. saying he was spending the night with a friend and one from Kelly saying she was going with friends to a concert and would be spending the night with a friend's parents. Both kids had left contact numbers and I quickly called both numbers. Their stories checked out and I knew both sets of parents so I rested easy about them.

Where was Debbie? Her Nissan was gone. I went by the den and up to the bedroom. She was nowhere to be seen. I began to wonder why that surprised me. And for the very first time, I started to wonder who I might contact to handle a divorce if that was the way it turned.

I shook my head as I realized what I was thinking. A divorce, a few days after one argument? What the hell had happened?

I almost reached for my cell phone to call her. And then stopped myself. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn't make myself dial her number. I hadn't done anything wrong. She was the one who sparked everything and then made it worse by her goddamn unbelievably suspicious reactions. Maybe I shouldn't have accused her of cheating, but dammit, you'd have to be a complete moron not to wonder what was going on after the way she had acted.

She was wrong. She had frozen me out. She was out with people I didn't know, riding home with strange young men, kissing them. She was being friendly and wonderful with everyone except the poor slob who had spent 17 years working his ass off to make a good life for her and the kids. It shouldn't be me making the first move.

Tonight I didn't even have to think about what to do. I barely had energy to get into the shower, wash off the grime and sweat (and yes, even attorneys get sweaty during a long day) and hit the bed. And again I was unconscious instantly.

I had one of those moments where you don't know quite where you are when you first wake up. A few seconds later I realized I was in my own bed. But something was strange. And then it hit me. I was alone in bed. I looked over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 10 a.m. I glanced over the bed. She had never been in it.

I rolled out of bed and headed downstairs. Maybe she had come in late and slept in the den. Maybe she had gotten up and was cooking breakfast. Not that she did that much anymore, but it was possible. 

The house was bigger, and quieter, and emptier than seemed possible. Her Nissan was still gone. There was no sign she had ever come home the previous night. I toured the house three times, but it didn't change the facts. I tried to remember if anything like this had ever happened in our 17 years of marriage. I knew it hadn't.

One fight, four little words, and it seemed like our marriage was crashing down like a sand castle as the tide washed in. Was it possible to be so damned blind that I had completely missed all the signs for months, or years?

I could have started calling around. But, I was the prematurely old, sexually unattractive, clueless husband whose wife was spending the night out without any word on where or what she was doing. Fuck her.

I got dressed and headed for a nearby Waffle House. Al l their food items were cardiac health hazards, but I loved their fluffy omelets and right now I didn't give a damn about watching my waist line. It looked like it was too late for that anyway.

It was nearly noon and I was washing the last of the omelet and crisp bacon down with a fourth cup of coffee when my cell phone range. I automatically answered it, figuring it was one of the kids.

"Bill."

I swallowed the last of the coffee and answered, "Hello Roy."

Roy Bascomb was my father. We'd always gotten along pretty good. He owned a tire store on the Northside and had a few rental properties as well.

"Hi, Bill. I...uh...I tried to call you at your house, but I didn't get an answer."

"I'm not there."

"Yeah, I figured. Uh, Bill, I just wanted to call and let you know...Debbie is at our house right now."

"Debbie, that's interesting. I used to know a girl named Debbie. We talking the same person."

There was a pretty good silence and then, "She told us that you guys were....having some problems and that you might be....upset...when I called you. But I didn't want you to worry about where she was."

"Now why would I be worried, Roy? Just because she doesn't come home one night, all night, and doesn't leave me a word to let me know if she's dead or alive or fucking a dozen guys somewhere? You're acting like I actually have a wife, or something, instead of a woman who spends my paycheck and then goes off with other men."

"Bill, stop talking like that. You're talking about Debbie. Your wife. Our daughter. The mother of your children. You know she's not...running around on you."

"I do, Roy? How do I know? She's off a lot of nights and I only have her word about what she's doing. And night before last I see a young guy she works with drop her off at 11 p.m. and she kisses him goodnight. She tell you about that? By the way, what time did she get to your house last night?"

"God, I think I'm seeing what she's worried about. She said you guys had a fight about something stupid and you accused her of cheating and haven't been willing to say a word to her since then.

'And you're mistaken about seeing her kiss anybody. She told us about that meeting. It was a college meeting, and the guy who dropped her off was a friend. A lady she works with picked her up but had an emergency and had to leave early so the guy you saw volunteered to take her home. There was no kissing. 

"As to when she came here, Bill, she came over straight from the school, at 5:30 p.m. and she was here all night. Unless you think we're lying for her. Is that how far around the bend you've gone?"

"Roy, she's your daughter and I know you're going to support her. Although, I would think after 19 years of knowing me and seeing that I've been a good husband and good father to your grandchildren, you might give me a little benefit of the doubt.

"And if she was going to see you, why didn't she leave a note. Or call. Or do any damn thing so I wouldn't wake up this morning and believe she spent the night out with somebody else, and start thinking seriously about how we're going to divide up our assets."

I felt the anger start to rise inside me, a black rising tide, and fought to keep my voice calm.

"And come to think of it, if she's so concerned, why the hell isn't she talking to me right now? Why does she have to get her father to call me?"

After a moment he said apologetically, "I know she was wrong not to let you know where she was, Bill. I told her she should have. And she's not on the phone because she doesn't want to talk to you. 

"I have to tell you, I've known you guys since before you were married, and I've never her seen her like this before. She is so pissed with you. I think you really hurt her when you...accused her of being unfaithful. I don't know...I don't know if those are words you can take back."

I took a last swig of my coffee.

"Well let me see if I follow this. She said a few words that upset me, but I'm supposed to get over it, and I said a few words that upset her and she's acting like the marriage is over because I said them. Is that right?"

When he didn't answer, I said, "Well, if you would, pass on a message from me to your daughter. Tell her if that's the way she feels, I don't give a damn if she ever comes back. Oh, and be sure and tell her this, word for word: Fuck you!"

I clicked off before he could respond, although I doubted he would. I sat back and thought about the call. In one sense I was relieved. She hadn't been out screwing her UNF buddy last night. But hell, she could have done that at any time if she'd been inclined. And staying out all night and deliberately leaving me in the dark was not the kind of thing a loving wife was supposed to do.

I sat back for a moment and thought about what I'd do today and Sunday. Normally I'd hang around the house, watch some TV, maybe do a few honey-do list items, go out to eat or do a little shopping with Debbie. I could go back into the office, but...

Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do. And it had the added benefit of keeping me in the house if Bill or Kelly came back. I drove home and sat down at the big desktop computer I used in the little office adjacent to our bedroom. I started the slave spy program I'd installed on all the computers and laptops in the house. Since we were on DSL, any signals sent or received on any computer were copied onto the slave program.

I knew my passwords and those of Bill Jr. and Kelly, so I simply eliminated them and any left, even without knowing Debbie's passwords, were automatically hers.

I had all day so I dropped back six months and started scrolling through messages to and from her. Because she was a professor, there were tons from students, other professionals, the university, and a few from friends from our college days. But nothing too unusual.

I didn't notice them at first. I was routinely flipping through messages when it occurred to me that the name on a message to her sounded familiar. I looked at it a little more closely. LanceAlot4U. The one I was looking at was from three months ago and it simply talked about a meeting that had been cancelled for a Tuesday evening. Lancelot said he knew she had left early and the Chair had asked him to contact her so she wouldn't make a useless trip. Nothing personal. 

But I started scrolling backwards and I found more, from him to her and from her to him.

Messages about lesson plans, meetings that were called or cancelled, office politics, just saying hello. Once in a while she teased him about a hot date he was going to be going on over the weekend and telling him to be careful if he couldn't be good. The closest I could get to anything personal was a quick quip on one from him to her that he wouldn't have to be careful if she'd go out with him because he knew she was a good, Christian homemaker. But in her very next response she wrote him back:

"Lance, don't even joke like that. That's how ugly rumors get started. Let someone in the office see that, or if someone at my house were to see it, and they wouldn't know that we're just good friends. You know that you can't tell a person's tone of voice from a computer screen. I know you're joking, but my husband wouldn't. I'd die, God, if he ever thought I was even flirting with you."

And in his next, he wrote, "Sorry, Deb. You know I would never do anything to cause you embarrassment. I wasn't thinking. You and I both know you're the hottest woman on this campus, but I don't mess with married woman and I know you love your husband from everything you've ever said to me. I won't tease like that any more."

I thought about what I'd read. It was perfectly innocent except for the initial flirtatious hint and she had shut him down immediately. I didn't know why, but I was sure this was the dark haired young man that had dropped her off at our house that night.

Btu while it was innocent on the surface, perhaps it was my dark prosecutor's heart digging for the dirt underneath innocent words, I sensed a friendship that went beyond normal colleagues, at least on Debbie's part. And Lance wouldn't be the first single guy to swear to a hot married woman that he would never mess with a married woman – until she fell into his bed.

So I continued reading forward.

Two months ago: Deb to Lance: "I can't thank you enough for helping me with that evaluation project. It would have taken me another month without your help. And you don't get anything from it except my thanks because it goes under my name. I feel bad about taking advantage of your good nature. You should be out dating and chasing young girls, not wasting hour after hour doing work I should be doing at home. But if I tried to do it all myself, I'd never see my kids at all."

Lance to Deb: "De nada. I'd probably be getting drunk and into trouble chasing women if I wasn't doing this to help you. Keeps me out of trouble. And I feel good about giving you more time with your kids, and with your husband of course."

Deb to Lance: "My kids. Bill is more interested in what's on TV than what I'm doing. He comes home and the first thing he does is plop down in front of what he calls our TV Big Screen From Hell. Sometimes I think he gets more excited by that than me. Oops...I didn't mean that. It's just that..."

Lance to Deb: "I understand. You guys have been married a long time. And he's what- 40 or 45? Guys slow down when they hit that age. I have a hard time imagining anyone preferring to watch television rather than spend time with you, but...I'm a kid. When I hit 30 I'll probably feel differently."

Deb to Lance: :) You child you. Somehow, when I see you walking around the campus I don't think of you as a child. :) Anyway (blushing) I can't see you ever letting yourself go the way Bill has. I tried to get him to join a gym with me but he keeps saying he doesn't have the time. He's gotten that middle aged spare tire. I never really believed you could bounce a quarter off a guy's abs, but what you did at that party last month blew my mind. I can't ever see you with a spare tire. And on that blushing note, I've got to go to bed."

Lance to Deb: "Sweet dreams, Deb."

Deb to Lance: "You forget I ever wrote this, but if I keep thinking about your abs I'll have some really sweet dreams. Night."

I sat there after reading that exchange and wondered if I wanted to keep reading. Short of saying she wanted to suck his dick, I couldn't imagine any way she would be more open about wanting him. And the son of a bitch knew what he was doing when he put me down as an over-the-hill lover. And my sweet loyal wife instead of defending me basically told him she wanted his abs over my middle aged middle.

I kept reading. 

A month ago:

Deb to Lance: "Sorry I didn't have a chance to talk with you today. I was jammed. I've really enjoyed our lunches. To be honest, the day doesn't seem near as much fun when we can't meet for an hour or so. But, there's always tomorrow. Did you hear the latest bit of hot gossip?"

Lance to Deb: "I missed you too. Don't take this the wrong way, but you know you're eye-candy, right. That's what the kids call it. Even if we're only friends, I still like looking at you. I'm a pig. I plead guilty. And as to the gossip, I assume you're talking about Professor Amarilla and Coach Johansen?" 

Deb to Lance: Yes, could you believe it. In his office, no less. They said that her husband burst in on them – in the middle of – you know - consummating things. I've met her. She's pretty, but old! She must be in her 50s and Johansen is only, what, 35 or 40? The story I've heard is that her husband threw her out and she's moved in with Johansen."

Lance to Deb: You mean fucking, don't you, Deb? I don't mean to shock you, but the story I heard is that Johansen is huge and was pounding her to a pulp and even after her husband barged in there she told him to get out until she was through! :) She must have really enjoyed what he was doing.

Deb to Lance: That's indelicate, Lance, you pig. :) But you're right. Consummating is like....what Bill and I do. Oh, God, I can't believe I wrote that. But...it's been so long since I've been really FUCKED that sometimes I forget what it was like. I think we used to have that, if I can remember that far back. But now...Bill was never huge to be honest, but the last few years I think he's shrunk. I'll kill you if you ever let a word of this slip. And he gets winded in five or six minutes.

"I feel guilty even telling you this, but I can't talk to him about it. And sometimes I think I'll scream if I can't tell somebody what's happening – or not happening – in my life. I don't know how I made it through the days before we met. I can be honest with you, because we're not married, or lovers. We're friends, and a friend is what I need now."




When We Were Married Ch. 01



Lance to Deb: You know you can tell me anything, Deb. I wish I could help you. I mean, physically. I'll never push it any further than you say, but you're too beautiful a woman to have to play with yourself to achieve a climax. Does he know you use the vibrator when he's not around?"

Deb to Lance: "No, and he never will. How can I tell him he doesn't do it for me in bed anymore; hasn't for a long time. That I have to use a big vibrator and shove it in there way further than he ever gets to climax. I fake it with him, but sometimes I think he must be able to tell the difference."

Lance to Deb: "You think you'll be able to go on like this forever?"

Deb to Lance: "What choice do I have? We've been married for 17 years. We have two children. He's done everything he can to keep me happy. I know there nothing in this world I could ask him to do for me that he wouldn't do. The hell of it is, he's such a good man. And I should love him a lot more than I do. Don't misunderstand me, I do love him. Even though you and I flirt sometimes, and maybe I carry it further than a middle aged married woman should, I know you know that I love him. If it wasn't that I loved him, I'd –"

Lance to Deb: "Don't say it. Don't write it. I know what you're thinking. But, I know you love him. You love him, not me. And I'm not going to be the guy that breaks you two up."

Deb to Lance: "I know you could have...well, you know If you were an asshole like a lot of the younger guys around here are. But you've been a gentleman, a good man. That's why I like you so much. I'll just say that I hope you know just how special a friend you've become. And now I'll sign off."

I thought the screen had suddenly become blurry and then I realized my eyes were filled with tears. It was one of those moments when you wonder why you can't just have a heart attack and get it over with.

My wife was falling, had fallen, in love with another man. The beautiful blonde I'd cum inside of for so many years wanted another man's cock inside her. She all but admitted it. And he knew he could have her, and I knew and I knew she knew he was going to have her. She was just trying to gather the courage to fall into his bed. And once that happened, our marriage was over. 

The fucker was 10 years younger than me, had rock hard abs and my wife drooling over him and admiring his restraint for not throwing her down and fucking her. Jesus, he had her every which way. And I was a fat, balding, middle-aged bore whose dick had shrunk to the point that I couldn't even get my wife off anymore. There wasn't even any suspense here.

I forced myself to keep reading. There weren't many incriminating messages after that last one. Then I found one from Deb to her Lancelot dated two weeks ago.

Deb: "I'm sorry I didn't come by for lunch today, Lance. I meant to call and give you some lie about being busy or something coming up at the last minute, but then I found I just couldn't lie to you like that. We've become TOO good friends. You deserve the truth.

"I've decided we need to cool it, back up a bit. I know that you consider me a friend, but I also know you're sexually attracted to me. That's flattering. You're a hunk, a beautiful young hunk, and you have no idea how much you've flattered my ego by flirting with me. But I always made it clear that I was a married woman – a faithful married woman. 

"Notice I didn't say a happily married woman. You know me too well for me to say that. I've been a lot more honest with you about my marriage and the problems we're having than I should have been, than I would have been with anybody else. 

"The worst of it is, I feel so much closer to you than I do to Bill. He's my husband, but he doesn't even know our marriage is dying slowly. He's clueless. Such a smart, smart man, so skillful in the courtroom, but in real life, in our marriage, he's a loser. He's lost my lust, and my respect and slowly he's losing my love.

"I feel like an animal caught in a trap. I've tried a thousand times to think of some way to start breathing life back into our relationship, our marriage. I've thought about trying to invigorate our sexual life. But...dammit, I'm not that good an actress. I fake orgasms all the time, but I can't fake excitement. And he doesn't excite me any more.

He's gone to pot and his dick doesn't feel or look as big and hard as it was. He doesn't get anywhere near as excited as I remember. He used to strip me and throw me down and fuck me hard. Now, he squeezes my breasts, licks me and then rolls on and pumps for a little while, gets off, and rolls over. 

"It doesn't matter how smart he is, or how good an attorney, as a man, a male animal, he is not satisfying me anymore. And hasn't for a long long time. I wonder sometimes, if he even misses the hot sex we used to have. I think maybe he's content to be a father and a successful attorney and climb off and on me once or twice a month and get his rocks off.

"I always knew he was – sedate – dull I guess. He wasn't a party animal in college, and I used to love dancing and partying, the more the better. But it's gotten worse as he's gotten older. He has to be dragged to parties and he only goes when there's some political reason to be seen there. He doesn't dance, or doesn't like to.

"I've made a life without him. A lot of times when I tell him I'm at a faculty meeting, I'm out with some girls from school, or girls and guys like the times we've gone out dancing. I haven't done anything wrong, but I want to be someone other than a wife and mother for a few hours. I want to have men look at me and admire me. I wish to God I wanted him to be one of those men, but I really don't care anymore. I don't think of him that way.

"I can't fake being excited in bed and I can't tell him I've been going out and partying without him, even though I haven't done anything wrong with men, because what do I say when he asks me why I lied about where I was going? Do I tell him I'm happier when he's not around? It's the truth, but it would go over like a lead balloon.   

"Anyway, Dear Friend, I didn't mean to write a novel here. I just wanted to let off some steam and let you know why we won't be having lunch or seeing each other much anymore. Somehow, somehow I feel like things are getting ready to explode, to change. I don't know how. I don't know what I might do. But I don't think I can go on much longer like this. 

"And if – if the worst, or best, happens and I'm not married in a few months or more, I don't want you to be anywhere near the wreckage. I don't want anybody, Bill or my kids, or our friends, to suspect that our relationship, our friendship, had anything to do with my marriage ending.

"Because it didn't. You've been a gentleman and a friend when I needed a friend. You will always have a piece of my heart and if I – somehow – work things out with Bill, I will never forget you and I hope you go on to have a happy life. Your friend always, Debbie."

I must have sat there for hours because the next thing I knew, the quality of the light coming in from outside had changed. I glanced at the clock. It was 6 p.m. I don't even know what I'd been thinking about during those hours. I think I must have been envisioning the way my life was going to turn out.

I wondered what it would be like coming home to an empty house or apartment when Debbie was with another man. What it would be like to see my kids only occasionally and I wasn't even sure that would happen. What would it be like to lie in a bed and for the first time in half my life, lie there alone and not hear her breathing beside me? What would it be like not to be able to put a hand out and rest it on the soft skin of her arm or shoulder. How would I shop for groceries for just me?

Little things, but after 20 years, they were as important as the sex. She had been a part of my entire life, and losing her was going to be like having a part of my body torn out and ripped away.

Because I had no doubt now, there wasn't going to be an 'us' in the future. There wouldn't be a Maitland family living in a comfortable Mandarin home. That was history. And now I knew why in her mind our marriage was already a part of her past.

Somehow I made myself come alive again. I batch printed out copies of all emails to and from her for the last six months, including the pertinent emails to and from Lance. Not that I needed them for any legal reason. 

Adultery isn't a factor in divorces today, at least not in Florida where no-fault divorces have been the law of the land for over a generation and she could even claim that she hadn't even been having an emotional affair with another man. I could argue it was an affair, but so what. She apparently hadn't slept with the guy, hadn't fucked him, maybe kissed him a few times. It didn't make any difference.

I knew I should confront her with the emails. Make her admit that she had fallen in love with the guy, or least had fallen out of love with me. But again, so what? If she admitted it, what difference would it make? I'd lost her. 

Oh, I could fight to force us into counseling, try to slow things down enough to give me a chance to woo her again. 

But who was I kidding? With what I knew now, counseling wouldn't make a difference. And I thought she'd just laugh if I tried to play the stud in bed. Every time I was with her I'd see that mental image of her lusting over Lance's flat abs and comparing them to my old man's belly. And if I could work up a decent erection, I'd lose it at that point.

By 8 p.m. neither Bill Jr. nor Kelly had shown. I called the homes where they were staying and was told their mother had picked them up. She'd obviously taken them to her parents to spend the weekend. Great. I'd have the place to myself.

I sat in front of the dark TV from Hell and tried to think of what I wanted to do. I felt like a turtle that little boys had picked up and placed on its back. I could spin around, but I couldn't move, couldn't advance and couldn't retreat.

When I did start moving, I amazed myself. I found myself going up to our bedroom, pulling two suitcases out of a closet and then systematically putting in enough pants, shirts, shoes, coats, and miscellaneous clothing items to go a couple of weeks without having to wear the same items twice.

I filled the back of the Escalade and then went back in and got miscellaneous court files and computer discs. I did a second mass print of all Debbie's emails to make sure I didn't miss any and to have a copy in case anything happened to the first set, then wiped them off with a scrubber program that left no copies that anybody would ever be able to recreate.

I thought about scrubbing Bill Jr.'s and Kelly's, but she would have expected me to be monitoring their computer use. I didn't think she'd ever expect me to be monitoring her, and if it hadn't been for the events of the last few days, I never would have looked at hers.

I would have been much happier if I'd never looked at them, of course, but I don't think anything would really have changed in the long run, except she probably would have completely blindsided me when she left and it would have hurt me even more.

The very last thing I did before leaving and locking up was to go into the bathroom. With the aid of Vaseline and a lot of torque that took the skin off underneath the ring, I managed to get my wedding band off. I had gained so much weight in the last nearly 20 years that the knuckle had swollen and the flesh of my finger almost encased the metal. But with only a little bloodshed, I managed to twist it off.

I grabbed a piece of blank copy paper out of the copier attached to the main desktop and scrawled a few words on it. Then I put my ring, and some of my blood, on it and closed the lights of our bedroom. 

I locked the house behind me. I'd turned off all the lights and only a dark hulk of a building remained. I had lived there for almost 10 years with my wife and children and I really didn't think I'd be coming back. As I drove the dark night streets to downtown I tried to figure out what I was feeling. But I was just numb.

I made my way downtown, past the courthouse and legal complex on the St. Johns River, past the Sheriff's Office called the CopShop by everybody except the Sheriff and drove two blocks further down, then turned to the river side of the road. The very expensive Riverfront Condos were located here and our office kept one rented at all times in case an SA, witness, or anybody else needed to stay over. As one of the three head SAs, I kept a key to the condo on my key ring and let myself in. 

I looked at the doorknob which I had opened with my left hand. Shit, there was blood all over it. I must have torn my ring finger up a lot more than I thought when I was getting it off. I went into the bathroom and washed the finger off, found a bottle of rubbing alcohol under the sink, and cursed for a few minutes after I liberally doused my abraded flesh.

Then I walked back out to the car, unloaded and lastly threw my body onto the bed. I had enough energy to get most of my clothes off and fell asleep watching one of the cable news shows on a little/big screen television in the corner dressed only in cotton underwear and a t-shirt. I listened to them describe the machinations of Cardinals in Rome as they maneuvered to take the post of the revered Jon Paul II who had died earlier in the month. 

As my mind drifted away it was oddly comforting to realize that politics was still everywhere, even in God's holiest city, Arabs were still killing Jews, robbers were still hitting banks, teens were still doing incredibly stupid things, and the world continued to spin, even if my world had crashed and burned.

I came to instantly alert and wide awake the next morning. I knew where I was and what had led me to this unfamiliar room. I lay there for a few minutes because for one of the few times in my life, there was absolutely nothing I had to do. I didn't have to wake the kids, take anybody to church, run any errands, buy groceries.

I was absolutely free and I remembered that great old rock and roll line from the 70s, 'Me and Bobby McGee,' :"freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." It was still a great line when I'd heard it in the 90s. Damn, Janis had nailed that one. 

I knew the feeling. I was absolutely empty, absolutely alone for the first time in more than 20 years, and absolutely free. I wished that I wanted to go somewhere, or do anything. I thought about calling somebody. 

But I realized I didn't have any friends. I had colleagues, guys I worked with, but nobody I went out drinking with. As Debbie had said, all I did was work, come home and watch TV and enjoy my family. Any friends we did have were Debbie's friends from the University. And I'd feel odd as hell about calling any of them.

There was my mother and stepfather. They lived a little further south in a suburb of Orlando in the center of the state. But damned if I wanted to hear the sympathy and pity in either of their voices when I told them I'd split from Debbie. Nor did I want to explain why I had.

Eventually I showered, shaved and went out and grabbed a breakfast sandwich meal from Burger King, rode around the downtown, sat on a Riverwalk bench watching Sunday boaters cruising along the St. Johns, and felt like the only person on earth. I thought about calling Cheryl, but I'd be imposing. I thought she had just met a new guy and I'd be a definite third wheel.

Somehow the clock wound slowly around until 9 p.m. I'd had a steak at a downtown steakhouse, called a couple of lower level SAs who were going to be leads on the cases the next morning to make sure they were ready for the openings, and then went back to the condo to watch – what else – cable news.

At 9:15 p..m. my cell rang. I always keep it charged and I always keep it with me. It's the first rule for cops or prosecutors. You always have to be available, 24/7.

I almost didn't take the call when I saw Debbie's ID pop up, but I did and said, "Hello."

"You son of a bitch."

"Well, hello. I love you too."

It sounded like she was gasping for air, fighting to find the right words to attack me with. 

"You no good crazy bastard...goddamn it...how could you...how could you pull a stunt like that where Bill and Kelly would see...bad enough you show me how crazy you are but they're kids...what is wrong with you."

"Slow down and take a deep breath, honey. Don't have a stroke."

"You are one sick son of a bitch...what...don't you have any decency...what are the kids supposed to think?"

"I gather you're talking about my ring?"

"Yes, you go crazy because of a few words I said and call me a slut and then when I go see my parents for a few days, you leave me...you move your clothes and stuff out and leave your bloody wedding ring out where everybody can see it...how could you? I'm going to have you committed, Bill. You have lost your mind."

"Did you read the note?"

She almost lost it and screamed into the cell phone so shrilly I had to hold it away from my ear.

"You bastard...asshole...motherfucker... I don't even know who you are."

"That's okay. I don't know who you are either. But did you read the note?"

"You think that was funny? 'this should make it easier for you' As if I'm the one who wants out of this marriage and not you."

"I'm not the one who spent the night away from home without letting me know where she was. I'm not the one who picked up the kids to spend the weekend with your parents without giving me a heads up. I'm not the one who was kissing on a "friend" the other night when he drove you home, no matter what cock and bull story you fed your parents."

I didn't know why I didn't rub her nose in the damning e-mails I'd found. I knew she'd go crazy accusing me of spying on her and not trusting her if she knew I'd bugged her laptop. But more than that, I hadn't gotten what I'd thought was one honest word out of her lying mouth in nearly a week. I'd found out that the woman I thought I had known was some stranger. Let her hang herself with her lies, lies of omission if not flat out lies.

Maybe it was the prosecutor in me. There was nothing sweeter than catching a hostile witness or a defendant in a lie, when you'd let him or her run it out and tangle themselves in a web they could never talk themselves out of. How in the hell had it wound up with my trying to trap my own wife in her web of lies.

I almost hung up. It almost would be better to walk away, just forget the woman I'd loved for half my life than wind up proving to my own satisfaction that she was a lying, traitorous slut bitch; an unfaithful wife which was the worst name I could hang on any woman.

But dammit, she wouldn't stop lying.

"I shouldn't have stayed away without calling you. I'm sorry. I was so angry at you. But about that kiss.... Dad said you told him that story. It never happened, Bill. Douglas was nice enough to drive me home. I never touched him, never kissed him. It was all taking place in that sick mind of yours. 

"What's happened to you? I've been angry enough to call you crazy, but you're scaring me now. First you go crazy because I twist some words, then you accuse me of cheating on you, then you imagine you saw me kissing a sweet young man who would never even think of touching me. That's not – that's not rational, Bill."

I almost called Douglas "Lance" but that would give away the game. I wondered if that was a pet name referring to his "lance" that he wanted to bury in her. 

"So this guy, Doug, how close a friend is he?"

There was a long silence.

"Doug is an assistant prof in the business department. He came in about a year ago. I have to meet with him because they assigned me as his mentor. They partner all new staff with experienced professors. We've had a few lunches together. A few times I've danced with him at events, but I don't think you were at any of them. You know how you hate most parties and events like that. Even if you'd been there, I'd still have been dancing with him. You hate dancing and he's pretty good.




When We Were Married Ch. 01



"He's a nice boy, but that's all. I'm more than 10 years older than him, for God's sake. And I have never kissed him."

"Is he a good friend?"

"Bill! He's a friend. We talk sometimes and we've worked on projects together. But he's no more of a friend than a half dozen other male and female professors on the staff. Are you going to start obsessing about Doug now?"

"No, not if you say he's a casual friend. But why did you wear that blouse that shows off your tits and a skirt so short he had to see your pubic hairs – sorry he could if you still had any – to the meeting that night? Not really professor type nightwear, is it?"

Another long silence.

"You – okay, it was a little revealing. But, Bill, I'm not 75. Only 39. I'm still a young woman. It's not – not that I want men to ogle me, but...dammit, I've got a great set of boobs and great legs, according to most guys, and once in a while I like to show them off. I don't flash guys. I don't have affairs. But I'm not dead."

"You've never worn that outfit to any event I attended."

"Oh, God, Bill, do we have to talk about this?"

"Why not, Debbie? Don't all the self help books say couples have to be honest with each other? That they should talk out their problems. If I'm paranoid and obsessively jealous with no reason in reality, why can't you answer a simple question? Why do you wear revealing clothes that show off that great body of yours – when I'm not around?"

"Can't we talk about this when you come home?"

"I'm not sure I will be coming home."

A very long silence. 

"Why the hell am I bending over backwards trying to hold you when you obviously don't care if we continue as a marriage and a couple. You want to know the truth about why I dress up for other men and not for my loving husband? Because unless you're naked and rubbing my tits, I might as well be part of the furniture. 

"You don't notice what I wear, or when I change my hair style, or get a new bra. You don't kiss me on the back of the neck when you come in from work and try to feel my tits. You don't grab me in the middle of the day when the kids are gone and try to seduce me. You haven't taken me out and got me drunk to get into my pants in ten years. You haven't worked to get a piece of ass from me since we were first married. 

" I wear those clothes for other men because I want to remember what it was like to be desired by men, or any man. Is that honest enough for you?"

This time, for the first time in days, I thought she was being honest. And what did that say about me? Suddenly, I had nothing to say.

"I'm sorry, Deb. I'm sorry for everything. "

I know she didn't understand what I was saying because she didn't know I'd had a secret look into her heart and soul and the secrets she was keeping from me. She didn't know I was apologizing for letting myself get old before my time, for not retaining the passion of our early years, for letting myself become more involved in my work than my wife's life. I was apologizing for letting her love slip away until she now belonged more to another man than she belonged to me.

"So, are you coming home?"

Why wouldn't I? Because she was still more in love with another man than she was in love with me? Because I still had no chance in a competition with Lance to win her love, or sexual devotion?

"No, Deb. I'm not. I'm not – it's not that I'm angry with you. But, I just feel like, maybe, we need some time apart."

After a long time, she said, "Alright, Bill. But someday, someday, you are going to regret this. You will hate yourself for what you're doing right now."

"Maybe. Kiss the kids for me."

"They're a little too old for that, but you probably haven't noticed that. And it should be you."

She hung up.

I turned off the TV and lay back looking at the ceiling bathed in moonlight from a picture window on a balcony looking out over the St. Johns. She might never know it, but I already regretted the hell out of everything that had happened in the last week. But, I corrected myself. It hadn't been going on for a week. This shit, this rot in my life and our marriage had been going on for six months according to the emails I'd read, and if I was honest, the decay went back a lot further than that.

Monday came as it always did. There were no big cases. Just cases; murder, manslaughter; and a Navy guy from the Jax Navy base who had in a fit of rage at his wife taken their little eight month old daughter who wouldn't stop crying and shaken her until her brain hemorrhaged in her skull. But his parents were loaded and they had spent money to buy a cracker jack legal whiz kid from New York to teach the hicks down in North Florida a few new legal tricks.

There was a separated first-of-three trials of scum bag drug dealing brothers who had been trying to teach a competitor to stay off their turf by spraying his Northside home with bullets and managed to kill an eight-year-old boy who had thrown himself down on his two younger siblings to save them and gotten a bullet in the brain for his bravery.

That was almost a waste. They were all going to the gas chamber, sometimes called the death chamber because Florida had never had a real gas chamber. We used lethal injection after the old faithful electric chair was retired.

All three scumbags knew they were going to die in the death chamber; we knew it, their attorneys knew it, the little boy's family knew it, their own scumbag family knew it, but we had to go through the motions three times to make sure the little boy

got a small measure of justice.

Not really that unusual a week. But motions had to be made, jury selection had to begin, witnesses had to be coddled or have their spines stiffened. As usual, the days would be endless and the nights brief pit stops to get enough rest to keep going the next day. I didn't do a lot of courtroom theatrics. My job was to make sure everything ran smoothly.

Sometime during the day, between two crises of earth shattering importance which would be completely forgotten by the next day, Cheryl trapped me in my office. 

"They tell me you're staying on the River? You moved out on Debbie? And your kids?"

"Shit happens."

She closed the door behind me.

"Bill, what is going on?"

"Too much to tell you about in the middle of a busy day, and there's a lot of stuff I couldn't tell you anyway. There's no separation. I just wanted – some time away. Give us both a chance to get a chance to breath."

"You know that a lot of times when you move out, you never move back?"

"I don't know if that will happen."

"You should have said, that will never happen to us."

When I didn't answer she just shook her head.

"God, I hate seeing another marriage go down the tubes. Don't do this, Bill. I don't know what you're thinking, but don't walk out on your marriage without fighting for it. Jesus, you're a fucking pit bull in the courtroom. I've never seen you give up on anything. Don't let her go, don't let them go, without a fight."

"You can't have a marriage without two people who want to stay married. And that's all, Cheryl. Open the door and get out of here."

We got into initial jury selections in all three trials. The New York whiz kid played enough tricks to please Mom and Dad paying the freight for their son's defense. I thought it was money wasted, but hey, he was their son. If I'd raised a scumbag like him, I'd probably fight just as hard.

It was just another Monday full of surprises and unexpected problems and unhappy witnesses and irritable judges who really did need to keep rolls of toilet paper, as Somerset Maugham once suggested, beside them to remind themselves that they weren't really little tin gods, only men and women who had a temporary powerful position.

At 7 p.m. I was getting ready to call it a day when my cell rang. I keep it on buzz during the day, but I've got a loud buzz so I always know when it's ringing.

"Bill, what in the ever loving hell is wrong with you?"

"I'm not sure I know how to answer that question, Roy. In what regard?"

"Debbie called this morning and said you've moved out of the house. And left your wedding ring behind. How can you see to walk around with your head stuck so far up your ass?"

I couldn't help laughing.

"That's a great mental image Roy. Thanks, I needed a laugh about now. If you're serious with your question, I haven't moved out. I just took some things so I could spend a few days away from Debbie. Things have been getting...too tense. I'm afraid I might say something I don't want to say to her. You know, the kind of thing you can't take back or get past. So I'm just giving us some breathing space."

He was quiet for a moment and then in a calmer tone, he said, "Bill, I've known you for 20 years. I'll admit, I haven't thought you were the best husband or father in the world. You've let yourself go physically, and when you're married to a woman that looks like Debbie, that's a stupid thing to do. I've thought plenty of times that you spend too much time in that damned office and too little time with Deb or the kids. 

"A marriage isn't a house where you stop off from time to time to eat meals or get your clothes washed, or ....spend time in bed. You can't set a marriage on auto pilot and forget about it. I'm older than you, Bill, and I know what I'm talking about. You have to WORK to make a marriage last. That's the only real problem I have with you. I think you gave up on your marriage years ago."

Now it was my turn to be quiet. Finally I said, "I can't deny there's some truth to what you're saying. Part of it is my fault. I know that now. But, there's other stuff..."

"What, what the hell are you talking about? Something happened last week and its blown things up in your house? What was it?"

"I- I'm sorry. It's.... can't talk about it. It just – kind of brought things to a head. And made me realize I have to think about things."

"Alright, you don't want to talk about it. I love Debbie and the kids. I even like you, although I think you're being an asshole right now. I'm asking you as a personal favor, Bill, go home. Go home tonight. Living in two places can't make anything better. Can you do that for me? I can't remember ever asking you for any kind of favor."

I thought about it. I still had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that we had passed some point of no return and there was no going back. But I still found myself at 8:30 p.m. walking back into the home I'd left with no intention of ever returning. 

I could hear Bill Jr.'s stereo blasting out of his room and as usual Kelly was probably still out. As I walked past the den Debbie came to the door. . She wore shorts and a light blouse over a bra. From the look on her face she wasn't expecting me. She took one look at the briefcase I held and another expression crossed her face. 

"Is this just a pit stop? You're leaving everything at the River?"

"I wanted to come home for a night. Is that alright?"

"Why? Why do you want to spend the night with a slut who's cheating on you and showing herself off to other men? I didn't think you'd have any use for me or the kids anymore."

"This is my house as much as yours, but I'll ask you again. Is it all right if I spend the night here? In our bed?"

She turned and walked back into the den. Over her shoulder she said, "Like you said, it's your house too. You want to spend the night, knock yourself out. I don't know if I'll be in the bed, but you're welcome to it. Oh, and there's no food for you. I didn't expect you."

To her back I said, "I'll find something in the fridge. No big deal."

I put the briefcase up by our bed and found my wedding ring sitting on the table beside the bed. I tried to get it back on and had a hard time, even with Vaseline, getting it on but eventually I slid it over the knuckle. Then I went down and found a half package of kosher franks, fried them in a frying pan and put three of them between bread along with a lot of hot mustard. I ate in the kitchen.

I went back upstairs and instead of taking a short, utilitarian shower, luxuriated in a long, long hot shower. I leaned against the wall of the shower and rested my head on the tile as the hot water streamed down around me. In my mind I tried to see myself as I had been, a flat bellied 18-year-old with a full head of hair. I'd never been God's gift to women, but I hadn't been that bad.

"Are you going to leave me any hot water?"

I opened my eyes and looked at her standing just outside the sunken shower stall. I should have shrunk from the look on her face, seen myself as the flabby husband she saw. I should have been so hurt by her emotional betrayal that I couldn't stand to be naked in front of her. 

But for some reason, I felt free. I didn't think she loved me any more, or as much as Lance, so what the hell did it matter to me what she thought about my naked body.

"We could share. Save some cash."

A look of surprise flashed across her face, followed by...what, disappointment, disdain. That should have hurt, but it didn't.

"That's okay, you fin-"

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the shower stall. She stumbled and I caught her under her ribs, my left hand rising to grip one of those huge soft titties so she didn't fall.

"What- Bill, what the hell, let me –"

I had to stand up a little on my tiptoes, but I shut her up with my mouth. She tried to push me away but I kept her under the shower's blast as her hair fell around her face and the blouse and shorts melded to her skin. She fought to keep my tongue out, but I caught hers and sucked on it until she gasped and sucked back. With my left hand I pushed and squeezed and milked the soft breast flesh until I felt the nipple harden under my fingers.

I had gotten hard and was pushing up against the wet fabric of her shorts at the groin. She managed to push me away. She talked as water ran into her mouth.

'No, you bastard. You think you can come in here – accuse me to cheating..and"

I kissed her again and as she pushed me away I saw the anger growing on her face and then she slapped me hard. For a second I thought she might have busted my lip. I grabbed her hand, pushed it back against the shower stall and planted my lips on hers again and wouldn't let her free.

I pushed her shorts down with the hand I had been milking her with. The wet shorts and panties slid right down and off. She wasn't helping me, but it didn't seem like she was fighting that hard either.

She broke free again.

"No, Bill stop it. This isn't funny, or romantic. Damn you."

I'd started milking one soft titty, but stopped and yanked on the blouse. A second yank sent buttons flying and another tug pulled it down one arm and onto the floor of the shower. The bra resisted for a moment and then snapped at the back and I threw it away.

She pushed at me and I fell back but caught myself by grabbing her arm. She was turning and I caught her, carrying her down to the tile shower floor. I grabbed her under her arms and although it was a struggle I managed to pull her to her feet and push her against the wall of the shower. I squeezed her breasts, found her nipples between my fingers and rolled them. I think I heard a sharp intake of breath as I did. My dick felt as hard I can remember in years

I rubbed in up into the crack of her ass and down until I almost had it positioned over her wet pussy. She twisted away from me and managed to get out of the shower. She was turning when I caught her in a modified football tackle that carried her onto the bed. Her legs hung over the side as I dived into her pussy with my tongue.

She bucked and humped and tried to pull my head out by grabbing my hair but I pushed her hands away and kept burrowing deeper into her. The wetness of shower water was quickly succeeded by a tangier moisture and she started humping up into my tongue as well as trying to bounce me off her.

Oh, God....stop...stop it...you baaasstard...don't.."

Then she was whimpering, "stop it, ohhhhh stop stop....bill, the kids....they could walk in....stop please...."

I lifted my face from her pussy, stuck three fingers in and started rubbing and pushing them in and out, saying, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a shit. I want your pussy and I'm going to have it"

I worked her pussy and then stuck first one and then a second wet finger up an inch or so up her ass and felt the electric shock that galvanized her body. As she trembled, I got up from the bed, opened my briefcase on the dresser and pulled out the large black object I'd bought on the way home.

She had her eyes closed when I slipped the head of the big black vibrator into her pussy, turning the power on at the same time. Her eyes snapped open and she stared at me in disbelief, eyes growing wider as I pushed it further in.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

A third inch and a fourth and then six full inches followed, opening her up as the vibrator's width, that of a large cucumber, stretched her pussy wider. As I pushed in, I rolled it around to increase the sensations and she responded, rolling her ass and hips in the same motion.

"Oh, Bill...you are such a bastard, but don't stop, don't stop..."

"I'm not, Deb, not till you've got a full foot of syntho-cock up your pussy and then I'm going to take your ass and you're going to love it."

She shook her head.

"Oh yes. We may not have a future, but I'm going to fuck your brains out tonight, and that's a promise."

By and bye I got the whole 12 inches inside her and I began to believe what she had emailed Lance. When I sunk it all the way in and started twisting and turning, she practically levitated. She grabbed my by the ears and tried to swallow my tongue, reached down and if she could have gotten a good grip would have either pulled my dick off or crushed it into paste. God, she had a grip.

As she screamed, and I thanked God that Bill Jr. loved his music very, very loud, I slid over and placed my dick in front of her mouth. As she screamed away I plugged it with my dick and she swallowed it down to my balls and began sucking and licking at the same time. I was surprised, but she gagged enough to make me believe this was something a little new to her. She was good, but I don't think she had been practicing on anybody else's large dick. Anyway, the gagging made her let me go a few times to catch her breath, but she gamely went right back to deep throating.

It was more the expression on her face, and the wildness in her eyes that I hadn't seen in so many years, more than the ungodly sensations of her mouth and tongue and that sucking action that sent me over the edge. I let go of the vibrator and left it humming and grabbed her head with both my hands and held her steady and firmly planted on my cock as I felt the first rushing of the tide and then the squirting deep into her throat. I wouldn't let her go but I didn't feel her fighting me. I did feel her swallowing as I unloaded into her.

My first reaction was to sink down beside her, but I remember why I'd started fucking her and I went back to the vibrator. Before she could come down, I started working it back in and around and around and within moments she was thrusting back against its length and making little orgasmic noises.

I didn't know if it was possible to have a closing act, but as she kept cumming I rolled her over onto her side, got up to lock the bedroom door, and grabbed some Vaseline off the bathroom counter. She was working the vibrator in and out with her own hands as I played with myself to see if I could get a second erection, and somehow thank God, I got it up. 

Lubing her ass with two fingers, I got her thrusting back against my fingers and then forward against the vibrator. A moment later I was slipping my dick into the small opening to her ass. She gasped and moaned for a second, but she must have been as excited as hell because it didn't take more than a few seconds until I felt the head of my dick popping through the anal sphincter and I was inside her.




When We Were Married Ch. 02A



Recap 

My name is Bill Maitland. I'm one of three top State Attorney Assistants in Jacksonville, Florida. As I noted in a previous entry, I've been through a rough three weeks. Three weeks ago I was, at least in my own mind, happily married to a big tittied blonde goddess who I thought loved me. Little did I know.

For 17 years the former Debbie Bascomb had been my wife, lover, and best friend. We had two children, both navigating through the treacherous teen years and had been working our way up the career paths of our own choosing, myself in the law and Debbie in academia as an Assistant Professor at the University of North Florida.

I thought we'd had a good, solid, relatively boring middle class marriage. Of course I had the best of it. Debbie is a 5 foot 9 blonde wet dream, big titties, long gorgeous legs and an ass to die for. I, on the other hand, am a 5-foot-8, balding, pudgy 41-year-old lawyer, and as exciting as I sound.

We'd had a good marriage until I discovered we didn't. Four words ended it all, when in the middle of informing me she was planning on working teaching during the summer she happened to let it slip that we had had some good times "when we were married."

Of course, she had compounded the weirdness by acting in a loving manner that was nothing like the woman I'd been married to for the past few years and showed off a shaved pussy that I knew nothing about. I made the mistake of getting so royally pissed by the stranger she'd turned into that I asked her if she was fucking anybody, which was probably not the best way to try to get to the bottom of what was going on.

Things went into a death spiral from that point. We stopped talking, she started kissing a good looking young assistant professor (Doug/email name Lance) she worked with, she spent the weekend away from me and after I found a bunch of incriminating emails on her computer that made it brutally clear that if she wasn't fucking the young professor, she was on track to do so,......so I moved out of our house and left my wedding ring behind.

I made one last quixotic gesture to try to win her back, involving overpowering her in the shower and using a very big vibrator and the sex was the best we'd had in years. But when it was over, she had lain on her side of the bed and silently wept. That pretty much told me it was all over

Which led to me surprising her at a UNF event when she was acting very un-wifely, I got my face smashed in and got a few good licks in on her would-be boyfriend, and I wound up with a restraining order keeping me out of my house.

Then twenty minutes ago, while I was waiting to make final arguments in the case of a young sailor who'd shaken his eight eight-month-old daughter to death in a fit of rage against his ex-wife, Debbie had taken the opportunity to call me to tell me she didn't love me anymore and was filing for a divorce.

Which is why I found myself walking – make that striding forcefully – into Circuit Judge Herman Herring's courtroom as an almost free, and very, very angry man. Chris Van Horn, the young sailor who had killed his daughter in a moment of rage, was about to pay for my wife's treachery.

Everything was set to go. Herring was sitting at the bench. He was a buzz-cut, beak-nosed former Marine who feared nothing, loved tough cases and headlines mentioning his name in the Times-Union, and loved even more being God in his courtroom. Standing at his side was the man-mountain former ex-con now bodyguard and Bailiff Charlie Case who kept order during some pretty wild proceedings. 

Billy Parker, the young Assistant SA who had prosecuted the case and gave the main closing, sat alone at the prosecution table. Arnold Becker, the New York defense hot shot, sat beside Van Horn who was dressed in a neat and conservative suit, but not too dressy. 

As I walked into the courtroom I saw Van Horn's parents seated on the right behind their son in the public section and on the right I saw Van Horn's now ex-wife and her parents. Melody Van Horn's mother was crying. Becker saw me and gave me a smart-ass grin. I wondered if he'd be grinning in a few minutes.

"Mr. Maitland, this is an unexpected pleasure," Herring said. "To what do we owe this honor?"

"Just trying to keep my hand in," I said. 'Are we set to go, your honor?"

"Let's roll."

I looked over at the jury box. There was an elderly black man, two women in their 30s that I would have bet my life were Lesbians, a youngish guy with long hair who was about to fall asleep, a business type in his early 50s, and one soccer mom type; long blonde hair, tastefully dressed, just enough lipstick and enough boobs so the young guy kept sneaking glances at them, but all in all demure. 

She and the old black guy were the only ones on the jury who had kids. He had four grown children, eight grandchildren and six great-grands. Of course, he wasn't crazy about any of his grown kids and had gotten tired of being dragged into babysitting. Not your ideal grandpa. That had been Becker's strategy and he had worked it pretty well. 

I glanced over at Van Horn. He met my eyes for a moment and dropped them. He was fighting for his life, but for the life of me I couldn't understand how he could live another day with the memory of that small limp body in his hands.

I walked over to Parker and got the only prop I'd need. Herring addressed the jury, saying, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Assistant State Attorney Maitland will deliver the closing arguments for the state. Once again I remind you that you can only consider the facts and testimony placed in evidence. The closing is simply an opportunity for the state to sum up what it considers the facts in this case that you should consider. Mr. Maitland."

I walked slowly toward the jury, finally stopping in front of the foreman, the businessman. I held the prop where they could not see it.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is William Maitland. I am an Assistant State Attorney. I have worked for the State Attorney' office for the past ten years. Before I joined this office I worked as a defense attorney for a few years I stand before you now to make a few final comments before you retire to deliberate."

I let their gazes wash over me, mostly curious, some already tired of this duty and ready to shuck it to return to their real lives.

"I won't go over our case again. I know that Mr. Becker did his best to muddy the waters by bringing in testimony that implied that Mrs. Van Horn, after their divorce, had brought another man in to live with her and that it was this other man that injured little Amber Van Horn.

"I trust that you listened to the testimony of witnesses, police, medical experts and others and can weigh their credibility against that of Mr. Van Horn. As good an attorney as Mr. Becker is, I don't really think he managed to crack the case we've built against his client. 

"No, I won't rehash the case. I will keep my remarks short and I hope to the point."

I held up my prop, an eight by 12 photograph of a smiling seven-month old Amber Van Horn in her mother's arms.

Becker was bouncing out of his seat, shouting, "Your honor," but before he could finish I said, "This is simply a photo of the victim, your honor. Nothing inflammatory."

Herring shot a glance at Becker and even Becker was smart enough to shut up, as Herring said, "Sit down."

I walked down the jury box showing the picture slowly to the jurors.

I stopped in front of the young guy. He was trying not to stare at it, but he couldn't help himself. They hadn't seen a picture of the little girl since early in the trial. It had been all testimony and words and diagrams. Not a real person.

"I apologize for what I'm doing, ladies and gentlemen. Because what I am doing is haunting each of you. I'm doing it to remind you of what this trial is all about. Amber Van Horn was a living, breathing eight-month not too long ago. Now she is a decaying corpse in a graveyard in Jacksonville."

There was a gasp and then murmurs from the spectators. I could sense Becker shooting to his feet and dropping again with a glance from Herring.

"I apologize for using that language, but it's the truth. She is dead, and she has been buried. She was just a little girl. Plenty of little girls die even in this city every year from illness, accidents, murder. Only one little girl. But-"

I walked the line, staring each in the eye until they lowered their gazes.

"She's the reason we're here. She's the reason why the state and defense have spent probably a hundred thousand dollars when you take into consideration the man-hours, salaries, facilities and everything else devoted to this little girl's death. As I said, she was only one little girl. Why do we do this, why do we spend so much on one person?"

I held the photo up in front of them again.

"Because in our culture, every life is sacred. Amber Van Horn had written no novels, raised any children, did anything to make the world a better place...except exist. She was raw, unfinished and of no monetary value to anyone at all. But we hold this trial to confirm that her life had value, and the State is asking you to send her father, Chris Van Horn to the death chamber to confirm that life is sacred."

I turned my back on the jury and walked closer to Van Horn's table. I did not look back at the jury as I said, "I apologized earlier for haunting you and I'm sure most of you didn't understand what I was saying. Let me explain. 

"I started working as a prosecutor 10 years ago. I thought it would just be a job.

"What I didn't understand at the time, is that it is much more than a job. I have prosecuted or helped prosecute hundreds of cases. I have seen pictures of, and got to know, the families of hundreds of murder or manslaughter victims. I thought when I finished a case, I'd be done with it."

I turned and walked back to the jury box.

"I was wrong. I can still see the face of the first victim in the first case I ever prosecuted. She was a clerk in a 7-11 who was shot in the face by a bandit who got away with $211...and 37 cents. She was married and the mother of two young boys. Her name was Lilly Mae Longstreet. I don't see her often, but sometimes when I'm falling to sleep or in my dreams, I see her.

"I lost that case. We couldn't build a strong enough case and so the accused walked. But I did the best I could and when I see Lilly Mae's face in my dreams, I can face her without regret.

"Now, I've planted Amber's face in your minds. And trust me, one day, somewhere, somehow, you will see her face again. For myself personally, it doesn't really matter what verdict you come back with. Murder one, manslaughter, whatever. I know that I – and my office – have given this case all we had. Even if Mr. Van Horn is acquitted, I can still face Amber in my dreams and not be ashamed of what I've done. 

"It is you, the six of you, who will have to decide what you owe this little girl. When you see her again, and trust me you will, will you be able to say to yourself that you did what was right for her? I hope you can, because the alternative will be a lot of sleepless nights.

"Thank you for your time and consideration. Amber, and those who loved her, thank you as well."

Becker gave me a sickly half smile, as if he couldn't believe I'd tried to feed a modern jury that kind of pap. I just smiled back at him.

I smiled at him again at 6 pm. After they'd called us back to Herring's courtroom. The jury had been out a little more than four hours. The foreman stood and facing Van Horn told him they had found him guilty of murder in the second degree. That meant he was facing a sentence of 10 to 25 years. For a first offense, it would probably be ten years. 

Becker was trying to smile for the parents. Undoubtedly he'd make the point that he'd saved their son from the death chamber. But I wondered what kind of person the kid would be when he left Raiford after ten years. He wouldn't be the same man.

Amber's mother, and then Amber's maternal grandmother came up and hugged me. I'm not much for touchie-feelie, but I hugged them back. They hadn't gotten everything they wanted, but I thought they could live with what they had gotten. They could go on with their lives now.

I was walking out when Becker approached me and tapped me on the shoulder. He had perfect hair, perfect teeth, was slim and trim and had a great smile. He reminded me of Debbie's boyfriend – Doug/Lance Baker. I wanted to slug him but I just gave him a shit-eating grin.

"Congratulations," he said. If he wasn't sincere, he could certainly fake it. "I never thought that bullshit would work, but I really was expecting manslaughter tops and maybe less. You got a minute to go out for coffee, a drink somewhere?"

I almost said no, but then realized I had nowhere to go and nothing to do tonight. So we wound up at Pelicans, a downtown bar that draws most of the night action unless you're going out toward the Beaches or one of the suburbs. He was buying and since he probably made ten times the amount of money I did, I let him.

I worked on a Bloody Mary, heavy on the Tabasco and pepper, while he drank some girly drink. 

"You wondering why I invited you out for a drink?"

"Not really. I think you're after my body."

He smiled and said, "In a way..."

I shook my head.

"You're going to be sooooo disappointed."

He laughed and took a sip, then sat it down and stared at me. I wondered if I'd been right and he was going to hit on me.

"I do want you, but not physically, Bill. My law firm is always looking for new talent. We have branches in a dozen major cities across the U.S., close to a fifty partners and maybe 500 attorneys altogether. Would you ever consider crossing the aisle? I hear you were defense once."

"I'm flattered, but why?"

"I can't put my finger on it. I really can't, no BS. It's just...something I sensed or felt in there. I think you're a hell of a lot better than this place deserves. Jacksonville? Jesus Christ, you could be practicing in New York, or San Fran, or Chicago. Big cases, bigger money, much bigger paydays. And the ass...my God, man, you wouldn't believe the pussy that wanders through our offices. You don't even have to work hard for it. Our throw aways would knock the eyes out of guys around here."

He looked at my left hand and saw the ring on it.

"Looks like you're married, so we could arrange for employment for the spouse. And the great thing is that even the married guys get all the ass on the side they can handle. Does any of that sound interesting?"

I took a sip of my drink and thought about it.

"No, not really."

He looked genuinely puzzled.

"I like what I do. I think I need what I do. Representing rich SOBs or working divorces or corporate does nothing for me. I'm tempted, because it would be a challenge, but I guess I'm set in my ways. And I couldn't walk away because I've already paid too high a price to be here."

He lifted one eyebrow. I'd only seen people do that in movies.

I held my wedding band out. The skin around it was still pink, but mostly healed.

"My wife called me twenty minutes before I walked into court to tell me she didn't love me anymore and was filing for divorce. After nearly 18 years and two kids."

"Ouch. I – uh."

"It was the job, mostly. Some of the fault was just me personally, but I did what I did willingly so I can't bitch too much."

"But, doesn't' that leave you free...I mean, I don't want to be indelicate, but as wonderful as she may have been, you do know there's a whole world of women out there? You may not want to think about it now, but life goes on."

"Maybe. Look, right now I just want to hunker down and try to ride this out. Leave me your card. If I change my mind, I'll call you, but it won't be for awhile."

He looked around the bar. As usual there were dozens of younger and not so young attorneys, courthouse staff, secretaries, male and female, drinking, flirting, trying to line things up for later that night. I was younger than some of the guys and women there, but I felt like I was a hundred years old. This was going to be my world in the future? God help me.

Becker shook my hand and moved on after a tall redhead who worked in the Public Defender's Office. As I walked out he was saying something to her, standing so close they could have kissed without moving more than a millimeter in either direction and she was giggling. God, I already hated being divorced.

I made my way back to River condo and let myself in. I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, but I found a pack of cheese crackers and a lukewarm half-empty Pepsi on the desk by the bed and devoured both..

I lay back on the bed fully clothed and stared at the ceiling. I should be in our bedroom, lying next to Debbie, hearing the kids' music, watching television or talking with her about something inconsequential that had happened to one of us during the day. I shouldn't be lying in a strange bed, alone, in the quiet except for the infrequent sounds of cars in the night and faraway police sirens.

It was finally sinking in on me away from the courthouse and the cases and the people I worked with. I was alone, and I would be alone from now on.

As I lay there I felt a black anger rising inside me. I'd never denied I was at least partially responsible for what had happened between Debbie and me. I had let my care and concern for others invade my life and push her and the kids to one side. I had been stupid and foolish. 

But I had never looked at another woman and seriously thought about cheating on my wife. I hadn't given the love that I had pledged to her to a stranger. And if I had had the kind of problem that Debbie had had, if it had been me that had kept in shape and her that had let herself get fat and flabby, I knew I would have gone to her and tried to make things work.

During her two pregnancies she had gotten huge and it had taken a while after each to re-gain her old body. But I can't remember ever looking at her and not seeing the woman I loved. It was her under that flab and those extra pounds. Why couldn't she have done that for me?

I sat bolt upright on the bed and wanted very badly to smash things. Fuck being the nice guy. I had made some mistakes, but I wasn't the person who had betrayed my partner; I hadn't pulled the plug on nearly 20 years together to go lust after some hard body.

I didn't have to read her emails to Lance. I could quote every word in my head. While I had been working and loving her and trying to keep a middle-aged marriage together, she had been flirting with and lusting after and finally falling in love with a guy who hadn't been with her through those pregnancies.

Lance hadn't held her during the nights when she had cried at career reverses and the time when we thought because of a hospital error that a three-day-old Bill Jr. might have Down 's syndrome. It had taken a week before we'd gotten the correct results. We had stood over his crib and I remember the tears we'd both shed trying to imagine what our life, what his life, would be like if he did have Downs.

Lance, that young son of a bitch, had come in with his hard cock and his flat abs and a ten-year-plus edge on me and she had forgotten all those nights, all those hours, the life I had devoted to her. She had thrown me and those years away.

I thought I had been angry before, but I realized what I felt then was nothing. Until she said the words, told me she didn't love me anymore, it hadn't been quite real. I'd had hope. Now that was all gone.

I had prosecuted cases where cuckolded husbands had killed their unfaithful wives while letting their lovers live. I had never understood that. Now I did. Lance was guilty of nothing but being a man guided by his dick, If I was his age and single I might have done the same thing. But Debbie had stabbed me in the back, cut off my balls, torn out my heart. I was glad that I was nowhere near her tonight. I wondered if it would be safe to even face her any time in the near future. 




When We Were Married Ch. 02A



I couldn't lie down. I got up, took my Escalade and somehow wound up at The Last Call. Maybe because it was close to home, or what had been my home. I drank at a table by myself and watched young and old lovers flirt and kiss and dance and do everything but fuck on the dance floor. When I couldn't see straight enough to walk, the owner called the cops and after they consulted with a sergeant and realized who I was, took me back to the River Condo, put me inside on the bed and let me fall gratefully into unconsciousness. And that was how my first day of freedom ended.

I could have gone back to the house with a deputy but I couldn't make myself face Debbie or the kids, or my former home. I watched every channel I could find most of the day Saturday, went out and had Thai at a new restaurant near the beach and finally sat on a bench back at the Riverwalk letting the breeze whip around me as the sun sank below the horizon, the air got cooler and rain approached.

My cell rang and I pulled it out, intending to ignore it if it were from Debbie. 

"Hi Roy."

When she spoke I realized it was Debbie's mom, Cathy. Roy was okay, but Cathy was as close as you could come to being a classic grandmother, even though she still had a fairly nice body at 65 and had retained the facial features that showed me where Debbie and her younger sister Clarice got their beauty from.

"Hello Bill. Are you okay?"

"Define okay."

"I'm so sorry, Bill. I want you to know, I tried to talk Debbie out of it when I heard what she was going to do. I told her she was an idiot. She's my daughter and I love her, but I can't believe what she's doing."

"I found it kind of hard to believe myself, Cathy, but sh-things happen. She did go ahead and filed Friday, didn't she?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, but she did. What are you going to do?"

"About what?"

"You're going to fight it, aren't you? You're an attorney, you've got to know people. Drag it out as long as you can."

"Why?"

"Why? Why fight for your wife? You love Debbie don't you? And the kids."

"Yeah, the kids. Debbie, probably. Not as much as I did three weeks ago."

There was a long silence, then she said, "You know she doesn't love this guy, don't you?"

I played ignorant.

"What guy?"

"Oh Bill, don't be an asshole. I'm on your side. Doug Baker, the guy from UNF."

"How do you know about him?"

"...He's come by her house since the blowup at UNF that Friday, and she had him over – as a friend – last night. They went out to dinner. As friends."

"Do you think she's fucked him?"

She didn't gasp or get irate or defend her daughter and so I had a pretty good idea what she thought.

"I don't know, Bill. Probably, honestly. You can look at her while she's talking about how good friends they are and know she's lying through her teeth. I just don't know if she's lying to herself as well as everybody else."

I took a deep breath and let it out. The first few hints of raindrops were hitting my face.

"Well then, Cathy, what's the point? Why fight when she's already replaced me?"

'Because she may think she loves him, but she doesn't. She built a life with you, and you two have the kids, and she did love you so much once. It's just that...time passed and you didn't keep yourself up physically and she was ripe for romance when Doug came along. Look, Bill, it happens to men too. It's that itch you get when you've been married a long time and you stop looking at your husband or wife as a lover.

"I guess what I'm saying is that this is a fling. I think she thinks she loves him, or she's flattered by the idea of a young attractive man wanting her when she's getting ready to turn 40. And she probably will have, if she already hasn't had, sex with him. I hate to hurt you, but it probably will happen."

"So what is the point of my trying to hang on to someone who thinks she loves a younger hot guy and is going to have sex with him and probably rub my nose in it?"

"Because flings don't last, Bill. It's not love. It's fantasy and lust, but those burn out. The day will come when she sees him and what she's doing in the light of day. She'll remember what you two had and what she's got with him won't be able to match that."

It had started to rain so I heaved myself off the bench and started toward my Escalade. 

"Maybe, but I won't be around and available by that time."

There was a longer silence. As I approached the Escalade in the parking lot, she finally said, "You don't love her enough to hang on?"

"Cathy, what if it was Roy that came to you one day and said he'd met somebody and he wanted a divorce and he moved out and started having sex with her and you knew it was just a fling. Would you hang on?"

I got into the Escalade and watched the rain drops hit and run down the windshield. I realized she was crying.

"I'm gonna miss you, Bill. You have been a good man, and a good son and a good father, even if you could have spent more time with the kids. I'm crying for myself, and for Debbie. The day will come when she'll realize what she threw away, and then she'll be the one crying. Trust me on that."

"I'd have to be a better man than I am not to tell you that that thought makes me smile, I hope she hurts like hell, one day, because I sure as hell am hurting now."

"Don't forget us, Bill. Even if you drop out of Debbie's life, you've been a part of our life for 20 years. You're not divorcing us."

"I know. Bye."

I drove to the River and plugged in my laptop and started looking at rentals. Money wasn't really an issue, but I wanted to be somewhere closer to downtown. I had a feeling my job was going to be an even bigger part of my life than it had been and being downtown would be convenient.

After I'd made notes on some prospects, decided I didn't want to hear how the world was going to hell and it had become obvious that my wife and kids had left me for dead, I started looking up porn video sites. I found a couple of good ones with short to a few full length videos. I clicked on one featuring a big breasted blonde who apparently had run into a couple of very well endowed pool cleaners. Nothing. I couldn't get a hint of an erection.

I realized that was probably not the best idea on how to get some relief so I hunted until I found one about a wife cheating with her husband's two best friends, both guys in their 40s or 50s from appearances. She was brunette, short and slender. Still nothing. I looked down at my recalcitrant dick and couldn't help chiding it with a "you fucking traitor."

But it was obvious he wasn't going to come out to play and then I began to get a little more depressed. Not only had Debbie broken my heart, it looked like she had killed my sex drive as well.

I turned the lights off and stared at the ceiling while a kaleidoscope of memories and pictures from my past life swirled through my head. I know I must have slept sometime, but I honestly don't remember falling asleep or waking to the sunrise.

THE FOURTH DAY OF MY FREEDOM

When I came to work that morning it felt like everybody was staring at me, and trying to keep me from catching them doing it. Cheryl walked around me on eggshells. I finally had to tell her to get the hell over it and forget about what happened Friday. We had work to do.

I probably did a good job, although I could never remember exactly what I did that day. I called a few real estate agents and got commitments to see a few places. I was out of the office by 4:30 and had seen five places by 7:30 that night. When I stepped out of the fifth place, a two-bedroom condo two miles from the courthouse complex on Liberty Street, I told the agent "That's the place."

He looked surprised.

"You don't want to see any other sites? It's kind of small."

"It's big enough for me. I don't expect to be spending a lot of time here. The kitchen is small but I'll probably eat out, it has DSL and satellite connections, and the second bedroom is just for any times when I might have my kids. I can sleep on the couch those nights. I want to moved in by this weekend. Is that doable?"

"With enough money anything is doable."

The rest of the week and the following week went fast and glacially slow at the same time. I moved into the Liberty two bedroom. Work was work. The Thompson Brothers (the scum bag drug dealer murder case) that I'd thought would like down easier than an oyster at a beach party turned into a cluster fuck as it turned out that the brothers and their friends had planted a friend on the jury and were stupid enough to threaten another juror to see things the right way. What had been a simple legal execution turned into a dogfight. When it was over a case that should have taken three or four days tops took nearly three weeks to get close to final arguments.

I had finally made myself go by my former house with a deputy accompanying me. Debbie found a reason to be elsewhere so it was just Kelly there. As I separated the balance of my life from what had been my home Kelly hovered nearby. We said a few words.

As I got ready to walk out I went over to her and took her in my arms. She resisted for just a moment and then she hugged me back.

"I'm sorry baby."

"I'm sorry too, daddy."

I turned the Liberty two-bedroom condo into a storage unit with just enough room to turn around, eat in the kitchen, and go to bed. Every night I went out and as I had almost every night since my visit to The Last Call, I got shit faced at a bar.

As usual, the owners called the cops who deposited me in my bed. I knew they had to be getting pissed, but as long as I had a tight grasp on the balls of deputy sheriff who had killed his girlfriend's husband and two brothers, they were going to be very nice to me.

I spent Thursday putting the finishing touches on what should be the close for the Thompson kid-killing drug dealer case. At work people should have been getting used to my being a casualty in the divorce wars, but everybody still walked warily around me. I don't think two people had said anything to me about my personal life. Maybe they were being considerate, or maybe I just gave off vibes of "get the fuck away from me" so strongly that no one wanted to venture into dangerous waters.

After work, past 8 p.m., I grabbed Chinese on the way to Liberty Street, worked on case prep until nearly midnight without ever turning on the television, and finally checked my email at midnight. It was all trash except one from Debbie.

"Bill, I've retained Joyce Linder of Linder and Howe to handle the divorce. Have whoever you hire contact her."

There were no hearts or smiley faces on the e-mail, which didn't surprise me.

I could have waited until later the next day, but the message galvanized me. I looked up a cell number and punched it in.

"Yes, this better be very important to be calling me at midnight. Otherwise I'm jacking up the fee to double my normal."

I knew Lew Walters had caller ID and he knew my number, so that was for my benefit.

"I expect you to work for free or I'll be telling Mona in great detail about those two hostesses, you know the ones you were entertaining at that UF Law School meet and greet about six years ago.."

"Mutual Assured Destruction, Mr. Assistant State Attorney. You narc on me and I tell the beautiful Debbie about that District Attorney from, where was it, Oakland, that you were playing with at that conference two years ago in Chicago. You know, the one who could tie two cherry stems together with her tongue?"

It was obvious he was out of town and being as much of a jumping bean as he was, he hadn't been in town in a few weeks and hadn't heard the gossip. I wondered why his wife Mona hadn't told him, and then I realized I'd heard that she was in Africa on some "Save the Wildlife" crusade with a woman's group.

"Right now it wouldn't matter anymore, even if it was true, Lew."

"Oh, what's going on Bill?"

"She filed for divorce Friday a couple of weeks ago. She's hired Joyce Linder. I'd like you represent me."

There was a silence on the other end, which was unusual because Lew Walters could spew as many words as any attorney I'd ever met. I had liked him anyway ever since we'd met while I was a practicing attorney alum talking to law students at UF more than five years before. Lew didn't really do divorce cases, but he was a jack of all trades and he was my friend. I trusted him.

"You're serious. Goddamn, Bill, I'm sorry. How the hell did that happen? You been screwing around? And if you were, I probably ought to tell you I'm going to let her burn your ass. She is too hot, and good a woman, for you to treat that way."

"The other way around."

"No. My God. I never would have – Wait, please tell me that it wasn't Norman," he asked. Norman was his alley cat partner who had probably fucked half the women working in and around the courthouse over the past few years. "He didn't bed her?"

"No, it wasn't Norman. She met some hotshot kid professor at UNF and now she thinks she's in love with him."

"God, I'm glad to hear that. I mean, I hate it for you, but if it had been Norman, I would have had to kill him, or at least beat the shit out of him. He's got the morals of a damned goat. I wish to God I didn't like him as much as I do. Anyway, what's your call? You want me to gum up the works and drag it out? Give her a chance to get her head out of her ass?"

"No. It's done. When your wife tells you she doesn't love you anymore and she starts bringing the bastard around to meet your kids and her parents while our bed is still warm, it's too late. All I want you to do, and you have to do this, is arrange for reasonable child support. She makes good money but I'll do my part. 

"What I WILL Not DO is give her one fucking penny of alimony. I'm not going to pay her to fuck that bastard. I'd quit the office and bail this town before I pay her one cent. We were married for 17 years, but she doesn't get anything for screwing around on me. Can you do that?"

"Can a bear crap in the woods? Now, how rough do you want me to get? I know adultery doesn't carry any legal weight, but I can find a judge who hates cheaters and we'll get in the dirt some way, enough to give you what you want. What do you have on her?"

"I can't tell you, Lew, and don't push it. I don't even know she's fucked the guy yet. I know she thinks she's in love with him and I know if she hasn't fucked him, it's going to happen any minute."

"You know you're tying my hands, but...I'll get it done for you. Bill....shit man, I am so sorry. Is there anything that Mona or I can do for you. I'm in Omaha this minute, but I'll be back in Jax in a few days."

"Just get this legal shit done, and kiss Mona for me when you see her. You're a lucky man. I never realized how lucky until a few days ago."

"Oh....yeah...and what about the kids? You want any particular visitation or custody? You want to fight her for custody?"

"No, she's a good mother, just a shitty wife. She's raised them. I've just been visiting. I want to have some contact with them that she can't screw around with, but she can have primary."

"Consider it done. But, man, don't let this screw you up with the kids. Even if things get weird, and they usually do in bitter divorces, they're still yours. No matter what happens between Debbie and you, don't let this mess things up between you and them. I'll call you when I get back to Jax, OK?"

I knew how desperately he and his wife Mona were trying to conceive. Neither one of them could quite conceal the envy and pain the sight of our two rambunctious teenagers brought to them on the few occasions they'd been to our home. But, everybody has problems. Right now I felt like I would have swapped mine for theirs.

I lay back, feeling better but worse at the same time. Lew was good. He'd handle the legal end of it. The "worse" came with the realization that now that it had gotten into the hands of the litigators, there was no going back.

The next morning I had to run the gauntlet of stares and whispers as I went into work and prepared for the close of the Thompson Brothers' first case. This one was Nigel. The actual trial – apart from the witness and jury tampering fireworks - was so damned open and shut that it was like shooting fish in a barrel or bagging a buck chained in the middle of a clearing. I didn't take any pride in it, but I took the case from Gordon Carlyle and Jessica Stephens because I needed it.

I made my closing, fried Thompson's ass and wasn't surprised an hour after the jury went away at mid-day that they came back with a guilty of first degree murder verdict.

I let Stephens sit at the prosecution table because she'd been a good sport about my Japping the case out from under her.

She was a tall frosted blonde. Not really built, but nice up and down. Not really pretty, but there was something about her. She was one of those women who looked plain when you looked at her from one angle, like a classic beauty if you looked at her from another angle. She'd worked at the State Attorney's Office before I came on and was a fixture. She was a good attorney. I was never quite sure why she'd been satisfied to remain at a lower level.

Right now, those shifting good looks were overshadowed by darkness. I didn't know what, and I didn't need to be an expert at reading people, to know that she was hurting. I knew that expression well.'''

Carlisle had not taken my grabbing the case well and although he tried to hide it, I knew he was pissed. It would have been a conviction in a high profile murder case and I knew it would have looked good on his resume, but he was young. He'd have plenty more chances.

As I walked out of the courtroom I could see Carlisle huddled with two other younger SAs. I walked slowly toward them.

"...son of a bitch...it was my case. Jessica was just window dressing. I did the heavy lifting and then he comes along and steals it. Jesus, if he'd just spent a little more time fucking that big tittied whore of his, he wouldn't be wandering around ruining everybody's life. Damned dickless wonder...."

The two SAs with him alerted him with their eyes as I walked up and he turned slowly, like something from a vaudeville routine.

He was silent, waiting for the axe to fall.

"First off, I'd suggest you apologize for calling my still-wife a whore."

He met my gaze and said, "I apologize. I didn't mean that. I just – I worked my ass off on that case. I got mad."

"Secondly, anybody stupid enough to badmouth someone as high over him as I am over you where he can be overheard, is probably too stupid to hope for promotions."

He didn't say anything so I added, "What do you know about my marriage and how many other people around here know about it."

He swallowed hard.

"They say your wife is divorcing you for some young guy from UNF. That she went for a stud. Everybody knows your wife. She's the hottest pi-woman I've ever seen. And - everybody knows about it. Attorneys, cops, the cleaning crew. Everybody."

I just shook my head.

"You're a stupid fuck, but fortunately being stupid isn't a capital offense. Now get the hell out of my sight."

I watched them walk away and wondered how many different stories were going the rounds about me and Debbie.

Someone cleared their throat behind me. I turned and saw Jessica Stephens looking at me. 

"He's an asshole, Mr. Maitland. People aren't laughing at you. You got screwed. People know the kind of man you are. They're not laughing."

She was as tall, if not taller, than Debbie. I looked up into her eyes and shrugged.

"They're laughing, Jessica. I know that. But it doesn't matter."

I turned to walk away from her when she said, "Do you have anyplace you need to go after work?"

I stood looking at her. What the hell? Did getting dumped suddenly make you attractive to the opposite sex?




When We Were Married Ch. 02A



After a long moment I said, "No, no plans and nowhere to go."

"I feel like shit and you feel like shit. I'd like to go out and have a few drinks with you before I go home? We can feel sorry for each other. You want to"

She came by my office just before I closed the doors at 6 p.m. Cheryl was there and gave me a funny look as she saw Jessica walk into my office.

"I live on the Westside, over near . You ever been to O'Brien's?"

I had. It was a big, old fashioned bar on the border between old downtown Avondale and the wild Westside.

"Yeah. That where you want to go?"

"I only live two blocks from there. I can park at home and walk to the bar and walk home. Don't need to worry about DUIs."

"Makes sense. I'll see you there."

It was near 7 p.m. when I pulled up in front of O'Brien's. It's a huge bar on a divided median roadway just off U.S. 17 that runs up and down the east coast of the U.S. and straight through the heart of Jacksonville.

I parked on the divided median and walked into O'Brien's. It had a huge horseshoe bar, a pretty big cleared dance floor, pool tables and an area with tables and chairs just off the bar. It was the classic neighborhood bar. It was, in other words, an American pub.

I walked over to one of the tables and sat down. A waitress came by in a moment and I ordered a Bloody Mary, heavy on the Vodka, Tabasco and pepper. I was about to pay when a guy about my height, dark haired and limping and with the classic cauliflower ear and battered nose of a fighter limped up and told the waitress, "Mr. Maitland's money is no good in here."

"Hi, O'Brien," I told him. "You still alive and kicking?"

"As hard as I can. What brings you here, Mr. M?"

"Just came by for a drink. Meeting somebody."

He gave me a look I couldn't place. 

"Business or pleasure?"

"Just a friend."

"You're not out with the Missus?"

"No more, O'Brien. Never again."

"Oh, damn. How long?"

"Two weeks ago."

He shook his head and then said, "It'll get better, Mr. M. I've gone through it four times. Get plastered often and laid more often. You'll be alright."

"You have the soul of a philosopher my friend," I told the former prize fighter, now bar owner, whom I'd declined to prosecute nearly a decade before when a loud mouth thug made the mistake of swinging on a man who had put two boxers in the hospital and one man in the ground during his pro career. 

We were sitting there chewing the fat when Jessica walked over. She was still in her office garb but she'd let her long blonde hair down to hang free around her shoulders. She looked younger.

She ordered a Jack Daniels straight which I thought showed character on her part while O'Brien looked on approvingly. We drank and looked at each other without words. There were tears in her eyes. I'd never seen her this way, and I'd seen her on and off for more than 10 years.

"Come on, Jess, what is your sad story. You know mine."

"It's just love, Mr. – Bill. Why does love always have to break your heart?"

"Hell, I'm the last person in the world you ought to be asking that."

She shook her head and said, "You were married for 17 years. You have two kids. I'm 44. I've never been married. I have no children. I never will. I've had men I cared for over the years, but nobody I ever loved the way you love your wife. And I never will Even if you lose your wife and kids, you've had a life. I never have."

I tried to think of something encouraging to say, but considering her words and my own thoughts the idea of slitting my waists or a bullet to the brain was beginning to seem downright appealing.

"Come on, Jessica. You are a very young 44. And I've never really gone out of my way to tell you this, but you're a beautiful woman. You could still find somebody."

She finished her drink and the tears started to flow for real.

"No, Mr. – Bill. There's only one man who's ever loved me and that I loved. He asked me to marry him and I turned him down. Now he's gone and he's never coming back. And I don't blame him."

"I don't understand."

"It's Carl – Carl Cameron. He's a reporter for the Times-Union.

"I know who Carl is. You and Carl – an item?"

"For nearly a year. We met last June when he was doing a story on that Mayoral corruption case we were handling. He's – he's."

Then the tears really started.

"He asked you to marry him. I got that much. And you turned him down? Why?"

She told me and I just looked at her dumbfounded. 

"That's why you didn't marry him?"

"I couldn't. I know it sounds crazy to you, but ...I couldn't. I – we – we'd been...intimate. I told him I'd be his for the rest of my life, but I just couldn't marry him."

"So you offered no strings sex and he dumped you because you wouldn't marry him/"

She nodded and I shook my head, trying to fight back a smile. 

"I didn't know there were two people like that left in the world. Seriously, I understand him. He wants the ring and the picket fence and the whole thing. You're both the age when guys started wanting that. But there's got to be a way – a compromise- that you could both live with."

She just shook her head and cried harder.

"I can't, and I don't want to live without him. What am I going to do?"

She had moved her chair next to mine and she was in my arms and wetting my shirt. 

'I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but you know what you have to do. At least there's something you can do to keep him. I've lost the only woman I ever loved, and there's nothing I can do."

She raised her tear streaked face and kissed me before I could move away from her. Her lips were soft. I had never even thought of kissing her, but she fit well into my arms.

"I'm never going to have the man I love and your wife has found somebody else. Could we go to your place?"

"And-"

"I don't want to be alone tonight, Bill. I think I'd kill myself if I had to sleep in my bed alone tonight. No strings, no obligations. Just stay with me. Please."

I seriously thought about it for a moment. Even if my dick refused to do anything, at least there would be a warm female body next to me. I didn't know if I could stand another night alone thinking about Debbie and everything I'd lost – or that she had stolen from me.

Then I shook my head and gently pried her off me.

"No, it's a tempting offer...God you have no idea how tempting. But you know why you want to go to bed with me."

"Because I've always admired you, Bill. You're honest and decent and you fight for what you believe in and you're a good man. I'd rather go to bed with you than almost anyone I know."

"Except for one guy, and you're afraid to say yes to him. Come on, Jess, you don't have to be a shrink to see what you're doing. You're afraid to take the plunge with Carl, so you go to bed with me and you can feel guilty and slutty and tell yourself it would never work and so you never have to try to make it work with him. I become your excuse

for living alone the rest of your life. I wouldn't do that to you."

She just stared at me for a minute, then wiped her face free of tears.

"So you're not going to take me to bed."

"No, I'm going to stay here and get drunk."

She got up and started to walk away.

"You ought to tell him yes. If you really love him, don't throw him away. There's too much of that going around."

She didn't even turn around.

"I can't."

I watched her walk out of O'Brien's and thought that it should have been some small comfort to think there was somebody whose life was even more screwed up than mine, but it didn't make me feel any better.

Four Bloody Marys didn't make me feel any better, but I didn't feel much of anything by the time I finished my fifth. I was still conscious so I need a sixth. 

I was prepared to remind O'Brien that he owed me big time to get number six when I saw a cop coming and then sitting down beside me. He was about six feet tall, a grizzled silvery brunette with an old fashioned handlebar mustache.

He held his hand out to me and I took it automatically.

"Bob Hastings, Mr. Maitland. Sergeant Hastings. I'm the beat sergeant for this zone. How you doing?"

"Fine. Working on getting unconscious. Mind giving me a lift home or getting me a cab when I collapse?"

"Sorry, Mr. Maitland. O'Brien called me when he thought you might get to be a handful. We need to talk."

"Bout what?"

"There won't be any more police babysitters taking you home and tucking you in. I know you're a big time prosecutor and the Sheriff has passed the word down to treat you with kid gloves, but you need to get your shit together."

"I don't-'

"My men have got better things to do with their time than take a guy whose wife fucked around on him home every time he wants to crawl into a bottle to hide from the truth about his life."

I laughed.

"Well, don't beat around the bush, Sergeant. Let me have it straight. Where'd you get your mari- marit – counseling license?"

He pulled his Glock pistol out of its holster and laid it on the table between us.

"No need to get violent, Sergeant."

"Just making a point. I know where you are, Mr. Maitland. You're living in some temporary apartment 'cause your wife threw you out. You're alone, for the first time in a long time. And you can't stand the silence there. You can't stand sleeping in a lonely bed. So you are going to keep going out and drinking yourself blind drunk to hide from the pain of facing the fact that you are alone now.

"I was there. I screwed around on my wife until she threw me out six months ago. I almost got lost in a bottle. But that (pointing to the Glock) saved me."

"Don't follow."

"I knew if I kept drinking I'd miss work, I'd make mistakes, I'd get myself thrown off the force. And if that happened, I'd go home and stick that Glock in my mouth and blow my brains out."

He stared at me.

"I know who you are. You're me. The only thing I really love is what I do. Being a cop. I can keep going as long as I have that. If I lose that, I wouldn't want to live. You're a prosecutor. It's not just what you do. It's who you are. You don't get out of the bottle and you'll be dead in three months."

He put the Glock back in its holster and stood up.

"I haven't run into you, but guys I trust tell me you're a good guy. We don't have enough of them. Find something to do at night. Join a gym, volunteer at a hospital, become a Big Brother, become a Safe Streets volunteer. Just stay out of the bars. Goodnight." 

And he walked away. O'Brien came over and told me, "Your cab is waiting for you outside, Mr. M. I was you, I'd listen to Sergeant Hastings. Your life may seem pretty shitty right now, but give yourself a chance. Give yourself some time."

I woke up alone. I rolled over and picked up my cell and dialed a familiar number. If Debbie had answered I was going to hang up. Despite the fact that we had caller ID, Bill Jr. answered.

"Hi."

"Hey. I wake you?"

"Naw, I'm getting ready to go out. Jesse Hillman from school invited me to go with him and his dad on a camping trip to Salt Springs. Going to go down into the boils with masks and snorkels."

"That sounds like fun. I don't think you remember, but I took you down there when you were about four – five years old. You loved it."

"I – don't really remember that. But yeah, I think it will be fun." 

"When you leaving?"

"In about an hour. Be back Sunday night."

"Oh, have a good time. Is your sister there?"

"No. She went on a two day trip to Atlanta with Melody Barnes and her mom and dad."

I just held the phone to my ear and listened to him breathing. I wondered why he didn't remember our trip to Salt Springs. It was clear as a bell to me.

"You want to talk to mom? I heard her and D-"

"Doug is there?"

"I – uh- mom doesn't want us talking to you about her and Doug."

I knew I shouldn't but I couldn't help asking, "He's staying there overnight now?"

" I can't....just...sometimes."

"It's okay, BJ. You never said anything to me. Don't even tell her I called. Just have a good time. And I..."

"I know." And he hung up.

#

That ends Chapter 2A. Chapter 2B should be along in a few days or maybe more. I wasn't going to submit this way, but this really is a serialized story. I've got a lot more to write, but I know where I'm going. I was going to hold off a little longer, but I feel bad that so many readers are vocal about wanting to see new copy. It puts stress on me, but it's a pleasant stress. I like knowing some people out there actually want to see new installments.

Unfortunately for some of you that don't like waiting, and don't like long stories, this is going to be long and it will take a while to finish. It should run well over 100,000 words or novel length, because it really is a novel. It's Bill and Debbie's story, not just Bill. And I'm working in characters that will re-appear in the next four to six stories that I post over the coming year. Bar owner and boxer O'Brien, and his bar, Sergeant Hastings and Jessica Stephens will all play major or supporting roles in coming stories.

Finally, and this is a plus with writing a serialized story, I want to thank readers who've posted comments and suggestions. I didn't think I would, but I've already decided to incorporate at least two suggestions into the story. They work and they make sense. So if anybody has any ideas about future developments, feel free to share them. I might not use them, but I might.



When We Were Married Ch. 02B



 (c) Daniel Quentin Steele – 2010

Author's note: As I mentioned in Chapter 2A, this is an unusual situation for me. My stories have previously been written before being submitted. Because of the length of "When We Were Married," I started submitting as I write. Which means I've got readers barraging me with requests to write faster. Unfortunately, I actually have a life outside of Literotica. Which means that I'll try to keep these coming on a fairly regular basis, but there may be some delays along the way. It's taking 4-5 days on average from when I submit to when stories are posted. But, writing in a serialized fashion is actually kind of fun. And reader reaction is really playing a part in shaping the story. I hope eventually I'll be able to go back and acknowledge the changes I've made based on reader suggestions. Because this is long, I only hope I don't turn off a lot of readers. I didn't really plan a novel, but once I got the idea it just grew. I know there have been a few glitches and will be more since I'm again venturing out without the aid of Lady Pine Rose's input. Hopefully when this crazy schedule comes to an end with the close of this story, I'll be able to receive her help on shorter pieces. Thanks for the outpouring of comments and hopefully some of the questions about the story will be answered before I finish it.



2nd thoughts – and first steps 

My name is Bill Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Until about six weeks ago I thought I had a nearly perfect marriage to the former Debbie Bascomb, a big breasted and gorgeous blonde business professor at the University of North Florida. We had two teenagers, I had a job I loved, and life was good. Until Debbie hit me with four words that shattered my life, I accused her of something she was physically not guilty of, and our marriage started to dissolve. 

Three weeks ago our marriage started to die and a week after throwing me out of our house she told me she didn't love me and was getting a divorce. I've managed to keep my head above water at work, but my personal life has taken a plunge into the toilet. I am a 41-year-old man who's supposed to be married. I like being married. I'm old for my age, flabby and out of shape and balding and just not equipped for the bar scene. Not to mention that I hadn't liked it all that much when I could compete.

It's another lonely weekend and I've just climbed out of a bottle and I managed to catch my 14-year old son Bill Junior at home and had one of the best conversations I've had with him for a long time. I wish I'd taped it to listen to again. Along the way, he let slip that Debbie's young stud professor, Doug Baker, has started spending nights over at OUR house. I am NOT happy!

#############################  

I rolled out of bed, made myself a cup of coffee that just didn't taste the same although I'd bought the exact same blend we'd used for 10 years. And thought about Doug Baker's chiseled abs glistening with sweat he lay on top of Debbie's gorgeous body and rammed her with what was undoubtedly a big cock. Naturally, he'd have a big cock. Bastard couldn't be undersized, could he? Home wreckers never had small dicks. Some rule of nature, I guess.

I couldn't go assault him again, even if he was in my house. Debbie still had that protective court order keeping me away from her and it without a cop babysitter. I could waylay him somewhere else, but what was the point. At some point even being who I was wouldn't protect me from arrest and then I really would lose my job and the only reason I still had to get up in the morning.

And even if I could do it without fear of arrest, I knew he'd kick the shit out of me. Unless I hit him from behind. We had fought -if you could call it that – at a UNF function that Debbie had sneaked out to play his girlfriend while she was still married to me. A fight. Hell, it was a slaughter. I'm not a fighter. She had said something about him being a boxer and he'd handled me like a pro would handle a 9th grader.

Why the hell would a grown man be fist fighting anyway. You fight when you're in high school or college and your girl or someone who want to be your girl is watching. When you get married and you're a white collar professional, you're not supposed to have to fist fight for your wife's love and respect.

But it had made a difference. I saw it in her eyes the night I'd surprised her with him. She had contempt for me. In her eyes I was just a flabby, foolish little man who was going to be embarrassed by her stud boyfriend.

She had been horrified, had screamed when I made him pay for a gesture of good will as he tried to help me up and I caught him in the balls and then in the face with the top of my head, then did my best to kick his face off with my shoe as he lay in front of me bleeding.

But I saw it in her eyes. I had surprised her. I wasn't supposed to be the guy standing and her stud the guy bleeding all over the floor. She had looked at me differently for just a fraction of a second and I realized she was looking at me as a man, not just a husband.

If, as they say, every guy is just a grown up 13-year-old, I think every woman is just a grown up 15-year-old. They may say it doesn't' matter, but they get hot when a man fights for them, and wins. It's probably something in our genetic makeup. And she had completely eliminated me from the category of – male.

Of course by that night it was too late, but for just a moment I'd had her respect because I'd come and fought for her. Even if she'd never admit it in a million years.

It had felt good, I remembered. And even if I never had the opportunity to beat the crap out of him, even if they married or become permanent bed buddies, I wanted to know in my own mind that I could take him. It was childish and foolish and entirely unworthy of a 41-year-old professional, but I didn't give a crap.

I got to thinking and then I made a phone call. A Hispanic sounding voice answered the phone and I asked if Carlos Herrerra was there.

I had to repeat the name a couple of times and finally I heard someone yell, "Papa, ven acqi, telefono."

A few moments later a husky old man's voice said, "Si?"

"Hello, Carlos. You got any time to talk to old friends?"

There was a silence and then, "Billy, Billy, I thought you had died. Haven't heard from you in a long time."

"You know what they say, too mean to die. Carlos, you still have that old gym of yours open?

"Of course. You find a good welterweight prospect for me? Has that boy of yours decided he wants to become a fighter?"

"No, but are you open right now? Can I come by?"

"You have to ask? It would be open even if it were closed, for you. Come, my friend."

I knew that if the old man was still alive, his door would always be open to me. He had promised me that nearly four years before and as far as I knew, he had always kept his promises.

######################     

Juan Herrerra had been 27 when he made the mistake of asking a pretty young blonde to dance with him at a Jax Beach nightclub on a Saturday night. Unfortunately she had caught the eye of Wilson LaMark. Wilson was a 24-year-old graduate student at Jacksonville University. He was more than a little drunk and he hadn't taken kindly to the good looking Hispanic man trying to cut in on his intended playmate.

When he'd made his feelings clear, Juan laid him out with one punch, having been tutored since he was a child by a doting father, Carlos Herrerra. Four of Wilson's friends had taken offense to Juan's actions and the fighting moved outside. Before it was over three of them were suffering broken noses, fractured cheekbones and a fourth a broken collarbone.

Which is where it might have ended, except that Wilson happened to be the son of Henry LaMark, a Texas oilman worth at time about 400 million dollars. He had paid three men to bodyguard his son and after Juan had batted a couple of them around, one of them had managed to clock Juan from behind. Then they dragged him to the patio and one of them put a .44 magnum to Juan's head and at a word from Wilson, blew his brains out.

Unfortunately, they hadn't counted on the presence of a newly installed monitoring camera positioned in just the right position to see Wilson nod and give the order to execute Juan.

Of course, a man worth $400 million could afford to produce witnesses that Juan had started everything, that Wilson was not even around when he was shot, and that the bodyguard had fired in self defense and fear after seeing Juan take out four feisty college students.

But I moved quickly enough to secure the camera videotape and was able to play the bodyguards off against each other so that one of them turned State's witness. Wilson went down for second degree murder only because it was obvious he was drunk, probably had a concussion from the shot that Juan had given him, and the bodyguards testified they were going to take Juan out whatever their client told them.

His father, who had sacrificed about $20 million in deals to attend his son's trial, didn't take the verdict well. As a broken Carlos and I had been talking outside he had walked up to us with all the arrogance that being worth $400 million in Texas gives you and said under his breath so no one else could hear, "I hope you enjoyed that. My son will be out in three months, the Spic will be dead in six and you, you cocksucker, should kiss your wife and kids tonight because they'll be gone within a year."

He was surrounded by a dozen bodyguards, lawyers, flunkies and PR guys but it only took five armed cops to separate him from his entourage and escort him up to my office. It was just Carlos, Henry and myself in my office. Everyone else had been encouraged to be elsewhere.

He stood there looking at me and shaking his head.

"You are so fucking stupid I can't believe someone hasn't killed you before this. In about five minutes my people are going to have everybody from the governor up to the president's office tearing your hide off. You're done. And the Spic, well I have to be careful of my words because I'm sure you have this place bugged, but I wouldn't make any long range plans if I were you."

I leaned back against my desk and motioned for Carlos to sit in a comfortable chair. He had no idea what was going on.

"Mr. LaMark, please strip."

"Go fuck yourself."

I walked around the desk and opened the top drawer. I pulled out the loaded Glock I always kept there. I pointed it at LaMark's head and asked, Carlos, "You did see Mr. LaMark pick up that poker (pointing at an ornamental poker upright near the fake fireplace in the corner) and try to attack me with it. You saw it."

He had no idea, but he went along, nodding his head and saying, "Si, yes. I saw him attack you."

I spoke quietly and conversationally to LaMark who looked like he was about to stroke out with rage.

"I suppose it was understandable. You were overcome with grief and rage and lost control. Unfortunately, with two bullets in your brain, you won't be able to deny my version of events. Your family and your people will probably try to cause me trouble, but I doubt that the Florida powers that be will be too upset about a Texas blowhard meeting his fate here. I might even get a raise out of this."

"You wouldn't dare."

"You threatened the lives of my wife and children. Forget about Carlos, who I like, you crossed the line. Unfortunately you're rich and powerful enough that you could get to them. But you're a lot less worrisome if you're dead."

"I-"

"Strip or die." 

When he was naked I asked Carlos to hold the Glock and I inspected his clothing very carefully. Then I let him put his clothes back on.

"This is a very carefully engineered office. There's no way conversations can be taped here. Unless you brought in a bug, which now I'm sure you didn't. So now we can have a little conversation."

I unlocked a drawer that no one has a key to except myself and took out a packet of photos. I gave them to LaMark. He glanced through them and the color left his face.

"What is this?"

"When you're in this job you meet a lot of people. You have the opportunity to do favors, to go easy when mercy is justified, even to some bad people. And sometimes the people you take pity on have very powerful, and very cruel and very dangerous friends and family. I've done favors over the years for some of those people.

"Before we leave here today, I'm going to call one of those friends on a throw-away cell I keep in my office. Can't be traced. And if, in the next few years or even later, I fall down an elevator shaft, or Carlos has an unexplained car accident, or my wife vanishes and is never seen again, the word will go out.

"I know you have a pretty new bride and two four-year-old twins at home in Houston. Nothing will happen right away. But one day, no matter how many bodyguards you hire or where you run, they will find you. You'll come home one day and find your wife's headless body in bed, with evidence that she was raped every way a woman can be raped and tortured before her head was taken. You'll find pieces of your children.

"Now I wouldn't, couldn't, do that even if you harmed my family, but it's out of my hands once I make that phone call. And the people I call...well, they can do that kind of thing."

I put the Glock back in my drawer and gestured to the door.

"You can go now, Mr. LaMark. We're through."

He just stood there. You don't get that wealthy without being very smart.

"Don't make the call. Mr. Maitland, don't do it. I apologize. He's my son. You've got a boy. You have to know how hard it is to see him behind bars for the best part of his life. Whether you believe me or not, I wouldn't have hurt you or – Mr. Herrerra. I wanted to scare you, make you pay by wondering every day when the axe would fall. I'm a tough businessman, but I'm not a killer, even by proxy."

"Fair enough, Mr. LaMark. Now you can sweat every day for a long time wondering if I am going to make that phone call. I hope I never see you again."

When he walked out shakily, Herrerra came to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Would you have made that phone call?"

"He'll never know."

####################   

Carlos still had the same old gym which was really a training site for would-be and never-will-be boxing hopefuls. It had weights and weight bags and a ring and posters of old time fighters. It still smelled like old gym socks. I think he probably could have had it smelling nice and fresh, but the image of the place would have suffered.

He hugged me and introduced me to a few guys who were all whipcord muscle and tattoos, in their early 20s.

"This is Mr. Maitland, the District Attorney I told you about. He got justice for my Juan. He is a good man."

After exchanging pleasantries, Carlos and I went off into his office. Any smaller and you'd have to call it a walk-in closet.

We talked and I explained why I'd come.

"I am sorry to hear of this," he said. "I lost my wife 20 years ago, but it was different. She had the cancer. But we loved each other until she drew her last breath. I cannot imagine how it would hurt – that kind of betrayal."

He took a sip of a steaming cup of coffee, the small cup filled with that black sludge that Cubans consider coffee which will dissolve metal spoons if you leave them in it long enough.

"But, Billy, wouldn't it be easier just to get a gun and shoot this bastard?"

I shook my head.

"He hasn't killed anybody. He just stole my wife. And he didn't really steal her because you can't steal people. She gave herself to him. I don't even know that I'll ever touch him. It's just – just that he humiliated me. In front of her. Not only is he sleeping with her, but when we meet we'll both know he could mop the floor with me. I want to know in my own mind that I'm his equal – physically."

He looked at me for a moment, rubbed his chin and then said, "Come with me." 

I walked back into the gym area with him. He motioned to a bare chested young man with the typical rangy build of a boxer and the tattoo of a huge fierce eagle covering his entire chest, the wings spreading out to his shoulders.

"Ernesto, c'mere."

Ernesto ambled over, looking at me curiously. He was close to six feet tall and had arms that seemed three feet long.

"What, Papa?"

"Get on up into the ring. I want you to go a round with Billy – Mr. Maitland."

"A round?" 

The look on his face said it all. He didn't think I'd last three seconds.

Carlos gave him a stern look.

"Billy is not a professional. Take it easy. Just a workout. I want to get an idea what kind of fighter Billy could become. If I took him on."

Ernesto shook his head.

"He's an old man."

In a move that was fast even for an old man, Carlos cuffed him on the right ear and said, "I'm older than he is, and I can kick your ass. Get in there."

Ernesto stepped into the ring. I stood on the apron.

"You sure this is a good idea?"

"Step in or walk away, Billy. It's like when you decide to chase a woman. You either go for it, or you don't. What do you want to do?"

I stepped inside the ring. Ernesto just stood there. There was a faint grin on his face.

"Try to hit him, Billy, and try to keep him away from you. Ernesto, don't hurt him, too badly."

I remembered the night with Doug. I felt just as foolish, but I raised my hands, then thought to call to Carlos as I turned back to look at him, "Do I need boxing g-"

A moment later I felt my cheek on the canvas and realized I was lying on my face. Blood was dripping from my lip. Somehow a tooth on the lower right of my mouth had carved a chunk out of the inside of my lip. I shook my head and got to one knee. I looked over at Carlos.

He shrugged apologetically and said, "No gloves. And you never turn your back on a man you're facing in the ring. Call it lesson one."

Ernesto also shrugged as I got to my feet but he didn't look guilty.

I raised my fists and swung, first the right, then the left. He deflected both punches without seeming to move his arms and suddenly there was blood spurting out of my nose and he was dancing away. As it had with Doug, being hit in the nose hurt like hell.

I rubbed the blood away.

"Fuck, that hurt."

"It's supposed to," Ernesto said, glancing over at his mentor. "It don't hurt, you don't learn to cover up."

I went at him again, and again, and again. I never laid a hand on anything but the outer sides of his forearms and once or twice I bopped him on a shoulder. He busted my lips three times and hit me in the nose twice more and the second time he made me scream. Damn, but it hurt.

"Work the body," Carlos called and suddenly Ernesto hit me twice, hard in the stomach. I was down on one knee gasping for air. I lurched to my feet gasping and he hit me again twice. This time I was down on the canvas rolling back and forth trying to catch a good breath. It felt like he'd busted ribs.

After awhile I was able to roll to my knees. I was getting ready to smash Ernesto in the balls if he was gentlemanly enough to try to help me up, but he just stood there. Carlos was kneeling down beside me.

"It's okay, Billy. This was just to see some things."

"Like what," I gasped.

"Your reflexes, speed, upper body strength. I got to tell you, we got some work to do. You got no reflexes, your speed is pathetic, and you really hit like a girl."

I managed to grin at him.

"Don't sugarcoat it, Carlos. Be straight."

He patted me on the shoulder. 

"It's not so bad. You're a 40-year-old guy with no conditioning. You got no strength or speed and I don't think you're going to be contending for any titles soon, but we can turn you into a fighter. We'll put you on the heavy bag for strength, work on timing and rhythm, put you on the free weights. You need to start running. For endurance and conditioning."




When We Were Married Ch. 02B



He helped me to my feet. I realized my face hurt like hell.

"What about my face?"

"Put some ice on it. Don't worry, Ernesto didn't do any damage."

"No damage?"

"Billy, it won't be long you won't even notice crap like that. It's like scratching your arm. It's nothing. That's part of learning to fight. But right now, we need to go somewhere."

I followed him out of the downtown to a gym in Avondale. It was a big two story affair, an older place. There were plenty of cars and lots of men and women inside. They were working on weights, Nautilus machines, stationary bikes and treadmills and there was a pool at the back end. He introduced me to Dan Hurly, the owner and told him he wanted to get me set up with a personal trainer, at least at first until I got to know the ropes.

"I want you to give Mr. Maitland a key, Dan. He works strange hours and I want him to be able to come in here any time he needs to. The cops won't hassle him because he's a prosecutor. 

Hurly looked at me funny for a minute, then shrugged and said, "If Carlos vouches for you, okay. I'll get you a key. Wait here and I'll get you a trainer."

Carlos patted me on the shoulder.

"You start exercising and working out here. And come by the gym for the bags and a little sparring. It won't be quick, but you work at it and it won't be too long before you'll be kicking this guy's ass. And maybe getting some of your wife's? Right?"

I just shook my head but said, "Thank you, Carlos."

"De nada, my friend. I can never pay you back. Not in this lifetime. Good luck."

Hurly came back with a short muscular black guy who spent the next hour going over the weights and the Nautilus machines. I tried not to feel too self conscious, because there were 70 year old grannies and guys with pot guts three times bigger than mine on some of the machines. 

Or course, there were also some middle aged matrons with spectacular butts and even better chests in outfits that ranged from the nearly obscene to relatively demure. And there were teeny boppers as young as Kelly and watching their hard young bodies really made me feel like a pervert.

After only an hour it was all I could do to drag myself to my Escalade and make it back to the Liberty Street condo. I was able to get to the bed where I intended to catch a few winks. That was at 4 p.m. When I opened my eyes again it was 1 a.m. and I just threw my clothes on the floor, crawled under the covers, and for a little while I was able to forget that I was alone.

#########################  

"Aaaaaaaaaaghgghghghghgh."

"ohhhhh....my god...baby....baby, don't move...leave it in there."

She could feel his heart hammering in his chest, that gorgeous hairless, smooth hard chest and it was almost as if they shared the same heartbeat. She gasped and tried to draw oxygen in because it felt like she was going to pass out.

Inside her she could feel the hard rigidity of his maleness softening with each spurt, and each gush made her insides quiver. It was impossible for anything to feel this good. She tried to remember if it had ever been like that in college, even when she was stoned. She didn't think so.

She rubbed the sweat from her face and laughed. It was so crazy, discovering sex when you were about to turn 40. Her pussy was sore from the relentless pounding of his dick over the last 20 minutes, her breasts so heavy and swollen they hurt; he had sucked and pulled on them so roughly. But it was a good hurt!

She thought he had finally stopped cumming inside of her as he rolled to lay beside her.

"My God, Doug, how much cum do you have stored away in there. We're going to have to change the sheets to get some sleep."

She could feel him grinning in the darkness.

"A lot of that is you. You know you cum like a fountain?"

"Damn, that's your fault. I felt like I'd never stop. I couldn't count how many times you made me."

"I never came like that before."

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

He held her head in his hands and bruised her lips with his kiss.

"It's the truth and you know it, Debbie. You're special. We're special together. I thought I knew what great sex was, but now..."

She knew it was the truth. It was like that for her too. Then something started to enter her head, a thought, and she shook it as if to physically throw it out. To stop thinking she pushed herself away from him and rolled to the edge of the bed. 

"I've got to go pee and clean myself up, baby. Change the sheets."

She turned the bedroom nightlight on and ate up the sight of his male body lying next to her. As she got up and headed for the bathroom she heard him say behind her, "Hey, where are the sheets."

She found herself starting to say, "You know where they are, dummy, in the closet over the-"

And then she realized who she was talking to. Of course, HE didn't know where the sheets were. He had only been in her bedroom the last few weeks. He didn't know where everything was. How could he? She bent over the bathroom sink and tried not to cry, and if she did, not to let him hear.

"Hey, I'm thirsty. You just absorbed all my bodily fluids. I'm going to get a coke out of the fridge. You want anything?"

She tried to make her voice steady as she said, "No, I'll get the sheets. You go get a coke."

He was gone a few minutes and she had changed the sheets when she heard a faint crash, the shattering sound of glass breaking. She almost ran into the kitchen where she saw the fragments of blue black glass and shards of white and a pool of colorless liquid.

He stood there looking helplessly at the mess on the kitchen floor.

"I'm sorry, Deb," he said, looking childishly guilty. "I just turned around and my arm hit it. I didn't know it was so close to the edge of the counter. What was it?"

"Just a knick knack. A souvenir. It was a Snow Globe we got up in Alaska years ago. No big deal. Let me get a mop and I'll clean it up. Won't take a second. You go back to bed, in case the kids get up. Okay?"

He came over and kissed her on the cheek, kneading one breast which normally would make butterflies crawl all over her body. Now it just...she casually pushed his hand away and tried to laugh. 

"Not now, you horny bastard. Go back to bed. I'll be there in a minute."

When he had left the room, she sank to her knees and sat there on her haunches looking at the glass and white shards and colorless liquid mess. She remembered the way the glaciers had glistened in the sun as she and Bill had walked the deck of the cruise ship. She remembered the feel of his hand as he stroked her face and how it felt as he came inside her in their cabin at night, how hard his cock was.

She remembered his picking out the snow globe in the tourist shop and telling her that this would always remind them of their fifth anniversary. 

And now it was just a broken mess on a kitchen floor. The memories were gone, the marriage was gone. The love was gone. How could she be panting under Doug and loving the feel of his hard cock squirting his hot cum deep inside her and still feel this way, about a knick knack?

It was like life. You plan for things to stay solid and be there forever. But they break and they wind up thrown in the trash. Just like her and Bill. But it wasn't her fault. She knew that. It was Bill, the sorry bastard. He had thrown their life away. 

She cleaned up the mess, put it in the trash can, and walked back toward her bedroom. Her bedroom now. Not their bedroom anymore. It was just the way it was, now.

Suddenly she found herself wondering what HE was doing at this precise moment. Was he awake, staring up at a ceiling in the darkness, thinking of her? Was he hating her?

She lay down beside Doug and rolled toward him. 

"Hold me Doug, just hold me. Don't talk."

And he did.

########################  

The phone on my desk beeped. It had been a busy Monday. The trial of the second of the scumbag drug-dealing, kid-killing Thompson brothers – this one was named Devon – was scheduled to begin. I was going to help but let the younger SAs handle this one. 

Carlisle had pissed me off, but he made me realize that I couldn't go around antagonizing all of our young foot soldiers by making them do the crap work and then stealing the glory because I was big enough to do it. You don't build loyalty or a team that way. I wouldn't have stuck around if I'd been treated that way.

As usual there were ten million calls but Cheryl's voice over the intercom warned me, "It's your – wife, sir. You want to take the call?"

"She tell you what it's about?"

"No."

"You ask?"

"No."

We hadn't talked in the nearly a month, since her call that Friday. Lew was still doing a dance with Deb's attorney and I wondered if it was something legal. If it was I'd tell her to go fuck herself, politely. I didn't want to talk to her, but it could be about the kids.

"Hello."

"Hi."

There was a silence.

"You called me."

"I – uh.."

"Is there something wrong with the kids?"

"No."

"Well, Deb, much as I'd love to chat, I am very busy right now. What do you want?"

"I....just wanted to call and talk for a minute."

"The meter is running."

"Shit! You have to be an asshole? We haven't talked in nearly two months and the first time-"

"We haven't talked because I don't want to talk to you. Thought you'd figure that out by now."

"Bill...I know you're angry."

"Duh, you think?"

"Please, can you be a human being for just a few minutes?"

"Define human being. Is that a guy whose wife can screw around on him, fall in love with somebody else, rub his nose in her cheating, and then expect him to be nice and polite? The answer is no. If that's all you got to say, Deb, then-"

"Dammit, Bill. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you the way I did. I'm sorry you found out the way you did. I'm sorry I don't love you anymore. I'm sorry our marriage failed. I'm sorry you're hurting. I'm sorry for all of it. But we were married for nearly 20 years. We have two kids. We'll have to be in each other's lives in some way for the rest of our lives. Can't we be – civilized? People do get divorces and manage to stay civil."

I leaned back in my chair and took a deep breath. I tried to run through in my mind every moment of every endless long lonely night I'd laid in bed watching the hands of the clock creep around and praying morning would eventually come. I tried to remember the emotions I'd felt visualizing her writhing under his big dick while I couldn't even work up an erection with porn. That got me in the right mood.

"I guess you're right, Deb. Why should I be bitter? After all, you got the house and the kids and our friends. You got our life in other words. And a young stud to keep you warm on cold nights. I, on the other hand, got---let me think. Oh, yeah, I got it. I got shit. I got a tiny fucking condo where I can lay awake all night and watch porn trying to imagine a real live woman in my bed. Why would I be angry?"

There was a silence and if could have made myself believe it, I almost thought I heard crying. But that had to be my imagination.

"Someday, Bill, we're going to talk. We've both been too angry and hurt to talk to each other. Our emotions are too raw. But someday, we have to talk and end this hurt. I loved you for a long time, and I know you loved me. I know you wouldn't be like this if you didn't still love me."

"Never going to happen, Debbie. We already said everything we needed to say to each other. You said it all, actually. Remember. I just don't love you anymore."

"Bill-"

"Listen to me carefully. Unless one of the kids is hurt, don't call me again. I won't take your calls anymore. Anything we have to say goes through our attorneys. Goodbye."

######################################    

That day I managed to leave by 7 p.m. Assistants Sandy Bell and Bruce Saku were handling the case well and I tried to make myself fairly invisible so they wouldn't feel like I was looking over their shoulders. 

As I was getting ready to walk out, Cheryl said, "He wants to see you."

I didn't need to ask. It had been a long time since I'd talked to him. But as long as the office ran like a smoothly functioning motor, he spent his days meeting and greeting and pressing the flesh and wooing reporters and business types. The kind of things the top guy does instead of actually working at what the voters elected him to do.

I took an elevator to the top floor and just smiled at the golden vision behind the desk. She was the only woman I'd ever seen that made Debbie look plain. Movie star looks and at least a 44dd cup atop a wasp waist. She smiled at me and I smiled back.

There was a hint of a speculative glint in her eyes as I walked past her, probably because I was almost certainly the only guy in the world who didn't strip her with his eyes whenever I saw her. I could make myself look better and say it was because I was THAT married, but actually it was because I could never even in my erotic dreams make myself believe I'd ever touch that body.

And naturally, because I didn't visibly lust after her, Myra, the Big Man's main squeeze, always gave me the eye when I came up. 

I walked into the office of the man who signed my checks. Austin Edwards.

He smiled up at me, only because he was sitting down. Standing he was 6 foot eight and solidly built. He'd been a University of Florida basketball star center a generation before and still moved like an athlete. He'd also been Mayor of the City before becoming State Attorney and before he died he was determined that he was going to sit in the Governor's Chair in Tallahassee and maybe even make a run at the Presidency.

"Hi, guy," he said with that easy grin that voters loved. "How are things?"

"Just peachy, boss. Everybody should have their wife take a lover and throw them out of their house and their life."

We had been friends and co-conspirators enough years that he just smiled at that.

"I know, Bill. I've gotten the lowdown. I never would have believed Debbie would do that. I heard you got Walters handling the divorce. Everything going smoothly?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I'm still married but I expect to get that remedied in a few months."

He sat up straight in his chair and said seriously, "Are you alright? I can give you some time off if you need it."

"No. What I need is more time in the office. I just need to keep my mind occupied."

"Okay. I won't ever fight your spending more time working here. Just don't burn yourself out."

The deal we had made a long time before was that I'd get him enough favorable publicity to fuel his run for Governor when the time was right, and in return I could basically do anything I wanted in terms of how I ran the office. It worked for me.

As I walked past Myra I could feel her eyes giving me the once over and I couldn't help looking at her and saying, "God, you make me feel like such a piece of meat. I want to be respected for my mind." 

She snickered.

When I left work, at Carlos' suggestion, I grabbed a small salad and small broiled chicken breast at a downtown health store/restaurant called FreshNGood. It wasn't the best thing I'd ever put down my throat, but it wasn't bad. Whether it was psychological or not, I hadn't had a roaring appetite for anything since – actually since the trouble had begun with Debbie.

I drove to the Liberty Street condo, but it was just an address. I had to go somewhere so it was a tossup between a bar and Hurley's gym. I wound up at the gym. I used the same black personal trainer and an hour and a half later felt like someone had ripped all the muscles out of my arms and legs so that I hobbled around like a broken doll.

I had a late night coffee at a Starbucks and went back to Liberty Street. I was there 30 minutes and realized I couldn't stand it there. I drove back to Hurley's and this time there were only a couple of dozen people there. I couldn't really move my arms anymore so I slid onto one of the stationary bikes and very, very slowly cycled to nowhere.

By the time I virtually collapsed and almost fell off the bike, I realized there were only three people left in the gym, Hurly and the black trainer and a pretty blonde.

"Are you alright?" she asked with a worried expression.

"Just let me catch my breath."

Despite worried expressions on their faces, I got to my feet and walked out with them to my Escalade. I managed to get to the Liberty Street condo and again collapsed onto the bed. I woke up at 3 a.m., stripped and got under the covers. And once again I managed to escape dreams of Debbie. This gym thing wasn't going to be bad.

#



When We Were Married Ch. 02C



 (c) Daniel Quentin Steele – 2010

There's a reason why Love is a four letter word



My name is William Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Actually I am The Assistant State Attorney but I'll explain that below. I've been married and happy for nearly 20 years with a beautiful wife and two typical teenage kids. Until the night my beautiful and loving wife Debbie made a slip of the tongue and before you could say "Divorce", we were on the way to one.

I found out that my wife was indeed loving, but she was loving another man. Or at least she was falling in love with a younger professor at UNF where she's an Assistant Professor of business. I did some things that I shouldn't have, and didn't do some things in hindsight that I should have done. 

I did make a fool of myself fighting with her young boyfriend at a posh UNF faculty event, but it was one of those foolish things that a man has to do if he wants to be able to look at himself in the mirror. Unfortunately, I got the crap beaten out of me keeping my self respect. 

Now I'm living in a condo I hate after my wife threw me out and started divorcing me, working as much as I can, exercising my flabby middle aged body when I'm not working, and trying to pick up enough boxing expertise to beat the crap out of the young man who embarrassed me and stole my wife if we ever go up against each other again.

I'm not talking to my wife even though she's tried to re-establish a dialogue because after, "I don't love you anymore," there's not a hell of a lot more to say from where I stand.

After a friend who's an old boxer and boxing coach set me up at a workout gym, I found myself over the next month at the gym after work almost every night. I went by a Westside bar called O'Brien's a couple of times, but I restricted myself to a couple of drinks and made sure I hit the Hurly's Gym in Avondale afterwards. Working on the machines at 9 or 10 p.m., with no one else around, was almost relaxing. 

They left the lights on for me if I got in just before the last of the staff left. Cops cruising the neighborhood stopped in or three times before everybody got the word on who I was and why I was there. After that once or twice they'd stop, knock at the window and after I waved at them went on.

I got to where I'd put in 20 minutes on the stationary bike, 20 minutes on the treadmill and 20 or 30 minutes on the Nautilus machines. There wasn't that much that worked the gut particularly, but one of the staff showed me the machines that worked the abdomen. I lay on the sit-up bench where you hooked your feet around the upper bar and groaned and sweated to raise my back an inch off the bench. I actually felt a thrill of triumph the first time I lifted my back – actually my neck and head - two inches off the bench. 

There were also upright bars that you could position yourself on and then try to raise your knees toward your chest while your feet were off the floor. I was lucky if I could raise my knees halfway toward my chest once, but at least I was doing something.

I had made it to Carlos' gym a half dozen times during the month. He put me on the heavy bag and for the first few days it barely budged as I pummeled it, but he kept the younger guys from laughing too hard and just quietly told me to keep at it. As I got strength from the gym workouts, he said I'd get better with the bag. 

Bill Jr. came one weekend and Kelly the next, even though I wasn't scheduled to get either one of them until the next alternate weekend. I called Cathy or Roy to set up the pickups so I didn't have to talk to Debbie or see our house. I did the best I could to shove the picture and memories of the place that had been the center of my life into a deep, dark hole.

I'd like to say that the visits with the kids were good. But...Bill Jr. griped about the apartment until I finally agreed to let a friend's dad pick him up and that's the last I saw of him during my visit. He called me toward the end of my time Sunday afternoon to apologize. He had two friends had run into three "hardbodies" at the mall and gotten tied up all that day and evening. He was going to have a friend's mom run him back to his house.

Kelly lasted about four hours before she got an urgent call on her cell, followed by two more urgent calls and a flurry of conversations about some guy who was supposed to be her boyfriend but had been spotted at a theater in the company of "some whore" and naturally she and an entire female posse had to investigate. I didn't have the heart to put my foot down like your standard TV sitcom dad so she vanished, re-appeared late that night, got up early and was out the next morning. In all I spent about six hours of my weekend with her.

After that I didn't push too hard for visitation. I figured if they wanted to see me, I'd always be available. But, it appeared that while our relationship might not have died while I wasn't looking, it was fairly tenuous. As in, non-existent. But, as with Debbie and even moreso the kids, I couldn't blame them for a relationship that existed almost only on paper.

Debbie and I had started our marital suicide in mid-April. It was now early July and hotter and stickier than hell. Walking from my Escalade to the office less than a block left me sticky with sweat. Summer in Jacksonville, as any native will tell you and I had lived there since I was a kid, can be downright nasty. There are none of the romantic and tropical attractions of summer in South Florida, and none of the relatively cooling breezes you'll find a bit north in Georgia It is just hot as hell, day after day after day.

People's tempers get short. I hadn't seen much of the kids. I had stopped drinking every night. I hadn't gotten laid in more than three months. I found myself snapping at assistants and reduced Cheryl to tears one day. I had seen Jessica Stephens three times. Each time she looked sadder. I thought she was just drying up and shriveling away. I almost found myself asking her to go out for drinks one afternoon, but stopped myself.

I knew it would be a shitty thing to do, to basically destroy her life for a piece of ass when she didn't mean anything to me, but the real reason I didn't was because I had the nightmarish vision of her lying naked under me and my dick just laying there like a limp noodle. The pity on her face would have had me driving the Escalade into one of the support towers of the Fuller Warren Bridge.

On the brighter side, Dick Cheney told Larry King on Larry King live that the Insurrection in Iraq was nearing its end and that the war should be over by 2008. That made me feel much better about life in general.

On the home front, my life was getting up and having some protein like a piece of chicken or a portion of cottage cheese, driving to work, working all day until the late evening, taking work home and either collapsing at home or four or five nights a week getting to Hurley's gym or Carlos' place when most people were turning in. It wasn't much of a life, but such as it was, it was mine.

The only good thing was that since I had absolutely nothing to do but exercise and work, I was working my ass off and outperforming everybody in the office. I was generally in the office when the first secretaries arrived and I usually walked out while the night cleaning crews were doing their thing. 

It had only been a few months since I'd had a life, and it was beginning to seem more and more like a vaguely remembered dream. There were whole days when I could go without remembering that I was still a married man, still a father.

So naturally, Debbie picked that time to screw with my head. I got a call from Lew one afternoon.

"Good news, I hope. Is everything set for the divorce to proceed?"

"No, sorry, Bill."

"Why? I promised her child support, I'm giving her the whole damned house, half of all our savings and stocks and bonds. What the hell else can she want?"

"She's being a real bitch about the alimony. She wants a 'generous' amount for alimony for at least the next 20 years and half of your retirement as well."

I sat back in my chair and tried to breathe slowly and rhythmically to keep my heart from bursting out of my chest.

"Alright, tell her no deal. We'll fight this out in court. You got the time for this? I'm not going to pay you the megabucks your paying customers would. You owe me too much."

"I've got the time, Bill. I wouldn't be where I was if it wasn't for you and even if we weren't friends I'd never forget your help. But, it doesn't make any difference. I've done research. She'll get some alimony. You guys were married for 17-plus years, you have two kids, she's been a loyal wife. And you make considerably more than she does. 

"There's no way in hell she's NOT going to get alimony, and a share of your retirement. I'm good, but I'm not THAT good. Look, you make good money and you could do private off the table consulting work and make more. Why not let her have what she's asking for. It will get her out of your life that much quicker."

"Because, dammit, she's not going to get it. She – I-"

After a minute he said, "You know you're not supposed to keep secrets from your attorney, don't you? Of course you do. I've heard you give witnesses that lecture. I use it myself. There's something else."

"She's got him in our house, Lew. She's fucking him in our bedroom while the kids are sleeping a few rooms away. And knowing, Deb, or at least remembering when she still gave a damn about sex, she's probably loud enough that the kids know what's going on. We're not even close to being divorced. That's got to count for something."

"It would, if you were fighting for custody of the kids. Having a lover in the house, engaging in activities that might cause psychological harm to the children, especially if they were younger, would give you a leg up in seeking custody, although even that would be an uphill fight. But, alimony? Doesn't make any difference. She could be bringing them in in shifts of three, and she'd still have a claim for alimony based on her previous marriage history.

"Do you want to go for custody? If you could grab custody, that would knock out child support and balance off the alimony. Of course, alimony will go on long after child support is over, but it's something."

I scratched my head and wished Debbie would roast in some very hot hell.

"No. Look Lew, I know it sounds strange, but Debbie has been a good mother. I've been an absentee father. She went to their school events, took them to the emergency room, went to their games. She had obligations to her job too, but she always made time for them. They wouldn't want to live with me, and to be honest, I'm working harder than I ever have. I'm in that tiny damned condo. I can't take them."

"Okay, you don't want them. Moving on-"

"No, Lew, don't take that damned tone with me. She's their mother, and with the exception of letting her pussy do her thinking for her the last couple of months or so, she's always been a better parent than me. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I'm thinking of them too."

I heard him sigh on the other end.

"Alright Bill, I'm sorry to take that attitude. Look, the problem is, I'm a great attorney, but I'm not a magician. I can't magically make things work out the way you want them, unless...."

"Unless..."

"Look Bill, I know what you've told me about how things went down, how you found them at that awards ceremony, your suspicions. I don't like to say this, because you're a friend, but you're lying. You're not telling me everything, you're not telling me the most important thing. You've got dirt on her and you're holding back."

We were both quiet for a moment.

"Bill, look, level with me. I've been around divorces and I know you've handled cases where they didn't divorce but wound up killing somebody. The cheated on party hates the cheater, but they still love them. You don't stop loving somebody just because you divorce them, or kill them. Give me what you got and I might be able to give you what you want. You've got to trust me."

"Meet me at my condo tonight. 9 p.m."

When I hung up from him I dialed Debbie's office at UNF. She might be in there for her planning period. Unless she was somewhere off with Doug's cock inside her. Or she might even be doing it in her office. She had a lock on the door.

She picked up on the fourth ring.

 "Professor Maitland."

"What the hell are you up to?"

"Hmmmm...that sounds very much like Assistant State Attorney William Maitland. But it can't be. That son of a bitch very forcefully told me a month ago that he was never going to talk to me again. And he's hung up on me at least four or five times that I can remember since then. So who are you?"

"Why are you being such a bitch about alimony? I'm giving you the house and most of our savings and liquid assets. I make more than you but not THAT much more. I'm going to fight you on this. It will just make it that much longer before you can carry on openly with your boy toy. Oh, sorry, I forgot you were doing that already. Including, you bitch, fucking him in our house while the kids are there. That bastard must have a foot-long cock for you to behave like such a tramp."

She laughed.

"Don't be silly, Bill. All he's got is a good, solid, very hard 8 inches. But that's long and hard enough."

"Alright, that's a point for you. You think I'm going to break down sobbing to learn you've been having sex with him. I knew that."

"Yes. You know that 14-year-olds can't keep secrets. BJ told me about your call the same day."

"You must be very proud of yourself, carrying on that way in front of our children."

"Don't lay that guilt trip on me, Bill. He didn't start staying over until our marriage was over. Maybe not on paper, but it was over. 

"And our children are not five years old. They know about sex already, Bill. You may not know about it, you probably don't, but Kelly is on the pill. Has been since she was 15. That's when that fucker Ricky Thompson down the street got her drunk at a party. And before you say anything, she was 15 and he was 16. I had her tested. I wasn't going to drag her through court and humiliate her to have his wrist slapped. She begged me not to tell you and there was no reason to. 

"And BJ already knows how to use a condom. That miserable slut college girl Wendy next door to us introduced him to the glories of sex when he was 13. He told me he had a hard time not laughing out loud when you gave him that damned birds and bees lecture. He had already practiced everything you were telling him about.

"You see what kind of fun stuff you missed by never coming home?

"So, anyway, the kids knew. I told them I'd never touched Doug, that there was no romance. We were just friends until you went crazy jealous and got so paranoid and suspicious. And then we were through. 

"You forget, they live in the house. They're young, but they knew neither one of us was happy."

"I was."

"Unfortunately, that wasn't enough, because I wasn't. They were ...upset...Bill, but they understood. I think they didn't feel that bad about you because like BJ said, you already had a girlfriend. He was talking about your job. Your job always came first, ahead of me and them. They're not blind."

"Anyway, enough about me and what a rotten bastard and terrible father I am. The point is, I'll tie you up in court as long as I can, just on the off chance that you actually care for the kid and want to adopt him. Unless you give on the alimony."

"Not a chance in hell."

I forced myself not to scream at her.

"Why, Debbie. I don't mind paying for the kids, but I'm not going to pay you one penny in – what do you business types call it? – Fungible funds. Every penny I give you could be spent on little presents for boytoy, for condoms for his big dick, or something else that would turn my stomach if I knew about it. 

"Lew probably didn't tell you, but as much as I love this job, you force the alimony issue and I swear to God I'll walk away and let you try to find me for the next few years. I've got enough savings and funds to vanish for a while."

"I don't believe you, Bill. You can walk away from me, and abandon your kids, but you'd never leave that miserable job. The worst thing I ever did was let you take a job at the State Attorney's Office. You weren't this way when you were in private practice."

"And I wasn't 41 years old and 50 pounds overweight with a spare tire. But that has nothing to do with my job. I just got older and you stayed too damned hot. Look, just be honest with me – for the first time in a long time. Why are you fighting for alimony so hard?"

"Alright. Because you screwed me over that night at the awards ceremony. I'm almost 40 and still a assistant professor. I've heard enough gossip to know that President Myers s going to make sure I don't get a favorable evaluation next time out. I can probably hold onto my job, by my fingertips, but no guarantees. 

"If I lose this job, I'll be a 40-year-old assistant professor job hunting against 28-year-old assistants who are either guys and have an edge on me or girls with tits a lot perkier than mine. I'll wind up somewhere, but I don't know I'll ever have any real job security. The kids will out of the house in a few years and then it will be just me.

"If something bad happens, I get sick, wind up with a boss that insists on my doing him to keep my job, I won't have any backup. And I'm not going to crawl to you for scraps, even if you were willing to help me. I'd rather starve to death than see that smug smile on your face when I come begging for help."

"My heart bleeds, but if you'd been honest with me that night, or hadn't acted like a slut in front of a thousand people, there wouldn't have been a fight and your precious job wouldn't be in jeopardy."

"If..if...if.. the fact remains, Bill, that I've got you by the balls. Joyce is a very good attorney and she tells me there's no way I'm not going to get all the alimony I want, part of your retirement, and child support. Not even with your whiz kid Lew Walters doing his damnedest. And that's another thing. Why did you bring Lew in on this? Lew was a friend of ours. Lew and Mona. Why bring a friend in to go after me?"

"Lew isn't OUR friend, Debbie. He's my friend. And while he's a nice guy, in the courtroom he's a shark. I – please...don't fight me on this. You're going to get hurt."

"Why would you care, Bill? You told me we were through. I don't know what you think you have as your big gun, but I know there's no dirt you can use against me. But still, if you had something, why would you care if I got hurt? I'd think you would enjoy that."

I didn't say anything and finally she said, "You still there?"

"I'm sorry, Debbie. When...when this goes down, I want you to remember that you forced me to do it. You know what they say about rats. Even a rat will fight if you force it into a corner."

Instead of her making some smartass comment about rats, she said, "Bill, I mean this seriously. Go out and get a woman. That's probably going to be hard for you to do, but if you have to, pay for it. I don't want you to stay hung up on me. I'm moving on with my life. I hope you can too."

I could take anger a lot easier than pity and contempt. She probably didn't think I could get a woman without paying for her. As to moving on, I had already moved on to a life quite different from the one I'd known three months earlier.

There weren't any women because at this point I still wasn't sure if I could get it up, much less make a woman happy that I was having sex with her. And I wouldn't know that until zero hour. Which I wasn't in any real hurry to arrive at. Because, what if she had managed to effectively neuter me? I couldn't really see 30 or 40 years of eunuch-hood.




When We Were Married Ch. 02C



#######################          

I was not real happy all day. My personal and professional lives intersected to make it a really shitty day all around. 

It was Wednesday and I spent all day preparing a case I'd selected – or at least which had selected me – that was due to start Monday. Charles Bingham was 74 years old. His wife Mabel had developed lung cancer in 1992. It spread to her breasts or she developed breast cancer concurrently. The doctors didn't seem real sure on the sequence. 

She had chemo and drugs and had her breasts cut off and she seemed to be one of the lucky ones that beat two types of incurable cancers.

Then in 2003 the doctors found spots on her lungs and she went the chemo/drug regimen again. Only this time there was no miracle. She dropped from 187 pounds on her 5-foot-4 frame to 85 pounds by early 2005. She was wracked with intolerable pain that the drugs couldn't knock down. 

No matter what doctors tell you, there are some types of pain no narcotic will really work effectively again. I had a grandmother who developed ovarian cancer when I was 13 and they had to eventually dope her into unconsciousness because her 24-hour screaming from the pain was driving other patients and even medical staff crazy. A few days later she was dead. I always thought some merciful doctor or nurse gave her a little too much pain medicine. 

Mabel Bingham was incontinent and although he had assistance, Charles was the one who usually had to clean her shitty diapers and change the bedsheets after she pissed through them again and again. He had to listen to her scream day and night They had two grown daughters, but he was her husband and it was his duty to care for his wife. So he did.

Until the day she stopped screaming and when a nurse's aide came in, she found Charles sitting beside a pale and colorless Mabel, holding one of her hands in both of his. It would have seemed a merciful end until a routine medical exam showed five times the level of pain killing narcotic in her body that could be explained by the action of the automated narcotic drip by her bed.

A quiet and unemotional Charles Bingham confessed that he manually gave Mabel the overdose when she momentarily came to a state of consciousness and begged him to release her. 

"I had to," he said, and then began crying.

A trial on a charge of manslaughter was to begin Monday. Everyone knew he'd be found guilty and then it was up to Judge Anne Carroll to decide if he'd be given a five year suspended sentence or a one-year suspended sentence. Only in rare occasions did a husband or wife in that type of situation ever receive any kind of real sentence. Usually 

there was too much public sympathy for the murderer to hit them with any real time. 

Judges, of course, are apolitical creatures and don't follow the elections. Sure...and if you believe that I have the proverbial bridge for sale. No one was going to hit a grieving senior with real jail time and have that come back to bite them the next time they came up for election. And in Florida, circuit judges have to be re-elected.

Of course, no SA wanted the trial. There was no excitement, no points to be made and if by some chance you managed to get a conviction, who the hell could brag about sending a 70-something grieving criminal to prison? So nobody wanted the case and while I could have dumped it on somebody, I decided I'd take it. Maybe get a few points back among the staff for the points I'd lost by the way I'd treated Carlisle on the drug-dealer child murdering case.

Unfortunately, I'd had too much time on my hands and I'd actually done some digging. Some I did myself, some I had one of our office investigators handle, and I called in one of the detectives who had been assigned the case and gave him a few extra chores.

So I leaned back in my chair and examined a few documents on the desk in front of me. I didn't think anything could make me feel worse about life in general than what I'd gone through over the last three months, but somehow Charles Bingham had managed that stunt.

No matter what I did, I was going to feel like absolute crap at the end of the day next Monday. There are days of triumph as a prosecutor. Those are the days when you bring evil-doers to justice or strike a blow for some poor soul and ensure there is at least retroactive justice.

And then there are days like next Monday promised to be. I didn't know who I felt more pity for – poor Mabel Bingham, or poor Charles Bingham. And the worst of it all was, as happened so many times, the decision on which way to go rested in my hands. 

Talk about where the buck stops. When prosecutors go bad, become drunks or suicides or use their position for sex or profit, I think it's that weight, the responsibility that eventually breaks them. 

That's what most people don't understand. The people with real power in our system aren't cops. They just investigate and arrest. The people with real power aren't judges. They have a lot of power, but who they see and what charges they deliberate on don't come from them. 

I decide that. In my hands is the power to decide who is arrested and who is released; who faces death or 25 years or who gets mercy. And there really is no oversight, nobody looking over my shoulder. 

Cops can bitch, but my decisions are final. Judges can bitch and threaten to take action, but they never do. The only person with any real power over me is the Big Man, and he had given me the Keys to the Kingdom and he had never in five years countermanded any decision I'd made. 

Most of the time it doesn't bother me. I've made mistakes, but it comes with the territory. Surgeons kill people. It's how they learn. I had sent people to prison who didn't deserve what they got and let people go free or out early and regretted my actions. But it was part of the job.

But Monday was going to bother me. For the first time in a long time I wasn't sure which way I should go, what I should do about a case. Having a great deal of power can be a good thing, except when you don't know what to do with it.

################## 

Lew knocked on the door and I got up from the little kitchen/dinette table in the alcove that served as a kitchen/dining room and opened the door.

Lew was Lew. Tall, about six-foot, sandy colored hair, that same crooked grin as if he was into some private joke that you weren't aware of. But it was a good smile. He was one of those people you like from the first moment you see them, even though I couldn't have explained exactly why.

I read a book one time that said when you meet people like that, people you 'fit' with either in terms of friendship or romance, it's a case of people who known each other in a prior life meeting up again. I'm not sure I believe in reincarnation, but I know we'd been good friends almost from the first day we'd met at UF.   

He looked at me oddly. I realized we'd done all our communicating by telephone since I'd asked him to handle my divorce. It had been, what, maybe five or six months since we'd laid eyes on each other.  

"What? You look like I've grown horns or a second head."

He looked me up and down and then said, "Have you been in a third world country? Or imprisoned in a Mexican prison where they make you pay for your own food? God, I hope you haven't got cancer."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He gestured with his hand, up and down. 

"You look like you've lost 50 pounds. I can actually see the beginnings of cheekbones and, dammit, I think you're down to two chins. There used to be three of them. And where's the gut?"

"Very funny. I've lost a couple of pounds in the last few months."

He walked around me, inspecting me as if I were a model. I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear I actually could see the beginnings of a rib cage under that fat."

"Alright, enough frat boy humor. I haven't had much of an appetite, I've been eating mostly protein, and I've started working out. I may have lost 20 pounds or so, but I'm still pretty much a Pillsbury doughboy."

He grinned and tried to kiss me. I bopped him on the forehead with an open palm.

"You're hot. Give me a kiss."

"Go fuck yourself. Now get serious."

"Don't get your panties into a wad, Bill. Just playing with you. But God, you really have lost weight. I've never seen you looking like this. Have the secretaries started hitting on you yet?"

"I have just lost my wife, nobody of the female persuasion is hitting on me or even acknowledging that I'm alive, and you have to start making jokes? What kind of friend are you?"

"Seriously? It's been nearly two months plus since she threw you out. How long since you've gotten laid?"

"Three, three and a half months."

"My God, I know you're an old man but you haven't laid any pipe in a quarter of a year. You know if you don't give it any exercise, it'll fall off."

"Funny. With your schedule, when's the last time you got any?"

"Last night. You know how Mona gets when I come back from one of those trips. I thought I was going to need transfusions. God, she is a hungry bitch."

"Go ahead. Rub it in. Be a friend."

He sat down a the table and gave me a serious look.

"I'm sorry, Bill. I know it must be a sore point. But Jesus Christ, she's balling this guy and getting her jollies every night. You don't owe her any loyalty or fidelity. You and I both know how easy it would be for you to grab a piece. You never did it before because you were married and in love with Debbie. The same reason I don't cheat on Mona, although God knows I'm tempted sometimes. There was this blonde back in Omaha... but that's another story.

"But the point is, she's one over on you. You oughta go fuck someone just so you will feel even."

"I appreciate the thought, Lew, but I'm not ready or even interested."

He shook his head.

"You poor bastard. You got it bad. Well, they tell me there's life after divorce and since 50 percent of marriages end, I tend to believe it, but...anyway, give me the dirt."

I looked at him for a few moments. I don't know why it was so hard to show the emails to anyone. Maybe because I felt ashamed of what it showed about me. Or, only God knows why, I hated for anyone else to know just what a miserable bitch she was. How screwed up was that?

I went over to the bed and pulled a drawer out and took a manila folder out that was bulging with printouts.

"The ones that are pertinent are starred and on top. The rest are trash, although I might have missed something."

I handed it to him and poured myself a cup of coffee. He started reading. He was close to a speed reader and smarter than any other two men I'd ever known. I asked him if he wanted anything to drink and he just shook his head and kept flipping through the printouts. A few times he stopped, apparently re-read, and shook his head.

Finally he closed the folder, laid it down on the table, stood up and tapped me on the chin with the back of his hand.

"You know I ought to kick your ass for sitting on these. We could have wrapped this case a month ago if I'd known about them."

"They make for heavy reading, Lew, but what are they? It's just the record of a flirtation. I don't think she was fucking him until after our marriage fell apart. And even if she was, as you well know, it wouldn't have made any difference in how the case went. 

"Adultery, even sex outside of marriage, isn't a factor in who gets what or who gets the kids. I don't know that even if this had been a fault-state that a judge would have considered a chaste romance grounds for divorce or denying alimony."

He shook his head.

"You've been a prosecutor too long, my friend. This gives us all kinds of ammunition. You don't have to prove she had sex to prove she was cheating. Marriages have dissolved over on-line romances where the parties never even saw each other in the flesh."

"So what. If I wanted a divorce and she was fighting it they might be worth something, but she started things. She wants out."

"Well, true, Bill, but it still puts her in a bad light in the eyes of the judge, and judges are human, even though sometimes it's hard to tell for sure. But forget about that for a moment.

"You can go after the boyfriend for alienation of affections. We can go at it from a contract law approach. Even if they don't call it that, a marriage is a contract and boytoy interfered in your contract with your wife, deprived you of the normal marital rights you should be getting – like sex. You can put a dollar figure on the value of the sex you're not getting, and the marital support that has been withdrawn.

"I know you read about it a lot more than you actually see it in real life, but it does happen. The bastard seduced her, or maybe they seduced each other, but he destroyed your marriage before he ever got into bed with her. Anybody with an IQ above 5 would read those emails and see what he was doing."

"Proving it-"

"Isn't important. He's already on thin ice at UNF from what you said. You bring a court case against him and it gets coverage in the press, and it will because I know too many reporters who owe me favors, and he's toast. He'll be more trouble, much more trouble, than he's worth to them. If you never got a penny, you'll hurt him bad. And if you actually got a judgment against him, that's just gravy.

"Now it doesn't matter whether you actually want to go after him. If he means anything to her, other than a good fuck, you can use it as a club to make her back off with the threat of ruining him. Of course, if he is only a good fuck, then it won't matter and she threw her marriage away for some strange cock.

"You can also go after the university. I know you don't want to cause her to lose her job, but she doesn't have to know that. These emails prove she was seeing him, having intimate meetings, doing things a wife and a single guy shouldn't be doing, and people around them had to be aware of what was going on. You said it yourself, most people there seemed to already think of them as a couple.

"Even if the administration wasn't aware of what was going on, didn't encourage it, they're still ultimately responsible for the work environment they foster. They'll argue that adultery and romance is a personal issue and not their concern, but they're talking out of their asses. 

"There have been too many cases where a business or company allowed sexual harassment or sexual behavior that led to marriage breakups and the company got dragged in. They can say all day long it's not their problem, but their human resources departments know better.

"And UNF knows this. Besides, they know me. I've sued them a couple of times on other issues. They see my name on the paperwork and they will crap, get rid of boyfriend and Debbie, and throw money at you to make ME go away."

Despite feeling like shit, I couldn't help smiling.

"You know, Lew, if you were only half as good as you think you are, you'd be a hell of a lawyer."

He smiled back.

"Never believed in false modesty. After all, I was –"

"Yeah I know, first in your class. Where have I heard that before? Oh, from you about five million times. You do realize modesty is an attractive quality, even if you have to fake it."

"Not my style, Bill, Anyway, those are all peripheral. What really makes these gold is nothing legal. We don't have to do anything, except make copies available. You really think Debbie wants her parents, your parents, your friends, to learn what she was up to when she was supposed to be a loving wife. And your kids, when they see-"

"NO. I'm not going that route. Use the other threats, but you don't threaten to release these. I'm not going to tell you twice, Lew. I know you. You're a fucking shark in the courtroom and you've got no limits. You'll do anything to win, and you're not going to do that to her. I've been your friend a long time, but we're through if you even threaten her with that."

"Even after she threw away 20 years of marriage and a relationship, threw you out of your house so you have to have a cop with you to go back in, started sleeping with a young guy while your kids are in the house, lied to your kids to make them think you were crazy when she knew you were right to be suspicious. Oh, and remember that shaved pussy?"

"Yeah, so?"

"How can you be that stupid? You said yourself, she wasn't shaving it for you. You never knew anything about it. Who was she shaving it for? That's right, the stud. And what does that tell us? I'll bet you any amount of money that he knew she'd shaved it. Probably because he asked her to. Remember, you only know what they put in their emails. They were meeting every day and who knows what was said and done at those little get-togethers. 

"And even if he didn't touch her, she was sitting there having lunch with him knowing he knew she had shaved it, and he knew she'd shaved it for him. That's as close as you can come to having sex without actually having sex. Call it Flirting on Steroids or Flirting 2.1.

"That's the woman whose image and reputation you want to protect? God help me from ever being that stupid about any woman, even Mona."

He was right and I couldn't even answer to myself why I wasn't willing to destroy her. I just knew I couldn't.

"Just don't use it that way."

"If we introduce them into court for the divorce or sue the boyfriend or the school, it will still all come out."

"We won't do that. Just make her believe we will."

He was silent for a minute.

"And what if she won't bluff, Bill?"

I hadn't thought that far ahead. 

"Then she'll win. She'll get her alimony. Even if it makes me want to rip my eyes out every time she gets one of those alimony checks. That's the way it will have to be."

"You are too fucking good for her, Bill. Way, way too good. And the sad part is, she will never know."

"We had 17 – maybe 16 – good years...ten really great years...maybe that's all we're entitled to in this life."

"And on that cheery note, I'm going to take you out. Get some 'picking up slut' clothes on and I'm buying the drinks. I might just get you laid tonight."

He didn't, but we had a great time getting buzzed at Pelicans and despite what Sergeant Hastings had said, we still had an honor guard of two cops bring us home, unload us on the bed and couch in the condo and we slept it off like two good friends who are totally bombed should do.

######################    

She was thawing out a large Tombstone Pizza when she heard him coming into the house. Bill Jr. was out at a friend's house for the night and Kelly had gotten her things together to go over to a friend's house to "study." But she had known their parents since Kelly was in first grade with their daughter and they'd keep her in line. It would give her and Doug some alone time, even though she didn't really feel much like it right now.

Kelly came in and gave her a hug. As Doug walked in, throwing his briefcase on a chair at the kitchen table, Kelly turned to him and reached up to kiss his cheek. Doug looked at her with a bemused expression, then started grinning as she dropped her bag and began to tickle him.

He grabbed her wrists and held her out away from him.

"Whoa, cowgirl. That's no-go territory."

"That wasn't what you said when we were in the pool the other day."

He shook his head and said, "Truce. Stop the tickling. I've had a long hard day and tickling isn't on the agenda tonight."

Kelly made a face at him.

"Spoil sport."

Looking at the two of them, Debbie suddenly wondered when Kelly's breasts had gotten so damned big, or was it just that her blouse was extra tight tonight. Her heart sank a little when she realized her daughter's nipples were stiff and pushing out against the fabric. And Doug noticed. That bulge between his legs made it clear he noticed.




When We Were Married Ch. 02C



Doug looked at her and he knew she'd noticed. He rolled his eyes and shook his head but she couldn't hide her expression. Kelly looked back at her for a moment and damned if it didn't look like she had a little smirk on her face, but she just leaned back, gave her mother a peck on the cheek and grabbed the overnight bag.

"See you after school tomorrow, Mom. Byeee, Dougie."

As soon as she was out the kitchen door and they heard the front door slam, he came over and put his hands on her shoulders. He tried to kiss her on the lips but she turned her face away so he got her cheek.

"She's just a kid and she's just playing, babe. She's at that teasing age and I'm an older man. She'd run screaming for hills if I ever even looked like I was coming after her."

"Tell that to your dick."

He grabbed her chin and made her face him.

"So I got a hardon. Jesus Christ, Deb, your daughter is a fox. A stone statue would get a hardon around her. But she's your daughter and she's only 17. I would never touch her. And you ought to know that. I don't hit on the 19 and 20 year olds at school."

He tried to kiss her again and he did, but her lips were stiff and she didn't allow him to slip his tongue inside.

Pushing him away, she said, "There's a Tombstone in the oven. It'll be ready in 15 or 20 minutes. Get something to drink."

He got a two liter coke out of the fridge and poured a glass, then set it down on the kitchen table and came up behind here as she was getting down glasses and plates from the cupboard. He wrapped his strong arms around her and squeezed both breasts, fingering her nipples which popped up taut and hard.

"Don't do that. Let me finish setting the table."

He held her unmoving and nuzzled her neck.

"You can't be jealous of a 17-year-old. Your own daughter."

'It's inappropriate. You're running around with your dick hard and tickling her in the pool and her fucking nipples are popping up through her blouse. And you two are doing it in front of me. You're not her father, Doug. You can't be tickling and playing with her like that. It's how trouble starts."

"Ok, then I won't. I was trying to be friendly with her and Bill Jr. because I thought you wanted me to be friendly, to make them more comfortable with me being around here. But I'll leave her alone, stay away from her completely if it's freaking you out. She's not the reason I come around here, if you happened to forget. You are."

She leaned her head forward over the stove and took several deep breaths as she felt his hard cock rubbing her ass.

Any other time...

"I'm sorry, Doug. I – I'm just not in a real good mood."

He let go of her and she turned around to see him leaning back against the fridge, arms folded across his chest. For some reason he looked angry.

"What-"

"Let me guess. You must have talked to Bill today. Actually, I'm not guessing. Your secretary told me you were having a loud conversation with him in your office. I know you've tried to call him before, because every time you do you turn into a complete asshole and I get frostbite when I try to get near you."

"Doug-"

"It's the damned divorce, isn't it? Why do you get so damned wound up about it. Let your attorney handle that crap."

"That's none of your business, Doug. I like you and I care for you. I wouldn't be spending as much time in bed with you if I didn't. But how I handle the dissolution of my marriage is my business."

As she said it and wished she could take the words back and dull the anger her conversation with Bill still roused in her, she saw Doug's face change. In two steps he had her arms held fast to her side. His grip was so strong it hurt her and she realized anew that he was a very young and very strong man. And now he was a young, and strong, and angry man.

"None of my damned business? What you do with your marriage is none of my business, Deb?"

He pulled her out of the kitchen and almost dragged her up the steps to her bedroom. She couldn't believe what was happening. He had never acted this way before. It was like he was someone she didn't know anymore.

Then he threw her forward on her bed. She rolled over and stared at him in disbelief.

"So what you do in your marriage is YOUR business, right?"

She rubbed her arms where she knew she was going to bruise later.

"Doug, I – I didn't mean to hurt you. But what happens is between me and Bill. You aren't involved. I have to talk to him."

He just stared at her.

"Okay, I see that. He's your husband. You're his wife. I understand. What am I?"

"What?"

"It's a simple question, Deb. He's Bill, your loving husband for almost the past 18 years. You're his wife, mother of his kids. What am I?"

"You're...you're my friend, Doug. A good and kind and loving man that I need more than ever right now. This would have been a terrible time, a very lonely time, without you."

"Is that another way of saying 'fuck buddy'?"

"No! I love sex with you, but you were my friend before you ever touched me."

"You have lots of friends, Debbie. What makes me special?"

"I – how do I answer that. I love you as a friend. You've made me laugh when I wanted to cry, you made me feel like a desirable woman for the first time in years. You made me want to be me, and not just a wife and mother, for the first time in forever. And, God yes, you made me rediscover my body."

He put his hands to his chin and then rubbed the side of his face.

"So I'm a good friend you love to have sex with, right?"

"Doug, no –"

"Stop, Debbie. Listen to me for a minute. You know I was fucking Ellen Westen, the Dean's secretary, when I met you, right?"

"I – I had heard stories...:

"They're true. She could, as the old expression goes, suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. She had the hottest mouth I ever felt and she loved sucking me off. And I was only a few weeks away from banging Merri Smith, the woman that teaches history over in the Humanities Department. I'd gone to lunch with her the day before I was introduced to you as my mentor and she jerked me off in my car. And licked it off her hands. She was really pissed with me when I never called her back.

"And there have been a good 10 students with tits almost as nice as yours that have let me know I'd be welcome to suck them, and they'd suck whatever I suggested, if I was so inclined. Since I met you. Take a guess as to how many of them I've fucked or had suck me off?"

When she didn't answer, he said, "None. Not one. Any of my friends from college or the two schools I taught at before I came here would never believe it. They'd say I'd lost my mind. All that juicy pussy just laid out for me, and I let it go by. 

"Now, why do you suppose that is? Cat got your tongue, Debbie?

"Well, let me ask you something else. You know I'm on Myers' shit list. It's just a matter of time before they cut me loose. With a dismissal on my record, which I'll have to explain when I go looking for another position, I don't think I am going to be on anybody's top ten list of must-hires.

"What I should do, if I had any sense, was find another position right now, preferably a long way from here, where the stories of what happened might not get around for awhile. If I quit here – before they fire me - for personal reasons or just because I got wanderlust, I'd have a hell of a lot more employment options.

"You remember three months ago I was getting awards for being a wonderful young professor. Today my name is usually invoked in dirty jokes about MILFS and big-tittied cougars."

He walked over and sat down beside her. She looked at him in wonder and dismay because she knew what he was going to say.

"Why haven't I been banging all these goddamned pussies that are mine to bang? Why haven't I gotten out of here while I still have a chance at a career? Any guesses?"

He bent forward and kissed her gently. 

"You are a stupid, stupid woman."

He cupped her face in his hands.

"You know, I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I just wanted to fuck you. That face, that ass, those tits. I made up my mind I was going to have you. Ten minutes after you left that first time I had to go into a faculty bathroom and jerk off. I must have shot off five feet. What a mess.

"I knew you were married, and to an important man. A powerful man. I've got an uncle in Buffalo who's a District Attorney. I know what those guys can do and I knew I was putting my head in the lion's mouth if I made a play for you. But you were so fucking juicy. And you were looking. Even if you didn't know it, I knew you were ripe. If it wasn't me, somebody else would have moved in.

"I decided I was going to wage a campaign. I've done it plenty of times. Girls have always liked me. I've got a big dick and I know how to talk them into spreading their legs. So I went to work on you. Easy and slow. When I got to know you and realized you weren't some man hungry bimbo, that you were actually a pretty nice lady, I figured it would be worth it. And you met me halfway. 

"And it worked. I seduced you and I fucked you and you were as incredible as I thought you'd be."

He shook his head.

"What I didn't know was that I was just being too damned smart. I outsmarted myself. If I was smart....I ought to get the hell away from you, but I can't. So I hang around a married woman who's still in love with her husband. You know, there's a reason why love is a four letter word."

"Doug – you – I didn't – I'm not in love with Bill."

"You wouldn't go into the depths of depression every time you talk to him, or don't talk to him, if you didn't have feelings for him, Deb. And you know the sad thing? You'll never get him back."

She felt as though she couldn't breathe.

"I saw him that night at UNF. When I was down and you came to me. I saw the look on his face as you turned your back on him. He won't ever forget or forgive you for that. I wouldn't if you were my wife."

He stood up.

"I asked you what I was to you, Deb. I know I'm a good shoulder to cry on and I make you feel good about yourself, and you love the way I fuck you. But, there are girlfriends that you could go to for support and a shoulder to cry on. You got a big black vibrator for your other needs. Why am I here? 

"You ever think that I'm 28 and I graduated with honors from a prestigious school and I've already had more papers published than guys with ten years on me? You know that I boxed in Golden Gloves and I had a shot at making the U.S. Olympic boxing team? That I still get letters from the son of the first woman I ever had a serious relationship with back when I was 22? She was older. You think there's a pattern there? Her son was 8 when we met. But I liked the kid and I've there for him through about one ex husband and four boyfriends."

He looked at her and shook his head.

"I'm a good person, Deb. I'm a substantial person. But you don't see that. I'm a professional with what used to be a career to be proud of, one that was going somewhere. I'm 28, not eight years old, and there are a lot of women who have let me know that if I wanted to get serious, they'd be interested. But to you, am I anything more than a walking dick, a human vibrator?

She looked at him standing there, so damned gorgeous and she knew that hard dick was inside his pants just waiting to be unleashed and they could fuck the night away and she could forget about Bill and his damned demands and the memories he kept stirring up in her. But she couldn't open her mouth to say a word.

"I'm going back to my place. I think we ought to cool it for awhile. Give each other some space. You need to decide what, and who, you want in your life. When you do, if it's me, give me a call."

She sat on the bed unmoving after he left. It was only the smell of the pizza burning down below that roused her.

           #

Author's note: I was going to put some stuff in here, but I get the feeling I'm breaking down the fourth wall by doing so. I know when I'm reading stories, you want to believe while you're reading that they're more than stories. By bringing readers in too close, I get the feeling I'm destroying that illusion. So I've decided that early on after each installment posts, I'll try to post a comment that will include some thoughts on previous comments, what's going on with the story, and stuff like that. Once again, and I hope you guys (and gals) don't get tired of hearing this, but posting on this site has been an amazing experience. Thank you. Oh, and since I'm writing and posting hot and heavy, I can't work out the logistics of running stuff by Lady Pine Rose, so I'm sure this chapter will have some glitches. More than when she was editing. Blame me for any mistakes.

DQS1



When We Were Married Ch. 02D



Lew Unleashed...or The Other Side Now

(Author's note: I am still stunned by the response this story has gotten. And I apologize for the wait between installments but I'm grinding them out as fast as I can. I hope this chapter answers a lot of questions readers have had -or maybe sparks some more. If you're still interested, in some ways what I think is the best part of the story is still coming.

DQS1)

Thursday July 7, 2005

My name is William Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida, the Chief Assistant in fact although there are two other Assistants under State Attorney Austin Edwards who are level with me on the organizational chart.

I thought I was happily married to the gorgeous, big breasted and long-legged Debbie Bascomb who was helping me raise our teenage daughter and son, when she made a four-word Freudian slip that wrecked our marriage. My suspicions roused, I used a spy program to go back and check on her emails for the past six months and learned that she was falling in love with a young stud assistant professor at UNF, where she was also employed as a Professor of Business.

She wound up falling into his bed, filing for divorce from me and tossing our lives together into the trash. Now I'm working longer and harder than I ever did, which was one of the main reasons she implied our marriage had gone on the rocks, exercising and working with a boxing coach friend to rehabilitate a flabby midsection and a prematurely middle-aged body. Why I don't know, because I can't even work up a respectable hard-on.

As I prepare for a particularly unpleasant court case, Debbie is driving me crazy with alimony (now sometimes they call it maintenance but it will always be alimony to me) demands and I have very nervously unleashed a pit-bull friend of mine named Lew Walters to wield the previously hidden e-mails in an attempt to blackmail her into giving me the kind of divorce I want.

#################### 

Thursday July 7, 2005 -- 12:30 p.m. 

The phone rang as she was getting ready to leave her office to go to her next class. She had tried calling Doug twice but he wasn't answering. Since he had caller ID, it was pretty obvious he didn't want to take her calls. How in the hell had she wound up getting the cold shoulder from the man who was the father of her children, whom she was divorcing, and the man who had swept her off her feet and given her the best sex she'd had in years?

If there was one thing in this world she would have said would NEVER happen, it would be to get the cold shoulder from the two most important men in her life. Or any man, for that matter. She glanced down and took in the bulge of her breasts in her blouse and shook her head. She had never had trouble finding or getting men. 

Even in the years when she'd been happily married, she'd always known if she crooked her little finger at a guy he'd be at her feet panting like a puppy. Men were so damned simple in a way. No matter how old or professional or respectable they were, they were all just walking penises. Unbutton a few buttons, show a little titty, and they all turned to mush.

She'd flirted at parties, let a few of them pet or grab her ass, but it was never serious. Bill had been what she wanted then and she just flirted to remember what it was like to have that kind of power over men. Of course that was before he got so damned flabby and MIDDLE-AGED. 

She got angry all over again. The sorry bastard had the nerve to be angry at her when he'd all but shoved her into another man's bed. He'd never know about all the parties, the campus events, where tall, slim men danced with her and rubbed their hard cocks all over her pussy, felt her breasts and left her so wet she had to retreat into bathrooms to finger herself to quick, messy climaxes.

It would have been so damned easy to slip out to cars, or into the shadows, lower her panties and let them pound her into unending orgasms. But she hadn't. She'd been the good wife. She'd never tell her loving husband about the men she'd let get her hot and wet and then denied sex to. 

How could she? She could control herself, but she couldn't control how men reacted to her. If she had complained to Bill every time a man touched her inappropriately, grabbed her ass, tickled her titty to feel her nipple harden suddenly, they would have had to stop going out, have no social life, and Bill would probably be in jail after killing somebody.

And she couldn't tell Bill that men touched and petted her because, while she could tell Bill she had never let another man have her, it wasn't the kind of thing you could brag about.

Of course, some of her friends would have been scandalized, but they were the homely, flat-chested women that men weren't going to pursue with flattery and presents and charm and insinuations of how big their dicks were. They could afford to be virtuous, because nobody but their husbands wanted them. She was the kind of woman men had always wanted, and she couldn't help that. She was made that way.

She had caller ID too and when she saw who was on the other end of the line, she picked up and said, "Hi, Lew. Has your client come to his senses and decided to avoid a nasty court fight and give me what I'm asking."

"Hi, Debbie. We do need to talk. Something has come up about the case. I think we can get these matters straightened out and move the divorce along. Could you meet me at Linder's office today at 5?"

"I have a class that doesn't end until 4 p.m. and I don't think I can make it in to Joyce's office by 5 p.m."

"This is fairly important. Couldn't you cancel one afternoon class or get someone to cover for you."

"It's that important?"

"Yeah, Debbie, I think so."

"And it will-"

"I think it will make things much easier for both you and Bill."

At five minutes past five she was pulling into the parking lot at Linder and Howe PA in downtown Jacksonville about a half mile from the courthouse complex. There were bunches of legal offices clustered in this neighborhood, far enough away from the courthouse to allow privacy and better parking and close enough to be there in a couple of minutes.

As she slid out of her 2010 Nissan 370Z, she smoothed her skirt down and took a deep breath. Her breasts swelled and just the contact with the fabric caused her nipples to pop up. Men loved them. They stood out an inch high from the three-inch wide pebbly areola, thick as pencil erasers. Men couldn't' resist sucking on them. She wondered sometimes if every man in America had been weaned from the tit too early. She had left her bra discretely folded n her glove compartment.

As she walked in Joyce was waiting for her. Joyce was a slender brunette, five-eight with a nice ass and relatively small breasts. Of course, Debbie thought with a tiny twinge of conceit, almost every woman had relatively small breasts when measured up against hers. But she had been nice, and supportive.

Joyce took one look at her and smiled. 

"And what is the effect we were going for here, girlfriend?"

Debbie took a depth breath, pushing her chest out and making the nipples pop up noticeably.

"Lew is a nice guy, and married, but it never hurts to dazzle them a little bit, whether it's an academic meeting or a divorce hearing."

Joyce smiled again.

"You planning on trying for that at the divorce hearing before the judge?"

"We do have a male judge, right?"

"I feel sorry for your ex."

Joyce led her into a small conference room and as Debbie was sitting down asked if she wanted coffee or a soft drink? 

"Just a bottle of water, please. Too much coffee keeps me awake at night and every damned ounce of non-diet soft drink adds about a pound to my ass. I have to spend about an hour at the gym for every regular soft drink I consume."

Joyce looked her over in a comfortably non-sexual way and said, "Well, it's obviously paid off. I'll get you that water and Lew just called and said he was about five minutes away."

While Joyce was out Debbie checked her cell phone, but no messages from Doug. Shit, why did he have to complicate things. It was just simple, great sex. His damned dick...but she stopped herself. She could feel herself begin to moisten up and she didn't want to be hot and bothered when she was meeting with Lew.

No, not with Lew. Why the hell hadn't Bill hired somebody else. Lew was young, tall, good looking but it was more than that. He was funny and smart and conceited, and that made him even more attractive. And worse of all, dammit, her tits and her body had never gotten to him.

It was stupid and it was high school, but when Mona was around, dark haired, small breasted (but weren't they all), swivel hipped Mona, there was no other woman in the room for Lew. Debbie had worn low cut blouses a few times when Lew and Mona had visited, and guys always, always, ALWAYS looked down into the valley and if they could, got hard. Lew never even glanced that way.

It was so stupid because she hadn't decided to leave Bill at that time and she wasn't interested in Lew that way. It was just....dammit, guys were supposed to stare and get erections. She wasn't used to being ignored. It wasn't natural.

Lew was standing at the door, sandy haired and with a slight smile on his face, a briefcase in his hand. He was dressed for the heat, in a lightweight, pale gray business suit and he was still sweating. 

She took a deep breath to expand her rib cage, stood so her breasts would sway and jiggle gently with the motion, and smiled at him. She knew her nipples were sticking out like some whore looking for action. So much the better.

"Hi, Lew. This is the first time we've gotten together, in the flesh, in how long? A year? You're looking good."

He did a quick survey of her with eyes and, satisfyingly, his eyes lingered for a moment longer than was necessary on her nipples. She drew in a quick breath that made them dance on her rib cage but he just completed his once-over and then grinned. 

Shit, he didn't even need to add the words to know what he was thinking, but he put his thoughts into words for her.

"I am flattered, Debbie. You took your bra off just for me? I thought you'd save the heavy artillery for the judge."

She couldn't help grinning back at him. He was a likeable guy.

"What can I say. If you got 'em, flaunt 'em."

Joyce stepped in behind them with a bottled water she handed to Debbie and a mug of something steaming. 

"You take yours black with sugar, right Lew. Black and sweet I think you say."

"That mind of yours is an iron trap, Joyce. You're going to make some man a fine partner some day."

"I know," she said looking down at the floor for a second as she added, "I have a lot of fine qualities, not all of which are immediately visible."

Then she blushed and sat down beside Debbie without giving Lew a chance to respond. She had a folder lying on the table in front of her.

She coughed nervously and then tried to recover, saying, "You said you had something you needed to discuss, Lew. I think things are pretty clear cut, at this point. Has your client decided to see reason and accept our requests?"

Lew sat down at the table and after giving Joyce a speculative glance, said, "No, and that's why I'm here. We're spinning our wheels because Bill has already made an exceptionally generous offer to settle this matter. He's given more than most men would in a divorce before we even begin arguing. It's Debbie that has to do some hard thinking about what she wants."

"I want what's due me, Lew. I was married to the man for nearly 20 years. I gave him two children. I raised those kids, if not by myself at least doing most of the hard work. I kept a good home for him while I was building my career."

"Come on, Debbie, you're an established professional. Your major earning years are ahead of you and while you're not earning what he is, you're in the same ballpark. You're not some little homemaker who is going to be destitute if you don't get maintenance every month."

"Not pertinent, Lew," Joyce said. "He does make considerably more than she does and your client's actions have damaged her future earning potential and her career. The law is on our side in this one and you're smart enough to know that. The only reason for your client to even make an issue of maintenance is to continue to try to punish her for seeking a divorce."

"That's not the way he sees it. We could fight this out, draw things out, let it get very ugly."

"And you'd still lose, Lew," Joyce said briskly. "I bow to no one in my admiration for your legal skills, but you have a dog of a case here. You'll lose and all your client will do is spend more of his money fighting the inevitable."

Lew looked down at the table for a minute as if thinking, then raised his gaze to Debbie. 

"Debbie, can we talk privately for a minute?"

"Why?" Debbie and Joyce said simultaneously.

"I'd rather not go into that, Debbie. It's personal. No offense Joyce, but I'm not sure and I believe that Debbie is not going to want you around for this discussion."

"Debbie, I'd advise you against-"

Debbie waved her hand and said, "It's okay Joyce. I'm not going to sign anything or commit to anything before I get your input. I'm not stupid. I am curious about all this cloak and dagger. Bill's already warned me he had some heavy artillery of his own and I'm curious to see what he thinks he's got. Give us some time, okay?"

When Joyce had left, the two of them stared at each other. Debbie took a deep breath and let it out, her breasts jiggling with the motion. She watched his eyes. He noticed. She had to fight to avoid looking down to see if she could spot his lap. Was he getting hard?

"It's a waste of time, Debbie. Even if I got hard, I can think with an erection. Or are you , or have you become, so much of a fucking slut that you automatically work on guys' dicks without a second thought?"

She smiled at him and made her titties jiggle some more. Was he sweating a little more heavily?

"Why don't you be honest about your feelings, Lew? You're mad at me for divorcing your friend?"

"I'm mad at you for breaking his heart and cutting his balls off. He's a good guy and he doesn't deserve what you've done to him."

"He's a good guy? He's a good guy? Oh, he's a saint. Defender of the oppressed and downtrodden, bringer of justice to the violated? You want me to sing a hymn? How about his role as a husband and father? How about being away from home more than he's been home in years. How about putting everybody's life ahead of the people he says he cares about the most."

"I spend a lot of time away from home, and Bill's got obligations and duties like nothing I could imagine. People's lives depend on what he does and what he decides."

"When you are home, Lew, you ever slip it to Mona? You ever come up behind her, pull her panties down and fuck her until she screams? Care to guess how long it's been since Bill did that to me? When Mona is underneath you and you're pounding your dick inside her, does she feel the roll of fat around your stomach rubbing on her. That's a real turn-on, you know."

"He got fat and out of shape, Debbie. It's not a crime. You were able to make time to keep yourself in shape. You couldn't have pushed him, or lured him, into a gym? I got a feeling, you could probably deliver a blow job that would convince any guy to do anything you wanted."

"Would you like to find out?"

She stared at him and she wondered if he could tell if she was serious?

"Lock the door and unzip and I'll let you judge for yourself."

He shook his head, but he did seem to be sweating more.

"Why do you do that, Debbie? You think I didn't notice you showing your tits off to me when I'd come over with Mona? I never did think you were serious, but why? You're a gorgeous woman, a walking wet dream. Why do you have to prove to yourself that every guy wants to fuck you? To answer your question, if Bill wasn't my friend and I wasn't married, I'd be in your mouth right now. But he is and I am. So can we stop the game playing?"

"You know that Mona doesn't know how lucky she is?"

"I hope she does."

"In answer to your question, I tried, Lew. I tried for years. I asked him to go with me. I made appointments for him with personal trainers. Fuck, I tried to get him jealous by flirting with young hunks on the rare occasions when I could get him to go with me. But there was always something that needed doing downtown, some case that had to be attended to, something more important to him than me.

"Finally I accepted the fact that his job was more important than I was. A woman I could compete with. Any woman. But how do you fight a job?"

She looked down at the floor for a minute then up at Lew sitting in his immaculately tailored suit.

"Stand up, Lew."

"Um why?"

"Just stand up."

After a moment, he did.

"Turn around."

"Why?"

"Please, just do it."

He did and then turned back to face her.

She got up and walked around the table toward him. He looked like he was going to back up but he held his ground. Finally she was standing in front of him and she reached out with her left hand. He looked like he was going to flinch but he stood still. She laid her palm flat on his abdomen, then ran it down his stomach but stopped well above the swell that was developing between his legs.

She pushed with her hand and he took the unspoken command and turned. With his back to her, she reached down and grabbed his ass. He almost jumped but stood still again.

"Turn around, Lew."

When he was facing her again, she said, "You've got a flat stomach. Maybe a little bulge but not much. And your ass, God it's tight and firm. Bill's told me you're out and on the road and away from home more than he's away. I know you're younger than him, but how do you managed to keep your stomach and ass that way?"

He shrugged. 

"There are gyms anywhere. And aerobic exercises you can do anywhere. And like you said, Bill's got 10 years on me."

"Why do you do it? Why stay in shape? It's not for other women, I don't think. Bill says you're a one-woman man and the fact you could ignore my tits convinces me he's telling the truth."

"I do it for Mona, I guess. For myself but I want to keep her hot."

She backed away from him, continuing to look up into his eyes. She took her hands cupped her breasts held them up to him and pinched the nipples between her fingers. She hefted them, then ran her hands down her legs and cupped her groin and ran her fingers under her skirt and between her legs.

When she brought her hand her there was an oily sheen on her fingers.

"Just this little bit of talking nasty has got me wet, and to be honest I was thinking about Doug's big dick before you got here. Look at me, Lew. I'm what the kids at UNF call a MILF, a mother you'd love to fuck, and I am what my generation would call a prime piece of ass. 

"This is what Bill had in his bed every night for years. He could have fucked me, up the ass or any other way he wanted it. He could have been stuffing my mouth every night, or at least a lot. There are some nights when no woman is going to be in the mood, of course, but there were a hell of a lot of nights this was available and willing and horny as hell and he was nowhere to be found.

"There are guys that would climb naked over barbed wire just to sniff my panties and HE COULDN'T GET UP THE ENERGY TO GO TO THE FUCKING GYM AND STAY IN SHAPE!"

She hadn't realized she was screaming the last until she heard steps and Joyce stuck her head in the door with a worried expression.

"Everything okay."

Debbie backed away from Lew and said, "Yeah, I'm sorry. I kinda of lost it for a minute."

When the door shut she walked back to her seat and said, "It wasn't my responsibility to get him hot enough to get off his ass and stay in shape. He should have done it for me. For himself."




When We Were Married Ch. 02D



"We could argue that, Debbie, but you got a sweet young stud, his house, his kids and the life he used to have. He's got his job and a place he sleeps. He came out with the short end of the stick. And he's not going to pay you alimony."

"That's where you're wrong, Lew. He is, whether he wants to or not."

Lew looked at her funny.

"It's not that cut and dried, Debbie."

"Oh, so you've got his secret weapon? Unfortunately for you, I never screwed around on him. There are no photos of me leaving Doug and our love nest. There are no love letters, no tape recordings of hot whispered nothings. He and you have shit."

"That's something I've wondered about Debbie. He told me about that 'when we were married' slip and about your kissing Doug that night coming back from UNF. And about the way you acted with Doug at UNF that night. You still swear up and down that you guys were just platonic friends?"

She took a sip of her bottled water and suddenly felt very tired.

"Once again, Bill has a screw loose. I made a simple slip. I don't know what I was thinking, but only Bill would have blown that up into an accusation that I was cheating on him. And I didn't kiss Doug that night, or at least I don't think I did. I might have reached over and given him a peck on the cheek, but I've given hotter kisses to neighbors at Christmas parties. It was nothing.

She looked down at the table, thinking about that Friday night at UNF.

"Looking back, I guess it did look pretty bad, that night at UNF. Doug was excited and happy and since I was his mentor, I was kind of basking in his glory. Bill had been acting like a shithead for weeks, we hadn't had sex in months, and a young handsome guy was treating me like his date for the prom. I plead guilty to acting like a stupid young girl. But it wasn't anything more than that."

"And that kiss?"

"That was a big mistake. That wasn't planned. They had called him up to receive his plaque and he wanted me beside me and all of a sudden he was kissing me. I shouldn't have done it. God knows I shouldn't have given him tongue, but I was so damned horny all of a sudden it's a wonder I didn't drag him down on the podium and have my way with him. If I'd been getting what I needed at home, if you were in my bed instead of Bill, I would have laughed that kiss off."

She stared at the briefcase he had pulled up onto the table and said, "Don't leave me in suspense, Lew. Hit me with your best shot."

He snapped the briefcase open and pulled out a manila folder. He flipped it open and she saw a thin stack of papers. He glanced through the pile and then pulled one out and put it on the table and shoved it in her direction. She picked it up and looked at it curiously.

What in the world could-

- Deb to Lance: That's indelicate, Lance, you pig. :) But you're right. Consummating is like....what Bill and I do. Oh, God, I can't believe I wrote that. But...it's been so long since I've been really FUCKED that sometimes I forget what it was like. I think we used to have that, if I can remember that far back. But now...Bill was never huge to be honest, but the last few years I think he's shrunk. I'll kill you if you ever let a word of this slip. And he gets winded in five or six minutes.-

She closed her eyes and tried to shake off a feeling of vertigo, as if the building were spinning around her. She had never fainted in her life, didn't even know what the feeling would be like, but it must be like this. After a moment she opened her eyes warily and looked down. The paper was still there. The words were still there. She grabbed her bottle of water and emptied it in gulps. 

Her eyes skipped down the page until she found: 

- Deb to Lance: "No, and he never will. How can I tell him he doesn't do it for me in bed anymore; hasn't for a long time. That I have to use a big vibrator and shove it in there way further than he ever gets to climax. I fake it with him, but sometimes I think he must be able to tell the difference." --

- 

And...

- Deb to Lance: "I know you could have. You could have had me a month ago if you were an asshole like a lot of the younger guys around here are. But you've been a gentleman, a good man. That's why I like you so much. I'll just say that I hope you know just how special a friend you've become. And now I'll sign off."-

- 

She felt like she was waking from a dream, or falling into a nightmare.

\ "How -- what -- where did you..."

She took a deep breath and tried to grab onto something, anything, to stem the rising feeling of panic inside her.

"Those were my private, my personal-"

"Oh yeah, very personal e-mails Debbie," Lew said flatly with no discernable emotion. He shoved another paper toward her.

- 

-- "The worst of it is, I feel so much closer to you than I do to Bill. He's my husband, but he doesn't even know our marriage is dying slowly. He's clueless. Such a smart, smart man, so skillful in the courtroom, but in real life, in our marriage, he's a loser. He's lost my lust, and my respect and slowly he's losing my love.

"I feel like an animal caught in a trap. I've tried a thousand times to think of some way to start breathing life back into our relationship, our marriage. I've thought about trying to invigorate our sexual life. But...dammit, I'm not that good an actress. I fake orgasms all the time, but I can't fake excitement. And he doesn't excite me any more.—

-

She looked across the table, and for the first time she had a feeling for why Bill had called him a shark. There was a cold, hard expression on his face and he didn't' look like the man who had been smiling at her before.

"Those were my personal messages. I deleted them all. How could he-"

"I'm not going to give you the details, but he did. All of them. Going six months back until just before the Friday night blowout. You remember the message where you told Doug -- sorry that's 'Lance' - that you were getting ready to end your marriage but you would take time out to help him celebrate his big night?

"Well, I can understand that. What's a little thing like a nearly 20-year-marriage compared to a chance to go out and have a blowout with your new boyfriend?"

Her mind was spinning. Somehow the question that came out was, "How long...,"

"He trusted you, Debbie: shows you what an idiot he was. It was an automatic monitoring system. He'd never ever looked at your emails. Until that weekend you stayed out all night and he eventually found out you'd gone to your parents. He was alone all that weekend and he'd gotten suspicious and he started poking around. That's what investigators do."

There was an emotion in his eyes deeper than contempt and harder than anger.

"He were there all alone in that big house of yours while he learned what you really thought about him and his shrinking dick and read those messages talking about how hard lover boy's dick was and those fabulous abs of his. He was alone while he learned how you were going out dancing with friends and guys because you just didn't like being around him. 

"He was in that house that he paid for and worked his ass off for surrounded by pictures of the life he used to have. That's why he left you that bloody ring. I'm glad he was able to get it off. I think he would have chopped it off if he had to. He didn't have much love left in his heart for you that night."

She didn't know what it was, maybe it was that image of him hunched over the big computer off their bedroom reading by the light of the computer screen in the dark house, but she lurched to her feet and mumbled something about being sick and raced out the door of the conference room and barely made it to the toilet in the closest bathroom. She was hunched over it heaving, but nothing coming out, when she heard the door open and Joyce say, "Debbie, what's the matter? What happened"

She tried to shake her head. Tears ran down her face and she gasped for air. Finally, she got out, "Sorry. Must have....been something...I ate. I'll be okay."

Joyce finally backed out and closed the door and Debbie took deep breaths until the queasiness passed and the tears stopped. She tried to get her head straight. He had known. All the time since that weekend. It was as if he had opened a hole into her heart and soul and knew what she was thinking while she was pretending to be someone other than who she really was.

Who she was, was a woman getting ready to walk out of a marriage where she felt trapped and unloved. She had thought she was wearing a mask around him, and in truth he had seen her as she really was. 

Why hadn't he said anything? And then she understood his anger. For the first time. He really did think she had been fucking Doug all that time. She remembered the words she had read. If she'd intercepted emails from Bill to a woman with the same kind of language, she would never have believed he wasn't having sex with her. 

They were the words of lovers, even though she would have sworn at the time that they were just friends.

She walked back in to see Lew swallowing the last of his coffee. He looked up at her with eyes that were neither friendly nor unfriendly.

"Could I see them? All of them?"

He passed her the folder. She opened it and began reading. It was like opening a door into the past. She had never read them as a whole. She had gotten them, read them and deleted them day by day. Now they told a story.

Finally, she put them in the folder and closed it.

"Can I have a copy?"

"Keep that one. I've made other copies."

She finally raised her eyes to meet his. She noticed, not for the first time, his were a peculiar gray green combination. They were attractive, now cold eyes.

"I understand now why he's been so angry. But, Lew, they weren't...it wasn't..."

"They are there in black and white. They are what they are."

"I never meant him to see any of those. I never thought -- that he would spy on me."

"Because you could go anywhere, party with your friends, come back drunk, and he never asked you questions. I'll bet my life he never checked your panties to see if you had any unusual deposits in them. He trusted you, even knowing what a hot piece of ass you are. I don't know how many men would be that trusting, or stupid."

"Whether you or he believe it, I was never with any other man, since we got married. I went out and I drank and I let men touch me, but I never touched them back. I never gave handjobs or blowjobs or went out to their cars."

"Well, aren't you the saint yourself, Debbie. Never gave any blowjobs but you did let men rub you and play with your tits. I know I'd be proud of you if you were my wife. Especially since you were doing it behind my back."

She made herself stare back at him although she felt like crawling under the table. 

"I'm not a slut, no matter what you say or what these emails might make you think. You're away from home more than you're home and Mona basically lives alone most of the time, just like me. I know she travels all over. She dances with men. She has drinks with them. She goes out to dinner with them. 

"And she may not be as hot as me, but she's pretty damn hot. You really think guys don't rub their dicks on her when they're slow dancing. You really think no one ever brushes or touches her breasts? You really believe she doesn't get wet when some young, good looking guy is hitting her with everything he's got? If you do, you're the idiot."

His expression didn't change.

"I know she goes out for drinks and dancing with men. I know they hit on her. I would if I were single. I wouldn't be surprised if guys get her hot. She's human. But I know this. She would never physically or emotionally cheat on me. And if she fell in love with somebody else, she'd have the decency to tell me we were through. She wouldn't let me find it out the way Bill did."

"I'm not in love with Doug and I didn't cheat. Not till the weekend of the UNF blowup."

She stopped. What he had said was true. They were what they were. The rest of it didn't matter. She forced herself to bring her mind back to the now, instead of going back six months.

"So. They're embarrassing. But what I said was true. I didn't cheat on Bill until our marriage 

exploded and there's nothing in there you can use in court. Joyce has already told me that having

sex with Doug before we crossed the 't's and dotted the 'I's and made it legal is no big deal. Bill had already humiliated me and damaged my career. I didn't owe him fidelity."

"You're wrong."

And he proceeded to explain how.

"You can call Joyce in here, and she'll try to blow smoke, but in the end you'll see I'm right. Doug is history when I file the suit against him and you'll be right behind him when I file the workplace environment lawsuit against UNF. Doesn't matter what protections you have in place, if they want you gone, trust me, you'll be gone.

"And when that happens, you're going to need Bill's maintenance. Being a mentor is not an administrative position, not in the chain of command. But it does place you in a semi-supervisory position over a younger colleague. 

"And you, an older and more experienced staff member, took advantage of your position to trade emails about how big and hard your mentee's cock was, to exchange intimate secrets about your married sex life and how frustrated you were with your husband, and basically told your mentee that he could fuck you if he just tried a little bit harder.

"That's not normally the type of behavior universities, or any organization, expect from their mentors. In fact, if you were male and Doug was female, you would be very much in line for a sexual harassment lawsuit. It doesn't matter if he was chasing or trying to seduce you. It was your duty to keep things from getting out of hand. Even if all UNF does is cut you loose, good luck finding a position similar to the one you have at any other teaching institution."

He smiled at her and she finally knew why Bill had said he was a shark. There was something very cold and cruel in that smile, almost as if he were enjoying the thought of what was awaiting her. Maybe the emotion wasn't real and he was just twisting the knife for effect, but it felt real.

"So when you get that maintenance check, you'd better kiss it and hold it tight, because while you're looking for a new job in a new field, you're going to find it hard to maintain the standard of life you became accustomed to before you started looking around for greener pastures."

She surprised herself.

"No."

He looked at her in surprise.

"No what?"

"No deal, you bastard. Tell Bill that for me. Let him do what he wants with those emails. Doug was planning on leaving anyway and this just means he'll bail sooner. He's young and talented and he'll find another job. 

"And if I wind up washing dishes in a Sonny's barbecue joint, or handing out hamburgers at McDonalds, so be it. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of thinking he beat me down, forced me to let the alimony go. If he hates me that much, tell him I'm going to rub every single damned check he sends me all over my pussy before I cash it, and that's the closest he's ever going to come to getting inside me again."

Lew just stared at her for a moment, and then he smiled. And this time she did shiver.

"You're a pretty tough broad, Debbie. Tougher than I thought. So the last thing we're going to do with the emails won't bother you."

"What else could you do?"

"Copies will be posted on the Internet. There are cheating wives sites, and places like that. Plus copies will be anonymously emailed or hard copies will be sent to your parents, his parents, your friends, your colleagues at work. Pretty much anybody you've ever known."

"He couldn't hate me that much."

"Doesn't matter if he does or not. It will happen. You remember how you reacted. How do you think your parents will feel when they read how enamored you were with a colleague's abs and dick when you were still married to Bill? Your friends? Well, I don't know if any of them will drop you, but expect to have every married friend you know watch you very carefully anytime you're around a husband.

"Oh, and this shouldn't bother you at all, but expect every husband and boyfriend of every friend you've got to start calling and coming around when their significant other is otherwise occupied. Because they're all going to think you're just another very hot and very fuckable MILF. I imagine your son's friends- what are they, fourteen or fifteen - will start hitting on you too."

He stopped and looked down at his hands. He didn't look at her as he spoke.

"There won't be anything sent to your kids. But they'll find them. Friends will see that they do. And no matter how grown up kids act like they are, how do you think they're going to react to finding out what you really thought of their father, how you treated him, when you were still married to him? 

"How do you think they'll feel when they find out that you were lying through your teeth about your feelings for Doug, that you were lying when you said their father was paranoid and crazy to be suspicious of you two. You lied through your teeth to your children and your parents."

Now he looked at her, and worse than the threat was the pity in his eyes.

"But, it really doesn't matter what they think now. They're going to grow up. Kelly will be a grown woman with a husband and kids, Bill Jr. will have found some woman he loves and wants to have children with. And someday they'll run across these e-mails again and they'll read them with grown-up eyes. They'll understand what you did, and how terribly you betrayed their father. Even if you didn't touch Doug, you still engaged in an emotional affair.

"You've lost Bill. And someday, you're going to lose your children. They may still be polite and still let you be around your grandchildren, but your relationship with them will never be the same."

They sat together in the small room in a curdled silence.

She wasn't even aware that she was crying until she felt tears run down her cheeks.

"He wouldn't do that to me. I can't believe that. Even hating me, I can't believe he would do that."

"No, he wouldn't."

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, not believing what she had heard.

"He-"

"He wouldn't use the emails against you that way, Debbie. He wouldn't even let me threaten you with sending the emails to family and friends. The poor bastard loves you and he's willing to let you screw him yet again rather than hurt you that way."

"Then-"

"He loves you. I don't."

"I don't understand, Lew. You're his attorney."

"I was his friend before I was his attorney. I was his friend, I am his friend, and I will be his friend. I'm not going to let you rub salt into the wounds you've already inflicted on him."

"I still....how can you do what he ordered you not to do?"

"Easy, I just have to violate virtually every aspect of the duty an attorney owes to his client. I have to go against his wishes and take actions that will kill his soul. But, I'm going to do it anyway."

"Those are his emails."

"He gave them to me. I made copies."

"But he -- if he didn't want --"

"He'll be royally pissed at me, furious. He'll threaten to take legal action against me, bring me before a review board. Maybe try to get me disbarred. And all I'll do is tell him that if he does I'll fight it and it's such a juicy, sexy scandal that it will get tons of publicity -- I'll make sure it does because I know how to work the press - meaning even more people will know what a miserable cheating slut he was married to. In the end he'll back off. Because he loves you."

"But, I thought you were his friend."

"Oh, he won't want anything to do with me for awhile. Maybe a long time. But like I said, whether he's my friend or not, I'm his friend."




When We Were Married Ch. 02D



He tapped his fingers on the table, saying, "But, all that said, the question is what are you going to do. I've told you what I'm going to do."

"You're blackmailing me." 

"Of course."

She closed her eyes and tried to think. So many thoughts swirling through her head. Her whole world had been turned upside down in less than an hour. Everything had changed.

"I - I need some time, Lew. I can't make a decision like that so quickly."

"You've got until I get up and walk out that door. Five minutes after I'm gone they will be winging their way through the ether and the genie will be out of the bottle and none of us will ever be able to get him back in again."

She just sat there and stared at him and wondered how she could have ever thought he was a nice guy.

"How can you do that, Lew? We were friends. You're willing to destroy me. Take my kids away from me in a very real way. To stop me from getting alimony?"

He shrugged. 

"When couples split the friends take sides. I happen to be on his side. As to hurting you, well, Bill said that I know no limits and I know no bounds when it comes to winning. I take no prisoners. I like winning. I won't take any pleasure out of hurting you, despite the fact that you're a stupid, cruel bitch, but I will if I have to."

He looked at her again and grabbed his suitcase and snapped it shut.

"The clock is running, Debbie. Make up your mind. I'm going to be leaving in a few minutes."

Joyce walked back in after Lew had stepped outside for a moment. She looked at Debbie with unease in her eyes.

"Lew said you wanted to draw up a stipulation that you've have given up all rights to maintenance, for all time? That you want it notarized? Is that right, Debbie?"

Debbie just nodded.

Joyce glanced from her reddened eyes to Lew, then said, "What the hell did you do, Lew? It can't be legal. Debbie, can't we talk about this?"

Debbie just shook her head.

"You're wasting time, Joyce," Lew said. "Just draw up the papers. I have an appointment across town in a couple of hours."

Joyce looked at her without words and then stepped out of the office.

Debbie took a handkerchief out of his purse and wiped at her eyes. The tears had wiped away 

her mascara and looking at herself in the mirror she thought she resembled a blonde raccoon. She wiped 

the smudges off and then looked up at Lew, standing near the doorway.

"I wish he were more like you. You just royally screwed me over, and I wish we were in a hotel 

room somewhere and you were doing me. Isn't that crazy?"

He looked her over, his eyes lingering on his breasts, and somehow she knew he was visualizing them together in that room, and deep down he would have liked to have been there.

"The funny thing is, Debbie, that I wish I were more like him."

"Why? You're good looking and young, but it's more than that. You take what you want. If you weren't attached, weren't spoken for, you'd have me in that room and make me scream. You're not a

nice guy, not at all, but then, I never did like nice guys. Before I met Bill."

He came back to the table and sat down across from her.

"You don't know your husband at all, do you?"

"I know him a hell of a lot better than you. I've known him longer."

He shook his head.

"That's probably the reason why you guys are splitting. I think it happens that way sometimes. If I'd had any idea, I'd have talked to him, although I doubt he'd have taken any advice from me. You know what he does, but you have no idea what it's like to live in that world. I think he did it deliberately. Like a cop who never tells his wife what his daily life is like, or a soldier home from the war who can't 

talk to his wife about what he went through. And so you have no idea who or what he is."

"He's a fucking lawyer, Lew. He wears a suit and stands up in front of juries, but he's done that for a long time. Don't fit him for a halo."

He stood up suddenly, shoving the chair back and came around the table in one fluid motion. He grabbed her hands in his and yanked her to his feet. 

"Listen to me, you stupid bitch. Bill is the best man I know, the best man I've ever known, and he deserves better than a woman who'd throw him over for a flat belly and a big dick. 

"You know what makes him special? You know why Edwards picked him to run the State Attorney's Office when he had a dozen lawyers older and more experienced than Bill who wanted the job? It's simple. He does the right thing. Always. No matter what. 

"You can't scare him off. You can't buy him off. You can't fuck him off. If you had a gun to his head and he was going to die in the next minute, he'd do the right thing. He could be a millionaire today if he'd taken any of the offers coming his way from big name firms. He's had death threats, none of which I imagine you know anything about.

" The reason Edwards respects him is that he knows if he ordered Bill to do something wrong, Bill would tell him to fuck off and quit a job he loves."

He let go of her hands and she fell back into her chair.

"You are hotter than hell, Debbie, and that's the truth. But he could fuck around on you every day if that's what he wanted. I don't have that much power, and I have clients and the wives and daughters of clients offer me pussy -- maybe not every day -- but it's a slow week when I don't have it waived in my face. 

"He holds people's lives in his hands, their fates. If he was a two-headed dwarf, he'd have women offering to blow him. It's not legal, but anybody will tell you desperate wives meet prosecutors before deals are made and grateful wives of clients make arrangements to see prosecutors after their husbands get a good deal. Nothing you can prove, but everybody knows it happens.

"You see him as a fat, soft guy and it's obvious you don't respect him. But the people in his world, the women in his world, see him as the man who runs that office. The Big Man is a politician who likes getting his picture in the papers. Bill is the guy who makes executive decisions, who decides who moves up and who doesn't. He's the spine of that place. Any smart woman knows you get him in bed and 

you've got a straight shot to the top.

"Care to guess how many woman have climbed out of his bed to a higher position in the last five years? There's a reason why his nickname among women that work there is the Iceman."

She just shook her head. The vision of Bill, poor soft pudgy Bill, romping in bed with some younger woman, or even an older woman, wouldn't come into focus. She watched Doug flirt at the college and felt twinges of jealousy even if theirs was a strictly sexual relationship, but she had never worried about Bill at all. And maybe that was part of the problem.

Lew must have read her expression.

"I know he's hurting, but sometimes divorce can be a good thing. He's a good man with a great career, good earning potential. He could have kept sleepwalking through a life with you for another few decades but if you hadn't jumped into bed with Doug, you'd have been cheating on him with somebody."

Again he read her face and said, "I'm not accusing you of cheating, Debbie. In your mind you're probably not right now. I'm just saying he obviously doesn't meet your needs and you'd never have been able to stay straight. You're too hot and you obviously need more sex than you're getting. This is going to be painful for him, but he's already changing. He needed a good kick in the ass and you gave it to him. He's going to be better off without you."

Joyce came back in with the paperwork and a secretary. Lew read it, nodded at Joyce and passed it on to Debbie.

"Last chance, Debbie, "Joyce said, casting a hard glance at Lew. "Please don't sign it like this. Whatever Lew said, or whatever he used to make you do this, we could deal with it. You can always go back to a judge months or years from now and try to modify it. But, it's not like child support. Child support is like Play- Doh. It's very flexible. This isn't. 

"You're making a statement, without any apparent coercion that you're voluntarily relinquishing any claim to maintenance --for the rest of your life, no matter how your circumstances or your needs change. It's to all intents and purposes, irrevocable. Unless you can prove that Lew here did something illegal or legally reprehensible or just plain unethical, a judge isn't likely to throw this away. Please think about it. At least give yourself a day to consider it."

Debbie glanced up at Lew. She didn't have any choices.

She took the paper and glanced over it, then signed. The secretary signed and notarized it with her personal Notary stamp. She left the room with it.

"We'll keep the copy and you'll have the original," Joyce said to Lew. She looked at him with an expression made up of equal parts of anger and admiration.

"You earned your fee today, Lew. I hope you can sleep with yourself tonight."

"Won't have to," he said with a slight smile. "Mona's home."

A glance between the two of them made Debbie smile. He might be a one-man woman, but he liked the vibes Joyce was sending out. As for her, if she hadn't been in the room, Debbie was sure Joyce would have been doing everything but rubbing his dick. At least she had good taste. 

After another long, meaningful glance, Joyce sighed and said, "Well, if you see him, would you give that good looking partner of yours a hello from me?"

Lew nodded and said, "Sure. Just..."

He gestured to her and they walked together to the side of the conference room, but Debbie could hear them.

"I'll tell him hello, Joyce. He's dating a few girls right now but he might surprise you and call. It's just-"

"I'm a big girl, Lew. I'd rather it was you, but you're off the market. I'd just like to have a little fun."

"Joyce, I love the guy, but be careful. He's catnip, but...he chews women up and spits them out. He's not a long term guy, never has been. And you're a nice lady."

"Who's going to be home alone watching a Cinemax after dark sex movie that will just depress me, or going to a meat market, which will depress me even more. He is so...gorgeous. I wouldn't mind being treated like a sex object...once in a while."

He leaned over and gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek, saying, "I'll give him your number tomorrow. Just don't get your hopes up and...be careful."

He walked back over to Debbie and opened his briefcase, putting the signed statement inside.

"With this taken care of, there shouldn't be any reason why we couldn't get the divorce papers finalized and ready to go in the next month or so, right?

She nodded.

"And joint custody with you primary is okay?"

"He's their father, Lew. Even if we really hated each other I could never keep him away from them."

"I guess we're done then. I'll see you, Debbie."

Before he got out the door she said, "Lew."

He stopped and looked back at her.

"Two things. First, when you see him, tell him 'sometimes the rats win.' I shouldn't have underestimated him."

He looked at her with a puzzled expression.

"He'll understand. A private joke. And...just a little warning. You told Joyce to be careful. You be careful too."

"What?"

"You leave Mona alone too much. With Norman."

He stared at her.

"The guy is a machine. He moved in on me once, until I told him that if I told Bill there'd be an accident or an assault by unknown assailants and he'd lose his balls and be singing soprano. He's left me alone ever since. I think he's really afraid of Bill. But, he hits on everything. And from what I hear, he connects more than he misses. I'm probably cutting my own throat, because like Joyce, I'd kind of like you back on the market. But-"

"Thanks for the warning, Debbie. Really. I know the kind of guy Norm is. I wouldn't trust him around anyone else. But he's been my friend since 8th grade. We went to UF together. He's had my back in some bad situations and I've saved his ass from beatings and worse. I wasn't always an alter boy. We got into some bad things growing up. But I'd trust my life to him, and I trust him with my wife. He would never go behind my back, even if Mona was willing. And she never will be."

He walked out and Debbie shook her head. Amazing how men could be so smart about some things and so dumb about others. Norm was tall, dark and gorgeous and had a huge cock judging by the way he'd rubbed it all over her at a few events where dancing was on the agenda. She had been committed to Bill then, and it was still the hardest thing she'd ever done to push him away and finally drive him away with the threat of Bill's vengeance. How the hell could Mona be around him year in and year out and never give in?

She shook her head and got up and prepared to leave.

It wasn't her problem. And if it happened, then maybe...

"Shit, I'm not even divorced yet. Get control of yourself, girl."

################ 

Thursday July 7, 2005 -- 3:45 p.m. 

I was waiting outside Ed White High School when the bell rang at 3:35 p.m. Summer school classes were held until the same time regular school let out. Kelly had done well enough not to need the credits, but by acting as a peer student guide and helping others, she was racking up credits for the next school year.

I knew what direction she'd be coming from and I kept my eyes out. I saw her finally with a knot of four girls and two boys walking out toward the parking lot. One of them looked like a tall basketball player named Gary Anderson who was her current heartthrob. 

I slid out of my Escalade and stood up, waving at her. She noticed me and stopped. The rest of the group with her stared at me. Finally she said something to them and walked toward me. Two of her girlfriends walked with her.

"What are you doing here, dad?" she asked when she got close enough.

"I just want to talk for a minute. I'll drop you off the house. Tell your friends them they can pick you up there."

"We were going...Okay."

She called the two girls over. One of them looked at me and said, "You're Mr. Maitland?"

"That's me. You guys are peer guides with Kelly."

"Yes."

She looked at me strangely and I couldn't help asking, "Am I growing horns?"

She giggled, then said, "No, I just thought you were ...younger. I've seen Mrs. Maitland and I thought you guys were the same age."

"Brooke," Kelly said sharply. "Stop fooling around."

And then to me: "Forget her dad, she's an idiot."

I just smiled at the girls and said, "It's an easy mistake to make. I robbed the cradle when I married her mother."

Then I slid into the car and said goodbye to her friends. Then she slid into the passenger seat, put her books beside her and said, "Okay Dad, what's going on?"

I smiled and said, "I have to have a reason to pick my daughter up?

"Usually, yeah."

"Sadly, that's true. Look, Kelly, I meant to do this before, but...Your mother told me something recently."

She took one look and then dropped her eyes to the upholstery.

"No, no, tell me she didn't."

"She didn't mean to, she just let it slip."

"Look, it's no big deal. It was no big deal."

"Being raped is no big deal? I know things have changed since your mother and I were in high school, but somehow I don't think they've changed that much."

"It's not...yeah. It was a big deal. But everything ended all right. I --didn't' come down with anything. Mom talked to.....the boy."

"He shouldn't have gotten away-"

"What were you going to do, dad? Send him to Raiford? He was a juvenile. We got drunk. He had sex with me. Nothing was going to happen to him."

"But-"

"It might have made you feel better, but all it would have done if you'd done anything to him is made sure everybody knew what happened. I've have to live with it the rest of my life. I'm sorry, but I made Mom promise not to tell you. You always make a big deal out of everything."

We were silent together.

"Has it been that rough, having me as a father?"

"No, no. It's just that, your job is always there. I can't get drunk, can't get stoned, can't do any of the stupid things other kids do, because I'm your daughter. It would be a big scandal. And everybody is afraid of you. I mean, they always feel like they have to be -- careful -- around you."

"Has it been that way for everybody?"

"I guess. BJ likes to go to other guys' houses because -- they're looser. And his friends are nervous around here too."

"I guess I never thought about it. But-"

'It's alright, dad. We know you have an important job. Mom always told us that. It's just that..."

"What?"

"I came in from a date one night -- I think it was when you were in the middle of that toddler kidnapping and torture case and you were downstairs doing something involving documents. I was going to my room when I passed your bedroom and I saw mom lying on the bed. She was crying. I thought you guys had been fighting. So I got on the bed with her. I asked her what was wrong.

"She just hugged me and told me there was nothing wrong. And then she said, 'even when he's here, he's not here.' And I knew what she meant. But, it's not your fault."

############### 

Thursday July 7, 2005 -- 9 p.m. 

Finally at 9 p.m. Doug hadn't called or returned her four calls. Bill hadn't called or returned her six calls. Bill Jr. as was usual was spending the night at a friend's house. Kelly was out on a date. She was pretty good about getting in by midnight on school nights and at least she made an effort to stay within the timetable Debbie had set for her. Not like some of her friends who had gone completely wild by the 10th grade. Kelly had just passed out of the 11th grade and she was a good girl.

At least she was a hell of a lot more of a good girl than her mother had been at her age. Thinking back, Debbie felt simultaneous embarrassment and a burning deep inside her pussy. She had been completely a woman physically at 17 and had the judgment and good sense of a middle-schooler. It was only by the grace of God she hadn't wound up pregnant, hooked on serious drugs, or some Biker Mama in a hovel in the middle of nowhere. God, she had tested her parents. She couldn't complain about Kelly.

She tried to watch television. Tried to listen to music on her IPOD that Kelly had finally convinced her to buy. Tried to grade essays on "The Optimum Corporate Organization Chart for the Post-Internet Age."

Went back and read and re-read the folder of e-mails. Found her eyes misting every time she thought about Bill's finding and reading them the first time.

Even though there was no one around, she felt herself blushing. How stupid could she have been? And the answer was no woman ever born could have been that stupid. She had known deep down what Doug was after, which was why his confession hadn't shocked her. 

It was like kissing and petting in the 7th and 8th grades. You started with closed lips and then you opened your mouth and played tonsil hockey and then you let a boy touch your breasts outside your blouse and let him squeeze your nipples and rub that hard, mysterious rod of male flesh over your confined pussy. And then if you really liked him and he'd been working for it, you let him slip his hand in and under your bra and for the first time you felt male fingers milking you and felt a mysterious wetness between your legs.

But back then, it had been innocent, relatively. Sure, there were books and older girls to explain exactly what was going on, but you didn't KNOW. Not of your own personal knowledge. But she hadn't been an innocent virgin when Doug started to flatter her and move his body closer to hers during their lunches and she started telling him secrets that she had never told her husband.

She hadn't been ignorant when they started talking about the sex habits of UNF students and had gotten around to talking about the trend to shaved pussies. And when Doug had made the first joking suggestions that the only way she could be hotter than she was now was to shave down there she hadn't been offended. No, she'd been excited by the thought. And the vision of his fingers stroking her down there, and his tongue delving deep inside her and that hard huge cock of his sliding in there.




When We Were Married Ch. 03A



My name is William Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Until three months ago I thought I was happily married to the gorgeous, big breasted and long-legged Debbie Bascomb who was helping me raise our teenage daughter and son.

Then one night she said four words that at the time I think she regretted but which in hind sight was probably the best thing that could have happened because at least it gave me a heads up on what was coming my way. She asked me for a divorce within three weeks, started having her 28-year-old lover started spending nights in my house, and things got nasty on both sides.

It looked like we were headed for a Twilight of the Gods epic court battle when a friend of mine showed her copies of emails between herself and her current lover, exchanged when she was lying through her teeth that there was no "there" there. It kind of knocked the wind out of her sails and she very meekly agreed to my conditions for a divorce.

We made our goodbyes while I was half naked and sweating it out at an Avondale gym where she had surprised me late that night in an attempt to apologize – I think – for falling out of love with me. She surprised me by showing up and I could see it in her eyes that I had surprised the hell out of her by transforming myself from a Pillsbury dough boy to a shaved-head, merely out-of-shape middle-aged guy.

I think there were other things she might have said, but it was too late. Entirely too late. So here I am the following Monday trying not to look backward but forward to the trial of a man who had murdered his wife, the love of his life. I'd murdered my marriage. He murdered his wife. And I had to decide his fate.

#########################  

Monday - July 11, 2005 – 9 a.m. 

As I walked into the office I heard the buzzing start. It grew louder with every step I took, every floor I rode up in the elevator, everyone who got on or off the elevator stared at me for a second, then tore their eyes away quickly. I got out of the fifth floor and walked to my office. The whispering, an occasional gasp, followed in my wake. I began to wonder if this was the way Great Whites felt as they glided past schools of potential prey.

Cheryl just stared at me wordlessly as I walked into my office at 8:30 a.m., hours late for me, and opened up the Bingham file. 

Charles Bingham was on trial today for killing his wife Mabel by injecting five times the amount of morphine she'd been receiving into her veins. It was enough to depress her breathing sufficiently to kill her. It was an open and shut case in a way. He had confessed. 

But, unfortunately, I had devoted a bit more time to an open and shut case than a prosecutor usually does, because it was so open and shut. I'd found out things I didn't want to find out. And now I had to play God; Literally. I do a lot of that figuratively, but today it was for real.

I was lost in the notes when I heard Cheryl clear her throat. She was standing inside the door. I looked up at her. She almost jumped.

"What's going on here, Cheryl?"

"Bill – Mr. Maitland. Uh....."

"Is my zipper open?"

"Nooooo...Mr. M – do you....I mean...have you.......do you know..."

"What?"

She gestured vaguely in my direction.

"The...uh..."

"What are you talking about?"

She said, "Wait a minute," and came back a moment later with a large, hand-held mirror.

"Look."

I did.

"So what?"

"Mafia."

"Mafia? What in the hell?'..."

She took a deep breath.

"You look like you could have walked out of a 'Sopranos' casting call. The shaved head. You're dressed all in black. You're so damned pale you look white against that black. You look like a Mafia hit man. Or a damned vampire. You look scary."

"Close the door and sit down," I told her.

"You know I shaved my head last Thursday. You saw me Friday. I'm wearing black because – well I haven't really been keeping up with my laundry, since...Anyway, this was the cleanest outfit I had and it matches. Deb....used to....I'm not the world's best at matching my own clothes. It was just simpler to wear this outfit. If it looks a little spooky, so much the better. And I'm not much paler than I ever am. I just never get any sun anymore."

She looked at me again and just shook her head.

"I guess that all makes sense, but Jesus Christ, Bill, you're flat-assed spooky."

"Maybe it'll spook some defense attorneys to plead instead of fighting. That would be nice."

She just shook her head. And backed out. I started to look through the files in front of me. There was another knock at the door. I yelled at Cheryl, "Come in."

A man walked in. Not many people can do that, but Carl Cameron had been covering this beat as well as doing general assignment and feature writing almost as long as I'd been with the State Attorney's Office. Like any good reporter, he'd nurtured a relationship with me and he worked it. I wasn't in love with the guy, but he was a decent sort and sometimes you need the press on your side.

He took one look at me and did a double take.

"Gee, Cheryl was right. You are flat-assed spooky."

"Thank you, and why the hell did you turn down Jessica Stephens' offer to share a bed with you?"

The smile was wiped out.

"That's crossing the line. I've never done anything about your divorce, and I know more shit about that than you'd ever want getting out."

That stopped me. I'd known him to some extent for more than eight years, and I'd never gotten under his skin. He was always professional. You could never tell for sure if he was being friendly or working a source, and the few times I'd had to give him a professional bruising he was able to shake it off and we went back to where we'd been before. I'd never hit a nerve.

"I didn't....shit, you are in love with her, aren't you?"

He gave me a look that might have made some men shut up. Carl was a pencil pusher, but definitely not a pencil necked geek, to use the old expression. He was no taller than me but as wide as a door and probably outweighed me by 60 or 70 pounds, not much of which appeared to be fat. He was just solid up and down. He had dark black hair, a permanent 5 o'clock shadow like Richard Nixon on steroids, and he looked more like a college blocker than anything else. Right now he looked like a pissed-off blocker.

"I don't want to go there, Mr. Maitland. Let's get it back on track."

I nodded, but couldn't help adding, thinking of her seeming to become thinner and more ethereal every time I saw her, "You know she's head over heels in love with you? I'm not going to give anybody love advice, but you are one stupid fucker if you let her get away from you for the reason she told me."

"She told you?"

"I thought you knew everything, Carl. Couple of months ago we went out drinking. We almost wound up in bed."

I didn't have to be a mind reader to read his thoughts.

"We didn't, but if you don't stop being an idiot she'll be with somebody else. Not because she wants anybody else, but you're stupid to turn down sex with her for – what a stupid damned reason. If it happens, you only have yourself to blame."

He just stared at me and then said, "Like you said, Bill, you're the last damned person on earth to offer any advice on relationships. Not after you threw away the 2nd hottest piece of ass to ever walk these halls. Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you about the Bingham case."

"What? It's nothing all that big time. It's going to be interesting, but –"

"If it's not big time why is the number two guy in this office working it? There's got to be more to it than I can find out on the record."

"There is. Look, if I asked you to let this one slide, would you. Just give it a few paragraphs, page or two and bury it. You don't have to do a quote by quote treatment of the trial itself."

He sat down across from me. I knew his answer before he spoke. He was a reporter. As much as I was a prosecutor.

"Sorry. It's a criminal case and the more you talk, the more I realize this could be a hot one. You know me. I'll be fair, but I can't pass up a story. I'm getting vibes about this thing."

I sighed. I had tried. We had talked one time and he had told me about a girl he'd known when he was a young newspaper reporter down in Sarasota, Florida. Her father had been a reporter in his time and she had been an understanding girlfriend because she said her father had told her the definition of a true reporter was a guy that would get up from the best fuck he'd ever had to follow a siren.

Her father had been that kind of guy, which was why he had been married five times before he keeled over with a heart attack at the age of 49, and Carl was the same kind of guy. I had known he wasn't going to back off, but I had to try.

"There are some – elements – to it that are out of the ordinary, Carl. If you're going to cover this, try to be – as gentle as you can. Can I ask you that?"

He looked at me with a questioning look on his face.

"What the hell is going on, Bill? I've never known you to worry that much about the feelings of a criminal defendant, not in a murder case. Even one of these mercy killing cases."

"This is...this is a little different. I can't explain right now, but you'll see what I'm talking about."

He looked at me and I stared back at him for a few moments, but neither one of us broke the silence. Finally he got up and headed for the door. He stopped just before walking out and looked back at me with his hand on the doorknob.

"You're right, Bill. I do love her. But, it's never going to work. I'd cut off my left nut to make it work, but I can't."

After he left I just looked at the door. It should have made me feel better about myself, but I hated seeing someone more stupid than me.

A half hour later I was in court in Circuit Judge Dominic Dellaro's courtroom. There was no jury. Bingham had already pled guilty to first degree, premeditated murder, and the plea had been accepted. This was basically just a sentencing hearing to introduce information that judge could use in handing down a sentence. It could range anywhere from a visit to the death chamber or a slap on the wrist and warning not to do it again.

Jessica Stephens had made the opening statement for us, outlining the prosecution case. She smiled wanly at me and refused to look in Cameron's direction where he sat in the public section of the seats behind the defense attorney's table. 

Dennis Leary, a wild, ash-blonde, florid-faced attorney with the Public Defender's Office had made the defense opening. He wasn't trying to deny – he couldn't with a plea entered and accepted - that his client had murdered his wife, but attempted to play on the judge's heartstrings as he described in detail his client's 52-year marriage and the hell his life had become as the cancer claimed his wife over the past several years. 

Leary had a nose redder than the old-time comedian W.C. Fields, could and had drunk three other attorneys under the table in numerous drinking bouts, had fucked- I think – every willing single and/or married female staff member and attorney with the Public Defender's Office, and generally acted like a clown in and out of the courtroom. But he had skinned some of my best assistants alive. I'd tried to hire him away from the Public Defender's Office and Public Defender Johnny August on numerous occasions, but he always turned me down.

"I just plain fucking hate cops and prosecutors, yourself being the notable exception," he said with a grin and what sounded like the remains of a real Irish brogue that robbed the words of their sting. But I think he really did hate cops and prosecutors and he brought that passion to the courtroom. He was better than 90 percent of the defense attorneys making ten times his salary in the private arena. 

He looked over at me and raised his eyebrows slightly. He wanted badly to make a joke about my appearance, but he couldn't. He was probably planning for his closing speech right now and enjoying the thrill of sticking it to the prosecution again with a suspended sentence, and probably anticipating it more because it was me he was going to be sticking it to.

He was going to get a nasty surprise today.

I stood up and smiled at Jessica, who was trying with everything in her not to look over at Cameron. Tears glistened in her eyes. Then I addressed Dellaro.

"Your honor, I'd like to call Mr. Bingham to the stand."

Bingham was tall, about six-four, bald, and thin with long arms and legs.. He reminded me of nothing so much as a human preying mantis. He walked slowly and painfully to the witness stand. I knew he had rheumatoid arthritis and it probably did hurt him to walk, but it seemed more than he had no strength, no energy. His wife's long dying had sapped his life force. 

I looked at Dellaro. He was a handsome 56-year-old Italian American jurist with a head of black starting to turn silver hair and a proud Roman nose. He smiled at me. More than once while waiting for juries to come back, he and I and several other attorneys and bailiffs had played poker in his office. I usually managed to lose and throw a few dollars his way. It never hurts.

I walked up to stand within a foot of Bingham. He looked at me apathetically. A lot of times when you get a defendant up there they can't hide the fear, the tension. Their lives are on the line. But I didn't read that in Bingham. He really didn't care what happened.

"Mr. Bingham, I'm Assistant State Attorney William Maitland. We've met before. Do you remember me?"

He just nodded.

"You're an honest man, aren't you Mr. Bingham?"

That caught his attention. He opened his eyes wider and said, "I...try to be. I....think my daughters would say I was an honest man."

He glanced over at the public section of the seating and I saw them both. Tall, one dark haired and the other younger daughter sporting long brown hair. They were already wet-cheeked. They tried to smile at him as he looked at them. They had just lost their mother and knew they might lose their father. Even a one or two-year-sentence at his age and with his physical problems meant he might never walk out of prison a free man.

"You didn't attempt to lie when they found you with your wife. You admitted giving her the fatal dose of pain medicine."

He didn't answer. They weren't questions.

I walked back to my table and picked up two items. Returning to the witness stand I handed them to him and he took them with trembling hands. I pointed to the tall, dark haired woman in both pictures. She was in her early 20s in one, smiling with a tall, young dark haired man. The other taken a couple of decades later. She had been tall, but buxom. She had a good body.

"That is your wife, Mabel, isn't it?"

He just nodded and now tears rolled freely down his face.

"She was a really beautiful woman, Mr. Bingham. You were a lucky man."

He looked up at me and licked his dry lips.

"She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her when I met her," he said. "She was too good for me, and I always told her that. We had a wonderful life. And she gave me two of the best daughters a man could ask for."

I looked into his eyes and told him, "I can tell. You obviously loved her very much."

I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. But I knew I could be heard by the judge. Leary leaned forward in his seat trying to hear every word.

"Mr. Bingham, you had two daughters and it's obvious you and she loved each other very much. Would I be correct to assume that you were – happy – in every way?"

He looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"I don't mean to be indelicate, but this is important. You were – physically – compatible?"

Leary almost stood up but sat back, obviously not wanting to waste an objection until he got a better target. 

I leaned in closer. 

"Please don't take offense. We're both adults. Every one in this courtroom is an adult. You were married. It's a part of life. You had a good physical relationship?"

He looked as if he were retreating into some hidden part of his mind, and then his vision cleared and 

he smiled.

He almost whispered, but again his words carried clearly.

"You don't want to talk about that in front of your children, even when they're grown, but yes, we were very physically compatible. To be honest, when we first married I couldn't keep my hands off her. And she- she was a passionate woman."

I nodded.

"You've had a hard life and I know that disease has caused you problems in your later years, but these photos show a young, strong, handsome man. I'll bet the ladies were after you before you married, weren't they?"

He rubbed his lips with his forefinger and looked back at the photos. I could see him almost physically return to a happier period of his life. He smiled and had what could only be a called a guilty expression on his face for a moment. I leaned forward and talked to him, one man to another.

"It's alright, Mr. Bingham. We were all young once. And a guy that looked like you wasn't going to be a saint. I'll bet anything that your daughters never knew about your....adventures...before you met their mother, did they?"

Leary was walking by me and standing in front of the judge, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice down so he couldn't be heard by the public spectators, but he was so loud it was a hard thing to do

"Your honor, I've held my tongue so hard it's starting to turn black and blue, but this is...I'm going to object on the grounds of general squeamishness. I don't know if Mr. Maitland woke up ...aroused...this morning and is trying to get his jollies, or if he really has some voyeuristic tendencies, but bringing us up to speed on my client's early sex life has absolutely nothing to do with this case. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."

I just looked at Dellaro.

"You've seen me work before, your honor. I promise you this line of question has EVERYTHING to do with this case. Give me a little leeway."

The judge just nodded. On his way back to his table Leary stopped close to me and managed to whisper so no one but he and I and Bingham heard, "You're on thin ice, brother, and I'm going to push you under. Fair warning."

"Mr. Bingham? Do you remember the question?"

"Yes."

He stopped for a moment and stared at his daughters, then looked back at me.

"I wasn't always this burnt out husk of a man, Mr. Maitland. I was young and strong and – I had the normal urges. It wasn't like today. It was the 50s. But, yes, women liked me. And I liked them. I never kept any secrets from Mabel. She knew, but you don't tell your children about stuff like that."

"Thank you for being honest."

I spoke a little louder, so Dellaro could hear me better but Bingham wouldn't be spooked by the change in tone.

"The reason I asked you those questions is that I wanted to understand...your situation as your wife lay dying. You were a young, strong man with normal urges and you married a beautiful passionate woman. You had a good physical relationship. Now I'm going to ask you a difficult question. You were a good looking guy. Women liked you when you were single. Again, I'm not judging you, but people are human. Did you ever – slip? Did you ever go outside your marriage with another woman?"

Leary bounced up like a Jack in the Box, unable to control himself, almost shouting, "Oh shit! Sorry your honor, I apologize. But honestly.. Judge, you have to shut him down before he embarrasses himself and the State Attorney's Office."

Bingham's daughters were standing in their seats and glaring at me.

"Your honor, you've known me for awhile. I don't go on fishing trips without a reason. Give me a little more leeway."

He nodded and I glanced back at Leary. He just shook his head and muttered under his breath just loudly enough that I could hear him, "God, I hate prosecutors."




When We Were Married Ch. 03A



I looked back at Bingham. His eyes gleamed and the life seemed to be flowing back into him. Anger was a tonic.

"No. No, Mr. Maitland. I never cheated on my wife. And yes, I had opportunities. I was in corporate sales and training for IBM. I traveled all over the country, helping companies install computer systems, working out the bugs, trying to sell them every bell and whistle I could. I had lunches and late dinners and Saturday outings and we played golf to sell our systems. I met a lot of women."

His voice lowered and he glanced back at his children, but he continued, "And yes, some of them were interested....and attractive. And if....I was of a mind to...I could have cheated on Mabel. As you said, I'm human and....I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sometimes tempted. But...I never forgot I was married."

I stayed close to him, my voice low as if we were huddled in a bar somewhere on barstools talking about something intimate and personal.

"I'm sorry if I was a little too...personal in my questions, but I wanted to lay the groundwork for what I'm going to ask you next. You had a good physical relationship with your wife. You were a strong, healthy man. Her illnesses must have been particularly hard for that reason."

He just looked at me and I felt the anger ebb away and I knew that somehow he knew what was coming. 

"You and your wife had a good sexual relationship – let's cut the euphemisms – and you were a strong healthy man. Then she became ill and there was the chemo and they had to cut her breasts off and she was sick, always sick. You loved your wife and you had to stand by her, but you were still a man. It must have been difficult. You're no spring chicken...none of us are...but you were still a man."

He just shook his head, then looked me in the eye.

"You've never lived with someone dying, or fighting to stay alive, have you, Mr. Maitland?"

"Fortunately, no. I can't imagine what it must have been like."

"It's like you're dying with them. They get to the point where they can't get out of bed and so your whole world shrinks down to that bedroom. They need to be cleaned up like a baby, and all the respect that's built over a lifetime dwindles and dies. It's not something you do consciously, but...you can't make yourself remember them as strong, independent adults. They're worse than babies. It's like they're newborn infants."

He looked down at the pictures of his wife and said, "They waste away to the point that even the thought- the thought of touching them sexually makes you....sick. They have no interest, even when they're conscious enough to know you're there. When they go back into their heads, it would be like...like..."

He searched for the word.

"Like necrophilia, is that the word you were looking for? It would be like having sex with a dead body, only in this case it would be the dead body of the woman who had shared your life for a half century. And you couldn't even make yourself think about that, could you?"

He nodded.

"But that doesn't answer the question, Mr. Bingham. What about you? Your wife was ill for years. I assume that meant there were no sexual relations for years. But you weren't dying or dead. Even at the end you were in your early70s. You had several problems, including severe rheumatoid arthritis, but did you stop being a man?"

Leary was almost in my face, talking to Dellaro.

"I've tried, honest to God your honor, I've tried. But I can't keep my mouth shut. I don't know what Mr. Maitland is doing, but it should be illegal. He's torturing a man who's already lost his wife, for no good reason that I can think of. Unless he's going to argue that Mr. Bingham killed his wife so he could have sex with somebody else."

He looked at me then and he knew. He looked over at Bingham and he was a good enough attorney that he saw it in the old man's eyes.

"Oh shit," Leary said softly. "Bill, have you lost any shred of decency. I hate every fucking prosecutor that ever walked the face of the earth, but I was going to give you a pass. This is low....lower than low. You can't be that desperate for a mother-fucking murder conviction."

Then he looked at Dellaro, said, "I'm sorry, your honor, I'll expect a fine or a contempt of court for that outburst after this trial, but I need to get away from this son of a bitch before I do something that will really get me in trouble."

Dellaro just looked at him as he walked away. Dellaro would have fined or locked up most attorneys that took that attitude, but like me, he liked the wild Irishman. 

He turned his gaze back to me, still a little disbelieving what he'd heard.

"Is that where you're going, Mr. Maitland?"

"I'm afraid so, your honor."

I walked back to my table and pulled a piece of paper and a photograph off it and returned to the table.

I handed the photo to Bingham first. It was a picture of two couples, Bingham standing beside his wife who was in a wheelchair, and a pretty, older red-headed woman standing next to a short, round, bald headed guy who held her hand in his.

"Can you tell me who the couple is standing next to you and your wife?"

He answered without looking at me.

"He's Murray Benjamin, and that's his wife, Rachel. They were our next door neighbors. We've known them for 30 years."

"They live in that two-bedroom house next door to you? The red brick? Mr. Benjamin is deceased, right?

"Five years ago, He was only 58. Just dropped dead one day. Rachel stayed in the house after he was gone. She was a good friend to Mabel and myself."

"Maybe a little better friend to you than Mabel?"

One of his daughters gasped, the younger one I think. The older one just stared at me with a gaze that should have turned me to stone.

"I – I don't know how to answer that."

"Maybe this will help."

I gave him the second item I'd taken, just a handwritten note on stationery.

"Can you read that to the judge?"

He just shook his head.

"Okay. It reads: I'm an old fool, but I can't stop thinking about the other night. You were wonderful."

One of his daughters, the one that had gasped, started crying loudly. Her sister grabbed her and cradled her head against her chest.

"Mrs. Benjamin gave that note to our investigator the other day. We didn't have to push her too hard. I think she felt...guilty...about what was going on. Actually, she said she felt guilty. Were you...seeing Mrs. Benjamin?"

Bingham just stared at his hands for a long time. Then he lifted his head with what seemed like great weariness and looked into my eyes.

"How old are you, Mr. Maitland?"

"Forty one, although there are days I feel a lot older."

"You won't understand, but I'll tell you anyway. When you get into your 60s and 70s...women look at you...different. They don't see a man. They see an old....sexless...thing. They don't smile at you the same way. They don't really see you.

" To my daughters, I'm just dad. Children never think about their parents having sex. They don't understand...that you still need the physical part of life. If Mabel had been healthy, there is no question. We would have...been with each other. People in their 80s in nursing homes still have sex. 

"But she wasn't there anymore. Not really. Not the Mabel I loved. She hadn't been for years. And...I did what you'd...expect a man to do. But...it's cold...and it's lonely. You'd think....that masturbation....that fantasy....would satisfy you more easily when you get older. But it doesn't. I was used to having a woman in my bed. A warm, loving woman."

"I think I do understand, Mr. Bingham. You were lonely. And Rachel Benjamin was lonely, wasn't she. Her husband had died years before. Had she...met anyone?"

"She'd gone out. She told me she'd been to bed with guys. But...she said she was lonelier after having sex with them than before. She didn't really know them, and they didn't really care about her...except for the sex. But we had been friends for a long, long time. The first time, it just happened. The girls stayed with their mother to let me go out for dinner. They didn't think anything about my going with Rachel because we had gone out as couples so often. Besides, they never even thought about my having sex with another woman than their mother. I was just dad."

"And you continued to see her?"

"Yes. It started just as...relief...for both of us. But over the months, it turned into something else. I guess it's common. We had known each other for so long. We liked each other before...the sex. I started looking forward to seeing her and then we started thinking and talking about what would happen...after. We both knew Mabel couldn't last much longer. And she didn't even know. She wasn't even there anymore. She was just a body."

At that his youngest daughter burst into loud sobbing and her older sister walked her out of the courtroom.

"But Mabel wouldn't die, would she?"

He didn't respond.

"And when she hung on and hung on, the guilt began to get to Rachel, didn't it. She felt like she was betraying her oldest friend. She told you she would die if your daughters ever learned what you two were doing. She wanted to stop. Maybe even move away. And you wouldn't have that, would you?"

Silence.

"And you told her that something would happen over that weekend. And you two would be free to be together. That's what she told our investigator. Was she lying?"

Silence. You could have actually heard a pin drop. I could hear spectators in the public section shifting their weight as they leaned forward to hear every syllable. I thought I could actually hear the scratching of Cameron's pen as he made notes on the reporter's notebook he carried everywhere.

"How could you know that Mabel was going to regain consciousness and ask you to release her from her pain – that weekend?"

He wouldn't look me in the eye.

"Did she regain consciousness, Mr. Bingham? Or did you simply decide that you had suffered with her long enough and that you deserved a life after taking care of her for so long? Was it fair that she drag you down into the grave with her? It wasn't like you hadn't gone above and beyond any duty a loving husband had to his wife. I don't know many men – or women – that would have done what you did in taking care of a dying spouse for so long. 

"And it wasn't as if she would suffer. You said it yourself. She wasn't even there anymore."

He finally looked up at me. Tears began streaming down his face.

"It wasn't until after she was gone that it hit me...what I had done. She was so white...so cold...but I looked at her and I saw her smiling at me the way she had on our first date. She was so damned beautiful. And I had sworn to her I'd love her forever and be there for her always. And I...I"

He fell forward and I was barely able to catch and hold him upright. A moment later bailiffs were there to help him to the floor and a doctor in the spectator section came forward and after checking him assured everyone including his oldest daughter who had rushed back in that he was fine. He had just fainted. The doctor brought him around in a moment.

After Bingham had been helped back to the defense table and his daughter came to his side, Dellaro said he was continuing the penalty phase of the trial until the next morning at 10 a.m. After about 30 minutes Bingham was pronounced well enough to walk and two bailiffs standing on either side of him helped him for the courtroom. His daughter was going to drive him to his house but she stopped before she left the courtroom and walked up to me. 

She was almost six feet tall and looked down on me.

"I hope you're proud of yourself, you son of a bitch. My sister is leaving town right now. She said she never wants to see him again. He lost his wife and you cost him his daughter. And for what? My mother died a long time ago. He just let her go. And you might have sent him to prison for the rest of his life. So I've lost my mother, and probably my father and maybe my sister. I hope to God you get cancer and die just the way my mother did."

Jessica said after she left, "You did what you thought was right, Bill. She's just hurting..hurting bad right now."

Leary was standing in front of the prosecution table. 

"I've always been curious. How does it feel to play God? You just destroyed a man's life and his family."

"You know he killed her, Dennis. And not to release her from her pain. So he could go fuck his long time friend. That's okay with you? Killing unconscious family members when their presence gets to be too much of a burden?"

"You don't know that. You are just playing God, you're not the real thing. You will never know exactly what was going through his mind when he injected her."

"We got facts: written notes, testimony from his lady friend. We know enough."

"How do you live with yourself, Bill. You just destroyed a man. How are you going to sleep tonight?"

"I haven't destroyed anything. Just use those same arguments when you go up before Dellaro tomorrow. He might agree that there's no way for sure anybody will ever know exactly what was going through his mind. Bingham was a pretty sympathetic figure on the stand. He might slide by with a suspended sentence or parole yet."

"Did I ever tell you that I fucking hate prosecutors?"

"Numerous times."

"You guys – none of you – have any pity in you. People make mistakes because they're people. And you operate the machinery of the law to grind them up and spit their bones out afterwards. Somebody said it already, but the Law is an ass."

Then he looked at me and there was a little crooked grin on his face.

"I should do like you do and turn you in to the bar for ethics violations. No pity, remember."

"Ethics violations?"

"You have an obligation to let me know ahead of time what you found out about the girlfriend. You caught me completely off guard."

"Well, Dennis, I could argue that this isn't a real trial but actually just a sentencing hearing, and those rules DON'T apply in that setting. Or, I could simply say that you do and I will litter the court system with complaints about your activities, the least serious of which would be sleeping with multiple witnesses on both sides of cases we've argued. How about coercing favorable testimony through sexual blackmail? Or hiding witnesses you knew we needed for our cases when you got to them first? But, I don't need to do that.

"All I need to do is whisper about your sack time activities with a few married ladies in the PD office, especially the blonde married to that crazy-ass DEA agent, and you would vanish never to be seen again."

He grinned again.

"In that case, I guess I won't be filing any papers on you. Tell me again, Bill, why the hell do I like you?'

"The same reason I like you. You love what you do and you bust your ass to do it. Life is more interesting when you're around. The system needs us. I do what I do pretty well and you're the best at what you do. I'd miss you if you went corporate or were representing insurance companies."

He shrugged.

"Never happen. I like contact sports too much"

"You know you're a cliché, don't you? The drunken, rowdy Irish bum ."

He did a pretty good Clint Eastwood imitation and in clipped tones said, "A man's got to know his limitations. I AM a drunken, rowdy Irish bum."

Then the grin vanished from his face and he was serious.

"I never had the chance to talk to you about this, but I'm sorry about you and Debbie."

"Shit happens."

"Seriously. You want me to meet her boyfriend somewhere outside of work and rearrange his features? You can't do that because you're an upstanding officer of the court, but me..."

The touching thing was, I knew he'd do it – or at least try.

"No, but thanks for the offer. I'm trying to let that part of my life go. By the way, give your notice to August and come to work for me and I'll bump your salary with him up $20,000. You'd be number three under me, even though I'd probably have to kill a few SAs to make the decision stick and everybody would hate your guts, but that shouldn't bother you."

He just shook his head. 

"No."

"The funny thing is, I'm almost glad you said that."

"We wouldn't have the same relationship if I had to kiss your ass, although if the offer was being tendered by the luscious Ms. Stephens over there..."

He grinned that rakehell grin that had tumbled so many level headed ladies into his bed over the years, but Jessica just blushed and dropped her eyes.

"Oh well, it was worth a try," he said. "See you later, brother."

Jessica stood up with a bundle of papers in her hand.

"I'm going back to the office. I have some work I can get done. See you here tomorrow morning."

She cast a last quick look in Cameron's direction and walked away. When she had left Cameron came over and said, "Jesus Christ, you weren't kidding, were you. This is a great story."

I just looked at him and remembered his definition of a great reporter.

"I think you're more cold blooded than I am, Carl. You just saw a man's life end. Even if he draws a suspended, his family is destroyed. People will always believe he killed his wife in cold blood. His girlfriend won't ever see him again. His friends are going to desert him and if things go the way they usually do, he won't last another six months. Long married couples where spouses lose the other one usually go quickly. And I don't think he's going to want to live too much. And all it is to you is a great story?"

"Lawyers live for terrible cases, surgeons live for the ugliest, most dangerous tumors they can find to cut out, and reporters live for stories like this. It's what I do."

I knew exactly what he meant. I let him walk me out of the courtroom to a nearby hallway for an in-depth interview. He had a photographer waiting. I almost balked. I've had my picture taken dozens of times, but...

"C'mon, Bill. That Halloween garb is going to make a great shot. The Vampire of the Old Bailey, say? Or The Avenger in the Courtroom. Actually, I'm thinking about titling this one, "Tisiphone, Avenger of Murder, In the Courtroom – or Furies Unleashed." Some of our readers with more than an eighth grade reading level will get it and we'll explain it for the rest of them.

"You remember your college Greek mythology, don't you. The Furies were the implacable avengers, the Goddesses – in your case it would be the God – who punished evil-doers. Criminals could never escape the snake-head God of Justice, or Vengeance, depending on your perspective. Of course, you'd be the great Bald-headed God of Vengeance."

"You know I like you, Carl, right? But you're full of shit, and you can quote me on that."

I was finally alone as I rode the elevator up to the fifth floor. I still wasn't sure if I had done the right thing. Bingham might get a suspended. Anything else would be a death sentence. Dellaro would have to weigh the dangers of letting a wife-killer off with a suspended sentence against the bad taste he'd leave in the mouths of voters by in effecting sending a man to prison for the rest of his life for doing what most people would have done in his situation.

I thought about the pictures I'd seen of Mabel Bingham as a young, and then middle-aged woman. She had been a hottie. If she was like most victims, someday I'd see her in my dreams. I wondered if she would smile at me for exposing her husband's betrayal, or stare at me with hate in her eyes for destroying the man she had loved all her life.

And then I thought about my father. And as usual my eyes misted.

################### 

Monday - July 11, 2005 – 7 p.m. 

"Ohhhhhhh....uhhhhhhh....uhhh...Doug....whoaaa...please..."

She pressed her face into the sweaty pillow case and tried to catch her breath. Her heart raced. She could feel him inside her, filling her up, filling every inch with his hard meat. He felt so good, but she had to catch her breath. It felt like she had fallen off a mountain side and was rushing toward the ground. Her head was whirling. It felt like an atom bomb had gone off between her legs.




When We Were Married Ch. 03A



"You like that baby? I thought that damned pussy was going to snap shut there for a moment. Boy, when you cum you cum."

He pulled out and she almost whimpered but he grabbed her by the hips and rolled her over onto her back and slammed it in so hard her head hit the bed board. He hammered it home once, then drew back until only the big fat head was inside her. He reached down, grabbed both her breasts and pulled them up. It was painful but it was as if all the nerve endings had gone off at once. He stuffed one inside his mouth, bit the nipple and bit again harder until she gasped. It felt like he was going to bite it off, but she couldn't stop wanting it.

"God, I wish you still had milk in these. I'd love to milk you. Drink you."

As he was biting he began to hammer his cock home, so hard she literally bounced up and down on the bed under him. Her head kept hitting the backboard and she knew if she didn't move down he'd probably give her a concussion, but she couldn't get her thoughts together enough to beg him to let her slide down. She forgot to breath. The only thing in the world was his hands and mouth on her tits and that wonderful cock inside her.

Then she felt that explosive release inside her and he kept hammering. God knows how long it would take him to get off.

"You love that, don't you, baby. Poor little Bill never got that deep, did he? Bastard. Could you even feel him inside you? This is what you need. Was this what you were thinking about that last night he was with you."

Only the fact that she had just climaxed, her fourth in an hour since Doug had started eating and finger fucking and then plain old fucking her, allowed her to grab his shoulders and shove him back as hard as she could. He fell back, his dick popping out of her.

He thought she was playing as she pushed him back until she was able to get a foot up and planted it squarely in his chest and shoved. He fell backwards and unable to keep his balance, went completely off the back of the bed.

His head appeared over the edge of the bed as he said, "What the fuck...What are you doing, Deb?"

"Stay there," she warned him. She didn't realize she had picked up the small alarm clock on the stand beside her bed until his glance made her realize what she was holding in a throwing position.

"Goddamn, are you crazy? You could have hurt me."

He stood, his rampant cock standing up red and ready. 

"You could have broken something irreplaceable, babe."

"I'd have hated that. But..."

She drew herself up on the bed. It made her breasts hang down like swollen fruit while he could see her pussy, swollen and wet from their fucking.

"Look at me. You like this?"

"You know I do."

"Have you been with anybody else since we got together? I know there are dozens of women who'd grab you in an instant."

"No, you know better than that. That was our deal. I gave you those medical reports and I haven't been inside another woman because I know you'd drop me if you ever thought I might pass anything on to you. Not that it's been easy, but I love feeling your pussy around my dick too much to screw it up by going out on you."

"I think I believe you. You know I could fuck around on you with no trouble. There are a dozen guys on the staff alone that would love to have this, even if they had to wear condoms. And they would. But I haven't been with anybody else."

"Yeah, I know."

Then listen to this, Doug. You talk too fucking much. You are a great lover. You have a wonderful cock. And then you ruin it all by insulting my husband. Why? Are you so insecure you can't keep it up without insulting Bill?"

"I don't understand. Why is Bill-"

"Because, I dumped him, you dummy, I ended the marriage. I cheated on him. It...was the right thing to do, for me, but I feel guilty. It's stupid, but I feel guilty. I don't want to think about Bill. I don't want you reminding me of him, especially when we're fucking. Is that so hard to understand?"

"No, but...it's hard sometimes. This is his house. His wife. His kids. His mementoes. His goddamned pictures on the wall, pictures of you and him. Why the hell haven't you taken those down? Or why don't you ever come to my place. It would be as easy for you as for me to come here."

"Because that Sodom and Gomorrah you call an apartment complex is crawling with 20-somethings who love rubbing themselves all over you when I'm around, or telling me stories about how great your dick was when they had you six months ago or three months ago. And if they're not doing that, they're talking about music and shows I've never heard of, and looking at me like I'm 90, not 39. It just makes me uncomfortable."

"The same way I'm uncomfortable here."

"You don't have to keep coming around here if it's too much trouble."

"What the hell happened to you, Deb? When you called me, it seemed like you wanted me back. Was I mistaken?"

"Didn't it seem like I wanted you back? I think screaming how good you are would give you an idea that I was glad you were back."

She wasn't going to tell him about the e-mails. He'd just worry. She trusted Bill not to release them once he'd won on the maintenance, but still...she didn't expect Doug to trust Bill the way she did. And the damned things had shaken her.

She looked down at his cock. It was still so hard it was throbbing.

"Come here," she said, sliding off the bed and heading for the bathroom. After a moment he followed her. She knelt down beside the toilet. She held her hand out to him. He walked toward her, that hard cock bouncing like a metronome.

"What, why in here? What are you-?"

She grabbed his cock and pulled him until he was standing over the open toilet bowl.

"I'm not mean enough to send you home with that bad a case of blue balls."

"Shit, but a blowjob in here? Why not the –"

"No blow job. I'll jerk you off, but that's it. Remember this the next time the urge to insult Bill pops into your head. And the next time, there won't even be a hand job. You can just take care of the problem yourself."

He glared at her for a moment, then shook his head and closed his eyes as she began stroking him.

"Come on, Doug. Come on baby. Give it to me. You know I love it when you squirt inside me so hard. Let me see if this time. Come on. I can feel it building up. Like Old Faithful. Come on, baby, give me a show."

Finally he exploded, one rope of filmy white squirting out after another. Most hit the water but some hit the side of the toilet. It was like directing a high pressure water hose. She was so damned tempted to cap the well, so to speak, with her mouth, but she stopped herself. She wanted him to remember the lesson.

He slumped forward and held the side of the toilet bowl to keep his balance.

"My God, even that was great."

"Yeah, but remember, nothing the next time."

She cleaned him off with toilet paper and cleaned up the toilet after he left. When she came out he was sitting on the bed. She pointed to his slacks hung over a nearby chair.

"Get dressed."

"You're throwing me out?"

"Exactly."

"Shit, that's cold."

She sat down on the bed beside him and grabbed one hand.

"Doug, you remember the last time we talked. I said you were my friend. And you are. I care for you. But it's friendship. It was never anything else. Well, a lot of lust, but friendship. We're great in bed. I love having sex with you,. But-"

"Why isn't it me giving you this speech?"

"I don't know. It never occurred to me that you would..."

"Why not? We're compatible as hell in bed. We're both professionals. I've got a little edge on you in publications and I get more attention because I'm younger, but you have been noticed. Your work on management theory and corporate organization has been talked about. I've had people in the business world say that you would have no problem getting on with any number of firms in this town in an executive position, if you were looking... 

"We could make a life for ourselves...if you were willing to even think about it."

"Doug, Doug. You're dreaming and those kinds of dreams could mess up what we do have. In the first place, you're not going to be able to stay in Jacksonville. You were right before. The smart move is to get out before you're fired. Bill screwed us both royally. 

"Even though there's nothing in writing, too many people know what happened with Bill. They know the university turned thumbs down on us for embarrassing the institution. Any school or academic institution you go to within a hundred miles will find some legally acceptable reason not to hire you, but the main reason will be that they think you're a stud professor who thinks more about screwing than his job and doesn't mind giving anyplace he works a black eye to score some pussy.

"So, you can't stay, and I'm not going to move, if I can help it. I've got two kids. They go to school here. Their friends are here. Their father is here. He might not have been the best father in the world, but he's their father. And even if they were willing to move, I think Bill would move heaven and earth to stop me, and you've already figured out that he can pretty much get anything he wants in the legal system."

She looked at him and almost felt sorry for him. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

"Besides, baby, look at us. I'm 39, almost 40. You're 28. When you're 40 I'll be 52 and probably hitting menopause. You're probably going to want kids. I have two and I'm not having any more. I don't want to be going to PTA meetings while I'm having hot flashes. Your friends are not my friends. We don't like the same music."

She reached over and hugged him.

"It's not fair, Doug, but you can't compete with Bill on that. We had our babies together. He was my first great love. Even though it's over, Bill and I have that history together. History we'll never have."

He pushed her away, got up and got dressed. Both kids were out but they'd be back so she slipped on shorts and a thin blouse. She walked Doug to the front door. Before he could open it, she spun him around and leaned up to give him a long kiss.

"I love our time together, Doug. Just don't ask for more than I can give."

He stepped away from her and licked his lips as if to taste her kiss.

"Your trouble, Deb, is that you're too damned picky. You threw away one husband because he got too old and out of shape, and you're throwing away a guy that cares for you because I'm too young and I'm not Bill. I hope to God you find what you're looking for, because otherwise you're going to wind up old and alone, or old and a barfly sitting somewhere trying to pick up college kids."

He opened the door.

"I just wish I'd met you first."

She grabbed his shoulder.

"You are coming back?"

He turned and smiled, then reached out to cup one breast.

"Do I look like an idiot? I'll take what I can get. I'll call you tomorrow."

When he had left she locked the door. Both kids had keys. Then she went to the liquor cabinet and opened it with a key. She pulled the bottle of Goldschlager out. Bill hadn't gotten it when he came back to pick up his things and she had always liked it as well as he did. She poured a shot glass full and went back into their bedroom. Turning on the television, she ignored a pile of papers to be graded. She could afford to goof off one night.

She clicked on the DirecTV TiVo unit and found a re-run she'd missed of the new medical show, "House." She liked the show, even though she hardly ever got to watch the shows as they aired, because it was quality television. 

She also liked it, because while she could never pin it down, the lead character invariably reminded her of Bill. Which was stupid. Actor Hugh Laurie was tall, slender, with a full head of hair. Maybe, she thought, it was because House was an asshole with no personal life obsessed by his job. And he was the best at it. That must be it.

#####################  

Monday - July 11, 2005 – 10 p.m. 

She jerked awake. Her face was lying on a wet pillow. She had drooled in her sleep. The empty shot glass of Goldschlager sat on the nightstand. She glanced blearily at the big screen television in front of the bed, There was a blank blue screen. She woozily tried to remember if she'd seen the end of "House." She had. But for the life of her she couldn't remember what had come on next.

She shook herself and then unsteadily sat up and rolled her feet off the side of the bed.

Something had woke her up, but in the mists of first wakening, she couldn't pinpoint it. Had it been a noise? Had one of the kids come in?

She strained to hear, but there was nothing. Normally she'd hear the air conditioning humming in the 90 degree night, but she couldn't even hear that. It was as if she had cotton stuck in her ears. She got to her feet and made sure she was steady, then walked to the bedroom door and looked out. The lights were on. But no sounds. She made her way to Kelly's room and then Bill Jr. Both were empty. 

She turned around and went downstairs.

"Bill, Kelly, are you here? Is anyone here?"

Nothing. Now a sense of unease swept over here. They had kept a Glock in the upstairs safe hidden behind a painting over the desktop. She looked around jumpily. She could make it upstairs if there was an intruder.

"There's no one here. You're all alone."

The voice came out of nowhere. And worse it was familiar. But she couldn't place it.

"Who...what?"

"The children are gone and they're not coming back. They have their own lives now. They don't need you."

She stared around her. She had to be dreaming. That was it. Right now she was upstairs asleep on her bed. This was only a dream and it couldn't hurt her.

"Bill is gone. You think you dumped him, but he dumped you. He was always cheating on you, just like I warned you. But you wouldn't listen. You really think he spent all those nights at the office pouring over court documents. You idiot. He was probably fucking that cow the whole time. Or any of the other women that spread their legs for him.

"You really are so stupid that you think he stopped fucking you and throwing you down because he lost the desire? He was getting everything he needed at the office. And you really believed he just stopped wanting sex with you because he couldn't get it up. He couldn't get it up because younger women than you were getting all his best moves.

"I told you. Life isn't fair. Guys that look like Bill and have money or power still get all the pussy they want. It's only women that get old. And guys think with their dicks so they don't care how intelligent or accomplished or loving you are. As long as some young slut will fuck them, they don't want you any more."

"No!"

She screamed it out. She hadn't accepted it then, and she wouldn't now.

"He was so damned soft. No woman was going to try to grab him. He was mine, dammit. He loved me."

Soft laughter echoed off the walls.

"Oh, Debbie, you never learned anything I tried to teach you. You don't own a man, you never do. At best you rent them for a few years until they find something younger and softer and with better tits. They aren't loyal. They don't love the way women do. They're dogs. Cunt sniffing dogs every one of them.

"And, Doug, your young stud. You know he was fucking one of those pool bunnies five minutes after he got back to his place. Don't you? And why wouldn't he? Look at yourself.

Without transition, she was standing in front of the upstairs full length bathroom mirror. She was naked. She stared at the image in front of her. When had her breasts turned into flabby sacks of tissue? The tops were lined with wrinkles. When had her waist gotten so loose, so blobby? And her ass and hips. Larded with cellulite. She started to cry. Even knowing it was only a dream, she felt like something was breaking inside her.

"I am more than this. I am a mother and a professional woman. I am a professor at a major university."

"No, Debbie, you're not. You never have been. You're just a beautiful face and a great body. You were always prettier than I ever was, prettier than any woman around you. You always had guys running to do anything for you. Teachers gave you good grades, professors let you slide on hard assignments. Guys gave you jewelry and took you on trips. Because you were intelligent? Shit. They wanted to fuck you and a lot of them did.

"Even Bill. Your beloved white knight, Bill. You think he came to your rescue that day because he was a wonderful human being? He wanted to fuck you too. And he got you. That's all you have ever been to anyone, a beautiful face and a big pair of tits. But at least you had that. But don't cry now because it's all going away. I told you it would."

She sank to her knees and then sprawled out on the green grass that had in the logic of dreams become her bedroom floor.

A pair of familiar arms enfolded her and she laid her head on a familiar shoulder.

"Poor baby. I wanted you to have better luck than me. You saw what happened with Frank and me. The way he treated me, the way men treated me. I love you, and I just wanted to spare you what they did to me. But you wouldn't listen."

Familiar hands brushed her hair back and wiped her tears away.

"They're all going to leave you, baby. Everyone but me. I will never leave you."

She pressed her face against familiar blonde hair, until she felt herself sliding downwards as the grass opened up to reveal the mound of burial dirt that she sank into like muddy water. She started to struggle to rise, to climb out of the liquid dirt, only to feel strong hands grab hers and hold her with unyielding strength

As the dirt rose to her breasts and her shoulders and her chin, she started to scream, while the hands held her down firmly and that familiar voice told her, "We will be together forever now."

She was sitting up on the bed, coughing and gasping for air. For a moment it almost felt like her throat was obstructed with wet dirt, but as the remnants of nightmare dissipated, she was able to catch her breath and relaxed as she realized there was nothing in her throat. She lay back on the pillow and breathed deeply.

What a nightmare! It had been a couple of months since she'd had one like that. She realized she was drenched in sweat, She went into the bathroom, took a quick shower, and dried off and put on clean pajamas. For just a moment she let herself remember the dream and then she started to cry. She made herself stop. What had happened had happened. She had tried to save her, but that was beyond anybody's power. 

She found herself crying again. You don't stop loving someone just because they're put under the ground.

But while the woman buried in a plot at a small private cemetery only five miles away was gone, Debbie told herself SHE was still here. And her two kids were here. Even if Bill would never let her into his life again, if Doug walked away, there were other men. There would always be other men. She got up and stripped off in front of the real life full length bathroom mirror.

She inspected herself critically. Her breasts sagged, but so what. They weren't bags of suet yet. They might sag, but they still kept their shape. The nipples were still hard and firm. She let her breath out. She might be a hair over a 28 in the waist, but not much. 

She tried to turn so she could see her ass. It was still tight enough that men stared in anything fairly close fitting. She didn't even have to twitch it. As one member of the faculty had said during an unsuccessful seduction campaign, her ass just naturally twitched. She didn't have to work at it.

She wasn't a 19-year-old, but men weren't about to kick her out of bed, either.

She started to go back to the bed, but stopped, There was a time when Bill would have been there to hold her after a nightmare like that. But he was gone now. Doug was gone, and in any case, he wasn't Bill. She just didn't want to sleep there alone tonight.




When We Were Married Ch. 03B



My name is William Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Until three months ago I had a job I loved and a wife I loved who I thought loved me. Since then, I've learned that she stopped loving me, and I may have stopped loving my job. 

To do my job, I've had to have the faith that it is a job worth doing because there is an innate justice in the world. And if there isn't justice, it's the job of people to make it exist.

Which is probably why the last case I prosecuted, yesterday, has shaken my faith in that concept of justice. A 74-year-old man had murdered his dying wife by giving her an overdose of morphine. He admitted what he had done, but hadn't mentioned that he'd been carrying on an affair with a neighbor as his wife died.

Did he overdose his wife to be free of her and have his girlfriend? I was sure he had. But if he had committed murder in cold blood, all he had done was kill a woman so far gone to all intents and purposes she wasn't really alive anymore. I had brought out the affair and an almost-confession that was as good as the real thing. He might have been sent to prison. At the least, his life was ruined. One daughter had turned away from him; his girlfriend would never be with him again after their affair was exposed.

And for what? He was no threat to society. He wouldn't be out raping and pillaging at the ripe old age of 74, suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis. A friend, who happened to be a fighter on the other side of the bar, had told me I was playing God and I could not put myself in the husband's mind as he made the decision to kill his wife.

And he was right. But if I ignored what he had done, and what I had learned, it meant that I had let pity over ride the demands of justice. Would I start looking the other way when friends got in trouble and the ultimate decision of what to do with them came in front of me? It was too hard as it was not to bend the law to my personal needs. I'd known and heard of other chief prosecutors who let themselves be swayed by those human feelings.

Sometimes they got away with it. Sometimes they put a gun in their mouth. Sometimes they wound up behind bars rubbing elbows with people they had put away – for a little while. They usually didn't last too long.

On the other hand, if I had let what I knew remain hidden in a few documents that no one would ever look at, an old man who had suffered for years to do what was right of his wife would alive now. He would probably be going home to his two daughters. And in time, probably be loving a woman he had known for 30 years that he was now free to openly be with. His two daughters could have grieved their mother, loved their father, wished him happiness in his new relationship, and remained sisters.

But, I had done what I thought was right, the old man had killed himself, the two daughters had ripped apart their relationship and might never be sisters again, and the daughter who had stayed at his side spit in my face and hoped that somebody would break my heart too.

And so I sit in my office today, the door locked, taking no calls. The daughter didn't know that my loving wife had already done what she wished for. So I have lost my wife and my children and my family.  

And because I had let the old man's tragedy get to me, shake my faith in the rightness of what I am, shake my faith that justice is more than a word, I sit here alone and wonder if I want to do this job anymore.

If I can't believe in my job, and I have been a miserable failure as a husband and father, obviously, what do I have left?

###########################    

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 – NOON

Debbie opened the door and knew immediately that something was wrong. She heard the television in the den going and she knew she had turned it off before she left. She turned to walk back away quickly and call the police, but realized there was a more likely possibility than burglars.

"Kelly? BJ? Are you here? Answer me."

After a minute there was a 'Hey, mom. What are you doing home?"

Bill Jr. stepped into sight with a sheepish grin on his face. He was dressed in shorts and a muscle shirt. And he was not at Peterson Academies of Technology on Jacksonville's Westside taking a summer college prep English enrichment class she had paid good money to get him into, English being far from his best subject.

"Now it's not enough to skip regular school, you're skipping summer school as well?"

"Mom, that class is boring. I'm just skipping one day. Have a heart. The day's already half over, anyway. Tommy and Reese are going to be coming over in a couple of hours and we're going to see the Fantastic Four 8 o'clock showing. It's got that Jessica Alba in it. God, what a fox!"

She thought about chewing him out, but-

"Hey, what are you doing home, anyway? Don't you have classes?"

She tried to cover, saying with a smile, "You're not the only one that likes to play hooky once in a while"

"Doug's going to be coming over, isn't he?" 

"Why –?"

A look of disgust crossed his face.

"Why don't you guys just get a room?"

"We've got one. It's upstairs. In MY house."

"Yours and Dad's."

"For now. Why don't you do something to try not to make this day a complete waste, educationally."

"yeah, sure. Hey, did you hear about dad? They're reaming him out a new one." 

"What? Your dad? What's going on."

Bill Jr. turned and walked into the den and she followed him. It would probably be an hour before Doug got there. She wondered idly why she was so hot for him after four crashing climaxes the day before.

"Maybe I am turning into a slut," she thought. But if she was, she might as well enjoy it because she it was the best sex she'd had in years and Doug wasn't going to last much longer and who knows who or what might come along later.

"...the guy is a prick. Sorry, that's probably one of those things the FCC will go after me for, so everyone keep quiet, okay? But honestly, the old guy has been taking care of his wife for years, he's finally getting some on the side, and this pr- this A-hole takes it upon himself to play God and drives him to kill himself. And that's our tax dollars are works, folks. Honestly, I wonder how that A-hole, Maitland I think his name is, sleeps at night. 

"I tell you, I just wish I'd run into him in a bar some night. Any guy that would abuse a sick old man has got to be a chickenshit coward. I'd like to see how he does against somebody closer to his age, somebody who doesn't have one foot in the grave. I see the phone lines are lighting up. People are slobbering to tell me what they think of Mr. A-Hole Maitland. Or the Angel of Death as they've started calling him. Shit. He's no angel."

"You're on line one."

"The guy killed his wife, you dumbass. You think he should have walked away from that.?"

"How do you kill someone who's been a vegetable for years, according to the stories I've seen. The old guy didn't do anything any of us wouldn't have done. His wife probably would have kissed him for letting her go. Except for you, right. You're the same kind of chickenshit this Angel of Death is. You'd probably back him up in a bar fight. Oh, except like him, you'd be crapping in your pants. Another chickenshit."

"you-"

"Sorry chickenshit, on to the next line. You're on, and you've got some sense. You think the Angel of Death is the Angel of Shit."

"Yeah, that guy is the reason people hate lawyers. The old guy should have been left alone, not pushed into offing himself."

BJ looked at Debbie and said, "I've had guys call me already. They think Dad is a real asshole."

She found herself grabbing the remote from him and clicking off the television which had been turned to one of the local radio stations on the access channel.

"I'm not going to listen to any more of that crap, and you can tell your little asshole friends that none of them, or their fathers, are half the man your father is."

BJ looked at her funny.

"C'mon, mom, dad is ...okay. But he does do a lot of bad things, like driving that old guy to kill himself. And he's not exactly an action figure, you got to admit."

She found herself imaging what Bill was feeling this morning. She had seen the newspaper story Carl Cameron had written about the trial in this morning's paper. And that "Angel of Death" crap. She shouldn't have been interested, but she still read anything that had his name in it. And you couldn't be married to a man for 17 years and not know when he would be hurting. She knew he had to be. He wasn't the hard man that most people saw him as professionally.

But he wasn't her husband anymore, or at least he wouldn't be for long. His pain was no longer her problem. But-

"You don't know anything about your father, BJ."

He looked at her curiously. 

"You don't even know the true story of how we met. You should, but you don't."

"I've heard that story before. You were crossing a street at UF and Dad pushed you out of the way and got smashed. Wound up in the hospital and you got to know him while he was recovering."

She walked over and sat at the coffee table. She looked away from him because even though he was almost grown, this was still going to be embarrassing.

"No, not exactly like that. I – uh – you're old enough to hear this. I..was kind of wild when I was your sister's age. I wasn't the kind of woman I'd want her to be, or you to have anything to do with. I was a freshman at UF and I joined a sorority. I was – I looked pretty much like I do now, except better and the Frat guys loved me.

"Anyway, there was a party there one night and there was a guy – he was on the football team and I thought I was crazy about him. He invited me and there was a lot of alcohol and pot and some cocaine. Anyway, I was stoned and out of it and we started making out. I didn't know too much about what was going on except that I liked it. Then I heard some loud noises, people yelling.

"Somebody pulled Brad, my boyfriend, off of me and I would have yelled at them for disturbing us but I couldn't make much noise by then I couldn't talk....because...my mouth was full...."

She kept looking down at the coffee table because she couldn't look her son in the eye.

"Someone pulled...the guy...on me away...and I heard thuds and people yelling and then there wasn't' anybody near me and I opened my eyes. It was dark in the room but I was on a cot...and I was naked. I didn't know what was going on except....they'd been having me...everywhere...I was sore and starting to hurt. There was a light coming from outside. I was in some small room. And I could see...a shape...a figure standing in the light. And he was swinging...I thought I was in a movie and he was swinging a sword, back and forth..."

"Then the shape was gone and there were a lot of people in the room and shouting and I was screaming....because they were on me....and in me...again...and this time it hurt."

"It seemed to go on forever....but sometime there were other people in the room and more shouting and the guys on me were being pulled off and there were a lot of bright lights and then they had a blanket around me. They wrapped me up and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital emergency room and doctors and nurses were treating and examining me.

"At some point, my mom and dad were there and they wouldn't let them take me home because....because I'd been torn...anally and bruised...inside....in my vagina. I fell asleep confused and hurting...not so much the physical pain as the realization that a guy I really liked had lined me up for and was taking part in gangbanging me. He's obviously set it up for this frat brothers, using me like a party favor." 

She finally looked up and met her son's eyes. He looked more embarrassed than she was.

"I was a stupid young girl. I had let myself get into a situation where I'd gotten physically hurt. That was when the AIDS crisis was just beginning to be realized, but I could have gotten any number of venereal diseases. I could have been torn up so badly that I could have lost the ability to have children. I might have lost you and your sister forever.

"Except that your father was working at the frat house that night. He'd never pledged and he was a poor kid on an academic scholarship. The frat guys wanted to be free to concentrate on drinks and drugs and...women....so they hired a few nerds to do house cleaning, keep the drinks coming, keep drunks from setting the house on fire, that kind of thing.

"I didn't know any of this at the time, but I learned it afterward. Your father was working when he saw them take me into a storage room toward the back of the house. He knew there was nothing but a cot and some cases of beer back there. He stepped inside and saw what was going on...and...He tried to get them to stop but they were jocks. They just threw him out.

"He came back in with a fireplace poker. They do have fireplaces in Gainesville. It's so far inland it gets cold as hell and the frat guys liked having a fire in the winter. He broke my boyfriend's jaw. Busted another' guy's arm and messed up another guy's shoulder. He cleaned out the room and what I saw was him standing in the doorway swinging that thing to keep their friends outside."

She closed her eyes 

"Of course, he couldn't keep them out, couldn't stand up to all of them. They got him down and some of them started beating him while some of the guys who hadn't been busted up started in on me again. There was so much screaming and guys coming out with broken arms that neighbors called the police. When they got there I was still being...raped. They arrested a couple dozen fraternity members that night.

"One of the guys they arrested told the cops later they would have probably stopped working over your father except...he kept getting back up. He said, 'The son of a bitch wouldn't stay down'."

"I found out all of this afterwards. The guys your father busted up even tried to sue him, or their families did, but when I testified and there was the medical evidence and other witnesses they were gang raping me, they decided they didn't want to sue him anymore. But, the bastards put him in Shands – that's the best hospital in the city, the best in that part of the state – in a coma with his brain swelling."

She looked back up. Her son was staring at her like she was an alien from another planet.

"I went in to see him. His mother, Grandma Maitland, was in the room when I walked in. She wasn't happy to see me. To put it mildly. His father had died years before and your father was the only thing she had left. She said some terrible things – things I probably deserved – and threw me out. I came back later when she was gone and stared at him. He was just some stranger, some kid I'd never have noticed if I'd ever seen him around UF. His eyes were closed and he was blanketed in tubes and monitors. 

"And he had risked his life to save some girl he'd never seen before. It was like something out of a book, a movie, a fairytale. I knew no matter how much shit guys had given me all my life about how wonderful I was, I wasn't worth dying for."

She stared into her son's eyes, eyes that reminded her of his father.

"That's the kind of man your father is. He might not have been the world's best father, he damn sure wasn't the best husband, but he was and is a good man."

She was crying. Bill started toward her and she put her hand out to stop him.

"It's okay. I'm alright. I just hadn't...thought of that for a long time."

She got up and went to their bedroom. And called Doug.

"Don't come here today, Doug."

"What? Why? Deb, I got somebody to cover my classes. You know how hard it is to get someone to come in during the summer to cover a class? I called in favors, because I wanted to be with you."

She took a deep breath, and wiped her eyes.

"Sorry. I just...lost the mood."

"That son of a bitch, Bill. What did he do now?"

She hung up on him.

###################   

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 – NOON

His secretary came back out of his office with Dr. Ernst Teller right on her heels. He was a tall, angular, brown haired man with the hair cut in an old fashioned almost-buzz cut. Combined with the hawk nose, the piercing gaze and the ram-rod straight posture, he could have posed for a World War I German Aircraft Ace Poster. The only thing missing was a monocle and a cigarette held loosely in his lips with a cigarette holder.

"Mr. Maitland," in that dry but friendly tone completely at odds with his appearance. "Or should I say, The Angel of Death. It's only been a day, but you're already becoming a legend. To what do I owe the honor?"

Teller was in his late 50s, maybe older but he was one of those men that could be any age from 45 to 65 and you'd have to guess on which end of the spectrum he belonged. He'd been the prime court-appointed psychiatrist for the entire 10 years I'd been with the State Attorney's Office. We called him in when we wanted to know just how badly screwed up a suspect was, if there were legitimate reasons for considering an insanity, defense or if the defendant was just playing crazy.

Teller was great at seeing through the bullshit. He had no problems saying a defendant was sane and play acting crazy. On the other hand, he had investigated some really horrible people when the public was clamoring for their blood and had no hesitancy in saying they couldn't be held legally liable for their actions, no matter how unpopular that made him with cops, prosecutors or the general public. He was as honest a man as I had ever met.

Of course, the fact that he had his own private psychiatric practice, with a lot of well-heeled patients and apparently although no one could ever prove it, came from money, probably enabled him to be a little more able to say what he felt and let the chips fall wherever they chose to.

"Could I have 15 to 30 minutes of your time, doc?"

"A legal matter?"

"Personal."

He gave me one of those looks that seemed to go straight to your soul. It worked wonders with defendants and most defense and/or prosecution attorneys. Personally, I considered it another one of those shrink tricks they teach you at Shrink U. But he was good.

He thought about it and then told his reception/nurse, "Abby, hold my calls and give Mr. – Smith – a call and tell him I'll have to reschedule for next week. Just tell him not to call his mother and stay away from sharp knives."

Abby grinned at him and he told me over his shoulder, "That's just psychiatric humor, Mr. Maitland. Follow me."

His office was fairly small, intimate would be the word. He had an overstuffed chair that bore the imprint of his body after God knows how many shrink sessions. He had a desk behind him and a low coffee table sat between his chair and a low couch. The coffee table had an inlaid Rorschach black and white ink spot design and there was a large abstract painting on the wall with the same design.

I wondered if he'd run the "what do you see" in the ink spots routine on me. But he was straight.

He gestured to the couch and I sat on it. Damned if I'd lay down. He picked up a pipe, lit it and began puffing contentedly.

"It's your dime, Mr. Maitland. You've never come to me for anything other than my professional advice on cases so I'll admit to being curious as to why you're here. Odds are that it has something to do with the Bingham case, that Angel of Death business. Still, I would have thought you were made of sterner stuff. They don't call you the Iceman for nothing around the office."

When I gave him a questioning look he shrugged and said, "Psychiatrists know and hear everything."

"That must be why psychiatrists have among the highest suicide and divorce rates around."

"Touché. Now, what would you like to talk about? I should tell you that Mr. Edwards already called me and said he might need my services regarding you. Something about your locking yourself in your office, refusing to take calls and acting in a completely un-Iceman-like manner."




When We Were Married Ch. 03B



"I guess it has something to do with the Bingham case. It's just that –"

I stopped and he just sat there silently. Just like prosecutors and reporters, he obviously had mastered the tactic of silence. It broke more people than any other tactic.

"Not the Bingham case per se. It's just that it made me look – at other things. At my life."

"So this is about your impending divorce and your wife's affair?"

I just looked at him.

"I told you, psychiatrists hear and know everything."

"In this case, so does everybody in the courthouse and a dozen adjoining blocks. It's not exactly a National Security secret."

"Granted. So, talk."

"I need to give you some background first so you'll have the context. I met Debbie at the University of Florida. She was a freshman, I was a junior. She was – hotter than she is now. She'd won some beauty contests, was in communications thinking about becoming a broadcaster. I doubt there was a guy on campus that wouldn't have had her. But the only guys that had a shot were jocks, BMOCs, guys that could afford a Maserati or Lexus because their daddies had more money than God

"Me, I was some guy raised by a single mom with no money. I was there on a scholarship because I'd worked my ass off in school and applied for every loan and scholarship anybody ever heard of. I got some money as the son of a deceased coal miner. 

"I'd seen her around campus, but she couldn't have picked me out of a lineup. I was nothing special. She was. And then one night I was earning some extra cash by working at a frat party. Mostly scut work so the brothers could concentrate on more important things – booze and pussy. I saw her when she came in with some guy on the football team. She was drinking and having a good time. But I kind of got the feeling that the guy she was with was deliberately – getting her drunker. Those were the days before date rape drugs but, hell, you really never needed anything more than enough alcohol or cocaine to get most girls to spread their legs.

"You say, so what? She was nothing to me and for all I knew she'd been banging the whole fraternity on her own before that. So I didn't do anything. But I happened to notice her asshole boyfriend and a couple of other guys moving her toward the back of the frat house and I knew from working there that night that there was nothing there except for a few storage rooms.

"I guess it was curiousity, or maybe I had it in the back of my head that I was going to play hero somehow but I wandered back there and I could hear noises coming one room. The door was closed but not locked. I opened it and looked inside. There was a lamp on a table and there was enough light to see her on the bed with three guys on her. One was underneath her, one was in her mouth and the other guy was ramming it in her ass.

"I was kind of innocent and naïve in those days, although I wasn't a virgin, and I didn't know anything about anal sex, but it sure looked as though she was hurting, because the guy putting it to her was hitting her hard and each time he went in she kind of shuddered and whimpered. If I'd known more about sex at the time I might have just figured he had her going and she was enjoying it. But it looked like he was hurting her. And afterwards I found out they had all been rough as hell. They really hurt her, front and back."

I looked up at Teller but his eyes betrayed no emotion. I was pretty sure he had heard things that made the story I was telling him sound like a children's story from "Mother Goose," but the dark pools of his eyes were unreadable.

"Needless to say, Doc, nothing of this ever leaves this room. No notes. No talking about it with your receptionist. No case studies ten years from now. Right?"

"You wound me. I'm a medical doctor, as well as a psychiatrist. Nothing anyone ever says to me goes outside these walls and since this is completely unofficial, there won't be any written records as well. Does that suffice?"

"Okay. Just wanted to get the ground rules straight. Anyway, I looked at her and I made a decision. I know that part of it is that she was who she was. I like to think if she's been some ugly, little shapeless sorority pledge, I would have done the same thing, but honestly, who knows? So I went in there and grabbed the guy with his dick in her mouth and pulled him away and told them all I was calling the cops and reporting a gang rape if they didn't get out.

"We tussled for a minute or two and they were calling out and then there were two or three guys who were bigger than mountains – or that's the way it seemed – and they just pulled me off the guy I was wrestling with and threw me outside the room. The biggest guy just stood over me and told me if I kept on being a shit they were going to put me in the hospital. They told me to mind my own business.

"There wasn't much I could do at that point. It would have been suicide to go up against those guys but I couldn't leave it alone. I looked around until I found an equalizer in another storage room – a fireplace poker. And then I went back in the room."

"Three guys went to the hospital and the rest of their friends put me in a coma. I was in it for nearly a week. I probably would have come out of it anyway, but a guy named Henry Clark heard about what had happened and came to my rescue. He owned a PR agency in Jacksonville and he had a few bucks. My mom didn't have much health insurance and being a student I had none. He paid out of his own pocket, and called in a favor to a West Coast neurosurgeon who flew in to Gainesville and took over my case.

"I came out of it a week later, with no apparent long term damage that anyone could ever tell. I got hold of Clark a few weeks later and asked him why. I didn't know him from Adam. He told me he'd gone through UF nearly a decade before me and met his wife during a frat riot. Something about gorgeous women and frat boys. 

"Anyway, after I got out of the hospital Debbie called me one day. She wanted to talk, to thank me for what I'd done. I should have said no. It was just opening up a can of worms, but I didn't have the balls to say no. We met and then we went out for dinner and it was plain as hell that she had some hero fantasy going about me. And I should have nipped that in the bud. But she was so damned gorgeous and I was 21.

"Long story short, I tried to play it cool and we didn't do anything for awhile, but it happened and we were together. And after awhile we got married. And the whole time we were together guys have always drooled over her. I couldn't take her to dances without guys trying to keep her out on the floor. They practically dry humped on the dance floor. I would have been in fights every time we went out if I'd let it get to me, but I could see that she could handle herself. 

"And she said she loved me and the funny thing is, I always believed her. But I knew, guys would always be on the hunt. Guys who were bigger, better looking, richer, funnier. And if I hadn't been working at the frat house that night, I knew I'd never have known her socially and one of those guys would have married her and she'd have had their children."

I stopped. I had never told another living being what had happened and how I had felt about what had happened for the last 18 years. Teller just stared at me and puffed on that damned pipe.

Finally he said, "And..."

"You know the story. I think everybody in the courthouse does. She met a big, good looking younger professor at UNF. She either was fucking him or would have been if I hadn't found out about the affair – either emotional or sexual. Doesn't matter either way. And she's filed for divorce. The thing that's been in the back of my mind for 18 years finally happened."

"I repeat, and....?"

I leaned forward and asked, "The thing that's killing me, the question that I can't stand, is if I caused this to happen."

"I'm not sure I understand, Mr. Maitland."

"I've heard that people can – sometimes create what they most fear. When I first joined the State Attorney's Office one of the first cases I prosecuted was a Navy officer who had shot his wife and her lover. He'd come back from a deployment overseas, heard rumors about an affair, and managed to catch them together. It was pretty open and shut. But when I was working the case I had a chance to talk to him.

"He told me he'd loved his wife and was sure she loved him until one day when he heard a couple of friends joking about his wife and another officer. He confronted them and they told him it was just a bad joke because they'd known he was listening. And he accepted that. 

"But it got under his skin and he started thinking about it. And he couldn't get it out of his mind. He started questioning his wife about what she did when he was away and who she saw. And he started watching her. Every time she came home later, every time she went out with her friends, he saw her with other men in his mind. And naturally, the more suspicious he got and the closer he tried to hold her, the more he drove her crazy and angrier with him.

"Eventually she wound up going to bed with another guy. It was inevitable. I was sitting with him in a cell when he told me that. He looked at me and said, 'I made her cheat, Mr. Maitland. I know that now. I've talked to her friends since...this happened. She had never cheated on me. She loved me. She was a good woman. And I turned her into a cheating whore. I made her what she was. Why would I do that? I never have been able to figure that out'."

"He was in Raiford until 2003. He upset somebody and they stuck a ice pick in his ear. 

But I still remember what he said and the expression on his face when he said it.

"I've read enough psychology books to know that there's a name for this – a self fulfilling prophesy. It's where you create the situation you fear. I've read that it's an expression of the death wish, the negative side of the life force. I don't know if I believe any of that crap. But I do know that since I joined this office I've been retreating from my wife and family. There were too many nights when I wasn't home. Too many days I skipped holidays and school functions. 

"I'm not blind. I saw Debbie working hard to keep herself hot. And I couldn't make myself go to a gym to try to sweat off a few pounds. I saw myself getting fatter and flabby. And I'm not stupid either. I saw the look in her eyes which turned into her not liking to look at me and then not wanting me to paw her in bed unless it was a night set aside for sex and her insisting that we shower and I brush my teeth. 

"Not that there's anything wrong with that, but when you're 20 you don't think about shit like that. And the net effect was that any hint of spontaneity, or our just fucking for the hell of it when we felt like it, went away. It became...programmed...is the best way I can describe it."

I stared at the Rorschach patterns on the table in front of me and wondered why all I saw were shifting patterns of light and dark.

"She thought she was hiding her nights out with her friends from me. I...learned...that she had started going out dancing with women and men friends, her current lover among them. I...learned later...she told someone she wasn't cheating on me, that she just plain didn't like being around me anymore. She was making a shadow life for herself, one that didn't include me."

I don't know why, but I couldn't even tell Teller in the sanctity of a psychiatrists' office about the emails. God, I wished I had never found them. Even if she had caught me off guard with the divorce, even if it cost me alimony, I wish that I didn't know what I knew about her and Doug.

"I didn't try to discover it. It's just that she never went to a lot of trouble to hide it. Things were said, people reported things and I knew. I didn't know she'd given up on us, but I knew she had a social life that didn't include me. Anybody else, any other husband, would have done something..,,would have known instinctively that even if it was innocent, it couldn't be innocent. When your wife just doesn't want to be around you, that's a wakeup call.

"But I let it go. I never had it out with her. I never tried to join that life. I had never liked the social life, dancing and partying the way she had. But more, there would always be late night crises, people needing me, and it was easier just to pretend it wasn't happening. Because, what if I confronted her and she told me that I either had to join her life, or I had to get out of it altogether? I couldn't make that choice."

I stared into Teller's dark eyes.

"Did I destroy my marriage, Doc? Did I create the situation that drove my wife into another man's arms? It would be bad enough if my wife had fallen out of love with me just because...and I had to live without her. But I don't know if I can wake up every morning knowing that it wasn't her...it was me. How can I live with that? Because I loved her...love her."

"Talk to me, doc. Dammit. Talk."

He puffed on the pipe a couple more times and tamped it down a little the way pipe smokers do. Damned if I ever could figure out why. I think pipe smoking is a ritual more than a habit. But anyway, he finally took another puff, breathed it deeply and let it out. I think he was purposefully torturing me.

"Mr. Maitland, did you ever hear the old psychiatrist's joke about the cigar?"

I shook my head.

"After Freud became world famous and transformed the practice of psychiatry, many younger practitioners took his word as gospel. I'm sure you're aware of the view that everything has deeper meanings in the unconscious. One of the most famous examples is the phallic symbol. Anything long, straight and hard can be a subconscious representation of the penis – a sword, a knife, a cigar...you fill in the blank and thus there are sexual connotations to all types of apparently innocent objects.

"Well, it seems in his old age that a colleague brought a case study to the old man and started going on about the symbolic meanings of objects in his patient's life. And Freud looked at him and said, 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

"The meaning of the joke, of course, is that since Freud popularized the idea of the unconscious, everyone – and particularly laymen – tend to overanalyze everything. There can be, often are, deeper layers of meaning to things around us, to what we do and what we say. On the other hand, sometimes things are simply what they are. Thus, a cigar can be just a cigar."

He stopped and rubbed his chin.

"You realize, Mr. Maitland, that you are not my patient. Right?"

"Yes."

"When I see a patient, I generally spend months, sometimes years, working with them to understand and resolve the problems they have come to me seeking help to address. This can involve psychoanalysis, hypnosis, drugs, sometimes behavioral therapy. There are a number of different approaches. The one thing common to all of this is that there are no quick fixes. You don't discover the depths of your soul and transform who and what you are in a few sessions.

He focused his gaze on me so firmly that I had to stare back at him.

"We've spent a half hour, tops, talking about your life. We've talked about some of the deepest fears and concerns in your life. I think we have probably talked about things that you've never unburdened yourself to with another human being. It may be the first time you've ever put some of these thoughts and fears into words yourself.

"I don't know that God himself could in that short a time see into a man's soul and answer a question like that, a question that is intertwined with your history, your deepest beliefs and hopes and fears. And I'm not God. That may come as a shock to you, but I'm not."

He allowed a faint trace of a smile to flicker on his lips for a second. Then it vanished. 

"That's the long way around telling that I can't answer your question. I would need at the very least months to answer that kind of question. And even then, I wouldn't be able to answer the question. At best I might help you find your way to an answer that you can live with. I can tell you this, however.

"The phenomenon that you discuss is real. So real that it has become a popular cliché: the person who creates the fear that haunts them. And I am sure there are cases, like the Navy officer you mentioned, where it does play out exactly like that. But there is no way I could even guess if that scenario occurred in your life. Because, you see, there are other alternate options to consider.

"You might have concentrated your attention and time and passion on your work as a means of escaping your marriage, as a means of driving your wife away. It is entirely possible. 

"On the other hand, it's equally possible that as you became more and more involved in your duties, you became more aware of the impact they had on others' lives and perhaps – for whatever reason, you became less and less able to look at what you did as a 9-5 job.

"If you were a surgeon and people's lives directly depended on your time and energy and passion, the wife and family left behind is a cliché. And most people, even if they didn't agree, would understand that level of obsession. Doctors' wives know, or should know, what they're signing up for. It is quite possible that you changed from the man your wife fell in love with, the man she married. And it is quite possible that she did not sign up for the marriage that resulted.

"In that sense, it might be that you indeed precipitated the changes that resulted in your wife's growing away from you, in finding another lover. 

"But what you have to ask yourself is whether that was entirely a bad thing. If you had known the ultimate result, would you or should you have done anything differently?'

I looked at him as if he had lost his mind and for a moment I wondered if I could have heard him correctly. Would I have done things differently if I'd known they would have cost me my wife and marriage?

He read my expression.

"I know that may sound strange, but let me explain myself, please." 

He took another puff, then said, "You probably don't know this, but I'm Catholic, Mr. Maitland. Or at least I was raised Catholic. I've gotten away from the church, but I am still a religious man. There are things I've seen, things I've done, that have convinced me there is a higher power. And one thing I firmly believe is that most people, even religious people, have our relationship with God, or a higher power, completely turned around.

"You see, we ask ourselves why God allows bad things to happen to us, why he doesn't give us our wishes, why he would let your marriage rot away from inside and leave you alone in middle age?

"But there are many people who would say it's not important what God does for us, but what we do for him. In the scheme of things, none of us matter at all. We are here but a moment and we're gone. What we should be thinking bout is what we do for him, for our fellow man, for the greater good of the most people.

"If we look at it that way, you have spent ten years serving the greater good. You have attempted to secure justice for the victims of terrible crimes and given solace to families of the lost. You have extended mercy to those who deserve it and protected society by putting away the predators who would prey on others."

"In the process of doing that, you've become estranged from your wife and children, possibly lost your marriage and your family. That's a personal tragedy. But how many families are intact because you kept dangerous men and women who would have shattered those families incarcerated? How many shattered families have been able to mend because you gave them the closure they needed, the ability to bury their dead and move on.

"I know you don't want to hear this now, but there have been many men and many women who sacrificed their chances to have love in their lives, women and children to cherish, because they answered a call to duty. Everyone doesn't do that, most people can't, but the ones who can and do are special. I think you're one of those people, Mr. Maitland. 




When We Were Married Ch. 03B



"I hope you're able to re-establish your marriage, your relationship with your wife and children. I know for you personally, that is the best thing. But there are bigger, and more important things, than any one person's individual happiness."

He stopped, took a puff on his shrink pipe and tamped it down the way pipe smokers do. The aroma was nice. I wonder if he ever worried about cancer of the throat or lips.

"I know that's not what you expected to hear from me, Mr. Maitland, but since this isn't an official visit and you're not an official patient, I can be candid with my thoughts."

I hunched forward on the couch and stared at the floor.

"Do you know anything about my background, doc?"

He rubbed his chin. That's something else I think they teach them in shrink school.

"No, I'm certain we have never discussed that."

"I grew up in West Virginia. My dad was a coal miner. Big man. Strong. He went down into the mines every day. Came back black at the end of the day. Worked six days a week. We still did things. On Sundays. Went to church, to a lake where we swam. 

"He had just bought me a rifle. Cheap .22, but he had promised me he was going to teach me how to use it. And then one day we'd go hunting. There were still deer around, wild turkeys. He'd even bring home rabbits sometimes and my mom would cook them after he'd skin and prepare them.

"And then one day, I'll never forget it, he'd just come home. It was about 7 p.m. It was winter and cold as hell and dark by that time. He had cleaned off, as much as he could. His skin was always grimy, no matter how much he washed. Some men came to the door. My dad talked to them and then he talked to my mother. She started crying and he hugged her.

"He put on his heavy coat and started to leave with the men. Then he turned around and came down and sat down beside me on the couch in front of our television. I was eight years old.

"There's been an explosion and cave-in at the mine, Billy," he said. "You're old enough to understand what that means."

"I just nodded my head because I had heard other kids in school talk about disasters, about fathers and uncles and brothers that went down and never came back up.

"There are 15 men trapped down there. I am going to try to get them out."

"Don't go, daddy. Don't go."

"He grabbed me and hugged me and said, 'There are little boys and girls, some of them you know, whose daddies are down there. If it was me, you'd want someone to go down and get me out, wouldn't you'?

"When I didn't answer, he rubbed my hair with one big hand and then kissed me on top of my head.

" 'I have to go, Billy. I know you don't understand now, but someday you will. Sometimes you have to do things, hard things, just because they're the right thing to do'."

"He got up from the couch and told me, 'I love you, Billy. Take care of your momma until I get back'." He hugged Momma for what seemed like a long time and then he walked out the door with those men. It was the last time I ever saw him. 

"They almost got down to the trapped men and then there was another cave-in. All told, 28 men died in the mine that day. They couldn't even get the bodies out. There were two subsequent cave-ins and the company finally closed the shaft because it was way too dangerous and expensive to keep it open. We had a service, but there was no body to bury.

"The next year Momma moved to Jacksonville. She said it was for a job, but I always thought she just couldn't stand living around the mines anymore."

I looked up at Teller. I was crying, but I didn't care. It was as if I was back in our living room for just those few moments. And I could still feel my father's arms around me.

"So you tell me, doc. Why do some people have to do the right thing, no matter what it costs them? It cost my dad his life. It cost me my marriage, my kids, the only woman I've ever loved. It's cost me my life too, in a way."

Teller leaned back and let out a plume of aromatic smoke.

"Mr. Maitland, I wish I had the answer to questions like that, but as the saying goes, that is above my pay grade."

#########################  

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 – 2 p.m.

"Hello, Debbie."

"Hi mom. Why are you calling me at the house at this time?"

"I called the school but they told me you'd taken a half day off. Is something wrong? Are the kids okay?"

"Yes, they're fine. Of course, Bill Jr. is skipping summer school enrichment classes. I caught him, but I'm letting him slide this time."

"Well, why are you home at this time of day?"

"I – uh...."

"You took the day off, left your classes, to be with that man."

"He has a name, Mom. It's Doug. And yes, although it's none of your business, I did take time off to see him."

"Is he there now?"

She sniffled and said, "No, mom. He is not here. If it makes you happy, he's not going to be here today."

"You're crying. What did he do?"

"Jesus, Mom, he didn't do anything. And how did you know I was crying. Mystic Mama Knows 

All, Sees All?"

"I've known you for nearly 40 years, baby. I know when you're upset. I can hear it in your voice. Is it ...Doug. Or is it Bill? Have you heard the terrible things they're saying about him. And that article in the TU? Trash journalism."

"Mom....it's just a lot of things. I must be getting ready to start my period. You know how crazy I get sometimes."

"Are you happy now?"

"What?"

"You threw your husband of nearly 20 years out. You're ending your marriage. You've turned your back on a man that risked his life for you, would have walked through fire for you. For a young good looking guy just like a thousand others that have chased you over the years. Was it worth it, Debbie?"

"Oh, shit. Mom are you my mother or his? Do you ever take my side? Have you taken my side in one thing since all this started? You're supposed to be behind me. It's hard enough...the kids...people at work looking at me...but you're my MOTHER. You're the last person that's supposed to be criticizing me now.

And still...why the hell don't you adopt him?"

"I'm always going to be on your side, Baby. I am now. I just don't think what you're doing is right – for you, for the kids and definitely not for Bill. He is such a good man.."

"Yeah, and so is the Pope. I don't want to be married to the Pope either. Saints aren't easy to live with Mom, in case you didn't know. You don't live in this house, you don't go to bed – or not go to bed – with him so you don't know what you're talking about. 

"As far as being a good person, what am I? Chopped liver? I've been a good mother and a good wife. I took care of my kids and my husband for nearly 20 years. I kept them happy. But what about me, mom? Don't I deserve to be happy? With a man who wants me, a man who makes me feel good about myself. A man – I know this will shock you – but a man who's good in bed with me. Makes me remember that I am a woman.

" I know you've had a good marriage with Daddy and I've heard enough over the years to know that's never been a problem with you two. But it's been a damned big problem in my marriage."

"You should have talked to Bill more."

"Yeah, I should have held him down and forced him to listen to me. I should have made him pay attention to the way people looked at the two of us when we went somewhere together. I should have rubbed his nose in the way guys were always rubbing themselves all over me so he'd know he had a hot wife.  

"You...everyone else...you keep saying I should have done this and I should have done that...well what about Bill. What about that sorry bastard, that miserable excuse for a human being, a guy I never should have married. That miserable, fat bald piece of shit. If I had known 20 years ago what I know now..."

There was a long silence and she forced herself to calm down. Where had that come from? For a minute there she'd hated Bill. Visceral hatred. And that was something she had never felt before.

"There's something wrong with you, Debbie. Where did that anger come from? You dumped him. He should be the one that's angry. It almost sounded like....Clarice."

"I had a dream about her. I do sometimes. "

"I know, baby. I think about her sometimes too. But you were always closer to her than anyone else. It's natural you remember her. But...those words...it almost sounded like Clarice talking about Frank."

"I don't know Mom. There are times when I get so angry at Bill. I know I have good reason, but..."

"Debbie, Bill is not Frank. Don't ever forget that. I know Clarice spouted a lot of poison about men. I heard some of it. And I know you got most of it, but Clarice made a lot of her own problems. Frank isn't the only guy that ever dumped his wife for a younger woman. But most women make a new life for themselves. Clarice just couldn't let go. She was a sick, troubled woman.

"I know she did her best to infect you with her twisted hatred of men. She almost took your father down into the grave with her when she killed herself. I never told you or your sister, but when I heard what had happened I drove to the store and I found him leaving. I grabbed hold of the door to his car and told him he could drag me, or let me in. He had the .38 he kept in his office for security on the seat beside him.

"He didn't say a word, but I knew he was going to kill Frank. I could see it in his eyes. Clarice was your father's baby sister. He helped raise her. He was the one that insisted that we name your sister after her. It nearly killed him when he heard she was gone.

" But I told him that she was gone. He had lost her. If he went and shot Frank, he'd lose me and both you girls. Frank was a jerk, a piece of shit, but he didn't do anything a lot of other men have done. Clarice didn't have to throw her life away for him. We all tried to help her, but some people you can't help."

"I know, but sometimes I remember her the way she was...before..."

"I do too, baby. You forget, I knew her a lot longer than you did. But, when I heard you just then, I felt a chill. I could have been listening to Clarice. Are you sure that-"

"No, Mom. I know that Bill isn't Frank. He wasn't running around on me. I had my problems with him, but not that. I don't know why I got so pissed at him just then, but I don't need a psychiatrist. We're just going through a hard time right now. I'm doing something that scares me and Doug is just a friend, no matter what you or anybody else thinks. And I'd like to talk to Bill. He's been the one person I could always talk to for nearly 20 years. But he insults me and hangs up on me when I try to talk to him."

"Do you blame him?"

"...No...I guess not. But we're going to have to talk someday. We're going to be good divorced parents. I know we will. I just wish I could talk to him now. So many things have happened...I said and did things that I...shouldn't have...but I'd like to make him understand why"

"Well, it's a shame you two aren't talking. I have a feeling that today is one of those days he could really use a friend."

"I know mom. Maybe...look, let me go. I'll talk to you later. I love you.

She dialed Cheryl. 

"How is he, Cheryl?"

"As bad as I've ever seen him. He looked himself in his office and wasn't taking any calls – from anybody. About noon he went out, wouldn't tell anyone where he was going, and came back an hour or two ago. I've never seen him like this."

"Thanks, Cheryl."

#####################    

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 – 3 p.m.

The knocking started and I ignored it. Only a couple of people had dared to knock so far. I wondered who was trying their luck this time until I heard a familiar voice. 

"Bill, open up. Come on. If I have to, I'll bring somebody in to take the door off."

He would probably do it, too. Oh well, time to face the music. I got up, unlocked the door and went back to my desk. I leaned back and waited.

"Why didn't you just go home? You'd have gotten away from this place and not caused such a stir. I've had to seal this place up like a mutant virus got loose to avoid news stories about 'top State Attorney Having Break-Down.' And that's not just for your benefit. I'd hate to have you prosecuting cases and have every single defense attorney trying to have you tossed off the case because of your mental problems."

"Mental problems?"

"For you, these are mental problems. The Iceman doesn't lock himself in his office and close off the world."

"I'm just having a bad day, Boss. Everybody's entitled to one of those every decade or so. And as to why I didn't go home. You forget. I don't have one of those anymore. This is as close as anything comes."

He leaned back against the doorway. Sometimes I forget just how big he is. He nearly filled the doorway. He'd been lean and mean in his basketball days. Today, nearly 40 years later, he was just big.

"I wanted to talk to you about that. I called Teller earlier. I heard you went to see him on your own. Did it have anything to do with this?"

Shit. I had trusted Teller.

After that many years he could read my mind.

"He didn't say anything. But you forget, there are eyes everywhere."

"No. It was personal. Mostly."

"I want you to come upstairs before you leave. Myra will have some paperwork and documents for you. She'll explain everything."

"About what?"

"You'll be shipping out of here Friday morning. On the 'Bonne Chance.' It's a cruise ship that's primarily staffed by the French and it has a fair number of French guests, but like all of them, they have everybody from around the world on it. Holds about 1800 guests. So it's fairly small, but it's top of the line, very expensive. They docked here yesterday and will sail out Friday. They only get by here every few years."

"A cruise? Friday? Look, you must really think I'm cracking up to be spending that kind of money on me, but-"

"No buts. The booking has been made. I'm spending a hell of a lot of money on you for one week. I'm hiding the expenses so I can explain to state auditors that I'm not lavishing luxury on an import staff member who's going through a bad divorce to keep him from cracking up. But that's the deal. Just go and enjoy."

I shook my head. The whole idea was crazier than Edwards thought I was. I hadn't been on a cruise in nearly ten years. There never seemed to be the time and there was always a case.

"No, Boss. Thank you. But the whole idea's crazy. Trials don't stop just because I'm having problems. And what kind of damned cruise would I have by myself – worried about the job and not being able to get – get my personal life off my mind."

"It wasn't a request and it wasn't optional. I've booked the cruise, you are going, and that's it."

I looked at him in disbelief.

"You know I like you, but I'm not going on any damned cruise just because you get it in your head that I need one."

He just looked at me and a little of the nice guy persona of the career politician slipped and there was a hard glint in his eyes.

"Bill, you are as good a man and as good a prosecutor as I've ever known. And I've been doing this for a long time. You're a critical cog in the working of this office. You're tough minded and you're dedicated. But you're not made out of iron. I don't know what, but something about the Bingham case got to you. It got through that armor of yours. It was probably a Perfect Storm of your personal life and the Bingham case.

"Regardless, it's damaged you, thrown you off. I'm not sure you're going to be able to get back. You won't seek professional help. I know you were only with Teller for a few minutes and that's not long enough to do anything. So I'm just trying to get you away from all the crap in your life for a little while. Give yourself a little space."

"I appreciate this, Boss, I really do, but just going away for a week-"

"It's not a request. It's an order. Much as I appreciate you, if you're not on that ship when it sails on Friday don't bother coming back to work Monday. I'm going to miss the hell out of you, but you're a disaster waiting to happen if you don't get your head back on straight. Not only will I fire you, but I'll do my best to make sure you don't land a job like this anywhere else. I've been in this life a long time and I know people all over. "

"You'd do that to me. After five years?"

"Trust me. When you get ready to board the ship I'm going to have an Assistant waiting and they're going to check your luggage to make sure you're not carrying any documents relating to any cases with you. You'll have email and Internet capability on the ship and you can take your laptop with you, but you'll be barred from any access to or communication with anybody in this office.

"I don't want you doing anything related to this office. I don't want you thinking about cases. I don't want you talking to anybody about cases. If we have a crisis come up, we'll just have to handle it without you."

"You're really serious about this?"

"Yes. Bill, I don't care what you do on this cruise. Eat some good French food. Drink some good booze and get drunk. Walk the decks and look at the stars. Pick up a lady or two and get laid. Think about things and get things sorted out. Just forget about this office."

He turned to leave.

"You know, Dallas, I do appreciate this. I know you mean well. But it's not going to do any good. The problems I've got – a week at sea isn't going to solve them."

He looked back at me and smiled.

"Who knows? It won't hurt to cut loose for once. You've been so dedicated to this office, to other people's problems, for so long, you've turned into an old man. I think in your head, you're 70. Just...have some fun. And let yourself be surprised."



When We Were Married Ch. 03C



BONNE CHANCE

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 – 4 p.m.

My name is William Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Until three months ago I had a job I loved and a wife I loved who I thought loved me. Now, the marriage is on track to end up in the trash that 50 percent of American marriages eventually inhabit and I am desperately trying to keep at least my professional life on track. I hit a bump yesterday when I to all intents and purposes drove an old man who had killed his wife to suicide. 

For a lot of reasons it hit me hard. I had a breakdown, of sorts. Call it a mini-breakdown. It was a one-day meltdown. But that's all the time life would allow me so I had to enjoy what I could get. But now, before my day for my breakdown was officially over, I was back on the job. 

I was reviewing cases coming up over the next few weeks. The Big Man had left me the rest of the day and Wednesday to wrap up preparation. Thursday I was supposed to come in for a few hours and then make myself scarce for the rest of the day getting ready for an involuntary sea cruise.

I had been thinking about dropping the whole prosecution thing that had been my life for 10 years, but when it was suddenly yanked away from me, I found that I didn't want to let go that abruptly.

I know, I know, I was one of nearly 20 attorneys in the office and some of them had a lot more experience than I did, but the habits of the last five years didn't die easy. I still felt responsible for handling those cases right. 

There were too many people whose lives would be affected if I screwed up, or the attorneys handling the cases screwed up. I couldn't be here for the next week or so, I but I could leave things in good order.

I sensed, rather than heard the door to my office swing open. Ever since my boss had threatened to have it taken off the hinges, I'd left it unlocked. But there were only a handful of people who would enter without knocking. I looked up and I think my heart literally skipped a beat.

We had a staring contest for a few seconds.

"You should have called."

"You would just have refused to take my call or taken it for the pleasure of hanging up on me."

"If you know that, then why are you here?"

"We've been together for nearly 20 years. I know what happened hurt you. Cheryl told me you've barricaded yourself in this office. And that's not you."

"So what are you going to do, kiss it and make it well?"

She looked at my desk instead of me and almost blushed. There was a day when she'd know exactly what to kiss to raise me out of whatever dumps I was in. But those days were history.

"I thought...you might want to talk. There was a time-"

"That time is past, Debbie. What makes you think you can just walk in here and play the dutiful wife like nothing's happened these last months. You destroy my life and then you just prance in here and want to make nice. We talked when there was an 'US'. There is no 'US' anymore."

I took in her face and figure. She was wearing a nice green blouse and matching skirt that showed a fair amount of leg. As always those fantastic tits thrust themselves out against any garments that tried to restrain them. 

I had thought I was getting over her. But I was stupid. The only way I'd ever get over her was just to get as far away from her as I could, and stay away.

"Take a look around the office, Debbie. Tell me what you see, and what you don't see."

She glanced at my desk, the bookshelf behind me, the coffee table, and the walls in washed oak. There were letters of commendation and pictures of myself taken with President Bush when he had passed through and Bill Clinton, another one with Hillary. On my desk I kept four 12-inch high photos of Bill Jr. and Kelly, matching sets taken when they were two years old respectively and a year or so ago. 

I had a picture I'd had blown up from one of the few I'd found of my mother and father that must have been taken when I was about four. He was a big, dark-haired, Black Irish type and Mom was a peaches and cream Brit whose parents wound up in the same small town where my dad's family had lived for decades.

It took her a moment. Then it sank in.

"What's happened...Bill, it doesn't change what we had."

"Of course it does. The picture of you and me is gone. I meant to save it but somehow it got smashed and wound up going out with the trash."

I read her eyes with professional skill and I like to think that hurt.

"If you go into my condo, you won't find any pictures of you and me. Or you. And if you bothered to check our photo albums, I didn't take anything. You check my wallet and I have snapshots of the kids. You're not there anymore."

She blinked and I hope she was preparing to tear up.

"Getting rid of my picture doesn't destroy the memories of our life. It was real. It happened."

"You remember that Clint Eastwood movie we saw, about the retired gunfighter that takes the job of killing those cowboys. The one with Morgan Freeman? There's a great line in there where he says that when you kill a man, you steal everything he has, and everything he ever will have. 

"Well, you pissed all over everything we ever had together. You ruined it. 

"I didn't take any pictures with me because I can't remember those days without seeing those fucking emails...without seeing you kissing him...without seeing you in my head sucking on his big dick and probably squealing while he's shoving it up inside you. 

"I can't remember any of the good times we ever had, because those pictures keep getting in the way. You stole my whole life, you ruined the last 20 years of my life. You did a real job on me."

She shook her head. 

"Those miserable emails."

She looked at me and said, "Why did you have to save them and why did you have to read them? If you hadn't seen them you wouldn't have come to UNF and in a few days I'd have told you our marriage just wasn't working. You wouldn't known about Doug and you wouldn't be hurt like this. You could have gone on with your life and we would have had our past. You wouldn't hate me."

"I don't hate you, Debbie. I can't stand looking at you. I can't stand remembering our life. But I don't hate you. I wish I did. The problem is I still love you. Maybe I always will. 

"But maybe I won't. I know it doesn't hurt as bad anymore. And it's only been three months. I think in time I'll get to the point that I won't feel anything for you at all."

Why the hell she looked hurt I couldn't understand. She was the one who had dumped me.

"Now you begin the life you should have had all along, Deb. Before you made the mistake of letting hero worship blind you. If it wasn't for BJ and Kelly, I would rather have never met you and you would have had the life you wanted. Money and power and big dicks and not being saddled with a short fat loser."

She looked at me as if I were speaking in a foreign language. 

"If it makes you feel any better, helps with the guilt, I've been waiting for this for 20 years, I wasn't surprised by Doug. I'm even relieved in a way. Now you won't have to go on pretending you ever loved me."

She moved faster than I'd ever seen her move. Obviously, those trips to the gym had kept her limber. Unfortunately, my trips to Carlos' gym had speeded up my reflexes. I caught her hand on the way to delivering a slap that probably would have rattled my teeth.

"Don't do that Debbie. You don't know how close I've come to hurting you, hurting you physically. Don't' give me an excuse."

Her eyes literally flared and those damned titties rose up and down like bellows.

"Our marriage is shot. You killed it and I buried it. But don't you tell me that I never loved you. Don't tell me those first few years were a lie. Because I know damn well what I felt back then. I did love you. 

"I know you weren't a stud. I could have married dozens of well hung, gorgeous guys , but I loved you. You were kind and loving and you care for me more than anyone else ever had and I felt safe with you.

"Love isn't all about sex. It's part of it, but I never had any complaints about the way you made love to me. You satisfied me. Until you decided you loved this damned job more than you loved me."

I remembered what Teller had said. I could try to explain why I had done what I'd done, but at rock bottom, wasn't she right? And she hadn't signed up for a marriage in which she was doomed to play second fiddle until the day I decided to move on to a less demanding job. I could try to explain why I had let my marriage go. 

I could tell her it was like the frog that's dropped into a cooking pot full of lukewarm water, which is gradually heated. The frog is boiled before he ever realizes the danger he's in.

There was never a moment I could remember when I had consciously decided that my job was more important than my wife. There was never a moment when I knowingly decided if I had to choose between my job and her, that my job came first. But knowingly or not, that was the way I had lived for too long. 

I had walked out onto a long limb trying to balance the demands of the job against the demands of my marriage. And finally the limb had given way.

And no matter what her feelings for me had been once, now she was fucking another man and if I knew her, enjoying every minute of the fucking. She had sent those goddamned emails and I could never scrub them out of my brain.

What I'd said was truer than I knew. I loved her but I couldn't stand looking at her at the same time. It wasn't quite as bad now as it had been three months ago. If I could just stay the hell away from her long enough, I might stop being so crazy. 

I'd been holding her wrist in my hand. I let her go and backed away. 

"Consider me consoled, Debbie. You've done your almost-over-with marital duty and ran to my side. Thank you. Now you need to leave."

"Bill..."

"There are no words, Debbie.. You can't ever make it better. Let it go. I'm okay now.

"So you won't worry, and Cheryl doesn't need to tattle to you, I'll tell you that I'm leaving town Friday. Edwards ordered me to take a week's vacation, a cruise. I'm not going to jump overboard or do anything stupid. I'm probably just going to watch the stars and get drunk a lot.

"Tell Kelly and BJ that I probably won't call them from sea, but I'll call them when I get back into town."

She just looked at me for a long time and I wondered what was going on behind those eyes. 

"You lose weight, you start looking really good, and you go on vacation. After our marriage goes to hell. Why did you have to wait until now?"

There really wasn't an answer and she turned and left without another word.

######################### 

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 – 4:30 p.m.



I came out of the elevator and approached Myra's desk in front of the big oak doors that led to the Big Man's domain. I often wondered if she had been fucked on every single piece of furniture in that big office. It was hard to believe he hadn't had her everywhere humanly possible. 

They might get together outside the office, but Edward's wife of nearly 40 years was reputed to be jealous as hell and she HAD been an alternate on the U.S. Olympic shooting team back in 1976. 

Rumor had it she still went to the gun range to show young and not-so-young cops how good she still was. Everyone always wondered how the Big Man had survived this long bracketed by the world's hottest and biggest tittied secretary on one side and one of the world's most jealous and most accurate shooting wives on the other. 

The guess was that he must have at least 12 inches to keep the wife happy with the state of affairs, and he was also VERY, VERY careful not to play with Myra anywhere his wife might catch them. 

No one would probably ever know, until the day the cops got called to check out his bullet riddled corpse, but it made for some interesting office speculation.

Myra snapped her fingers and I came back to reality from my daydreaming.

"Earth to Bill. Where were you?"

I looked into her eyes, a dazzling shade of green that looked like emeralds gleaming, then down at the vast expanse of chest that looked like nothing so much as twin volleyballs somehow crammed into a blouse that had buttons quivering dangerously from the pressure being exerted on them, back up to those emeralds again.

"Sorry, my mind wandered. Doing that a lot lately. You have something for me?"

"Exactly how do you mean that?"

I could not prevent my traitor eyes from dropping to those quivering buttons on the front of her blouse but with superhuman discipline raised my gaze back to her eyes and avoided either blushing or smiling. I think I managed to avoid drooling, mostly.

"I believe you have some tickets and other documents for me."

"Oh. Yes."

She twisted to pick up an manila envelope on her desk and my body reacted before I even realized what I was doing. Carlos' training showed me again why three pro boxers had come out of his gyms or training schools. I grabbed the flying missile before I even consciously saw it. She looked up at me and I opened my palm to show the round object.

She opened her mouth in surprise as she recognized the button. She looked down to see top button of her blouse missing. The blouse gaped open, revealing cleavage that went on forever.

"Damned cheap material. This keeps happening."

I couldn't' resist.

"It did its best, Myra. Some things aren't meant to be contained."

"Aren't you sweet," she said with a sly smile. "For a married man. Anyway, I never thought you noticed them."

"Is there any male anywhere that's not noticed them?"

"You've done a pretty good imitation for five years. I really thought you were so hung up on that wife of yours that you never noticed."

"I noticed. But...it's like the moon. There's no point in even thinking about going there. And they're...you're...further away than the moon."

I had my hand on her desk and she placed one slim hand palm down on mine. It had to be my imagination, but her touch burnt.

"You've been out of touch. You know that men have conquered the moon, don't you?"

There was absolutely no response I could make to that. My mind was as barren as the Sahara desert.

"Is...that envelope for me?"

She took her hand off mine and handed me the manila envelop with her other hand.

"There are tickets, confirmation papers, some brochures of what to expect on the Bonne Chance. Everything you need to take with you, except a few changes of clothing. I hope you have a good time."

I took the manila envelope and thought about the last time I'd gone on a cruise, ten years before to Hawaii, just before taking this job with the State Attorney's Office.

"I don't know. It's going to be...different."

"Because you'll be going alone." 

The smiled faded.

"I haven't said anything because...we don't see each other and it's not my place...but your wife is an idiot. I know you don't want to hear that now, but you're going to be fine. You were always a good guy, but now..."

"Now?"

"You're getting hot."

I probably did blush at that.

"I'm bald, pudgy and middle aged. Unless they've changed the definition of hot..."

"Bald looks good on you, you haven't looked in a mirror lately if you think you're pudgy, and middle aged...You look dangerous is what you look....you've got that bad boy thing going."

"Are you hitting on me?"

"No," and she laid that burning palm on the back of my hand again. "I don't mess with married men. Except for...But when your divorce is final....Anyway, about the cruise. You know the name of the ship translates roughly to 'Good Luck', right? Well, you just might get lucky. Stranger things have happened."

"That would be pretty strange, alright. Thanks for the compliments, though, Myra, even if you're lying through your teeth. See you in a week and a half or so."

I waited for the elevator. Before the doors opened, she said, "Oh, by the way, Bill, Mr. Edwards doesn't want you thinking about cases or the business this office does. That doesn't mean you can't think about the people here. Or anybody in particular."

She had a way of saying things that shut me up. I stepped into the elevator without looking back. I could still see that enormous expanse of cleavage in my mind's eye.

############################ 

Friday, July 15, 2005 – 5 p.m.

I rested my elbows on the railing and looked down to the docking area where people the size of ants, or large bugs, thronged waving and shouting up to the passengers who stood beside and around me at the rail. The ship's horn blasted again and there was only a gentle swaying motion as it began to slide slowly through the water away from the Blount Island berth that the Bonne Chance had occupied for four days.

Even the summer heat of a Jacksonville July gave way to ocean breezes gusting and tossing hats and papers around. There was the smell of mud flats and rain in the air and dark clouds massed above the horizon. 

It was going to rain, probably storm tonight because the weatherman had said the weather system getting ready to inundate Jacksonville was more than the typical summer thunderstorms that hit on a regular basis after 95-plus searing days.

There were couples and groups of women without men, but few groups of men without women, and mothers with infants and more than a few knots of teenagers or younger kids wandering or prowling the crowd looking for teens of the opposite sex or, with pre-teens, of the same sex, to hook up with.

Whoever coined the phrase, lonely in a crowd, knew what he or she was talking about. I looked around at the families, at the couples holding or hugging or kissing, the knots of single women who were eyeing the males in the crowd. What the hell was I doing here?

"I always love this part of the trip. Leaving is...I don't know, it's exciting. I've done this three times in my life and I never get used to it."

I looked over at the man and woman standing beside me at the railing. He was about six foot, dark brown hair, open, smiling face. I pegged him for a businessman of some type. The woman standing beside him was about four or five inches shorter but she was wearing sensible heels. Slender with long blonde hair, apple cheeks. A Barbie brought to life. 

From the way she was holding onto him, I figured they were on their honeymoon, or second honeymoon because he was no kid.

I looked toward the clouds.

"Looks like it might rain. If it does, it'll be bumpy tonight. You need to hold your bride tight when you're getting around. It's easy to slip and fall."

He grinned.

"We're that easy to spot? I guess so. It is our honeymoon. I just made an honest woman out of this young lady."

He reached over to shake my hand.

"You look familiar. Have I seen you before?"

"No. I just have one of those faces."

"I hope we'll run into each other again. My name is Dan Jenkins. I have an insurance agency in Jax, and this is Caroline. My blushing bride. By the way, how are you set for homeowner's insurance?"

He saw the look on my face and laughed.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist. Everybody gets that look on their face when I tell them I'm in insurance. But I'm off the clock for the next week. Going to be too busy to sell anything."

As he said he grinned and then bent down to kiss his new bride. We must have been about the same age, but I felt immeasurably older than him. 

"I'm Bill Maitland. Glad to meet you and your wife. Well, good luck," I said, moving away as if I had somewhere I had to be. I just didn't want to be around happy honeymooners right now. Happy anybody, actually.

I wandered down the railing, moving in and out of the couples and families and groups of women, trying to make myself as invisible as possible. Most people had loved ones or friends waving to them. There was no one down there for me. My choice. 




When We Were Married Ch. 03C



Kelly had actually called and asked if I wanted her and her brother at the pier to see me off. I don't know if she did it on her own or her mother put her up to it, but I thanked her and said it would be a long boring process waiting for the ship to leave. I knew she, they both, had things they'd rather be doing with their friends on a Friday afternoon.

I didn't ask about her mother, because I knew what she was going to be up to with that prick Doug. Just thinking about it was enough to sour any good feelings I might have had.

I don't know if I believe in ESP, but sometimes you can tell when someone is watching you. I had that prickling feeling in the back of my neck and I spun around, scanning the deck behind me. There were people all over, passengers and crew scurrying around or moving purposely for whatever reason, but I didn't spot anyone looking at me.

The feeling didn't go away but damned if I could figure where it was coming from. Something made me look up. There were staff members in blue and gold, somehow Gallic in look, standing at the next deck railing, looking down at the passengers, talking animatedly and probably discussing among themselves how to insult any passengers rude enough not to be able to speak French perfectly.

A pair of eyes caught my gaze. She had been looking straight at me, not talking with her fellow cruise staff. I made out black hair, a slender figure in blue and gold. It was hard to tell from this distance, but she appeared pretty. I looked around quickly. If our eyes had just accidentally met I didn't want to be staring at her. When I looked back she'd be looking elsewhere.

Except she wasn't. She was still staring at me. It's hard to tell if someone is smiling from that distance, but she didn't appear to be. I began to wonder if a seagull had crapped on my head or something equally bizarre had happened to fascinate her so totally.

It's one of those things that happens sometime when someone is staring at you believing you're not aware, and they suddenly realize you're looking back at them. It was if something had clicked and we were both aware of what the other was doing.

I can't explain what happened next. I never would be able to, because it defies rational explanation. But the hairs on the back of my neck started rising. 

The only thing I could compare it to is when I was a kid, nine or ten years old in Jacksonville, I'd ridden a bike to a friend's house on the Westside. As I got off the bike, I suddenly saw the biggest damned dog I'd ever seen in my life. He looked like one of those St. Bernards as big as horses that rescue people trapped in the Alps. 

This one wasn't a rescue dog. Just a huge mutt, who was baring very large canines and growling in a low tone as he moved slowly toward me. That day, the hairs had risen on the back of my neck as I watched death on four paws stalking toward me.

That day I had been scared shitless. Today, I was...what? Not afraid? Of what? Just a dark-haired female cruise ship staff member. Who happened to be staring at me intently. I thought I had never seen her before, but at that distance, who could be sure. Maybe she was looking at someone near me.

Even as I tried to float that trial balloon I shot it down. She was looking into my eyes with an unfathomable expression.

Whatever, there was no point in holding a staring contest with a stranger. I looked around and tried to make it appear that I was deeply interested in the antics of a little boy and girl whose parents were trying to corral them before they jumped ship. But I couldn't stop myself from looking back at the next deck up.

She wasn't there. There were still cruise ship staff talking and gesturing among themselves, but the space where she had stood was empty. I just stared for a few moments. What had just happened? 

I wondered if I could have imagined it. She had just been inspecting the cattle, make that passengers, and her gaze had happened to lock on me for a moment. Nothing more than that and my overheated imagination.

Except that I knew what I had seen and sensed. She was staring at me. It suddenly occurred to me that the Big Man might have asked the ship's management to give me a babysitter for the cruise to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. I wouldn't put it past him. But it would be embarrassing, at the least, to ask if they had been directed to provide a handler for me to keep me from jumping ship or doing something equally stupid. Based on what had already happened since I got to the ship, I could see it.

I had gotten to the ship at 11 a.m. as was suggested. I carried two suitcases. One with clothing that I had thrown together in a night. I wasn't too fussy about what I wore. I threw in one suit for dining if I made it to the formal dining room, shorts, slacks and a bathing suit although I doubted I'd hit any pools. The other had my laptop, some documents about coming cases and a couple of paperback novels.

I had just checked into my suite, one of the top rooms on the ship only slightly smaller than your typical million-dollar Miami beach house, when I heard a knock at the door. I wondered who it was and when I opened it I said, "God damn. He's really going to do it, isn't he?"

Jessica Stephens smiled and nodded.

"He told me to come back with whatever court documents you've got squirreled away or not to bother to come back."

The son of a bitch. He knew I wasn't to let Jessica screw up her career to take some papers onto the ship. I pointed to the case containing the laptop. 

"Unzip and search it. You can look through the other although there shouldn't be anything but clothes in there. You can pat me down if you want to."

She almost blushed, but just shook her head.

"Now, if you'd said that that night at O'Brien's...."

"Can the smart comments and get what you need. And then get out, unless you want to spend a week at sea with me."

"That's not fair, Bill. You know how long it's been...?"

"Go talk to Cameron."

"The bastard won't bend. Sometimes I almost hate him."

"Take the situation in hand, so to speak."

She just blushed and started searching my suitcases. When she finished she had the paperwork on a dozen pending cases.

"Have a good trip, Bill."

I gave her a sisterly kiss on the cheek.

"Remember what I said about taking things in hand..."

She gave me a little wave as she walked out the door.

So the Big Man was serious about my taking time off. He might be just as serious about having me watched to make sure that I didn't jump overboard. I walked into the interior of the ship, found an elevator and made my way to Deck Trois or Le Fleur and the purser's office. After going through three junior officers I found myself talking to Alejandro Torres, Chief Purser.

I asked him if we could speak in private.

"Mr. – ah?"

"Maitland, William Maitland."

"Mr. Maitland, I assure you we can discuss any questions in front of my staff."

"Señor Torres, I have been an attorney for nearly 20 years. I would like to discuss a matter of some sensitivity that may involve legal issues. Are you sure we can't talk privately?" 

He just stared at me for a moment and said, "Everybody out. Out front. Mr. Maitland come back to my office."

We walked through a door into a small office and he seated himself behind a narrow desk.

"Now what is this about, Mr. Maitland?"

I sat down across from him.

"You acted like you didn't know who I was. Let me ask simply, and I trust you to tell me the truth. Have you received any instructions to have me watched, monitored or otherwise have someone baby-sit me?"

He just stared at me for a moment, then said, "Do you have any idea how paranoid that statement sounds, Mr. Maitland?"

Then, "Let me put it simply for you, Mr. Maitland. I honestly have no idea who you are, other than an American with an obviously over-inflated opinion of your importance."

I would have bet he was telling the truth.

"Well, if I've made a mistake, I apologize. It's just that...do you know any reason why one of your female staff officers would be monitoring or observing me?"

He shook his head.

"You're here because you thought one of the female staff was staring at you?"

"Well, actually, there's more to it than that, but basically, yes."

"We are going to get up and leave now, Mr. Maitland. I hope you will have a pleasant trip, but all I can say to you about this matter is, as you Americans say, get over yourself. A female staff officer looked at you and you spun that into a conspiracy to have you watched on this cruise? 

"You realize how many reasons there might conceivably be for a female staffer to stare at you? Perhaps she wanted your body? Perhaps you reminded her of somebody. Let's be reasonable. Go watch us set sail, enjoy the food and have a good time."

He stood up in dismissal, adding, "And if you should happen to see this young lady again, why not simply ask her why she was staring at you?"

If it was possible to feel any more stupid, I don't how it would be possible. But as I walked out of the office, I still knew that she had been staring at me. There had to be a reason. It would probably eat at me for the rest of the cruise until I found out why.

I wasn't really that curious about seeing the ship sail out so I prowled the ship for a few hours, checked out the casino, the pools on Deck Quatre, the theaters for live and canned entertainment on the next floor up, the restaurants on the fourth, fifth and sixth decks and the gym on the seventh deck. 

Then I went back to my room on the eighth and highest deck and checked out the bar, which had several bottles of Cognac, that probably retailed for several hundred dollars easy and a Napoleon Brandy that I knew sold in specialty stores for $500.

What the hell. If the Big Man was so intent on getting me away from my old life, I might as well go whole hog. I opened up the Brandy, poured two fingers into a crystal goblet and sniffed it for a little while before letting it slide down my throat. I generally prefer Bloody Marys, Goldschlager, Vodka or Tequila if I'm feeling adventurous, but I have tried Brandy before. For the sheer sensual pleasure of a liquor sliding down your throat, to my mind no other liquor comes close.

I guess I drank another couple of fingers, then another and just had to try the round crimson bed under a circular ceiling mirror that was just slightly smaller than some Delaware counties. When I opened my eyes again it was 9 p.m. by my watch and the ship was swaying enough for the pitch and sway to be noticeable. The meteorologists had been correct about the heavy weather we were heading into.

I was wearing slacks and a light short sleeve shirt but with the weather I figured it would be cool outside so slipped the shirt off and put on a black turtleneck. I think that made me look a little more French. I made my way to Le Champagne on Deck Cinque where a sign in ornate letters told me Le Champagne was located. 

On most cruise ships it would be a pizza gallery, but here they had platters of thick cut ham, chilled oysters, and cheeses ranging from simple goat cheeses to Beaufort, Abondance, Reblochon, and Vacherin.

I ate one slab of ham, a half dozen oysters and sampled a small amount of four or five cheeses. I knew I was going to have to work out at least an hour at the gym, but it was worth it. Nothing I'd tasted was less than fantastic, which I should have expected. The French might be opinionated assholes in most areas of life, but they know how to eat.

As I was popping an oyster into my mouth doused with hot sauce, I saw a slim brunette figure passing the door into Le Champagne. I was up and out before I realized what I was doing but by the time I got there, she was gone. There were at least three routes she could have taken, and it might not have been my mystery woman.

I made my way to the gym and despite the hour – it was nearly10 p.m. - it was still attended by one male staffer. I received a thick, plush towel and put it aside to work for an hour on machines that were close to the ones I was familiar with. After three and a half months of virtually non-stop workouts, it felt good to lift and pull, to thrust and maneuver weights until my muscles ached. I realized I really did miss it now when I didn't have a chance to work out every day. I took a shower and dressed and walked up to the top deck.

I opened the door to the outside railing. Wind driven rain stung my face and eyes. It was cold and hard. I pushed the door open and stepped outside.

The wind was strong enough to push me back but I made my way to the railing. I held tight and looked down nearly a hundred feet into the dark surface of the ocean. White caps raced by underneath me as the ship rose and fell.

There was no moon and stars because of the storm, but the white foam carried by the waves was clearly visible and there seemed to be a faint phosphorescence on the water itself.

I should have gone back inside because I was now almost completely soaked through to the skin, my face and bald scalp almost sore from the battering they were receiving. But I couldn't make myself move. I wondered if I had in my entire lifetime seen anything so beautiful.

I noticed that there was a tower-like structure toward the front of the ship. I had been there earlier. It was only accessible by the sixth deck, but there was a relatively small lounge there that a crew member had told me was generally off limits to all but special guests. 

It opened to a railing almost directly across from me. It took me a little while to make out the figure in the darkness leaning against the railing and looking across the expanse of a hundred feet toward me.

Even in the darkness, I could tell that it was a slender figure. When the door opened behind it for a moment and someone stuck their head out to address the figure, I saw it limned in the escaping light. There was enough light for a moment to make out her features and that blue and gold uniform covered by a transparent raincoat. 

In that moment her eyes gleamed in the light and I knew it was my mystery woman. She stared at me across the expanse. It was probably my imagination, but before the door was closed leaving her blanketed in darkness again on the railing, I thought she smiled.

We stood on our separate decks, rising and falling with the tides, and it seemed time had simply stopped. I don't know how long I stood there, but it felt like I had left behind everything I had known in my world. My father, my job, my wife, my children. There was only the sea and that dark figure standing across the way from me.

Then she turned away from the railing, opened the door showing me her dark hair cut short at the base of her neck, and the door closed, the light vanished and she was gone.

I went back to my palatial room and was unconscious before my head hit the goosedown-stuffed pillow.

##################

Saturday, July 16, 2005 – 10 a.m.

The next day I slept till 10 a.m. and thus missed the formal breakfast and our arriving at Key West. I headed by Le Champagne and grabbed a slice of gooseliver pate spread on a water cracker which probably contained about three million calories 

I had less than no desire to see Key West again, which I'd been to with Debbie and the kids twice over the years so I stayed on the ship. I went to the casino and managed to lose $500 in less time than it takes to say that.

In order, I next visited one of the entertainment centers and watched three newlywed couples humiliated by sexually explicit, allegedly funny questions from a panel of recreation staff members, watched a new release Bollywood movie with dubbed dialogue, worked out for an hour in the gym and finally wound up at my first formal supper seating. By that time the ship was readying to sail toward Nassau.

I was seated next to a single lady, a redhead with small breasts that still managed to almost fall out of the nearly non-existent top to a brilliant blue dress. She wore a sapphire necklace with a single burning blue gem centered between her breasts inevitably forcing your eyes to settle on those breasts. She smiled at me a lot and I tried to smile back.

There was a couple in their 70s celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on a voyage paid for by all of their seven children, and 35 grown grandchildren. And a pretty young blonde with a nice body dressed in a relatively demure yellow blouse and skirt with her husband, a tall sandy-haired kid who was drooling over the redhead's exposed breasts and didn't make much attempt to hide it.

She kept staring at me and finally halfway through the second course said, "You're Mr. Maitland, aren't you?"

I shrugged and said, "Yes, ma'am. You must have seen the newspaper story."

She looked puzzled and said, "My husband, Andy and I just came back from a business trip to Chicago before my daddy paid for us to go on this cruise. I'm afraid I didn't see the story. But I know you. I've seen you around the courthouse and I've even seen a few trials you argued. I saw the one about those slimeballs that shot that little boy. 

"Sorry, I'm forgetting my manners. I'm Cyndi Mathews and this is my husband Andy. My brother, Lyle, does some volunteer victim advocate work around the courthouse and pointed you out to me one time. You are a very good lawyer."

She poked her husband in the side and said, "Say hello, Andy," and he reluctantly tore his eyes away from the redhead's breasts, giving her a little wink before he did so. The redhead blushed, the blush extending all the way to her nipples.

"You have seen Mr. Maitland in action, then, Ms. Mathews?"

I looked up and saw my mystery woman standing behind me. I turned in my chair so I could look at her directly. She wore the blue and gold again with a small fleur-de-lis emblem centered over her left breast, which gave me an excuse to inspect her. Sitting it was hard to tell, but I thought she was five six or maybe five seven. Her breasts weren't large, but they were definitely there filling out her uniform. 

She had a broad forehead, a strong nose, wide-set eyes and lips that were full and red. Classic features. Her hair was so black it had a blue sheen to it. I looked at her eyes for a moment and couldn't quite figure out their color. All in all, she was a beautiful woman, so why the hell had she been staring at me and stalking me?

"Pardonnez-moi....Pardon me for eavesdropping. I have an...interest...in the law and when I heard your comments I couldn't resist intruding. You said Mr. Maitland is a barrister in Jacksonville? Does he practice in the tribunal de grande instance or cour d'assises? I'm sorry. Mr. Maitland, are you a civil lawyer or prosecutor?"

Her English was more crisp and precise than my own, but there was an indefinable French accent.

"Cour d'assises, Miss. I handle mostly capital cases, although I've done rape, robbery, almost every kind of terrible thing that people do to each other."

She gave me a funny look.

I answered her unspoken question.

"I've been to France a couple of times for legal conferences and Interpol cases that intertwined between France and the U.S. I know a little bit about your system of justice."

Answering her earlier question, Cyndi said, "Oh, yes, he is very good. He is forceful and clear in his arguments and he makes juries think about the victims in these crimes. A lot of times prosecutors and everybody else seems to forget about the victims. Mr. Maitland never does.

"Although," she said with a small frown, "I didn't recognize you right away with your head shaved. And, you just don't look the same. It's hard to pin down, but you look like another person almost entirely."

"Yes," my mystery woman said, "Mr. Maitland is certainly a striking man."

"You have the advantage of me, Miss. You know me, obviously, but I don't know your name or anything about you. That hardly seems fair, does it?"




When We Were Married Ch. 03C



She held a slim hand out to me. I took it and shook it.

"I am Aline des-Jardins, Mr. Maitland. I am one of three Assistant Cruise Directors. I tend to spend my time ensuring that passengers with special needs have those needs met."

"Sounds like an interesting job."

"All you'd have to do is show up at my cabin and you'd meet my needs," Andy said, laughing. Cyndi Mathews stared at her husband with a gaze that should have stripped the flesh from his bones but he just ignored her.

I noticed he was on his fifth or sixth mug of some heavy brown German beer. He continued to stare at Aline in a way that made the old expression about stripping somebody with your eyes a reality.

Aline looked at him the way some women would look at a roach crawling across the floor and said, "I would imagine your pretty wife should be able to meet those needs."

Andy was about to say something but this time he caught his wife's glare and thought better of it.

She turned those eyes on me and said, "I have to go, but I hope we will meet again during this cruise, Mr. Maitland. Feel free to call on me if I can be of any service to you."

I hadn't let go of her hand and I held it as she started to turn. She looked at me with an expression I couldn't read. I noticed that a diamond shone in a ring on her left hand, on the wedding finger.

"Have we met before, Ms. des-Jardins?"

She shook her head, saying, "No."

"I just thought, from the way that you...looked at me this afternoon when we were leaving that you might have recognized me from somewhere."

She gave me what could only been described as a cool look and said, "I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about. I was inside preparing for the ship's departure as we left. I never came out. You must have mistaken someone else for me."

I let her hand go.

"I'm sorry. I must have made a mistake. Yes, I hope we'll see each other again."

"It's not that big a ship, Mr. Maitland. Goodbye."

I ate the rest of my meal without really tasting it. I know there was conversation around me and I must have responded to it, but I can't remember what was said. At some point the older couple excused themselves, the redhead finally gave up after exchanging some meaningful glances with Andy and then Cindy smiled at me and told me she and Andy were going to go up on deck. The rain had stopped and it was a beautiful night. 

I sat alone at the table and drank coffee for another half hour. The thing that kept running through my head was, Jesus, you are a stupid fuck. A very beautiful, married woman is not going to be staring at a middle aged, bald man being dumped by another beautiful woman. 

It's not going to happen and even if anything could happen, she's married. Unless she wears the ring to scare off guys from hitting on her.

But she had lied. I had been in the business of reading people for too long. She had been cool, but lying. I wondered again if Edwards had possibly worked out a private deal with a staff member, like her, to just keep an eye on me without her superiors knowing about it. I wouldn't put it past him. But since I couldn't subpoena and put her under oath, I didn't know how I'd ever find out for sure.

On the other hand, the more I thought about it, what did it matter. Let her watch. It would probably be as exciting as watching paint dry.

I eventually went up to Deck Sept. It was about 9 p.m. but there were still plenty of people out and about. I walked forward to the bow where a few other people leaned against the railing as the ship gently rose and fell, cutting through the waves at a fairly good clip

I looked into the darkness. We had passed beyond the lights of the Florida coast and there were only the lights cast by the ship on the sea and the stars above. I realized I could spend the entire cruise doing nothing but standing here and it would be worth the trip. I thought about everything and nothing.

"There is nothing else like it in the world."

I didn't have to turn my head to sense her standing at my side, hands on the rail, looking along with me into the rushing darkness.

"Are you following me, Ms. des-Jardins?"

I looked at that beautiful face which held no expression I could read. I couldn't help wondering what it would look like smiling.

"I told you that this is not that big a ship. We will encounter each other from time to time. I see you are like me. If I did not have to work, I would be here every night, like this."

"My life is words, but I couldn't put this into words. I was ordered to take this cruise, but now I'm glad I was."

"The only thing more beautiful, I think, is the sea when it is angry. A storm at sea is such a wondrous beast, deadly and beautiful beyond belief."

"That was you at the other lounge last night, across from this deck."

She looked back from the view ahead of us and stared into my eyes. There was only a faint curl to those luscious lips.

"Yes. I was in the lounge with guests and invited staff, but the smoke got rather heavy. I stepped outside for air, but I really wanted to stand in the rain and watch the waves. I noticed you a long time before you noticed me. You were really quite....extraordinary."

I shook my head. Edwards wasn't paying her enough to be dishing out this much bullshit.

"You are a romantic. I am a very ordinary man."

There was almost a smile on those lips.

"You do not see yourself, Mr. Maitland. Not truly. I'm not sure why. I am not a poet. But standing there, in the rain and the darkness...it was as if you were carved out of the night. I'm sorry, my English is adequate but..."

"Your English is excellent, but you are dishing out bullshit, pardon my Anglo-Sexonism. Why are you lying?"

She didn't deny it. Didn't appear angry.

'You were staring at me when we were getting ready to depart. You recognized me for some reason. Did someone ask you to baby-sit me? Keep an eye on me?"

"No?"

"Then why?"

This time a faint smile bloomed on her face. It transformed her from merely beautiful to incredibly beautiful.

"A woman has to have some mystery, Mr. Maitland. It is part of our charm."

"Why would you want to charm a passenger?"

"Not merely a passenger, Mr. Maitland. You are a man. A very interesting man."

She looked back toward the darkness for a moment, then said, "I hope we meet again. But I must return to my duties. Good night." And left me there with more questions than I'd had before. And for the first time in months I felt a strong desire to jerk off.

I almost thought about going back to my room and that big bed, but the last few times I'd tried self stimulation hadn't worked too well. I was almost afraid to try again and fail again. I'd never in my life been unable to get a hardon by jerking off until....Debbie and Doug. 

Besides, I was letting fantasy run away with me. She was a beautiful woman, but that stuff about 'carved out of the night' could have come out of some cheap romance novel.

Even when I'd been young and attracted a few women, I'd never been in this woman's league. And she wasn't going to fall into my bed out of gratitude for saving her from a gang rape. Besides, she had denied being set up to baby-sit me. 

But, she could have been lying. She had told me her job was providing special needs. Would one of those needs be jollying up a depressed man whose boss was afraid he might toss himself over the side one dark night?

That was one whole hell of a lot more likely than a married woman that looked like that being seized by a sudden passion for my middle aged, overweight bald self. 

But even if she was just doing her job, she had definitely lifted my spirits. And being out on this night was also raising them. I walked along the deck for an hour, finally went inside. 

I grabbed a drink, going back to my regular Bloody Mary heavy on the Tabasco from a little jazz bar that looked inside like something transplanted from 1920s Paris and finally wound up back in the casino.

I wandered the tables until I heard someone call, "Hi, Mr. Maitland."

I looked over at one of the craps table and saw Dan Jenkins and his wife. He beckoned to me and I walked over.

"Mr. M," Jenkins said. "I am colder than ice and I'm down a thousand. The dealer said I could call someone in to roll for me. Any chance you could give it a try? Just looking for a familiar face."

I shook my head.

"Sorry, I'm colder than ice, too. Never have had much luck gambling."

"Give it a try," a soft voice said from behind me. She came up to stand beside me and we were almost eye to eye. She was closer to 5-foot 8 than I had thought. She held her hand out and Jenkins grinned at me as he dropped the dice in her cupped palms. She handed them to me, then cupped my hands in hers and leaned forward and pursed her lips as if whistling. Her soft breath which smelled of mint caressed my hands.

She held my hands in hers for a moment.

"Sometimes a new woman can change your luck, or so I've heard."

I put the dice in my right hand, stepped up to the table and threw them. A moment later Caroline gasped and Jenkins shouted. He pounded me on the back.

"That almost got me all my money back. Roll for me again."

I looked at her but she shook her head and let my hands go.

"I'm sorry, I must go. Pleasure running into you again, Mr. Maitland."

I looked at Jenkins and shook my head also,

"Sorry, my luck just walked away."

He gave her swaying rear view a quick glance and said, "I think you might get lucky yet, Mr. Maitland."

Then his wife nudged him in the side with his elbow and he laughed and gave her a quick kiss.

I smiled back and said, "No, I think I just ran my luck out. If I was you, I wouldn't push mine."

His wife grabbed his elbow and said, "He won't. Besides, we have unfinished business, right honey?"

I was in my room in 30 minutes and again I barely had time to toss my clothes off and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Something about the sea air. When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't remember what I had dreamed about, but they were good dreams.

###################

Sunday, July 17, 2005

We were in Nassau in the morning and I considered staying on the ship, but I walked off the ship on the concrete pier that led in a short distance to the remains of what had been the world famous Straw market near Bay Street and George Street. It had been destroyed by a fire a few years earlier and now it was housed in a large tent, but it still had tons of things nobody but a tourist could ever love or buy.

I bought tee-shirts for the kids which was the only thing I thought they would really appreciate and was heading back when a cab pulled up beside me and I looked inside to see Aline and another female staffer sitting in back.

"Mr. Maitland, Suzanne and I were headed for a quick lunch before going back to the ship. Would you care to join us?"

I gestured to the interior. Bahamanian cabs are not the largest in the world.

'I don't think I'd fit."

"Squeeze in," and I did, feeling her soft form pressed against almost every inch of me. I could literally feel her breathe and her rising and falling breasts caressed my shoulder. Suzanne just giggled a lot. Lunch was nice but I ate lightly. I had to remember that life would go on when I returned to the real world.

"Is that all you're eating?" Suzanne said.

"He has to watch his figure," Aline said with a small smile, sitting in a booth across from me.

"No," I said and couldn't keep myself from adding, even knowing I was making a fool of myself, "that's not the figure I have to watch."

Suzanne giggled and Aline just blushed and lowered her eyes.

Back on the ship, which was largely deserted, I read part of a novel, went down and swam in one of the deserted pools which was nicely heated by the sunlight and took a nap.

I walked the decks and ran into a pod of four 30-ish blondes who turned out to be teachers from Atlanta "celebrating" three divorces from dirty rat bastards and one inheritance. They were attractive, fairly well built for the most part, fairly personable, and quite unmistakably horny as hell. 

One of them made that clear by brushing her hip insistently against me and when I turned to talk to her clearly rubbing her hip against my groin.

The others giggled as she gave me a disappointed look.

"Bill," she said because we'd exchanged first names at their insistence, "I just shed a miserable rat bastard and my confidence in my charms is waning. Now I'm rubbing up against a man and nothing. Please tell me you're gay and it's not me. Not with that wedding ring on your hand. And where is the missus?"

"She's probably in my house, the one I worked nearly ten years to pay for. Having hot sex with the young stud she's divorcing me to be with. And I'm not gay, Lee. It's just that my soon to be ex-wife is a blonde and right now I'm not too partial to blondes. No offense."

She put her hand on mine.

"No offense taken, Bill. My friends and I...kind of wondered. We've seen you around the ship and you're always alone, except a few times when we've seen you with that skinny French broad. 

"And mostly people don't approach you. It's like there's a wall around you. I had to push them to agree to hunt you down today and see if you were approachable. But I understand where you're at. My divorce was final two months ago. And even though I hated the bastard, it wasn't pleasant."

I looked her up and down. She had a nice pair of breasts, maybe a "C" cup. Her features were fairly sharp, but not a bad looking woman. She was five-five and it was nice to look down at a woman.

"It must be the sea air, or else the pickings must be very slim. I have to ask, why in the world would you be interested enough to hunt me down?"

She gave me a puzzled look.

"I don't understand."

"I'm short, I'm bald, I'm not a Greek God. Why would an attractive woman like you even be interested enough to check me out?"

She looked at her friends with a helpless expression, then said, "Could I ask you how long you've been with your wife?"

"Nearly 18 years and we were together for two years before that."

"Don't be insulted, but did you – no, I bet you never played around on her, did you?"

"No."

"Well, I think you've been married too long. There's a vibe..something that married, married guys give off. Unless you're the kind of woman that's attracted to a challenge, or you just like married men, most women won't waste their time on a guy like that. Life is too short. 

"I think you've been married so long that you automatically send off shut-down signals to keep women away, You might think that you don't attract women, but that was the married Bill."

"That's Bill, but thank you, Lee."

"You sure you wouldn't like to have lunch. Go get drinks. Go to my room?"

She grinned at the last.

"I know I'm being forward, but hey, this is a Celebrate Freedom cruise. It might do you some good too."

"I'm sorry, Lee, really sorry. But you're too blonde."

"Not all over."

"I'd see her every minute I was with you. I know this is a really shitty way to respond to a – very attractive offer – but I've been more than a little crazy for the last three months. I'm just getting my sanity back and a lot of that is not even thinking about, or being reminded of her. I'm sorry."

She reached over and gave me a peck on the cheek.

"It's okay. Give it time. You do get over it. You sure you don't want my number in Atlanta, just for future reference?"

"You ever hear the old joke about never getting involved with a woman who has more problems than you? Well, no matter how bad off you are, I have more problems. Bye."

I walked away from her wondering why the hell I hadn't taken her up on her offer. She seemed like a nice, maybe slightly desperate, lady. She wasn't in Debbie's league, but how many women would I ever meet that were. 

I looked up to the next railing and saw Aline des-Jardins leaning over and looking at me and the pod of desperate divorcees. The one woman I'd met that was in Debbie's league, was still out of my league.

The rest of the day went by without dragging too badly. I made the supper seating again and the older couple and Cyndi Mathews was there. I noticed both her husband and the redhead were missing. 

Not making anything of it, I just asked, "Your husband is missing. Did he go ashore? I understand we'll be pulling out and heading for Marsh Harbour in a half hour."

She was drinking straight Scotch on the rocks and this was the second one she'd downed since we sat down 20 minutes earlier. She rubbed her lips and I noticed her eyes were red.

"I wasn't feeling well this morning and I decided not to go into town. Andy wanted to go. I haven't heard from him since."

She just looked at the redhead's empty chair and that one glance told me volumes about where Andy was and who he was with and the state of this pretty blonde's marriage. 

I wished I could say something to raise her spirits but I could see her taking this cruise in a couple of years for a Celebrate Divorce cruise. I just hoped the bastard wouldn't crush her spirit too badly before she kicked his ass out.

After awhile we had finished the typical multi-course French meal of gastronomic magnificence, the older couple had begged off, and she and I sat alone at the table, myself nursing an after-dinner coffee and she sipping a fifth Scotch. I didn't have the heart to let her go off alone.

"Well, since your husband is not back yet, would you mind keeping me company for a little while, Mrs. Mathews?"

"That's okay, but..."

"Please, I'd like to be able to tell people that I spent some time on this cruise with a really attractive young woman."

She turned her face toward me and I saw the teardrops beginning to leak around the edges of her eyes. 

"You don't need me for that. That pretty French woman hasn't been able to keep her eyes off you and I've seen you two together. You...know she's married, right? And you're wearing a wedding ring."

I answered her unspoken question.

"I'm almost finished divorcing my wife, or being divorced. And I have no idea what Ms. des-Jardins' marital status is. Anyway, nothing's been going on, Cyndi. She's just being friendly."

"Un huh, okay. But you don't want a married lady messing up your chances of..."

"There are no chances of anything. I just want to have a drink or two, walk outside, maybe do a bit of dancing if you're up to it. And then I'll be on my way and Andy should be back looking for you."

We left together. I had to gently support her a couple of times when she swayed, but she was doing pretty good for all the alcohol she'd consumed. We walked the 7th floor deck, watching the ocean and talking about our lives. 

She was the heir, with some brothers and sisters, to a fortune earned by her parents. And Andy was well aware of that fact. Just the classic poor little rich girl.

We made our way to the little Jazz bar and I ordered a Bloody Mary. She ordered another Scotch but I gently suggested she have a cup of coffee and after a minute she ordered one instead of the booze. We sat there for a few minutes and then she asked me if I danced.

We moved together gently rather than dancing, but that was what the three other couples on the small dance floor were doing. She felt nice and warm in my arms and she rested her head against my chest. I could feel her breasts rubbing against my chest. 

I wondered how Andy could be so fucking, so criminally stupid, to take a chance on losing this for a quick or even an extended bout of sex with a stranger.

But then again, I'd always been happy to be a married man.

We finally made our way to her cabin on the seventh deck, one of the expensive rooms with balconies opening out to the sea. She found her room key and opened the door. We both looked inside. It was empty.




When We Were Married Ch. 03D



Chapter 03D

FOOLS RUSH IN

My name is William Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. I'm the poster child for workaholics, having thrown away one of the hottest women in Jacksonville and my two children and a 20 year relationship because I couldn't maintain a life apart from my job as the top working prosecutor in Jacksonville 

Three months ago I had a wife. In another month or so I won't. I haven't taken the break-up well, although it has done my physical conditioning a world of good. It also led me to a mini-breakdown which in turn led my boss, the real top prosecutor, to exile me from my job and troubles for a week-long cruise on the French operated cruise ship, Bonne Chance.

The cruise has done me a world of good. I have met a poor little rich girl who really does have more problems than I have, which at least showed me that I didn't have the shittiest life on the planet. And I have also met the luscious and lovely Aline des-Jardins, one of three cruise directors on the ship who has been flirting with me, raising my ego and libido for the past three days.

Unfortunately, when my suspicions that her attentions were based on her being assigned to watch me to make sure I didn't do anything stupid like jumping overboard as a result of depression were confirmed, I didn't take that news well either. Which led the lovely Ms. des-Jardins to tell me forcefully to go fuck myself, instead of possibly getting the chance to plumb her depths.

And that is why at 12:30 a.m., after royally pissing off the first woman other than my wife that I have seriously considered going to bed with in 18 years, I have showered and I'm my way over to the Alpha Lounge at the bow of the ship where I expect Ms. des-Jardins to be having a good time without me. I will probably be insulted and crushed in a way that hasn't happened since Junior High when Missy Cartwright laughed loudly at me when I asked her to dance at the first formal dance I'd ever attended.

But no matter what happens, I will at least be doing SOMETHING as my life circles the Big Toilet Bowl of fate. I may go down, but I will go down fighting.

####################### 

Monday, July 18, 2005 -- 12:35 a.m.

I walked out of the elevator which ran from the sixth to seventh decks of the Bonne Chance and saw down the corridor a knot of five men and women drinking and smoking and generally fooling around. Three of them were female passengers I vaguely recognized. Two of them were younger male staff officers.

The doorway behind them was open and I saw smoke and lights and heard music. I didn't need the sign overhead that said "Alpha Lounge" to let me know that my moment of truth was about on me.

I had faced a mob of horny frat boys with a fire poker and millionaires who had threatened my family and serial killers who had very sincerely told me they would escape prison and flay the skin from my body while I was still alive, and I don't think I was ever more frightened than I was walking down that corridor.

This woman, and the power she had to crush what lingering remnants of a male ego I still possessed, would have given even the Angel of Death pause....but as the old saying goes, fools rush in.....

They looked at me curiously as I approached them. I had dressed in black slacks and a black turtleneck that I'd had cleaned on board. One of the taller male officers stepped forward to intercept me as I drew near the doorway.

"I'm sorry, M'sieu," he said, interposing his body between me and the doorway without being too obvious about blocking me. "The Alpha Lounge is restricted to invited guests. There are many other lounges and bars open at this hour elsewhere on the ship."

"I've been invited. Ms. des-Jardins invited me. Would you check with her and let her know I'm here. My name is William Maitland."

He looked at me and then at the other male officer. A look passed between them and I knew what he was going to say.

"I'm sorry sir, but Ms. des-Jardins informed us that you might be coming and told us to tell you that you were not welcome here."

Now that I was here, being crushed wasn't all that terrible.

"Women can change their minds. Often do. Tell her that Mr. Maitland would like to apologize. You can do that, can't you?"

He tried to stare me down but men a lot tougher than him had failed and he finally shrugged and said something in French to the other officer that probably translated to "keep the asshole out while I check," and walked into the lounge.

We just stared at each other while the three women stared at me and giggled and whispered among themselves. It didn't seem to be too long before the tall officer walked back out.

"I'm sorry sir. She said she hasn't changed her mind and won't. She said you should seriously consider her last suggestion."

Well, that was clear enough. She was pissed. All those romantic fantasies I had spun in my mind were crashing to the hard cold earth. But, the odd thing was, I didn't feel too badly. I had tried. There was probably less than no chance that anything could have ever happened between a woman like her and a man like me. But at least I would have no regrets about what could have been.

I looked back to the elevator and then changed my mind. She might be able to keep me out of the lounge, but she couldn't keep me from looking down at the ocean from this side of the ship. The railing ran around three-quarters of the section.

'How do you get to the deck railing from here?"

"You can take the elevator back down to the sixth and get out to the deck from there."

"I want to go out on this deck's railing."

"I'm afraid..."

"Yeah, as the punch line goes, be very, very afraid. You can keep me out of the lounge with no problem. I doubt very seriously you can keep a paying guest from walking on the outside railing anywhere in this ship. And if you try I am going to raise so much hell that your company will be very sorry they ever sold my boss a ticket for this cruise."

He looked at his fellow officer and they frowned, undoubtedly thinking so hard I expected smoke to start billowing out of their ears. The tall one finally said, "follow me," and led me down the corridor beyond the entrance to the lounge and to a closed door. He pushed on the metal bar across the door and it opened with a creak, revealing the outside railing that ran around most of this section. 

"It locks from this side," he said, grabbed a metal rod wedged into a metal stanchion near a glass-encased fire extinguisher, and propped it in the doorway. The door couldn't close and couldn't lock.

"You won't be locked out. When you come in, please remove the bar and replace it where it was, if you would. Oh, and.."

"I'm not going to try to crash your intimate little orgy," I said, looking back at the three female passengers who were stroking the other male officer in a fairly obvious manner. "I just want to get some fresh air and a fresh perspective and then I'll be out of your, and Ms. des-Jardins', hair. If you would, tell her I hope she has better luck with her next assignment."

I walked out without waiting for a reply. I walked to the railing, taking one look back at the lounge. I could hear strains of something like a romantic ballad French style being sung inside, but no words. Then I looked back down and out at the waves. The view was the opposite side of the ship. 

From the other deck I had watched the ship cutting through the Caribbean. From this deck I watched the waves fall away behind us as the ship moved forward. It was cool but pleasant as the winds whipped along the deck. It could have been raining or it might have been sea foam, but drops would hit my face from time to time. The ship was obviously not moving as fast as it had been on other nights.

Marsh Harbour in Abaco wasn't that far away so they were obviously taking their time getting there to make it in six or seven hours.

I lost track of time and when I glanced at my watch next, it showed that it was 1:30 a.m. Where had the time gone?

"You are not only a very unpleasant man, but stupid as well. Most men would have taken the hint they were not wanted and simply have slunk off with their tails between their legs."

"Probably too stupid to know when I'm not wanted. Anyway, I hoped you'd be aggravated enough to come out to talk to me."

She had changed out of her standard blue and gold uniform and was wearing a light blue low-necked blouse that showed she did have breasts and a pair of blue slacks. She stared at me with her characteristic stone-faced expression, or lack of one. 

"Why? I think I made my feelings about you clear, and you made your feelings about me crystal clear, Mr. Maitland. What do we have to talk about?"

I turned my body to her and reached out to take her hand. She stiffened, but did not pull away.

"I just wanted to apologize, Aline. Then I'll leave and I'll do my best to make we don't run into each other again. I am sorry. Sorry that I misjudged you. Sorry that I insulted you, when you were just trying to do a job. I..uh...I reacted badly because I have to admit I was spinning some pleasant fantasies about you. You are a beautiful woman and I'm sure I'm not the only man that's ever been...smitten with you. I was hurt. But I know I had no cause to insult you the way I did."

"No, you didn't. It hurt more because I did...like you. You seemed like a different kind of man. When you....said what you did....you caught me off guard. "

"I know this won't make a difference in how you feel, but the only excuse I can give you is that I'm in strange territory here."

She looked at me quizzically.

"I've been married for 18 years and in a committed relationship for almost two years before that. I've forgotten how to do the man-woman thing."

She stepped closer.

"The captain said your superior told him you were in the middle of a very bad divorce. That you were hurt very badly by your wife's actions."

"It all started when my wife said four words to me that ended our marriage..."

And so I told her everything. I told her about the emails, which I could almost recite word for word. I watched her face as I told her my story, leaving nothing out. I told her about how Debbie and I had met. And how I had never truly believed she loved me, but that instead it was a marriage built of gratitude and hero worship.

Why I felt free to tell her, a stranger, of all the people in the world, about the emails and what they revealed about my marriage, I could never say for sure. 

"And that's why I'm on the cruise. That's why I am probably more of an asshole than I have been. Why I put people off. I didn't want this life. I don't want it. I want what I had, but I can never have it again. I still love her, even while I hate her. I don't know that I'll ever stop loving her, but I pray every night that that day comes.

"And that's why what you said hurt so bad. I was married to and loved a beautiful woman who I don't think ever loved me the same way and is fucking a younger man in our bed tonight, I'm sure. And then I met you and I started thinking for the first time since all this shit started happening that life might not be so terrible. And then you tell me that I was just a job. Nothing more."

She hadn't said a word, but she hadn't pulled away. I dropped her hand from mine.

"And that's the story. And my apology. I'm sorry I kept you away from your friends and your party. I'll head back now. And I really will try to stay out of your way for the rest of the trip. It's only a few days."

"You weren't just a job, Mr. Maitland," she said. She stepped into me and before I knew it she was searching for my tonsils with her tongue. I returned the favor

Somebody, I think it was the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein in one of his books for younger readers, once wrote that 'girls don't have bones,' because it feels that way when you're kissing one. Guys are all sharp angles, hard surfaces. Girls are soft and round and where they're the softest and roundest is where they're the most fun. I had read that when I discovered his books in the 7th grade and I'd never forgotten that description. 

That's the way the woman in my arms felt in this moment. I remembered watching her across the way the other night in that moment of the storm and feeling that I had stepped out of my old life. I felt the same way now. This was not Debbie. I had to keep reminding myself. She felt, and smelled and tasted different. And she was in my arms and she was playing tonsil hockey. This could not be happening.

She broke the kiss and stepped back from me, then reached out with one finger to rub her lipstick from my lips. I tasted mint. Debbie had never tasted of mint.

"I accept your apology, Mr. Maitland, William."

"William is my name, but my friends call me Bill."

"I accept your apology, Bill. If I had known, I would not have acted like such a bitch. I know what it is like to love someone like that, and I cannot imagine what it would feel like if he were to betray me in such a fashion."

I touched my lips.

"Then why...how?"

"Friends don't kiss in your country?"

"Not like that."

She smiled in the darkness and I felt something cold and hard deep within myself begin to crack and I told myself, "You will not fall for this married woman."

"But I am French, and you are standing on a piece of French soil, We do things differently here."

Then, "the party continues. Come inside and have something to eat and drink. We can talk."

She held her hand out to me and, knowing this was going to lead to disaster, I took her hand and followed her into the Alpha Lounge. 

######################### 

Monday, July 18, 2005 -- 12:45 a.m.

Debbie rolled to her back and gasped for air.

"My God....."

Doug placed one large hand on her breast and squeezed it rhythmically. 

"My God is right. You have got to be the hottest woman in the Western World. It's been more than three months and every time I get inside you it feels like the first time all over. That's never happened with any woman I've been with. 

She couldn't help smiling a little.

"Doug, you've already got me. You don't have to keep seducing me."

"It's the truth."

He squeezed her breast again and said, "You want to..."

She shook her head.

"Jesus Christ, Doug, it's going to fall off if you keep using it. I'd forgotten what it was like to be with a young man. But...I...I'm tired. I've got to go in for that early morning department meeting at 8. You can stay here tonight. Kelly and BJ shouldn't be back here until late afternoon, but I want you out of here before they get here."

"I should be up and out by 9 at the latest. I'll try to avoid Little Miss Hot Pants..."

"Doug...."

"I was just teasing. I don't want to have her catch me alone here either, Deb."

"Make sure she doesn't. She and Bill Jr. are both spending the night out so there shouldn't be any chance of your crossing paths with either of them."

"You sure you...."

"No, Doug. It was great, but I have got to get some sleep. Anyway..."

"Don't tell me, now you're worried about Bill again. Or guilty. Or both."

"It's stupid, but...I'm here with you and Bill hasn't been with anybody that I know of. And now he's alone on that cruise ship with a bunch of honeymooners and people are probably getting laid all around him and I can't see Bill getting into that. Or him having any luck getting somebody into bed."

"Deb, people change. Just because the two of you lost it, doesn't mean there isn't ANYBODY that would fuck him. Shit, I've been on those cruises. Must be something about the sea air. A hunchback dwarf could get laid. Trust me, I'll bet he's banging some horny broad right now. You'll see. He'll come back relaxed and a lot more human. That's probably a lot of what's been wrong with him. He just hasn't gotten any ass in a long time. That will make anybody grumpy."

"Probably."

Which should have been reassuring, but as she turned in the bed to spoon against Doug's lean, muscular frame, she wondered why the thought of Bill fucking another woman was more than a little disturbing. It wasn't jealousy. But...

######################## 

Monday, July 18, 2005 -- 2 a.m.

The Alpha Lounge was smoky as hell. The French would never give up their cigarettes and while they might comply with U.S. health laws in public sections, any purely French bastion was going to be awash in carcinogens. It seemed like every crewmember, except Aline, was puffing away and half the invited guests were as well.

I thought about dropping to the floor to get a gasp of fresh air, but Aline hadn't let go of my hand since we had entered the Lounge. I felt like a high school kid trooping along behind his girlfriend, which was at the same time embarrassing and a source of pride. I saw the way most of the male staffers and a few of the male guests stared at her, and then at me, and I realized there wasn't a one of them that didn't want to be the one holding her hand.

A male and female were on piano and guitar and playing everything from 60s American oldies to some things that sounded like they might have been sung by Édith Piaf in the 50s and maybe Billie Holiday in the late 30s. I thought I recognized "La Vie en Rose." I'd always liked that.

They had a bartender and a fully stocked bar as well as a table groaning with what looked like caviar, lobster tails, what was probably Duck a l'Orange in a thick sauce and, if I didn't know any better, trays of what had to be escargot.

I'd been introduced to escargot on my first trip to Paris and oddly enough for a Florida boy who came from a small West Virginia mining community, I loved them.

Aline led me first to the food table where I grabbed a few escargot to her amazement, spooned up some caviar.

"Are you sure you're not French?"

She dragged me around to introduce me to staff and guests, making sure she held my hand. We were greeted with knowing glances. One male staffer was sitting in a chair near the side of the lounge and doing everything but fucking a half-naked woman about 20 years his senior in the chair. Aline slipped up next to him and kicked him in the calf. He tore his mouth away from the woman's neck which he'd been nuzzling.

"René, get a room."

He started to say something, then sheepishly pulled the older woman to her feet and took her out of the lounge.

She looked at me with an embarrassed expression.

"This is not a private orgy for staff and guests. Some...romancing... takes place on every trip, but staff and especially male staff are warned to be discreet. He was being a pig. He's fortunate the captain or one of the upper echelon officers didn't pop in."

As we walked I finished the Hors d'œuvre I'd grabbed and Aline pulled me toward the open area in front of the musical duo. They were playing something vaguely Spanish and thrilling, but it was okay for slow dancing.

"Dance with me," she said and molded her body next to mine. She was as tall as me and rested her chin and neck on the side of my face. I had never been any great shakes as a dancer, but I was able to move her and myself around the floor without stepping on her toes. I could feel what I knew were nipples popping up and rubbing in circular patterns against my chest.

For the first time in months I felt stirrings and my pants began to get tight in an area that wasn't usually affected. I felt again like a 7th grader getting a hard-on at a school dance, terrified to step away from the girl I held because my condition would be obvious, but also petrified that my condition was so obvious I'd rub it all over my partner and she'd slap my face or run screaming.

She whispered into my ear, "It's alright. I'd be a little insulted if I had no effect on you."

I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on abstruse mathematical problems.




When We Were Married Ch. 03D



After awhile, when my condition had abated, she took my hand and led me to the bar, where I ordered a Bloody Mary, what else, and she a white wine.

As we stood there drinking and talking, a tall redheaded woman in a dress with what looked like hundreds of thousands of dollars of real diamonds and gemstones embroidered into the fabric walked up to Aline and, glancing at me, asked, "Aline, darling, who is your friend? Your very close friend, it appears. Do you realize you haven't let go of him since you two walked in here?"

"Ms. Stein, let me introduce you to Mr. William Maitland. He is a barrister."

She looked at me with only a little disdain and asked, "An attorney? Mergers and acquisitions, stocks, international affairs? Entertainment? Are you located in New York or Los Angeles. Who do you represent? Anyone I'd have heard of?"

"Criminal law," I answered before Aline could say anything. "And I represent clients who've been murdered, raped, robbed or maimed."

She looked at me and her jaw almost literally dropped.

"Criminal law? Murder and rape and robbery?"

"Fraid so. Not as exciting as corporate or entertainment, but somebody has to do it."

Aline fought to hide her smile.

Mrs. Stein, whose big breasts and nice behind had obviously been poured into her dazzling dress, took a deep breath and purred, "A prosecutor. You know...I think...you are The Angel of Death. Aren't you? I saw your story on a web news site. "

She stepped between Aline and myself and grabbed my free hand, placing it squarely over a heaving mound of soft breast flesh.

"That is so exciting. When I saw your picture, all in black, you looked...hard...and powerful. Are you that hard...and powerful...in all areas of your life, Mr. Maitland?"

Without being too obvious, Aline pulled me toward her and at the same time interposed her body between myself and Mrs. Stein. With a sweet smile, she said, 'I'm afraid that is all media hyperbole, Ms. Stein. Mr. Maitland is a very sweet man in all ways. Oh, Bill, didn't you say you had an early appointment tomorrow? I'm so sorry, Ms. Stein, but I'd better get Bill out of here."

With that she whisked me away before the diamond lady could spell out an objection. We approached the outside rail and I just raised my eyebrows. Aline laughed and said, "I'm sorry, but in another moment she would have been unzipping you."

I felt like I was 18 again and couldn't help asking, "And that would be a bad thing -- why?"

The smile flickered.

"You would have wanted that fat old cow touching you?"

"Not her."

I stared into her eyes and she dropped her gaze. I would have sworn she blushed.

I didn't know where the dialogue was coming from. I should be tongue tied and awkward, but I was able to spar with this gorgeous woman in the eternal joust that was male/female relationships. I began to wonder if the 20 year-old I had once been had just been sleeping for the past 20 something years and had decided to come back to life. Or if it was simply being around this woman.

I turned back to look at the waves dropping away in our wake/ The stars were brilliant points in a jet-black sky. There were no clouds. A fat, gibbous, almost completely full moon hung seemingly over the stern of the ship, looking big enough and close enough to touch.

The moonlight washed across her face. It made her flesh look more than living stone than human flesh.

"She walks in beauty, like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright, Meets in her aspect and her eyes,,,"

"You remember your Byron. Do you use that line often with impressionable young ladies?"

"I might have, once, 20 years or so ago. I don't know why I said that. It just came out.. Something about the way you look tonight brought it out."

I put my hand on the side of her face and she leaned into me.

"Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this," the better angels of my nature screamed at me as I leaned forward and captured her lips. 

This wasn't a frantic, tongue twisting against tongue kiss like the first one we had shared. This was soft and yielding and there was only a little tongue. 

I thought back to Debbie and I wondered when was the last time we had shared a sweet, loving kiss. Not a husband/wife kiss, but one like this. Where had those kisses gone?

"Go away Debbie," I said in my mind, casting out the ghost of really good and really bad times. She was my past and she had no right to keep dragging me back to a life she had shattered.

I finally got the willpower to push Aline away gently. I tasted mint on my lips. What in the hell was I doing?

"I'm sorry, Aline. I shouldn't have done that."

"Sorry for what? It was just a kiss."

"I'm still a married man, for awhile longer. And you apparently are happily married."

"Most men learn when they're in their teens...if a woman doesn't tell you to stop, she probably wants you to keep going."

She resumed the kiss and this time it was a harder, more insistent kiss. She pressed herself against me and again I started to get hard. Just my luck. I'd been limp for more than three months and the one time I start to get hard, it's with a woman that I can't use it on. Or, at least, I shouldn't.

As the kiss continued she moved so that she was pressed against me and I know she was deliberately rubbing her groin against me. They say a stiff dick has no conscience. Mine did, but not enough willpower. I pushed back against her and she moaned in her throat.

I had to stop this....but she had said, she was French. And we were on French soil. And they did things differently here.

Where in the world is it okay to bed a married woman when her husband is far away? No country I was aware of. 

I finally summoned up the strength from God knows where to push her back. We became unattached and we both tried to catch our breath.

"Before we retire, would you like to walk the ship, Bill? It is a different world in the early, early morning. Almost all the passengers are in their beds soundly sleeping and the staff is either sleeping or working below decks preparing for the coming day. It is as if we have the ship to ourselves. As if we are in our own little world."

Walking was better than remaining here because if we stayed here, I was afraid that my dick would not only lose any shred of willpower it still had, but my conscience was also going to retire for the night. 

And that would mean one of two things: the first that I would further insult and possibly lose the chance to spend time with this woman, because it was possible this was just the way married French women flirted with male friends and she didn't really want my middle-aged body in bed with her.

Or worse, we would wind up in bed, and if that happened, how was I any different from Doug?

We went back in through the door that had been propped open and replaced the metal bar. As we walked past the Lounge entrance, I heard music and what sounded like loud female moaning.

She gave me a small smile.

"When it gets very late, I'm afraid things sometimes get a bit...wild."

"Well, Heaven knows, we don't want to be in there right now. It might be...catching."

She just poked me in the ribs with her elbow and said, "Are you sure you're just an old married man? Or is that a ploy you use to throw suspicious women off their guard around you?"

"I was...more married than you can imagine. 'Was' being the operative word."

We went down the elevator to the sixth deck and walked out to the bow of the ship. Now I could imagine we could see lights in the far distance, many miles away. Then I realized it was light, but not the constant light of buildings or the winking light of buoys.

This was a faint flickering of light that seemed to grow from the horizon into the dark sky, and then snaked back, casting a pale aura in all directions. Since we were heading for Marsh Harbour I figured the lights were coming from that direction. 

"It is storming over Abaco," she said. "That is lightning. It should be ending by the time we get close."

"Is there anything that happens out here that isn't flat out beautiful?"

Despite the distance, I felt the first few drops of rain begin to pelt us. I didn't consciously think out what I did, but I held my arm up and she moved into it. We stood together watching the lightning without words as the breeze picked up.

"Why did you accept the babysitting assignment, Aline, really? If you hadn't, there is no way we'd be here right now, like this? I know you wouldn't have given me a second glance."

"Why do you do that?" 

She placed her hand over mine.

"I know women have approached you, despite the pall you cast about you. And you turn every one down. You assumed I was interested in you simply because I had taken on the assignment of watching you. Why do you automatically believe no woman could be attracted to you, for yourself?"

"Because I'm not blind and I can look in a mirror. Because I'm not tall, and I'm not hung and I'm not a hunk. I faced that fact a long time ago. In my world, if a woman approaches me, I know it's because I can do something for her in my official capacity or in some other way. I do not turn women on. 

"And the one woman I ever really thought or hoped might love me, told her lover that she couldn't stand being around me anymore. She had to build a life away from me. That kind of shakes your confidence."

She turned into me and with her hand on my chin made me look into her eyes.

"You want me to tell you that looks don't make a difference in how women respond to men? I won't insult your intelligence. Of course an attractive, well-built man with confidence attracts women. But it's only among men that looks tell almost the entire story.

"Where women are concerned, we respond to strength, to power, to confidence, sometimes to arrogance. A woman sometimes wants to feel controlled by a man, no matter what women liberation types will tell you. We also respond to caring, to courage.

" I think you're probably right that your wife loved you for what you did that night. You might call it hero worship, but it is deep within all women to respond to that kind of male courage. It didn't last with her, but Bill, she is not all women. She is ONE woman, and there are a whole world full of women who would be interested in you."

She leaned into me and brushed my lips. It wasn't even a full kiss, but my cock twitched.

"I had your picture when you first came on the Bonne Chance. I was looking for you. I watched you. And...this will sound strange, but there is something about the way you move. I can't put it quite into words, but you move...with grace...and balance. Even walking among other passengers I noticed it.

"And...if I say that you made me think of a tiger, a great cat, you will laugh. But, it's true. You moved as if you saw everything around you at one time. When you looked at people, it was as if you were looking through them. 

"You are not a bad man, Bill, I can say that from knowing you only a few days, but I would not want to be around you if you were a bad man. There is something inside you..."

"Now I know you're imagining things," I said, knowing that part of what she was talking about had to be the training Carlos had imposed on me. There is a grace and balance to boxers that you don't realize if all you ever concentrate on is muscular men pounding on each other.

"And the other thing, which I also think you never realize, is the air of command about you. You remind me of the Captain. He does not have to raise his voice. He expects people will do what he tells them to do, and they do. I think in your professional life that is the way you act. That kind of strength and power is very attractive to some women. Maybe if you had brought that strength to your home..."

We stood there in silence watching the approaching storm until I said, "When I saw you for the first time that afternoon, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. Usually that only happens when you sense a threat, some terrible danger approaching. Are you a terrible threat?"

She turned her back and nestled against me.

"When you looked back at me and I realized you knew I was watching you it was as if an electric shock ran through my body. There is only one other time I have experienced that sensation....It was the first time I saw Philippe, my husband, at a party in Paris. We looked at each other across a friend's apartment. He was gorgeous and I knew without any doubt we would be leaving together.

"The reaction I had to you frightened me. I couldn't understand it. You were a stranger. I'm still not sure I understand it. Except that meeting someone who will be important in your life....is a frightening thing."

I thought about her words. Could I see myself as a tawny beast of prey moving through the human herds, making women wet with my aura of power? Even putting it into words made me want to laugh. 

But, why would she say it? I realized that if she was doing all this just to get me into bed and get a bonus from Edwards, that made her nothing but a whore. And if I had any instincts at all after 10 years as a prosecutor, I didn't sense that. 

Maybe the boxing and the loss of weight and the new fitness and the bald head and a sense of authority I carried over from my job might make women look at me differently, but that much differently? From dud to stud? Except, as divorcee Lee had told me, I had been married and off the market for nearly 20 years. Now I wasn't.

I nestled my face in her dark mane and breathed in an unfamiliar fragrance. If this was friendship between a man and a woman French style, I could live with this. 

"You never did answer my question. Why did you really accept the babysitting assignment?"

She moved in my arms to face me, her ass rubbing my cock as she did so and this time it jerked against her. She grinned and said, "Down, boy."

Then:

"I told you the truth the other night...just not the entire truth. I did see the story about "The Angel of Death." Your reporter, Mr. Cameron I think the byline said, did a great job of painting you as a little more than human. I was intrigued, but I had a more personal reason for being interested in you. I told you I had an interest in legal matters.

"My husband, Philippe, is a prosecutor in Paris, one of what is called the avocats généraux -- deputy prosecutors - in the office of the Procureur de la République, the Chief Prosecutor. We have been married for near 10 years and through him I have come to know a great deal about prosecutors and the courts."

I felt as if the deck of the ship had suddenly evaporated under my feet and I was floating in the air.

"Would that be Philippe des-Jardins, in the Paris office?"

"No, des-Jardins is my maiden name. I have kept it because I was employed by the cruise line before we married."

"Could it be....Philippe Archambault?"

She gave me a surprised look.

"How did you know?"

God, please make this be a nightmare.

"I met him about three years ago, in Paris, Aline. It was on my first trip to France. We were working a human smuggling ring transporting young Muslim girls from poorer sections of France, primarily around Paris, for prostitution in Florida and the U.S. Philippe was my liaison. We worked together for a week."

The big, good-looking, friendly Frenchman had taken me out drinking and to some local dives after hours. He had introduced me to Escargot and other delicacies and some interesting sections of Parisian low-life. I had asked about his wife one time and he had simply said she was away on business.

He had been very friendly, too friendly, to a secretary and a junior female barrister in his office, as well as an attractive lady cop and a female bartender at one of the dives frequented by cops, crooks and prosecutors. I figured he was banging them all, but it was none of my business and he seemed like a good guy. Definitely a hard as nails prosecutor and we worked well together.

It was still none of my business, but holding his wife in my arms wasn't something that made me feel good about myself. He might be a cheating asshole, but...

I had released my hold on her and I stepped back away from her.

"What's the matter, Bill. You know my husband? So what? We haven't done anything terribly wrong. A little flirting, a little dancing. Is that so terrible?"

"Maybe not in your world, but in mine....that's how my life fell apart."

She stepped up to me and lacing her fingers behind my neck she literally forced my lips to meet hers. I could have stopped her, but I didn't. I didn't want to.

She let me go and said, "We have not gone to bed, Bill. And I know that Philippe, if he isn't in bed with another woman, will be tomorrow or the next day. Don't waste any of the precious little time we have left worrying about endangering my virtue. You know very little about me, or my marriage. Can you just enjoy the next few days? Don't think. Just be with me."

I remembered the Big Man's admonition, "let yourself be surprised." I was sure as hell surprised. And had been since the Bonne Chance had left its Jacksonville berth. 

In my wildest dreams, I never could have imagined myself holding a woman like this in my arms; a married woman, a married woman whose husband had befriended me, a cheating husband who was screwing around on this beautiful woman while I seriously considered sleeping with her.

No, not sleeping. I might as well be honest with myself. I was thinking about and a large part of me was hoping I'd be fucking her at some time in the near future.

"I'll try."

When we reached my suite she kissed me after I'd opened the door and then backed away.

"No, I'm sorry, Bill. It's not that I don't want to, but..."

"Goodnight, Aline. Thank you for this night. And for the last few days. You don't have anything to apologize for."

As I laid myself down on the that huge circular bed a part of me was disappointed that she wasn't with me, and another part was glad she had walked away. Damned if I could figure out which part of me I really agreed with.

###################################################

.

Monday, July 18, 2005 -- 8:30 a.m.

"Oh shit!"

She sat upright in bed as she realized what had disturbed her subconscious. Light was shining in through the bedroom window. It was too light for 6 a.m., which she'd set the alarm for. She looked over at the alarm clock. It was flashing. It had stormed during the night and knocked the power off just long enough to turn the alarm off.

Damn, she couldn't afford to be late for this meeting. She had the feeling they were just waiting for cause to take action against her, and missing a critical planning session would be one of those causes. Doug raised his head and stared at her sleepy-eyed.

"I overslept. You can sleep a little longer, but I need you out of here within the hour, okay?"

He grunted and fell back to sleep. She had an outfit ready and had showered the night before. But it still took time to get dressed, brush her teeth, get her hair ready and grab a mini-bagel on the way out the door.

She was twenty minutes down the road before she realized she had rushed out without a folder on the bedroom dresser. Even if it made her late, she needed the papers in the folder or she really would look like the dumb blonde she had always thought some of the senior male professors regarded her as. Shit, shit, shit.

She had the motor off and the driver's side door open even before her 2004 Nissan 350Z had come to a complete halt. She was inside the front door and headed up the stairs to her bedroom and had her hand on the doorknob when she froze.

"mmmmm...ohhhhh.....god baby...that feels so good...damn suck it...."

For a moment she wanted to back away and then when she wanted to open the door it was as if she were paralyzed. She just stood there with her hands on the doorknob.




When We Were Married Ch. 03D



"You like that, dougie...oh yeah...I see you do. God you're so huge...."

There were more sounds of licking and slurping and then....

"JESUS CHRIST! Kelly? What the- what the fuck are you doing?"

"What does it look like, dougie......just what your big fat beautiful cock needs....you can squirt..."

She could hear sheets and blankets moving and....

"Oh, you meanie...give it back...I want to play with it."

"God damn it, Kelly. Get away."

'It's okay, baby. She's gone. I heard her driving out. We've got plenty of time. Come here..."

"No. What the hell are you doing in here anyway?"

"What does it look like. I'm going to suck your big beautiful dick dry and then you're going to fuck me."

"Go back to your room, right now Kelly. I've got to get dressed and get out of here before your mother gets back. She'll never believe we weren't doing something."

"Doug, you know you want me. I'm not a kid. I've seen the way you look at me when you don't think she's looking and in the pool that day...."

"Look. I look at you when your mom doesn't notice because I'm a guy. You are gorgeous. But that's all it is. And that day in the pool...that was a mistake..I just...it was a mistake. Now please, put some clothes on and get out of here."

"That's so stupid. She's too old for you. Don't you think I'm prettier?"

"Oh fuck. Listen to me Kelly. Please. If anyone finds out what you were just doing, if they thought I was having sex with you, I'll go to prison. You are jailbait, a minor under the age of 18. You are a heart stopper and you will be something else in a few years, but you're not worth going to prison for."

"I'll never tell anyone, Doug. I promise. I really do like you."

"That's not the only reason. I really do care about your mother."

"Oh please, she's old. Her boobs are starting to sag."

"She's not you, but she's not old. And I -- if she'd move with me I'd make it permanent."

"Gag me. Yuck. That's disgusting."

"Put some clothes on."

Both of them jumped as Debbie spoke. Kelly sat nude with her legs folded under her on the edge of the bed. Doug was obviously nude but keeping a bed sheet on him.

"You heard me, Kelly. Get your clothes on and get out of here."

"But-"

"Do it. I'll be in to talk to you in a minute."

They engaged in a staring contest for a minute and then Kelly got off the bed, picked up her pajamas off the floor and glanced at Doug, then flounced naked out of the room. 

Doug waited until she left, then got up nude and started walking toward Debbie.

"Baby, listen, it's not what you think. I swear to God, nothing happened."

"I know. There's a Glock in the wall safe. The fact that you didn't do anything is the only reason I'm not getting it out right now and blowing your brains out."

He reached out to her and she stepped back abruptly.

"No, don't touch me. Get your clothes on."

"But-"

"Get dressed Doug. Now."

"How long were you out there? Did you hear? I swear to God, I didn't know it wasn't you at first. She got to me while I was asleep. As soon as I woke up I pushed her off."

"I heard enough, Doug. Now put some clothes on. I still need to get to that meeting."

He pulled his pants on and then slipped loafers on and went to grab his shirt out of the bathroom.

"Debbie -"

"Leave, Doug. No, on second thought, look around and grab anything of yours you might have stowed here. I don't want you to have to come back."

He looked at her as if stunned.

"Not coming back? What -- If you heard..."

"We're through Doug. We'll have to work together, but...I hope you'll go ahead and find another job somewhere else."

"I don't believe this. Why are you doing this?"

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to him. She let him kiss her and let herself enjoy it for a moment. It didn't matter anymore. She felt his cock start to get hard and herself start to get wet. It was just that easy and quick. She pushed him away and despite his strength when she wouldn't stop he backed off.

"Why Debbie? You can't be serious. Why are you doing this?"

"I know you didn't plan this. You had no way of knowing I'd be coming back. If you were going to mess around with her this would be the perfect opportunity. That's the reason why I'm not going to tell Bill about this."

She backed away and tried to hold back tears. She had to be iron. She couldn't give him the slightest hint of encouragement that she might change her mind.

"I'm not going to tell him because I think he might kill you, and I don't want to see his life destroyed. And I don't want you murdered. Bill could do it. He doesn't think I know anything about his life, but he has people that would see that you vanish. 

"But I don't want that either. You can't help being who you are. You can't help flirting. You can't help attracting women. I blame you for starting things with Kelly. You didn't have to do that, but expecting you to be any different would be like expecting a pig to fly. It's not in your nature. But we can't keep seeing each other."

He shook his head.

"I'll get out of here. I won't come back and we can see each other at my place. Or we can go on regular dates. Hell, I'll meet you places. As far as Kelly, I won't take her calls and I'll treat her like cancer. No contact. I haven't lied to you. Ever, except not letting you know I planned to get you into bed. And you knew that all along anyway."

He pulled her to him again.

"This is crazy. We have a good thing going. I hate it that this happened, but don't do this."

She pushed him away.

"I'm not going to change my mind, Doug. It's not you. It's me. I shouldn't have started this, not till I was completely through with Bill. Remember, I told you I wanted to wait until we were through. But I didn't. I went to bed with you before I even told him I was divorcing him. I brought you into our -- Bill's bed. I told myself the kids were old enough to accept it. But you can see how well that went. BJ spends less time here than he ever did and Kelly is trying to get you into bed."

She reached out to touch his cheek and she felt more than ever the real gulf between their ages.

"I told you this wasn't going to last, Doug. It just would never have worked out. I've loved our time together, but I can't take the chance of something happening with Kelly. I was 17 once, and a lot wilder than she has ever dreamed of being. She won't stop. She's enamored with you. She probably thinks she loves you. And I'm her mother and I've got you. That's an irresistible challenge to any 17-year-old."

"This just isn't fucking fair, Deb. And you know it."

"I wasn't fair to Bill when I went to bed with you while I was still married to him. I wasn't fair to him when I shaved my pussy for you and lied to him about it. I haven't been fair about a lot of things. Fair doesn't matter. I can't have you in my life anymore, Doug."

"How can you be so fucking cold, Deb? I know you said you didn't love me, but you don't have any feeling for me at all?"

"Because I let myself forget I'm a mother. I was selfish and I was only thinking about that wonderful dick of yours. I put my kids second to you. But, you were never going to be around forever. My kids will be here when you're gone. They'll be here when Bill is out of my life permanently. No matter who I meet in the future, they're what counts."

He looked like he wanted to say something, then just stopped and walked toward the bedroom.

"Have a good life, Deb. If you change your mind, call me."

When she heard him walk out she went to Kelly's room. She had put on short shorts and a low cut blouse. She was pretending to look at something on her laptop.

"I'm not going to give you a lecture because I was 17 once. But, he's almost twice your age. Even if he had sex with you, you're just a kid. You think he's going to be interested in you for anything but sex?"

"That seemed to be more than enough for you, Mother. Or were you going to marry him and let him make an honest woman out of you?"

"I'm not you. I'm a grown woman."

She flung the laptop down on her bed.

"You're an old woman. Old. Your beasts are sagging. You're getting wrinkles. You know that? And you walk around in those damn tight blouses pushing your tits into every man's face that will look at you? You flirt with my boyfriends. Do you know that, you damned bitch? They all call you their favorite MILF. You know what that is? All my girlfriends laugh at you behind your back."

"I can't help the way I look, Kelly. Guys look at my tits. They have since I was younger than you. What am I supposed to do, wear a Burqa or a potato sack? You're going to be the same way. Guys will never look you in the eye. And they're going to be try to grab a feel anytime you turn around. Your teachers and professors in college will be offering you all kind of opportunities for easy grades. You just have to be a little friendly, that's all. I've been there. I don't have to flirt with guys, they do enough of that."

"You make me sick. You do it deliberately. You've been flirting with guys behind Dad's back since I was old enough to realize what you were doing. I'm glad he's left you. You don't deserve him. Yeah, he's stuffy and a wet blanket about a lot of things, but he's never messed around on you. And I don't know how many fathers of my girlfriends that I could say that about."

Debbie stepped back. No matter what, she was going to be late to her meeting. Doug was gone. It was going to be a bad day all around. But this shit still stuck in her craw.

"Stick up for Saint Bill. Why don't you go live with him if you're that crazy about him? Oh, I forgot, he didn't want you, did he? Plenty of time for other people's kids, but never for you and your brother. How many school events has he been to? How many has he missed? I know you love him, Kelly, even if he doesn't. But that's blinded you to the truth about him. If you were in my shoes you would have left him a long time ago."

"He's got a busy life, Mom. But maybe I'll go move in with Doug?"

She smiled.

"I'm going to be 18 in three weeks, Mom. I'll be legal. You can't keep me here. And when I show up at Doug's apartment with something real low cut, showing off my tits -- that don't sag -- you think he's going to throw me out? I don't think so. I'm going to suck that big fat dick that I've heard you moaning about at night. You know you guys have sex so much at times the whole house stinks of it?

"I'm closer to his age than you are. I'd be a much better match for him. I might even go to UNF for a four-year program. I could cut expenses by living with him. I think he'd like that. I think I've got a shot mom. He's young, hot, he's got a great job and he makes decent money. I think he'd be a good dad."

She stepped off the bed, those proud young breasts pointing out ahead of her, the way Debbie remembered hers doing once upon a time. She was almost Debbie's height and so she was staring eye to eye as she said, "I think I can grab him. And if I do give him a baby, I'll be Mrs. Doug Baker and you'll be his mother. Wouldn't that be sweet?"

She was lashing out before she could stop herself, drawing her stinging right hand back as Kelly almost fell back to the bed. There was a bright red outline of a palm against her cheek.

"You stupid little bitch...."

Kelly rubbed her cheek, and fought back tears.

"Good shot mom. You really are a jealous bitch, aren't you. Did that feel good? Too bad Dad didn't bat you around years ago. You might have stayed married."

She sat back on the bed.

"Why don't you go on to your meeting, Mom. I won't be here when you get back."

"Kelly, don't be stupid. I don't want to have to call the cops.."

"Oh yeah, right, you want the cops coming in to this. I'll just take a picture of this hand mark on my face so Children and Family Services will come in and remove me and BJ. I know that will do your job situation a world of good: UNF Professor investigated for child abuse. I can see the story now. Of course, dad will have to recuse himself if they file charges. Couldn't have him prosecuting his ex-wife. 

"Don't talk shit. I'll let you know where I'll be. I'll probably go stay with Grandma and Granddad Bascomb until after I turn 18 and then I'll look for a roommate. I think Dad will probably pay for me to get an apartment. Especially when I tell him that I can't stand living with your slutty ass another minute." 

Debbie just stared at her daughter for a long moment. It was amazing how much she sounded like Debbie at 17. Of course, the old saying like mother like daughter had a lot of truth to it. Unfortunately, she did remember what it was like to be 17, stacked and horny. Shit.

As she walked past BJ's bedroom she didn't notice the door open a fraction of an inch and then close.

She drove to UNF, knowing she was late and would be reamed out by her department head, knowing that she'd have to face Doug almost every day, knowing that Kelly would probably be gone when she got home and that Bill would probably know about it as soon as he got back and if he deemed to talk to her at all, would rub it in her face that Kelly couldn't stand living with the Mother of the Year.

She was too old to cry and it would wipe out her makeup, but she felt like it. It didn't help that Bill, that self-righteous prick, was probably enjoying the sea air and fucking some desperate divorcee's brains out. Doug was right. Sometimes life just wasn't fair.

Monday, July 18, 2005 -- 11:30 a.m.

I didn't wake up until 10:30 a.m. when the day was well underway for most passengers. But I hadn't gotten to bed till well after 3:30 a.m. which was way out of my normal routine. I woke up alone in that huge round bed and for a second I couldn't remember where I was. Then I tried to figure out where Debbie had gone to. Had she already left for work? But, we were on a cruise, so she wouldn't be leaving for work.

She's probably gone down to get an early breakfast and let me sleep in. I stretched and felt the muscles in my back and shoulders tense and relax. Damn, that felt good. I tried to remember why I felt so good. (It had been years, a lot of years, since I'd felt my body so intensely, felt the muscles flex and stiffen, then relax.

I closed my eyes and I saw Debbie coming back in in shorts and a tee shirt, which was her usual garb on our cruises. Those immense tits bulged out and bounced despite the bras and I knew a lot of male passengers and staff had gotten whiplash swinging their heads around to watch them as she bounced along on the decks and the restaurant.

Even with a bra, her nipples would be poking out insistently and she'd grin at me as she slipped into the room.

"Teasing the hungry animals?" I'd ask as she came in and deliberately jiggled when she knew I was looking at her.

"Always, baby, but I brought the goodies home to you," she'd say as she slipped the tee shirt and bra off and bounced into bed with me. I'd suck her right breast and then left, milking her as I did and felt the vibrations run through her and I'd know if I slipped a finger down into that pussy that was already creaming I'd feel her wetness running out. More than any other woman I'd ever been with, Debbie's tits were the gateway to her pussy. Suck them and in a minute she'd be ready for action.

"Why are you so wet? Have you been a good girl?" I'd tease her and she would rub those soft tits all over my face, pulling them out of my mouth and dropping to encircle my already stiff cock and begin to rub them up and down.

"Yes. It was exciting, watching all those hot hunky men staring at my titties and my ass. And it got me wet, real real wet, but it just made me want THIS more," she said, dropping down to swallow my cock in one motion and take it down to my balls.

I lay back and let her make love to my dick with her mouth and those incredible breasts. It didn't make any difference if a lot of the heat and the wetness of her pussy came from the excitement of bouncing around in front of strange men. 

She'd always been this way. She loved exciting men, and as far as I knew it was the excitement of exhibiting herself that made her wet, not the thought of fucking other men. But she always brought it back home to me and I knew I'd need at least one viagra, if not two, before the day was over because once her motor started running, it was a challenge to keep up with her.

But it was a hell of a fun challenge. 

I stretched again and then like a photo coming into focus, the memories fell away and I remembered that had been 1995 -- our last cruise to Hawaii. I rubbed my eyes to get the sleep and the tears out.

What the hell had happened to the sexy, loving woman who couldn't get enough of my cock?

Ten years and the State Attorney's Office and life had happened. As I put away those memories, the memories of what had happened last night rushed in to take their place.

Aline des-Jardins. I still couldn't figure her out. We'd only known each other for little more than a weekend. And our association had started only because it was part of her job. Still, there were those kisses, and the flirting. If there was not a kernel of real feeling there, she was the best damned actress I'd ever seen or heard of.

And she was Philippe Archambault's wife, for God's sake. What were the odds of running into Philippe's wife and getting involved with her. As I lay there I remembered the big Frenchman. It was like the way it had been with Lew Walters, only not as strong. I just liked the guy. He was easy to like. Despite having movie-star good looks and holding a powerful position that probably far outranked me because he was really a cross between a federal and a state prosecutor, he was just a good guy.

He got along with other attorneys, French cops, crooks, barmaids and heiresses. He didn't put on airs. If I hadn't known just how powerful he was, I'd have thought he was just another prosecutor. 

And like me, it was the job that counted, the people we fought for that mattered. He had been as doggedly determined to track down the scum that were snatching Muslim girls out of the slums of Paris to force them into prostitution as he was prosecuting kidnappers that had stolen and murdered the nine-month old male heir to one of the world's largest shipping empires headquartered in Marseilles.

I suddenly remembered one of the organized crime thugs that we'd talked to in a Parisian dive trying to get a lead on the Muslim slave trafficking ring. As Philippe had walked to the bar to buy a round for three criminals and three prosecutors and cops, the old man with an impossibly bizarre wig and two gold front teeth and two fingers missing on his left hand leaned over and in broken English said, something about pitying the poor fools who had "le Diable" on their tail.

The Parisian cop who was with us leaned over and laughing, said, "He means, 'The Devil' as you Anglais would put it. Most of the low lives around here do their best to stay in good with Philippe because he didn't get that nickname lightly. The few who disrespected him are serving life sentences or feeding the fish somewhere. He is a hard man, but one who I like having on our side."

There was no doubt that he was a good man professionally. Personally I was sure he was screwing around on this dream of a wife. How could you be a good man and a scumbag at one and the same time?

Probably the same way I could be a good prosecutor and a scumbag that would consider, seriously consider, bedding a friend's wife at the same time.

And yet, and yet, and yet, she'd told me that I knew nothing about her marriage. She wanted to be with me, regardless of whether it was for the job or any other reason. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe nothing should happen.

But, I looked inside myself and tried to remember the man who had set foot on the Bonne Chance on Friday afternoon. I didn't feel like the same man. When I thought about Debbie, it still hurt. It hurt like hell. But I didn't feel like a walking pile of shit anymore. I felt like a live, breathing, 41 , almost 42-year-old man, and I knew now that 42 wasn't over the hill. I had felt over the hill, and my marriage was over the hill, but I wasn't.




When We Were Married Ch. 04A



THO' HELL BAR THE DOOR

Author's note: And apology. I've made a few mistakes in this story, despite trying to keep an involved story straight. First and most grievous is that I put the wrong age in for Bill and Debbie's daughter, Kelly. She was 17, not 16, at the start of the story. If and when I re-post I'll correct that. She's 17 and Bill and Debbie have been married for 17 years. It's possible. I've tried to keep away from glitches like that because I want the story to work and I don't want readers constantly wondering if what they've been told is correct. I think that's the major glitch. Another glitch is that Debbie is an Associate, not Assistant Professor at UNF. There are two levels, but Associate is the highest and closest to regular professor, and Associates do have job protections that Assistants usually don't. Finally, most embarrassing, is that murder trials do indeed require 12 jurors, not six as I mentioned in the second chapter. I have no excuse for that one. I've covered murder trials and I should have thought about that. I hope eagle-eyed readers will keep me honest and I'll do my best to keep the story consistent.

DQS1

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 12:10 a.m. 

My name is William Maitland and until 10 minutes ago the only pussy that I'd had intimate knowledge of in the last 20 years belonged to a blonde goddess named Debbie. She had been and was but would not much longer be my wife. 

Currently I was up to my balls in the delicious brunette vagina of a French dream named Aline, plunging in as rhythmically as one of those wells you see in stock shots of the California oil fields.

My mouth was full of soft French titty capped with a thick, eraser nipple that I was also rhythmically sucking on while the earlier mentioned Aline was doing her best to both tear my ears off while the aforementioned pussy was clutching at my cock with muscle control that was, quite frankly, amazing and unbelievable.

We were in my suite in the French cruise ship Bonne Chance, and never has any vessel been more aptly named because my luck had indeed changed since I set foot on its deck.

I would feel completely on top of the world if I were not fucking the wife of a man who I would consider a friend and colleague except that if I spent any time thinking about that fact I'd go back to feeling shitty and guilt-ridden and I just didn't want to go back there right at that point.

She pulled on my ears harder and gasped, "fuck me harder..."

"I'm doing my best," I managed to gasp. "...I'm out of practice...

"You couldn't tell it by me, chéri....oh.... Mon Dieuuuuuuuuuuuu."

"Aline.....Aline...I'm going to...to...you want me to pull out?"

She rose up to seize my lower lip in her teeth and bit so hard she drew blood.

"You pull out and I will kill you, I swear to God...."

At that point I began to spurt, again and again and again. It had been a long, long, long time....

Her pussy tightened and relaxed and tightened. It felt exactly like she was milking me. And I started coming again. I didn't even know that was possible. I finally stopped. I think I'd passed my kidneys. My cock was so hard it hurt.

I held myself up above her and watched her face. She had shut her eyes tight as if in pain but now her face relaxed and the grip she had on my hips with her legs relaxed and they finally slid down to the bed. She opened her eyes and smiled up at me. 

"How long..."

"How long what?"

"How long did you say it had been...since you had sex?"

"I didn't say, but four months more or less."

"No wonder...you know you....inundated me....we need to change these sheets. I'm lying in a puddle...."

"Sorry...."

She pulled me down for another deep kiss and ended it by licking the blood off my lower lip.

"Don't be, cheri...my God, that felt so good."

"Did you...should we have...are you..."

"I am safe...and so are you....no worries, Bill....."

I fell to lie beside her, my cock slipping out of the warm center of her as I did so. God she had felt good.

She reached out and touched my rampant dick. A look of wonder appeared on her face. She pressed her fingers around it and squeezed. Somehow I was still hard as a rock.

"Are you sure you're not really 18?"

"I don't understand it either."

"I do, cheri. You just want to fuck me very very much, don't you."

"Who wouldn't."

She slid her face down my belly. I still had a slight paunch but not much of one. And for the first time in years, I wasn't embarrassed to have a woman see me naked. She held it in both hands and licked the tip, still dripping and covered with both our juices.

"You don't have to do that Aline, Let me clean up."

She took it in her mouth and deep throated the entire length. Despite Debbie's psychological warfare on me, I knew I wasn't that small, just not in Doug's league. And still Aline swallowed me without the least hint of trouble. I wondered just how big Philippe was.

"You do that very well, I must say. I thought you said...."

She took it out of her mouth with a long, messy slurp and looked at me grinning, "It has been six months..but it's like...as you say...riding a bicycle..you never forget how..."

Then she went to work with a vengeance. It took her another 10 minutes but eventually I just jammed her head down with both hands and jerked my hips as I erupted again. She didn't resist but just swallowed and swallowed and then licked me clean again.

I lay back feeling like I really was a hundred. She rested her head on my chest.

"You want to....you know...use the bathroom?"

She looked up into my eyes and I realized for the first time the color of her eyes...they were the color of the sea, a deep blue green.

I had to tell myself again..."you will not fall for this married woman."

She licked her lips.

"Why...I love the way you taste, Bill."

How was I NOT going to fall in love with her.

And while I was thinking about that, or something else, we fell asleep in that big red bed, entangled in each other's arms. We never changed the sheets and it was the best sleep I'd had in four months. Maybe a lot longer...

 ######################################

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 8 a.m.



"Hi, Debbie. You got a few minutes before you have to leave for work?"

"Yeah, mom."

"I just wanted to talk to you for a minute."

"Okay. How is Kelly?"

"She's a 17-year-old almost 18-year-old.. You remember what that was like?"

"Unfortunately. Has – she talked about why she bailed?"

"Just that her mother – I quote – is a miserable jealous bitch who couldn't keep her own husband and now wants to grab all the hot guys for herself. I gather you two had a falling out?"

"We had a difference of opinion. She thinks she's 25 and I think she's an 17-year-old with the maturity of a nine-year-old.'

"That's all you want to say about it? She won't tell me what happened."

"Someday when you're 85 and in a nursing home, I might. Not till then."

"Does it have anything to do with Doug?"

"No."

"You wouldn't lie to your mother?"

"Have I ever?"

"Oh, please!"

"I know, silly of me. I forgot you knew me when. I'm not going to tell you, but you'll be happy to know that Doug and I are through."

 "No. Are you serious?"

 "Yes, mother. I know this will make your day. We are officially through. I told him to pick up any of his things he had here, he's not coming back and I'm not seeing him."

"Well at least that proves that prayer works."

"Very funny. Doug wasn't a bad guy...it's just that things...weren't going to work out. But he was a good friend."

"With benefits."

 "He was a friend."

 "That's your story and you're sticking to it. At least this clears the way for you to start working on things between you and Bill."

 "Mom, when are you going to get it through your head. We are going to be divorced in a month. There is no ' working on things.' Things are over."

 "He still loves you."

 "Sure, that's why he won't talk to me. I've tried and all he does is hang up on me or tell me to get out of his office. If that's loving me, I wouldn't want to see what hating was like."

 "That doesn't mean he doesn't love you. Just that he's angry with you. You hurt him, baby, God you hurt him bad."

 "I know. But it's not just him not wanting to get back. I don't want it mother."

 "You're lying."

 "Where have you been the last 10 years, Mom. You know what it's been like."

 "You've got problems. Who doesn't. The reason you couldn't get back together with him is that there was something in the way – Doug. Doug's gone."

 "It's not that simple, or easy. In the first place, I don't want that marriage back the way it was. I don't – I don't....love him. Not like I used to."

"You forget I've known you for nearly 40 years. You can lie to anyone else, but I know you better."

"Anyway, Mom, it isn't going to happen."

"Why not? I'm not saying it would be easy. But couples have come back from worse breaks. If you want your marriage back."

"It can't, mom. Just let it go. Bill won't ever consider us back together again."

"How-"

"I just know. In a month we'll be divorced."

#########################     

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 8 a.m.

Is there any better way in this world to awake than with an inhumanly beautiful brunette impaled on your cock and riding it like a cowgirl on a bucking bronc. I decided after about two seconds that, no, there wasn't. Maybe, despite my sins and failures as a man, somebody up there – if there was somebody up there- liked me. 

She bounced up and down and then did a hula hoop motion, rotating around and around on my cock. I was entranced and amazed. How in the hell was I doing this. I must have said it out loud.

She stopped bouncing and squeezed me again with that amazing pussy. God. Words could not do that justice.

She bent forward to kiss me and I tasted mint on her breath and on the lipstick she had reapplied. She had obviously gotten up in the middle of the night and tended to matters. I hated to think what my breath smelled like. She didn't seem to mind.

"You said....it was four months....you could not get hard...."

"Not even a little bit...."

She leaned forward and I held her hips in my hands to steady her as she kissed me lightly.

"You watched pornography?"

"un huh..."

"Well, Bill, did anything you see feel better than my hot, tight pussy squeezing your big, haaaaardd cock....well?"

I felt a twitch and she did something that stopped the explosion that was about to erupt.

I just shook my head and she smiled as she said, "You just needed a real woman in your bed...."

"Yeah," I said, thrusting up.

She laughed.

"Buck as hard as you want, my stallion, you're not throwing me."

"Is that a challenge?"

I answered with actions and not words and damned if she wasn't able to ride me until I squirted three hard times while that unbelievable pussy did its best to squeeze my dick off and she screamed until I jammed my tongue down her throat.

Laying beside me I asked her, "Did you climax?"

"What do you think, Stallion? If this room wasn't soundproofed, we'd have security in here right now ."

After awhile I rolled over and said, "I'm going to brush my teeth and take a quick shower."

The water was running when she slipped in behind me and dropped to her knees. Looking up at me as the water ran down her face, she grabbed my limp cock and started sucking again. With the water pasting her thick black hair to her face, if it was humanly possible I would have gotten hard again and fucked her face but the flesh just wasn't willing. I didn't think I had a milliliter of precious bodily fluids left in me.

After a few minutes she reluctantly let it go with one last lick and stood up beside me.

"He doesn't want to play. You are a meanie."

"I'm going to need transfusions if he comes out again any time soon."

She grinned and opened her legs, running two fingers inside her and coming out with an oily liquid that ran off with the shower water.

"I'd be glad to help you....you have made me so, so wet....."

I hadn't done it that often, but regardless of the fact that I had just come inside her I went to my knees and started nuzzling and then groping inside her with my tongue. If I thought about it, it would be fairly disgusting. I'd eaten myself out of a Debbie a few times, but I never liked it. But there was no way in hell I wasn't going to eat this vision's pussy until she came all over my face. You can do anything if you don't think about what you're doing.

She came so hard I thought she was going to strangle under the shower and then she slid down on her butt to lay beside me under the pounding water. 

I licked the water off the side of that face and said, "I still think I'm going to wake up alone in my bed any minute. This can't be real."

She rolled to bury her face in my shoulder. Thank God that most cruise ships seem to have unlimited hot water. Otherwise we'd be freezing by now.

"You know I wanted you to come after me, don't you?"

"What was the secret sign I was supposed to pick up on? I missed it. I almost didn't come, except I couldn't help myself. You've placed a spell on me."

 She ran one long red fingernail down my chest, almost hard enough to leave a line behind it.

 "A woman wants a man to pursue her, to win her. She wants to know that a man wants her enough to challenge any obstacle. When they told me you were at the Lounge I acted angry, but inside I started to get wet. And when they told me you wouldn't leave...I knew I was right."

"About what?"

'You are the kind of man who cannot be stopped when he knows what he wants. And you wanted me, whether you were willing to admit it or not. I really wasn't surprised. There's an old expression....it means, roughly translated, a man who cannot be stopped."

I just gave her a curious look.

She leaned over to nibble on my ear and whispered, "You are the kind of man who would come for me, 'tho' Hell bar the door.' Hell itself could not frighten you off. "

"But what if I hadn't shown?"

"I would have been devastated."

She gave me a long lingering kiss before pushing herself to her feet.

Looking down at me and extending her hand down to me, she said, "I see what your wife must have seen so many years ago. I can see why she fell in love with you."

As I reached out to turn off the water I couldn't help asking her, "You're not doing that, are you?"

"Does that frighten you so much? A man who would stand against a mob, frightened of one woman?"

"You're married, Aline. And you told me you loved Philippe. Was that the truth?"

She hugged me and I thought it might be so I couldn't read her eyes.

"I told you, Bill, you don't know anything me...or my marriage. I know it bothers you....because you're the kind of man you are. But I'll answer your questions. In a little bit."

We dried each other off, which led to more playing and eventually we wound up back on the bed, after changing the sheets. I hadn't this much sex, this much continuous sex, since...probably the last cruise Debbie and I had took to Hawaii ten years before. As I thought about her and Doug I still felt the anger rising and the pain, but somehow it wasn't as bad.

Was life ever anything but high school replayed over and over. She had a new boyfriend and I had had nobody. Now I had this beautiful woman in my bed. I had my own girlfriend and I wasn't such a loser anymore. So damned high school.

She lay back in a pose reminiscent of a famous French picture I can't remember the name of. She lay on her side with her back to me, the womanly curves in full view as well as exposing the luscious slit between those long legs.

"You like? I have been told that my ass is my most attractive feature?"

"You've got a fantastic ass, Aline. No doubt about it. But..."

I rolled her over and lay down beside her, sucking on one luscious nipple.

"You've also got fantastic breasts and a mouth that should be in the Louvre."

She pushed my head away. 

"But my breasts are so small, compared to..."

"Your tits are fantastic."

"Hers are so much bigger than mine. I googled her after I learned about you and found a picture of her. She is huge. Am I a disappointment?"

"She has big tits, but size isn't everything. Yours are perfect for your size. They're soft and suckable and your nipples are much bigger than hers. They are truly 'Grand Tetons.' If I had any juice left, you'd know how much I like them."

I went back to suckling and she ran her hands over the stubble that had begun to sprout on my skull.

"I would know you were a lawyer even if I didn't know it, you silver-tongued devil. Philippe once said that not all liars are lawyers, but all lawyers are liars."

I raised my head from those luscious breasts and leaned back on one elbow.

"Tell me about you and Philippe. I want to know, Aline, no matter what."

"I met Philippe at a party in Paris, as I told you. It was as you Americans say, love at first sight. He is a gorgeous man and I knew he had many women when we married. I believe he gave up that life when we first married. But...I had already started my career when I met Philippe. I was 27 when I met him. That was ten years ago. Three years after we married I had our son, André."

"You have a son? Where is he?"

"He attends school in Paris. He lives with Philippe."

"How long..."

"Three months, sometimes four months a year. I miss him always. I try to be with him while he is out of school as much as I can. When I am with him, he is my life. We do everything. And I try to make up with Philippe for the time we are apart..."

She pushed me away and rolled to her side, her back to me.

"I wish you had waited to ask me. I don't even need to see your face to know what you are thinking. What kind of mother can leave her husband and son for most of the year to wait on strangers on what is nothing more than a floating hotel? Do you see a monster when you look at me now, Bill? Do you want me to get my clothes and leave?"

I put my hand on her bare shoulder. I could feel her shiver.

"Another man would simply fuck me and not even think of this. But I already know enough about you to know you can't do that. Do I disgust you?"

I rolled her back toward me. Tears glistened in those beautiful blue-green eyes.

"No. I just don't understand."

"When I met Philippe I had already worked five years on the Bonne Chance. I had a career. I had a life. After we...knew...that we could not leave each other...we talked about this. I checked other cruise lines, other travel lines. I even received a leave of absence for three months and worked another cruise line. But..."

She looked at me as if willing me to understand.

"I know many people would not understand my decision. But you have stood with me at night on the decks, watched the sea during a storm, watched lighting roll in the sky, seen the waves roll by on a calm night. Every night is different. I thought about leaving this life when Philippe and I married. But....I love it. I love the sea, I love my job, I love the people I meet, I love the fact that we roam the world. No other ship is like this. We have the entire world. 

"How can I leave this?

"We talked after six months and we decided....Philippe could not leave his work. His is an important job and the day will come when he is an important man in the French government. He loves his work, but it is a step on the path to real power. I could not ask him to give that up. And I made him understand that while my job will never bring those benefits...it is equally important to me.

"So, we would live apart for part of the year, sometimes six months, sometimes nine, but we loved each other to much to say goodbye to each other. Couples do manage to maintain a marriage while living apart, even in your country.




When We Were Married Ch. 04A



"And then.... André came along."

She buried her face in my naked chest and kissed both nipples.

"I took a year off. The cruise line liked me and said they would save my job that long. With leave and the year, I was with André until he was almost a year old. I thought I would die, but I left him with Philippe and a governess. I knew I couldn't take him with me.

"There were a hundred times when I almost went to the captain and told him that I had to quit. But I didn't. And with each day that went by, I was able to live with my decision more easily. Not easily, Bill, just more easily. There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of him.

"He is nearly seven now. And I am mama who flies in with presents and kisses three months a year. I know I love him. I know he loves me. I hope he will love me when he grows to be a man and realizes that I missed most of his young life. But Philippe is a wonderful father. He is raising him to be a good man."

"I don't hate you, Aline. I just..."

 "I know I should quit, but..."

 "The way I should have quit long ago and maybe kept my wife and family....but I couldn't. I understand, Aline. Believe me, if there's anybody on this earth that knows what you're talking about, it's me."

She held me tightly.

"Do you believe in kindred souls, Bill? I still cannot believe that in a matter of days I have...these feelings for you. First you intrigued me, then you aroused me and then you broke my will with that damned Fleur-de-lis. You know, if I live to be 90, I will never part with it. And if we never see each other again, I will always think of you when I hold it."

"Then it was the best $7,000 American I ever spent. It would have been worth it for one night."

I laughed as I felt her tense. I knew she knew I was joking, but....

"You know that's why I was so angered with you that night. I am not a prostitute. Never have been. But so many rich and powerful men just automatically assume if you are attractive and on a cruise ship like this, you can be bought."

"You wouldn't be here now if you thought I was trying to buy you."

She bit my nipple gently and then a little harder.

"You couldn't afford me, William Maitland, if you were to try to buy me."

I teased her, "so how expensive would a night with you be?"

She bit the nipple harder, then kissed it to make it feel better.

"I have been offered $20,000 cash, condominiums, diamond necklaces worth at least 20,000 euros. One man, a very old and wealthy Arab, offered to buy me my own island. A small one, mind you, less than an acre in the Caribbean, but he said it had running water, a small power station and a port where yachts could dock. All he wanted was my body for a month."

 "Do you have a private island?"

She nipped me so hard I yelped. Then she started licking it until the pain went away.

"You bastard. You'd better be joking. No, I did not accept his offer."

I pulled her lips to me and we made out for awhile. If I could have gotten hard I would have been inside her again. Had I been this horny when I was 18? Finally we stopped for awhile to resume breathing. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again Aline was sitting beside me on the bed. She was dressed and again wore the Fleur-de-lis pin over her breast.

"I have to go now, for a few hours, Bill. I have someone covering for me, but I am still a working member of the crew."

"Okay. But first...why are you here? With me. In my bed?"

"Because I am very stupid."

"Why?"

"Not the sex. When we realized we would be apart so much, we made the decision – we never talked about it but we both knew – that I would never ask him about his life in Paris and he would never ask me about mine on Bonne Chance. I know he has women. He tries to be discrete, and he is careful, but he is a man of....large appetites."

I held her face in my hands and asked a question that I didn't want to ask. I didn't have the right to ask it. But I had to know.

"And....your appetites?"

She looked me straight in the eye.

"I have been with three men, other than my husband, in the last five years. Geraldo was a 26-year-old Spaniard whose families owns mines in Spain and South America. He cruised with us for three straight months, wooing me with wine and gifts and laughter. He made me laugh. He was like a puppy, eager to please, so pathetically transparent that he wanted my body. Finally, I could not say no any longer."

She looked me straight in the eye and said, "He was a wonderful lover. Handsome and – large – and he concentrated on my pleasure before his own. I enjoyed our time together, but I never felt guilty because it was purely sex with him. I gave him nothing that I had promised to Philippe. Finally his family made him come home. He has contacted me a few times since then, but he knew we would not be together again.

"The second was Niccolo. He was a 63-year-old Italian furrier from Rome. He sailed with us three years ago. Twice. He was an intelligent, charming and handsome older man. His wife had died of cancer a year before and he just...looked so lost. I did not plan to...be with him, but he touched my heart. When he came back the second time, I went to him the first night on board.

"And you are the third."

She looked away and said carefully, "Do you think I am a slut?"

"No, not under those circumstances. I know...I can see where Philippe would have women and anyone can become lonely separated from their husband for months, or years. But why did you say that being with me was stupid?"

She reached out to cup my face in one small hand.

"Because Geraldo was a boy who wanted sex and Niccolo was a sad older man who needed healing for a broken heart. I never felt anything – serious – for either one. Nothing could ever have happened with either one. They would never be a threat to Philippe – or what we had.

"You...are dangerous. I told you I felt a spark the first moment I looked at you and you looked back. I have been....unsteady...I have lost my footing since that moment. I love my husband...and you obviously still love your wife...but when I am with you....This cannot be happening. We have only known each other a little more than four days. You cannot...feel...these kinds of emotions in such a short time..."

"And you were going to stop anything from happening last night. Until I made that grand romantic gesture. Do you wish I hadn't gone into Marsh Harbour?"

She kissed me hard before releasing me.

"No. I will never regret last night. Someday this life will be over and Philippe and I will be a normal married couple with a grown son and hopefully grandchildren. Probably in Paris. Philippe will be a powerful man rising in the government and I will attend events and parties with him. And people will look at us and say we are the model of a happy couple.

"And I will love and honor my husband. But I will never forget you, or the hours we have spent together. And I will wear your Fleur-de-lis pin. If anyone asks, I will tell them it was a gift from a dear friend. And Philippe will never ask me exactly how you came to give it to me."

####################        

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 11 a.m.

The Price of Betrayal  

The last class of the morning was trooping out grumbling about their reading assignments and project homework as usual when Miriam Bender showed up at the door to her classroom The secretary to President Myers was standing in the doorway. As usual she appeared to be looking down her nose at Debbie without actually doing so. She was just another flat-chested bitch.

"President Myers would like to see you, now, if you don't mind."

Debbie just stared at her for a moment. He had to know she didn't have another class until 2 p.m. because of the summer schedule. So this was something planned and not spur of the moment. She had a sinking feeling she knew what it was.

Bender knocked on the ornate decorated wooden door to his office, opened it and stuck her head inside. A moment later she motioned to Debbie to enter.

Myers was standing behind his desk, his back to her, finishing a conversation on the telephone. He hung the phone up and motioned to her to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk, which probably cost more than she made in a year. The chairs were low enough that she was looking up at him. 

Negotiating 101. Always put your opponent at a lower level forcing him or her to look up. It was a little thing, but in negotiating, little things made a difference. 

"Thank you for coming by, Professor Maitland."

"It's never a problem coming to see you, President Myers."

He was an old man, but she said it with just enough of an intonation and intimation and she took a deep breath that she knew he got the message. Vibes the kids called it. He was an old man and she wasn't being blatant, but the man/woman sexual chemistry was always working. If he could play the power hand, she could play the sex/big titty hand she had been dealt.

You used what you had, as she'd always taught her students. She had worked for the powerful local Hunt Bank in Jacksonville before she had decided to go for her professorship. It put her behind most other professors in terms of age and advancement. She would always be older than anyone she was going up against for promotions or advancement. But....

She knew how the real world worked. Many, if not most, of the professors came straight out of academia. They had never worked a day in their life in the real world. And the stuff they taught the bright eyed, ignorant, completely clueless 18 or20 or even 25-year-olds also came straight out of books.

They didn't teach how to deal with managers who made "friendliness" a factor in evaluations, how to deal with managers that stole your ideas and passed them off as their own. They had no idea of how to play up your appearance if you were male or the size of your tits if you were female to get extra attention without being labeled a slut or boy toy. They had no idea how to flirt without looking like you were flirting.

They had no idea of the fine line between being business hot and slutty, of how important a mate's appearance and behavior was to your advancement. It wasn't fair, but those above you judged you on your better half as much as on your own capabilities. They had no idea how to work parties or weekend get-togethers with superiors.

She had always done what she could to work in some of the practical knowledge she had gained working for the Hunts to her students while giving them the academic side, doing her own research and writing, raising two children and trying to keep a marriage going single-handedly. She knew she'd fallen behind on the research and papers, and that just gave the assholes another club to use on her.

Myers did a quick once-over of her face and body. He was old, but he wasn't' dead.

"I appreciate that, Professor Maitland. I wish...this were to be a more...pleasant conversation."

Her heart did a flip-flop.

"I've talked to Department Head Rutledge about the staff meeting yesterday."

"I know I was late, but there was a personal crisis at home."

"It's not just that your tardiness caused problems in finishing and scheduling future classes, but Professor Rutledge says this fits a pattern of....sloppiness....on your part. It seems that your teaching activities have suffered because of...personal considerations."

"President Myers, I have been...my personal life has been somewhat in turmoil recently. You know why. But I've kept up my teaching assignments, my students have received their grades on time, I'm working on a paper right now that should be ready within a month's time."

He looked at her with an expression she couldn't read.

"I'm sorry, Professor, but there have been too many complaints and there are people within your department that feel strongly I should ask you to consider seeking employment elsewhere."

"I could fight that."

"You could. But why? If the decision is made that you should go, you have enough practical experience in the business world to know that it will happen. And while you might fight it, the damage done to your reputation would be so severe that it would ultimately be better for you to make a clean break."

 She would not cry. But this on top of Kelly leaving, Doug gone, the divorce looming...why the hell did things always get worse. They had gotten worse since her decision to leave Bill. But it was the right decision.

 "Why?"

He looked down at his desk for a moment and when he looked back at her she saw a combination of anger and pity.

"I should not tell you this, and if you say anything, I will say you are lying and if it's your word against mine, you know who people will believe. That will destroy your credibility in future job search efforts. So what I say stays in this office. But, I do want you to know why you are losing your position."

He stared at her breasts for a moment, then said, "I knew a woman like you once. Oh, not as beautiful as you, but she was beautiful. I married her and we had what I thought were five years of a good marriage. Until the day I walked in on her in bed with her tennis instructor. It is so much of a cliché that I still cringe when I talk about it. And she cried that she still loved me and it had been a mistake on her part because I was working much too hard to make a life for us that she had said she wanted.

"I was young and foolish and I loved her. I took her back. And I believe she was faithful to me. But it didn't matter. We were divorced in a year."

He stared into her eyes and she wondered if he even saw her when he looked at her. Or did he see somebody else?

"You see, when something is broken, something as fragile and intangible as trust and faith, it can't be made whole. We should have divorced when I first discovered her infidelity, I suppose. If we had made a clean break, taken time apart and met again, we could have forged a new marriage. A new relationship, I guess. But I didn't. And I could never regain the trust and faith I had in her once.

"After we divorced, I waited three years and remarried. Too soon probably. My second wife was also a beautiful woman. And I could never bring myself to trust her. My suspicion poisoned our marriage and that failure is my part.

"Five years later I met my current wife. We have been married for 29 years and we have a son who is now completing his post-doctoral work at Harvard. My wife has been a good wife to me. And I love her. And to this day, I do not trust her as I should."

He glared at her and she knew now he was seeing her and not ghosts of his past.

"My life has been poisoned by my first wife's betrayal. I have never been the man I was before I walked in on her that day. Such a simple thing, and yet it haunts me to this day. I still think of her sometimes. And I know that deep down, very deep down, I still love her. She is the woman I should have grown old with. But she threw it all away."

The glare turned to a cold smile.

"I have tried not to keep tabs on her, to want to know how her life has gone. But people talk, and I see things. She has been married four times. And three of those times her husbands have cheated on her. She has no children. She has had a drinking problem, although I believe she has it under control. She lives alone now.

"I wish I could say that I pity her, but in all honesty, her pain has brought me comfort. There is a price to betrayal. Judas Iscariot, the first great betrayer, hung himself. He had the decency to do the right thing in the end.

"You, Professor Maitland, betrayed a man who obviously loved you. I saw it in him that night. He will never be the same man he was. He may come back and build a new life, but something will have been lost.

"That is why, Professor Maitland, I will be terminating your relationship with this university."

There were many things she could have said, but nothing that would have mattered. She got up to leave.

"Professor Maitland. I know this has been a shock and life will be...difficult..for you with everything else that is going on. Let me suggest that you contact Johnny August, the Jacksonville Public Defender. I can only tell you that there is a great deal of turmoil in that office and I know that from contacts I have, someone with your experience and reputation in corporate organization and operations, might find some interest there. It's strictly up to you."

 She walked out without looking back and started to think when her brain started functioning again what she would do. As she left Myers' office she realized she had never felt so alone in her life.

########################        

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 11:30 a.m.

I sat on a deck chair on Deck Quatre and watched the excursion ships chugging back and forth through the somewhat choppy waves toward the small spit of land that had been developed into a cruise ship play ground with a snack hut, changing hut, surfboard rental and a few other tourist amenities in the middle of nowhere.

In only two days and nights we'd be back in Jacksonville. And already the thoughts of what were waiting for me were beginning to occupy my mind. 

The "killer granny" trial transferred up from Orlando would probably come up in a month or two, which was tomorrow in Attorney Time. The last of the three child-killing drug-dealing thug brothers would be up in another few weeks. 

A brutal and evil man who had beaten his wife to death with a tire iron would go to trial and probably walk away a free man unless I managed to pull legal rabbit out of a hat.

And the black cop who had shot to death the white husband of the cop's white girlfriend, as well as the husband's two white brothers, was the big thundercloud hanging over everything else. The white girlfriend hadn't bothered to divorce her husband before moving in with the cop. 

In a perfect world, his race and the girlfriend's race and the race of the three dead men wouldn't matter. But the last time I'd looked, we didn't live in a perfect world.

I had slowly come to the conclusion of what I do would do about the cop, but the dead men were going to be just as dead if I put off the decision for a few more months. There is no statue of limitations on murder, fortunately. Because this one might really spell the end of my time at the State Attorney's Office. I just hadn't figured out a way to do what was right, without committing professional suicide.

I was thinking about these and other matters and sipping slowly on a snifter of Tequila Crude, pouring salt on the back of my hand, sliding a little of the Tequila down my throat and then biting into a wedge of lemon and enjoying the exquisitely sour rush.

"I see you are a man who knows how to drink Tequila."

I looked up. A tall brunette with large breasts, lips redder than rubies and eyes with ornately designed eyebrows stood at the rail looking down at me. I wondered if I might be putting out male pheromones.

"The product of a misspent youth, I'm afraid."

She sat in a chair beside me and offered me her hand. I took it and shook it. Sitting down she looked as good as she had standing.

"I am Danielle Vallée. I am one of the ship's Assistant Cruise Directors."

"Glad to meet you. I've already met one of your counterparts."

"I know, Aline. She had mentioned you and I've seen her with you."

"She is a very sweet lady and she has done an outstanding job of making the cruise an excellent one."

She smiled and said, "I'm sure. Screaming was reported from your room. Screaming which sounded suspiciously like Aline. And when she made her appearance today, she tried but could not keep the smile off her face."

"I'm sure she smiles frequently."

"No, she does not. And everyone knows why. That's why I wanted to thank you."

"For...?"

"For bringing a little happiness to a woman who deserves more. She is a good woman, a good crew mate, and a good friend."




When We Were Married Ch. 04A



She stood up and walked away without another word.

I sat there and thought about ordering another one. I was still thinking about it when a slight redheaded man sat beside me as I finished the Tequila Crude. He was out of uniform so it took me a second to recognize him.

"Father Dunleavy. And a fine mornin' to ya," I said in my best fake Irish brogue.

He just smiled and said, "Keep your day job, Mr. Maitland. What is that splendid concoction you're finishing there?"

I told him and he flagged down a waiter and ordered one for himself and another for me.

"It's early to be drinking, Mr. Maitland, but in the words of that great American song, 'It's 5 o'clock somewhere'!"

We talked about generalities, world politics, the possibility of more tribal conflicts in Rwanda and whether Tequila Crudes or Bloody Mary's were the true uncrowned great drink of the western world.

"You can't talk about Russia, because they don't know anything but Vodka there, or Italy because it's wine this and wine that," he said smiling.

We drank for a while and then he said, "You know that she is greatly conflicted about the attraction she feels for you?"

"Is that what she talked about with you?"

"Among other things. I gave her what advice I could, but I couldn't give her any answers."

"I would think as a Catholic Priest the answer would be pretty obvious. She's married. She shouldn't be going to bed with anybody but her husband."

"Most people would say that, and probably 99 percent of the time that rule would be sufficient. But...do you know her situation, that of her and her husband?"

"Not only that, but I know her husband. I would have called him a friend until I went to bed with his wife. I assume you know that because everybody seems to know everything on this ship. Since I am cuckolding him, I'm not sure how I'd characterize our relationship."

"That is only a word."

"But words, as a famous American conservative political commentator says, mean something. I tend to agree. Call it anything you want, I pursued and bedded a married woman who I think loves her husband. I did the same thing to him that a son-of-a-bitch did to me when he destroyed my marriage. I can't say I regret what I did, but I'm not proud of it."

Dunleavy took a lick of salt, a bite of lemon and a splash of Tequila, then said, "It is a shame that God is not as wise as we are. You know the truth of the matter but I'm not sure that God is as sure as you are."

"What is there to be unsure of, father. I'm an attorney. I deal with facts, with laws, with standards. There is no doubt she's married, no doubt married people should be faithful to their spouses, and no doubt she wasn't. Where is the uncertainty?" 

"There are no absolute equations to govern the human heart. There are no certainties. There are God's rules for us follow, but he knows and we know that we will not always follow them. Sometimes we can't.

"Aline told me that you said you pride yourself on being an upright man, on doing the right thing. From what I heard last night, I believe you are a good man. And I believe you try to do the right thing. But don't abuse yourself because you did something you think is wrong. No matter how good you are, only God ALWAYS does the right thing, and even he can be moved by pity and love."

"Are you sure you're a Catholic priest. I always thought clergymen would be more – certain –of the rules."

He set his empty glass down beside his deck chair and reached into his pants pocket to pull out a slim wallet. He pulled out two laminated photos. One showed a pretty redheaded young woman, in the dress of an earlier generation. She had curly hair, dimples and a sweet smile. A true Colleen. I felt certain my father would have recognized and been attracted to her by the Irish quality of her smile.

The second photo was of a slender young man, probably in his 30s, standing at a podium and receiving what looked like a plaque. He looked a lot like Father Dunleavy.

"I entered the priesthood a little later than most. I was 25. And engaged to be engaged. In Ireland even back in the 80s, things moved a little differently. This is a photo of Brianne O'Collins, the girl I had planned to marry since I was seven years old and she was six. 

"But, in my 20s I began to feel the call. I fought it as long as I could, but in the end, I knew I had no choice. God wanted me in the priesthood and I could not bring a wife along.

"It broke her heart, as I knew it would. After I entered, she refused to talk to me, to receive me calls. My letters came back unanswered. 

"Two years after I entered I went to her home and her father and three brothers, all big bruisers, convinced me with their fists that Brianne wanted no more of me and had, in fact, decided to marry another man.

"It wasn't until a year later that I learned that she had taken her own life earlier that summer. Pills. They buried her in our hometown. I visited her graveside. On her tombstone they had written, 'Returned to the Angels.' 

"I collapsed at her side and the only reason I did not take my own life is because I knew it would be the ultimate sin. Sometimes I think I made the wrong decision. Our faith teaches us that suicide is the one unforgivable sin, and thus she must be in Hell now.

"It was only years later that I learned she had had a son seven months after I entered the priesthood. The family kept his existence secret but it got out. 

"When I found out I called, sent letters, hired private investigators, used the resources of the Vatican, but her parents and brothers, the whole clan, kept the wall up. They are powerful and wealthy, and they did not fear even the Vatican. He grew up without my ever seeing him in the flesh.

"A friend saw this picture in an Irish paper when he received a plaque for some business achievement. He went into his family business and apparently was very successful. When I saw this picture, I sent him a letter telling him who I was and asking if I could meet him. I figured as an adult, I could reach him without his family getting in the way.

"Three weeks later I received a brief reply. 'I've lived 25 years without you in my life. You never saw fit to be part of my life. I see no reason to change that'."

He looked at both pictures for a moment, then returned them to his wallet.

"I thought about pursuing it, but then....He was right. He has lived his entire life without me in it. It was her family that kept us apart. But....I made the decision to abandon his mother. And I believe she must have loved me enough to be unwilling to use her pregnancy as a tool to stop me from going into the priesthood.

"I had given up any right to be a part of his life, and perhaps that is the way God willed it."

He looked up at me and perhaps it was the sea air that made his eyes gleam.

"So, you see, Mr. Maitland, I have no answers for you, or Aline. Or anyone else. I do God's will as I see it, but when it comes to matters of the heart..."

He got up.

"All I can tell you is that you seem to make her happy. Does she make you happy?"

I thought about his question. Are crack addicts happy when they are deep in a drug addled dream world? Are drug dealers happy when they've made a big score? Was Doug happy the night he took my wife and fucked her senseless, when she undoubtedly squealed out how much she loved his big cock?

Was happiness the only thing that mattered in this life?

Then she was standing beside me in the brilliant sunlight. Black hair, blue and gold uniform and a brilliant gold and diamond Fleur-de-lis pin catching the light and throwing it back.

She didn't look back at me as she said, "I have a few hours free, Mr. Maitland. Can you think of something we might do to pass the time?"

"I have a few ideas."

She started walking away, saying, "If we meet at your room, you'll have to fill me in – literally , of course."

As I watched that fantastic ass twitching away from me I knew I was lost. Sometimes I think free will is an illusion. I got up and walked in the direction she had taken.

############################       

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 12:30 p.m.

She lifted her head up from the papers she was reading as she heard the knock on her office door and saw Mark Trenton poking his head in her office door. He smiled at her and said, "Hi, Deb. Could you head over to my office. Rutledge wanted you to take a look at an article in the Journal. Thought it might apply to some of our classes."

"Can I get a rain check, Mark, I'm really jammed. I've got a class coming in a half hour and I still have a little bit of prep to finish."

She didn't that her head wanted to spin like a top, she felt sick to her stomach and she wanted nothing more than to drive to her parents' house, put her head in her mother's lap and cry like a baby.

"C'mon, won't take but a few minutes. Look, I'll spring for coffee at Starbucks afterwards. You know you love their cinnamon Cappuccinos. My treat."

That didn't make her heart beat faster, but there was no point in being rude. He wasn't a bad guy, just married to a mousy little bitch that obviously didn't do anything for him in bed which led to his hanging around her like a horny puppydog too much of the time. But, shit, she needed all the friends she could find right now. 

"OK, big guy, lead the way."

She followed him to his office and he gestured to a newspaper lying on his desk. 

"Have a seat and read it. Shouldn't be but a few minutes."

She sat down and started reading and noticed he closed the door to his office. Secretaries gossiped and he definitely didn't want any reports getting back to her about the office sex symbol being in HIS office. 

Besides, he was harmless. He was one of the men who would rub his dick up against her when he got her dancing at a university party, but he acted like he'd run like a scared rabbit if she ever reached down and grabbed it. Not that she ever would.

He was standing behind her as she kept reading and trying to figure what the hell he thought she might be able to get out of this article when she felt his hand circle her breast and squeeze. The first thought that entered her mind was that she had to try to stomp on his instep and kick him in the balls because he had obviously lost his mind.

He squeezed again and bent down to kiss her on the side of the face. Jesus Christ! He had just licked her face with his tongue. She pushed the chair back until he hit the bookcase behind his desk hard and yelped. She managed to twist the chair around to face him and realized she hand her hands out with the fingernails poised like claws to rip his face.

"What is the matter with you, Mark? Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?"

He hesitated and she saw that he was frightened, then something seemed to stiffen his spine and he reached out to grab her by the wrists.

He bent in to kiss her and forced her head back against the chair and did his best to force his tongue between her teeth?

She finally thought, fuck it, the day has been too bad so far to put up with this bullshit. She opened her teeth, let him dart his tongue in and then bit down as hard as she could. He would have screamed but she had his tongue in a firm grip. She tasted blood and debated biting his damned tongue off, but that would create more trouble than she could handle.

Finally she let him go and he fell backwards. She bent down beside him as he scrambled away and took his hand and put it on her breast and squeezed her hand down over his. She smiled at him and said, "If you wanted a feel, Mark, why didn't you just ask? Why act like an asshole? Do you want to feel my titty?"

His face was a kaleidoscope of shifting emotions but lust won out and he squeezed hard enough to make her yelp. He took her hand and placed it on his cock, which was growing harder by the second. She almost sneered. He was no jolly green giant. Bill was bigger. But she just rubbed and squeezed until he got as hard as she figured he was going to get. Then she stepped away and came down on it with her knee as hard as she could.

He would have screamed except she placed her hand over his mouth and when he tried to gasp for air, she knelt down again and put pressure on it with her knee.

"You say one fucking sound and I will turn that pathetic dick and balls to a paste, you fucker. You understand me?"

He tried to wriggle away but when she put her weight down he stopped and gasped again.

"Okay, okay, don't do anything stupid. I'm sorry."

"What is going on, Mark? You've never been this stupid before. You realize I could have you arrested for rape?"

"Rape you?" He actually sneered. "Who'd believe you could be raped by anybody?"

She wanted to scratch his eyes out but restrained herself.

"You know I am thinking seriously of ripping your tongue out and pulling your dick off with it, you piece of shit."

"Why? Because I made a pass at you? Shit, you've rubbed my dick before at dances, just like you have a dozen other guys I know. Everybody knows you're a slut just waiting for the right guy. I almost won the pool. I had you down for fucking Doug Baker three months after you met him. You held out longer than I expected."

"So I'm a slut because you assholes couldn't keep from rubbing your little weinies all over me in public places and I didn't want to raise a fuss?"

"Oh, give me a break, Debbie. Everybody knows what you are. You loved having guys rubbing their dicks on you and feeling up those big boobs. Any decent woman would have slapped my face when I practically fucked you on the dance floor, but not you. You enjoyed it. You know what you are? They had a name for it once. You're just a fucking cock tease."

Just for once she wished she were a man so she could beat the shit out of him.

"Alright, you're a delusional asshole. But why here, why today?"

"Because Doug has been dragging around looking like his best friend died for the last two days. We all figured something happened between you guys. Which means you're fair game. I figured, why the hell not. And why not? You're almost not married. If you're not with Doug, you gotta be getting action from somebody. Why not me?"

She backed away from him, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or kick him again.

"Why not you, Mark? Why wouldn't I fuck you? Well, lets total up the reasons, shall we? You're a slimy little toad for one. You've got a dinky little dick for another. That's two. You make me physically sick. That's number three. If I let you into my pussy, I have a feeling you're the kind of selfish asshole that would squirt before I came the first time. That's number four. Because to you I'm just a pair of tits and a pussy. You don't give a damn about me. That's number five.

She stood up and backed away from him carefully.

"I've seen that mousy little wife of yours and felt sorry for her because of the way she looked. Now I'm sorry for her because your sorry ass and that pitiful excuse for a dick is all she has to look forward to in the bedroom. Unless..she's smart enough to be getting some strange."

She made it to the door while he was trying to get to his feet and calling her a bitch.

She was turning and heading for her office when she bounced off somebody. She lost her balance and was going down when a strong male arm caught her arm first and then her waist and kept her from falling. Inadvertently, maybe, he wound up with one large breast cradled in one hand. He pulled away as if she were on fire.

A face with a broad forehead, dark brown eyes and full lips stared at her from a foot away and said, "I'm sorry, Miss. But at the speed you were going, I couldn't get out of your way."

He glanced at her face and then his eyes dropped down to her chest.

Everything came together. Doug and Kelly. Bill. Myers cutting her off at the knees. Kelly leaving her alone in the house. That asshole Trenton. The whole fucking male part of the human race.

"Asshole. You didn't get enough of a feel when you grabbed me just then. Why are all men such asshole bastards. Take a good look and get the hell away from me. Pervert!"

There were people walking around them and naturally everyone stopped to look at the two of them, The man flushed a deep red, acted as if he wanted to say something, then just shook his head and turned and walked away.

Two seconds later she realized she was the asshole, but he was gone and she still had to prepare for that class. To hell with it. To hell with men. To hell with sex. To hell with sex with men. Maybe she should just have been a lesbian. God knows, they couldn't be harder to live with than men.

######################################      

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 4 p.m.

The last student of the last class of the day had finally slouched out. Because no one was around, she dropped her head to the lectern she had stood behind for most of the classes. The classes were large enough that the classes were basically lectures which she delivered standing behind the lectern. 

If she had had a cot in her office she would have thought about just dropping onto it and trying to forget this day had ever happened. Make that this week. Make that the last four months. Make it the last five years.

But BJ would be coming home around 8 p.m. from a friend's house. It would only be the two of them. And she wanted to be there when he got home. 

She knew she was being overemotional. Kelly would eventually come back. Teenage rebellions didn't last forever. Doug was gone, but she'd meet somebody else. Jesus Christ, of that she had no doubt. As long as it wasn't a slimeball like Trenton.

Bill was gone, but he'd been gone a long time. As she thought about him she felt a stab of regret and at the same time a moment of rage. If he had been in front of her...She rubbed her forehead. It almost felt like a migraine.

Granted he was an asshole. Granted he had thrown their marriage away. Granted he had done his best to ruin her career and her life because she wanted a life of her own. 

But still...those flashes of rage and anger... they almost scared her. They had had too many years, he had given her too many orgasms, they had been happy for a long time. Why were there those flashes of rage, of hatred even. She shouldn't hate him, even now. And she knew she didn't, because there were other moments...

Oh hell. She'd have to call her gynecologist and have her hormones tested. There was too much crap in her life to be going crazy at the same time. Maybe she just needed some hormones, or tranquilizers.

As she was walked out she couldn't help hearing two secretaries in the common office section of the business department where six secretaries shared common quarters.

"...I know what you mean. I saw him over in the restaurant with the head of English. They're making a big deal out of him, but, damn, he is hot. That hair and those eyes....you could drown in them...

"yeah, he's hot...in a tweedy sort of way.."

"yeah, very cultured...but I wonder what he'd look like out of those tweeds. He's not super built, but it looks like what he has is nice..looks like he has a nice tight ass...for an older guy..."

"damn...girl you are a cradle robber....you're calling him older..he can't be much more than 40- 45"

"to you that's young..to me he's older...but I wouldn't kick him out of bed anyway...."

She walked over to the two secretaries who were unaware she'd been eavesdropping. She could almost read their minds. None of the women working here had any great love for her. That was partly her fault, but damn they were a bunch of envious bitches. 

She smiled at them and tried to be just another woman working in the building.

"Hi, you wouldn't be talking to a guy about six foot tall, dark brown eyes? We nearly knocked each over near 1 o'clock outside Professor Trenton's office. I've never seen him around here? That sound like your guy? Who is he?"




When We Were Married Ch. 04B



Chapter 04B

RIDING THE TIGER

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 9:30 a.m.

My name is Bill Maitland, I am an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida, the number two man in the office that prosecutes wrong doers. 

I can honestly say that I have never seen an expression like the one that Austin D. (for Dallas) Edwards, AKA The Big Man, wore on his face as I stepped back away from him. He was seated in his big chair behind his big ornate blonde wood desk and he stared at me as if I was a bigheaded alien that had just stepped off a flying saucer. 

As if he couldn't believe what was happening, he reached out with one finger and wiped my lipstick off his lips, where I'd just laid a big one on him. No tongue, but it was a kiss.

Behind me I heard a giggle that could have given a corpse a stiff one and glanced back at Edwards' mistress and unbelievable secretary Myra. She held her arms under those enormous breasts, either because that made them seem even bigger if that was humanly possible or more likely because each one of them had to weigh 15 or 20 pounds and had to hurt her back to carry them around unsupported.

I had stopped on my way into her boss' office and asked to borrow her lipstick, a glossy dark red, and without any questions she had handed me the tube. She had just stared at me with the hint of a smile as I told her, "Don't ask any questions. Just watch."

Then I had walked into Edwards' office, the one where everyone speculated that Edwards, despite edging into his early 60s, probably got his workouts sometime each day manhandling those huge boobs and the curvy body that carried them.

He looked up and said, "Welcome back, stranger. Hope you noticed the building is still standing. We made it without you for one week. It was tough, but-"

He stopped talking as I stepped behind his desk, swiveled his chair and planted a kiss on his lips. It was like kissing a stone statue. We were looking into each other's eyes and it was all I could do not to laugh into his mouth. But I didn't try for any tongue. I kept the lip lock long enough to be respectable and then backed away. My -- or rather -- Myra's, lipstick glistened on his dry lips.

As I looked at Myra she began to giggle again and then laughed and those acres of soft round titties rolled and bounced and jiggled and for the first time in my life, at least since I'd married that cheating bitch Debbie Bascomb, I was really jealous of another man.

I tried to imagine what she'd look like naked and if those breasts would hang down below her knees. Edwards, my friend and mentor, had sucked those things. undoubtedly fucked them because how could any man not, and came inside that mouth and pussy and ass. At least, if I'd been a free man the last ten years since I'd joined the State Attorney's Office, I would have. 

But I'd been married and in love with a bombshell of my own. I might still be in love with her, but I wouldn't be married in a month and I'd be free to go after the lovely Ms. Martinez. But, she happened to be the property of my boss and married friend, who already had one beautiful woman in his bed.

And I doubt he'd take kindly on my going after Myra even if I could work up the nerve and there were too examples of what happened when a lieutenant moved in on his boss' woman. Think "Camelot" and you'll know where I'm going.

I reluctantly tore my eyes away from Myra's abundant charms and looked back at Edwards. At least he had started breathing again.

There was a silence in the room until he said, "I knew I said I wanted you to change your luck, Bill, but I never really expected you....to change this much."

"What can I say, Dallas. I just discovered I've had this long standing passion for your body. Why don't we tell Myra to step outside for a few minutes and we'll get better acquainted."

I kept a straight face as long as I could while Edwards looked like he was going to stroke out and finally Myra dissolved into helpless laughter and when I looked around she was laughing so hard I thought she was going to fall on the floor. At least her fall would be cushioned.

Then I allowed myself to grin and Edwards finally got it. He glared at me for a moment and then he couldn't help himself. As he laughed, he said, "You son of a bitch. You had me going. Where did that come from? I've known you for ten years and I didn't think you had a funny bone in that serious body of yours."

I pointed to his face and said, "Wipe the lipstick off before somebody walks in and we generate a whole new round of wild gossip, Boss. 

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. I made a promise to myself on the Bonne Chance that when I got back I was going to plant a wet one on you and thank you. I guess that's what makes you a good boss. You knew what I needed when I didn't."

He stared at me as he stopped laughing and then glanced at Myra before looking back at me.

"You got laid. Goddammit, you got laid, you dog."

"A gentleman doesn't talk."

To Myra: "Am I good, or am I good?"

She gave him a look that would have melted iron and said softly, "You are very, very good." 

Maybe the rumors about his having 12 inches were true.

He blushed and then said to me, "I'm glad you had a good time, man. Is your head back on straight?"

Then: "Are you okay, really?"

"No, not really. I'm a hell of a lot better than I was, but I still have to get myself divorced, and...let's just say I might be a little rough around the edges for awhile. Give me some allowance in case I go off the rails a little bit."

"You got it, as long as you don't go hiding in your office again. Anyway, no rest for the wicked, or the righteous. I have something I need you to handle. I trust your judgment."

"I've been back in town for an hour and a half and I haven't even got my suitcase back to my condo and you're putting me to work?"

"Why do you think I pay you the big bucks?"

I let him tell me and I made a quick decision on what I'd do. There really wasn't much thinking to do. But I've have to go and tell a very unhappy man why he was going to die. 

Two hours ago I'd held a lovely woman in my arms and tasted mint on her lips and the only thing that mattered was the world between the four walls of my suite. And now I was back in the blood and guts of reality. This was my real world. The other was the impossible dream.

I walked out and head to the elevator when Myra stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. 

I turned and she was in my arms. It seemed like half of my body was being massaged by her soft breasts. I kind of froze. This I hadn't expected and I couldn't help looking over her shoulder to see if the Big Man was watching from his office. He wasn't.

"What?' I croaked. My voice wasn't working well.

"Can't a friend give another friend a hug when he comes back to work?"

I was already starting to tent out of my slacks.

"Not your kind of hug, Myra. We've known each other for more than five years and we've never touched. Why-"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Bill. I can't help having big boobs. But I've missed you. We've all missed you. I'm glad you went on that cruise. I can look at you and tell the difference in you already. She must have been a nice lady."

I just stared at her.

"You're not a wham-bam kind of guy and you're bleeding where everybody can see from what the bitch did to you. Anybody that could get through those defenses of yours, and make you as happy as you seem to be, must have been a special lady. Are you going to see her again?"

I finally shook my head.

"No, it's impossible. But she is a very special lady. And how the hell can you be that hot and that smart?"

"Having big tits doesn't automatically make you stupid, although Debbie is a good example of the fact that it does sometimes happen."

We just stood there for a moment and she finally let me go.

"See you around, Mr. Maitland."

As I stepped into the elevator and thought about her words I realized that it might be a blessing that I might not be working here after today. If I kept my job, I don't know what I would do about Myra. She and Edwards weren't married, but she was his. Jesus, I couldn't just keep going around trying to steal other men's women.

########################## 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 10 a.m.

She poked her head into his office but he wasn't there. She stepped out and walked until she reached the area where four secretaries in the Humanities used a common area.

"Is Professor Abbott around or in a class?"

The secretaries just glanced at each other and Debbie knew what they were thinking. Fuck them all. She stood there until the silence got too loud and finally one of them said, "His class got out a couple of minutes ago. He'll be waiting for his next class to arrive."

When Debbie didn't move, an older woman said, "Take the hallway to the right and go past the next two hallways. Hang a left and it'll be the first doorway on the left."

He had his back to her writing on the whiteboard as she walked in. A few of the last leaving male students gave her the up and down that she had come to expect but she just ignored them.

"I appreciate promptness, guys, but give me a few minutes okay? Hang outside for a little bit and let me catch-"

They just looked at each other for a moment.

"Hi."

She didn't say anything for a moment, then approached him and kissed him lightly on the side of his face. He smelled of "Old Spice." It was an old-fashioned scent and it suited him.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. For what?"

"For being a gentleman and a nice guy."

"I'll take any kudos I get, but I honesty don't deserve them in this case. I really was occupied."

"I know, but you didn't have to -- let me down easily. I'm so used to guys concentrating on my tits and ass and never even thinking there's a person inside that body. I know you're a man, but...thank you for treating me like a person.

"And for what it's worth, it really wasn't -- just -- an invitation to hop into my bed. I just wanted -- somebody -- there in that house with me. I never realized how big and lonely that place is with just me in it."

"I understand, Debbie. I told you I've been there. At least your husband and your kids are still alive. You may never live in the same house with him again, but he's there. You can pick up a phone and call him. You can stalk him just to remind yourself what he looks like. Imagine what it would be like if he was gone. And you'd never see him again, to cuss him out or tell him you were sorry or to share something your kids have done. 

Even divorced, you still have two kids. 

"Elise and I had no kids. She was never there again. I couldn't ever get closure. I never had a chance to say the things I wanted to say. You may not believe it, but you're lucky."

She shook her head. 

"If this is lucky..."

Then she looked at Abbott and thought about what he had said. And tried to imagine that Bill was gone. Like Clarice..... Gone under the ground and never to be able to share the pleasures of something the kids had done, or to hold their grandbabies when they eventually came along. Even if they never spoke another civil word to each other, at least they would alive to share those memories.

She put her hand to her lips and tried to stifle tears of weakness.

"You know, you ought to hire out as a therapist. Every time I talk to you, Professor Abbott, you either make me feel better or make me look at things in a different way."

"I come cheap. Since you don't have anybody at home, would you consider having dinner with me tonight? There's a very good Thai restaurant on Baymeadows that I've discovered. I love Thai, the hotter the better. And if you feel up to it, we might stop by a nightclub and have a drink? Sound like something you'd be interested in?"

"You know I'm damaged goods. Right now, very damaged."

He stepped up to her and grabbed one hand and held it in his.

"Did I ask you to go to bed with me?"

"No -- but-"

"If we keep seeing each other, trust me, the day will come when I will want you in bed. I'm not gay and my equipment still works. But I'm not planning on bedding you tonight. Look, I can't criticize anyone for how they lead their life, but going to bed with Doug Baker the minute your marriage exploded was a very....unfortunate....thing to do."

"What can I say? I'm a slut. According to my mother I always have been, and most everybody on this campus still thinks I am."

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you were ending an 18-year relationship, you had all kinds of problems and issues with your husband, and before you could even decide that you wanted to end the marriage, you jumped into another relationship. You don't have to be a therapist to know that is suicidal. Your head is completely screwed up. It usually takes months, sometimes years, to put your life back together after the end of a marriage. You didn't give yourself enough time.

"My wife was a total fucking bitch and she tore my heart out, and it was a year before I got her out of my head and two years before I could get into a halfway normal relationship with a woman without Elise's memory screwing things up. That's all I'm saying.

"Look, Debbie, I'm not in love with you. I don't know you well enough to have those kinds of feelings. I might never, because you can like somebody and not have it go any deeper. I know I like you. I know that at sometime in the future I want to have that gorgeous body of yours. But for now, why not take it easy. Just dinner, a few drinks, I'll take you home and probably jerk off like crazy kicking myself for not taking you to bed. But we've got time, unless the world ends tomorrow."

"If this is some new seduction technique, you ought to write it down. You could make a fortune selling it. But the answer is yes. I'd love to have dinner with you, and drinks, and just stay out of that damned house as long as I possibly can."

Abbott dropped her hand just as the first of a stream of students began walking in for his next class, but not before she'd already the first excited buzzing. Great, another entry for the campus gossip mill. To hell with it. 

She turned to face the eyes of male and female students, took a deep breath just to get her breasts bobbing for the males' sake, smiled, and walked slowly out of the classroom. She wiggled her ass just enough to make Abbott a hero to his male students and when she'd left the classroom she started walking normally and grinned an evil grin. Give the bastards something to work with. She wasn't going to be here that much longer, so to hell with them all.

################################# 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 10:15 a.m.

I walked into the conference room where two men were sitting at a long table and one man stood at the other side of the room, just behind the black man dressed in a prison jump suit. Deaven Thompson was the third of the Thompson brothers who had killed an eight-year-old in a drug war-inspired drive by.

Two of his brothers had previously gone before juries and gotten the death penalty. The way things worked, they might never die in the arms of the state, and if they ever were executed, it might be twenty years from now. But they would spend a good portion of their lives behind bars, living a life that would depress lab rats. And if there was a God in heaven, they'd die in prison in one of those internecine gang wars

Deaven was the last of the three and he was scheduled to go on trial Monday. That was one of the reasons I'd balked originally at going out on the Bonne Chance. I wanted to make sure to cross the 't's and dot the 'I's to make sure nothing allowed him to escape the Death Chamber at Raiford. Now he had thrown a monkey wrench into the majestic workings of the law.

The black man dressed in a nice suit sitting beside him as Anthony Smith, a 40-year-old who I'd gone up against more than a few times. We didn't particularly like each other, but he seemed to respect me and he was a pit bull for his clients. Unfortunately most of them were scum, but lawyers usually can't pick and choose.

The human wall standing behind Deaven was a bailiff named Charlie Case. He usually worked for and in the courtroom of Judge Herman Herring but he was available for any job that needed doing around the courthouse and knowing the reputation of the Thompsons as stone-cold killers who had friends on the outside, the powers that be had decided Case would be a good babysitter outside the jail.

I sat down opposite Deaven who slouched and checked his longish fingernails. His hair was set in corn rows which was really a little too 1990-ish to send the message he intended and even in jail he had managed to get some expensive styling. 

Outside he'd have been weighted down by gold and other assorted 'bling.' All that had been left behind at the jailhouse door, but one blinding gold tooth in the center of mouth sent the message that this was a man who had substance. His body language also explicitly said, "fuck you" and that was the message he intended to send.

I opened the folder I'd set down in front of me and pretended to read it. Then I looked up at Deaven.

"So you want to plead guilty to murder in the second and accept a maximum sentence of 30 years? Is that correct?"

He looked at me like I'd look at a floating piece of shit in a toilet bowl and said, "Great. You can read. I thought you were just another stupid, racist asshole like all the other suits around here."

Smith gave him a look of weary exasperation, then shook his head like you would when dealing with a troublesome six-year-old. He looked at me instead.

"It's a straightforward deal, Maitland. He'll be guaranteed to spend 30 straight in maximum at Raiford. No parole asked or expected. He's 26. He'll be 56 when he walks out. Thirty years behind bars, any organization he has will be long dead. The dealers will have moved on. He'll be history. He won't be killing anybody, or any citizens at any rate.

"And you and the state will have saved maybe $100,000 or $150,000, in the expense of a trial, appeals, all that crap. Everybody wins."

"Everybody except Marques Douglas."

Deaven gave me what was intended to be a hard look.

"Who the fuck is Marques what's his name and what the fuck does he have to do with me?"

Smith gave him one of those "how can you be so stupid looks" and then looked at me and dropped his eyes. He knew how it was going to go down.

"Marques Douglas was the eight-year-old whose brains you and your brothers sprayed all over the walls of his bedroom. He was a kid that wore Spiderman pajamas and wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up."

Deaven looked almost human for a second but gave it up as wasted effort, shrugged and leaned back.

"Oh. Well, the kid's gone now. Putting me under the ground isn't going to bring him back. And it was an accident anyway. We had no way of knowing anybody would get in the way of a bullet."

"So, it was just an accident, his getting killed? You didn't plan on killing anybody?"

"No. Somebody could get killed, but we were sending a message to those assholes what could happen if they didn't get out of our territory."

"You almost sound like you believe that. But why am I surprised, Deaven. You're the brains of your outfit. Nigel and Rashon like to play like they run things, but they couldn't blow their noses without your direction. You pull the strings Deaven, and you always have."

"So?"

I pulled a tape recorder out of my pocket and laid it on the table, hit the play button.

"...yeah, we knew the Browns had some rug rats in the house. At least two or three of them. That's why we concentrated our fire on that back bedroom. That's where we were told the kids slept."

"Why the hell were you gunning for kids? Why not go after the Browns. They were the ones poaching on your territory?"




When We Were Married Ch. 04B



"That's Deaven. He's the smart one. He said with any luck we'd get one or two of the rug rats. It would be better than hitting one of the dealers. You can always replace a dealer and everybody knows it comes with the business. But you hit their kids, you take their heart out. That's what he said, you take their heart out. And you send a message to the next crew that will make them think twice."

I hit the off button. Deaven had recognized his brother's voice.

"That mother-fucking idiot, that stupid son of bitch, my brother or not, I'm going to cut his fucking head off."

Smith put his hand on Deaven's shoulder and when Deaven shot him a deadly glance just gave him one as nasty in return and said, "Cool it. Shut up for a second."

Then to me: "You know Nigel could have been angling for a deal by throwing his brother to the wolves. And the deal still makes sense."

"No. No deal. We go to trial."

Deaven stood up in his chair, pushing it back. He looked like he was going to lunge across the table at me until Case laid one huge hand on his shoulder and Deaven remembered where he was.

"We what? You can't. Not when I'm willing to plead. Tell him Smith. You said he couldn't turn down a deal."

Smith looked at me and said, "I don't really see where you can pass it up, Maitland. You're talking about hitting the taxpayers for maybe $200,000, for what? For revenge against a guy whose going to be put away and no danger for more than a generation."

I just shook my head.

"I can and I will. We're going to trial."

"You can't do that."

"Like I said, I can and I will. I talked to my boss about it before I came down here and he'll go along with whatever I decide. Money is not the point of this."

Deaven looked at me as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Then why?"

"Because to make absolutely certain that you die in prison, that you never get out"

I looked at him and smiled.

"I want to be certain that you never breath air as a free man again for the rest of your life. I want you to live a life that would drive lab rats to suicide. Your brothers are murderous thugs and I want them dead too, but if I had to choose, I'd have let them walk to get you.

"I want you dead because you don't deserve to live. You're a mad dog, and mad dogs get put down. You're a fucking monster and I think I'm going to attend your execution to make sure you die and I may drive a stake through your heart just to make doubly sure that you're really dead."

He stood up and this time he would have lunged across the table at me except that Case was behind him with both huge hands on his shoulders and he froze. He knew what Case was capable of.

Then, as if he had turned a switch inside him, he suddenly relaxed and sat back down. He looked at me and smiled. I felt a little chill run through me.

"Okay, you got me Mr. Maitland. You're going to convict me and I'm going to get death and I'm going to Death Row in Raiford and I'll get three good meals a day and exercise and fresh air in the yard and my boys to watch me to make sure I don't get shanked. I'll watch TV and read the newspaper and time will pass. I might even get out someday if they end the death penalty.

"Yeah, I'll read the paper every day, especially the obit section. And someday, I'll see an obit on your wife. And then on your son and daughter. And your parents. And any friends you've got. 'Cause I got friends too, asshole. And you can't watch your family and friends 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Sooner or later, my friends will get them because I won't have anything to do but plan and scheme how to get at them.

"You think you're so fucking tough. The Angel of Death. Bullshit. You're just a punk lawyer. You're not going to be able to stop it and I won't because I got nothing to lose. And I'm going to leave you for last. I want to see if you'll have the balls to off yourself once I take away everything you care for in this life. If you don't, I'll send someone around to finish the job. By the time I'm through, you'll thank me."

He grinned again. 

"Oh, I hear your wife is a hot piece of ass. Just cause I like you, before I have her killed I'll have a couple of friends of mine visit her. One of them is a real freak...15 inches long and thick. He could have made it in porn but he's got kind of a -- sadistic streak -- if you know what I mean. He likes tearing his women up. I'll let him do some anal surgery on the bitch. I'll have a video made and make sure you eventually get a copy."

Anthony Smith just stared at him as if he'd forgotten how to talk.

Deaven smiled at me again.

"You're probably taping this, but who cares? You'll never be able to prove I was actually behind any of this and even if you do, so what? They can't execute you twice and I don't think they'll even do it once. So, Mr. DA, Mr. Angel of Death, how tough you feeling right now?"

I just sat there and gave him the best poker face of my life. I didn't want him to know that he'd shaken me, because if I'd ever read a human being, I read him as being absolutely, 100 percent truthful. And the worse part was, he didn't need to have geniuses working for him. As he'd said, you can't protect anyone 24-7, forever.

I looked up at Case who stood over Deaven with an unreadable expression.

"Case, put him in one of the special holding cells. No contact, no phone calls with anybody. Nobody except yourself or somebody you trust is to have any contact with him."

Case nodded and yanked Deaven to his feet. Deaven didn't resist, just said, "You can't keep me isolated forever. I only need five minutes with one of my own, and your family is gone."

I thought briefly about asking Case to twist his head off, but these cells were monitored. I couldn't get away with murder, or ask Case to commit murder. But I was tempted. 

Smith just rubbed his hands after they'd left and tried to avoid looking me in the eye.

"I'm sorry, Maitland, I never expected that. But he is a real psychopath. As bad as any I've ever been around."

I stared at him when he finally looked me in the eye.

"Smith, I think you're an honest man. So don't take offense at this. If word of this gets out, and his friends get the message and I can't be sure it was Deaven, I'm going to come for you. If anybody in my family is hurt, I'm going to kill you. It doesn't matter where you run or hide. I hope you believe me."

He just nodded.

"It's okay, Maitland. If it was my family, I'd do the same. I represent these scumbags, I'm not one of them."

After I left I went back into my office and sat behind my desk and thought briefly about making a phone call. I knew they could get to him, even inside the jail, and I couldn't be connected to it. But --

It was like riding a tiger. I could call for a favor, or favors, from a very bad and powerful man who had what he considered a code of honor that compelled him to help me if I needed help. But once I used those favors, I would be in his debt. I would not own him. He'd own me. And I couldn't live like that.

I had some time. I'd try to think of another way. In the meantime, I had an errand to run that might make this visit to my office my last official act. Because I might be a felon myself within a few hours.

####################### 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- Noon

"Thank you for working me in, Evelyn."

"It's nothing, Debbie. You've been my patient and my friend for a long time. I'll have those blood samples out to the lab today and we'll have results back probably in 48 hours, at most 72. Say next Tuesday or Wednesday. Tell me again why you're here?"

"I...it's hard to put into words. I'm -- I'm all over the place. There are times when I feel alright and then for no reason I'll be crying. I feel like I'm having my period every day, or PMS-ing all the time."

Dr. Evelyn Crider leaned back and took a deep breath. Debbie thought that one of the reasons they had probably bonded was because Crider was also stacked and a looker and more than once they had laughed as Crider talked about the impossibility of getting the husbands of patients to look her in the eye while she discussed their wives' health. And they had mutually decided that American men, all men, were just walking penises with little brains attached for mundane things like bringing home paychecks. 

"Debbie, we've known each other long enough that I can be straight with you. What you're describing is a perfectly normal reaction to what is happening in your life right now. You're going through a divorce ending a long marriage, you just broke up with your boyfriend, your daughter is pissed with you and moved out, and your son moved out too. I don't know any woman that wouldn't have crying spells going through a time like that."

Debbie shook her head.

"It's more than that. I don't know how to describe it. I know I feel bad about Bill and I splitting. And everything else hurts like hell. But....it's like...I can't describe it except to say I feel like the world is about to end, or that I'm going to die. It's a....blackness...inside me. I feel like I'm on the edge of a tall building and I'm about to fall off.

"And....I've started having those nightmares again."

Evelyn sat up straight in her chair.

"About Clarice?"

"Yes. If anything, they're worse."

"I'm not even a psychiatrist, and I can tell you why they're back."

"I know, God, I know. Her marriage and life went into the toilet and it looks like I'm following in her footsteps. I know everything will eventually turn out right, but it's scary."

"Did you ever talk to Bill about them? About everything that was happening with Clarice? About the feelings you were having?"

"No. I couldn't. He was always involved in cases. And there was nothing he could have done. The bastard, Not that he would have done anything. Because it was something I needed, not his precious clients. The son of a bitch."

Evelyn sat back again and stared at her patient.

"Do you ever listen to yourself, Debbie, when you're talking about Bill?"

Evelyn stared at the examining table she sat on.

"Yes. I know...there's something there. I'm the one leaving him. He never did anything terrible to me. I'm the one that was cheating on him. In a real way. I never touched Doug -- oh, sexually anyway -- until our blowup, but I was having an emotional affair. I knew it at the time, even though I couldn't be honest with myself. And he's the one that got crushed.

"But still, I hate him sometimes. Jesus, Evelyn, when your marriage just rots away and it's like a big old oak that is so eaten away that the first strong wind knocks it down, you're not supposed to have any strong emotions left. You're supposed to feel apathy, to feel nothing. You're not supposed to hate the poor bastard you're leaving behind. 

"That's another reason why I wanted to see if my hormones might be way out of whack. Messing up my mind....?"

"Honestly, I don't think it's hormones or body chemistry. There would be other signs and indications. Normally problems with hormonal chemistry don't manifest only in psychological or emotional symptoms. They mess with your body as well, and you don't seem to be showing any of those symptoms."

"So you think I'm just going crazy?"

Evelyn reached out and grabbed Debbie's hand.

"I don't think you're going crazy. I think...something...is going on. And I think you need to talk to a true professional. Here."

She let go of Debbie's hand, went to the supply closet at the side of the examining room and came back with a business card.

Debbie looked at the name on it and shook her head.

"No. He knows Bill and he works with Bill. I'm not going to tell him all my secrets."

"He's a good man. And a friend. And a complete professional. I never told you this, but a few years ago Alan and I were going through....some problems. I went to see this man and it took a little while, but I was able to figure out what was happening between us. We managed to patch things up.

"He's a criminal psychiatrist...he works with the criminal system."

"No, he's a psychiatrist, period. He has private patients with no connection to the courts."

"I don't know..."

"Debbie, trust me. I'll call him and try to get him to work you in for a preliminary meeting this afternoon late. Look, you know there's something wrong. If it's more than just the crap of seeing 20 years of your life disintegrate, it might help to talk with a man who is good at figuring out what's in your head."

Evelyn made the appointment for 5:30 p.m. As she walked out of Crider's office, Debbie couldn't help feeling it would be a mistake. But, maybe it wouldn't be.

############################# 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 12:15 p.m.

I walked into the hallway where there were a row of offices. It was lunch time and most if not all of the professors were grabbing lunch. I'd checked to make sure of that. Only one was in his office, waiting for a call from the Clerk of the Court's office about an unpaid traffic ticket, which he'd said he had no knowledge of.

The secretary for him and two other professors sat at her desk. She was supposed to be gone to lunch. This was a complication. Carlos and Ernesto walked in behind me and stood on other side of her desk. She looked at the three of us with no alarm, at first. Then as she saw my face she reached for the telephone on her desk.

Carlos shook his head and gently took her hand off the phone. She had started to rise but sat back down, looking from one to the other of us. I gave Carlos a glance and he just nodded at me. I walked toward the first closed door. I rapped on it with my left hand. I rapped again.

"What is it, Carly? Carly? Is that you? I'm waiting on a call. Just come in."

I knocked again and a third time.

The door opened and Doug Baker stood there looking at me for a moment before what he was seeing began to register and his body started to respond. He was bringing his hands up because he must have seen in my eyes what was going down. But he was too late and despite his training too slow.

I whipped my right fist around and a second later felt a satisfying crunch as the brass knuckles encasing my fist crushed his nose. He would have screamed but all that came up was a gulp as he swallowed air. As he fell backwards I followed him, hitting him as hard as I could just under his solar plexus with the brass knuckles.

The blow took the wind out of him and the pain must have silenced him for a second. All I could hear was his harsh breathing. He fell backwards and would have gone over his desk but I grabbed him by the shirt and rolled him, so I could get a clean shot at this kidneys. I hit him hard, twice, the way Carlos had told me.

I was prepared to kick him in the balls from behind but he swung an elbow around and caught me on the side of the head. It dizzied me for a second and before I could shake it off he'd swung around, come off the desk and I couldn't block a punch I saw only for a second before the world exploded around my left eye.

Now I was the one who could have screamed if I could have gotten my head straight long enough. Red and white streamers ran across my vision and the light was dying. I closed my eye in panic. It wasn't so bad looking through one good eye. 

Fortunately I saw the next punch coming and was able to move my head just far enough that he didn't take my head off, just glanced off my forehead and left a ringing in my ears as I fell backwards and tried to catch myself on one of the chairs near the entrance to his office.

He put his hand to his nose, which was a mash of blood, and muttered, "You broke my fucking nose, you bastard."

Another punch caught me on the other side of my face and tore some skin off. He must have been wearing a ring, the fucker.

I managed to get my arms up as Carlos and Ernesto had taught me and blocked his next few punches. As he drew back his right again, I managed to block with the brass knuckles catching his fist and this time he screamed.

"Hurts, you son of a bitch? Well, how about this?"

He was trying to hold his right back and punch with his left, but I went under and threw my weight and my body behind a punch to his side and what felt like the snapping of bone bent him over. He fell back and I followed with two more rights to the side, trying to hit a rib if I'd managed to break it already.

He tried to swing at me with his left, but he was a natural right hander and the punch lacked authority. I followed with a right to his jaw that might have broken some teeth and sent him ass backwards over his desk. He wound up with the desk between him and me. 

I stood on the other side of the desk and watched him try to get his body under him as he slid into the chair behind his desk. He sat there as I tried not to pass out from the stabbing pain that ran through the left side of my face.

There was blood running out of his mouth. It might have been from his nose, but I hoped I'd done some internal damage. He tried to touch his nose again but winced. Finally he looked up at me.

"Took you long enough, you fucking asshole. I wondered if you'd ever get the balls to come after me. I've been fucking your wife for three months and it took you this long to do something about it. You're pitiful."

"You think I give a shit about that bitch. You need to get yourself checked, if you live through this. She's probably been fucking half the staff here. No telling what kind of bugs you're carrying around."

His secretary's terrified face appeared at the door. 

"Professor Baker....are you alright....I'll call security...get away from me you bastards."

She was pushing Carlos and Ernesto away.

"No!" 

Doug screamed at her.

"Don't call anyone, Carly. Don't say anything to anybody. Dammit. Keep your mouth shut and don't do anything. Don't worry about this asshole. I'm getting ready to send him to critical care."

She let Carlos and Ernesto lead her away.

He took a deep breath.

"You only put me down at the awards ceremony because I was trying to be a nice guy.... and impress Debbie. I could have killed you. And the only reason you're still breathing is.... because you used those brass knuckles. But they're not going to save you now. I'm going to kick your ass, old man."

I beckoned to him with my index finger.

"Why don't you come over here and show this old man how bad you are?"

He pushed himself up and almost bent over. I could tell I'd hurt his ribs and he had a hard time straightening out. Somehow he did and came around the desk.

He was like a human buzzsaw. I blocked about a third of his shots. The only reason he didn't kill me was that he couldn't use his right fist effectively and winced as if it hurt him more when he hit me than it hurt me. Still he bounced me off the wall and busted my lip and a second shot to my left eye made me scream.

I thanked God for those sessions with Ernesto because even as he was hurting me, I was able to keep thinking. I leaned a little and he reached with his left and I caught him in the pit of the stomach, once, twice and three times and felt him shudder with each punch. Then as he was almost leaning over me, I came up with the top of my head and smashed his face with my skull.

He was trying not to but he was crying tears in pain as he tried to touch his nose and he fell backwards again over his desk. This time he wound up on his ass on the floor behind the desk. 

I had to lean over the desk to see him but I waited until he looked up at me and beat up as I was, I smiled and said, "You never learn, do you, moron? How many times am I going to be able to pull that trick on you. Our country must have been in really shitty shape if a loser like you almost made it to the Olympics."

He grimaced and tried to push himself up against using his chair, but gave it up and slumped to the floor.




When We Were Married Ch. 04B



He took a deep breath and then exhaled. He looked up at me and just shook his head.

"I didn't think you had it in you, you old bastard. I just..... don't know why you bothered to do this yourself. My uncle is a DA up north. You could....make one phone call and I'd be dead sooner or later. You guys are just Mafia....with law degrees. You were really pissed off enough to come after me yourself, knowing I was likely to kill you? Why?"

"Yeah, I could make you vanished. I still might. But I wanted the pleasure of kicking your ass myself, first."

He took a deep breath and winced. I'd definitely done damage. But on the other hand, I was having a hard time staying on my feet.

"Not that it makes any difference now, asshole.... but why the hell are you pissed off?"

I looked at him and wondered if he was even human.

"Why am I pissed?"

"Yeah. You don't have any reason to be pissed at me.... You threw Debbie away. She swore she didn't think you were screwing around on her at your office, but if.... you weren't getting some somewhere you have to be the wimpiest..... asshole that ever walked the earth. She was ripe, and that meant you weren't taking care of things at home. You got..... nobody to blame but yourself. A woman like that, she needs a LOT of sex, and....she wasn't getting it from you."

"You think I'm here because of Debbie?"

"Why else?"

"You fucking asshole....I'm going to kill you for what you did to Kelly."

"Kelly? What I did to Kelly?"

"Don't act more stupid than you are. Debbie wasn't enough for you? The hottest damned woman at UNF. You were fucking her in my bed and you had to take my 17-year-old daughter too. She's a fucking kid...just a kid..."

"I...oh shit..."

He looked like he was trying to come up with a convincing lie. 

"I don't know how you heard about it, but.... nothing happened. Not really. Debbie can tell you?"

"Debbie can tell me? She was in the room while you were having sex with our daughter?"

For some reason, that hurt. I had decided that any love I still had for her was going to disappear. But to think that she would give this bastard our daughter...."

"No. I don't know how you found out but Debbie was late for a meeting. She left me asleep...in your bedroom. I wake up and someone is sucking my dick and.... I assume it was Debbie. When I wake up I see it's Kelly. I nearly had a heart attack.... She sneaked in the house sometime during the night.

"When I realized what was happening I pushed her away. I'm not an idiot. Fucking .....the underage daughter of a prosecutor...for Christ's sake...I can get pussy anytime I want it. I'm not risking my life for an underage girl."

"You're a lying sack of shit, trying to save your ass."

"Talk to Debbie. She forgot something and was getting ready to walk.... back into the bedroom when she heard everything."

"That's a nice story, but BJ was home too. He heard the arguing and he heard her throw you out. Why would she do that if you weren't doing something with Kelly?"

He just sighed.

"She was right. Kelly has a crush on me. If I'd stuck around, she probably would have wound up fucking me.... I mean, I'm only human."

"She's a little girl...."

"Oh get real, daddy. She's a hot piece of ass and I'll bet you she's getting fucked by some of her teenaged boyfriends right now..... Have you looked at her tits lately? Or that ass?"

I swallowed blood and beckoned to him again.

"Come on out from behind that desk and let's play again."

He just shook his head.

"I think not. I think what we have here.... used to be called a Mexican standoff. I get up and you'll kill me. You come back here after me and I'll knock your head off. Why don't you just leave..... before someone shows up and calls security."

"Why should you care? I'm the one who'll go down for assault."

"Because I'm out of here. I had a job.... on the string in Chicago for a month, but I couldn't pull the trigger and accept it because I didn't want to leave Debbie. But since we're done, I took..... the job. You already shot my job down once at the awards ceremony. If word gets out about this fight.... you could screw me up before I even start on my new job. I just want to get out of here without any more problems."

I would talk to Debbie. If he was lying, I'd find him again. But something about what he'd said stuck in my head.

"You're getting out of town. You don't need to impress anybody. You're a pussyhound and you went after my wife and took her away from me, fucked her and now you're moving on. Why bother to pretend you care anything for her?"

"I do feel sorry for you, Maitland. I really do. Yeah.... I wanted her and I seduced her and I've been fucking the shit out of her for three months and I..... loved every minute of it. If she had been willing to move with me to Chicago, I would have taken her. She knows that. I'd...... even have taken your brats if they had to be part of the package.

"You really don't deserve her, you know that. She's beautiful.... and hot and intelligent and all she ever needed was a guy that cared enough for her..... to keep himself in shape and spend some time with her away from work. You can blame me and blame her if it makes you feel any better, but..... you're sleeping alone because you walked away from her.

"And you know why she wouldn't go with me? She gave me that crap about I'm too young for her and it wouldn't work, but that....wasn't it. She's still in love with you. You're a fucking clueless bastard, and she still loves you. There's no justice.... man, no justice."

I wondered how he could be a professor in a state university, and be that incredibly stupid.

"She loves me so much that she takes you into my bed the night of our little tussle and she fucks your brains out for three months? Tell me, professor, what would she do to me if she hated me?"

He just shook his head again. 

"It's hopeless. You two deserve each other."

"What's going on here?"

The dark haired man stood in the doorway, staring at both of us. I could understand his curiousity. The office was a disaster. I was a disaster. Doug was a disaster.

"Hey man, move on."

"Who are you?" the dark haired man told Ernesto as the big Latino approached him.

"None of your fucking business. Get out of here."

Ernesto stretched out one big paw and grabbed the smaller man's shoulder. The dark haired man, dressed in a suit and tie, looked like a professor. But in one swift movement, he did something and before I could move, Ernesto was on his knees, his wrist caught in one of the smaller man's hands.

"Jesus Christ," Ernesto almost screamed as he tried to pull his arm free. The dark haired man looked at him blankly and then looked up and into the room again and I caught his eye.

As it had on the Bonne Chance, a tingle ran through my spine and the hair on the back of my head began to rise. But this wasn't exactly like that. This was more like the time I'd faced that deadly canine by myself. But this was no animal.

As I looked into his blank eyes I saw something I'd only seen one time before in my life. Seven years ago I'd prosecuted Bernard Van Dilloon, the Welaka Cannibal. Dilloon had, in the small Putnam County town not far from Palatka, murdered 11 people. He had skinned them while still alive and cut off various body parts and ate them while, it appeared, they were still alive. 

When the jury returned a guilty verdict of murder in the first degree with aggravating circumstances, he had stood up in chains and shackles and gestured to me to approach him. I'd walked across the courtroom and while everyone stood around us, he told me that one day he would get out and I'd watch him tear my heart out while I was still alive.

The words were chilling, but it was the look in his eyes that really made me shiver inside. It was as if the mask of a human being had been ripped away and something darker and inhuman was peeking out. I wondered if this was the Van Dilloon his victims had seen in their last moments.

And for just that fraction of a second, with one good eye, I had seen a flash of...something...dark and dangerous in the eyes of this mild-mannered college type. And without seeming to even strain, he held a strong young man down to his knees and by this time Ernesto was whimpering.

Carlos was standing in front of him, his hands held out in a placating manner.

"Señor, por favor...please...I apologize for my friend...he is young and stupid. He meant no harm. Accept my apology."

"Paul...let it go, please."

The man looked up from Ernesto and at Doug's battered face.

"It looks like World War III broke out here, Doug. Are you sure you don't want me to call security?"

Doug pushed himself out from behind his desk and stepped by me.

"Look Paul, I know you've heard the gossip about what happened four months ago, three and half probably. About the fight...and my...relationship with Debbie Maitland. Even at Duval, I know... they'd be talking about it.

" My head's been on the chopping block ever since. I just.... got a new position at Roosevelt University. I'm going to be on the staff of the Commerce and Enterprise section. It's a good job.

" If this gets reported, and this asshole -- that's William Maitland -- gets arrested, he'll lose his...... job but all the shit that got me in hot water is just going to be stirred up again. I can't afford the publicity, Please.....just walk away."

Paul stared at him and then at me.

"You're Debbie Maitland's husband? Why would you be so stupid? She walked out on you and you're risking your entire career to beat Doug Baker up. That makes no sense."

His voice was even and calm and there wasn't the slightest hint of the animal that lurked inside him.

"Sometimes you have to do stupid things, because you have no choice."

For a moment something crept into his voice.

"You always have a choice Mr. Maitland. It's the thing that makes us more than animals."

He looked back at Doug and at the same time let Ernesto go. He groaned and would have fallen to the floor if Carlos hadn't caught him.

"You need to have somebody get you to a hospital, Doug. And Mr. Maitland, you're a mess, too. It's a good thing I didn't see anything and don't have to report anything."

And then he walked away.

Carly was standing behind us crying. 

"Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

"No," I told her. "My friends and I will take care of him."

He shot me a glance.

"You want to explain this? That going to help you in your new job. Carlos is a boxing coach and teacher and cut man and he's handled more boxing injuries than most doctors. You'll be in good hands."

Finally Doug looked at Carly and said, "I'll be fine, Carly. We just had a little....disagreement. Could you....clean up the office as best you could. Keep the door closed."

I had slipped the brass knuckles into a pocket and walked out leaning a little on Carlos, while Doug walked gingerly with Ernesto at his side. He kept rubbing his wrist where Paul had grabbed him.

"God, Papa, I never felt anything like that in my life. I might have a broken bone. I'll need to get an x-ray myself. Who the hell was that guy?"

"Paul Donnally," Doug answered. "He's head of PR at Duval University. He's over here a lot on conferences with our people on projects. I've met him and his wife at a few parties. Jesus Christ, you talk about hot. His wife is the only woman I've ever met that could give Debbie a run for the money as far as looks."

He looked back at me.

"The only difference is that Debbie isn't a slut. I had to work on her. Paul's wife screws around on him so much it's a major mystery why he's never stumbled onto it. He's the most clueless husband in the western world. Makes you seem like a very perceptive man. But he just walks around calm and quiet while his wife is fucking every male around."

Carlos leaned over to me and whispered, "You saw it too?"

"Yeah. Paul Donnally is a very dangerous man. Married to a very cheating wife. I'm going to remember that name, because I have a feeling he'll cross paths with me again."

"For his wife's sake, I hope not. Ernesto is a young, strong bull of a man. And this man could have snapped his arm. That's freakish strength. It's not something you develop. You're either born with it, or you're not. "

I said to myself, "Yeah, Paul Donnally, I'll remember your name."

####################



When We Were Married Ch. 04C



Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 2 p.m. 

My name is Bill Maitland. I am the second most powerful man in the State Attorney's office in Jacksonville. The most powerful if you consider that my boss' eye and attention and heart is really centered on the Governor's chair in Tallahassee. Day to day, I run the place.

I was also, at this particular moment in time, looking and feeling like a survivor of World War III. My face looked like one of those mutants in 1950s-Atomic Bomb horror movies My left eye had been a spreading pool of red, brown and yellow before Doctor Gary Wells in the Shands Emergency Room had examined it and covered it with a patch before administering several medications into the eye.

"You say you hurt your eye when you got hit by a doorknob? That was an amazing doorknob. It seems to have possessed knuckles."

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

He just shook his head. I had put the three thugs, who had raped and murdered his wife eight years before as they caught her leaving Shands early on a Saturday morning, on death row in Raiford and Wells had never forgotten. He had remarried, but he still checked with me every few months to see how close they were to dying in the Death Chamber.

"Amazing things they're doing with doorknobs nowadays," he said dryly. "Anyway, I don't think that...doorknob..shattered the bone around the eye, although there might be some hairline fractures that should heal on their own. I'm also pretty sure that the cornea and eye itself haven't sustained any real damage. You need to come in here in about a week and let me check it again."

He gestured at the rest of my face, which was a patchwork of bruises, cuts, a couple of missing chunks in my lower lip, and general mayhem. 

"The rest of it is superficial. It will heal in time and I don't think you'll be frightening little children in another week or so."

He touched up my face with a few smaller bandages, antibiotic salves and stepped back to look at his handiwork.

"You're a lucky man, Bill. That doorknob could have cost you your eye. There's a reason why boxing gloves were introduced to the Sweet Science. The 'doorknob' that hit you was really pissed off and knew what it was doing. You are lucky. How did the doorknob do, by the way?"

There was no one around. 

"He got his nose broken, a couple of times. He probably won't be able to pose for Playgirl again. And I think I busted a couple of his ribs, but I don't think he suffered any real internal damage. I've got a pro boxing trainer taking care of him." 

"I'm glad you didn't hurt him too badly. I know it seems pretty bad right now. When...Sharon...was gone...I didn't think I'd ever wake up again and be glad to be alive again. But now I've got Melissa and little Brad and I'm glad to be alive every morning. It will get better, Bill."

I just grunted. I was happy for him, but right now I was just beginning to see the possibility of a life after Debbie.

I was able to drive and I made my way to Carlos' gym where he was bandaging up Doug Baker. As I walked in Baker and Ernesto were talking about the politics involved in picking the boxers who actually won spots on the Olympic teams. Baker looked up at me sourly and said, "I hope you lose that damned eye. It hurts every time I breathe and Christ knows what my nose is going to look like. I may need plastic surgery. And you broke my goddamned hand."

He held up his right hand, which Carlos had covered in a plaster cast.

Carlos slapped him hard on the back and grinned as Baker winced, saying, "Don't be a baby, Professor. It will give you character. Any woman who turns away from a broken nose probably isn't worth having anyway."

"Thank you, Carlos, Ernesto. I appreciate you being there for me. And Doug, I want you out of town. You say you've got a job in Chicago. Don't dawdle on getting out of here. I want at least a thousand miles between you and Kelly. As soon as possible, understand? I'd kind of like the idea of having you branded a sexual predator and being forbidden from being around kids for the rest of your life. Get out of town. Don't tempt me."

I walked out. I really couldn't stomach seeing any more of the bastard for one day. I hoped he did get out of town.

################################## 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 2 p.m. 

"Come this way, Ms. Bascomb."

Debbie followed the heavy-set older woman into the office whose nameplate read, "Johnny August -- Public Defender."

She had met August before. She'd met most of the lawyers on both sides of aisle, judges and courthouse officials during the ten years that Bill had been with the State Attorney's Office. As she walked in, she gestured and then realized that was a superfluous gesture and simply said, "Please don't get up, Mr. August. I appreciate the gesture, but it's not needed."

August was a tow-headed 50-year-old who looked 20 years younger. He resembled nothing so much as a country boy grown older without growing up. His hands still looked too big for his body. He looked, she thought, like he ought to be chewing on a blade of grass and looking up at the clouds on a summer day, barefoot and happy.

It was all an act, of course. He was a 6-foot-6 intellectual who had graduated with honors from Harvard and, before he'd lost his sight, was said to have read Plato in Greek and Latin editions. But he had mastered the art of the "aw shucks southern boy" charm that kept getting him re-elected Public Defender term after term.

He looked at her in the pleasant, but slightly out-of-focus way of adults who had lost their sight as adults. He knew what things looked like, knew where he should be looking, but could only see things in shapes and blurred outlines.

"Mrs. Maitland. It's a pleasure to -- well not to see you of course, but to sense you here in my office."

"It's Bascomb, Mr. August."

She tried to keep an edge out of her voice, to keep the honeyed charm that she wanted to wield on this man who, when he still had remnants of sight, had stripped her naked just as readily as any other healthy male. 

He had always liked her, she knew that, and for more than her body and face. He was one of those men who seemed not challenged but to visually enjoy the sight of a beautiful female body. And he had actually treated her as if she had a brain in her head at those interminable courthouse events that she had let Bill drag her to during their marriage. Talking with him had been more than the usual interplay of male/female flirting.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bascomb. It's just, that I've known you for too long as Ms. Maitland. It will be hard to break that habit."

She sat down at a chair in front of him and from force of habit crossed her legs and leaned back smiling at him. She saw him gesture to the fat secretary who closed the door behind her.

"I know. It's been a hard habit for me to break, too. That's why I'm going by Debbie Bascomb now. Bill and I will be divorced in less than a month and I -- I need to start carving out a life for myself instead of just being known as Bill Maitland's wife. It still feels funny sometimes to call myself Bascomb...but it's necessary."

He stared at her and she wondered how much sight he actually retained.

"I was sorry to hear about it, Debbie. Nobody ever knows what somebody else's marriage is really like, but that man loved you. Really did....Anyway, I agreed to meet you for old times' sake and because that was an interesting message you left for me. Would you care to elaborate?"

"As to my message, I'm here because I need you and I think you need me."

He just looked in her direction and after a minute she continued.

"I'm here because I'm on my way out at UNF, for reasons that I don't need to explain to you. I know that you know President Myers. I have to believe that he would have called you before indicating that there might be the chance of employment here in -- a different capacity than I've had the academic arena."

"I've talked to him. We're old friends, actually."

"I know you know each other. I did a little research -- actually a lot in a little bit of time -- after I met with him yesterday. And I decided that his hint I contact you had some thought behind it. I just don't understand why he would offer to help someone he evidently loathes as much as he loathes me."

August steepled his fingers in front of him. 

"It's not that he loathes you, Debbie. I would say that you...trouble him. You bring up memories he has tried to tamp down. I only know this because we were friends between my second and third divorces and as men sharing similar --experiences --we grew familiar with how we think about certain things. If he truly hated you, he would not have talked to me about you. 

"Let's just say that I think he felt casting you out from the comfortable academic womb you're comfortable in and forcing you to sink or swim in the outside world is both a punishment -- and a chance for you to remake your life. Frankly, if you wind up destroyed, he will be able to salve his conscience with the knowledge that he did give you a chance to make a new life. And you didn't take advantage of it."

"Now...as to why I need you?"

"Have you read the paper lately?"

"No, but I've had it read to me."

"Then you're aware that your office is in political hot water almost constantly. You exceed your budgets and have to come back to the state constantly for temporary funding to finish up your budget years, plus money just seems to have a habit of disappearing and no one can tell exactly where it went. Were it not for your personal popularity and the fact that everybody knows you're an honest man, the governor would have sacked you a long time ago.

"Plus, you have a constant roiling of office waters with backbiting among your subordinates, most of whom seem more concerned about sitting in your chair than winning cases, and in general, this office is perceived as an asylum run by the inmates, rather than by a strong administrator."

He sat there and just looked at her with that blind gaze for an interminable time but she kept her mouth shut. If she went down in flames, at least she would have gone down fighting.

Finally he said, "So you're saying I'm a shitty administrator?"

"You're a fine lawyer."

Finally he smiled.

"Very nicely done. You might have a political future. Yes, I'll concede that I might not be the best administrator on the planet. I would only say that guiding an office full of ambitious, contentious young lawyers is akin to herding cats. It's easier said than done."

'I haven't had a lot of time, as I said, to do research on this, but I know that the structure of a typical legal firm is closer to medieval times than the 21st century. You might not know it, but what I've researched and taught has focused on corporate structure and, more importantly, on making organizations more coherent and effective in their core activities."

She leaned forward.

"I would like some time to do some planning and prepare a presentation on how I might be of service to you in this office. If nothing else, you might benefit by having somebody be the 'bad cop' to your 'good cop' when you have to exert discipline or take unpopular actions. A powerful office manager could play that role."

August sat there rubbing the knuckles of one big hand with his other hand and then turned in his chair so that he was looking away from her. You didn't have to be an expert in negotiating to know that was a bad sign. 

"All of that is very interesting, Ms. Bascomb. Debbie. But...."

"But...what, Johnny?"

"I probably should at least let you make your presentation, but I will have to tell you that I have some misgivings about bringing you into this office."

"Why?"

"We know each other, Debbie, so let me be frank. It is your....reputation..."

"Could you be a little more specific, Mr. August? Is it my reputation as a big boobed slut that gets wild at office parties? Is that what you've heard? I'm surprised an attorney would take innuendo as fact.

" Anybody ever actually see anything happen between me and any man at any party, except guys rubbing themselves against a woman while dancing? Or maybe a kiss under the mistletoe at an office party? 

"I've got a birthmark where it can't be seen under normal clothing. In any of the stories about all the guys supposed to have gotten lucky with me, got my top off or dress down, has anyone ever mentioned that birthmark? Don't you think, Mr. August, that if guys were screwing me left and right the way the stories say, that somebody would have mentioned that?"

"No, but Debbie, let's be honest, you have always been the center of attention for men at those parties and guys have been after you. And, there is the matter of Doug Baker..."

"Which didn't happen until my marriage was dead...and let me tell you despite everybody's loving my soon-to-be ex, he isn't blameless in that marriage's death."

Johnny August swung around to face her and held out his hand to stop her.

"Debbie, understand me, okay. I'm no prude. Men and women are going to get together...inside the office and outside. I have no problem with a very hot, very sexy woman coming to work here, even if most of the male staff start trying to kill each other to win your favor. The problem I have with you is not you -- it's the man who is going to be your ex."

"Bill? You're worried about hiring me because of Bill?"

"Yes. Look. I'm not afraid of Bill Maitland. He's a good, tough attorney and he's run over a lot of my people. But he puts his pants on one leg at a time. He's just a man. But, he is a very powerful man. Austin Edwards lets him pretty much run the office while he's running for Governor.

"The thing is, this is not a popular office. Nobody really loves the Public Defender's Office. Most of our clients, many of them, are scumbags. A lot of them are guilty, if not of the crimes they're charged with, of something else. We don't inspire warm and fuzzy feelings on the part of the public.

"The State Attorney always has the edge. They have us outgunned and outmanned. They've got the cops, investigators, resources we can't match. If you get a real son of a bitch in Bill's position, somebody who's out for headlines, he can crucify people. There are a lot of bad prosecutors around the country.

"Bill Maitland has always been a fair man. He's hard as nails, but he's honest and he plays by the rules.

"And you are his Achilles' heel. For three months he's been snarling around the courthouse like a lion with a big thorn up his ass. Anybody makes any kind of cheating wife jokes, he's tearing them a new one. One of his assistants nearly lost his job for saying something -- unkind -- about you. It's clear to anybody who's not completely blind, that the guy is still hung up on you.

"What I have to ask myself is, what if I hire you and you come in here and you fall or some guy in here falls for you and word gets out that one of my assistants is banging Bill Maitland's ex-wife? You want to know what I think will happen? What I'm afraid will happen?

"I'm afraid that he will take out his anger on everybody associated with this office. Now, like I said, I'm not afraid of him. We'll fight it out in court and I'll still get a paycheck and go home and get a good night's sleep.

"But, the people we represent....they're going to be hurt. Our clients don't have a lot of money. They don't have the resources that your upper middle class types do. They're a lot closer to the ground and can get hurt a lot more by an angry prosecutor."

He seemed to be staring into her eyes as he said, "I guess what I'm saying, Debbie, is that if you can't keep it in your pants, so to speak, you could do a lot of damage to people whose main crime is being poor and powerless. I don't know if I can take that chance."

Finally:

"I appreciate your honesty, Johnny. All I can say is that I need this job and I'll do anything I have to do to avoid jeopardizing it. I can promise you that I will keep mine in my pants if your guys will do the same. I don't see a problem, and Bill and I will work out our...problems. All I can ask if that you at least give me the chance to show you that I could improve this office."

"Alright I will look at anything you want to present to me. And I will promise to try to be fair in evaluating you. I would only ask you one small favor."

"Yes."

"For God's sake, please never wear anything skintight to this office. I don't want a riot to break out in here."

######################### 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 3 p.m.

"Oh, My God, Bill- Mr. Maitland, what happened?"

I waived off Cheryl while two other secretaries and a couple of Assistant SAs came out of their offices to look in my direction. With the taped and covered eye-patch, assorted red-yellow-brown bruises and a banged up mouth, I wasn't surprised at the reaction.

"I was coming down the stairs at my condo and missed a step and bounced down a stair or two," I lied, pretty smoothly I thought.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Cheryl. I've already been to the hospital. I'll have to wear the patch for a week or two, but I'll be okay. Make sure everybody get the word so a lot of wild rumors don't start sweeping the office, okay?"

I made my way as quickly as possible into my office. Wild rumors would still sweep the building, but at least I might have headed off the worst of them. I closed the door and sat down trying to think about what was in front of me.

A note on the desk said that a Rev. Montgomery had called twice and was coming by. I suddenly wished I had played hooky for the rest of the day, but I had to try to figure out what to do about Deaven Thompson.

As I'd expected, my phone buzzed and Cheryl said, "Mr. Maitland, Rev. Montgomery is outside. He's insisting on talking with you." I rubbed my right eye, which was starting to ache too, but I couldn't duck him forever. 

A moment later Montgomery walked into my office and sat down in front of me without being asked. He was a short, round, black man with close-cropped hair and fairly expensive clothes. He wore a chain with a heavy gold crucifix around his neck and enough gold and diamond rings on his fingers to put the lie to the myth that men of the cloth have no pride of appearance.

"Mr. Maitland? I'm glad we've finally had this chance to talk. By the way, what happened. You look like you've been in a war."

"Reverend, I'm happy to give you some time to talk. I'm sorry that it's been so hard to get together. Oh, and those are just some injuries I suffered in a fall at my home. Get older and you get clumsy."

He gave me a look.

"I've found that public servants usually find the time to talk with people they want to talk to."

"I apologize, but I've been professionally and personally swamped for awhile. It's been very busy."

He bit his lower lip.

"Not so busy that you couldn't take a junket on an expensive French cruise ship for a week while underlings had to do your job."

I held my tongue. He was a powerful man in the African American community both for his position as the leader of a large black church and a political organizer as well.

"That's the first vacation I've taken in three years and I have been...experiencing some personal....stress..."

"I didn't mean any criticism. It's just that there are some important matters that are before you, and people's lives are on hold until you make a decision."

"People like Shawn Smith?"

He played with a large gold and diamond ring on his pinkie finger for a moment and then looked up at me.

"Yes, Patrolman Smith has been left hanging for an intolerable length of time. When is your office going to exonerate him in that shooting and let him get on with his life?"

"You're assuming he deserves to be exonerated?"

Montgomery straightened up in his seat."




When We Were Married Ch. 04C



"Mr. Smith's house was invaded by three large, violent men who had told friends they were going to 'beat that nigger's ass' and take back a woman he was in a relationship with. He was defending himself and his fiancée from these men. There should be no question of NOT exonerating him."

I sat back and thought for a moment. I had to handle this carefully.

"I understand that the three gentlemen in question did make that threat and did use the 'N' word, Reverend. There's not much doubt about that. Of course, a lot of black -- and white -- males use the 'N' word indiscriminately and so that is not proof per se that they were racists out to lynch Mr. Smith.

"There is also evidence to indicate that Mr. Roper, and his brothers, were simply going to Mr. Smith's house to retrieve Roper's wife. She was still married to him, and was now living with Mr. Smith. We have all the ingredients for a fairly standard domestic violence situation.

"Where the situation goes off the rails is that there are indications the three men were unarmed and that Patrolman Smith not only shot two of them to death after they forced their way into his home, but also shot Roper's brother to death as he was trying to run away OUTSIDE Smith's home."

Montgomery's voice rose.

"Police recovered a handgun that the three men brought into Mr. Smith's home. They came armed and prepared to harm him and his fiancé. He was perfectly within his rights to defend himself and he said he thought the third man was running to their truck to retrieve another weapon."

I just looked at him for a moment.

"Oddly enough, the weapon they were supposed to have taken into Smith's home was not registered and there is no evidence it belonged to any of the Ropers. There has even been speculation that it might have been what is sometimes called a 'throw-down' gun, that police drop at the scene of questionable shootings to claim self defense."

Montgomery looked like he was going to explode.

"That is an almost libelous statement, Mr. Maitland. If ..."

"If, what?"

He stared at me. "Let's be frank. If he were white and three black men had invaded his home, you'd have exonerated him months ago. He is being left to twist in the wind because of the color of his skin."

I stared back and tried to keep my expression neutral.

"Let's be real frank, Reverend. You're accusing me of being a racist."

"If the shoe fits...?"

"There's only one racist in this office, and you know who it is. If Smith were white and had shot down three unarmed black men, one of them in the back, you'd have your church and the local chapter of the NAACP marching in front of this courthouse every day."

He just rubbed his chin and then said, "I, and my fellow clergy and members of the African-American community expect you to do the right thing and issue a report clearing Mr. Smith of any wrongdoing within the month. Or we will be forced to take other action."

I shook my head and said, "Not going to happen. I'm going to weigh the evidence and I'll make the decision when I see fit. Not you, not the clergy and not the African American community."

Montgomery slowly got to his feet.

"We are well aware of your reputation, Mr. Maitland. You've gained local fame as the so-called 'Angel of Death,' but you've always been known as a man who does what he wants with the power you wield. You seem to think you stand above and beyond the normal restraints on political figures."

"Because I'm not a politician."

"Your boss is."

"Austin Edwards is not your typical politician."

"No, maybe not, but he is a politician. Everyone knows he is using this office as a stepping stone to the Governor's office in Tallahassee. Do you think he's unaware of the percentage of votes cast in most elections by African Americans? Do you think he's unaware of the mountain he'll have to climb if he is painted as a white racist, or a man who employs a racist as his top prosecutor?"

" I guess you'd have to ask him those questions. I'm not paid enough to consider those kinds of things."

Montgomery reached out and I took his hand.

"Please don't take what I've said personally, Mr. Maitland. It's just that there is a long history as I'm sure you're aware, of black men being ground up in the wheels of white justice in the South. That's not going to happen this time. I hope you come to the right decision in this matter."

I didn't say anything, just let him walk out. I'd come to the right decision. I just wasn't sure if it would be the right decision he was expecting. And I wasn't real sure that Austin Edwards had balls enough to back me in doing the right thing in this case. He had big ones, but he might needs Balls of Steel if a racial donnybrook erupted over this case.

When he had walked out I leaned back and tried to think clearly. I was about to lose my wife -- officially -- whereas I already had in fact; I had to decide what to do to keep my 17-year-old from pursuing a very foolish crush if Baker had been telling the truth; I had to figure out how to shut down a powerful drug dealer who had threatened my family, I had to try to keep my job while going up against a powerful black political figure....where the hell did it all end?

"Mr. Maitland?"

I looked up into dazzling blue eyes. Set in a heart-shaped face, set under flowing red hair that reached almost down to her ass, Atop a five-foot 6 frame wearing a fairly demure pastel blouse.

She bent forward and the blouse gaped open and I couldn't help staring at perfect round, orange-sized breasts.

I pulled my gaze up and met her eyes and recognized her.

"Sheila, Sheila...."

"Simpson, Mr. Maitland. I hope I'm not...disturbing...you, but Mr. Hopper wanted me to drop these documents by on the Trent case."

She didn't have to, but she remained leaning over my desk. And those damned oranges just seemed to be growing larger.

"Trent? Oh, the Trent case."

My tongue didn't seem to want to work. It seemed thick and awkward all of a sudden.

She smiled and said, "I hope you don't mind, but that patch makes you look like a pirate. It's very... intriguing."

She stood up straight, very slowly. She stood very straight, her shoulders arched backward making those breasts poke out prominently against the blouse. She just stared at me, the kind of stare that is a challenge. Once, a long, long time ago, I would have known how to and would have reacted the way a man does to that kind of invitation.

But it had been so damned long since any woman had looked at me that way, except for Aline. I wasn't expecting it. And so she had me off balance.

"Thank you, and thank Mr. Holder." 

After a minute she just nodded and walked away. Damn. I didn't know what was happening, but it could be a problem. I had never been tempted to fish in the office pool because I was happily married and because I'd seen it blow up in supervisors' faces. But....I wasn't happily married anymore...and a very attractive young woman who once upon a time would never have given me that kind of stare had just done so...and..

I had an erection I could have driven nails with under my desk. Damn.

Twenty minutes later when I could stand up without embarrassing myself, I told Cheryl I need to get out for a few minutes and I headed downstairs to the first floor to step into the new Starbucks that the county had talked into moving into an old hot dog and coffee shop that had been there for 15 years. 

Debbie loved dry cinnamon cappuccinos but I liked plain old-fashioned cappuccinos, but I also liked more foam than anything else. It took 15 minutes because it was the hottest thing in the courthouse. I stood at the counter where they'd served me and sipped the foam.

And I saw her walking away from me down the hall in the direction of the Clerk of the Court's traffic office. She should be helping to prepare the ship to leave again in a few days. But she might have gotten leave to go ashore.

It was her; the same heavy, black hair, the same shape and the same walk and that ass....She was dressed in something unfamiliar; a short green skirt topped by a blue green two-button Worthington jacket. What was she doing walking toward the clerk's office. Had she come to see me? But, she had to know what a terrible idea that would be.

I was walking toward her before I even realized what I was doing. And then someone called to her and she turned back in my direction and I stopped dead still. How could you be grateful and heartsick at the same time. 

I made my way to the elevator without looking at the stranger that superficially resembled Aline des-Jardins. Of course it hadn't been her.

I had told her I'd think of her every day, and I hadn't realized just how true that was. 

######################################### 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 3:15 p.m.

"Send her in, Abby."

Debbie stood there for a moment, then walked in. There was no reason to be hesitant. She'd promised Crider to talk to the man, but after this first time she could walk away with a clear conscience.

He rose to his feet as she walked in and stepped forward to take her hand.

"Mrs. Bascomb, I'm glad to meet you. Did you have any trouble finding my office?"

"No, your secretary's directions were good. I appreciate your being willing to see me, even though..."

Dr. Ernst Teller gave her a look that made her think he could read her mind. He was a tall, angular, brown-haired man with the hair cut in an old-fashioned almost-buzz cut. He was an older man, but she couldn't peg his age. He had a hawk nose, piercing gaze and the ramrod straight posture, He couldn't be called handsome, but he was striking. If she had seen him at a party, she wouldn't be able to take her eyes off him.

"Even though you think this is a waste of your time and you don't plan on coming back."

She gave him a surprised look.

"You must really wow them at parties with your mind reading act, Dr. Teller."

He smiled a gentle smile. He was good, she thought. It was a smile that encouraged her to like the man, but with none of the usual male overtones that she had come to expect every time she met a new male. She knew that most people would WANT to trust this man. 

"Thank you, but it's just that that is the usual reaction I get from most people when they enter my office for the first time. Most people come here not sure that they want or need to be here, want or need my services."

He pointed to a small grayish couch behind a coffee table with a unique black and white inlaid Rorschach ink spot design that matched a large painting on the wall.

"Please, have a seat."

"Should I lie down?"

"Not unless you really, really want to." And he smiled again. She sat on the couch and leaned forward. He sat down in an overstuffed leather chair that his body seemed to sink into.

"Now what?"

He shrugged. 

"We talk, if you want to. We could sit and stare at each other for the next 55 minutes, but that would be a waste of both our time. Why don't you just start talking and maybe you could touch on why you're here, or why Dr. Crider thought you might benefit from coming to see me."

Thirty minutes later he leaned back in the chair and puffed gently on a pipe he had produced after asking her if she minded his smoking.

"On first reflection I'd have to say I agree with Dr. Crider's assessment. Any woman in your circumstances would probably be experiencing similar emotions. Even if, as it appears, the divorce is something you feel is necessary, it has to be extremely stressful. Divorce, along with the death of loved one, is one of the most devastating events a person can go through.

"You pile on top of that a love and sexual affair with a new man in your life -- you say he's only the second man you've been intimate with in nearly 20 years, the rift in your relationship with your daughter, your son's seemingly rejecting you by going to stay with his grandparents, and an inability to come to some sense of closure with your husband...."

Teller breathed out a ring of aromatic tobacco smoke.

"As a famous wit once said about dancing bears, the wonder is not that they dance so badly, but that they dance at all. The wonder is not that you are having these panic attacks, the sense of your world ending, but that they are not so much more severe and disabling. The true wonder is that you're able to function at all with so much going wrong in your life."

She stared down at the Rorschach inlaid pattern.

"That may be true, Doctor, but if this is functioning, God only knows what it would feel like if I weren't functioning. I need help. I don't feel like I am going to make it at times. And...there's more...."

"What?"

"I've told you a little bit about Bill, and I know you know him. Everybody says Bill is a good guy. My own mother is on his side in this. And I know I've hurt him by filing for divorce, by falling in love -- no, by falling in lust with a younger man.

She looked up into Teller's eyes and for the first time in a long time she didn't feel like somebody was judging her, had judged her, and condemned her without listening to her side.

"I couldn't tell anyone...I couldn't tell Bill....but our marriage has been dying for a long time. He walked away from it. Not me. Maybe I expected too much. He's 41 and he was never a great athlete. He's led a sedentary life and he got fat and physically -- unappealing.

"And me -- well, I've worked hard keeping myself in shape. I've always been --considered attractive and I like the fact that men like me. And I'd lie in bed some nights and look over at him...short, and fat and balding...I know it's not fair, but I...felt disgust.

"I....I like flirting with men. I like knowing that men want me. I....maybe I carried it a little too far at parties...And....there were other things I did.....I never physically cheated on him...I never had sex with other men..but the last few years....I wanted to....I fantasized.....I......wore out a vibrator.."

She looked up into Teller's eyes.

"I'm not that dumb blonde that most men think I am just because I have big breasts and I'm beautiful....not bragging, I just am....but I'm smart.....smart enough to know that Bill never did anything except let himself go, let me go.....he loved me...and every night in my head I was having sex with other men. I wanted to divorce him a hundred times before I called him that day at his office..

"And....what makes me really feel bad...makes me feel like shit, Dr. Teller, is that I knew how much I was hurting him when I told him I didn't love him anymore. It was true but I didn't have to say it that way....but I did. And I wanted to. I wanted to hurt him....and I don't really know why.

"And Crider noticed...I already knew it but I didn't know why....when I talk about him I get angry...I get furious.....I'm the one who was cheating on him in my mind..I'm the one who started flirting with a young, good looking guy that just wanted to get me into bed..I'm the one who froze him out of my life so I'm the bad guy here... but...I hate him...Goddamn I hate him...sometimes..

"I guess....I'm afraid....only a crazy person would feel that way....am I crazy?"

"Crazy is a very imprecise term....You feel guilt because of the way you have treated him, but at the same time you obviously have strong feelings of anger, resentment, even hatred perhaps...

"The obvious question is, has he done anything to deserve that anger? Has he cheated on you? Had affairs with other women?"

"I'm sure....I mean...I don't think so. This is terrible, but I can't imagine a woman wanting him...that way...or...at least...not until recently. The son of a bitch waits until I'm not in love with him, I'm divorcing him, and he starts looking good again. It's like he's doing it to spite me. Sometimes I..."

She stopped. 

"You see what I mean, doctor?"

"Has he been cruel to you, abusive? Has he ever struck you?"

She gave him an incredulous look.

"Bill? I could probably take a man into bed while he was there and I don't think -- I know he wouldn't hurt me. He might kill the guy....and I don't understand that either. He's a good attorney and....he's tough as a pit bull, but to physically attack someone? No, I guess that's part of what happened. I lost respect for him physically. 

"I -- I couldn't believe it when he attacked Doug at UNF. I am embarrassed, but at the time I was ashamed for him. It was like a toy poodle taking on a pit bull. And...when...when he actually beat him down....it was like he was somebody I'd never seen before. I remember thinking, who is that guy in Bill's body. Because it's not Bill."

He just sat there silently and she remembered what Bill had told her once about interrogation tactics. Silence is always the easiest way to break someone down. People hate silence.

"I -- uh -- he was never abusive. He was -- too nice -- maybe. There were times...at night....that he'd roll over to me and I knew what he wanted. But he was so damned flabby. And I told him no. And he backed off. I mean, I wasn't in the mood. I was working on college things and the kids were always into something and we hadn't been...physical in a while.

"But...he should have made me. He should have taken me. A man would have rolled me over and fucked me."

She looked up at Teller but he didn't seem fazed by the language.

"Sometimes a woman wants a man to be dominant, to take her. But...that isn't in Bill. So I guess I resented him for not...forcing me...That's stupid, isn't it. And unfair. How was he supposed to read my mind. But that's the way I felt."

Teller let out another wreath of grayish-white smoke.

"It's not stupid, Ms. Bascomb. It's common, in fact, for many women to want their men to be dominant, forceful in the bedroom. He wasn't, and while it might seem unfair, that would be another reason for you to be angry at him. Rational, no, but understandable, yes."

"Maybe understandable, but I don't understand....there's something I've never told anyone before. Nothing I say will ever go outside these walls, will it? And you know Bill. You will never breathe a word of what I'm going to tell you?"

He just shook his head.

"One night....I had this dream.....I woke up and Bill was lying in bed next to me.....and I hated him...oh God, I hated him. Not dislike, not anger, but hate. I went to the safe where we keep a Glock for protection. We keep it loaded because it's safely locked away. I took it out and went back to our bed. 

"And it was as if there was a fog, or something, surrounding the bed. I could see him lying there, and I knew it was him, but his face was hard to make out. And it was as if I was awake watching myself dream and I knew I had no reason to hate him as much as a did.

"I held the Glock out in front of me with a two-handed grip the way Bill had taught me and I centered it on his head, and I pulled the trigger. Again and again and again until there were no more bullets left.

"I woke up screaming and Bill was holding me and I wanted to hug him and I wanted to push him away. How the hell could he be holding me and telling me everything was alright when I had just blown his head off?"

She looked up at Teller.

"I told you I was crazy. Or maybe he made me crazy. There's nothing he could have done, nothing he ever did, that would make me hate him that much."

Teller was silent for a while, then put the pipe down on a little side table.

"You do know that there's a difference between what you dream and reality, I hope. You didn't shoot your husband. From what you've said, you've never physically assaulted him. Dreams express emotions, and there is some deep-seated, violent anger that you feel toward him. The puzzle is there's nothing in what you've said that could possibly explain the depth or intensity of that anger."

He looked at a large clock on his desk with a image of "The Scream" engraved under the large crystal watch face and said, "I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today, Ms. Bascomb. I think we've definitely got some things we can talk about and explore in the future, if you feel that would be helpful."




When We Were Married Ch. 04C



She took a deep breath.

"I don't know why, but I do feel a little better. But...I can't help wondering if maybe...there are some things I shouldn't know. Sometimes when you know things..you have to act...and.."

"This is probably the psychiatrist in me, but it's always better to know than to be ignorant. If you know what is behind your emotions, you can deal with them, or accept them. But you have to know first."

She took a deep breath. Even though she had done nothing but sit on a couch, she felt exhausted.

"Alright. When -- when do you want to see me again?"

"How about Monday, Wednesday and Friday, an hour a day, let's say right about now -- 4:15 p.m., at least at the start."

"I don't know that I can afford that"

"I know for a fact that your husband's insurance will cover-"

"I don't want Bill to know anything about my seeing you."

"Alright. Your insurance at UNF covers my services. I know that because I have other UNF officials as patients."

"I don't know how much longer I'll have that insurance."

"We'll work something out, Mrs. Bascomb."

"How?"

"I'm a physician, Mrs. Bascomb, and I come from money. I can treat the patients I want to treat, and you have aroused my curiosity and interest. Don't worry about the cost. We'll work it out."

When she left he leaned back in his chair. Abby stuck her head in the door and said, "Mr. Cassel is here."

"Tell him I'll just be a minute."

Knowing Bill Maitland's background and history with his wife would make her treatment a little easier, he thought. He already knew that there was an underlying gulf between the two caused by Maitland's doubts about his ability to hold or be worthy of his wife. It was very possible she had picked up on that, at least subconsciously, and was aware that he didn't think he was worthy of her.

If she was, the contempt and drawing away was almost inevitable. You walk around with a 'kick me' sign on your back, visible or invisible, and someone was going to kick you. People respond to you the way you expect them to.

But, beyond that, there was no indication in talking with either of them, that they had had a particularly troubled marriage before Maitland joined the State Attorney's Office. That meant a relatively happy marriage for at least eight years. During the last ten years she had drawn away from him, flirting with other men, fantasizing and finally letting herself be seduced by a younger, more physically attractive man.

All of that understandable, almost textbook. But where did the anger, the violent rage come from? If she had been telling the truth and the only thing he did was disappoint her, that rage wouldn't be there.

No, something had happened in the last ten years. More likely the last five. There had to be some triggering event. Something she was hiding, or might not even be aware of.

He smiled. Cases like this were what he lived for. He sometimes thought he must have been Sherlock Holmes in a former life, if Sherlock Holmes had been a real person and if he believed in reincarnation.

He called to Abby: "Send Mr. Cassel in, Abby."

A moment later a tall, stoop shouldered man with thinning brown hair shambled into the office. Why couldn't' he stand up straight? For a moment irritation flared in Teller, but then he let a professional mask of calm slip back over his face. If Martin Cassel was aware of just how pitiful a shambling hulk he appeared to be, his wife wouldn't have cheated on him and Teller wouldn't have had to hold his hand for the last three years.

"Doctor."

"Good afternoon, Martin. This will be our last session together."

"What?" Cassel sat bolt upright. "Why, doctor? Have I --"

"You haven't done anything. It's just that I'm overbooked and I've given your appointment times to a new patient." 

"Doctor Teller, you can't do that. How-"

Teller leaned forward and motioned for silence and Cassel abruptly stopped talking.

"I don't mean to be cruel, Martin, but there comes a time when action has to take the place of words. You came to me three years ago when you learned of a continuing affair that your wife was involved in with a coworker. The affair is over. Two years ago. We have discussed the affair and why your wife did it and your responsibility for what happened.

"We discussed your inability to come to terms with what your wife had done and your inability to leave her and forge a new life for yourself. Over the years you have grown to see that while she was at fault, you shared some fault as well. Unfortunately, while you were deciding how you felt about her, she had another affair. So we had to go into depth over that one.

"You still haven't taken any steps to win back your wife, although we decided long ago that that was what you wanted to do. At present, you have not had -- successful -- sexual relations with your wife for nearly three years and you and I both know that if something doesn't change she will either have another affair or she will divorce you."

"I know, Doctor Teller, but-"

"I want you to buy flowers -- I think you said she loves roses --and take them to her along with a bottle of wine -- I think you said she loves white wine -- and I want you to do your level best to get her drunk tonight. I want you to be as sweet to her as you can possibly be. I want you to attempt to have sex with her tonight.

"If she allows it, I want you to definitely have oral sex -- with her as the recipient. Don't worry about yourself. I want you to do everything possible to bring her to climax. Even if she doesn't climax, I want you to focus on her pleasure. If she will not allow you to have sex, I want you at the very least to do your best to stay in the same bed with her and hold her.

"I want you to do the same thing tomorrow. No roses or wine, but find something that she will enjoy. A movie video, a CD of songs she likes. Attempt to have sex with her again. Don't be obnoxious, but let her know that you want her. Again, use your mouth, your fingers, anything she will let you.

"I want you do the same thing every day for the next 30 days. No exceptions. If she is completely unreceptive to physical advances, I want you to try to talk with her. About anything. No television. No work, on your part. If she completely turns you down, no sulking. Find something to do and do it while she ignores you.

"And the next day I want you to do the same thing. Successful or not, I want you to launch an unrelenting attempt to seduce your wife. And if she asks you why, tell her the truth. You've lived with secrets between you for three years. Tell her you're aware of her affairs and that you have decided you want to save your marriage. Tell her you will continue pursuing her until she tells you she wants a divorce."

"What if-"

"What if she tells you she wants a divorce? Tell her that unless she's throwing you out of your house you will continue pursuing her for the remainder of the month. And do it. The worst that will happen is that your marriage will be over. And, to be honest, Martin, what kind of marriage has it been? Really? You've been in pain for three years. Your marriage is not supposed to be the place where you suffer. It's supposed to be the place you go to find comfort and peace.

"I'm -- scared, doctor. If she leaves me..."

"You will survive and I will find a new appointment time for you. I won't leave you out in the cold, Martin. But, this is something you have to do. We can talk about your emotions and what you want from your wife and out of your marriage for the next 40 years, but nothing will happen until you DO something."

"You really think this is the right thing to do?"

"I do. And no matter what happens, I want you back in a month. Hopefully you'll tell me that you and your wife are trying to build a new relationship. I honestly think you have a chance. But you have to step up."

After Cassel had left, Teller leaned back and filled his pipe again and drew in a lung full of aromatic fumes. Sometimes his work was just plain depressing. But, what kept him going was that, sometimes, screwed up people managed to straighten out their lives. He hoped Maitland and his wife would fall into that category.

############################ 

Thursday, July 21, 2005 -- 3:30 p.m.

As I walked into the State Attorney's Office and headed to my office Cheryl darted in front of me. A courthouse bailiff had his hand on his illegitimate .38 in his holster. All courthouse personnel were supposed to be carrying Glocks, but a lot of the older guys preferred their favorite hardware.

"Mr. Maitland, I'm sorry. I tried to stop him but he was so fast. He was in there before I could stop him."

The bailiff, an older man I thought was named George something stepped in front of me with his hand on the .38 and said, "You want me to go in there first?"

I shook my head. It could be anybody. An irate parent wanting a break for a kid busted for pot or a psycho carrying an axe out to kill The Angel of Death. 

"What'd he look like, Cheryl? Did he give you a name?"

"Big, tall black man. Very well dressed. Slim. He didn't look that dangerous, but...there's just something about him."

"He give you a name?"

"He just said....Tyrone had come by to say hello. He said you'd know who he was."

It clicked and I knew who he was, although it had been a long time. It would be like him to just stroll in to stir up things. I held a hand out to George and said, "Hang loose just outside the door, but don't come in unless I call you."

I was a little nervous as I walked into my office, but not much. If it was the Tyrone I remembered, he'd be too smart to just walk into a prosecutor's office and shoot somebody. It wasn't his style."

He was standing near my desk looking at the pictures of me with the famous and near famous. He looked around at me and then his eyes widened.

"Damn, Maitland, somebody did a job on you. Tell me who it was and I'll send a couple cases of some good beer to them -- maybe Double Diamond. It's a very understated beer, but quality, man. Quality. Anybody can do that to you, deserves a quality beer."

He wore a designer suit that looked like it came off a New York fashion catwalk, had real --I'm sure -- diamond cufflinks, had no gold teeth but two gold earrings in dollar-signs twinkling with more real diamonds, and I'm sure wore shoes that came straight from Rome. He was slim, his shaved head glistening in a way I just couldn't make mine do.

He had a warm smile, a trim figure on his 6-4 frame, and the charisma of a warm and fuzzy sabertooth tiger. And he had probably murdered a hundred men with his own hands, with guns, knives, ball-peen hammers, and other things I didn't want to think about.

He reached into his jacket and I tensed for a moment, but he came out with a silver cigarette case, opened it and took out a slim cigarette. He moved so quickly I almost couldn't follow him and a similar monogrammed silver cigarette lighter appeared like magic and a touch of flame lit the cigarette.

"There's no smoking in this building."

"Hmmm..I wasn't aware. Well, let me just finish this one and I'll start following the rules."

He look a drag and then released scented smoke. And smiled at me.

He moved toward a chair directly in front of my desk and sat down in one graceful motion. That was the word that described Tyrone Biggs, local homeboy made good, South Florida crime boss, pimp, pusher and murderer; he was graceful as hell.

He looked me over and said, "I saw your picture on a web site and I heard all about that Angel of Death crap, but I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Shaving your head, going black, getting into fights....and you're as whitebread as they come. You must be going through one of those midlife crises I've heard about. Although I don't have to worry about that for awhile."

I sat down behind my desk and wondered if I could get my Glock out in time to stop him if this was more than a social visit."

"Have you missed me that much, Tyrone? If so, come on back and give me a reason. I'll send you to Raiford and I promise to keep in touch once you're inside."

His smile almost wavered and I knew I'd got to him, but he just shrugged and said, "Enjoying the hospitality of the Florida prison system was an educational experience once, and for that I thank you, but once was enough."

I put my hands on my knees and leaned forward. It would only take an instant to get the drawer open and get to the Glock and I had a man with a gun standing just outside my door, but damned, Tyrone was fast.

"So to what do I owe the honor of this visit? You go away and forget all about me for eight years and then all of a sudden you blow back into town. You miss me? Or what?"

He took another drag on the cigarette.

"Nothing special, Maitland. I've been busy down south, but I wanted to come up and see Derrick. You know he's in that prison camp over toward Tallahassee; Got two more years to go and I wanted to make sure he's doing okay. I got people in there watching over him, but I wanted to see with my own eyes that he's okay."

"I'm glad to hear he's alright. Why don't you do him a favor and leave him alone. He's made some mistakes, but I hear from the Camp commander that he's doing pretty good. He's working on his GED, has expressed an interest in learning a trade...an honest one. If he's your brother and you love him, why not give him a chance at a decent life?"

Tyrone shook his head and expelled another puff of smoke that had a vaguely licorice-type smell to it. He didn't go for a lot of jewelry, but he had a lion's head ring on his middle finger with rubies for eyes and a large diamond set in the mouth. I didn't want to even guess what it might have cost.

"Yeah, he's my brother and I want him to work his whole life for just enough to afford a three-bedroom for a wife and three or four brats and never get enough to go the places I've been or see the things I've seen. I want him to settle for some fat broad that opens her legs to him instead of some of the finest pussy on planet earth, which I've sampled and which I'm going to enjoy as long as I live."

"Until somebody you trust, a friend or a subordinate or a girlfriend, slips up behind you one night and puts one in behind your ear. You know that's how it's going to go. You might ride high for a few years, maybe a few decades, but how many guys in your line of work ever retire and live to be old and senile?"

He stared at me and said, "Could be, Maitland. Could be. It's an old argument. Is it better to burn brightly for a few years and then Nova, or die slowly for an entire boring lifetime? I'm choosing to live while I'm here, and I want that for my brother."

Then he gave me a small smile.

"Anyway, I just came back from Derrick and realized I could swing by here and thank you."

"Thank me?"

He sat up straight, and somehow it felt like I was watching a viper coiling itself up preparing to strike.

"You didn't have to hit Derrick with the least time possible. You didn't have to recommend that he go to that minimum security camp instead of Raiford."

"He was just a stupid kid. I didn't do anything for him I wouldn't have done for any other young idiot."

"I don't like you, Maitland. You stole two years of my life. My mother died while I was in prison and I wasn't able to go to her funeral because of you, you son of a bitch. But...

"Most prosecutors are assholes. Most prosecutors if they got their hands on my brother would have used him to try to rattle me or screwed him to the wall to get at me for being smarter than you guys. You didn't. You treated my kid brother as if you'd never heard of me. And you gave him a chance."

"I'm touched, but you don't owe me anything, Tyrone, except getting the hell out of my part of the state before you kill somebody up here.

"Well, whether you want to accept it or not, you've got my thanks. Now I've got business to attend to down south. It's been real, but I hope we don't see each other again soon."

He walked past me to the door of my office and stopped. He looked back at me.

"Oh, by the way, I still have friends around here. Just heard an interesting story. They say some local would-be kingpin in one of your special cells got his head separated from his shoulders. Bad stuff. When people can be killed behind bars, it shakes your faith in the criminal justice system."

He stepped out, moving gracefully around Cheryl who burst into the room saying, "Mr. Maitland, Chief Brown is on the line." Brown was the man who ran the jail.

I picked up the phone.

"Maitland, all hell is breaking loose down here."

"What happened?"

"You know Deaven Thompson, the one you had in that holding cell isolated from everyone? Well, he wasn't isolated from everybody."

"What?"

"He was checked on by Lieutenant Colton at 3 p.m. and he was okay, seemed to be taking a nap. When Colton came back at 3:30....the bunk was soaked in blood and Thompson was under a blanket. They pulled the blanket back and...somebody cut his damned head off. Cut it clean off."

I looked toward the doorway, but I'd have bet Tyrone was not in sight.

"And that's not the worst of it."

"There's worse?"

"They....cut his genitals off...his entire dick and his balls and stuffed them into his mouth. It was gross, goddammit. I had veteran officers throwing up."

"And no one saw anything?"

"Colton and two other jailers had to be down on the second floor to break up a fight, actually two fights. With one thing and another, every officer we had in there was busy for a half hour or so."

"Alright, get someone to pull the videotapes. His cell and the walkway were being monitored, right?"

There was a long silence.

"We do have videotapes, right?"

"That's the first thing I thought of. I went to the command center. Riley and Kitty Wells were on duty monitoring. They were both out cold. They had ordered coffee and said they got it up about 3 or 3:10 and that's the last thing they remember. The tapes for the cameras monitoring Thompson's cell and the corridor and that whole area are missing for the last hour."

"Who brought up the coffee?"

"Jimmy Miller. He's a trustee, but he's due to be out in two months. He's scared shitless. Swears he didn't do anything and just picked up coffee from the commissary. I've already had officers down there checking, but nobody will admit to seeing anything. 

And honestly, nobody pays any attention to who goes through there. Who expects their coffee to be doped --in the jail?"

I sat back and rubbed my lower lip. Talk about mixed emotions. I couldn't be sorry the son of a bitch was dead. But somebody had waltzed into the heart of the criminal justice system and committed murder. I knew who had done it, and I guessed why, but I doubted I'd ever be able to prove anything.

"You've got detectives crawling all over everything?"

"Yes. This hasn't gotten out, but what do we tell the press when they start calling."

"Sheriff Knight is in charge, you do what he tells you, but I'd keep my mouth and the mouth of everybody under you, shut tight until we figure out the best way of handling this."

I hung up and when I looked at the doorway, Charlie Case filled it.

"You heard?"

"Yeah" I said. "Hard to believe anyone could do that. And it makes you wonder who would want to kill and leave that kind of message."

He shrugged those huge shoulders.

"Deaven was not the most pleasant person I've ever met. I have a hard time believing he didn't acquire a lot of enemies along the road to the top. Remember, the Browns, the little boys' family and their friends, they're not the most peace-loving bunch around. They wanted a piece of him. And there are other gangs out there."

I looked him curiously.

"That's the strange thing, Case. I could understand his rivals or the Browns having him killed, but the way they did it..."




When We Were Married Ch. 04D



by DanielQSteele1©

IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES

Friday, July 22, 2005 – 9 a.m. 

My name is Bill Maitland. I am the second most powerful man in the State Attorney's office in Jacksonville, about to be divorced from the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my life who has fallen out of love with me, and father to a son and daughter that I have ignored for too long while I concentrated on other people's tragedies.

Last night I learned that while I was looking at other things, my daughter had grown from a little girl to a young woman who lusted after the man who had stolen my wife from me. Actually, to be fair about it, I had thrown her to him, but it didn't make living with his presence in my life any easier.

But I'll be damned if I was going to let him screw up my daughter's life as well so I had a little discussion with him that involved brass knuckles yesterday. I had hurt him, but he'd hurt me so I didn't feel at all guilty about giving myself an edge with brass and surprise.

I'd like to say he was a big-dicked coward who showed me he didn't deserve to win my wife, but unfortunately I learned a long time ago that being an asshole doesn't automatically mean you're a coward as well. And he had tried his best to take my head off in our little discussion.

We'd both survived and he was leaving town and my soon-to-be ex-wife, so I guess you could call me the winner, but he'd managed to screw up my marriage and he'd forced me to look at my daughter with open eyes. 

Still and all, it was better to live with the knowledge that my little girl was all grown up than to continue to live in a fantasy world where men were not fucking her. It still hurt me to think about, but I would always prefer to think of her as a sexless innocent than a sexually active woman. I didn't have any choice, though.

And then, in a day full of shocks, I'd had the last one early this morning as I learned that Father Eagen Dunleavy, who'd defied hatred and machetes to fight for life in the Hutu-Tutsi killing in Rwanda in the 1990s, had been shot out of the sky while on a mission back to Rwanda. 

I'd met him while on a cruise on the French ship Bonne Chance and learned that besides being a good priest, he was a good man. I liked him before I knew that, but knowing that as good a man as he was could screw his life up as badly or worse than I had, made me feel better about my own mistakes.

He had helped me look at my life a little differently on the ship, and even in dying he had continued to help me try to make up for my past sins.

After I walked into my office at the State Attorney's Office earlier that morning, I closed my door after telling my secretary Cheryl that I didn't want to be disturbed.

I dialed a familiar number and a few rings later, my mother said, "Hello."

"Hi, Mom."

"Bill, is anything wrong?"

I couldn't help smiling because I knew she was going to put the needle in.

"Why does something have to be wrong for me to call my mother?"

"Because, you never call your poor mother. Charles tells me that you're a busy man and you're going through a lot, but if I didn't see your name in the paper every once in a while, I wouldn't know you were still alive."

"Mom, I know I haven't called you much lately, but-"

She wasn't having any of it.

"I think the President is pretty busy too, but I hear he makes time to call his mother!"

What can you say to that?

"Your right, Mom. I'm sorry. I'll try to call you more regularly. It's no excuse, but what with the....what with things with Debbie and trials, I haven't had time to turn around?"

"At least you're almost free of that woman. I am counting the days."

"I know, Mom. I know. I am too."

"You're just saying that, Bill. I know you too well. You still love her, but that will change. You just need to get away from her and get out and date other women. You're a successful man and you won't have any trouble finding somebody better."

"Spoken like a mother," and then I realized I'd said the words out loud instead of in my head.

"I know I think like a mother, but I'm not blind or stupid. That woman has had you wrapped around her little finger for 20 years so you don't know how good a man you are, and how other women would look at you if you could see anybody but her. But that will change when you're a free man again."

"Mom...okay. It's going to happen and I know you don't like her, but she'll still be my kids' mother. Try to be careful what you say around BJ, okay? Speaking of whom, is he in?"

"You don't know how many times I've bitten my tongue around BJ, and Kelly. God knows how she turned out as good as she is with that woman as her mother. But, I'll try to hold my tongue around the boy. He is just waking up and was having breakfast with Charles. You want to talk to him?"

"Yes, please."

There was a silence on the end of the phone. Then BJ came on.

"Dad? Did you-?"

"I had a talk with Doug. I don't think he was lying at the end. And I talked to your mother and Kelly. I know what happened. I'm glad you were there, and glad you called me, but I don't think – I don't think anything really happened. I think your mother walked in just in the nick of time. Anyway, Doug is leaving town, and going pretty far away. I don't think we'll have to worry about him much longer."

 He was silent and I knew why. Doug had to be a pretty charismatic guy for a 14-year-old boy. I was sure BJ was torn by the fact that he was impressive, and on the other hand he was fucking his mother and possibly had tried for his sister. 

"Anyway, BJ, that wasn't really the reason for the call, except to thank you for calling me. The real reason I called was..."

I stopped for a minute and time seemed to crawl. I'd found the words for Kelly, and I wanted to find them for BJ.

"I just wanted to tell you that I love you."

"Dad?"

"I haven't said it very much, because it seemed kind of mushy to be saying to a teenager. But...you're my son and I love you, even though I guess I must have been a pain in the ass to you as far as your friends were concerned."

There was a long silence and then, "...Is everything...alright, Dad?"

"Everything's okay, BJ. It's just that you go along...thinking you've got all the time in the world to let people know...how you feel about them. And I guess you know..or I hope. But....

"Nobody lives forever, BJ, and we never know when we're going to run out of time. Almost the last words my father told me, and I can still hear them, is that he loved me. I've never forgotten and I'm glad he said them when he could."

"Dad, what is...what's wrong?"

 "Nothing, BJ, nothing's wrong. It's just that, I won't be around forever. There will come a day when I'm gone. I want you to remember these words on that day. And I want you to know...know how much I love you. You're my son and I'm proud of you and you and your sister are the best things that ever happened in my life."

"Jesus, Dad, have you talked to mom?"

"No, it's nothing. It's silly. I just felt like saying that. I'm not going to be mushy with you again. Just remember. Okay. Now, tell your grandmother and grandfather goodbye. I'm at the office and I'm working. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay?"

I hung up.

I called Cheryl and told her I was running out for a minute. For this type of errand it was easier to just call a cab than go to the trouble of taking the Escalade. I called around and the best church for what I wanted was the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church of Jacksonville at the corner of Ocean and Duval Streets. It was an old church and the closest to our offices and the courthouse.

I walked in. It was early and there was nobody around except a woman cleaning. I asked her where I could find a priest and before I could finish a short bald headed guy in street clothes was walking up behind me.

"Can I help you? It's early for visitors."

I looked around and saw a bank of candles burning near one door.

"I'd like to have two candles set up to burn perpetually in memory of some friends."

"They're called votive candles. There is no charge, but we do accept donations. And to burn in perpetuity? That's a long time."

I smiled at him.

"Only until I'm dead and gone, Father, after that they're on their own. As to the donation. How's about a hundred and I'll send you a check for a thousand this week. Should that keep them burning for awhile?"

"Yeah, I'd say so. They must have been good friends."

"One of them was, but both of them were good people. I don't want them to be forgotten."

"What were their names? Let me write them down and we'll set the candles up with name plates."

"Father Eagen Dunleavy and Brianne O'Collins."

He stopped writing and looked up at me. 

"You were a friend of...?"

"An acquaintance of Father Dunleavy, but I considered him a friend."

"There's no charge."

I pushed the $100 at him and said, "Then use it for the poor."

As I rode back to my office and started preparing to deal with murderers and rapists and monsters, I felt a little better knowing that a small light was burning somewhere honoring the good there still was in the world.

###########################      

Friday, July 22, 2005 – 10:30 a.m. 

 When I got back to my office I had a message waiting from the Big Man. I headed up to his office. Myra was at her desk busy with someone and she just glanced up at me and nodded to me to go in. Her gaze lingered on my bruised face for a second, but then she dropped back to what she was doing.

"Bill, you still sticking with that fairy tale about falling down some stairs?"

"It's the truth. People die every day falling down stairs. It was just my time."

"You know of course that you can't lie worth a damn."

"I thought I lied very well. Can't be a good attorney without being a good liar. It's in the job classification."

He just grimaced and said, "Yeah, but you can't lie to me. Doesn't matter...I haven't seen any police reports so I don't think the stairs are going to bring you up in front of a judicial review. The reason I called you in here was to find out what's happing with the Shawn Smith case. 

"Knight is up my ass almost every other day because his union and his guys are up his ass pushing him to do something about Smith's case. And that prick reverend has called me every damned day insisting I get you to get off the ball and give Smith a clearance so he can go back to patrol and get of that desk duty he's been on."

"I'm still gathering evidence. But it's not the only case we're working. I'm trying to get ready for the killer granny which is going to be a big case because I'm going to do everything I can to see that she winds up on Death Row. And we've got that asshole William Sutton, the guy that beat his pregnant ex-wife to death. I'm scratching my head trying to find some way to make sure he doesn't walk after killing two people."

"I know you have other cases, Bill. There are always other cases. And there may be something else on the horizon. I'm hoping it goes away, but there's an outside chance we may get the Mendoza case. That's the one where they killed both those Texas prosecutors. Blew up one with a car bomb and cut the other guy's throat in front of his family.

"Quite frankly, most other offices don't want it. The Mexican Cartel that Mendoza worked for has basically declared war on the U.S. They're trying to hand this one off to anyone stupid enough to take it. 

"The point is, there are always crises looming. But I can't keep having the Sheriff and all his men, and most blacks in this city, pissed off at me because you can't make a decision. There's enough doubt about this one, and Smith is a good cop, could you give him a pass?"

"There's more than enough doubt, and that's what a grand jury is for. Why not pass it on to them?"

"Shit, Bill, I can get by with having the cops pissed off at me. Although it hurts. And I can get by with having blacks pissed off at me. Although it will hurt come election time. I CAN'T get by with having the cops AND blacks pissed off at me. And putting this to the grand jury where it will look like we're going after this guy will piss everybody off."

"Alright, I'll try to come to some kind of decision in a reasonable length of time. Tell Knight and the Reverend I won't push this off any longer than I have to. I promise I'll do something to resolve it."

##############################         



Friday, July 22, 2005 – noon.

There was a quick knock at her front door. She had taken a break from writing the presentation she was working on for Johnny August to take in a protein shake and probably ought to visit the gym in an hour or two just to clear her head. She wasn't expecting visitors. Kelly wouldn't be back this soon. 

She opened the door and her eyes widened. 

"Oh, my god, you two killed each other!"

"Just about," Doug said. His nose was completely covered with bandages and both eyes were blacked like something out of a prize-fighting movie. His right hand was encased in a plaster cast. "The son of bitch coldcocked me when I wasn't expecting it. Which is the only reason he's still breathing."

"Coldcocked?"

"It's an expression the old guys at the gym I trained at used. It means the bastard caught me by surprise and nearly put me out with one punch. He was cheating, using brass knucks, and he broke my nose all to hell. He even broke my damned hand. Actually, I fractured it on his face, but then he finished the job with the brass knuckles.

" But I got some good licks in."

"I'm sorry about that. Bill came by last night. I didn't know BJ was here and he called Bill just as he was getting off that French ship. Bill thought you had –"

"I know what he thought. And I'll let you in on a little secret. He wasn't after me just for Kelly. He's still got really hard feelings about me and you."

"I know. But can you blame him? Honestly? Anyway, he said you're leaving town?"

"Yeah. I gave my notice a couple of days ago. They weren't crazy about it, but they're not too torn up to see me go and I got a good sob story from the head of the section where I've got a new position at Roosevelt University in Chicago. I got a job offer from a friend and took it. I'll have a professorship in the Commerce and Enterprise section. 

"The guy that was teaching it dropped dead of a stroke two weeks ago. They want young blood. And they want it now. UNF could try to hold me to my contract, but Myers agreed to let me go. He was decent, for an old shit. They've got temp professors finishing my classes."

She looked at him and felt sadness. He had been beautiful. For a man there was no other way to describe it. He had been beautiful. And she knew deep down that what she had done was wrong, and she'd regret it years from now, but God, he had been beautiful.

"Doug, I'm sorry that Bill...hurt you like that. I'm just glad he didn't have you killed. Because he could have. I'm not sorry you're going. I'm glad there's going to be a thousand miles or more between you and Kelly."

He stepped into her and held her shoulders and the picture of him above her sliding that huge cock inside her filled her head and she almost lost her breath. 

"Are you glad I'm going to be a thousand miles or more away, Debbie?"

Finally she said, "Yes. We have no future. I loved what we had, but...I need it to be over. You need to make a new life for yourself."

He pushed her back inside the open door and closed it behind him. He could have pushed her down to the floor and she didn't know if she'd let him. She'd only know when he tried it.

"I told you before, Deb, you're making a bad mistake. I know something inside you still loves the guy. And I couldn't get past that. But he will never take you back. Maybe, someday, if you catch him in a weak moment he'd fuck you. But take you back, take you back as his wife....it will never happen."

"I know you keep saying that Doug. Maybe it makes you feel better to think the only reason I didn't choose to go with you is because I still have feelings for Bill. But that's not true. Even if Kelly hadn't been part of the picture, I still would have ended it. We're good physically, very, very good, but a marriage...a life together..is more than sex. Why the hell do you think I stayed as long as I did with Bill? It wasn't for the sex."

He leaned forward and kissed her and she closed her eyes. With her eyes closed she could ignore the damage to his face, ignore the memories of everything that had led up to that point, could just remember the good times when they were together.

"It is not too late, Debbie. I'll be leaving for Chicago later today. But I could get you on in Chicago. I've got friends and I could find a place for you. 

"Kelly won't be a problem. She's staying with her grandparents. I know because she called me and told me and wanted to get together. She can stay with them while she finishes school, maybe go to school down here and by the time she ever came back to you, this...infatuation..might be burned out. She'll find some guy her own age.

"And BJ....he could stay with your parents or Bill's parents. Or he could come with us. Chicago is a great city. It's a great place to grow up. And I don't think he hates me. He's upset now...because I'm fucking his mom...but guys learn to live with stepfathers. I'd bend over backwards to live with him."

She opened her eyes and stepped back.

"Why, Doug? We had great sex, and we liked each other. But you've never stayed loyal to one woman long in your life. Even with a broken nose, you're still going to be catnip to women as long as you live. I'm nearly 40 and I'm not getting younger. I don't really trust you to be faithful, but even if you were, why? I know you like sex with me, but there's a whole world out there of willing women? Why would you tie yourself down?"

"Maybe I'm growing up a little. I never wanted this when I put the moves on you. I just wanted you in bed. But something changed. This is going to sound stupid as hell, but I....I want what you and Bill had. I want you in my bed every night. I want to go to movies with you and go ice skating at a rink...I want to eat popcorn with you watching TV at night. I'm almost 29 and that's pretty much 30. I wouldn't mind...having a kid. I never thought I'd want that...but a rug rat doesn't sound so terrible right now...MY rug rat."

She tried to avoid crying and managed to avoid it, but her eyes misted.

"No. I think...I think you might actually be honest about that...but it doesn't change anything. You need a woman your own age, Doug. If you're getting serious, and guys do that sometimes at your age, start looking around for someone you can make a life with, not some other husband's cast-off."

"So, no?"

"So, no."

He stepped away from her.

"Okay. I had to try. I won't try to call or bother you again. If you change your mind..you'll be able to find me. But..."

He leaned over and kissed her once, hard.

"Don't wait too long, Deb. Maybe you're right. Maybe I was just getting to that stage and I didn't realize it. Maybe it was knowing you. But, I'm going to be looking for someone. Someone special. I'm not giving up sex, but I want more. And if I find that somebody, I'm not going to lose them. So if you change your mind, just don't wait too long."

"I won't. – change my mind."

He walked to the doorway and then looked back at her.

"I honestly feel sorry for you Debbie. You threw away one guy that loved you because he got too old. And you threw away another guy who loves you, because he was too young. You're never going to be alone because you're too beautiful...but you may never find anything like what you've thrown away."

And then:

"I know I said this before, but it's true. I wish I had met you first."

And then he was gone, closing the front door behind him.




When We Were Married Ch. 04D



She walked back into the den, sat down on the couch, and stared at the pictures of Bill and the kids on the walls. When she couldn't see them anymore she realized she was crying. And she had no idea, exactly, what she wept for.

###########################         

Friday, July 22, 2005 – 3 p.m.

 I leaned back in my chair and examined the paperwork that Detective Heather McDonald had put before me. She was beaming.

"It was such a longshot, Mr. Maitland. I wouldn't have tried if you hadn't encouraged us and talked Sheriff Knight into freeing me up for this one. How did – why did you even suspect something like this?"

"Just a hunch. For a granny, Judy Johansen always struck me as a very hot lady for a 67-year-old. I had a hard time believing she was willing to spend the rest of her life caring for a sick, rich old man incapable of sex and not do anything to scratch that itch. 

"In today's world, online matching and dating is the way a lot of people get together. It was just a case of putting the right kind of bait out. And it almost had to be somebody fairly close to the Orlando area if she was going to get together with them on a regular basis.

"But, I just had the idea. You're the one that spent God knows how much time on the case. Does Knight have any idea how much personal time without pay you put in?"

She blushed. She was a 53-year-old former vice and pedophile detective who could look 50-ish and hot, which was why she was perfect for the sting I wanted to run. Dirty blonde hair, a good-sized set of tits, just enough meat (curves) on her to let guys know she was no anorexic kid. She was, if not a MILF, definitely a classic GILF. (That's Grandmother I'd Like To Fuck.) BJ was the one who had first enlightened me as to what a MILF was after his mother and I split.

"No, and I really didn't want him to know if this was going to fall flat. He'd have been royally pissed to learn I was spending so much time on a pet project for anybody else, even you."

"Well, it paid off and you're going to get the credit and the headlines and I'll make sure that you do get official recognition."

She actually blushed. Even blushing made her look hot. I tried my level best not to fantasize about fucking her. I couldn't be this horny less than two-days after my romp with Aline, but damn, for an older lady, she was hot.

"Even so, Mr. Maitland, we can prove they were doing it, but that's a long way from proving she intended to murder her husband. A lot of women have affairs-"

She stopped in mid-sentence and I could read her mind without having any super powers. 

"Don't be embarrassed, Heather. I get tired of people tiptoeing around it. I'm not that much of an ogre...I think. My wife is divorcing me, she was fucking around on me...no big deal. Happens a lot. We're getting divorced. And yes, I know a lot of women – and men –have affairs without bumping off their spouses...but....

"The hat trick here will be to find some evidence that will convince a jury that not only did she have the motive to kill her husband, but that she actually did. And if we can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, we have to make her look so bad that the jury will WANT to convict her."

She looked at me funny for a moment and then shook her head before getting up, in a way that made nice parts of her body jiggle.

"Mr. Maitland, let me say this with respect, I sure as hell hope you never get angry at me. I wouldn't want somebody like you coming after me."

 "Just don't kill anybody and we'll get along fine."

 She was about to turn and leave the office when she stopped.

 "When is your divorce final?"

 " September 19. Why?"

 "It's just that...it's been a pleasure working with you. After the trial I'll go back to regular duties...probably never see you again. Which is kind of silly because there's no way a man like you would....have any interest in an old lady in her fifties."

 I almost swallowed my tongue.

 "Uh...uhm...."

She laughed.

"Relax, I wasn't threatening your virtue or propositioning you. Just making a statement."

 "I'm not threatened, Heather...just...flattered and surprised. I – uh...this has never happened to me before."

 "Having an old lady tell you she was interested in you?"

 "Having any women tell me or indicate in any way they were interested in me – that way."

 "Because you're one of those guys that every women here knew never looked at another woman. Now, we expect you to look. Have you ever looked that way at me?"

 "Not....not until this afternoon. Honestly."

 "But you did this afternoon. You think you might be one of those guys that likes GILFs?"

 I think my jaw actually dropped.

 "You know...."

 "Of course I know what a MILF is, and a GILF. It's flattering to get my age and realize you can still turn on younger men. Do I turn you on?"

I opened my mouth and shut it, then:

"I think you already know the answer to that, Heather. But right now I'm still married and you're a cop working with me on a sensitive case and even thinking that way is going to mess up my head. Can we just let it lie until....sometime later?"

"Sure. Call me when you need to talk again...about anything, okay?"

"Okay."

As she was stepping outside, Cheryl buzzed me.

"Debbie is out here, Mr. Maitland. Do you want to see her?"

"Do I have to answer that honestly? Just ask her what she wants."

I heard her through the phone.

"I'd like to find out why he's scaring our son to death?"

"What?"

"Tell Cheryl to let me in, Bill, before I create a scene out here."

A moment later she was in my office. Why do evil, poison things, always look so good? And why, after more than three months of pretty much successfully avoiding any contact with her, had she made it her mission to get in my face every time I turned around. 

"What is this about scaring BJ?" 

She put her hands palms out on the desk and leaned toward me. Naturally her blouse bulged outward and I had to fight to keep my hands at my side. 

"Why the hell did you tell him you loved him, the way you did?"

"What? I told him I loved him. He's my son."

"And how many times in the last few years have you told him that? And talked about never knowing when you're going to die? And talked about your dead father's last words to you? And wanting him to remember you when you're gone? 

"He called me almost in tears and you'll probably be getting a call from your mother if she ever hears about what the call involved. He thinks you're either dying or going to kill yourself. He said he'd come back to talk to you if I thought it would do- any good. 

"Is something wrong? I might not be on the top of your hit parade right now, but I'm still your wife. And I'm the mother of your children. If something bad is happening, I'd like to know to figure out how I'm going to handle it."

"Oh shit, I guess I need to call him again. It's nothing, Debbie, at least what you're thinking. I'm not dying. I'm not planning on checking myself out."

"Then why?"

"Alright. When I was on the Bonne Chance, the cruise, I met a guy. He was a priest, named Dunleavy. He was just – one of those people you seem to click with. He tried to help me with – some personal problems. And I learned a little bit about his life. He had been in love with a girl before he became a priest and – she died. He still carried her photo with him. And then, he was killed yesterday."

"Dunleavy? That priest that was on the news? The one who was shot down in Rwanda?"

"The same. I said goodbye to him when I was leaving the ship yesterday morning. The last thing he said was he was on his way to Rwanda to try to stop some more killing. And then, with no warning, they shot down his plane."

"That's sad, but why...?"

"Because I know he wasn't planning on dying last night. Just like I'm not planning on dying. But it's like that Garth Brooks song, 'If Tomorrow Never Comes' You never know when you wake up in the morning if you're going to be here that night. I already talked to Kelly last night and she knows how I feel about her. Now BJ does."

"And how do you feel about me?"

Friday, August 19– 11 a.m.

 "All rise."

Debbie rose along with Joyce Linder at her table. Across from them Bill and Lew Walters stood as Circuit Judge Katherine Holden's entered her courtroom. She was a tall woman in her 50s. Not a beauty, but there was grace and confidence there. Debbie thought she would a good model for aging. If there was ever any graceful way to age.

"Mr. Maitland, Mrs. Maitland. I'm sorry to see you here. I had hoped you two would find a way to reconcile."

Debbie had met the judge, and her longtime, on and off-again companion Judge Herman Herring, at various social events over the years. She liked both of 

them. The gossip she'd always heard was that Herring was a staunch Catholic and married to another staunch Catholic who would never grant him a divorce. He could never remarry and so he and Holden could never be legal. But they had seemed to really care for each other.

 Bill just shook his head. After a moment Debbie did too.

"I gather from your attorneys neither one of you had any interest in counseling?"

Both shook their heads.

"And Ms. Linder, I'm told your client has voluntarily relinquished any interest in support or maintenance, even after a nearly 20 year marriage. Her husband earns substantially more than Mrs. Maitland."

Lew stepped in smoothly, saying, "But Mr. Maitland has agreed to generous child support for both children which will continue for another four years, has agreed to keep up insurance on both and to help with their college educational expenses. 

"Also, your honor, Mrs. Maitland voluntarily agreed that it was in the best interests of both parties not to push for support. While Mr. Maitland earns more, Mrs. Maitland will, in her new position with the Public Defender's Office, earn a substantial income."

"And the people in the Twin Towers voluntarily jumped," Joyce Linder said bitterly under her breath. Debbie looked at her, and noted that she'd lost weight. Her face showed new lines. Lew had warned her that most women didn't end up happily after spending time with his partner Norm, but like most women, she'd had to find out the hard way.

Holden glanced at both attorneys, then focused on Debbie.

"And that is your uncoerced decision, Mrs. Maitland?"

She didn't want to, but she stared without blinking into Bill's eyes. She was being screwed over, and not in the fun way, but she'd survive. And he could have hurt her a lot more with the emails if he'd wanted to.

"Yes, your honor. It was my decision completely. I don't need or want Bill's support. I can take care of myself."

Holden looked down at the papers in front of her. Then at Bill.

"I've known you and your wife almost from the first day I came on this bench, Mr. Maitland. Strictly aside from any professional or philosophic feelings I might have about divorce, I have to say I'm sorry it came to this."

"So am I, your honor, so am I. But sometimes..... we'll both survive. Life goes on."

"Your divorce is hereby granted."

She turned to her bailiff and said, "Please call in the next case." 

Bill walked out of the courtroom first without looking back while Lew stayed to talk to Joyce Linder. Debbie walked up behind him. He had lost weight. Even in casual clothes, he looked better than he had even a month before. He moved differently, younger than she remembered.

"After 20 years together, you just walk away, without a word?"

He turned back to her and she was shocked to see his eyes gleaming.

"What am I supposed to say, Debbie? It was great fun, but it was just one of those things? Thanks for the memories? Thank you for falling in love with another guy? Thank you for betraying me? Thank you for tearing my heart out? What exactly am I supposed to say here?"

"You could say you're sorry."

"I'm sorry? I'm sorry? You are unbelievable. You bitch."

"I know a lot of it is my fault. But you really don't think you share any of the blame?"

"No, I know it's my fault. I was stupid enough to think that being a good husband and loving my wife and working my ass off for her and my kids for my entire life entitled me to some loyalty. I was foolish."

"So if I'd been willing to just rub your paycheck all over my naked body I should have been happy with the life you gave me?"

"Oh, don't go there, Debbie. You-"

He bit his lip.

"I don't want to do this, Debbie. I spent more than four months doing my best to stay away from you because I must have known deep down that not only were you going to shit on me, but you were going to try to make me believe I deserved it. Maybe I wasn't the husband you wanted, or needed, but I loved you from the days at UF. I still love you, which I think, you bitch, you know deep down."

 "You loved me so much that you spent every fucking waking minute that you could away from me and the kids? That's how you showed your great love? And you let yourself get so fucking flabby that I couldn't stand to have you touch me? Until we split and then, you son of a bitch, you start working out and slimming down and getting hot.

 " I know that fucking slut of Edwards is after you. Or are you fucking her already? And I've heard about that bitch Jessica. And how about on that cruise? You bang any widows or divorces on that one? I think sometimes that Clarice was right about you all along. You stopped caring about how you looked for me because you were getting all you wanted at the office? Was she right?"

 Before she could react he was on her, pushing her backward until she hit the door leading back into Holden's courtroom. He held her arms up over her head. He had moved so quickly she hadn't had time to resist. And when she tried to push back he held her without straining.

 "You're talking about your fucking crazy aunt Clarice? You think I didn't know all the crap she was spewing about me? What good would it have done me to argue or deny anything. You were so stupid you didn't realize all that crap came from being dumped by that asshole cheating husband of hers? And you judge me by what he did? How the hell could you have so little faith in me, you stupid fucking cunt. I put my life on the line for you and you listen to your crazy aunt instead of talking to me?"

Then Lew was pulling him off of her and she realized he had banged her head into the wooden door and that she'd bitten into her lip when she hit her head. She looked down and saw blood dripping from her lip.

Linder touched her shoulder and said, "Are you alright, Debbie? My God, he assaulted you right outside the courtroom. 

Glaring at Bill, who was being pulled back by Lew, she said, "How damned arrogant can you get? Mr. Maitland, you may think you're hot shit in here, but you don't have the right to lay hands on your wife, assault her in front of everyone!"

Lew almost threw Bill behind him as he slipped between the couple.

"Let's not get hysterical, Joyce. There's no assault here. Bill and Debbie were arguing and he pushed her away from him. That's not assault.:

"The hell it isn't. If there had been a bailiff or a cop out here, I'd be having him arrested right now."

Two attorneys and their clients had stopped in the hallway and were staring. Lew stepped closer to Debbie and ignoring Joyce, said, "He wasn't assaulting you, was he Debbie? Think about how you answer, because if you say the wrong thing, Bill could lose his job...and other things could happen...things you don't want to happen. Think before you speak."

She wanted to send the son of a bitch to jail, cost him his job...how had this happened? How had everything gone to hell in a few seconds? She had been angry at him, for letting everything go without even pretending to care...but...she hadn't planned this. This was that anger Dr. Teller had been trying to figure out for the past month. 

 But, she thought about the implied threat Lew had leveled. A moment brought her back to rational thinking. She still couldn't afford to have the emails released. And, from a practical standpoint, she had just left a tenured position at UNF to launch into a risky new administrative career. She couldn't take the chance of jeopardizing Bill's job. She still had two kids and she still wanted college for both of them.

"I'm fine," she told a glaring Joyce. "I slipped and Bill tried to catch me but couldn't stop me from banging my head against the door. That's when I bit my lip."

 "Oh, for God's sake. I don't know why you're doing this, but I'm an officer of the court and I'm not going to let him get away with manhandling you."

Lew stepped in again.

"There were no other witnesses except you and me and I'm going to say that you were wrong. All you'll do is stir up a shitstorm, and with my word against yours, nothing is going to happen. And your client doesn't want you to do anything. How are you going to justify going forward, Joyce? Look, don't let your...feelings about what happened with Norm...color your feelings about every man. I told you to be careful."

 "This isn't about Norm, the son of a bitch, the fucking uncaring bastard. How can you stand to be his partner, his friend?"

"Because he's not interested in fucking me, nor me him. I know what he is, but you went into it with your eyes open."

"Let it go, Joyce, please. It's my fault. Bill was trying to walk away. I went after him. And he didn't hurt me. Please don't do anything."

She stared at Debbie for a minute, then at Lew and finally at Bill.

"I'm leaving, Debbie. I'll send you the paperwork. And Maitland, you need to get yourself into an anger management class before you step into something your friends can't clean up." 

When she had left, Lew grabbed Bill's shoulder and said, "Let's get out of here before she changes her mind. And please, stay the hell away from Debbie for awhile...at least until you both cool off."

Debbie stepped between them, dabbing the blood off her lips.

"I'm sorry, Bill. That's not what I intended. I just wanted to....close it out right. But...."

"There is no way to close it out right. What we had got ripped apart and right now I'm bleeding and I'm not safe to be around you. And you need to get some help, because I think Clarice might have made you crazy too. I'm not insulting you. I seriously think there's something wrong with you."

Then he let Lew pull him away. All the dreams of a civilized parting, remembering the good years, and it ended like this. She thought, "maybe he's right. Maybe I am crazy. I know he makes me crazy."



##################         

Friday, August 19– 12:30 p.m.



I had to go back to work to prepare for Judy Johansen, the killer granny, trial beginning the next week, but Lew was like a damned pit bull. He wouldn't let go.

Finally, to get him out of my office, I said, "Okay, for God's sake, let me get back to work. It's only another day. But if you won't leave, we'll hit Pelicans tonight. I should be through by six or seven. Give me an hour and a half to hit the gym. Let's say 9 p.m. I'll meet you there."

As he walked out of my office I took a moment to put my head into my hands and take a deep breath. It still felt like it should be pitch black with thunder and lighting and black ravens circling overhead. Something that had been very good, my world in reality, had come to an end today. I was going to live and make another life and another world for myself, but a good one had died.

And it was just another day. It should be more. I felt like I should load a boat with the relics of my marriage, and if I could make myself, Debbie's blonde body, push it off shore like the old Vikings and have a really good marshmallow roast.

I'd have to settle for getting drunk with Lew tonight. Of course he'd try to get me laid. I didn't need or want that. Twenty years of mostly happy times in a mostly happy marriage deserved a night or two of remembrance and mourning. But he would try. He was a better friend than I deserved.




When We Were Married Ch. 04D



I was feeling restless and it took me a moment to realize why. I got up and went to one of the perks of my office and drew back the curtain that hid a plate glass window. It didn't face on the river so I was actually looking to the north. I could see the city skyline, what there was built to the north of the courthouse and State Attorney's Office. 

 Most of the skyline was to the south of me, but far to the north was Blount Island, with its berth for visiting and semi-permanent cruise ships. Until today. The Bonne Chance had finished its month's visit to Jacksonville today and in about four hours would be sailing to its next semi-permanent berth in the Port of Miami and from there to points south.

I had seen her in passing cars and walking on the sidewalk far below my office and standing on a corner as I drove by. I had seen her ass twitching away me and the curve of her hip thrust out as she waved to friends. I had seen her running with that long black hair flowing behind her. Of course, it was never her. And more than once – hell almost every day - I had to fight the urge to call the ship or drive over there when it was berthed.

What could it hurt? Philippe was an ocean away and he had his own life. She was never going to leave him so we could play. I could hold her in the night. It had been nearly a month and I'd had no other women in my bed. 

 I felt stupid. I had run into Sheila a couple of times and every time I went up to see the Big man, Myra was there giving me unreadable glances and threatening me with button shrapnel. Heather and I continued to work together as the killer granny case neared its climax and more and more I could understand the appeal of older women.

After Aline, I knew what I could have if I just could make myself reach out and take it. But I couldn't. I couldn't make myself take any other woman, and I had let her go. In a few hours she was going to be gone and I couldn't make myself imagine ever running into her again. I had my life and she had hers. If I had taken what she'd offered, we'd at least have had a month. Now there was no more time.

I closed the blinds and walked heavily back to my desk. I'd be 42 in less than two weeks, and today I felt like I was 84!

##################         



Friday, August 19– 4:15 p.m.

"I don't understand it, Dr. Teller. I was sad. Hell, I was about to start crying. I just wanted to talk to him. And out of nowhere, I was furious with him and he was attacking me. I understand how he feels. I really do. Intellectually. I know I made the first move that destroyed our marriage. But there I was blaming him again."

Teller leaned forward, mirroring her leaning forward over the low coffee table.

"You ended a 20-year relationship today, Mrs. Bascomb. Even if you were the one who wanted out, people have mixed emotions. He is the father of your children. At one time you loved him. We don't say when we get married, "I take this man, until I find someone better....Most people get married with the idea or hope of it being forever.

"It ended, and something died today. Even if it was only a dream you had when you were 21. People react differently to emotional stress. From what you've said, it's obvious he was highly upset as well.

" I'm still not sure where your anger is coming from, although it's clear that it has something to do with your Aunt Clarice's abandonment, divorce and suicide. It appears that while your marriage had entered a dangerous phase before that, with his drawing away from you due to the demands of his job, that the anger and some of the more – hostile – actions you took and your sexual unhappiness, truly began in earnest after your aunt's problems."

"I know it got worse, but..."

He leaned back and looked at her with, a speculative glance. She was surprise to see his gaze traveling from her face to her breasts, hips and back again. It felt odd to have him look at her that way. It felt...insulting...in a way it didn't with other men. Perhaps because in such a short time she had grown to trust him.

"What?" she said with a sharp undertone to her voice.

He glanced at her breasts again.

"Have you ever thought, Mrs. Bascomb, what an odd, ill-matched pair you and your ex-husband present – from a physical point of view?"

She looked over the swell of her breasts and then up to meet Teller's eyes.

"I know Bill wasn't any super stud from a physical standpoint. He was shorter than me – which was always a hard thing for him to take even when he told me it didn't matter. And he was never muscular. He wasn't a really – physical –guy. But he was smart and funny. He could always make me laugh. And I knew from the first time we ever went out that he was already in love with me."

"I would imagine you've always been surrounded by rich, handsome, physically imposing men? How could you be attracted to a man such as your ex-husband?"

She looked down at the Rorschach pattern and spoke without looking at him.

"Doctor, I started developing breasts when I was 11 years old. I was a 36 D cup when I was 13. Despite my parents' best efforts, I had sex with an 18-year-old boy when I was 12. By the time I was 15 I'd probably had sex with 20 guys, some of them grown men. One of them was one of my father's friends. He bought me an album by a group I really really wanted. My dad would have killed him if he'd guessed.

"Having sex was no big deal. Having men come after me was nothing special before I got into high school. By the time I went to UF I'd had pretty guys, guys with really, really big cocks, college quarterbacks, rich guys. I never even had to go after them. They came after me.

"I guess it's like owning your own restaurant. When you can have anything in the world you want to eat, you don't get super-excited about having some special meal. It's all food. What you care about is what YOU really like.

"I knew Bill would never match a lot of guys I'd had. But, I wanted him. He made me happy. And...after what he did....I knew it wasn't just sex. It wasn't just my body. I always knew that guys get tired of you eventually, no matter how hot you are. But I knew Bill never would."

"And yet, he never thought he was tall enough for you. He had to compare himself to the men you'd been with before him. Any man would. Did his doubts ever...make you wonder about the wisdom of your union?"

"Yeah, I guess sometimes. I could read it in his eyes sometimes when we went to parties or some hot guy hit on me. I liked guys flirting with me. I liked the feel of a big hard dick rubbing up against my thigh and knowing the guy who owned that dick would chop off a nut to put it inside me. I was never going to do anything about it, except fuck Bill's brains out after the party.

"But I could tell that he was hurt. And I've have to be extra special loving to him to make him feel better. And most of the time it was okay. But there were times...there were nights.. I wanted to kick his ass and tell him that I didn't want to be his mother and hold his hand.

" I wasn't in bed with those guys. I was in bed with him. He won me, not them. I wanted to tell him to be a man and grow some balls and treat me like I belonged to him, not like I was doing him a favor by being with him."

Watching her Teller knew there were other factors at play, but Maitland's lack of confidence had been a slow acting acid threatening his relationship with his wife. It wasn't fair, but who said life was fair?

Debbie rubbed her eyes. She felt like she was getting a migraine.

"Doctor, I've been coming here a lot over the last month. I know you've helped me, but there are times I wonder, what's the point? I don't....don't love my husband – ex-husband any more....and no matter how we got here, that's where we are. Even if I find out what caused our marriage to crash and burn...it's dead and gone. What's the point?"

"You can stop coming here anytime you wish, Mrs. Bascomb. Whenever you reach the point that you feel you can deal with the pain in your life, there is no reason for you to continue.

" But if you do, resurrecting your marriage is not the point of your visits. You have emotions, you have feelings that have been causing you pain. When you find out why and what caused those emotions, you can deal with them. You may accept them, accept the end of your marriage and move on. You might find that what you truly feel is not what you think you feel. It's possible to misunderstand what we are feeling, to misread our emotions.

 "If you were happy with the end of your marriage, if you had accepted it and wanted to create a new life, you would do so. You're still a young woman. And you're stunningly beautiful and you could find another man. 

"But at this point, even though you could, and you say you want to, you haven't. That tells me you're grappling with issues and emotions that you're unwilling to confront."

"Why the hell does life have to be so confusing, doctor? Why can't things ever be simple?"

He grinned and she realized again how much she'd grown to like him in a month's time.

"Because then I – and psychiatrists like me – would have to go out and get some real jobs...maybe become ER docs. I prefer working in the air conditioning away from blood and gore."

#########################          

Friday, August 19– 9 p.m.

I walked in and looked around. As usual Pelicans wasn't completely mobbed this early, but it was still jumping. I'd changed to light colored blue slacks and an open-necked light blue Signature Twill shirt. Wearing black would have been just too depressing. 

As usual when I entered, I stopped and looked around. I've never been a real party animal and unless I'm completely bombed, I tend to stand off a bit. It felt like going to a party in high school when I didn't know a soul. Not seeing Lew, I headed toward the bar and was ordering a Bloody Mary, very heavy on the tabasco with a half dozen green olives in the mix and I felt a tap on my shoulder and smelled a fragrance I should have known.

I turned around to look into Mona Walter's dark eyes. She was as tall as I or maybe a hair taller, hair just as black but utterly different from Aline's. A glance told me her svelte frame was poured into a classic little black dress and she had her high heels dangling from one finger.

As usual a little smile flickered on her lips, as if she was enjoying some private joke. Lew and I called it her Mona Lisa smile, and that's what it looked like. She was a good match for Lew, both of them smarter than hell, young, no kids, both lawyers. You couldn't get much better matched than that.

She leaned over and placed her lips on my cheek near my left ear and murmured, "My God, Lew told me you'd had a bad encounter with a stairwell, but....well, anyway, it makes you look dashing, if battered....Look, Lew was an asshole for dragging you out tonight, but his heart was in the right place. I was sorry to hear about you and Debbie. I would have called – both of you – but I had no idea what I should say."

I held my Bloody Mary in one hand and her right hand in mine as I replied, ""How about, better luck next time? Just kidding. I didn't know when you'd find the time. Every time I look around you're flying off to some country or doing some charity event. It's a wonder you and Lew ever find time to get together."

The smile flicked for a moment as she said, "I wonder about that sometimes too. But, I just wanted to tell you I'm here for you if you want to talk...or a shoulder to cry on."

 I kissed her on the forehead, because despite the fact that I wasn't much older than them I sometimes felt like a favorite uncle.

 "Thanks, Mona, but I'll be alright. Like they say, life goes on."

 I very ostentatiously ogled her body. She wasn't built as big as Debbie, but what she had was very nice.

 "Lew is a lucky man, and I keep telling him that."

 She hugged me and said, "You're a dirty old man, but you have good taste. I know it's early, but I have some girlfriends and some women I know from various organizations. I can send out the word that a very hot – and by the way if getting divorced has that kind of effect on a guy, I'll have to ditch Lew - powerful guy is free to pursue....if you want me to."

 I just shook my head and couldn't keep smiling.

"Thanks, Mona, but...it's too early. I just want to do my job and stay close to my kids and...maybe heal up a little.'

And then, before I could catch myself, I heard myself say, "Speaking of which....," 

Before I shut up.

I had known that kids were a sore point for both of them, but as something passed across her face I wondered if it had gotten even more sore.

"No, Bill, I guess....that's out of the picture now. Not in the cards for us."

I pulled her to me again and hugged her tight.

Speaking to the back of her head, I said, "Kids are overrated Mona. God knows how Debbie and I survived Kelly's growing up and I'm still not sure about BJ. Besides, you guys are young. Anything can still happen. You're successful, you're hot, you're in love. You're luckier than most people."

"Yeah....we're lucky," she said, pushing back and rubbing the corner of one eye.

"Lucky at what?" Lew said coming up behind us with two drinks in his hand. "Oh, Bill, Mona flew in from Washington a few hours ago and when she heard we were going to get smashed she invited herself to our guy's night out. You don't mind, do you?" 

"She's a hell of a lot easier on the eyes than you are. I'm glad she came along."

"For that, Mr. Maitland, you get the pleasure of my company," she said, reaching out and grabbing my drink and handing it to Lew who juggled it along with the two he already had. "Find us a table, husband, and when Bill gets tired I might give you a dance."

He just grinned at her and glanced over at two tall blondes checked him out from the bar, adding, "Don't worry, babe, if I get lonely I think I've already get two dance partners ready to go."

"In your dreams, you couldn't handle one of them and if you tried for two you'd need IVs."

He grinned at her again and walked away, saying, "...but what a way to go."

There was live entertainment about four nights a week and they had a pretty good three-piece band playing 90s and current music hits. What they were playing was fairly fast, but Mona and I slow danced like two comfortable senior citizens. She fit into me like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

"You think you and Debbie-"

"Not in this lifetime."

"Lew won't tell me, and if he can resist hot sex he can resist anything, but he did indicate that...what she did would be hard to get past. Did you get tapes or video of her with that professor boyfriend of hers? Is that why you can't ever forgive her."

"That's between me and her, Mona. The fact is, I can't ever get past it, and even if I could, she doesn't want to. The divorce was her idea. The boyfriend was her idea. When she called me to tell me she was divorcing me, she flat out said she didn't love me anymore. That kind of puts a period on it. Why bother to try again?"

"Sometimes people lie..."

"People lie all the time, Mona. If they didn't, Lew and I would be scratching for work."

"Mind if I cut in?"

I looked over Mona's shoulder and saw Sheila Simpson standing behind Mona. She was a little shorter than Mona, but not much. Why the hell did I attract the tall ones? She was dressed in a slinky red gown with a low cut top. These delicious oranges were moving up and down with her breathing. Her lips were redder than ripe Macintoshes. Oh, God!

Mona looked back over her shoulder and something passed wordlessly between the two women. She faced me again and smiled, then whispered in my ear, "And so it begins," and walked away.

Sheila moved forward but didn't touch me until I held my hands out to her.

"You don't mind my being so forward, do you Mr. Maitland," she said, smiling and licking her bottom lip in a way that if it wasn't illegal in most states, should be.

"No."

She moved in close to me and we began to move to the music. Mona was more graceful, but Sheila had her own virtues, not the least of which the way she caressed my chest with those breasts and rubbed her thigh between my legs in what had to be obvious caressing, but apparently it was dark and everybody else must have been similarly involved.

"I'm not after you because you have a lot of power in the office," she said, staring into my eyes from a couple of inches away. Then she leaned in and we were kissing. A chaste kiss at first but it went on from there. She pulled back and said, "I just wanted you to know that. I'm not trying to screw my way up the ladder."

"I never thought you were, Sheila. But you've been at the office for a year. There was never a hint that....you know?"

"I...never thought about you...that way. You..."

"You don't need to explain. A friend told me I had the charisma of a turnip. Fat, balding, middle-aged...not every girl's secret dream. But, I'm still too old for you. What are you, 25? 26?"

"Twenty four."

"Jesus H. Christ. I could be your father, if I'd gotten started a little early. You know how old I am, don't you?"

"Forty one. But you're not my father."

 She rubbed me with her knee again and she smiled as I throbbed against her soft flesh.

"No, you're definitely not my father. And some girls like older men."

"I shouldn't ask, but I have to. You're a gorgeous young woman. I know there are guys your age that would crawl across an office full of tacks on their hands and knees to be here with you. I've lost some weight and I went completely bald, but I'm no pinup or stud. If you weren't interested then, why now?"

"A couple of things. You've changed so much. You look younger. You're not flabby anymore. You always move like you're in a hurry to get somewhere. Your...ass looks more like a young man."

She blushed a little.

"I know that sounds crazy, but women notice that. And...you've....got a hard edge. I don't know any other way to describe it. You were always such a sweet guy. You're not sweet anymore. I think your wife dumping you did you good."

"And that's a good thing? That I'm not a nice guy anymore? "

 "If I wanted you for a mentor or a boss, yeah I'd like sweet. But...right now, rubbing myself all over you, I'm...you're exciting.....exciting me....if you know what I mean."

As she started rubbing herself against me harder I started pushing back and a little purr started in her throat. I made a quick decision and drew back from her. I tried to be as casual as I could. She looked at me with a question in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Sheila. You can tell that you're got me very excited. If...if you weren't working at the State Attorney's Office – and if this wasn't the night it was, I'd be tempted. I'd probably wind up in bed with you. But I just lost my wife of nearly 20 years. It hasn't been 12 hours since I was a married man. I – it's just too soon."

"I'm not throwing myself at you because you're who you are at the office, Bill."

"I'm not saying you are. But I've been watching people in offices for nearly 20 years. And a supervisor having a relationship with a subordinate almost never works out well. We couldn't keep it secret. And people would be jealous of you, and pissed at me.

"And if it didn't work out....if you dumped me I probably wouldn't be able to treat you fairly and if I dumped you, would you want to have to stay and be evaluated ultimately by me?

"Even if we just went to bed for one night, we'd still know what happened and it would change things between us. So, I'm tempted. And if we were to meet sometime in the future and you weren't working for the State Attorney, who knows. But you have to know it's not because I don't want to....."

She stepped further back and was about to head back toward a gaggle of girls her age when she stopped herself and licked her lips again. 




When We Were Married Ch. 05A



MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005 -- 9 a.m.

My name is William Maitland. I was married, mostly happily, for 18 years to a beautiful woman who I had realized long ago was out of my league. Reality finally caught up with me nearly five months ago when she bounced my ass out of our happy home to take a young stud professor to her bed. 

She proceeded to file for divorce and then to bedevil me with attempts to talk about things that it didn't help to talk about. 

Once you know your dick isn't big enough to satisfy your wife, know that you leave her cold in bed and the one time you take the bull by the horns, so to speak, take your wife and make her cum with the use of hands, mouth, dick and vibrator, she winds up lying beside you crying in the night, there really isn't much left worth talking about.

Today I am a free man. I'm still living in my postage stamp of a condo not far from the courthouse and the State Attorney's Office where I'm the number two prosecutor. I haven't found a woman to replace my wife in my heart or in my bed. But I have mended fences with my 18-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son, my head is on straight professionally, and I am about to try to send an evil woman to the death chamber.

I walked into the courtroom of Circuit Judge Leonard Pizarro with Jessica Stephens beside me. Pizarro nodded at me. At 70, he was the oldest actively practicing judge on this bench. He was crotchety and a minor tyrant in his domain, but he wasn't a bad judge.

Judy Johansen was already sitting at the defendant's table along with her attorney. I nodded to Lew Walters. As I settled in, he got up to walk over to me and Jennifer. He held his hand out and I took it.

"I'd say may the best man win, but that would be gloating," Lew said with a shit-eating grin. "So I'll just say, may justice prevail. Which means my innocent client will walk away with her innocence and her freedom confirmed."

"You really think she's innocent?"

He looked around to see that no one except Jessica was close enough to hear and said, "Who cares? I'm being paid to defend her and that's what counts. And with me representing her, and your case, she's as good as acquitted."

I couldn't help smiling.

"You don't have any fears at all that the Angel of Death will swoop down and nail your murderous harpy?"

"Come on, Bill. You know the way this is going to go down. You're the grizzled old gunfighter in your last glory days, and I'm the rising young gunfighter. I'm going to shoot your eyes out and walk off in a blaze of glory. It's my time. Maybe you ought to think about moving over to corporate, or handle wills and estates. Leave the courtroom battles to the young, swift and the strong."

His grin took the sting out of his words, and we'd exchanged smack talk plenty of times before as we faced off, but I thought I was going to take particular pleasure if this case went the way I thought it would. He was very good, but he needed to be taken down a peg or two once in a while for humility's sake. Otherwise, nobody would be able to stand being around him.

"Let's just see who winds up standing, young Luke," I said with our friendly Star Wars badinage. 

He just laughed and said, "The Old Folks Home for Retired Jedi Masters has a room waiting, Master Obi-Wan-Kenobi."

"As always, humility is your greatest strength."

He laughed and walked back to his client. Judy Johansen was a 67-y-old who could pass easily for a 45-year-old. About 5-foot-four inches tall, she had a 38-26-38 inch body that wasn't Miss America shape, but plenty hot for a granny. She was dressed demurely in a pink blouse and dress that went down to her ankles. Very little skin showing and the blouse, while not a potato sack, showed very little curves. 

Lew knew what was coming and didn't want to give the jury a chance to look at his client as a sexual creature.

The case slowly started rolling and we trotted out the basics of our case, spelling out to the jury the facts. Judy Johansen was a three-time previously married divorcee when she had met Clark Carroll in 2000. She wasn't poor, but wasn't wealthy either. Carroll, a 78-year-old snowbird who had left behind a chain of profitable neighborhood grocery stores across the Midwest, was worth approximately $50 million.

They had met at a dance at the gated retirement community where Carroll had moved after his wife of 50 years had died the previous year. One thing led to another and they were living together in a month and married in two months and in six months Carroll had changed his will to leave the bulk of his estate to his new wife. He left each of his two grown children roughly $10 million. That left Judy ONLY $30 million.

Clark Carroll suffered from a variety of ailments, but it was an enlarged heart that had killed him a year ago in their Orlando mansion where they had moved after they married. I explained to the jury that we would prove with expert testimony that Carroll received an overdose of a heart medicine and it was this that killed him. 

I told the jury we would also prove that Judy Johansen was the only person who could have given him the overdose. She had the means to kill him. She had 30 million monetary reasons to kill him. And, most importantly, she had one overriding emotional reason to kill him. That was in the form of a 6-foot-3, 40-year-old boyfriend she had been carrying on an affair with for more than a year before her husband's death.

Lew held his fire during our presentation, waiting for the actual case to begin. He made a brief opening statement to the seven man, five-woman jury, to the general effect that Judy Johansen had been tried in the tabloid press and convicted of making a human error, a layman's error, in administering her husband's medicine that killed him.

He confidently stated that the prosecution would never convince them beyond a shadow of a doubt that Johansen had deliberately taken her husband's life.

Our first witnesses, most of them officials from the Orlando area where publicity had swirled so strongly that court officials had decided the case would have to be moved, laid the groundwork. 

Dr. Eugenio Amparo had been Carroll's personal physician and testified that although his enlarged heart was a problem, it was a reaction to one of the medications he was taking that actually provoked the heart attack that killed him. Judy Johansen had been the only person in the house when the medicine was taken and she had admitted administering it to her husband. 

Then it was Lew's turn at bat. He got Amparo to concede that Carroll had been a very sick man and his care givers were basically balancing a stew of drugs, any one of which could have killed him.

"But as long as Mrs. Carroll had followed the instructions I provided her, there is no reason she should have gotten confused enough to make such a drastic mistake," Amparo said in a strong Filipino accent.

"But you're a professional, Dr. Amparo. My client is a lay person. Isn't it possible that under the stress of confusing or strong emotions, she might have gotten confused?"

"Possible, but she had been caring for her husband for nearly five years. It would be out of the ordinary for her to have gotten confused after being a caregiver for so long."

Lew gave him a funny look, then looked back at me and I knew he was getting ready to carve up Amparo, and by extension myself.

"How long have you been a physician, Dr. Amparo?"

"24 years."

"And you practiced in the Philippines for ten years before coming to this country?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember a Bayani Amicay, by any chance?"

Amparo remembered. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack himself.

"I ....I.."

"Wasn't he a patient of yours, Dr.? You had been a practicing physician for nearly eight years when he became a patient. And he also had similar heart problems. And, oddly enough, didn't a similar confusion about medications cost his life?"

"That was during a period when there was political unrest, a typhoon off the coast, and the hospital where he was being treated was tremendously overcrowded. There was a great deal of confusion."

"But you signed off on the medication, didn't you, Doctor? You, a professional with eight or more years of medical training and eight years of practice, and you still made basically almost the same mistake that Mrs. Johansen did. Were you prosecuted for murder?"

"No."

"Did you lose your license?"

"No."

"What happened?"

"There....was an out of court settlement. The family agreed to it."

"So you basically paid off the family and walked away without a scratch."

"I wouldn't put it that way..."

"I would, Dr. You, more than anyone sitting in this courtroom should be aware of how fragile Mr. Carroll's health was, and how easy it would be to make a fatal mistake. And yet you were willing to sit in judgement of an elderly woman, a non professional, and leave the jury with the implication that there was something suspicious about the mistake she made. Would you care to reconsider your remarks?"

Lew just stared at him until he finally raised his eyes to look at him. Amparo wouldn't look at me.

"Yes. Mr. Carroll was in precarious health and it is quite possible that a lay person would make a mistake without intending to. Sometimes, we doctors tend to forget that -- lay people aren't doctors or nurses."

"No further questions."

Lew gave me a little look that spoke volumes and swaggered back to his table. Alright, he didn't really swagger. That's just the impression I got. But, he was going to find out that the old gunslinger wasn't going to go quietly.

"Re-direct, your honor."

Lew was expecting, obviously, to have taken the wind out of my sails. Let's see how he liked a gut punch directed at him.

"Dr. Amparo, Mr. Walters brought up the situation involving a patient of yours that died as a result of a mistake in medication. You admitted to that mistake. Was that mistake your fault, not a nurse or subordinate."

"No, sir. It was my fault. I made the mistake."

"Alright, that's honest of you. You mentioned there was political unrest, there was a storm and overcrowding. And you indicated that those were factors in your mistake. Could you please give the jury a little more detail. What was the political unrest?"

He looked down at his hands. After three minutes and the judge growing increasingly restless, I walked over to the witness stand and said softly, "I know what happened, Dr. Amparo. Would it help if I gave the details and you simply confirm them?"

I looked at Lew and he was tempted to make an objection, but there are times when you sense things and I knew he was smart enough not to step in a minefield and become the bad guy.

"At the time, Dr. Amparo, more than 15 years ago, there was political dissension in the Philippine province you and your wife and son lived in, wasn't there? And a major storm had hit the Philippines the previous day. Entire villages had washed away, bodies were still being recovered and the hospital you were working in was so crowded almost every square inch was occupied by cots or people lying on the floors. Isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"You had gone in the previous day. You had worked 36 hours without rest, hadn't you?"

"Yes."

"And two hours before you made the mistake with Mr. Amicay, you had received a radio message on shortwave from the Philippine Security Forces, didn't you?"

He just nodded his head and sobbed.

"And didn't they tell you that a unit of rebels had ambushed a car your wife and son were driving in on their way home from providing relief aid in a neighboring village. And the security forces told you the rebels had raped and shot your wife in the head. And cut your son's head off and place it on a stake near your abandoned car. Didn't they?"

He didn't move.

"They did this because in addition to your being a physician, you were an elected office holder in the province in which you and your family lived, didn't they? They were sending a message to all government office holders in your province."

He remained silent and motionless, head down.

"And when you learned this, Dr. Amparo, did you break down? Go into a room and block out the world? Did you find a bottle and get drunk? Or medicate yourself with the narcotics you had easy access to? It would have been so easy. Your entire world had died that afternoon."

The silence stretched until it seemed like the world had frozen in place. I couldn't even tell that the jurors were breathing. I looked over at Pizarro and even he looked stunned.

Finally Amparo raised his head. His face was wet with tears.

"No. No. I did my job. There were people in there dying, people I could save. I couldn't abandon them. I simply....put my feelings away someplace where they wouldn't hurt. I could grieve later."

I looked up and at Lew and there were no words, but I didn't need any to deliver my message: "Alright hotshot, now that I've cut you off at the knees, let's see how you bounce back."

I turned my attention back to Amparo.

"Doctor, there was obviously a legitimate reason for you to have difficulty concentrating. To your knowledge, on the day Mrs. Carroll gave her husband the wrong medication, had anybody murdered any member of her family? Did she have the responsibility of saving the lives of hundreds of strangers? Was she under any kind of stress similar to what you endured?"

I glanced back at Lew, just daring him to open his mouth and make any kind of objection.

Amparo just shook his head.

"No further questions, your honor."

Pizarro looked over at Lew, and I could swear I saw sympathy in the old judge's eyes.

"Any further questions of this witness, Mr. Walters?"

He just stood at his desk, looked down at Judy Johansen and then at Amparo. I don't normally read minds, but I could read his. There was no way in hell he was going to touch Amparo's testimony now. All he'd do is make the jurors believe he was an unfeeling monster. Checkmate.

"No, your honor."

We went through more cops and ambulance people and others we needed to get on the record, but Lew was going on instinct. I had stunned him, but I knew he'd be back. When we got to the noon hour, Pizarro said, "I think this is a good stopping point. Let's meet back here at1:30. Is that okay with you gentlemen?"

I nodded and looked at Lew. He did also. Then everybody was leaving. Judy J was out on bond and a grown son was here so she went out with him to lunch. When there were only a few people left, Lew came over to me.

"You sure you didn't make a deal with the devil, Bill? Are you really the Angel of Death? How the hell did you do that?"

"Is that you, Lew. You know you shot my eyes out with your blazing guns and I'm helpless here."

He reached out to tap the side of my face and said, "You won't let me live down my big mouth, will you? Why'd you let me step into that shit? You could have brought out all that info and hurt Granny J without making me look like a fucking moron."

"But it was so much fun making you look like a fucking moron."

He rubbed his chin.

"Alright I deserved that. Remind me not to tug on the Tiger's Tail in the future. But you know when all's said and done, I'm going to win. You just don't have enough to convict her. They're not going to send a grandmother to the death chamber, not in this state, not with ammunition you've got."

I stood up and couldn't conceal a small smile.

"We'll just have to see now, won't we young Luke. Anyway, you want to buy me lunch somewhere. Feed me and I might take it easy on you during the trial."

He grinned.

"You know, I ought to try to get you and Debbie back together again. You weren't near this mean when you were fucking her on a regular basis."

I know I clouded up and he tapped me on the side of the face, a little harder this time.

"Come on, man. You're divorced. She's out of your life. You got to be able to take a little shit about her someday. I'm your friend. Probably the best one you got. If I can't razz you about her, you're going to be the walking wounded for the rest of your life. Just get over it, and her, okay?"

################## 

MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005 -- 10 a.m.

Even though she was new on the job, she had heard enough from the staff she had interviewed when she was coming onto the job that she knew most of the attorneys and staff who didn't have to be working were going to be down in Judge Pizarro's chambers for the showdown between Bill Maitland and Lew Walters.

"You want to go down with me," the cute Irish public defender Dennis Leary asked her, sticking his head in her office door. "If you have any game questions, I can do a play by play of the trial."

"You guys will go down there just to watch a murder trial? When it's what you do most of the time anyway?"

He grinned and her stomach would have flip flopped in a pleasant way except that bile rose in her throat and she had to turn her head away from him for a moment. She had already planned to make an appointment with her physician. Ever since the weekend she had been getting nauseous and had even thrown up several times. 

The first thing she'd done was buy a pregnancy test and try it out. No way in hell could she be pregnant because she'd been on the pill for years. But...the test had given her blessedly welcome news. Still, the recurrent nausea wouldn't go away. She'd bought Tums and several over the counter stomach medicines. 

She hadn't been nauseous like this in years, and that was when she was pregnant. But she wasn't pregnant. So what the hell could it be?

She pulled her attention back to Leary. She was aware of his reputation among the ladies and she'd felt the pull of his bad boy personality, but he seemed like a decent guy. And she did want to see Bill in his element, as well as watching Lew do his thing. 

It was funny, but she realized she hadn't seen Bill lawyering in years, since before he had joined the State Attorney's Office. She'd gotten his views of his job in nighttime conversations, and she had gotten the idea of how the people in his world viewed him. But she had never seen it for herself. 

Now that they were finally split, just two people who used to live together, she was curious to see him as something other than her husband. She wanted to see him the way others did.

"It's like watching the NFL finals or the Sweet 16. The Killer Granny trial has gotten people around the country interested. And we have a chance to see Lew Walters, AKA the Shark in action going up against the Angel of Death. They ought to sell tickets to this thing."

It was hard for her to imagine people selling tickets to watch Bill in any kind of action. But she realized it was obvious he had had a life she had never really seen.

She rode the elevator down to the courtroom with Leary and they sat on the left side of the public seating section. It was four rows deep and most seats on both sides were occupied. 

There were secretaries and attorneys from the State Attorney's Office and Public Defender, as well as a large contingent of local, state and even national media. The "Killer Granny" story had already made the national television newsmagazines.

Two guys had apparently been saving a spot for them and got up and left as she and Leary sat down. 

Leary whispered to her, "This is just the preliminaries. It's like the opening of a boxing match. They're just feeling each other out. But something will break." 

As they watched and listened to the two attorneys, Debbie remembered her meeting with Lew. He was still damned hot. Tall and slender and he moved with fluid grace. She watched the women in the spectator section, secretaries, lawyers and some just public types as they watched him. Mona had no idea how much competition she'd have if Lew was even willing to look at other women.




When We Were Married Ch. 05A



She remembered the way she'd offered herself up to him. Would she have gone through with it if he had taken what she'd offered. She would never know, but looking back she was glad she hadn't had to find out. At the time she had been pissed at Bill and taking his friend had seemed like a good idea. 

But if he had stuck his dick in her mouth, it would have opened up a literal can of worms. How would she have handled two men when she had a hell of a time dealing with Doug. And, looking at the two men occupying the attention of the entire courtroom, she felt a sudden stab of guilt.

She had destroyed Bill's pride and his manhood. She knew that. Even if she had made up her mind to leave him, she wished she could have done it another way. Having a woman walk out on you couldn't be good for a man's ego. She had to try to put herself into a man's mind, because she had never been dumped by any man. But taking Doug's side in her anger at the UNF event, fucking him in Bill's bed, that had to destroy Bill's confidence.

And Bill didn't have any friends, not any real friends. Apparently a lot of people respected him, but he wasn't the type to go out drinking and he'd never gone out to a bar with the guys or to sports events. Because he was either working or home watching television with his wife and kids.

It was strange, she thought, that she could recognize that now, when she couldn't before. Bill had spent too much time at work, but any free time he'd ever had he'd spent with her or the kids. Maybe he had been dull as hell, but he had always come home.

His only friend, she realized, was Lew Walters. Lew was the only one he had ever gone out drinking with. Lew was the only guy he'd ever gone to a Jaguars game with. And if she had taken Lew away from him....She felt nauseous again, but this time it felt like heartburn as well.

"How in the hell could I have lived with myself if I had taken the last thing he really had, his only good friend?"

She focused in on her ex. He was dressed in black, slimmed down, head shining under the lights. He moved lightly on his feet. Maybe that was the boxing she'd heard about. She looked around the spectator section and saw that as many of the women were following him with their eyes as were watching Lew.

She shook her head. It reminded her of the night she had seen him at the gym for the first time in his newer, hotter look. This was the first time she had seen him working in his element. She realized now that the parties she had gone to, the social events, were a different world. He had never been a social animal, a party guy, and so she had seen him ill at ease and out of his element. She wished for a moment she had seen him like this.

She watched the cross examination of Dr. Amparo by Lew and winced in sympathy for Bill. She wasn't a lawyer, but she could understand the impact of his destruction of the Filipino physician. Even if he had bruised her, she recognized just how dangerous Lew was in the courtroom.

Minutes later when Bill completely flipped the situation, Leary smiled and had to stifle laughter. 

"Is that as bad for Lew as I think it is?" Debbie asked.

"Oh, yes," Leary said. "The old man -- Bill -- sucked him in. He had to have known that Lew was going to go after Amparo and would find that mistake that killed the guy in the Philippines. But Lew got lazy. He didn't dig any deeper. If he had, he would have brought out the circumstances and minimized it so the jury wasn't so damned sorry for Amparo."

"Now," Leary said, "They're thinking that Granny really didn't have much of an excuse to accidentally poison her husband, and they sure as hell don't like Lew. It's a bank shot. Bill sunk two balls that time. That was classic."

"And Lew just walked into that?"

Leary grinned back at her.

"Walters always thinks he's the smartest guy in any group of three people. He is smart, and he's good which is why he's risen so far so fast. And he's a complete mercenary and opportunist. He'd defend anybody or take any case if the money is right. But...that's his Achilles heel. If you think you're the smartest guy in the room, you're wide open for somebody that's smarter or working harder than you are."

She looked at the two men as they skirmished through the rest of the morning. She was as guilty as a lot of other people, she thought. She had looked at the tall, confident, good looking Lew Walters and just automatically assumed he'd have Bill's number. Bill who was shorter, average looking, shouldn't have been in the game.

The same way he shouldn't have laid out Doug at the UNF awards ceremony.

As she was walking toward the elevators, three women were walking ahead of her and Leary.

"mmmmmm....sister.....that Lew Walters could call me any night....it's a damned shame they say he's married and he doesn't mess around..."

"...he's hot alright....but Maitland....he is so damned cold...."

"I know. You know they used to call him the Iceman, back when he was married...."

"....stupid bitch...they say she threw him over for a kid...one that doesn't make half what Maitland did..."

"yeah, he makes good money, he runs that office, and..shit, did you see him when he was doing that re-direct....he's so cold he's scary....."

"...but scary good.....what do you; think he'd be like if you managed to defrost him...."

"...I think he'd be a freak...tie you down and...."

"....you just like freaks...you crazy bitch...."

One of them nudged the other and they quickly looked back at Debbie and Leary.

"Oh, shit," one said and they quickly walked away.

Leary just looked at her and shook his head.

"Get used to it, Boss. Courthouses are always little Peyton Places...everybody's screwing everyone else or figuring out how to do it. Now that he's free, he's on the market and they're going to go after him. Besides, you threw him back..."

######################## 

MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005 -- 1:15 p.m.

"You knew she was in the peanut gallery watching you, didn't you?"

"When?"

We were walking back into Pizarro's courtroom and a lot of the pertinent players were already settling into position. I noticed a blonde with long hair and a fairly sedate neckline eyeballing me and Lew and recognized her from one of the television crews.

"Debbie was in here?"

"Yes, Gomer, she was in here. And while I think she's always had a hidden lust for yours truly, I was able to check her out often enough to know she was checking you out. She was getting into you."

"Bullshit, Lew. Look, I know you're trying to tease me, get me into a better mood, but she's got less than any interest in me. You, you might be right about."

"You are so stupid, my friend. I told her that day in Landers' office that you guys should be the poster children for marital dysfunction. You realize, I don't think she ever saw you in action? It's what you are, and all she saw was daddy and hubby. And that's not you."

"Okay, she came down here. People always come down to watch a case like this, but she's probably down here just hoping for me to slip on a banana peel. She sure as shit isn't burning with lust for my middle-aged body."

"I'll grant you that you'd have to be pretty desperate to lust after that old man's body, but you haven't noticed women looking at you before, during and after this trial? Nobody can be THAT oblivious."

I sat down at the prosecutor's table and gestured for him to get to his corner. 

"I appreciate the ego building, Lew, but I'm not you. Women don't look at me that way."

He just shook his head and said so softly that only Jessica Stephens walking up to me could have heard his words. 

"I love you, man, but you're so fucking stupid that I sometimes wonder if you should be allowed to live."

Jessica's eyes opened wide at his words but she didn't say anything. After things got started again I tried to unobtrusively keep an eye on the spectator sections. Lew caught my looking a few times and just shook his head. She hadn't come back. Not that it mattered. 

I kicked myself mentally. In a way, Lew was right. I was so stupid about women that I should have been neutered at birth so I didn't pose the risk of passing on my genes to a future generation. I didn't care that she had been down watching the trial. But it still bothered me that she hadn't come back. Explain that? I sure as hell couldn't.

We continued skirmishing and Lew didn't fall into any more Tiger traps. He was a hell of a lot more careful now. But we were getting ready to get into the meat of the trial and he and I were both watching each other the way gunfighters would walking out onto a western street. It was going to get real very shortly.

I had just stood up after Pizarro asked me for my next witness and it was nearly 3 p.m.

"Your honor, I'd like to introduce Sergeant Heather McDonald with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office as our next witness, but I expect her testimony will be lengthy and it's vital to the state case. Could we call it a day?"

When he called it quits, Lew walked over to me and we talked for a bit. Meagan Whitcomb, an attorney in private practice who had been one of our ASAs five years before walked over to the both of us. She was about 5-4, light brown hair, nothing exceptional but everything went together very well. And she was smart as a whip.

She smiled at me then grinned at Lew and said, "Having any trouble getting around on those stumps, Lew?"

He just smiled back.

"Round one goes to the Angel of Death, Meagan, but this is a 10-rounder. I'll wear him down and win in the end."

She grinned. God, she had a pair of dimples.

"I could tell you really had him on the ropes today, Lew. Everybody was talking about the beating you gave him."

She couldn't hold it in and broke out laughing.

He just smiled and pretended to be embarrassed.

"Alright, nobody loves you when you're down and out and you've just had your ass kicked. Suck up to Maitland. But I'm coming back."

Then he turned to me and said, with a little smirk, "I'll leave you to discuss the case with Meagan, Mr. Maitland. Just remember, no matter how....engrossed....you get in....talking...with her, you need to get to bed early....to sleep. You old guys need to husband your strength."

She didn't even blush.

"Bye, Lew."

When he walked away, the two of us were left standing looking at each other and I was wondering what to say.

"Do you have dinner plans, Bill?"

"Uh -- not really. I was thinking about going back to the office to do a little prep for tomorrow. I....thought...you were engaged?"

"I'm not asking you to go to a motel with me, just get something to eat."

She stared at me without a smile on her face. I know I was blushing.

"I know, Meagan, I apologize. You've got to know my divorce just went through. I really don't know how to be civilized dealing with women any more. It's been awhile and I have heard some good things about how your practice is doing. If I haven't stuck my foot so far down my throat that it can't be extracted, I'd love to go out and have a salad or something with you."

She looked me up and down appraisingly.

"A salad? Jesus, Bill, I've heard about how you've changed and I could see it for myself when I sat down in here, but you really have turned it around, haven't you?...And by the way, I'm not engaged any more. If it makes a difference."

"It doesn't, Meagan. I've missed those dimples of yours around the office. You always brightened things up."

"Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, Bill. I've missed the kind of cases I worked on here. Property disputes and slip and falls and malpractice just aren't the same."

"You did the right thing. Sometimes I wish I'd bailed out too."

"You don't mean that."

"Sometimes I do."

As we walked out the three television crews and four print reporters grabbed at me. I gave Meagan a look and she just shrugged and found a seat on a bench outside a courtroom while I did standups for the television crews and short interviews for the print types including Carl Cameron. Normally he wouldn't have rated next to the big boys, but the Big Man was very sensitive to the coverage he got in his home media market so Carl would always get the interviews he wanted.

The blonde with Courtroom Extra did an intro in which she told viewers that "The nationally watched case dubbed the Killer Granny, 67-year-old Judy Johansen, has received even more interest with the involvement of Lead Prosecutor William Maitland, better known recently as The Angel of Death. 

"He is facing off against young attorney Lewis Walters, who has received national attention in a number of high profile national cases. Walters has been dubbed "The Shark" for his take-no-prisoners aggressive legal stance. Legal observers have called this showdown the equivalent of a heavyweight boxing match between legal heavyweights.

"Mr. Maitland, do you understand the national attention being directed to this high profile murder case battle being waged by two prominent attorneys?"

"Yes, I do understand it. People are always fascinated by crime and murder is the most fascinating of crimes. But, while I understand the fascination and the lure of this case for media such as yourselves, I want people watching this broadcast to remember that this is not a television show, not a murder mystery movie. These are not fictional characters. 

"Clark Carroll, the victim in this case, was a living human being. His life was taken, stolen from him. He was an old man, but his life still had value and he had years of life ahead of him. The state is convinced, and will prove, that Judy Johansen took his life for her own selfish purposes. 

"As far as I'm concerned, the sport element of this is simply nonsense. I don't care who gets the credit or takes the win. I want to make sure that an evil woman pays for her crime. I understand why you're here and your interest in this case, but I simply don't care."

I could be candid because the judge had already sequestered the jury and would keep them isolated until the trial was over, and everyone knew there was no way to keep everyone's lips buttoned tight. We had been told we could comment as long as we didn't give Lew grounds for seeking a mis-trial.

When I'd finished, the blonde, Celestial Madonna (where the hell do they get those names?), just looked at me. Apparently the pulpish questions she'd been ready to hit me with stuck in her throat.

"I...I...uh..thank you for your comments, Mr. Maitland."

She made a 'kill it' gesture to her camera man and he stopped filming. She talked to him for a moment, then turned back to me. There was a hint of ...anger...I couldn't pin it down. 

She made a gesture, flinging her mane.

"I thought your boss was interested in good PR. This is a fantastic story and that type of shit wasn't the way to get people to come back for more interviews. The Angel of Death crap is a good hook, but you have to work it. You want to try again, be a little more media-friendly?"

"No," I said flatly, enjoying the expression that flashed across her beautiful features. She wasn't used to being treated this way.

"My boss is the media hound. I don't give a shit, nor do I care about enhancing your ratings. As long as I win, my boss doesn't care if I give you the finger or kiss your ass. And I intend to win. Not so he'll get good PR, but so that callous bitch will see her death coming and know what the poor bastard she was married to felt like in his last moments.

"Is that media friendly enough?"

She looked at me hard for a moment, then I saw her expression change.

"Jesus, you're even meaner than your reputation. It isn't an act, is it?"

"All me, Celestial. By the way, that can't possibly be your real name, can it?"

She gave me a small smile.

"Jane....Jane Thurman, from Pahokee, Florida. Actually, that interview will work. A really mean bastard will make a good foil for Walters. He's smoother than duck shit, that's an old Pahokee expression. I've covered him before. A hard nosed SOB will make a good contrast. You really think you're going to win? You're going to put her away?"

I looked into her eyes and for a reason I couldn't pin down, I deliberately let my eyes run up and down her pneumatic form before looking up into her eyes again.

"If you stick around, Jane, you can see for yourself."

She flashed me an expression I couldn't read, but I felt a little tingle run up and down my spine.

Where had that come from? It didn't even feel like the way I talked to women. I'd only been divorced for a few days. What was happening to me?

It took me 45 minutes to get through all the interviews. I fully expected to look around and see that Meagan had vanished, but she walked up to me as I finished the last interview and said, "Look, you're going to be tied up. How about meeting me about 6 p.m. at River City Brewing Company? We can catch up."

I went back to the office and went over strategy for the next day with Heather McDonald and finished up a phone call with Sheriff Knight about the stalled case of Shawn Smith who was still sitting behind a desk while his fellow cops came to a slow boil about my refusal to give him a clearance to go back to duty.

As I was finishing up my duties, I thought about Meagan and those damned dimples. I began to remember some of the errant fantasies I'd had about her when she'd been around me every day. And NOW I was starting to get nervous about having dinner with her. When I was married, Debbie had been the armor that protected me from my own worst impulses. Now everything was on me. I felt very nervous.

######################## 

MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005 -- 4 p.m.

"Are you sure you're feeling well enough to continue, Ms. Bascomb?"

"I'll be fine, Doctor. Let me visit your restroom for a minute."

She stepped into the small restroom and spit into the open toilet. And spit again. There was a terrible taste in her mouth. Bile and....something worse. It was crazy, but it almost had a....urine...smell. Where in the hell was it coming from. She cupped her hands and rinsed her mouth out. She took a Tums from her purse and chewed it up, then took another and started sucking it. The Evergreen flavor helped.

When she returned to his couch and sat, he looked at her with a look of concern and said, "You say you've had these symptoms for more than a day? Have you-?"

"Yes, I've taken a pregnancy test. That's the first thing I thought of. And I've got an appointment with my gynecologist who's also a good general physician as well. I don't know what this is."

"It's probably nothing, but stomach problems associated with pain and nausea could be symptoms of something serious. Please see your doctor without any undue delay."

"I will, Doctor Teller."

She leaned back against the couch and took a deep breath.

"What would you like to talk about today?"

"You know I've taken that administrative position with the Public Defender's Office? Well, there's a big, nationally publicized case beginning today, the 'Killer Granny' case with Bill on one side and Lew Walters on the other. Most of the attorneys who had some free time went down to watch and I went down too."

"I've heard of the case. I wasn't aware that your ex was handling the prosecution side. And I believe that Walters was your husband's divorce attorney. Must have led to conflicting emotions on your part?"

She described what she'd seen.

"And observing the way that other women were looking at your ex....it made you uncomfortable?"

"Not uncomfortable. I understand that he's a free man now and....he's changed his appearance and the way he is....I see that...it's just that...."

He smiled at her and rubbed his chin.

"Ms. Bascomb, it's the oldest cliché in the world. We never want something so badly as when someone else wants it. It's why men and women work so hard to make each other jealous."




When We Were Married Ch. 05A



He tapped his finger on the marble Rorschach inlaid coffee table as he leaned forward toward her, his eyes running down her body.

"You are, as we both know, a very beautiful, very big breasted woman at what is really the height of your sexual appeal to men. Your husband, despite the fact that he has slimmed down and moves better and bald looks good on him, is still a fairly short, average-looking, middle-aged man. 

"You could have a different man in your bed every night without working at it, but it still bothers you that your not-so-attractive husband, whom you divorced - you divorced - is attracting the interest of other women. If he has sex with other women, which he certainly will unless he has a major sexual dysfunction...

"Does he, by the way? Have a major sexual dysfunction? Was he able to have sex with you, to obtain climaxes on his part?"

"Yes. That is, he was able to have sex. I got tired of him and bored with the way he made love, and I'm not sure he really got that much out of it at the end. It was pretty much, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am if you know what I mean...but that could have been me...I wasn't...but he seemed to enjoy it...."

"Well, he appears to be rejuvenated by the divorce, so-"

"So getting rid of my ass, as one of his friends told me, seems to have done him a lot of good? He's Mr. Perfect Victim and I'm the fucking Wicked Witch of the West? Is that what you're saying, Doctor?"

He looked up at her in what appeared to be a little surprise and then a small smile flickered on his face.

"Is that how you see yourself, Ms. Bascomb? I didn't mean to make any reflection on you, just an observation that many men -- and women -- seemed to find new life and energy after a divorce. A stressful marriage can be hard on both parties and when that stress is removed, even with the attendant changes and often loneliness while new connections are being made, people do transform themselves.

"Well, the son of a bitch definitely has done that. Those fucking bitches were practically drooling. If they had been in bed with his flabby ass before...."

She felt a wave of hot bile rising inside her and had to rush back to the bathroom.

Teller leaned back in his chair and listened to the sounds from the bathroom. It didn't appear the nausea was medical in nature, because it seemed her husband - ex-husband -- had gone from enraging her to literally making her sick. He played with his unlit pipe, a nervous habit he didn't worry about because it gave him something to do with his hands.

Part of what she was feeling was undoubtedly buyer's -- or seller's -- remorse. She had decided that her marriage was boring, that her husband did not satisfy her sexual needs, and that she deserved more. In a perfect world, Bill Maitland would have remained crushed by her rejection, fat, flabby, unappealing to women, and suffering alone.

She would have felt guilt and sorrow for her ex, but she would have been assured that she had done the right thing; that he could never have given her the happiness and satisfaction she wanted and deserved. Of course she was being self centered and selfish about that, but hell, that was part of the definition of being human.

But to find the man she had kicked out of her bed as unappealing and sexually unexciting transforming himself physically into almost literally a different person, to see him in his world as the man he had always been but had never shown her, and to see other women lusting after a man she said she didn't want any longer....

He had to retain his professional objectivity, and he couldn't take sides because she was his patient and she was a person, not The Wicked Witch of the West, but he couldn't deny a little twinge of enjoyment in the spectacle of a sex goddess burning with growing jealousy for a man she had dismissed as unworthy of her.

But beyond the human reaction of jealousy, of second thoughts, of regrets, there was more roiling under the surface. There was still that unexplained anger and rage that came through and probably, not certainly but probably, was now being transformed into psychosomatic reactions of physical illness.

Nausea was a classic reaction of the body to emotions and feelings that a person couldn't deal with on a conscious level. He had the feeling that it still all traced back to her relationship with her aunt Clarice. There had been problems aplenty in her marriage and whatever had happened with her Aunt didn't create them, but something triggered a massive psychological change.

When she returned, so pale she was almost white, he said, "You definitely need to see a physician. But, would you consider hypnosis? I'd like to see if you could be put under into a light hypnotic trance and try to see if we could get a better idea of some things that happened in your past?"

"You think that...would help?"

"You told me that these symptoms are recent. If you can remember, did they start occurring about the time your divorce became final, or on the day your divorce became final?"

She put her face in her hands and took a few steadying breaths.

"Actually.....I got some kind of bug....the night the divorce was finalized. I don't remember what I dreamed about, but I must have had a horrendous nightmare. I felt so bad the next day, not just physically, but emotionally, that I basically stayed in bed until that evening. But I know I was nauseous all day long."

She stared at him in sudden realization.

"That was the day all this started. The day we split for real. My God, not only did he ruin my life while we married, but he's making me sick when we're not even together any more."

Suddenly her mood changed.

"You think I could sue him -- for inflicting emotional distress on me AFTER we split?"

His grin answered hers. For being an overly developed sex kitten who had been spoiled and pampered her entire life, there were times when she flashed a wicked sense of humor and he thought he glimpsed part of the reason why Bill Maitland had loved this woman beyond her obvious physical attributes.

"Unfortunately, if that were the case, Ms. Bascomb, half the divorced population of the United States would be paying emotional damages to the other half...and vice versa."

He played with his pipe.

"Of course, it would mean vastly more income for divorce lawyers."

She gave him a sad smile.

"You forget, I was married to a lawyer for18 years and now I'm working in the middle of a whole nest of them. I tend to think like a lawyer. It's like he's haunting me. I guess he's the Spook of Christmas Past."

Teller looked at her and realized something he had always known, but hadn't consciously realized.

"You are a really lonely person, aren't you, Ms. Bascomb?"

She just looked at him.

"Guys are so obsessed with your breasts I don't think one in a hundred ever realize there's an actual person in there, or get that sense of humor. And I imagine women don't want to like you."

"It's okay, Doctor."

She put her hands under her breasts and lifted them slightly, then planted light kisses on each one.

"Flat chested women can tell you all day what an inconvenience big boobs are. 

And they are. But when I used to go on dates before I met Bill, I never had to worry about a date being disappointed. I've never had a blind date try to bail on me. 

Guys might never look me in the eye, but I've never walked into a room filled with men and been ignored. You have to take the bad with the good."

########################## 

MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005 -- 11:30 p.m.

"Ohhhh......God...god...that feels good...."

"You like that Mr. Maitland? Feel that?"

"Oh shit, how can you do that? It feels like you're squeezing it with your fingers...it feels good but stop...I'm going to lose it...damn it's like your jerking me inside...."

"There are exercises for the vagina. Any woman can do that if they're willing to work at it, and the younger...aaahhhh that's good....you are the better you get at it...."

I lay my head back on my pillow and took a deep breath and tried not to squirt inside Meagan Whitcomb's soft center. She rested her small breasts on my chest and her weight on her hands on either side of me. Her nipples fascinated me. They had to be an inch long 

and thick as pencil erasers. They were red and bruised now because I hadn't been able to take my mouth off of them in the first frantic moments when we got naked together.

"Didn't Debbie ever do that to you?'

"No. God, I didn't know that was possible."

She shot me those dimples again and if it was possible, I got a little harder inside her.

"She just laid back there and let you enjoy that body?"

"No."

I don't know why I felt compelled to defend her, but I did.

"No, she was energetic as hell...a long time ago. She fucked me under the bed plenty of times. It's just that...."

"She was so hot she never had to work at it, did she? Not like me with my little boobs...right?"

I answered her with my mouth, reaching up to suck on one nipple and bit and pull at it until she groaned.

"Meagan, size isn't everything and you damn well know it. I haven't' been able to take my eyes or hands or mouth off those boobs of yours since your bra came off. "

I bit her again.

"You really think you have anything to feel inferior about?"

I cut her off before she could say anything because she had squeezed down one time too many.

"Meagan, I can't-"

She felt it coming and shouted, "Cum, cum baby. Give me everything you're got."

I bucked upward lifting her body which was lighter than it looked while I squirted and squirted and squirted. Where the hell was it all coming from? It seemed to last a long, long time and when I was finished she just rode me for another half minute and then slid over to lay beside me.

After a pleasurable silence, she leaned over and kissed me and said, "You see what you missed out on, Mr. Maitland. You could have had me years ago. But I never pushed it because you were a nice, married guy."

"What is this Mr. Maitland shit? I think you could call me Bill."

She smiled.

"Somehow it's sexier fucking you as Mr. Maitland, than Bill. So, Bill, are you sorry you accepted my invitation to supper?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you enjoyed me, at least there's a lot of you leaking out onto the bed that gives me that impression."

"Shit, Meagan, I've loved every second of it, and you. Do you, uh-"

She leaned up on one elbow over me and kissed me on the nose.

"No, you don't have to call me anytime. And I won't be waiting by the phone. And I won't start stalking you or coming by the office. No flowers. No candy."

"Alright, but-"

"Bill, you don't owe me anything. I invited you out. I came here willingly. I wanted your body and your dick and I got them both. I had a wonderful time tonight. We're two old friends who finally scratched and itch. That's all."

I looked up and down her slender body with her amazing nipples and a small ass and bent down to kiss her left nipple again, this time gently.

"I know, but-"

"Bill, this was just sex. The kids would call it a booty call. No strings. No ties.. Please, don't get weird around me. If we bump into each other or I come by your office, I don't want it plastered in big letters across your forehead: I FUCKED THIS WOMAN. Okay."

"I know, Meagan. I'm only about 10 years or so older than you, but I feel like a grandpa right. When the hell did I get so old and out of touch?"

"The last 20 years or so. You're Rip Van Winkle just waking up to the modern world."

She gave me another kiss and rolled out of my small bed.

"But for an old man, you're pretty damned good in bed."

"Meagan....?"

She smiled down at me.

"No, I didn't climax. But I had a good time tonight. This was our first time. Sometimes it takes awhile."

"I am sorry.....you sure as hell got me off."

"Do I look like I'm leaving unhappy? Look, let me slip on my clothes, call a cab and get out of here. You've got a big day tomorrow and you need your rest. Good luck."

Ten minutes later I walked her out to a cab, came back inside and locked the door behind me. I set the alarm and lay down in the bed that smelled of her perfume and our sex. I tried to figure out how I'd gotten here. I really hadn't planned on having sex with a cute girl I'd had a few fantasies about back when I was married. I hadn't planned on having sex period.

Meagan was only the third woman I'd had sex with in 20 years. It should have meant more than it did. Aline was special. Debbie, despite having torn my heart out, had been and always would be special. Meagan was....was.../ was just a pretty, nice girl that I liked. But.....

It had been casual. That's what it was. It hadn't meant anything. That's what felt so strange. When I'd been married committing adultery, fucking a pretty girl who was willing and eager, would have meant something. Even if the sex was casual, the act of having sex would be a big deal. But now I was single and I could do this and it meant -- nothing?

I felt like I had wandered into a strange land. Stranger in a strange land, that was me. 

########################### 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2005 -- 11:30 p.m.

"Mr. Ballantyne, can I call you Gerry?"

The big dark haired men dressed uncomfortably in a suit and tie fidgeted in the witness seat as Lew stalked around him, looking for all the world like a tiger circling a tied-down pig in a clearing. 

"Yeah, that's my name."

Lew looked at him and I swear to God it looked like a bit of drool at the edge of his mouth as he envisioned sinking his teeth into Gerry's tender flesh.

"Alright, Gerry, let's see if we can get this straight. You're a bartender and you like trolling the dating sites for -- female companionship. Is that correct?"

"Yeah. So what. There's no law against hooking up, not the last I heard. I like women, women like me. Works for me."

Lew rested his elbows on the edge of the witness box and leaned forward toward Ballantyne.

"The stats I got say you're six-foot-four, 190. You're obviously a good looking guy. Ever have plastic surgery?"

He grinned.

"Nah, everything is the original equipment, up and down."

Lew rubbed his lower lip.

"There are rumors, not that I've confirmed but my investigators have talked to a number of your former girlfriends, and they tell me that you are -- let's be polite -- abundantly endowed. That's true, right?"

"I got the complete package. Women usually only need one taste and they come back for more."

"I'm sure. What I'm a little curious about is why, with your....attributes...most of your female companionship seems to be a little....how to say this...a little 'mature' for a man of your age. You have testified that you engaged in a year-long affair with Judy Johansen, while she was married to Mr. Carroll. Ms. Johansen is 67 years old. We've confirmed four other fairly lengthy relationships...all with women in their late 50s to 60s. One lady was in her 70s."

"I like older women. So what? They might not be as tight in certain places, but goddamn, they do appreciate a guy who appreciates them. You ought try some. You'd be amazed."

"I'm sure you know what you're talking about, but it does seem somewhat odd that ALL of the female friends we've been able to confirm were women of considerable wealth. 

"Several of them are extremely unhappy with you because of your dropping them after receiving some valuable presents. Others still have strong feelings for you despite your moving on, without paying them back for the motorcycles, condos, vacations, etc., that they provided you while your relationship with them was still going strong."

"What are you trying to say?"

Lew leaned back and the smile vanished from his voice.

"Oh, I think you know what I'm saying, Mr. Ballantyne. You have made a living romancing older women and accepting gifts and money from them that has allowed you to live well beyond any income you could legally lay claim to."

"You're fulla shit."

"A lot of people might agree with you but we have extensive proof in the form of receipts, bills-of-sale, sworn testimony to that effect. There really is no doubt as to what you are. 

"What I do doubt is your testimony in this courtroom today that Ms. Carroll told you, in your bedroom, that she was going to kill her husband, pass it off as an accident, and spend a lot of the $30 million she would inherit on you."

Ballantyne sat up straighter.

"I swore it under oath. I wouldn't lie. Judy did tell me what she was planning. She didn't tell me exactly when, but I knew what she was planning."

Lew walked to the jury and looked at them while talking to Ballantyne.

"You have lied under oath and I want you to know right now that when Mrs. Carroll is exonerated, I am going to do everything I can to see you charged with perjury."

He turned back to face Ballantyne.

"Detective McDonald testified that after she made your acquaintance on the adult dating site, 'Plenty of Fish' and your relationship had advanced to the point of dating, you bragged to her while inebriated about dating and knowing Mrs. Carroll before her husband's tragic death." 

Ballantyne had stopped talking but was looking at me anxiously. I just shook my head slightly. I had coached him to be prepared for what I was sure would be Lew's attack on our star witness.

Lew continued.

"Mr. Maitland has played the tapes made by Detective McDonald which appear to be candid and unrehearsed conversations between yourself and Detective McDonald. You have, as a somewhat unfriendly witness for the prosecution, testified as to the validity of those conversations."

He left Ballantyne and walked to my desk and looked at me with a fairly theatrical expression of disdain.

"You certainly realize by this time, Mr. Ballantyne, that you were ensnared in a sophisticated sting operation spearheaded by Mr. Maitland and carried out by Detective McDonald. I must admit to being a little curious about one thing, though.

" As a good, dedicated, policewoman, did Detective McDonald have sex with you to convince you of her cover story as a lonely, wealthy older woman? Did she hold out the promise of future sex as a sweetener for your testimony against Ms. Carroll? How far was Detective McDonald willing to go to convince you to commit perjury?"

I was on my feet striding to the judge, raising my voice louder than necessary to convince the jury that I was really, personally pissed at this point.

"Your honor, I insist that you order the jury to ignore this cowardly attack on the character of a dedicated police officer. Mr. Walters knows full well that Detective McDonald did not engage in an unacceptable behavior to obtain Mr. Ballantyne's testimony and that no such illegal or illicit promises of sex were offered for his testimony."

Lew looked at me and flashed me a tiny grin that the jury couldn't catch.

"Unfortunately, your honor, I haven't worked as closely, or intimately, with Detective McDonald as has Mr. Maitland, so I really don't know how far she would go to make her case.

"I know that in the past she has masqueraded as a prostitute, going so far as entering a suspect's bedroom and stripping before fellow officers came in. I'm not sure it's that big a stretch from stripping before a suspect to...going further...to obtain cooperation."

Before I could open my mouth, Lew pivoted, told the judge, "I'll withdraw those comments your honor and you may ask the jury to disregard them."

After Judge Pizarro did exactly that, Lew turned back to Ballantyne and launched what I figured would be his main attack on his credibility.

"Mr. Ballantyne, it's clear from Detective McDonald's testimony that you basically admitted a relationship with Ms. Carroll while intoxicated. Detective McDonald taped those comments and when you sobered up, she and Mr. Maitland badgered you into following up on those comments. 




When We Were Married Ch. 05B



TWO WEEKS IS FOREVER

For regular readers, this has been the longest gap in the story since I started, for reasons I've touched on in a couple of postings. This is not the Chapter 5B I intended to put on Lit. I'd expected it to be at least two, maybe three times longer, which means more chapters. But I realized I'd hit a natural stopping point so I stopped and here is 5B. Fortunately, the writing has begun to flow again so I'm hoping 5C won't be as delayed. As always, I hope readers continue to enjoy the story. For obvious reasons I've become even more of a correspondence hermit than I have been , no time to reply your comments or emails, but I'm going to try to get back to more people. 

*

My name is William Maitland. Six months ago I was a boringly happily married husband and father of two teenagers. I had one of - if not the hottest - women in Jacksonville in my bed, I basically ran the State Attorney's Office for my boss while he ran for Governor of Florida.

I knew who and what I was and I was happy with it. I had my nightmares. I knew that I didn't deserve the woman I was married to, that my kids had lost respect for me and that my hot wife Debbie for too long had seemed to look at me more as a roommate and good provider than a stud. I had gotten bald and fat and women no longer looked at me with an appraising eye, if they ever had.

But I told myself that nobody has it all. I had the woman I'd loved for 20 years in my bed and my life, the kids would grow up, I was doing a job that was actually more my life than an occupation, and I had a chance to make the world make sense sometimes.

And then it all went away.

In the space of a few weeks, I learned that my wife didn't love me anymore, she soon began fucking a tall, good looking young stud I couldn't begin to compete with on any physical level, my kids didn't know or respect me. I lost my wife, my kids in a way, my manhood and my balls when I couldn't even get an erection while jerking off.

I made a detour into the bottle and could have lost everything, but some good friends including people I didn't even know, helped me claw my way out of the bottle. I fought my way back to a better body and better health and the realization that it's possible to live even after the person you love most in the world has torn your heart out of your chest, chewed it up and spit it out.

It had taken awhile, but with the help of a better friend than I deserved, some kind ladies and one beautiful French woman, I had rediscovered my dick and my manhood. I hadn't stopped loving that bitch Debbie. I was beginning to think when they dumped my body into the ground I'd still love her. But I knew now I could live without her.

And so, only days away from hitting my 42nd birthday and becoming officially Middle Aged, winning a major court case and sending an evil woman to Death Row at Raiford, burnishing my growing legend as the Angel of Death, and not so incidentally having hot sex with only the third and fourth women I'd known carnally in the last 20 years, I thought my world had finally begun to make sense again.

Until SHE walked back into my life....

############################################# 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005 -- 9 p.m.

I stood in the dunes in the humid darkness, holding a soft, very sexy bundle of femininity against me, feeling her push the globes of her fantastic ass back against my dick and massage it gently. I nuzzled the back of her neck and drank in the odor of her hair and skin.

I pointed out into the darkness. 

It was dark enough that the horizon was only a faintly darker smudge against the night sky.

"Go about forty five hundred miles in that direction, heading northeast, and you'd be in sight of the French shoreline."

She didn't say anything but I knew we were both thinking. Beyond that horizon were her husband and son, her family and her life.

Far away near the horizon there were several moving lights, pinpoints in the darkness so close to the horizon it was difficult to distinguish them from stars hanging low in the night sky.

"Shrimpers," I said as she followed my finger to gaze at the spot where the Atlantic merged with the sky.

"Maybe cruise ships, but more likely shrimpers coming back into St. Augustine or maybe heading up to Mayport."

She leaned back into me and tilted her head back to kiss me. I loved the taste of mint on her lips.

"You think they could be cruise ships?"

"Sometimes they sail this close to the coast, but usually this far north you don't see them unless they're heading just north of us back to Blount Island. And there are only a handful. Most of the ships cruise from ports south of us to the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico so you don't see them often. Although there are some cruise ships that sail from northern ports."

She turned in my arms and kissed me hard. I felt her nipples as hard little buttons pressing into my tee-shirt.

When she buried her head in the side of my neck, I said, "Do you miss it that much, Aline? Would you rather be out there in the darkness looking back at the shore lights?"

"Maybe," she breathed heavily, "if you were out there with me."

I held her in the night and it felt for a moment that the whole world was spinning around us. Nothing had seemed quite real since that moment yesterday when she had appeared as if by magic in my office and was kissing me.

I had known she was gone and never coming back. Her life was on the French cruise ship Bonne Chance which was a maritime gypsy circumnavigating the world. It had stopped in Jac ksonville for a while, and then moved on to ports south. It was probably never be back and neither would she.

Which I had told myself over and over in the weeks before the Bonne Chance had finally sailed out for the last time, was a Good Thing. Because Aline des Jardins was a married woman, with a son, and her husband was a good man who had been a friend. Of course, he was also a cheating son of bitch who was screwing half the women in Paris while his wife worked at sea, but with the exception of that one little character flaw, he wasn't a bad guy.

"Do you think Philippe might object to me becoming a permanent cruise sex buddy?"

She breathed into the side of my neck again. 

"He will never know. He can never know."

"I thought you were going to tell him that I had given you the Fleur-de-Lis pendant. Tell him that I was a passenger and you saved my life, sort of. And you would wear the Fleur --de-Lis proudly for the rest of your life. How can you wear it if he can't know who gave it to you?"

She separated herself from me and stepped a pace back. There was a cooling night wind whipping through the dunes and it caressed her heavy black bangs. The Fleur-de-Lis sat on her chest between her small, but delicious breasts bulging softly out from a light blouse. The moonlight glimmered off the diamond in its center.

"I thought I could tell him and he would never know the truth of what happened, even if he might guess. I thought that he wouldn't mind, because he's doing the same thing. But..."

"But what?"

"He's not a stupid man. The opposite actually. He reminds me of you. He is very, very sharp and perceptive."

"How can he-"

"You remember I told you that you were different?"

"Yes."

"I told you -- the others were -- just diversions. They never threatened....Philippe. And I think he knew that. I don't think he's ever had me watched. He could tell if...there was someone else...who mattered. But you...."

"What about me?"

I said the words carefully, the way you'd move around a coiled rattlesnake that you'd discovered sitting on your dresser drawers one morning. This was the thing that had lurked behind every word we'd said to each other since the moment I'd looked up into her eyes yesterday afternoon. It was the elephant in the corner of the room that you couldn't ignore, but couldn't acknowledge. 

"You want me to say it? To put it into words?"

"One of us has to. Every day after I walked away from you, every single day that I woke up, I had to fight the urge to call you, to go back to the Bonne Chance. Every fiber of my body wanted you. But I couldn't, because I'd be breaking every rule that I've ever lived by, betraying everything I've ever believed in.

"But I'm weak willed. I couldn't go to you, but I couldn't push you away when you came to me. It doesn't make it right, what we're doing."

She held my face in her hands and kissed me. I felt that same weird sensation of fear that caused the little hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. It wasn't the night breeze. It was her kiss. It was fear. And now I knew what I was afraid of. 

"I told you I felt something when I looked at you the first time, Bill. It was the same feeling, the same emotion, I had years ago when I first looked at Philippe across the room at that party. The night we wound up in his bed. The night he made me his. I am his. And so I can't be feeling those same emotions now for you."

She stared at me across a gulf of a few inches with those sea-green eyes that held the ocean in them.

"I can't be head over heels in love with you. I'm a married woman. I love my husband. I love my son. I have a life and a family. And I shouldn't be here tonight. So why am I here?"

"Because as I should have told Father Dunleavy, and he would have appreciated the joke, God has a cruel sense of humor. You love Philippe and you have a life you can't let yourself lose. I don't have a life anymore but I do have a woman that I shouldn't love anymore, but I do."

"You love her even though you don't want to? What about me, Bill? What do you feel about me? You realize you've never put your feelings into words. I don't really know what you think about me. Except that you like to have sex with me and ... you were grateful to me for helping you get over your cheating slut of a wife."

There was an odd expression on her face and I tried to analyze it: fear and female pride and worry and something else inexpressible.

"We only known each other for a week. We really don't know each other at all, Aline. We met in a dream and that's all we have. But...

"I think...I....might be in love with you. I have feelings for you I haven't had for anyone other than...Debbie... in 20 years. In the last week I've had sex with two women that I liked and it was great sex. But it didn't mean anything. You meant something."

"What does something mean?"

"Now who's playing attorney?"

She wasn't smiling. She had a dead serious look on her face.

"What am I to you, Bill?"

"I love her, Aline. I hate her, but I can't tell you that I don't still love her. There's 20 years of memories and loving. Every day I see something or hear something and a memory of her flashes into my mind. Sometimes I still wake up, after all these months, and I think I'm in our bed at home and I expect to roll over and feel her lying next to me. And then I remember..."

I looked across the gulf at her invisible home an ocean away.

"What you are is the person that made me think that life just might be worth living again, that I might not be the total and complete loser that I felt like before I met you. She wrecked my life. You've caused me to question everything I've ever believed in, caused me to question whether I'm the good guy I always thought I was."

I looked back out at the ocean and saw the dark, sharp fangs jutting out from the white-capped tides as the ocean receded. To change the subject, I pointed to them and as she followed my finger, I told her, "They call this the Matanzas Inlet. Matanzas means slaughter. This was a bloody place once. 

" There's a monument in a park not too far from here. I've always known this since I grew up around here and my friends and I used to come here or to St. Augustine in the summers.

"In 1565, the Spanish and French were not being real friendly and they both wanted this piece of real estate. The Spanish killed -- slaughtered -- 250 French Huguenots to stake out their claim to the place. They even built a fort like the one at St. Augustine back in the 1700s. It's gone, not like the Old Fort in St. Augustine, but your people were here a long time ago."

I watched the rocks slide in and out of the moonlight and told her, "When I was a kid, we used to like to swim out to those rocks at high tide. They're dangerous. You could get your hands and feet carved up on some of them and kids have banged their heads in a rough surf and gone under, but usually their friends are able to drag them out."

I took her hand and run her fingers along the underside of the point of my jaw. She felt the scar and gave me a look.

"I was 15 when we came down here one day in July. As usual they had no swimming signs posted although the county would never cough up the money for lifeguards. Rough surf. I went out there and we were horsing around and a wave caught me and smashed me into the big rock the furthest to the right over there. It smashed my chin open. I was seeing stars and it's a good thing no sharks were around because they tell me I was bleeding like a stuck pig.

"It wasn't really that big. It only took five stitches to close it up, but it bled like hell. Kids are stupid though. I was out there again the next weekend."

She leaned into me and kissed the underside of my jaw.

"Do you realize, that is the first time we've ever talked about your life -- before. Your childhood?"

"We didn't do a lot of talking on the Bonne Chance, Aline, if you remember."

"No. I know about you and her, a condensed version. But you have a whole life, a childhood, a marriage, I don't know anything about. She has a lot of those memories. She made them with you. I'm just some woman you fucked for a week on a cruise." 

She had turned away from me and her body shook. I grabbed her from behind and held her to me tightly.

"And you have a life I don't know anything about. And you are so much more than a shipboard romance."

"Do you love me even a little bit, Bill? Do you love me even a little bit as much as you love her?"

When I didn't answer she gave me a sad smile.

"That's so mean, Bill. And I know it. But I feel mean. And frightened. On the Bonne Chance, I had you in my world. Now I'm in her world. I want to win. I want you to choose me over her."

I pulled her forward, kissed her one more time, and then:

"You wouldn't know what to do with me if you won, Aline. Would you leave Philippe for me? Don't answer that. I already know the answer. What's the point of waging a fight you can't afford to win?"

##################### 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005 -- 5 p.m.

Teller held the blonde goddess tight against his chest. Although she was hiccuping and gasping as tears flowed down her face, he'd been able to get her to evacuate the contents of her stomach with an emetic administered in his office bathroom before he'd begun the session. 

He didn't want to leave another mess in his office for the cleaning crew to deal with like they had after his first session of hypnosis with the former Mrs. Maitland. And it had worked. With the exception of a few explosions of spittle from her stomach, it had been mostly dry heaves. 

As she rubbed those heavy breasts against him, he found himself beginning to experience an erection, but forced the sensation down and thought about other things that made him go very limp. He could never afford to begin to even think about her in a sexual way, or he'd never be able to help her as a patient. And he would betray his medical oath. Never again.

He stroked her blonde hair and whispered as calmingly as he could, "It's alright now, Debbie. It happened a long time ago and you're in my office and you're safe."

She shuddered and pressed her face into his chest.

"Oh, my GOD! Oh my God."

To get her mind off the experience she had just re-lived, and to begin the analysis of whatever it had been, he said, "Tell me what you're feeling, Debbie. What's going through your mind right now."

She just gasped and moaned for several moments and then:

"Sick...sick to my stomach....I can taste them.....taste them pissing in my mouth....and....I'm scared..."

"We don't know when this happened, but it's likely been some time ago. There's nothing to be afraid anymore. It's only a memory. They can't hurt you anymore."

"No, I'm not scared of them....I'm....there's something...I can't remember...but it....it terrifies me...it's like one of those dreams when....something is behind you and you know it...but you can't turn around and look at it...like that..."

He made a mental note to follow up on that. It might be further repressed memories of other attacks, or fear of what they represented? Still and all, anger and depression would be expected if this was a true memory, but fear...?

"And...Jesus this makes no sense.....I hate Bill. I could cut his throat if I could get my hands on him. Now I know I am crazy. Why am I furious at him? He wasn't one of them. How can I blame him?"

"I don't know, Debbie. It's hard for me to visualize his connection, based on what you've just remembered, but it's also hard to imagine how your anger toward him could involve this incident, if there wasn't a connection. Keep going."

She pushed herself back and away from Teller, sitting back on the couch where she had lain during the hypnotic regression session. She wiped the tears and snot off her cheeks with the back of her hand, then accepted a white linen handkerchief Teller offered her to finish cleaning herself up.

"You want to know what I feel mostly, Dr. Teller?"

"Yes, I'm very curious if there's something you feel more strongly than what you've already described."

"Disgust."

"That's a normal reaction to the kind of event you're described. It's nauseating, even to listen to, much less to experience."

She looked up from the coffee table which was always a magnet for patient's eyes, which was why he'd had it put in, besides the fact that he loved it. There was a smile of such sadness on her beautiful features that he had to remind himself to keep a psychiatrist's neutral stance.

"No, disgust at myself."

"At yourself?"

"Don't you get it, doctor? I know you do. You're just trying to be supportive. I was in a bathroom. I think it was in a men's bathroom. I wasn't being raped. It was obvious I had gone in there to suck those guys off or let them fuck me. I wasn't expecting what they did to me, but I didn't go in there to talk politics. I went in there to suck their dicks and let them fuck my pussy. Just like the slut that most think I am."

"You can't be sure of that."

"Doctor. It was a bathroom, a public bathroom and a big one, obviously. In a restaurant or big hotel. They weren't dragging me. They didn't have me gagged. I could have screamed for help, but I didn't. I remember them putting their dicks in my hands and I was jerking them. I could have hurt them, but I didn't want to. And until they got too rough, I obviously didn't mind sucking them.

"I know what it was, doctor. It was a gang bang, one that I apparently walked into willingly. And I wasn't a kid. I was a grown woman. So I was a married woman. While my husband that I vowed to love and be faithful to was somewhere else, I was sucking strange dicks.

"I'm a wonderful wife and mother, alright. No wonder I could never let myself remember."

Tears flowed down her cheeks that she didn't attempt to wipe away.

"The funny thing is, doctor, I really thought I was a better person than that. I love sex and I've had multiple men before, doubles and even triples when I was in college. But I thought...I was an honest person. That when I made a promise, an oath, I could keep it. And I made a promise to Bill.

"He accused me of cheating on him, and I told him he was wrong. Now it turns out he was right all along, he was just wrong about who I was cheating with."




When We Were Married Ch. 05B



Teller kept quiet. There were times when patients needed to speak at their own pace.

She wiped a tear from her face and looked at the drop of her liquid on her fingertip as if she'd never seen a tear before.

"I like sex, doctor. I like having sex with men. I like being lusted after. I like that look in a man's eyes when he sees me for the first time and I KNOW that I could have him if I wanted him. When I met Bill...when I got to know him....when I fell in love with him...I didn't stop being what I am.

"He knew other men excited me....still do...always will....I'll probably be a flirt when I'm 80, if I make it that far.....I knew, or I learned, that he had doubts about me....I knew that...but what could I do? I can't change what I am. 

"So I did everything I could to reassure him. No matter how hot other men got me, I always brought it home to him. And I think he liked it most of the time. It's a man thing. Most men like knowing they have something other men want -- as long as they don't have worry about losing it.

"And for the first ten years, before he joined that miserable fucking State Attorney's office and our marriage started dying, we were okay. I never cheated on him, although God knows there were lots of times I wished a little bit that I was still single. But I didn't. Honest to God."

Teller stopped her.

"There's no need to take a pledge to tell the truth, Debbie. You could lie all day to me and the only person it would hurt would be you. I believe you've told me the truth in our sessions. I trust you."

"I trusted myself until today, Doctor. Now I'm not so sure. But anyway, after he joined the State Attorney's Office, and after he left our marriage for his job, and my Aunt Clarice got dumped by her husband and kept telling me that Bill had to be cheating, that all men cheated, all men were pigs, I probably did things I shouldn't have done.

"I let men rub their dicks on me when they were dancing, once in a while I let a kiss go too far, and I did...I...uh.....there were two times when I jerk-masturbated a guy at a party when he got me alone. 

"But I never gave anybody a blow job, I never put my hands on their naked dick, I never let anybody have...my pussy...because that was Bill's. Even if the son of a bitch didn't want it anymore and couldn't make good use of it anymore. By MY standards, and I'm the only one who counts, I kept my promise to Bill. I wore out two vibrators, but I never cheated.

"Or, I didn't think I did. Now, who knows. But as I can remember, I just drifted along fantasizing about other men, rubbing them sometimes. About three or four years ago, after Clarice...died....I started thinking seriously about leaving him. I tried to talk to him. God knows we had fights.

"But I couldn't tell him what I was really thinking. I couldn't tell him I teasing other men, because I knew how insecure he was. He always had doubts about his ability to...satisfy...me and if you tell a man he's no good in bed anymore, all it will do is push you toward a divorce quicker.

" I tried to get him to shape up, because I knew if he was in better shape, and looked better, he'd be better in bed and I'd be hotter around him. But that damned office always came first. I know that his job is his life. And it was probably innocent. 

"But I could never quite get Clarice's words out of my head. She had loved her husband more than life. And he was about ten years older than Bill when he walked in one day and told her he was leaving her for a 25-year-old secretary in her office. It killed her. Although it took three years for her to die. So I wondered about Bill and that damned office. And maybe that's part of why I got so damned angry."

"So I was lonely and getting more and more unhappy and horny every day. But I couldn't tell him I was thinking about divorce. Because I was a coward, I guess. We had a good home, we were secure financially. We had two young children. It was...comfortable....That's a chickenshit word, but that's the way I felt. I kept praying that one day he'd wake up and realize what he was going to lose.

"But he never did, and one day I met Doug Baker. And looking back, if he'd wanted to, he could have had me in a couple days. But he played it cool. And somewhere along the way, even though I told myself he was just a friend, I knew I was going to wind up in bed with him. And I couldn't do that married to Bill. So I started seriously planning for a divorce, how I'd break it to Bill, to the kids. How'd we'd be financially.

"And I could have lived with that. I had been faithful to my marriage. I'd stayed with him as long as I could. I knew my mom and family and our friends would all think I was a terrible person. They'd all be sorry for poor Bill, because he was such a miserable fucking sad sack and I knew he'd be a basket case after I left him. But I'd know that I'd been a decent wife."

She looked up at Teller, her eyes dry now.

"And I find out that it was all bullshit. I was cheating on him. I did break my vows. I did revert to being a slut like I was in college. I don't know now if I can ever look him in the eye again. Dammit."

Teller just stared her for a few minutes.

"I've never felt guilty, doctor, about my life and the way I've lived it. And now I do."

"Okay," Teller said finally. "You're a cheating slut. Now what?"

"What?"

"I'm not sure that your interpretation of what we've learned through this session is accurate. I have some questions in the back of my mind about it. But for the sake of argument, let's grant that you broke your marriage vows, once or maybe many times. You had sex, with multiple partners, probably indulging in a number of what might be called risky or deviant sex practices. 

"You're a cheating wife, an adulteress. By most men -- and women's -- standards, you're what society would call it a slut. So, what?"

She looked at him as if she couldn't believe what he'd said.

"So what? That makes me a terrible person, a liar, a cheat, a person who would hurt a man who loved her just to have bigger and better orgasms with strange men. What kind of mother does that make me? How could I ever talk about what's right and wrong with Kelly or BJ and keep a straight face. And if they ever find out...."

Teller leaned back and picked up his pipe, made a display of lighting it and took in a deep draught of aromatic smoke before releasing it.

"I concede your point, Ms. Bascomb," he said in a formal tone. "You are a terrible person. In other countries, you'd have the option of Hara-kiri or Seppuku, ritual suicide, to atone for your mistakes. We don't do that here. But pills and guns are always available. I believe you told me your husband left a handgun in your home."

She looked at him, her eyes opened wide in surprise.

"Doctor Teller, are you insane? You're suggesting I commit suicide because I cheated on my husband?"

He gave her a slight smile.

"No. You were starting to wallow in guilt about what you think you've learned and I was just trying to get you to look at the bigger picture. Assume that you have done a terrible thing, or things. There are only a certain number of ways to deal with that problem. 

'You could commit suicide, which would permanently remove your guilt. Of course it would leave your children minus one parent, devastate your family, and even saddle your ex-husband with a mountain of grief on top of the pain you've already dealt him.

"Or, you could go to your husband, confess what you've done and either beg him to take you back or to forgive you. From what you've told me, you don't want to go back to him and confirming his suspicions of your unfaithfulness would help him to build a new life -- exactly how?"

"Or, third option. You could keep your mouth shut, let this secret go with you to your grave. There would be no unpleasant memories for your children or family to live with, and your husband would not have to remember you as a woman who cheated throughout his marriage, instead of at the very end.

"You can do whatever you want, but if you take the third option, you have to live with the guilt of what you've done, without trying to unload it on others, be as good a mother and daughter and ex-wife and possibly a future wife, as you can be. You have to live your life and maybe, just maybe, learn from your mistakes. It won't be as simple or easy as suicide, but it can be done."

He looked at her and didn't utter the thought running through his head.

"You can live with almost any amount of guilt, if you have to. I know."

###################### 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2005 -- 5 p.m.

He left her and went to the door to his office and locked it. He didn't want anyone wandering in. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted Aline to himself for right now. When he walked back to her they didn't touch again, just stood looking at each other.

"Why?"

"I missed you, Bill. I tried not to. I know you didn't want to see me again. But I missed you. I thought it would get better with time. But it doesn't."

"How could you get away from the Bonne Chance? And if you had that much free time, I thought....you'd be going home to Philippe and André?"

"It was time for me to leave the ship but Philippe called and told me that he has arranged membership for André in one of the most exclusive boy's fraternities in France. It will be a feather in the cap of André for the rest of his life. Most of the leaders of French government, industry, business, were members as boys. It's the equivalent of a club at...Oxford or Cambridge. You make friendships that will serve you the rest of your life."

She looked at her hand and I noted that she had not put her wedding ring back on, but she was looking at her ring finger and I knew who she was thinking about.

"Philippe came from nothing. Middle class pencil pushers, he puts it. He rose because of his own drive and intelligence. But he could have gone so much further with the connections that André will make. He wants that for André . And for two weeks, André will be engaged in male-only activities on a safari in Kenya, with Philippe and some of the other fathers along. An outing. It's one of the rituals they engage in."

"And a Mom wouldn't fit in?"

She shook her head. 

"Non. It deprives me of my time with him, but I love André as much as Philippe. I will see him in two weeks. I could have stayed on the ship. I should have stayed on the ship. I could have flown back to Paris and waited at our home there. I could have visited family and friends.

"Instead," and she crossed the distance between us to put her hand on my chest, over my heart, "I chose to surprise a man I've only known for a week, a man trying to put his life back together, a man I threw myself at on our first cruise together. A man I was not even sure would welcome me. I must be a fool."

I pulled her to me and held her warmth against me.

"I'm glad you're here, Aline. God, I'm glad you're here. You have two weeks? Do you have any plans?"

"Just one. To spend them with you. If you want me to stay the whole time."

"Of course."

My mind started working again.

"I don't know that I'll be able to get away much. We have a pretty full calendar and..."

I stopped myself and looked at the dark haired vision that stood in front of me, delicious breasts rising and falling, remembering that great ass that was concealed beneath layers of clothing. She had chosen to come to me. And I was going to spend time on fucking depositions and witnesses and recalcitrant defendants?

Fuck it. I had lost one woman I couldn't afford to lose because I'd put this office first. The woman in front of me wasn't mine, never would be, never could be, but she had made me happy. She'd made me wake up with a smile on my face and a hard-on. She deserved more of me than I'd normally be willing to give.

"I have some things that need doing, but I'll make time for us to go places. I'd like to show off Northeast Florida to you. It's my home for most of my life. It's not exactly Paris, but there are a lot of things to like."

"That sounds like fun. Do you want to go out and celebrate tonight?"

I gave her a curious look.

"Everybody in the courthouse is talking about your great triumph and I saw a telecast on one of the televisions in the airport. 'The Angel of Death' takes a bite out of the 'Shark' was one report I saw and 'Killer Granny latest victim of the Angel of Death.' You have become a celebrity."

"I'm a 15 minute sensation, Aline. In a week they'll be asking me for ID when I go to cash a check at the bank."

"I don't think so," she said, slipping her arms around me. "My friend is a famous man and becoming more famous by the day. I think I'm going to become your first 'groupie'. But we should go out tonight."

I thought about it for a moment.

"I know a place we can go for drinks after we grab a bite. But I really don't want to celebrate anyplace we're liable to run into press or anybody I know."

She gave me a hurt look.

"You are ashamed of me, Bill?"

I pulled her to me and kissed her hard and while she fought it at first she gave in and gave herself to it. When I had to breath again I held her out at arms length and said, "Anywhere I go with you, every man in the place is going to be hating me and wishing you were on his arm. You're going to be the most beautiful woman wherever we go. How could I be ashamed of you?"

"Then why?"

"I want you for myself, Aline. I don't want to share you. I don't want to have to answer questions and I don't want Debbie sticking her nose into my business and she will be a pain in the ass if she ever sees you. We're almost able to stay in the same room without my wanting to kill her and I don't want to stir up any more shit than I have to.

"And...." I told her, "the world is a small place. A camera crew catches me celebrating with a beautiful, dark haired mystery woman, and what would you care to bet that it won't somehow wind up on the Internet. And they get the Internet in France. Does Philippe know you're spending your two weeks with his old friend, Bill?"

She shook her head and dropped her gaze.

"Do you want to try explaining to him why I gave you the Fleur de Lis AND you wound up coming to my home town and going out partying with me? I don't think anyone, and especially Philippe, is a big enough idiot not to know what's going on. 

"He might be able to turn a blind eye to...us, especially since he's doing the same thing, but if it goes on the Internet your friends will see us together. Is he going to be able to accept that? You'll be hurting his pride, and from what I remember of him, I don't think he's the kind of man who can accept that and live with it. If you made him angry enough, you don't think he'd try to use André against you."

The color drained from her face.

"My God, Bill....I never thought...."

She was about to cry.

I grabbed her shoulders.

"Don't. I'm glad you're here. You're here now. We can spend time together as long as we're careful. You and I both know he sees other women. But you've never been embarrassed by him, have you? He's been discreet."

She nodded.

"We have to be careful, that's all. As long as we don't embarrass him, he won't do anything. He can't. Even in France, a mother has rights in regard to her children. And if he loves you the way you say you love him, he won't throw away your marriage as long as you don't humiliate him publicly. So we just have to make sure we don't go worldwide. 

"Fortunately," I said stroking that thick black mane that I could never keep my hands off of, "I'm not that famous yet. If I was Bill Clinton, or Johnny Depp, we wouldn't stand a chance. But get away from the courthouse and I'm just another short, bald guy."

She gave me a quick peck on the lips.

"You will never be just another short, bald guy, Bill Maitland. AND....it's mean and low of me, but I would love to see the expression on your Debbie's face the first time she sees us together."

I couldn't help answering the grin she was flashing.

"You are mean, girl. A real bitch."

"But I'm YOUR bitch, and I'd like to let your old bitch know somebody else is playing with her old toys..."

She reached down and ran her hand over my cock and felt the hard bulge there. I was hard again only hours after cumming in buckets inside Heather. Aline was magic. Better than Viagra. 

"Make that...her old toy. Which still works fine, by the way. Remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," I said, reaching down and moving her hand off me. "But I need to walk out of here in a little bit and if I'm sticking straight out I'm afraid that might launch some rumors about the pretty dark haired woman who came into my office."

She shrugged. Even that motion made my dick twitch.

"Alright, Bill. What kind of cloak and dagger intrigue will we indulge in?"

"No intrigue. Just walk out and go on down to the Starbucks on the first floor. Order a coffee and give me a couple of minutes. When I get down there you'll see me and just follow me out to my car."

She kissed me on the side of my face and said, "This is exciting. I'll be the lady getting all hot and bothered at the Starbucks when you get down there."

I opened the door and walked her out so that Susie could see me shake her hand and hear me say, "I promise you that I'll be available for an in-depth interview with your correspondent before the end of the week. If you'd just send a formal request through Mr. Edwards' office, my secretary will arrange it all. Is that okay?"

She gave me a cool, business-like smile and said, "That is very kind of you, Mr. Maitland. I look forward to working with you, very closely, in the future." And she stuck her tongue out at me at an angle that I'm sure Susie didn't catch. I had an almost irresistible urge to swat her ass, but I am not a disciplined attorney for nothing. I just nodded and walked back into my office.

I had walked back into the office and was trying to wrap up about 20 different loose ends with my head completely not into it when the phone buzzed. I punch the intercom button and Susie said, "Mr. Maitland, I'm sorry, but you have some other people out here that say they need to speak to you."

"Susie, I really am trying to get out of here. Who is it?"

"Uh....one of them is your...Ms. Bascomb from the Public Defender's office. And the other is...Ms. Martinez, from Mr. Edwards' office. Who....who do you want me to send in first?"

I don't know. Maybe I was shell shocked after the day I'd just had. Maybe I just wanted to see if they could both fit through the door at the same time. But I said, "Send them both in, Susie."

A moment later the door came in and sure enough, what the hell, they both came through at the same time. It was one of the few times I'd ever seen them together in the same room. It was, I admit, kind of breathtaking. 

Debbie was....Debbie was dressed in a fairly sedate business outfit but she still could have aroused pornographic fantasies in a 90-year-old. She was about four inches taller than Myra and looked bigger, except in a couple of very important places.

Myra, hair blonder and brassier than Debbie, was preceded in by her chest by a few seconds and when she stopped in front of my desk, parts of her kept moving for several seconds. I got ready to duck in case any of the buttons on her stressed blouse started heading my way.

Choosing which one to look at was an impossible dilemma so I focused my gaze at a spot about midway between their heaving bosoms. Debbie shot Myra a sideways glance and Myra glanced back without moving her head. Something was going on in the indecipherable language of females, but damned if I could tell what it was.

"I have had a long day, Debbie, and I need to get out of here. Is it personal or does the Public Defender want to send me congratulations? If it's the latter, tell Mr. August that I appreciate the compliment. If it's the former....you didn't need to come by."




When We Were Married Ch. 05B



"It's both. I talked to Johnny -- Mr. August, and he did want me to send you his congratulations. And he wanted me to give you a special message."

"Yes."

She stared at me as if she was looking at a stranger and for some reason that made me start to get hard. It was as if she was some gorgeous wet dream of a stranger who had walked into my office for the first time and I could imagine the impact she would have had on me if I'd never seen her before.

"He said, 'You did a great job today, Bill. You handed Lew his head. But don't expect our guys to roll over for the Angel of Death in the future. You just painted a big bull's-eye on your back, and expect all our guys to be gunning for you in the future. Good luck."

I couldn't help smiling. It sounded like Johnny. He'd probably take on a case against me just to try to get his licks in. And he might not exactly be in Lew's league as a trial lawyer, but that blind country-boy, aw shucks act he put on for juries always made it hard to gain the jury's sympathy against him. Still, it would be fun.

"Tell Mr. August that I look forward to going up against him at his pleasure," Ms. Bascomb. And..."

"I just wanted to tell you that...you were impressive. Lew is flashy and I made the mistake of underestimating you, Bill. I wish...I'd done this before. Seen you work. I don't know why I never did."

I just stared at her. There was a time when those words would have warmed my heart. Now they just made me remember what I'd lost.

"Thanks."

She glanced over at Myra who was just standing there breathing in and out and flashing a smile at me. Debbie looked like she wanted to say something else, then shook her head a little and turned around and walked out. As usual, she looked as good going as she did coming.

Myra gave her a little glance as she walked out the door, then sat down in a chair across from me and crossed her legs. I valiantly resisted the impulse to look up her dress and focused instead on her heaving chest.

"And what message do you bring from the Big Man, Ms. Martinez?"

"None."

"Then-"

"Would it surprise you, Mr. Maitland, to know that I have had erotic dreams about you?"

I stared into those emerald eyes and thought she was joking, but I wasn't quite sure.

"Actually, quite a lot, yes. Like, learning that Sister Teresa had had erotic dreams about me?"

She tried to be stern, but that twinkle remained.

"You're comparing me to a very old nun?"

'No, it's just that the idea of you have erotic dreams about me is as -- unthinkable -- as Sister Teresa having the hots for me."

"I'll admit, Mr. Maitland, that I've always liked you. You are one of the good guys. But...let's say you're much more visually appealing than you used to be."

"Hot?"

"You'll get a swelled head, among other things, but...yes. And, I've thought, over the years, that you might...have a secret yen for me."

"Like every other male between 15 and 90...well, yeah."

She leaned back and took a deep breath that caused my blood pressure to spike.

"But you're always been married. And I knew you would never mess around, and I don't mess with married men."

She flashed a quick smile and added, "except....you know. But, now you're single. And available. And I...uh...thought that perhaps you might be free sometime this week. To go out for drinks. Or supper?"

I couldn't help being incredulous.

"You are asking ME out?"

"It's the 21st century, Mr. Maitland. Women do that now."

I looked at the promised land she offered and it physically hurt me to say it, but I told her, "I'm sorry Myra. But...I will be tied up.....for a couple of weeks at least. And maybe a lot longer."

"Someone moved in that quickly?" she said with an incredulous look on her face. "You're not going back to-"

"No. And, there's nothing definite about the next couple of weeks....but...there is someone. And I don't think anything will happen, but..."

"But even when you're single, you're a decent guy. You could have stepped out on her and played both of us, but you're not that kind of person. God damn, why didn't I move quicker?"

She was out of her chair and enveloping me in acres of warm breast and I couldn't keep my hands off that ass as she pressed herself into me and then kissed the side of my face.

'It's okay, Bill. I didn't think I could respect you any more than I do, but....Just remember that if things don't work out with her...I would definitely be interested in going out. Don't forget."

"I won't."

And just to make sure I didn't, she created a female symphony of moving parts and pneumatic flesh as she maneuvered her way out of my office. I didn't realize how badly Aline had set her hooks into me until I realized that even now, I didn't regret turning something like that down for a chance to be with Aline.

When she left I still had to wade through six phones calls that had to be returned, several court documents that needed signatures and two ASAs who wanted to talk. And then I could FINALLY call an end to the day and get out of there.

I glanced over at the Starbucks as I walked toward the street that would lead to the private parking lot where courthouse officials could park without having to hunt for a free parking meter. It had been recurrent chaos for years until the state had finally decided four years before to build us a covered garage next to the jail facing the St. Johns River.

As I walked past her, I snuck a quick look at her and without her being too ostentatious about it she gave the round seat she sat on a hot, and slow, lap dance. I grinned at nothing in particular and walked out the courthouse doors.

Five minutes later she was sitting beside me and we were headed out toward 

Chez Alexandre, an Avondale restaurant that served the best and most authentic French cuisine in Jacksonville. The owner and Chef had been in this country twenty years chefing for a number of restaurants until he finally got up the courage and money to launch out on his own five years before. It wasn't Paris, but it wasn't bad. 

He had managed to keep his doors open in a city where barbecue joints outnumbered every other kind of restaurant by almost two to one. Somebody once said that Jacksonville was really South Georgia, and judging by culinary tastes, I had to concede the point.

I didn't eat there a lot, especially since just looking at most of the entrees added a half pound where I didn't want it going, but I had always liked the food since coming back from Paris and I thought Aline would welcome a taste of home.

Alexandre Auvray was about 50, tall and lean with dark hair turning a distinguished silver. Despite being the brains, heart and soul of the kitchen, he greeted guests in a tux so that every time you came in you felt like you attending a special event.

I didn't think he'd remember, but he gave me a strange look as he took in the dark haired woman at my side and said, "Mr. Maitland, a pleasure to see you again. I believe...you were here last with...."

I nodded.

"My wife. The tall blonde. She's not my wife anymore. Let me introduce you to my friend, Aline des-Jardins."

A genuine smile lit his face and he launched into a spiel of rapid French that left me far behind and brought a smile and blush to Aline's face as well. While they talked I remembered the last time I had been here with Debbie. I'd had to nag her for six months before she'd join me and she had put down every dish in the place as a caloric nightmare. 

I knew she was serious about keeping the weight off because she could very easily have been a big girl, but it hurt that she made it seem like I was engaged in a campaign to plump her up. I had just wanted to share some of the gastronomic discoveries I'd made in Paris with the woman I loved. It was another one of the those nights we'd gone home and I'd had to dress warmly to avoid frostbite in bed.

I shook my head to dislodge those memories. That was then. This was now, I told myself as I watched Alexandre eat up Aline with his eyes, discretely. He finally tore his eyes away from her and managed to look at me for a moment. He was obviously surprised by the closer inspection. I had changed a lot from the last time he'd seen me.

"Mr. Maitland. I apologize. I didn't realize you had changed so much. You realize you are blessed by the Gods?"

I swapped glances with Aline and said, "I know."

He just shook his head again, "You walk in here with two of the most beautiful women in this hemisphere. It's a good thing I have a beautiful wife, or it would be easy to hate you."

"I've seen Cybelle, Alexandre. You don't have to be jealous of any man."

"You are kind, but I assume you came in here to eat. Please have a seat and let me take your order. Oh, by the way, congratulations on your great victory in court."

For the next two hours Alexandre and his staff, finally joined by the lovely Cybelle, kept putting French delicacies in our faces and both of us indulged more than we should have. I even had a few snails. Which were one of the house specialties. 

Finally over coffee and a pastry with nuts and chocolate and thin wafers of some sweet crusty pastry, I told Alexander, "Okay, I surrender. Another bite and I will explode all over the interior of your restaurant. I cannot thank you enough for feeding us this way."

He and Cybelle had sat themselves down at our table and the two women had been rattling on at a machine gun pace. Although I could not understand exactly what was said, I noticed both of them looking at me frequently and Aline blushing a lot.

When we were finally getting ready to leave at 8 p.m., Cybelle pulled me aside and whispered into my ear, "I know that there is more going on here than your friend Aline is willing to say. But she can't hide her feelings for you She told me about your giving her the Fleur-de-Lis. Such a romantic gesture."

And then she reminded me that there is such a thing as a fraternity -- or sorority -- of wives, adding with a hard look, "I remember your beautiful blonde wife, Mr. Maitland. Did you ever do anything that crazy and romantic for her? Would you be single now if you had shown that kind of romantic love for her? Wives need to be reminded that their man loves them, too."

I guess it was still a little too raw for me to be really polite.

"I guess not, Cybelle. Other than risking my life for her and winding up in a coma, I never did much to show her how much I cared."

I didn't add that that had been 20 years before our marriage crashed and burned. Maybe if I had...but I stopped myself. I wasn't going to let someone looking in from outside make me feel guilty about what had happened. You didn't do things like buy an expensive piece of jewelry for your wife 15 or 20 years into a marriage. It never would have occurred to me and I knew Debbie would have made me take it back and get a refund.

As I walked out the door with Aline, I made sure to hold her tightly around the waist and even patted her lightly on that luscious ass under Cybelle's slightly disapproving glance. I knew Alexandre would enjoy it vicariously and I wanted to figuratively give Cybelle the finger. She was a good woman, but I wasn't real fond of wives right now.

I knew Cybelle didn't, couldn't know the details of my marriage's breakup. She was just a middle-aged wife watching a husband she thought had dumped a wife for a younger pretty woman.

I parked on Edgewood at the median and opened the door for Aline. She looked around and I know what was going through her mind. There are places like Edgewood and the Westside in Paris, but you usually don't go into them without a bodyguard or an armed escort.

It's run down, but not as bad an area as it would look to a French visitor. I pointed to the sprawling saloon that was O'Brien's and said, "This is a community bar called O'Brien's. It's a pretty nice place."

There were cars out front. Even on a weekday it had plenty of traffic, but nothing like the weekend. As we walked past the long plate glass window at the entrance Aline looked around curiously. When we stepped inside she realized the size of the place, looked from the horseshoe-shaped bar to a dance floor. There were pool tables at the rear and a couple of dart boards.

"This is like a --"

"Around here we'd call it a honky tonk," I said, grinning. There were a few cowboy hats, truckers, bikers with the requisite colors and tattoos, but also yuppies, businessmen in clusters sipping what looked like martinis, girls who looked barely old enough to order alcohol and some ladies who were undoubtedly waiting for last call to see if the dimmed lights and diminished capacities of drunk guys would give them a chance to get lucky. There were also older couples sitting at some tables nursing beers in mugs.

"This is like a country café, or what they'd call a Pub in England. It's enchanting," she said with a wide grin on her face.

"That's one word," I said as I couldn't believe her characterization, but I was glad that she liked the place. I always had liked it too.

We found a table and the only waitress in the place found us after a few minutes and took our orders. Aline ordered white wine and I ordered a Bloody Mary with celery and four green olives. 

"Have you wasted many evenings in a bar like this?" she said, smiling.

"No, not until after....my breakup. Before that I was a married man and the only time I ever came in here was on business or a few times with cops or witnesses I needed to talk to."

"Don't let him fool you," a rough voice said from behind me. "Many's the night I've had to pour him in a cab from here."

I looked back at O'Brien and shook my head. 

"Don't believe a word he says, Aline. He loves telling stories."

"M'sieur," she said, putting out one slim hand which he took in between his rough paws.

"Mademoiselle"," he said and then started speaking French. I wouldn't have been more surprised if a hole had open up in the center of the bar and aliens poured out. O'Brien speaking French?

After a couple of minutes she looked at me and said, "Your Mr. O'Brien is an intriguing man. A pugilist and a businessman. And he speaks highly of you."

I just stared at O'Brien. 

"You never cease to amaze me. How in the hell and where did you learn to speak French?"

"It's rough, but you never lose it. I picked it up when I was living in Paris."

"You lived in Paris?"

"Back when I was a young, up and coming boxer. Back in the early 70s."

"What were you doing in Paris?"

He looked at Aline for a moment and I thought I saw his eyes brighten.

"Being married, Mr. Maitland. She was my first. I was 25 and she was 22. I met her when I was on a tour. I boxed all over Europe. She came to one of my fights with a boyfriend. We left there that night together and were never apart again."

I knew he'd told me he'd been married and divorced four times over the years.

"Is she still there, O'Brien? Is she one of the ones you had a good divorce from?"

"She's still there. We never got divorced."

I didn't say anything. He didn't seem like the same O'Brien I'd known for years.

"Lung cancer. She smoked like a fish. They all did. I couldn't, not and box. She developed a cough six months after we married. It took her two years to die. After awhile she just stopped fighting. She's buried with her parents in a little suburb south of Paris."

Aline placed one hand on his arm.

"I'm so sorry."

"It was a long time ago. There are times when weeks go by and I don't think about her."

"Have you...ever been back?"

He shook his head and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and smiled.

"No. It just wouldn't be the same...without her."

He shook himself as if awaking from a dream and stepped back.

"I didn't mean to talk about that. It was just hearing your accent, and talking with you, brought it back. Anyway, Mr. Maitland, if you can, hold onto this one. She's a keeper."

"I would if I could, O'Brien. I would if I could."

When he left tears rolled down her cheeks. I wondered if she was crying for the poor doomed young wife, or for us.

So I took her out on the dance floor and while I've never been a dancer I was able to twirl her around for thirty minutes. They didn't have live music but they had plenty of canned and the Cranberries provided a lot of the dance music. O'Brien must have really loved them, or got a cut for playing their music. He played their songs a lot. 

That was okay. I loved their music too. Of course it didn't really fit the country image, but O'Brien's was more than a honky-tonk.

As we danced and she made love to me with her clothes on, I felt Aline sniff.

"Women are mush."

She leaned forward and bit me hard enough on the lip to make me wince and said, "Don't give me that crap, Bill. You were about to cry too."

"Was not."

She gave me a little smile and kissed the bite mark she'd left on me and said, "Even the Angel of Death has a heart. He is a friend of yours, non?"

"Yeah. He's a good guy. A little crusty, and he's been unluckier in love than me, but he's a good guy."

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and looked up into Lew's smiling face.

"Can I have this dance? That is, cut in and dance with your charming partner. I don't want to dance with you."

I stopped moving with Aline and said, "I thought you'd be off somewhere licking your wounds."

He looked at Aline and smiled that rakish little smile that had probably gotten Mona to go to bed with him the first time and said, "I was, for a little while, but Mona does that so much better than me that I let her take over. Now I feel fine. When I got a call from O'Brien that the world was coming to an end, I knew I had to head over here."

I knew Aline wasn't following a lot of this but she looked at him curiously when he mentioned the end of the world.

He caught the look and held out his hand to her, saying, "Lew....Lew Walters. I'm the best friend, and probably the only friend, of the guy who's treading all over your toes. Oh, the End of the World? Well, we'd all pretty much decided that Bill had given up women until the End of the World. 

"So when O'Brien said he was in here drinking and dancing with the hottest mystery woman to ever walk through these doors, I had to check it out. If the world is going to end, I need to make arrangements."

She looked over at O'Brien.

"He said I was the hottest mystery woman to ever walk through these doors?"

"Nah, he just said you were hot as hell and entirely too good for Maitland. So, can I have a dance and make your acquaintance, Mystery Lady?"

"You can have him," a female voice said from behind me, "and I'll take Bill off your hands before he does seriously orthopedic damage to you."

I looked back at Mona wearing something clingy and red and over my shoulder told Aline, "These are my best friends, Aline, Lew and Mona Walters. That right there tells you how desperately empty my life is."

"They seem charming," Aline said and released me to take Lew's hand. He grabbed her and twirled her away, but not before saying, "I'll give you a few minutes to adjust. Bill is a great guy, but he's the whitest white guy you ever saw on a dance floor."

She was dancing off with him when she said loud enough for me to hear, "Maybe, but he has other wonderful qualities -- that aren't immediately apparent."

Lew just stared at me and then shook his head in disbelief.

Mona fit herself into my arms and we danced away in the other direction while I tried not to step on her toes.

"Okay, so give, Bill. I can tell she's not from around here, not with that accent. And she is gorgeous. Is she a pro?"

From Debbie it would have stung like hell, but Mona didn't mean anything.

"No, she's just a...friend of mine. I met her awhile back."

"Just a friend?"





When We Were Married Ch. 05C



Chapter 05C

YOU KNOW I'M SUCH A FOOL FOR YOU! 

My name is William Maitland. Six months ago I was married. Today I am single. 

Six months ago I was in love with a woman I thought loved me. Today I know she doesn't love me. Today I have feelings for a French woman that loves another man. Even though she may love me a little bit.

I don't know if that counts as progress in my personal life.

Six months ago I was the lead prosecutor or managing prosecutor of the State Attorney's Office in Jacksonville. People in the Courthouse knew me and I think thought well of me professionally.

Today, after a near breakdown for a number of reasons I don't need to go into here, I have been dubbed "The Angel of Death" and, through the virtue of the Internet and Internet web sites, apparently I've become a famous figure. 

After I convicted the Killer Granny in a high stakes murder prosecution I have become even more famous and apparently cause callow defense attorneys to piss in their pants when I glare at them.

Of course it's all bullshit. If there's anyone less inclined to use publicity to advance themselves anywhere in the civilized world than myself, I don't know who it would be. 

I don't want to endorse cereals, or run for higher office, and start a second career in Hollywood. I just want to do what I do, what I'm good at, why I'm here, which is to put bad people behind bars and keep them from hurting any more innocents. 

And since I don't want anything more than what I had professionally, I'm not sure if that counts as progress in my professional life.

Six months ago I had a 17-year-old beautiful daughter that looked at me with a combination of bemused daughterly affection and contempt, while my 14-year-old son tried not to think about me much but basically looked at me as the nothing that put a damper on his personal life. 

Today the bonds aren't completely restored, but they know that I loved them and I still do after years of neglecting them for my job.

Six months ago I got an occasional lay from my gorgeous blonde wife Debbie. But I couldn't really blame her for not pulling me down into her bed all that often. 

I was flabby, fat, balding, and I'd let her treat me like that for years. I know from my professional life that people treat you the way you let them, and I never let anybody in my professional life treat me the way Debbie treated me in our personal life, or the bedroom.

But I loved her and I knew I was a disappointment and that I could never really be good enough for her in bed and I made myself grateful for the crumbs she threw my way because even crumbs are better than nothing.

Today I have fucked a cute little dimpled darling that used to work for me in the State Attorney's office, fucked the shit out of a hot grandmother of a vice cop -- in an empty State Attorney's office of all places -- and made mad, passionate hot sex/love to a beautiful French woman who is married to a man who'd been a friend.

Sexually I've come a long way in six months, but until my Frenchwoman Aline came back to me two days ago, I wouldn't have said my sex life has improved by leaps and bounds. 

Because I realized with a sharp pain to the cavity where my heart used to be at, even crumbs from Debbie meant more than hot sex with Dimples or my hot Granny Cop.

But Aline was different. I thought I'd lost a woman I'd never really had, and tried to live with two defeats in the realm of romance until SHE walked back into my life....

############################################# 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005 -- 9:15 p.m.

We walked along the shore line with our shoes and socks in our hands. A light blanket I'd taken from my car was draped over my shoulder. 

Even in late August, the ghostly foam carried by the incoming waves was cold as hell on my flesh. I shivered. Aline just laughed at me. I knew that French beachgoers were tough, dashing into water that would have sent Americans into cardiac arrest. We held hands like teenagers.

"I haven't done this since I was a teen," she told me.

"You're kidding me? All the islands and tropical paradises you visit and you've never strolled through the surf?"

"I've gone swimming, but walking like this....holding hands...it's something you do with a boyfriend...or a husband...."

"There's something very sad about that, Aline. You travel the world to the most romanatic islands and cities, and you don't have anyone to share it with. Philippe has never traveled with you?"

"In the early years, he'd come in for a few days, sometimes a week. But as he progressed in his career, the demands just grew too great And then there wasn't any more free time. Even when I'm home, we have to work for time together, and that usually centers around Andre."

"Something about that sounds familiar, very familiar. But...I can see why you'd have fallen in love with him. He was..is a very dynamic guy. Besides all the tallness, good looking, superficial stuff. I imagine for a woman, he'd be a very appealing guy."

She leaned into me and I caught my balance as a bigger wave splashed us up to the knees. I could hear sea birds in the distance, and other bird calls on the shore side.. On the other side of the inlet, on the far side of the A1A bridge that bisected the inlet, was a federally protected bird preserve where a number of migrating species had protected nests.

"He was...is...you worked with him. You saw how -- women react to him. He doesn't have to work at it. They just...respond to him. And I guess I did too. But that isn't why I fell in love with him, at first sight. 

"You know how clichéd that sounds, and we French don't really put much stock in that. We are much harder-headed about relationships than you Americans, despite the stereotypes. But, there's no other way to describe it. And....it happened again when I saw you.

"I didn't mean for it to happen, either time."

She turned into me and I stopped and held her to keep the waves around our knees from throwing us into the surf. She took my hand and placed it over her right breast and I felt the nipple harden.

. "There wouldn't be a problem, Ma chérie, if we were just -- as you Americans say -- fuck buddies...friends with benefits....I could stay here for two weeks and fuck that lovely hard cock of yours and suck it and give you myself and pull myself together in two weeks and go home to Philippe. I told you I have had lovers before on the Bonne Chance, and it didn't bother me that much to go home to Philippe afterwards."

"But we are fuck buddies," I said squeezing the nipple hard between my fingers and making her moan softly.

She grabbed me by the chin with her right hand and stared into my eyes.

"Don't ever say that, Bill. Don't ever! I don't know what we are...and it scares me...but I know what we aren't....fuck buddies...friends with benefits."

She melted into me and I remembered old time movies about lovers on beaches. This felt like something from a tragic romance. All it needed was a musical score, but there was only the sounds of birds in the night nesting and a few far off cars against the wind blowing in off the ocean.

"We are lovers," she said finally.

"I know. And that's why you're going to rip my heart out again when you leave. And you will leave. No matter what you say, no matter how much we try not to think about it, you'll go home. And I'll stay here."

She buried her face against the side of my neck.

"Don't say that."

"I won't say it again, Aline. Not another time. But I want you to know I did this willingly. I could have sent you off yesterday. I know I should have. But I didn't. The fault is mine. And all the hurt that's going to be left when you're gone, that's on me too.

I held her so tightly I could feel her heart beating in her chest.

"When you leave and fly home to Philippe, I don't want you to look back or regret a moment of our time together. I'm doing this because I realized that you are special. I'm feeling old and jaded and that my life is pretty much over, but I know there will be other women. I don't know that I'll ever marry again, and if I did it would be for convenience.

"But you are something else entirely. I'm not a fatalist and I'm damned sure I don't really want to believe in the God that tears the wings off flies and crashes airplanes and sends tidal waves to destroy cities, but it couldn't be coincidence that brought us together. Somehow I think we were meant to be together.

"It's silly, but somehow I think that if I hadn't met Debbie that year at UF, and if we hadn't gotten together, I wouldn't have found anyone I could have loved as much. And if I had wound up going to France and meeting you BEFORE Philippe, I think it would have been us together."

Tears filled her eyes.

"Don't even dream about it...."

I put my hand over her mouth to shush her.

"Instead of a life with you, I'll have to settle for two weeks. But, if you do it right, sometimes two weeks can be forever."

She was nibbling on my ear as she pumped and jerked on my cock and whispered, "I want you inside of me, Bill. God, I want you inside of me so bad. Take me somewhere and fuck me until I can't think straight anymore."

I had to put my hand over hers and stop her.

"Keep that up and in a minute I'm going to squirt all over inside my underwear and I kind of think you'd rather have it squirting some place else. And at my age, I'm not sure how quick I could get it up again."

She grinned at me.

"Want to bet I couldn't get your mighty cudgel rock hard in 60 seconds, Mr. Maitland?"

"I would never bet against you, but let's not put it to the test. Come on."

I led her by the up from the beach into the dunes. Cars were passing by us occasionally 30 feet away, but in the rolling dunes topped with high growing sea oats, we were invisible.

I threw the light blanket down on the sand and pushed her down onto it. I unsnapped my belt and my slacks slid down around my ankles. Before I could drop down beside her she had reached out, pulled my Hanes down and had planted those luscious lips around my already semi-rock hard cock. A few seconds later I could easily have hammered nails with it.

"Oh shit! Aline..."

Normally I would have enjoyed emptying myself into that pretty mouth but I wanted the real thing tonight so I pushed her head away and she fell back onto the blanket.

"Spoilsport!"

"Tell me that in 30 seconds," I said, as I pushed her dress up around her hips and in the same motion pulled the sheer black panties away from her pussy. Then I dived in. She was dripping but in 30 seconds my face was soaked.

"Oh, God, God, God..that feels so good. Lick it, lick it darling..stick your tongue way in...like that...that...Oh...I missed this....every day....every day.....ohhhh"

Then she grabbed my head and with superhuman will, she pushed my tongue away from where it wanted to be, made me look into her eyes and asked, "Did you miss me like that, Bill? Was I on your mind all the time..."

"I missed you every day, Aline. And...almost...every minute.."

I couldn't help giving her a little smile thinking of Dimples and sexy granny Heather and she picked up on it. She swatted me on the head, and then let her grip go.

"You bastard....I know men well enough to know when you weren't missing me...I guess you got over Debbie...I'm very angry at you."

As I dived back into her soaking pussy she gasped, pushed herself up at me and said, "But I'll forgive you if you keep doing that...just like THAT!"

She brought her knees up around my head and squeezed as she spasmed and I remembered she had very strong legs As the force of her first orgasm shook her I pulled my mouth away and said, "I'm sorry. No more tongue for you tonight, young lady."

Her mouth opened in surprise as I lifted her ass with both hands, placed both those luscious legs over my shoulders, and with her pussy wide open, rammed my cock into it as deep and hard and fast as I could.

"Umm..uh.uh..ohhhh....god damn...bill....it's going to....going to.....shit can't think...going to come out.....uh...my throat..."

And then she lost the breath and the will to talk as I tongue wrestled her, letting her taste herself on my tongue, while I fucked her missionary style. There are a lot of things to be said for other positions, but I guess I'm conservative there too. 

Missionary is still the easiest way to get off, the way that lets you look into the eyes of woman you're fucking. The old poets are right. The eyes can speak.

All too soon, it couldn't have been more than two or three minutes, I felt myself getting ready to pour out into her and gave her the chance to stop me.

"Aline....getting close....can pull....do this longer..."

She bit my tongue gently.

"You better give me what I've been waiting weeks for...now....."

And being the gentleman I was, naturally I did. Once, twice, three, four and five hard shots and she moaned with each one and tried to swallow my dick whole inside the hot pussy of hers.

Finally I stopped and let her legs slip to the ground while I held myself up over her, leaning on my elbows.

"Wow."

"How about magnifique!"

"You were definitely magnifique!"

"For an old man you weren't too bad."

"You're only saying that because you know you've disarmed me and I can't punish you anymore tonight."

She leaned over and grabbed my wilting manhood with a firm grip and said, "You remember our bet"

"Yes, baby, but I really feel like I need an IV right now. I gave you everything I had and then some...."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that."

She turned out to be wrong. She couldn't get my magnificent cudgel hard again in 60 seconds. It took her a full five minutes, including sticking a slim finger up my ass while she sucked on my weary dick. But get it up, she did. And kept it up for 25 minutes this time as we did it doggy, some version of the Kama Sutra she introduced me to, cowboy style and finally up her ass.

As she lay in my arms after that workout we listened to the increasingly more rare cars passing by us on the road about five feet higher than the valley between dunes we rested in. Frogs or crickets or whatever the hell they were made the dunes alive with the sound of their music. 

"You really thought of me every day?"

I placed my hand on the side of her face and stared into those dark eyes that had held me captive since the first moment I saw her on the Bonne Chance before I even knew who she was. And I knew that my intuition had been correct. She was dangerous as only someone who can destroy you is dangerous. 

"Every day."

"Would you have forgotten me? You're a man, and I know you've had sex since we saw each other, you dog. Would I eventually have become just another one of your old conquests?"

"Is that what I would become to you, when you return to Andre and Philippe and the Bonne Chance and your life in Paris?'

She looked at me with a sad look on her face.

"You are always going to be the dark secret in my heart, standing between me and Philippe. The one I pray to God Philippe never learns about."

'And you will always be the One that Got Away."

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2005 11 a..m.

I was probably dragging a little bit when I finally walked into my office, but staying until 2 a.m. and having sex until my poor abused male organ had been whipped into a state of total exhaustion by a Frenchwoman's pussy, ass, mouth and hands will do that to you. I think she would have used her toes if we could have figured out a way to do it and if I'd had any bent in that direction.

I had gotten up at 6 a.m., literally dragged myself into the gym and went through the motions of a workout. My legs felt like I was walking on rubber bands. They were just tired and I felt every one of my almost 42 years. 

But I forced myself. If I let every temptation keep me out of the gym, I knew in a few months I'd be the same old flabby loser I'd been for years. That wasn't going to happen.

I waved at Susie as I walked in and found out that Cheryl was still out with the bug that had knocked her down two days before. 

I wasn't happy that Cheryl had gotten sick, but in hindsight I was damned glad she hadn't been around when Aline showed up. Somehow I knew she'd have discovered who Aline was and somehow the word would have gotten back to Debbie.

I had no reason to be afraid of a confrontation. We were through and there was nothing that Debbie could do to screw things up and in a very real way, I'd love to rub Debbie's nose in the fact that I could still attract a woman like Aline to my bed. 

But it would complicate things. For now it was just Aline and myself in our little bubble, me trying as hard as I could to shrink our world down to just two of us over the next two weeks. I knew it was impossible, but I wanted to keep Aline away from as much of my regular life as I could.

When I opened my office and switched on my laptop, I took a moment to yawn and rub the tiredness out of my eyes and then my phone rang.

"You have a caller," Susie said. "She wouldn't identify herself."

"I'll take it. And who would this be?"

"Is anyone listening?"

"No."

"Good. I just wanted to let you know what I was doing, Mr. Maitland. Can you guess?"

"Probably reading a good book or maybe getting ready to take a taxi out to look around Jacksonville?"

"Would you believe I have my fingers in a certain place and I'm doing something that is making me feel very, very good."

"I can't imagine what you're talking about."

"And I'm imagining that it's a part of you that's rammed up real far inside that is making me feel wonderful. I miss you. I know you have a job. But I miss you and wish you were here."

"I'm going to have to hang up in just a moment, Miss. I'm afraid this conversation is going in a direction that will lead to me being very unproductive today, and I do have business to take care of."

"Very well, Mr. Maitland. I'll let you get back to business, but I want you to know what I'm doing and what I'm thinking about and to remember that you have very, very important business to take care of tonight."

"Trust me, I won't forget."

After I'd hung up I felt a little twinge in a part of my anatomy that I was sure was going to be out of action at least until tonight. Jesus, the woman was like walking Viagra. But I forced my attention back to business. 

The first order of business was to make plans to be in court next week to ask the court to give Judy Johansen, The Killer Granny, the death penalty. I'd managed to convict her of first degree murder a few days before, but there was still a long way to go to get the judge to hand down a death penalty. 

The penalty phase was where Lew Walters would pull out all the stops, using family, friends, the sobbing defendant, to convince the judge that the 67-year-old grandmother should not be strapped down a prison gurney while poison was pumped into her veins to stop her heart. It was up to the judge, and I honestly, despite my nickname of Angel of Death, didn't have any great urge to see her put to death.

Living out the balance of her life in a prison jump suit, having to see her family in a prison visiting room with guards around, having to use her personal funds or family funds to buy cigarettes or other items from a prison canteen instead of vactioning on a beach in Bali would be enough of a punishment. 

I didn't need to see her die on that gurney. But on the following Wednesday Lew Walters and her family would be pulling out all the stops to see that she didn't get the death penalty. I could live with that. 

But I didn't want her to get five or ten years, be out earlier with good behavior, and get out with years ahead of her as a free woman. I didn't necessarily want her to be put to death, but I needed her to die in prison.




When We Were Married Ch. 05C



I made my plans to be in the courtroom next Wednesday to make sure things went the way I wanted them to. After that I started working on other cases. 

One of the ones that bothered me the most was a guy named William Sutton. I was virtually certain he had beaten his pregnant soon-to-be ex-wife, and his unborn son, to death with a tire iron. But there was a too-great chance that he was going to walk away a rich and free man as the result of his brutal crime.

Sutton was a 37-year-old stock advisor for a Ponte Vedra-based financial consulting firm with clients up and down the East Coast. The firm was fairly successful and so was Sutton, but he hadn't come from money and all he had to his name was a fairly middle-class income.

But he'd lucked into finding a marrying a pretty registered nurse named Sheila Conroy and they both thought she was as lower/upper-middle class as he. She was a pretty blonde with an infectious smile and a nice shape including, from pictures, a world-class ass. 

They apparently had loved each other. At least from the smiles on the pictures taken in the first few years of their marriage it appeared so. 

And Sutton wasn't hard on the eyes. 6-2, brown hair, fairly well built. But I'd seen the pictures when I was reviewing the case and there was something about his eyes that caught my attention from the first moment I saw him. And what we'd learned about him in our investigations bore out that impression.

William Sutton was, to put it succinctly, an asshole. He was the kind of guy that blamed all his losses on someone else, all his triumphs on his overwhelming abilities. He was the kind of guy who made it his mission to make his co-workers look bad, and reveled in screwing a competitor.

He was the kind of guy that never forget a slight or a hurt anyone did him. He was smart enough to play nice until he was in a position to stab you in the back, and he never missed an opportunity. But he did it in such a way that it couldn't be traced back to him. Sneaky, vindictive, determined...that was William Sutton.

He was also the kind of guy, we deduced from numerous interrogations, that loved woman....a lot of them...before and after marriage. He was good looking and smooth and didn't have any conscience at all so he fucked a lot of them. 

And naturally enough, while doing so, he became insanely jealous of his pretty -- as far as we could tell, faithful -- wife and made her life a living hell following her and checking her phone messages and questioning her every move for two years.

Until she finally snapped, they had a violent fight, she wound up in the hospital and he wound up accused of assault. Sutton's widowed mother had put up the money for a decent attorney and the attorney muddied up the water enough that it was dropped to a misdemeanor. 

They split and it was then that they both made the discovery that Sheila's estranged father, who had walked out on her and her family when she was a year old, had become a very wealthy man. He had no family of his own when a stroke got him at age 55 and left Sheila and her two sibilings a $15 million estate which would be divided equally.

So Sutton was facing a divorce and the loss of at least half of $5 million. Which did not make Sutton happy. He was a man with a hot temper and a lot of character flaws and I think he really believed his pretty wife had been running around on him. 

He and Sheila split and he went lived in an apartment on the Southside for several months before moving back in with his mother in her home in a subdivision of Ocala, a famous racehorse raising community about a hundred miles south of Jacksonville off I-75.

And then one night in March Sheila had gotten off a shift at St. Vincent's in downtown Jacksonville after telling friends that she'd gotten a call from William Sutton asking for one last chance to meet and talk. And Sutton had been, as everyone who knew him told us, one charming son of a bitch. 

She said she wasn't sure she would meet with him, but after five years of marriage, and carrying his son, she felt he deserved a last chance to talk with her.

She wasn't due back until two days later on her next shift and although some of her friends tried to call her the next day, they weren't too alarmed when they couldn't reach her. Anything could have happened and ex-wives having a last fling with ex-husbands wasn't the most unusual thing in the world.

They became alarmed when she didn't show up for her shift and checked her apartment. They couldn't find her and police in Jacksonville contacted Ocala police. 

They found Sutton playing golf on a local range and were told he hadn't been out of Ocala in a week. His mother backed his alibi. A few neighbors reported seeing his car when they went to sleep that night and still in front of his house when they woke up a 6 a.m. the next morning.

Two weeks after the night she disappeared, a body was found in the dunes off Regency in Jacksonville heading toward the Beaches. It had been beaten so badly and the animals had already done enough damage that it was only by dental records and then one finger remaining on the body that gave a good print that Sheila and her unborn child had been identified.

It was hard to tell, but forensics told us that somebody had used a hard object, like a tire iron for example, to beat her head in, to smash her ribs and arms and legs and it looked like all of her teeth out, probably before she died. There wasn't much of the fetus left, but it looked as if her attacker had taken the tire iron to it too.

We had brought Sutton in for questioning a dozen times. We'd interviewed his neighbors, Sheila's friends and co-workers, Sutton's mother and assorted girlfriends. 

And what we were left with was the certainty that he had driven from his home in Ocala at night after his mostly elderly neighbors turned in, met with his soon-to-be ex, overpowered her, taken her into the deserted dunes, and beaten her and his unborn son to death.

But we couldn't prove it. There was no physical evidence. No one had seen the two of them together. No one could swear that he had even left his mother's home. 

He could have reached Jacksonville in a couple of hours on the Interstate, killed her, and gotten back in five or six hours tops. But we had no proof he'd done so.

And she was a rock, swearing very believably that she had been up and down with an upset stomach all night the night that Sheila was murdered. And she had spoken to and seen her son sleeping in his bed four or five times during the night. She said it was impossible that he had left her home.

For nearly seven months we had investigated, we had questioned, we had probed, we had interrogated Sutton a half dozen times here and there and couldn't develop a crack in his story. It was driving me crazy. 

I was picking up the phone to call Ned Colman, the homicide detective with the Marion County Sheriff's Office to check in with him when Cheryl buzzed me.

"Mr. Maitland, Detective Colman from Marion County is on the line."

"Colman, talk about great minds. I was picking up the phone to call you and see if anything new was shaking down there."

"Are you sitting down?"

"Oh, shit, don't tell me..."

"Billy Boy might be up shit creek without a paddle."

"Give."

"There's an old guy named Edgar Bell who lives about 200 yards down that dirt road from Sutton's mom. There are only five houses on that cul de sac and you know the other three residents are half dead with age and nobody was up that night. We couldn't reach Edgar because he has a habit of taking off from weeks or months at a time to visit relatives or just to RV around the country.

"He came back into town two days ago and called us this morning. I went out to talk to him and I think we have the son-of-a-bitch. Edgar left town the day after Sheila was murdered and didn't hear anything about it until he got back into town. He hates Sutton's mom because of some boundary dispute they've been squabbling about for years. And he hates Sutton.

"But he's clear as a bell. He was up at midnight the night Sheila was killed. He remembers very distinctly Sutton's MOTHER's car pulling down the road, slowly, with its LIGHTS OFF. He thought that was very weird. The old lady never goes anywhere at night.

"At 6 a.m. the next morning the sun was just rising, but it still wasn't full light. He had gotten up to catch the early morning news when he looked out his window and saw the old lady's car pulling back down the road and into her driveway. The lights were off and it was going slowly and quietly. 

"He says he was looking at the car when he saw Sutton get out, walk over to a burn barrel in their back yard and dump something that might have been clothes into it. Then he went inside his mother's home. Wilbur thought that was weird but didn't think much of it. 

"He left on a tour of the Canadian Rockies the next day and didn't know anything until he got back and heard all the news. He called my office five minutes later and I've got his entire statement."

"Damn. You believe him? He's not just some disgruntled angry neighbor trying to get back at the old lady?"

"He could be lying, but I doubt it. The story rings true. And he says he'll take a lie detector test. He could have been where he said he was and seen what he said he'd seen. I made it very clear to him that if we go ahead on his story, and prosecute Sutton on his testimony, and we find out he's lying, we'll nail his ass for perjury and he won't ever be going on any jaunts ever again."

I just sat there silently for a few minutes.

"Alright,you've got to get his testimony. Video tape it. I want a clear chain of evidence if he drops dead tomorrow. Something we can still introduce. Have him take a lie detector test.

"Then I want you to convince him to move out of his house and contact us so we can put him someplace up in Jacksonville at our expense where he can vacation. I'll assign security for him up here. If he balks, tell him I'll arrest him, hold him as a material witness and he can spend the next few months sitting in a comfortable jail cell instead of a condo somewhere.

"Then I want you to get your Sheriff to assign someone on a regular basis to keep an eye on Sutton. I don't want him leaving town without us knowing about it. And where he winds up. Tell him we'll help with funding if you need overtime."

"You think he'd go after Bell?"

"You think a guy who'd beat his own wife and son to death would hesitate to kill or arrange an accident for an old man trying to send him to the death chamber? Anyway, get him up here so I can interrogate him. If this works out, we have to decide whether to go ahead now while the old man is alive and healthy. Is he?

"He's alive. He's 79. Got a bad heart, diabetes, a pacemaker. I wouldn't place a large bet that he'll be around if Sutton doesn't go to trial for another year or so."

"Alright, we need to move on it."

After I'd thanked Colman again I tried to decide if it was worth rolling the dice. We still had no hard evidence. There had been no bloody clothes recovered after Sutton's house was searched, no other evidence of murder, no murder weapon. He or his mother's car hadn't been spotted in Jacksonville. 

We now had what would probably be a strong eye-witness to testify against him, but he had a mother to testify for him. Who would the jury believe? This was a much bigger crapshoot than the Killer Granny.

And I could never forget, we'd get only one bite of the apple. If I brought him to trial and he walked and we later got the goods on him, he'd be free forever. We could never try him again for the murder. And trying him for violating her civil rights only worked for the Feds.

But we had to at least get ready. I was on the phone for the next three hours and it was 2 p.m. before I came up for air and realized I was hungry. I was going to ask Susie to call in something when I changed my mind and decided I wanted to get out and stretch my legs. 

I walked across the street to a little sandwich shop that strangely enough served pretty good salads and I ordered one with broiled chicken. There was a day my stomach would have rebelled at the very idea of broiled chicken, but I had changed. I had changed.

I was sitting at a counter running along the plate glass window at the front when I realized someone was standing behind me.

I turned and looked into the eyes of a black cop standing there with his hand on his holster.

"Officer Smith. What can I do for you?"

He was about 5-foot-10, slender but muscular. He was one of those black guys so black his skin was almost blue. Good looking. Hair cropped short and tight to the skull. He had that typical cop stare. He was looking straight at me, but his eyes shifted almost constantly so that he was aware of everything going on around us.

"Could I talk to you for a minute, Maitland?"

"I think your sheriff would say that's Mr. Maitland."

"No one died and appointed you God. It's Mr. Edwards, but you're just an Assistant."

"No one ever gave you the lecture on how to make friends and influence people? How to deal with prosecutors"

"I deal with them fine, except when they're screwing me over."

"I see you're back in uniform. What's your beef?"

"I'm back in uniform, but that possible homicide charge is still hanging over my head. You've never come back with a finding on my case, just told the Sheriff the resolution was still waiting on a final decision. You gave me back my street job, but the cloud's still over my head. Those rednecks' family has filed a lawsuit for $ 1 million against me and I can't shut it down while you're holding the criminal case open."

He stepped closer and lower his voice so only I could hear him.

"Melanie left me. She couldn't deal with the pressure of never knowing if I was going to be charged. And her family said she was a nigger lover for hanging with the man that had killed her husband and two brothers. 

"She couldn't defend me, couldn't say I was defending myself because your office won't clear the case. And one day she just told me she couldn't take the pressure and the looks and walked out of me."

He leaned in closer and gave me a contemptuous look.

"Is that what it was, Maitland? You couldn't hold that whore of yours with your tiny dick so you get a kick out of costing me my woman?"

I leaned back and looked at his quiet, tense face.

"I would never accuse one of Jacksonville's finest of being stupid, but did you really think you were going to come in here, insult me, get me to swing on you or so something equally stupid that would get me tossed off your case? You figured another SA would yield to the pressure and just give you a clearance on a fatal triple shooting?"

"My woman didn't have to go off and suck another man's cock to get her jollies. She liked what I had, a lot more than that pencil-dicked husband of hers."

I just shrugged.

"I'm sorry your woman left you. I'm sorry three men are dead that didn't have to be dead. I'm sorry your career has been in limbo for more than a half year. I'm sorry you might wind up before a grand jury. I'm sorry you might close out a pretty good career enforcement behind bars yourself. 

"But, that's out of my hands. If I send this to a grand jury, it's up to a bunch of strangers how your life works out.

"But," I said, straightening up and staring into his eyes, "It's all on you, Shawn. You pulled out a department Glock and killed two men. One of them was your girlfriend's husband. Granted, they broke into your house, but they were pinheads from everything I've heard.

"You're a seven-year veteran cop. You've been in shooting incidents. You've won a couple of awards for heroism and public service. You weren't panicked. Most men would have been but I don't think you were. You could have shot one or two of them and let the other one go and likely you would have skated. 

"I don't think you were panicked, but with the Sheriff's Office and the NAACP backing you, I don't think I could have gotten any traction. There would have been a hearing in a couple of weeks or a month, you'd have been exonerated. You'd have had your career and your woman.

"But you couldn't let the last one go, could you? They had the nerve to enter your home, they tried to beat you up, they grabbed your woman, and knowing them to be the rednecks they were, I'm sure they called you a nigger.

"They pissed you off and you made the mistake of thinking because you were a cop you could get away with breaking the law.

"You killed the husband and brother and the other brother broke and ran. And you couldn't let him get away with it. You shot him in the back and when you looked around and couldn't find any weapons on them, you used a drop gun, one that couldn't be placed, and put it on the third brother. 

"You were too smart, Shawn. We checked and they didn't have guns. They didn't use guns. If they'd come after you with clubs, that would be believable. But not guns. And a weapon that can't be traced! We can't find prior ownership. No numbers. 

"Somehow they just wound up with the perfect untraceable weapon. 

"It stinks. It stinks to high heaven. All your bother officers know it. The Sheriff knows it. My boss knows it. Even the NAACP knows it. And the only reason we haven't rolled on you is that you're a decorated cop -- and you're black.

"But that's not enough Shawn. I'm tied up now, but in the next couple of weeks I'm going to let the Sheriff and my boss know I'm taking this to the grand jury. I'll leave it in their hands what to do with you. But you will go to the grand jury and nothing's going to keep you out of there."

His hand dropped to the butt of his Glock and I wondered for just a moment if he could possibly be stupid enough to do something in front of a whole room full of witnesses, including a few plaincothes cop detectives.

"You do that and it would be the worst mistake you ever made, Maitland. You're not so big that you can't be crushed by the people on my side, and the Sheriff. Edwards is a politician. When they put enough pressure on him, he'll step on you. 

"And no matter what happens, you son of a bitch, I won't forget this. I'm going to be watching you, and someday I'll get my turn. Wait and see."

He walked away, I finished my salad and turned to look at the detectives sitting toward the back of the sandwich shop. They found something irrestibly interesting to stare at where I wasn't. Didn't surprise me. Cops stick up for each other. Even the murdering assholes.

I had just walked back into my office when the phone rang.

"Hi, Dad."

"Hi, BJ. What's happening?"

"Look Dad, I know you said you didn't want to do anything for your birthday, but Kelly and Mom and I were talking. We would really like to take you out Saturday night for your birthday. Just a quiet dinner at a restaurant. A couple of hours. How about it?"

"BJ, I do thank you and your sister....and your mother...but I'm in the middle of two really big cases right now. You know how it is when I get a hot one. I don't have the time to see or talk to anyone. I promise you that in two weeks -- say Mid-September -- I'll make the arrangements and we'll do something nice."

"But you're going to be working until all hours Saturday night?"

"Probably, and if not, I'll be at my condo sleeping. Running like this is really taking it out of me. I'll probably just go to bed very early. I'd be rotten company. Come on, the birthday will be appreciated more in a couple of weeks when I come up for air. Please, do it that way for me, okay?"

"Okay, I'll pass it on to Kelly and Mom. But it's a promise that in two weeks -- no later -- we'll go out for your birthday. Right?"

"I promise."

It was past five thirty and I was in the middle of three phone calls when Susie buzzed me and I put everybody on hold.




When We Were Married Ch. 05C



"That lady is on the phone again."

"Oh....I'll take it. Aline, I'm sorry. I just realized it's almost 6 p.m. I never meant -- but shit. I said I wasn't going to say those words again. Give me 15 minutes to clear up and I'll be out of here. I'll meet you back at condo."

"It's okay, Bill. I know how it goes. You think that's the first time I've ever heard those words. I'm back at the condo. I went out looking around today. That will give me time to shower and get naked for you."

I tried. I honestly tried. But it was 7 p.m. before I managed to get out the door. And it was nearly 7:30 before I walked in the door. I could have called her on the condo phone, but I wanted to be looking into her eyes when I apologized. No one could be that stupid on a continuing basis.

She really was naked, a symphony in pink and red and black as I walked in the door. Five minutes later I was inside her. Fifteen minutes later I was lying next to her while we talked about where we'd go and eat. Thirty minutes later I opened my eyes and realized I was lying in bed and her head was nestled in my groin and I felt very good down there. 

"Oh, God Aline, I'm such a shit. I fell asleep on you. I really am a hundred years old. But you don't have-"

"Shut up," and she went back to sucking and licking. I wouldn't have thought I had it in me but in about five minutes I was bucking upward while she tried to stay with me. And she did. I lay back and debated sticking myself with an ink pen to keep my eyes open.

Then she was lying with her head nestled against my shoulder.

"You deserve so much better than me."

"You're no spring chicken," she said with a small giggle. "An old man needs his rest. And you were up very late last night and I kept you very busy."

I pulled her mouth up to mine and kissed her for a little while. 

"Not that old, I hope. You want to go out now? We can still grab a bite. Maybe hit a club. And then come back for...."

Her face was buried against me as she whispered, "You're not an old man. But you're human. I kept you up almost all night fucking me very hard. And then you got up and went for a workout. And if I know you, you've been busy every minute of this day on things that are life and death to a lot of people.

"And you're trying to meet those obligations and still be be a true lover to a woman who shows up with no warning on your doorstep. You are a very strong man. And you just fucked me -- as you Americans say, I think -- crosseyed and then I got you to come in my mouth one more time."

She literally climbed up me until we were eye to eye again.

"I'd rather be lying here next to you, listening to you breath, than eating in any restaurant and dancing in any club. You don't have to entertain me. I came here to be with you, not to be entertained. Understand."

"Understand. Yes ma'am."

"Now go to sleep. You need your rest. And I believe we've got a birthday to celebrate Saturday. I need you rested for that, because I intend to celebrate you straight into the ground on your birthday."

I don't remember anything else. Not until four a.m. by the alarm clock. I found myself awake and rolling over onto her naked body. Somehow I was hard and when I slid between her legs she was already wet and welcoming. She came awake slowly as I slid into and out of her warm, liquid center. I felt and smelled and tasted the femaleness of her body and skin, then held the globes of her ass in my hands as I pushed deeper and deeper into her.

I think she came, shuddering against me and I came without much force inside her. Then I slid down beside her and we both drifted off into sleep again. And I remember thinking that this was what I wanted.

It was married sex. Easy, undramatic sex. No dining and dancing and getting a woman drunk until you get got into that pussy and rammed it hard while the woman under you screamed. There was no conquest.

Just two bodies together naked and comfortable together, drifting into and out of sleep. How much more boring and middle aged could that be. But I realized it was what I needed. What I wanted. Before it had gotten bad, it was what I had had with Debbie. And I hadn't realized until this moment how badly I missed it.

And then I was asleep again.

##################################################

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 4 p.m

She came out of the dream gasping. Teller held her tight against him until the shivering stopped. He'd prepared her, but as he'd expected, he hadn't needed to empty her stomach this time. Although she heaved and gasped, she didn't spew any vomit.

"oh...oh.....oh...."

He laid her back against the couch and watched her as the tears streamed down her face. She gasped for air, caught her breath and closed her eyes tight, then opened them and wiped then tears off.

"Doctor."

"How are you feeling, Debbie?"

"I feel....terrible...disgusted....I can smell that bathroom...."

He sat watching her without speaking. He wanted to see what she brought back from the experience.

"I saw their faces. Clearly this time. The last time it was....foggy...or something. But I could pick them out of a lineup this time. I remembered them. Her hands curled into fists.

"The motherfucking bastards. If I could find them, I'd-"

"What else?"

I saw the bathroom more clearly. It had to be in a big restaurant or hotel. There were a half dozen stalls and four or five urinals. The floor had been clean, but then it there was....urine...piss... all over the floor....all over me."

He continued his silence.

"I tasted....piss....and....semen....cum......not the first time...cum I mean...."

She gave him an embarrassed little smile.

"I mean...doctor, most women know what cum...semen tastes like....guys love it when you swallow....so I knew that...but piss....God, I can't understand women that like that....my God..."

He leaned toward her and caught her gaze.

"Do you realize how this experience was different from the last time?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you remember how you were last time?"

"I -- what are you saying?"

"Think back to the last time. When you came back. What did you do?"

"I-"

She looked at him in surprise.

"I was vomiting...not as bad as the first time since you'd gotten me cleaned out, but I still have thrown up my lungs if I could."

"So you had a violent physical reaction to the memory of what happened/"

"Yeah, yes I did."

"And what else?"

She rubbed her face.

"I....I....guess,,,I'm not as upset as I was the last time...."

"Remember, you were panicked...this time you were upset when you first awoke, but....now you're calm again. Very quickly this time. Did you notice?"

'Yes...but.....why? The memory is even clearer now. It should be worse, shouldn't it?"

"Not necessarily. It was a nightmarish experience the first time and to a certain extent the second time. Nightmares act on a subconscious level. What you're afraid of isn't necessarily what you remember. Now you're remembering what happened more clearly, and it isn't affecting you as strongly."

She sat up on the couch, putting her feet under her and brushing her skirt which had risen up almost to her panties down with her hands.

"Why wouldn't it hit me as hard? It was so damned disgusting....so.....I told you that I like dominant men. I did....do....like men that take control of me...but not rape...not like that...."

"It was pretty bad even from an objective, male point of view...but..."

"But what?"

"There's a reason why it's losing its impact on you, Debbie. A reason you realize even as you can't get it clear in your mind.

"I don't....I'm not sure.....I.....I don't know why but I....do feel it...why doesn't it bother me as much?"

"Think about it."

She looked down at the Rorschach design on the coffee table and tried to get the memory clearer in her head. But while parts of it were crystal clear, it...didn't....feel right....

"I don't know, Doctor...it's just that....something....something doesn't feel right."

He took one of her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

"I know. Tell me what your assailants looked like."

"One of them was....dark haired....tall, maybe six foot one or two....slender....another was a few inches shorter, still taller than me...he was thinning on top....light brown hair...they were all wearing suits...not real fancy...dress, but business suits....the third one was blonde, heavy...a little chubby..."

"And how old did they appear?"

"I...uh....maybe in their late 20s...early 30s...not old..."

"They weren't teenagers?"

"No."

"Okay, tell me what you were doing before you went into the restroom with them?"

She tried to remember how they'd gotten her to go in there. She couldn't be a big enough slut to walk into a restroom on the spur of the moment with three strangers for a gangbang. It had to have been arranged. But the memory didn't come.

"Nothing? What happened after they left you covered in their urine and semen on that bathroom floor?"

Again, nothing would come to her. The memory started with her in the restroom and ended with her on the floor.

"I can't remember."

"I'm not surprised."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about this. Do you remember how they talked to you as they assaulted you, as you fellated them?"

She thought about it. She remembered the insults, the jeers.

"And there's nothing about that that struck you as odd?"

"Just that..."

He saw the realization strike her. She looked at him with surprise in her eyes.

"They weren't teenagers, were they? And yet they were calling you an old slut and expressing their disgust for you, to the point of refusing to rape you for fear of disease. Unless it occurred last week, you must have been in your mid to late 30s because it wasn't until that time that you said your marriage started to fall apart."

He looked her body up and down again and said, "I'm not flattering you to say that you are an attractive woman who doesn't look your age. And your description of the three men makes them look roughly your age. There's no reason they would be talking about you in those terms as an older woman, unless....."

"Unless I were an older woman."

He smiled.

"And since you are not an older woman, that means that...."

She shook her head, unable to grasp what she'd just said.

"How could the memory not be real? It felt so real. It was just a....dream...a nightmare?"

"It was a memory....but not one...."

"I don't understand."

"Everyone, I think, has heard of people who can remember where they were when the Twin Towers were struck. Or when Pearl Harbor was hit. Or during the big football game that was the biggest event of their childhood. People that were nowhere near a television screen will remember seeing it in vivid detail years from now. And they'll swear under oath they actually did see it. And they'll believe they saw it.

"It's a false memory. A fake memory. It's built on other knowledge and...wanting...to have seen it."

"How could that be the case in this?"

"I'm not sure right now. But, everything fits. A true memory has broader scope and it...has more detail. Your detail is crysal clear, but sharply limited. You can't remember anything before or after...how it happened...the aftermath...Eventually or by this time 

some of those details would have been working their way into your conscious mind.

"But, at the same time, you have a clearer view of what happened, of the people involved, than anyone could have...if they weren't there when it happened. You couldn't have those events so clearly established if it was something you only heard about." 

She shook her head again.

"I still don't see. I was there, but I wasn't?"

"If I'm guessing right, you were there. You saw the assault, or its aftermath, but you weren't the victim. It had to be someone very close to you to have had the emotional impact that this incident had on you personally. And it had to be an older woman. Does anyone fit that profile?"

"Clarice...my Aunt Clarice."

"That was my thought. I think something happened to her and you were close by or involved in some way. I think that over time, especially after she died, the incident festered in your subconscious and eventually worked its way into your mind as a dreamlike memory."

They stared at each other. Debbie listened to the muted rhythm of the Grandfather clock and thought about her aunt.

"But there's something else, Debbie. Something that doesn't make sense right now."

"A lot of this doesn't' make sense, Doctor, but at least I'm not hurling and I don't feel sick to my stomach. What?"

"The repressed, transformed, memory, has been in your mind since before your aunt died -- committed suicide. What triggered it?"

It didn't take a moment.

"The divorce."

"That's what it seems like. It rumbled around inside your mind until your divorce was finalized, and then it came roaring back. So not only does your ex arouse feelings of rage and anger, but your final breakup brought a false memory of yourself being raped and abused to the forefront on your memory."

She put her head in her hands.

"That doesn't make sense, Doctor. Every bad thing I could ever think of to say about Bill, would never include involvement in something like that. Why would I associate the attack with him? With our divorce?"

He sat back and stretched.

'I don't know, Debbie. Like I said, that's what makes psychiatry fascinating. There has to be a link. We just haven't discovered it yet."

She looked up at him and he was surprised to find her smiling.

"What?"

"I just realized, doctor. I didn't.....I didn't cheat on him....the way I thought I had. I might have been a bad wife, but I wasn't a complete slut. I didn't think I'd ever be able to look him in the eye again. Now maybe I can."

######################################### 

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 4 p.m

I was waiting at the door to the Duval County Jail booking office as the cruiser pulled up into the parking lot behind the jail entrance. It was a Marion County Sheriff's Office cruiser. 

Colman stepped out of the passenger side and while the driver went to open the back door of the cruiser he walked over to me with a big smile.

Colman wasn't that much bigger than me, but his damned cowboy hat had to give him another eight inches in height. I'd never seen a man wearing a hat that big, but other than that, Colman was a pretty nice guy. I figured he must have a Napoleonic complex. He grinned as he took my hand in his and tried to shake it off.

"I'm glad you rolled the dice, Bill. I was starting to get a damned ulcer worrying that son of a bitch would get away with it."

The taller driver was helping a handcuffed, dark haired man dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt out of the back of the cruiser.

"We nabbed him mowing the grass," Colman said laughing. "He wanted to get changed but I said he needed to get used to a prison jump suit because that's what he'll be in for the rest of his life. 

"Talk about chewing nails. I was hoping he'd take a swing at me and I think he almost did. But at the last minute he remembered I was carrying a .345 magnum and he thought better of it."

Sutton was 6-foot-2, slender but broad in the chest and well muscled. He was probably 220 or 230. A bigger man than he looked at first glance; a big, strong man capable of doing a lot of damage with his bare hands or a metal bar.

It would have been nice if he'd lost control of that volcanic temper, but bastards like that never lost control when you wanted them to.

Colman's deputy walked him over to us. He looked down on me with that instinctive air of contempt big men have for men who are shorter. 

"Maitland. I see you finally developed some balls. It was the old fart's story that pushed you into filing charges, wasn't it?"

"Why do you assume it was Bell who dropped the dime on you? And what could he have possibly told us that would have convinced us to charge you?"

I thought he was too smart to fall for it, but if he indicated he knew anything about Bell watching him drive off and come back he'd be digging his grave with his own mouth.

But he was too smart.

"I don't have to be a genius. You screw me around for months, but you don't file charges so I can clear my name. You just leave me twisting in the wind. 

"And then the crazy old bastard that's hated my mother and me for 20 years comes back into town and a couple of days later this redneck prick puts cuffs on me. I guessed he's probably behind it."

"You'll get the whole story pretty soon, Mr. Sutton, but you sure you wouldn't like to confess? I think you'd sleep better if you got it off your conscience. It must be hard at night seeing the face of your wife after you finished working her over with that tire iron. 

"And they said you smashed her stomach in so badly that you probably saw part of your son's ripped apart body. He was your son, you miserable son of a bitch. Even if you hated your wife, how could you do that to your own blood?"

He just looked at me like you'd look at a bug on a windshield.

"It might bother me a little if I'd done it. But I'm an innocent man. I didn't touch that miserable whore that was screwing around on me behind my back for years. And I didn't touch her bastard. God knows who his father was, but it wasn't me. I hadn't dipped my dick into that diseased cunt for months before she got pregnant."

"That's strange," I said, staring into those dark, bottomless eyes. "I never made it public because I wanted to save it for the jury, but we were able to run a DNA analysis on the embryo's remains and we got your DNA with a court order. The baby boy you dismembered was William Sutton Jr."

He just kept staring at me with no change of expression.

"He was your son, Sutton. He probably would have had your eyes, your features. No matter how terrible a slut your ex might have been, he would have been yours. 

"Did you really think she might have gotten pregnant by another man? All we've been able to discover indicates she never cheated on you. There's nothing to indicate it. Does your mother know you murdered her grandson?"

"I didn't murder anyone," he said, and smiled at me. "You think you've got supernatural powers or something, Maitland? You taking your press clippings seriously? All that Angel of Death bullshit? You're just a cheap little lawyer...a cheap little lawyer whose wife I'm going to fuck someday after I beat this charge."

He looked down at me and grinned.

"Yeah, everybody knows your story, Maitland. Pitiful little punk. Couldn't keep your pussy happy at home so she went and found someone younger. I should have some sympathy because I was married to the same kind of bitch. But I don't. I will walk. There's no way in hell you're ever going to convict me with no evidence.

"You don't have prints. You don't have blood evidence. You don't have a weapon. You don't have anyone who even saw me with the bitch the night someone did the world a favor and beat her brains in. You don't have anyone who ever heard me talking to her that night, despite her lying bitch friends.

"I'm glad you let the old bastard convince you to go for it. I don't want this hanging over my head for months or years. Now I can beat this shit and start my life over - $5 million richer. There's no way her fucking brother and sister can keep me from getting it. We were still legally married when some good samaritan did me the big favor of sending her to hell."

He stepped closer to me and I sensed Colman putting his hand on his Magnum but I waved him off.

"In a few months or a year I'm going to be rich, and free. And you better fucking believe I'm going to spend a chunk of that meeting and wining and dining your bitch ex-wife. And after I spread her legs and fuck her pussy and ass until you could run a two-by-four up here, I'll send you a video and polaroids to pass the time late at night."




When We Were Married Ch. 05D



I'LL BE ALRIGHT...'TIL THE HURTING STARTS

(Author's note: Another long gap and as always I apologize to readers who've emailed me asking for more of the WWWM saga. But I hope readers like this one. And as I mentioned at the end and I'll repeat here, this is not the end of the story. There are a number of chapters remaining. Which I'll post as I can finish them. If there's any confusion, all I can suggest is going back to earlier chapters to refresh your memory on who's who and what's what. As I've said too many times, this is a novel, and a long one, and there are a lot of characters and a lot of interwoven stories.)

*

My name is William Maitland. I am, as of today, 42 years old. I have been divorced for nearly 2 months from Debbie, my wife of 18 years and companion of 20, who tore my heart out and cut my balls off when she left me for a 10-year younger stud five months ago

I have moved on, to the extent of starting a hopeless relationship with a beautiful French woman I can never have a future with because she is married to a man who was my friend, and she has a young son she will never leave.

After being ambushed by my entire family at my new downtown Jacksonville condo and having to introduce my friend, Aline to my kids, ex-wife, mother and stepfather and ex-mother and father, my ex's beautiful sister and her two small children, we are all getting ready to go out for a big family celebration of my 42nd birthday. 

I haven't told anyone and won't that Aline is a married woman who will be going back to her husband -- probably. She may have an open marriage, but it's not anything my family would understand or accept. 

And it doesn't matter. Our relationship is ours -- not my mother and stepfather's, and not my kids. I've done something very stupid and it will come back to bite me, but it's my decision.

The only person who isn't going out with us is Debbie. She and Aline had one of those female catfights conducted at a level that males can only realize SOMETHING is going on until somebody's head falls off. There wasn't any blood, but blows were taken and received. And Debbie retreated.

I don't know where she is or what she'll be doing while I'm enjoying the company of my family and Aline. I know she was hurt, at least her pride. 

I know she didn't think much of me as a man, and I hadn't given her much of a reason to look back on our last years in the bedroom with much affection. I know she pitied me, compared to her tall, strong young boyfriend with, she said, a much bigger dick than I wield.

And when she saw a naked Aline walking out of our bathroom to give herself to me, when she saw her slim, gorgeous body in a slinky black dress, it was as if I were giving her the finger, figuratively. She couldn't pity me anymore as the hopeless loser who wasn't worthy of her love or her body. 

I saw it in her eyes as she left my condo. I had hurt her. Why in the hell she would be hurt like that, I still don't understand. If you don't care for someone anymore, why should you care if they meet somebody else. 

Despite everything, I felt sorry for her. How people can shut off loving someone I've never understood. 

I could never live with her again. I could never share her bed again. We would never look in each other's eyes at the end of a long day and know without words what the other was thinking. 

But how do you tear memories and emotions and a life out of yourself and pretend it was never there? And our two children are a daily reminder that I can't remove what she was to me once upon a time.

But even loving her still, there was a part of me that enjoyed seeing the pain in her eyes. She had never once apologized for falling out of love with me and lusting for a younger man. She had never apologized for taking him into her bed before she even told me she wanted a divorce. 

She had said she was sorry she hurt me. But that's not the same thing. And even though it was low of me, I wanted her to know and feel what it was like to be replaced in someone's life. Of course, it wasn't the same. Because when she had dumped me I was desperately in love with her. Now, I was only hurting her pride. But I'd take that.

She needed to be hurt. If there was any cosmic justice, she needed to be hurting even a little bit like she had hurt me.

##################################

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2005 9:30 p.m.

She knocked on the door of the Shire apartments just off Atlantic Boulevard. They were set right along service road that ran alongside the Arlington Expressway. They were built in a faux-Medieval system with corner apartments looking like the rounded towers at the edge of a castle. 

He lived in one of the tower apartments. The fact that they were set at ground level instead of 50 feet in the air kind of defeated the image, but he had said he just liked the idea of living in an anachronism. She wondered if he had someone with him. Usually she would have called. But tonight it didn't matter. If he had somebody, he'd have to kick their ass out.

She knocked again, and a third time. His car was in the parking lot. He could have gone out with friends, but she was praying he hadn't. He had to be home.

The door opened and he stood there, dressed in slacks and a white t-shirt. He had a bottle of Bud in his left hand.

He was about to say something when she stepped across the threshhold, put her arms around his neck and pulled him down to plant her lips on his. After a few seconds his lips parted and she darted her tongue inside. She rubbed her breasts against his chest and pushed her groin into him. She felt the hardness between his legs started to grow and she made love to it with her own body.

After a minute he pushed her away gently and held her by the shoulders.

"I know this is a silly question, Deb, but why are you here?"

"Do I need to give you an instruction manual?"

He grinned.

"No, I think I know how to insert Part A into slot B and how it goes from there. But, I didn't know we had a date tonight. Did I do the unforgiveable and forget about a scheduled assignation?"

She kissed him gently this time, reaching up to brush his unruly hair away from his eyes.

"No. This is a spur of the moment booty call, as my kids would say. Do you think you could work me into your busy schedule? You have any women I need to run out of here?"

"No. No women hiding in any corners. Actually, I was working on a freelance magazine article. It's for Parade Magazine. It's due next Friday."

"And I interrupted your work? Do you suppose...."

She knelt and unzipped him. He was already hard and she pulled his Hanes down and was able to move the stiff column of hard male flesh enough to release it. She ran one hand up and down it, rubbing her thumb over the head and feeling the wet pre-cum that was already leaking.

She squeezed it hard enough to make him gasp, then lifted it to allow her tongue to run over his balls and ran her tongue up its lenth until she got to the tip, where she licked and stuck her tongue as far into his pee-hole as she could get it. Then she sucked it like a straw while she jerked. 

Finally she pulled her head back and look up at him.

"You taste so damned good, Clint. Is there any way, any way at all, that you would consider putting off your very important freelance article for a few hours? Would you let me jerk your big hard dick until you squirt all your hot white stuff all over my face and titties? And let me get you hard again and convince you to slam it all the way up inside my pussy until you make me scream?"

He took a deep breath and pulled her to her feet.

"Damn, if you weren't a college professor and a professional administrator, Deb, you would have made one hell of a saleswoman. Screw the article."

He swept her into his arms without straining too much and she mentally applauded him. She knew she wasn't a little girl and he wasn't a bodybuilder, but he hoisted her without showing much strain. For a writer, he was pretty buff.

On his bed, which she'd already become familiar with, he threw her down and with a few practiced moves, unbuttoned and slipped her blouse off, then pulled her skirt down. He looked at her naked vagina and grinned.

"Why do I have the impression that you came ready for action, little lady?"

"Why, whatever do you mean, Rhett Butler. Are you prepared to take advantage of little 'ole innocent me?"

He made the classic 'villain twirling his mustache' gesture and slipped his slacks off. His cock was standing straight, hard and proud. She felt herself beginning to get even wetter.

"Actually that was my plan, if you see anything you like."

"Umm....yes, actually I do. Would I lower myself in your estimation if I told you that I find mens' cocks beautiful. Yours very beautiful."

He sat down beside her and ran one finger lightly down the side of her thigh, his fingers running close to the opening of her femininity.

"Really? I mean, I know women like what we do with them. But I've never quite heard a woman call them beautiful."

She rolled toward him and closed her fingers lightly about him, moving it up and down so softly as if she were afraid of hurting him.

"They are beautiful, Clint. I ..you know...I was kind of wild when I was younger. I've seen and rubbed and sucked big one and littles one and thin ones and ones with a kind of kink. Circumcized and uncircumsized. I've watched pornos. Everybody watches pornos nowdays, you know. Even Bill....and I...we watched them sometimes to make it hotter for us.

"And a hard cock....God.....its strength. Men are hard and angular and women are soft and round. And the cock is where you're the hardest. It's like living rock, soft, pulsing. Those strong lines. I wish I were an artist sometimes. I'd specialize in beautiful strong, long, straight cocks."

He rolled toward her and slipped his fingers into her pussy and felt them sink in. She was so wet he went in with no effort; He lowered his mouth to one heavy breast and licked the pebbly aurealea. As he did she sucked her breath in. He already knew she was one of those women with a direct line from her breasts to her pussy. If you could suck her, she'd spread her legs and be ready.

But somehow, she managed to bring her hands up under his chin and she pushed him away. He looked at her in confusion.

"You can have me, Clint. All night. But first..."

"What? You want me to do a handstand, pound some nails into a board with my dick. Jesus, just tell me..."

She rolled toward him and he couldn't read her eyes. It had happened before. Even though he knew better, it was too easy to fall into the trap of thinking she was just a big tittied bimbo. But she was a lot more than that, and if she let you treat her like a fuck toy, it was because she wanted to be treated that way. 

"Tell me I'm beautiful."

He looked her, curious.

"What? Why?"

"Don't ask, Clint. Just tell me. Use words to make me wet. I know you can do it with your body. Make me believe that I'm beautiful, for a few hours anyway."

He knew then, but it wouldn't do any good to talk about it, now. 

He lifted himself up on an elbow and looked at the golden body lying next to him.

"Alright, Ms. Bascomb. I could with Biblical allusions from the Song of Solomon, but how about this. You are a walking wet dream. When you walked into my office that first day I took one look at you and knew that if I had to crawl across broken glass to get into that hot pussy, I'd do it.

"You are every horny teenage boy's dream of a blonde with huge tits and big nipples and a great ass. I can't see you in clothes without thinking of what you look like under those clothes. I want to stroke those huge soft breasts, to sink my fingers into them, to suck on like a baby on the teat.

"I want to spread your legs and dive in to that wet pussy that's gleaming at me. I can't be around you and not envision myself sinking all the way in. I think about the way those breasts look like when they're wrapped around my cock and I'm sliding it back and forth. 

"I can be sitting here sometimes, alone, and I think of you and the way you look naked on my bed and I can't help pulling my dick out and jerking until I come all over myself. I haven't done that in years. But you bring that out in me. 

"It's like the old joke about Marilyn Monroe. Some critic said she just appealed to 13 year-old boys and the rejoinder was, yes, but around her, every man is a 13-year-old boy."

He leaned over and placed his hand at the base of one large breast and pulled it up, running his fingers over the yielding flesh until he captured the nipple and tugged and pulled until she gasped.

"But it's not just sex, Debbie. Your smile lights up this room. If I knew I could never have you, that smile would make me want to be your champion. It's the lips and the eyes and those cheekbones. I want to be a hero for you, to be better than I am. I know that's what other men feel for you. It's the reason why guys fall all over themselves to do whatever you ask. 

"Even if they're old or young or fat and know they'll never in this lifetime have you. They want you to smile upon them.

"And I know that's what Bill felt like that night..."

She grabbed his hand, held it tight and raised herself up to catch his lips with her own. 

"No, don't mention his name, Clint. I don't want him here. He's not part of my-"

He shut her up and rolled onto her, sliding his cock deep inside her in one fluid motion so that she gasped into his mouth but couldn't make a sound.

His cock slammed in as far as it would go, so hard it bruised her, but she pushed herself up to him to take even more of him inside her. She wrapped her legs around him to keep him as deep as she could, only allowing him to pull back and then ram it home again.

He ran his lips down from hers nipping her neck and then fastened on her right nipple, sucking and then pulling it up with her teeth hard enough to make her wince. But it just made her wetter. He'd already discovered that she liked a little bit of pain. Sucking hard made her moan inside her throat and start to scratch his back.

She wanted him to hammer her hard, the way Doug had, the way---no no no and she pulled her mind from the past and concentrated on the feel of him inside her, the way he played her, using her breasts and lips and pussy and ass, kneading and stroking and pulling and hammering and driving any thought but the moment out of her mind.

And then she felt him speeding up and she exploded around him and still the hard ram inside her hammered and she came again and she felt him almost there and she scratched his back and screamed and felt him pouring into her one molten blast after another and she came again.

He fell backwards, and she felt his still hard cock sliding out of her and she felt empty.

She rolled onto her stomach and found his cock and licked it, then shimmied up the bed until her breasts were over his face. She smothered him and grinned as he licked and then sucked as much as he could of the left and then the right in his mouth.

"Does baby like that?" she said in a teasing tone. She lifted herself lightly and batted them across her face.

He sounded winded but, "God yes, just let me lay here and suck for a while till I get my strength back. I'm not 20 anymore."

She pulled her breasts out of his reach and then began to give him what Bill-fuck shit fuck why did he keep sticking himself back into her memories --what the bastard had called a titty rub. She slid the heavy melons that sometimes gave backaches but were worth it up and down his chest and over his arms and back up to where he could nip them with his teeth and then down around his groin.

She sucked him first and then enveloped him with her breasts, rubbing them up and down and using her hands to press them in and, not surprisingly, in a few minutes she felt the steel beginning to return and he started to rise again.

"Ohhhhhh...."

"You like that huh...you like having those big heavy titties loving your dick....don't lie I can tell.....let's see if you like this," and she captured him in her mouth, sucked, then let him go and caressed him again. She sucked and rubbed and massaged and in minutes he was thrusting up to meet her mouth.

Then she stopped and keep his quivering cock motionless a few inches away from her hot wet mouth and looked up at him to ask, "Do you want to fuck me again, Clint...or would you like to cum like this?"

He answered her by grabbing her head and pulling her mouth onto him and he hadn't thrust more than two or three times until he was squirting into her mouth. She continued to titty rub him until the squirting stopped. He didn't have much, but hell, like he'd said, he wasn't' 20 anymore.

She kept her head in his lap while she licked him clean and rolled it around her mouth before swallowing. As she'd told Teller, she knew the taste of a man's semen. As a young girl she'd hated it. It didn't taste like anything else she'd ever tasted. But, now...hell if you could learn to like oysters you could learn to like almost anything.

She waited until she thought she'd swallowed it all before moving up to lay her head against his chest. Most guys, no matter how nice they were trying to be, just didn't like tasting their own cum. They didn't mind licking pussy, but their own...probably some hangup about having homoerotic tendencies. She still didn't understand, but when a guy made her feel this good, why force him to do something that really turned him off.

They lay like that for awhile until they were both breathing normally and then Clint slid her off him and asked, "You want a beer? Wine? I got coffee and some Danish in the kitchen in case you worked up an appetite."

"Coffee would be good. No Danish. Got to watch the figure."

"Can I watch it for you?"

She pretended to slap at him. A few minutes later they were sitting up in his bed naked, drinking hot coffee carefully. Clint was demolishing two frosted slices of Cheese Danish.

They'd been talking about nothing in particular when Clint said, "So what did Bill do this time?"

"Don't Clint...don't go there."

"I keep telling you, it's alright Debbie. You were married until a few months ago. It takes a couple of years for most people to get their heads screwed on right. I was in love with my wife for five years after she died and she was a cheating lying bitch."

"Just like me...that's what you're thinking, isn't it," she said, turning away from him to put her coffee on the side table and thought maybe this was a mistake.

He was able to grab her shoulder before she got off the bed and pulled her back to him. She wouldn't face him but she didn't try to pull away.

"That's what you see yourself as, isn't it? Yeah, you made mistakes. But most of the time it takes two people to kill a marriage. Bill is a good guy, but from what you've said, he wasn't the best husband in the world. Even if it was 100 percent your fault, you two are done now. You've got a new job, you're seeing at least one nice guy and if Bill hasn't found somebody, he will.

"He's not that old, even if he thinks he is, he's a powerful man in an important job and he's started getting famous. Trust me, women willl be stalking him."

He was silent for a moment then put his hands on her shoulders.

"He has, hasn't he? That's why you came here tonight. I'm hurt. I thought you were lusting for my body. This was a revenge fuck. Even if he doesn't know about it, you're giving another man what used to be his."

"Her name is Aline....Aline for God's sake. Who's named Aline? And she's a fucking stewardess. Oh she works on a cruise ship, but it's the same damned thing. Coffee, tea or me. And in his case, she gave him HER."

Clint's voice was gentle.

"You had Doug. You've got me. And...I don't know...maybe other boyfriends. He's got one woman. Why does it bother you so much?"




When We Were Married Ch. 05D



"It's just you, Clint. No one night stands, no pulling some young stud lawyer's pants down and sucking him off, no zipless fucks. Just you. You believe me?"

"If you say so, Deb, I believe you. We're not married. You've got no reason to lie."

"I think...the gossip is...he's probably had other women. I'm not surprised. Since he started getting into shape, got that new look, I knew he'd find somebody. But why her?"

"What is so special about this Aline?"

"Because," and she took a deep breath to avoid screaming, "because she's beautiful and French and she's a fucking bone and standing next to her I felt like a 400 pound hippo. She doesn't have any tits, but what she's got looks good. Shit, I felt fat, and old next to her. And she LOOKS at me like I'm fat and old."

She turned to look at him.

"Women don't look at me that way, Clint. They're jealous, they're contemptuous because they think I'm a slut and a threat to steal their husbands or boyfriends, but not like....I didn't....I didn't....threaten her. She thought she was hotter than I am...and the bitch rubbed it in that she had Bill now. 

"She walked out in front of my whole familly, my parents, our children flat naked, rubbing her pussy. The only way she could have made it more obvious is if she'd thrown Bill down and started fucking him."

Clint shook his head.

"She walked out in front of your whole family naked?"

"Long story. They pretended it was an accident. But I know the bitch planned it. Not a fucking ounce of fat on her. Every guy in the room got hardons, I know it. And what could I say? Everybody knows about me and Doug. I had to swallow any comment I could have made about her being a cheating fucking slut tramp."

"Okay, I can see that would be...traumatic. But, still, you knew he was going to find somebody. He found a beautiful woman. He did it before. What's so different about this?"

She leaned into him and nestled her head against his neck and shoulder. He couldn't' see her eyes.

"I....this sounds crazy....I know it does. But....it was the WAY he looked at her."

"How?"

"I know that look, Clint. It was the way he looked at me. Even....even after things blew up, when he was hurting, I knew when he looked at me he still loved me. He was looking at her that way. And it drove me crazy."

He felt moisture on his neck and realized she was crying.

"What kind of terrible fucking monster am I? I didn't love him and I went to another man and I enjoyed the fact that the man I'd thrown away was still hung up on me and now when I can see that he cares for somebody else, it's killing me."

He held her until the tears stopped and then pushed her away. He wiped the tears away.

"You're a human being, Deb. You're a gorgeous, big breasted walking wet dream, but you're still just a human being. You did what you thought was right at the time. And now you're having second thoughts."

"No-"

"Yes, you're having second thoughts. I don't mean you're going to go back to him, but I told you before I thought you moved too fast. 

"You took up with another man before you straightened things out with Bill. You probably, in a perfect world, should have filed for divorce or got a separation, maybe went in for counseling. That way if it fell apart you could have had Doug or anybody else you wanted.

"And now....you've got issues. And it might be too late to do anything about them."

"Might be? MIGHT BE? Christ, no way will we get back together. I -- there are things I'm trying to get straight in my head, but he still makes me see red sometimes. And -- he would never be interested in me again. Don't ask. He just never will be. And anyway...how long did it take you to get over your cheating wife?"

She sat back and looked into his eyes and saw the answer to her question. 

"Oh yeah, she died 20 years ago and you never re-married. Have you even been serious about another woman? Talk about being hung up on somebody."

################### 

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2005 5 p.m.

We stopped at The Columbia on A1A south of St. Augustine. I've always loved their paella and found out that Aline loved it as well.

"I was raised in a little town near Marseilles," she told me. "Just the smell of paella de marisco gets my mouth watering."

"They serve a good seafood paella here. And I love their Sangria. I'll order a pitcher of the real stuff and a couple of glasses of virgin for me because I can't afford any tickets for drunk driving."

She leaned into me and said, "Are you trying to get me drunk?"

"Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea."

"Why? You're going to get lucky whether I'm drunk or sober."

"I love easy women."

"Don't get me started sailor, or I'll turn us around and take advantage of you in your car in this parking lot, Unless you can find a spot on the Beach."

I looked at her. She was dressed in a blue skirt and a gold v-necked top that showed the curves of her breasts but not much more. She was slender and casual and I wondered for the thousandth time how in the hell I'd wound up with her. It was only luck and chance that led me to Debbie's bed, and again it was only the wildest coincidence that led Aline to me.

I don't know if somebody up there likes me, or hates me with a passion.

We ate two plates of paella and it was as good as I remembered it. It had been a couple of years since I'd been here. As usual, Debbie had insisted on the paella with chicken and pork. For an intelligent woman, she was as traditional in her tastes and unwilling to experiment as any Southern mom whose tastes were limited to pork, chicken and mashed potatoes.

Or maybe our differing culinary tastes were just another indication of the chasm that had been growing between us that finally led to our divorce.

Aline polished off at least a half a pitcher of hard Sangria and was laughing and clinging to me as we walked out the door. It was nearly 9:30 p.m. and I figured we'd just head back to the condo and try to find at least one room we hadn't already christened. We'd done the bathroom, the tiny living room, the kitchen/dining room. Come to think of it, there wasn't anyplace else to christen. 

As we walked across the small parking lot to where my Escalade was parked, her cell phone began to trill the "Marseillaise", the French national anthem. We both stopped and looked at it at the same time. I didn't have to look at the number. She hadn't received a call since she'd gotten to Jacksonville. I didn't know of anyone, other than the obvious suspect, who would be calling her.

She gave me a look and punched the button to answer the call. At least she didn't turn away from me to talk to him.

There was a rapid stream of French that I could barely follow. All I knew was she had said "hello" in French. Philippe of course sounded the same in any language. There were questions and she responded in rapid French. There was a smile that broke my heart and more French. Then a pregnant pause and "Jacksonville" and "Bill Maitland."

The conversation proceeded for a little while and then she handed me the phone.

As she did so she mouthed the words, "He knows." I didn't know how much he knew, so I assumed he simply knew that Aline was vacationing in Jacksonville and I was showing her around. It had been stupid to assume he didn't keep some kind of eye on where and what his wife did. That was the way I'd play it.

"Hello, my friend."

"Hello, Philippe. How have you been?"

"You know how it goes," he said in almost perfectly unaccented English. "Evil never rests. Of course, the Angel of Death must be aware of the depths to which men can sink."

"I'm famous over there?"

He laughed, that deep rich chuckle that reminded me of the nights we had gone drinking and he had flirted with three or four women, at least a couple of whom I had no doubt he'd be fucking after he left me.

"You're famous everywhere, Bill. With the Internet, anything is possible. I've read of the 'Killer Granny' case. That was a bold stroke on your part. I would have bet against your winning. But, I thought when you were here with us that you are a man it's not safe to bet against."

"It's all PR Philippe. Just a matter of luck and timing. I'm the same guy I was when I was a grunt prosecutor hitting the dives with you and your Gendarme friends."

He laughed again.

"We had some good times. I am sorry our paths never crossed again."

"So am I, Philippe. I appreciated your sending me the followup. It took you a solid year, but you did nail those bastards. Too bad that the head man chose to shoot it out rather than face trial."

"It was actually rather fortunate. You and I both know it would have been hard to get a conviction. There were too many layers between him and the slavers. He saved the state a great amount by taking a bullet to the brain rather than wasting the time of many good men and women."

I had no doubt then and I had no doubt now that the rich man who profited off the sale and use of Muslim teenage girls hadn't put a bullet into his brain voluntarily. Philippe had never admitted in his file which he'd emailed me that he had had the man murdered, but he made it clear when you read between the lines. 

And I knew from hints that cops and thugs both dropped in Parisian dives that, like me, Philippe was owed favors by some of the worst of the worst, and I had the feeling that he had called in at least some of those favors over the years.

"When Aline decided to wait until I brought Andre back to Paris, I had assumed she would stay with the Bonne Chance or stay in Miami," he continued in a friendly voice. "But friends told me she had left the ship. Imagine my surprise when I learned she was staying in Jacksonville, the stomping grounds of my old American friend."

I didn't say anything.

"I haven't been keeping up on your activities,, but when I learned that Aline was in Jacksonville I thought of you and made some calls. I learned of your -- troubles. I was very sorry to hear about the end of your marriage. I remember the photo you showed me of your Debbie. A very beautiful woman."

I didn't say anything.

"I know that you loved her very much. It was evident in every conversation we had about your life in America. You remember that second night we went to that bar near the Seine? Lilly, the bartender, was taken with you. She was always strange for Americans. Must be the accent. She practically threw herself under you, but you never took the bait."

He laughed that laugh again.

"She was very upset with you when I talked to her later that morning. You hurt her feelings. I explained to her that you loved your wife and Americans take a different view of recreational sex than we French. You have a -- stricter -- view than most French."

"I was in a bad place when I met Aline, Philippe. If she didn't tell you, I was close to being suicidal. Debbie tore my heart and my balls out when she left me. My time on the Bonne Chance and Aline's friendship helped me take my life back. I can never express my gratitude to her. You are a luckier man than you know to have her in your life."

"I know I am, my friend. It never hurts to be reminded though. A married man sometimes forgets what he has, until he sees it through someone else's eyes. She is very fond of you, you know."

"I hope so."

"No, truly. When I asked her just now, she told me of how you had met on the Bonne Chance and that you had volunteered to show her around your city. She said you have been very gracious with your time, taking her to restaurants and seeing that she has not been bored. I would have expected no less of you, my friend, but I am grateful."

"It's been my pleasure, Philippe. I can honestly say I've enjoyed every minute I've spent with her. And since my divorce, I have the time to show her my home town."

"You have my thanks, Bill. When you're separated as much as we are by our professions, you can worry. It can be hard to keep a marriage alive. When she is with you, I can rest assured that she is safe. And that you would not do anything to jeopardize our friendship because you are not that kind of man."

"You know I consider you a friend, Philippe. And I would treat your marriage with the same honor and fidelity that I know you have shown it."

This time there was a long silence on his end of the line. Finally he said, "I am back in Paris now with our son, Bill. I am looking forward to Aline's return. I have missed her, in my life and in my bed. 

"I only hope that someday in the near future you can come visit us in Paris. You have never seen the two of us together. I don't know if we have a marriage to equal the one you had with your Debbie, but I would like to show you what our marriage is like, what we are like together."

"I hope you have a better marriage than Debbie and I had, and I hope yours lasts longer than ours."

"Can I speak to Aline again, Bill? I wish you good fortune if we do not speak again."

"And you also, Philippe. Here she is."

I handed the phone back to her

Her face was white in the moonlight as she brought the phone to her ear. I heard the whisper of voices in the darkness and then she said, "Andre..." 

Her face was lit with a smile as tears rolled down her face. Finally she said, "Je t'aimerai toujours, Andre."

The tears stopped as she spoke for a little while longer to Philippe and finally, "'Je T'aime. Au revoir."

As she clicked off the hand holding the phone dropped to her side. She looked across A1A toward the sound of the rolling surf and swayed. I stepped in behind her and put my arms around her. I could feel the silent sobs she fought to hold in. I didn't say anything because I didn't know what I could say.

We walked to the car in silence and drove home to my condo without saying a word to each other. In bed she grabbed me hard and burrowed her head into my chest, wetting my chest with her tears. We didn't have sex, merely held each other until her breathing slowed into the natural rhythm of sleep. I stared at the ceiling until dawn.

################## 

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2005 -- 3 p.m.

I walked into Sheriff Knight's office. Knight was a relatively tall, maybe 6 foot 1, sandy haired 50-ish cop who'd managed to stay trim and fit. He was a good looking guy except for a bad case of acne he must have gotten as a teenager that had left his face pocked.

In his case, it made him more of a regular guy type, which he had used in his campaign to succeed the Old Sheriff as everybody had called the guy who ran the department for 20 years prior. We'd always gotten along and I'd tried to stay on his good side. I didn't think I'd manage to do that today.

He got up from behind his desk and came around to shake my hand.

"Hi, Bill. I appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedule to come have a talk."

I smiled at him and said, "Why do I think there's a little barb stuck in there, Sheriff. Anyway, you know I'm never to busy to talk to the head law enforcement officer in this county."

He laughed and said, "I'd better roll my pants up beause the shit is getting really deep. And here I'd heard you weren't a diplomatic type."

I smiled at him and said, "Not a matter of being diplomatic. You're a very important man in this community. We don't get much done without your active cooperation. I'm always glad to meet with you or anybody in your department. We're both on the same side."

"Most of the time."

"I thought it was all of the time, Sheriff. What do you have in mind?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Bill. Shawn Smith."

"We both have the same objective there. We want to make sure that police officers obey the same laws and are judged by the same standards as any other person involved in an incident in which people lose their lives."

He leaned back against his desk.

"God, sometimes I think you attorneys are some alien breed that was dropped on the earth, because you are definitely not real people. How do you manage to say something that sounds so logical and is full of horseshit at the same time?"

"Not sure I follow you, Sheriff Knight."

"That sounds good, Bill. Police officers should be judged by the same standard as everyone else. Of course you and I know that's a crock of shit. Every cop is judged by a much higher standard than anyone not wearing a badge. My men have to make split second decisions involving life and death and then weeks or months later guys in suits that have never had a gun pointed at them decide if they made the right decision."

"That's why we pay police officers well and give them great retirements and look the other way at a lot of shit they do that would get someone not wearing a badge jail time."

I sat down in one of the chairs facing his desk and cross my legs and leaned back.

"Don't try to paint me as a cop hater, Sheriff. You've worked with me since you got into office. I've always backed your guys. You won't find a stronger backer of police than me in my office. Because I know how important your men are. It doesn't matter how good we are at putting away bad guys. Your guys have to catch them first and hopefully save innocent victims from assault or rape or murder at the same time.

"But...."

"Shawn Smith is a good man and an exemplary officer. He hasn't deserved to be hung out to dry all these months. He was allowed to come back to work, but without a clearance those vulture asshole attorneys representing the Roper families and children and trying to get his scalp.

"And everybody he works with knows he could still go down. Other officers are afraid to get too close to him for fear that it will be catching."

"Sheriff, I know he's a good cop. Unfortunately, he's a good cop who lost it and shot a man in the back and planted a gun on him to try to get away with murder. Or at least manslaughter."

Knight just shook his head and walked back behind his desk and stood there looking at me.

"You really believe that?"

"Yeah, unfortunately I do."

"Those guys could have picked up that gun from anywhere. It was in the seat of the truck where Artie Roper was headed when Smith shot him. Just because we can't prove that any of the three Ropers bought or got the gun doesn't prove they didn't place it there.

"You know as well as I that there's a river of cheap, untraceable guns flowing through this city, through any American city. The Ropers could have brought the gun."

"And Artie Roper walks with his two brothers armed with only clubs into the house of an armed cop and leaves the gun behind the cab of his truck? I know all three of them were pretty stupid. But you believe anybody is that stupid?"

"Don't ask me how stupid criminals are. I could keep you entertained for hours talking about the stupid crooks I've run into in 20 years in this job. They're not geniuses.

"Anyway, I'll agree that the Ropers weren't homicidal killers. I believe they intended to break into the house while Smith was asleep or groggy, get to him before he could grab a gun and beat the shit out of him. He was a black man sleeping with and stealing a white man's wife.

"I don't think they intended to shoot him in cold blood. But, I think the Ropers must have brought the gun along just in case. And when Smith fought back and started shooting, Artie lost his nerve and was running for the truck. 

"Smith followed him out. He had no way of knowing what the Ropers had out there. And I wouldn't expect him, after three men burst into his house in the middle of the night, to just stand there and let Artie get to this truck and maybe start shooting. 

"Cops aren't trained to let themselves be used as target practice by criminals. You honestly believe you're in danger, you shoot to kill. That's what I'd do. That old saying is true; better to be tried by 12 than carried to your grave by six."

"I understand where you're coming from, Sheriff. And you might be right. But I might be right. And I owe it to Art Roper and the taxpayers of this city not to sweep this under the rug. I'm going to take Smith and the shooting to the grand jury and let them hear the evidence and let them decide if there's enough to take him to trial. I'm not going to make the decision myself."




When We Were Married Ch. 05D



For the first time Knight let his anger show.

"Bullshit, Maitland. Bullshit . And you know it is. You are going to play that damned grand jury like a grand piano. A good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict Mother Teresa if you want her scalp. Grand jurors are sheep. So spare me that crap about grand jurors being independent evaluators. YOU want to bring Smith to trial, and before you're through he's going to be railroaded to Raiford."

"You're wrong, Sheriff."

"The worst part is that you know how this is going to end up. At best, he'll be in solitary for his own protection for the next five or ten years and if he gets out he'll be a broken man. 

"But he won't get out. Prisoners don't like cops. He won't make it. They'll either gang rape him, or gang rape him and then plant a sharpened screwdriver up his ass or in his eye. You take him to a jury, and you're killing him."

The more he spoke the louder he had gotten until he was almost shouting at the end. I kept my voice purposely calm and low key.

"I don't deny that if he's convicted, he'll have a rough road. But it's not an automatic death sentence. And Art Roper won't be getting any second chances. I happen to believe in jurors, Sheriff. They usually come out with the right decision. Not always, but most of the time. And I don't have super powers. They could just as easily acquit him, let him walk away."

He looked at me again and then shook his head.

"I told him he was a stupid bastard to brace you in that sandwich shop. He's sure that's why you're going to go after him. It was a stupid thing to bring your wife -- your ex-wife -- into it and he knows it. Everybody around the courthouse knows that's a sore subject. If I was you, and I lost a woman like that, I'd be walking around pissed all the time too.

"But insulting you and hitting you in a sore spot, is not reason enough to ruin a man's life. I'm asking you as one professional to another, one man to another, don't take out your anger on Shawn for something he had nothing to do with. He's not Doug Baker."

I stood up.

"Whether you or he believe it or not, his comments in the shop have nothing to do with my taking the case to the Grand Jury. Or at least, I'm not doing it because he got me angry. I've been putting this off for way too long, Sheriff. I haven't been doing him any favors by letting this drag out. We need to get closure on this. That's why I'm taking the case to the grand jury in about two weeks."

Knight just stared at me and his hands closed into fists.

"You son of a bitch. And I thought you were a good guy."

"I am."

"If you do this, Maitland, your name is going to be shit with every officer in this county. No more rounding your drunk ass up and seeing you get home. You step out of one line fucking time and I'll make sure you wind up behind bars. See how you like it when we toss you in with the animals and tell them who they're bunking with."

I shrugged and started walking toward the door.

"I guess I'll have to lead a perfect life then, Sheriff. It'll help knowing you're looking over my shoulder."

"I'm calling Edwards. You may think you're God, but you're just a goddamned flunky. He won't let you do this, not when he knows what's riding on it."

"Talk to him all you want. But if I was you, I'd tell Shawn to get the best criminal attorney he can find in the next couple of weeks. He'll need a good one."

As I walked out I thought that I probably wouldn't get my yearly Christmas bottle of expensive Scotch from the Sheriff this year. 

######################## 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2005 -- 11a.m.

Myra looked up at me curiously as I stopped at her desk. She wore a dress with a slight scoop neckline that would have been demure on most women. In her case it looked like a sack of volleyballs was rolling around trying to escape out through the top.

"I won't ask you what's going on, Bill. But, I don't know that I've ever seen him this angry."

The last was more of a question than a comment and I appreciated the delicacy of her probing.

"I'm afraid this is where the rubber meets the road, sweetheart."

Her look said it all. I couldn't really explain.

"When I come back out, Myra, I'll know if I still have a job here."

She looked stunned.

"Wha...t? Bill-Mr. Maitland. You're not...resigning...are you? This place wouldn't be the same without you."

"No. He'll have to make that decision."

I reached out and took one of her slim hands in mine.

"If things go south, and sour, really bad and it gets hectic and I don't have a chance to talk to you again..."

I looked into those green eyes and let my gaze wander down the hills and valleys of that incredible body that I had passed on for a woman that was almost certainly going to leave me.

"I want you to know, Myra, that it's been a pleasure working with you. You're smart and competent and entirely too nice for any woman with a face and body like yours. I never said it, but I have lusted for you every day for five years, whether I saw you or not, and if I hadn't been married and in love with my wife I would have hit on you every single day.

"And I know that God has a sense of humor because after lusting for you helplessly for five years, I'm finally free of that bitch I was married to and I find myself in love with somebody else. Life isn't fair."

She took her hand and ran her thumb gently up and down the inside of my palm. I was reminded of the old joke about how Martians make love. Her touch was hotter than most blow jobs.

"I know this is serious, Bill, because you talk like you're dying, like you'll never see me again. But..just remember..whatever happens...you may not be here, but I'll still be here. For when you finally are out of love with somebody else."

I squeezed her hand, said, "Wish me luck," and walked in to see which direction my life was likely to go in from this day forward.

Edwards was sitting back in his chair. Unlike most times, he didn't get up to shake my hand. He just stared at me. For most SAs summoned to his office, I imagine it would be an intimidating stare. But I had known him too long and we had a different relationship. And maybe I just didn't give a damn anymore.

"Good morning, Bill."

"I hope so."

"That's entirely up to you."

"No really, it's up to you. How about not dancing around this thing. What did you want to talk about."

"Okay, straight to it. Good. Knight is so fucking angry he's about to stroke out over the way you've been jerking Shawn Smith around."

"I'm sorry the Sheriff is upset. Is that all we had to talk about?"

"Bill, Knight is one of the most even tempered, easy-going guys you'll ever run into. And you know it. But he said he called you in the other day to get a handle on when you're going to give Smith a clearance on the shooting and you told him you were going to take Smith before the Grand Jury and try to prosecute him for murder."

"That's right. That's what I told him."

"And when were you planning on letting me into your confidence about all this? I thought we had an understanding that eventually you were going to clear him, let him go back to his life and let this mess die down."

"Actually, Austin, we never had that understanding. I know that's what you wanted. You've hinted about it, but you never flat out said that I had to clear him. I thought you wanted me to treat this case like all the others and use my best judgment."

"I do. But I don't understand why you decided to crucify this guy. It's true I want him cleared. The Police Union and 99 percent of the county's cops want him cleared. The NAACP and at least two other black groups are ready to go on the warpath about another black man railroaded by white southern justice if he isn't turned loose."

He leaned forward and steepled his fingers in front of him. He reminded me of an ash blond Gregory Peck from "To Kill A Mockinbird." He had a high forehead, dark brown eyes, straight nose, strong chin. It doesn't hurt in today's media environment to be good looking, and Edwards was. 

His hair had turned almost white, but in a relatively unlined face it didn't make him look as old as he really was. It just made him look more distinguished, the way Governors and Senators and -- if you could dream that high -- Presidents ought to look.

His smile was his fortune though. He wasn't smiling now, but when he unleashed that wattage, it made every person watching him on television or in a crowd he was addressing think that this was a good guy to go out for a couple of beers with, or women started fantasizing about what that still lean 6-foot-4 body looked like under the clothes. Whatever charisma, or 'it' was, he had it.

"You and I both know that if this blows up and he gets convicted and maybe dies in prison, the blacks will never forget or forgive me, and every cop and Highway Patrolman in the state will do their best to screw me over. This will still be hot and fresh in everybody's mind next Fall when the Governor's race rolls around.

"I'm running -- or will be running -- as a conservative, law and order candicate, but I've always good relations with the blacks and Hispanics. It's a perfect combo. 

"But how can I do that next year if every major black organization in the state is calling me a corrupt racist and cops are saying I hate police and want to punish a cop for protecting himself and his -- fiancee -- from home invaders. 

"The cops are going to kill me with the average white law and order voter, and the blacks are going to kill me with every minority. What the hell does that leave me with as a voter base? 

"And I ask myself, why have I been busting my ass for the last ten years hustling money for Republican candidates, making myself sick choking down overcooked chicken and steak at political functions, spending days and weeks away from my wife to earn political credits.

"What does it matter if the guy that I trusted to help push me over the line screws me royally right at end, just as I get to the finish line for the 2006 race."

He was really trying to be calm, but the anger was flooding out at the end of his comments.

I didn't say anything. Let him get it out.

"I thought we were friends, Bill, in addition to being co-workers and committed to the same thing, which is justice. We've talked enough, you know who I am. I've got an ego, you don't get into public life without one. But I really do think I can do some good in Tallahassee. 

"I'm honest, and I have ideas on how the state could be a better place to live in for everybody. The prison system is a horror and we're losing kids every day that could be saved. Our drug policy is medieval and because I am a law and order candidate, I can do things to make our drug policy sane that no liberal could ever get away with.

"I've got ideas on how to make our schools better, how to make the state cleaner without driving away business. I think I could do a lot, Bill, but I can't do anything if I can't get elected. And you're going to drive a stake through the heart of my election chances if you prosecute Smith."

We just looked at each other for a few seconds.

"I agree that you'd be a good governor, Austin. We've talked enough, and I know you're a good enough politician that you could do a lot of good in the Governor's mansion. But, what are you prepared to pay to do all that good?"

"I don't understand."

"Suppose I had somebody bring in Doug Baker, the fucker that stole my wife away from me and ruined my marriage and my life. And I had him kneel down in front of this desk and I put a .45 to his head and told you that if you let me blow his brains out, I'd move heaven and earth to get you into the Governor's chair. And only you and I would ever know that Doug Baker was the price you had to pay. Could you do it?"

"You're not making sense, Bill. What does that have to do with Shawn Smith?"

"You know that two of the men -- Alan and Arnold Roper - who broke into Smith's house while he was there with his fiancee, who happened to be married to Arnold Roper at the time, , were shot inside the house. 

"Smith could claim self defense for killing Alan and Arnold. But Art -- Arthur -- Roper, the other brother, was shot in the back trying to get to his truck. You and I both know Smith used a throw-down gun to shoot an unarmed man in the back."

"You 'think' he used a throw-down gun. You can't prove that."

"True, but I've got enough evidence to convince any jury that Art didn't use guns, he didn't have one before that day, and Art's brothers didn't use guns. They had a tire-iron, a baseball bat, and a billy club bought at a used police equipment online site. Nothing else that anyone knows about.

"I looked into Art's background. He was a high school dropout, been through dozens of temp jobs, usually getting fired. He had dozens of misdemeanor arrests, usually drunkness, getting into fights, dealing in stolen property. One felony involving an attempted robbery of a liquor store down on 8th Street where he was a lookout. He didn't carry.

"So, he was pretty much white trash, a loser. He'd never been married. But, he did have two illegitimate children, one an eight-year-old boy named Pete and a five-year-old daughter named Melanie, all by an old girlfriend named Lawanna Salyers. 

"She's been with about six men since Art. They've gotten back together and split a dozen times in the last ten years. He couldn't keep from hitting her when he drank and she couldn't keep her legs together around strange men when she drank.

"She told me when I interviewed her that she knew she'd never be able to make it for long with Art, but the one good thing about him was that he loved his kids. He couldn't always make child support, but he gave them every spare dollar he got. He saw them on their birthdays and Christmas. They named the boy Pete after Art's grandfather."

I looked at my boss and saw that he got it.

"Art Roper had as much right to life as Doug Baker, or you, or me. He should have gotten jail time or prison time for taking part in a home invasion. But he didn't try to kill Smith. He was running for his life when Smith executed him. 

"That's why I'm going to take Smith to the grand jury and let them decide if he should go to trial. There are questionable elements, but Art Roper deserves a grand jury hearing."

I stopped and looked around his office, at all the photos of Edwards and state and national politicians, the plaques and trophies. He wasn't just a figurehead. He was a good man. But even good men can be wrong.

"Art wasn't Doug Baker. But he was murdered. Are you prepared to let Art Roper be the price you pay to walk into the Governor's mansion? Can you live with that?"

Edwards just shook his head and dropped his eyes, then looked back up at me.

"Shawn Smith is a good cop, Bill. You checked him out and you know I'm right. He's received department commendations three times in 14 years on the force. He saved the life of an old man having a heart attack three years ago. He walked into that KFC armed robbery six years ago and killed both those bastards after they'd executed two workers and were getting ready to kill the other two.

"Even if I believe you, and he executed Arthur Roper, he had provocation. Three men break into his house in the middle of the night, start beating him, try to grab and take the woman in bed with him. He got to his gun and killed two men and saw a third running. He probably chased him on instinct and he had no way of knowing the guy wasn't going for a gun."

"At best for your case, at best, he had a lapse in judgment. He let anger and fear overcome police training and he did what almost anyone else would do. He shot the bastard."

"So if you're a good cop, or just a good guy, for enough years, you're allowed a free pass, good for one murder?"

He scratched his chin and said, "That Angel of Death crap is only PR, remember Bill? We're people, dealing with flesh and blood victims and criminals and sometimes we have to temper justice with mercy."

"What kind of mercy are you going to extend to Pete and Melanie? You going to bring their father back?"

He just shook his head.

"Don't do this, Bill. Don't be a hardass on this one. There's too much riding on it."

"Public trust is riding on this. You and I both know that the first thing that went through people's minds when they heard about this was, another cop shoots down three guys and will walk away from it. So Smith is a good cop. He's a hero cop. Last I heard, being a hero cop doesn't allow you to get away with murder."

I let the silence grow because I had the feeling we'd both said almost everything we could say until we cut right to the bone. But finally I had to say the words that might end a chapter in my life.

"I'm sorry, Austin, I really am. I tried to walk away from this. I've been a coward because I've been afraid it would come to this so I tried to delay things. I should have taken the case to the grand jury a couple weeks after the shooting. But I knew how explosive it was. And I guess I figured that I like this job too damned much to take a chance of losing it."

Edwards gave me a hard look. 

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm going to take it to the grand jury in two weeks. Let them look at it and let the cards fall where they may."

"No."

"No?"

"No, you're not going to take the case to the grand jury. You're going to issue a report clearing Smith of any wrong doing and listing it as a justified shooting by virtue of self defense in the course of a home invasion."

This time it was me shaking my head.

"Not going to happen."

He leaned forward over the desk.

"Bill, this is partly my fault. We made an agreement. I trusted your judgment. I always have. I've let you run the place. But I've always basically agreed with your decisions. Not this time. I know you think I've got personal reasons for this decision, but I think we just honestly disagree. I don't think it would be right to destroy a man's life for something you only 'think' he did.

"And, the agreement only stands as long I say it does. You are going to do what I asked you to do."

I stood up. He leaned back and his eyes opened a little wider.

"No, Austin, I'm not. I am going to the grand jury, as long as I'm the lead prosecutor."

"That's right. As long as you're the lead prosecutor. Reconsider."

"I wish I could. I've thought about this for months. And I can't."

He stood.

"If you're intent on doing this, I'll expect your resignation on my desk at the end of the day. You're not just out as lead prosecutor. You're out of this office and don't expect a job in any State Attorney's office in Florida. But as the Angel of Death, I'm sure you will land somewhere."

"No. I'm not resigning. You can fire me. But there is something you should consider before you do anything you can't take back."

"What?"

"Like you said, I'm the Angel of Death. There are people all over this country, not just in Jacksonville, that would be intrigued by a story about a prosecutor so blinded by ambition for higher political office that he was willing to let a killer cop skate on the cold blooded murder of the father of two to avoid antagonizing cops and the African American community."

I watched the ice descend over his eyes and a smile froze on his face.

"Are you threatening me? Me? You ungrateful son of a bitch. I gave you this office and let you play God for six years and this is how you repay me. Besides which, who do you think is going to even care about one case involving a cop that may or may not have broken the law?"

I smiled at him, and had to force myself. I didn't want to do this. I did like and respect the man. But on this one he was wrong.

"How many people care about what Bill Maitland thinks? Probably not that many, although I think it would interest the local media. But the Angel of Death? A lot of people. It would at least give my charges an audience. Remember, you wanted to push the Angel of Death PR angle. Well, live by PR and die by PR."




When We Were Married Ch. 05D



"No matter what, Bill, it's only one charge. It will be forgotten. No one will care by next year."

"You're a reader, Austin. I know you've read John D. McDonald, the Travis McGee writer. There's one...I think it's "A Flash of Green", although I might be wrong. You remember that one. It's about a guy who's a big big fish in a little pond and he thinks he can get away with anything. But an enemy manages to publicize a scandal he's involved in.

"The big fish walks away from the scandal, but he's going to be stuck in that little pond for the rest of his life. A line has been drawn around the Little Pond and as long as he stays in it, he'll be safe. But if he ever steps outside it, the scandal he's been tarred with will be brought up. He'll never win higher political office or move to a higher level in business. Because no one will want to have the scandal tar them.

"How does this apply to you, Austin? Well, there will be a well publicized scandal about you betraying the public good to curry favor with cops and miniorities in the archives of most major newspapers and organizations around the country. 

"When you go for governor next Fall, how many negative ads will be run quoting a prominent prosecutor about how you can't be trusted to protect the public good?"

He was leaning forward on his desk and I noticed the knuckles were turning white as he pressed down.

"Doesn't matter if the charges prove out or not. All a lot of long suffering white voters will see is another politician currying favor with blacks and minorities, and a lot of minorities who don't trust cops will just see another politician who lets cops go around killing people and getting away with it. 

"You run for Governor and you're going to get screwed from both ends. It's hard enough to win any elective office without those kind of lead weights around you. 

"You fire me and I go public, you might as well learn to love being the State Attorney here, or maybe run for Mayor. Because you're never going to rise any higher, and all those dreams you had of doing good for the state can be put into a drawer somewhere."

Finally he eased his grip on his desk and sat back down. Taking a deep breath, he said, "That French woman you're banging has one hell of a body."

I know my mouth dropped open.

"That change of subject just gave me whiplash. Where did that come from?"

"Just a comment, Bill. I had no idea when I called the Captain of the Bonne Chance and asked him to give you a babysitter that you'd wind up banging her. And not only that, but that she would follow you home. You think her husband knows what she's up to?"

"Austin, I knew you could be cold blooded when you wanted to be, but you honestly think that threatening the marriage of a woman I'm seeing is going to make me back off?"

He shrugged.

"Of course not, unless you care about her and her marriage. Of course if you did, you wouldn't be banging her, would you?"

"Is there any point to this conversation? And how do you even know about her? Do you spy on all your employees?"

"No, only the ones that are important. Actually, Harry, you know him, he's one of our investigators, was having an anniversary supper at the restaurant where you and your family showed up last weekend. He recognized you, and, naturally, knowing about your divorce, he spotted the good looking brunette sitting with you. He took a picture. It's second nature with him.

"Well, since you've already had one breakdown and you're vital to this office, I had her checked out. We employ a lot of investigators, you know. And I talked to the Captain of the Bonne Chance. 

"So I know what happened on the Bonne Chance between you and Aline des-Jardins. I know she's currently married, with one son. And I know her husband knows you from that investigation four years ago in Paris.

"That one kind of surprised me. You're the guy who does the right thing, and you got a married woman to cheat on a man who took you under his wing and was your friend. You seduced a friend's wife. Somehow, after that experience with Doug Baker, I wouldn't have expected that of you."

I should have just walked away, but I was curious to see where he was going.

"That's a fucking low blow, Austin, and you know it."

"About as low as what you've done to Philippe Archambault."

"I repeat, what is the point?"

He smiled. Despite his nice guy image, he could be a bastard when he wanted to be. He wanted to be now.

"You know she's never going to stay with you, don't you?"

"So now you not only snoop, but you tell the future?"

"She's been married for ten years. She's had a few shipboard flings, but she always goes back to Philippe. She has a son to tie her to him. If they split she knows she'll never get her son. Philippe is too high in the French government. He'll get the boy. And so when her two weeks here is up, she's gone. No matter what she tells you."

I already knew that, but it sounded different coming from him.

"Again, so? What do you care about my love life?"

He pointed to a photograph in a frame on his wall. It had been taken at a party the year after I was appointed lead prosecutor. He was there with his wife, the three other Chief Assistants and their wives and at the end myself and...

I looked away from it, determined I wouldn't let him read anything in my eyes or on my face about how the photo hit me.

"Aline is a passing fancy. You're still in love with your ex. I saw it just then. Anybody that's around you when she's anywhere close can see it. You can lie through your teeth, but why bother. You can bang all the women you want around the courthouse, but there's a hole in you and you've never going to fill it with anybody but her."

"You're so full of shit, but again, what does this have to do with me and Shawn Smith?"

"If you let Shawn Smith slide, I'll run for Governor next year and get it. Even if I don't get it, I'll step down and I can arrange it so you're appointed to follow me. That gives you four years to prepare for another run. With a four-year track record, my backing and that 'Angel of Death' reputation you can probably have the job as long as you want it."

"And....?"

"This job takes time, but not like yours. You'll politic and handle a few cases, but this is only a 9-5, maybe a 9-6 Monday through Friday job. Being a prosecutor cost you your marriage. Being the boss will let you take back your life."

"I don't have a life, as you well know if you're keeping tabs on me that closely."

"You could, Bill. Your ex is seeing another instructor at UNF, a writer type named Clint Abbott. Seems like a decent guy but they're just friends with benefits according to all we can tell. 

"In the meantime, she's buzzing around the courthouse in her new job and, according to some of our female staff, she manages to find reasons to come up to this floor many more times than she needs to. Almost as if she was trying to see, or be seen, by somebody."

"If this was a Harlequin romance, I'd say you might have something. But there is nothing left between us, never will be."

"You're not the man you were six or seven months ago. And whatever she did is in the past. If you wanted her back, I'm betting you could get her."

He turned the photo that sat on his desk next to his phone around so I could see it. It was a photo of himself, his wife in a low cut black gown and their two daughters since married and mothers in their own right.

"Greta and I have been married for 30 years next February. It was the best thing I ever did. I was pretty wild in my younger days, but I've never regretted marrying. I'm proud of what I've done in public life. I'm proud of the job I've done here, not least of which was picking you. But there's nothing in my life that matters as much as she does.

"I know you love this job. I know you've made sacrifices for it. But you can't take the damned job to bed with you at night. You can't hold the fucking job in your arms when life kicks you in the teeth and you need human contact. Aline won't be in your life. You can't fill it with temporary stand-ins."

He turned the photo back toward him.

"You're not just giving up this job if you go forward with the grand jury on Shawn Smith. You're giving up any hope of ever putting your life back together, of winning Debbie back."

I was determined that the puppet master wouldn't know that he had just kicked me in the guts with his words.

"We playing a scene from Faust now, Boss? You're Mephistopheles offering to grant me my fondest wish if I'll only surrender my soul?"

"Just think about it, Bill. You said you won't do anything for a couple of weeks. I gather you're waiting to see what happens with Aline. All I ask if that you think about what we've talked about before you make a final decision. You've waited this long. Give it a couple of weeks."

"I won't change my mind."

"I'm hoping you will."

####################### 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2005 -- 2 p.m.

Judge Leonard Pizaro looked first at Lew Walters and then at me.

"You gentlemen ready to proceed?"

Judy Johansen sat in an orange jail jumpsuit at Walters' side. He had railed and pissed and moaned about the prejudicial impact of his client having to wear prison garb. When Pizaro mentioned that there was no jury to prejudice and that it was he, Pizaro, who had ordered her to wear the jumpsuit, all Lew could do was grin and throw his hands up.

"I had to try, your honor," he said.

Pizaro smiled back. A long, long, long time ago, I knew that he had been a legal hotshot. He had a grudging admiration for Lew's showboating he'd done his best to hide during the trial.

' "I understand your concerns, Mr. Walters, but Ms. Johansen has been convicted of premeditated first degree murder. There is no bail because with the money she has at her disposal she would be too great a flight risk. That means she has to be housed in the Duval County Jail and there is no rationale for allowing her to possess different clothing. Do you disagree?"

"No sir, your honor."

"Are you ready to proceed with your arguments and witnesses?"

"Yes, your honor," he said humbly. 

As he turned to speak to his client I mouthed "asskisser" and grinned at him.

When he just gave me a weak smile and bent over to talk to Judy I got a bad feeling. It wasn't like him not to give me shit about something like that. I'd talk with him after we finished.

Jessica Stephens had come up from behind me with a file I'd requested thirty minutes before. It wasn't like her to be late to hearings. Strange things.

"Is everything alright, Jessica?" I asked, looking at her curiously. She swept a few strands of her hair back. I noted that a button at the top of her blouse was unbuttoned. And she was wearing hose, but one leg showed a flesh of flesh at the top. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing.

"Jessica?" I said. She caught my eye and I slowly looked up and down. She noticed the unbuttoned button as my gaze dropped she looked down and spotted the errant pantyhose. Her face turned an attractive shade of crimson.

"Anything we need to talk about?"

She looked up toward the front row of seats behind the defense. It was the reporters' row. I spotted the dark hair and barrel chest of TU reporter Carl Cameron. He was smiling at Jessica, the kind of goofy, loopy expression a man has after really good sex. I glanced at him, then back at Jessica.

"Where?"

She blushed deeper, if that was possible. 

"The bailiff's room behind Judge Pizaro's chambers."

I broke into a smile.

"You slut, you."

She held her left hand out. There was a diamond ring on the second finger. A respectable diamond in a white gold setting.

"Carl?"

She nodded.

"When?"

"We got married Sunday. No time for a honeymoon so we're..."

"Doing it everywhere you can. Well, congratulations, Jessica. You let him make an honest woman out of you. I'm happy for both of you."

'It took me a long time, but I finally realized that I didn't want to live without him. No matter what it cost me."

I knew what it had cost her.

"You did the right thing, Jessica. Being married is a good thing. And if anybody catches you, at least you've got a marriage license."

"Mr. Maitland?"

Pizarro's voice cut through our conversation and I looked up to see one of Judy's sons approaching the witness stand.

"Sorry, your honor."

We sat down and I heard Judy's two sons talk about what a loving mother she had been and a good wife to her first husband. I heard them tell Pizaro what a son of a bitch Clark Carroll, the husband she had murdered by messing around with his heart medicine, had been to their mother. 

Of course, it had been mental abuse, simply because there weren't any confirmed medical records of physical abuse and she had never complained of it during their marriage.

Judy followed and told the judge how she has fallen in love with a forceful millionair and been swept off her feet by him. But, she said, after they'd married he had changed, at least in part because his children hated her and wanted to keep her from inheriting any of his fortune.

He had been insanely jealous and bitter because he was unable to function sexually and made her life a living hell. But he had been clever and kept his torments hidden from the outside world.

She smiled at the judge, a sad smile, as she said, "I'm not proud of what I did, your honor. I cheated on Clark. But I'm not dead yet. I'm a woman with a woman's urges. I wanted to be with Carroll, but it wasn't just that he couldn't physically satisfy me. He was so bitter, so jealous while I was still faithful to him, that we couldn't even cuddle, couldn't do the non-sexual things a loving couple can enjoy.

"I turned to another man because I was lonely. I needed a man's touch. I'm sorry, but I did.:

Then she stared at me, a stare that should have turned water to ice.

"But I did not kill my husband deliberately. Mr. Maitland was able to fool the jury into believing that a mistake was murder. But I didn't mean to kill him. He made my life a living hell at th end, but I never wanted him dead. I knew he was in pain and he knew I was cheating on him. I was hurting him and I felt guilty about that. But as God is my judge, I did not kill him purposefully."

Lew had done a good job of preparing her. She actually sounded believable and if she had been testifying before a jury, I might have worried. But she was testifying before a man who had been hearing such statements for 30 years. And he had long ago learned to distinguish truth from bullshit.

When Pizaro called on me I stood up and walked toward Lew's table.

"Ms. Johansen did a very good job in her testimony. I congratulate Mr. Walters on his preparation. I'm not going to introduce any witnesses and my comments will be short and, I hope, to the point."

I turned away from Judy and Lew and walked to the center of the courtroom facing Pizaro.

"Your honor, the jury, the triers of fact, have determined that Ms. Johansen with premeditation deliberately gave her husband medication that she knew would kill him. They convicted her of first degree murder. Therefore, her denial of her role in his death simply is of no consequence. It's moot. The jury said otherwise.

"Ms. Johansen herself admitted on the witness stand that she had ample motive to kill her husband. She took a lover, who testified that she told him she was going to kill Clark Carroll. Even if you believe Ms. Johansen about Mr. Caroll's alleged abuse, that merely strengthens the argument that she had reason to kill him.

"And finally, it is clear that Ms. Johansen could have easily escaped Mr. Carroll's abusive ways, simply by divorcing him. But, if she had done that, she would not have been in line to inherit his millions. Thus she had another reason to murder him."

I looked back at Judy. She had tried so hard. And it was all for nothing.

"That will conclude the state's arguments, your honor."

Pizaro took a slow and deliberate drink of water from a glass in front of him and then spoke to Judy.

"Ms. Johansen. Would you please stand. Mr. Walters. Mr. Maitland."

I looked at her instead of Pizaro,

"I really don't need any more time to consider your sentence, Ms. Johansen. Nothing had been said here today that really changes the facts proven in this case. You have been found guilty of premeditated first degree murder. The possible sentence could be death. But in my opinion, this crime does not reach the level where a death sentence could be justified.

"Life in prison without parole is another option. In my judgment, however, this crime not not reach that level of punishment either. At your age, I believe a substantial punishment woiuld consist of a mandatory ten-year sentence to be followed by ten years probation.

"You're welcome to appeal this sentence, and I expect you will, but considering what you could have faced, I don't think any appeal will be upheld. And that is another reason for the sentence. I believe it will forestall an avalanche of appeals that will do nothing but further clog up the court system. 

"The bailiff will now take you back, Ms. Johansen, and you will be transported to the women's section of the state's minimum security prison at Lawtey within the next two days. Good luck to you."

She just stood there for a long moment, her face frozen in a hopeful smile. One of her sons groaned, another fell back into his seat sobbing. She was their mother. It wasn't unexpected.

Two women bailiffs approached her. I walked over as they did. She stared at me as if she didn't know who I was. It was one thing to expect to serve the balance of your life in prison. Another for it to be made real. She probably was beginning to go into shock.

"Judy," I said softly enough that only she and Lew could hear me. "You might live to leave prison. You're a pretty healthy lady. But you won't be that well off. Carroll's children are challenging the will, and with your conviction against you, I'd say they have a good chance of taking every dollar away from you. I'd watch my pennies if I was you."

That shocked her back to reality.

"Why do you hate me, Maitland?"

"I don't hate you, Judy. Actually I feel sorry for you. If you'd hung in there another year or two, he'd have died and you'd have gotten most of his money. You'd still have been young enough to enjoy spending it. There are some hot 70-year-olds. And 70-year-olds worth millions don't have any trouble finding playmates. 

"But you got greedy. And impatient. Think about that for the next ten years as you go to sleep in a bunk bed with some interesting bunkmates."

As the bailiffs led her away, Lew said from behind me, "That was cold, Bill."

"She's doing better than Clark Carroll. But..."

I turned to face him. He'd bent over to collect papers he was shuffling into a briefcase.

"Are you alright, Lew?"

"Why?"

"You just don't seem like yourself, today. Where's the old swagger? Where is the Shark we've all grown to know and laugh at?"

He gave me a mild smile at the jibe but there was definitely something wrong.

"Maybe you just beat the swagger out of me. The Angel of Death took me out."

"Hell, I've beaten you before and you didn't act like your best friend died. Level with me. What is it?"

"I just...it's nothing, Bill. Just take a few bows and prepare your concession speech because the next time you go up against me, it will be me handing you your head."

"I hate to say this to a professional, but you're a piss poor liar. C'mon man, this is me. You want to go somewhere for a coffee? I can take the rest of the day off if you want to knock back a few cold ones."

He shook his head.

"Sorry, Bill. I have a few things to do and then I have to get ready to fly out. I've got a case they just called me in on in San Fran. A big payday and I need some time to prepare for opening motions. I have to leave tonight."




When We Were Married Ch. 05D



I knew to a certainty there was something wrong. Talk of big money didn't rouse a smile. That wasn't Lew. But someone tapped me on the shoulder. As I turned, Heather McDonald smiled and hugged me.

"I'm sorry I was late. I wanted to be here for the actual sentencing but I had to make a meeting of detectives. But they just told me. Ten years. I guess that's acceptable, right?"

"She'll be nearly 80 when she gets out. I think Pizaro figured that was enough, if she even makes it out. And I just told her Carroll's kids will probably succeed in breaking their father's will, so when she does get out she won't be a pauper, but she won't be any multi-millionaire. All in all, I think she had a pretty shitty day."

She licked her lips and I just smiled. She knew what she was doing, as her answering smile showed. 

"Congratulations, Bill. You did good."

"We did good. I wrote a memo to Knight praising you to the skies, although right now I don't think praise from me is going to do you any favors over at the cop shop. Didn't anyone tell you that you shouldn't be seen talking to me."

"I know what's going on, Bill. But a lot of us don't think Knight should be putting the whole department and its reputation behind a guy who shot a man in the back. You still have friends there."

"Thanks, Heather, but you should keep your head down. Don't get in the middle on this one because it could get ugly."

"I won't be signing any petitions, but remember if you need a friend, just pick up the phone. Oh, by the way..."

She turned slightly as a tall, dark haired young guy who just had the look of a plainclothes detective walked up to stand beside her. The looks they exchanged told me the story.

"Mr. Maitland, this is Detective Rob Goland. He's in homicide. Rob, this is Bill Maitland, the guy I was telling you about. The best prosecutor in the state."

He reached out and I shook his head. He smiled but he moved to put himself slightly between us. He was letting me know who she belonged to. She gave me a little contented grin.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Maitland. Heather has told me all about you."

From behind his back she mouthed, "not all."

"Well, I appreciate the kind words but she's the one that really put Judy Jacobsen away. Not me. She's very good at what she does."

She couldn't help shaking her head a little bit at that, but the kid didn't pick up on it. I doubt he was thirty. More like twenty five or twenty six.

"Mr. Maitland, I just wanted to come by to check on the verdict. We've got to run. We're going to grab a bite. Rob, would you go on ahead and grab a car and pick me up at the front. I just need to take care of one more piece of business with Mr. Maitland."

"Sure. See you later, Mr. Maitland."

After he left the courtroom, she moved closer and said, "I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to get back together, Bill. I've missed...you know."

"Yeah, but...right now I'm involved. So..."

She reached out and again I shook a hand. This time she held my own between hers and squeezed. It looked professional.

"I understand, Bill. I didn't expect it to be anything more than a one-time thing. And, really, I couldn't do much now. Rob and I....we're uh.."

"He's a good looking guy. But he's lucky to have a hot item like you to hang with. Isn't he a little old for you, though."

"Smart alec. What can I say. It's the older woman thing. Love it."

"Well, Heather, go on and have your 'dinner.' But seriously, don't get involved in this Shawn Smith thing. You have to live and work in that department, and right now I'm poison. You take care of yourself. I'll be fine."

I was the only one left except for a single court reporter finishing up her work, and one lone bailiff who apparently didn't have anywhere else to be. I still felt funny about Lew so I headed down to Starbucks and realized I'd gotten lucky when I saw him grabbing a coffee and turning around to leave the courthouse.

"Lew."

"Now you're following me? You're not getting a crush on me, are you? That would be sticky, to say the least."

He sounded more like himself, but not enough.

"Lew, we've been friends for a long time. I'm not trying to pry, really, but is there anything I can help with. Professionally or personally?"

He stopped by the doors to the outside and took a sip of coffee.

"No. Your antenna are good as always, but this isn't anything you can bring your powers to bear on."

"Personal?"

He nodded.

"It's Mona. Mona and you. You remember the first thing you said when I called you about Debbie and me splitting. So I'll ask you. Did you do something stupid?"

He shook his head and just looked at the floor.

"Tell me or I'll just keep bugging the hell out of you until you do."

Keeping his eyes down, he said, "You know Mona and I......we've been trying....for kids. For awhile."

"Yeah, although I wonder about your sanity sometimes. Sorry. I know it's not funny for you."

"Well....we uh....found out.....not too long ago."

"What?"

"It's Mona. She can't...you know. So it's over."

Neither one of us said anything for a moment.

"Have you thought about-"

"It's over, Bill. It's over."

He met my stare.

"It's uh -- things have been tense since then. But...we'll get through it. Right now, it kind of...seems like I should be giving her a little space. That's why I'm taking the case. She's been out of the country for a little while. We just need some time."

"God knows I'm not an expert in keeping marriages together, but, you don't think you guys should be talking? Maybe see somebody?"

"Right now, she...uh....doesn't want that much to do with me. We....I didn't take the news well."

He took another sip and then said, "I do have to go, Bill. I'll be in touch."

I grabbed his arm before he could push the door open.

"I'd talk to Mona if you wanted me to. Sometimes an outside party....."

"Just leave it alone, Bill. You have enough on your plate. We'll be alright."

And he was gone.

I just stood there looking at the streams of people entering and leaving. How many of them had good marriages. Or relationships? How the hell did men and women ever manage to stay together?

##################### 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005 2:30 A.M.

She rolled back and forth on the bed. Jesus Christ, she'd never realized how big the bed was. She was half awake, in that state where you know you're on the brink of waking, but can't quite do it. She thought of Clint, of Doug, of men and cocks from long away and her fingers ran down her thighs but she couldn't make herself enter herself.

She thought of Bill, and her defenses were down and she couldn't make herself stop thinking about him. God damn, but he was looking good. Trim and hard and cold. At least around her. He was probably hot and filling that bitch's cunt with his cum every night and every day.

Just like she'd known he would. She had always known.

"You bastard. You bulldoze your way into my life. And you desert me for your fucking job...and who knows what or who else. Just like I knew you would. Just like she said you would."

As the thought flashed in her mind it was like a key unlocking a door to a hidden room. And she was....

...walking up to the long plate glass front of a bar she and Bill had been in one time years before. O'Brien's was a honky tonk, or a dive or whatever word you wanted to use. It wasn't the kind of place she or Bill hung out in anymore. Although she knew Bill liked it.

She had called MaryJane, one of Clarice's only friends from before the divorce, looking for her aunt. 

They had used to talk almost every day but it had been nearly two weeks. Clarice had been the most beautiful, the most elegeant woman Debbie had known growing up. Much of what she knew about men, about being a woman, she had copied from her aunt. 

Since that bastard husband of hers had dumped her, she'd fallen to pieces. Debbie knew she'd been frantically dating, going out with guys way too old or way too young for her to be seeing, anything to keep a man in her life while Frank was squiring around the little tramp that was carrying his baby.

MaryJane, Clarice's oldest friend, had been oddly reluctant to talk to her, finally saying only that Clarice had been getting more and more wild, more reckless in who she saw and what she did with men. MaryJane was no prude. She'd been divorced three times and had a long list of men friends, but...

"I'm worried about her Debbie. She's doing stupid things. She's having unprotected sex. I saw her get into a car with a guy and I know he fucked her without a condom. I've talked to her, but she won't listen to me. Maybe she'd listen to you."

MaryJane hadn't been sure where she was tonight, but she thought that she remembered Clarice talking about meeting "some young studs" for a party beginning at O'Brien's on the Westside. 

Debbie had thought about asking Bill to go with her, but as usual he was working late on a case and even if he'd been available, he just didn't like Clarice. Or at least he didn't feel the sympathy that Debbie did. 

But he hadn't grown up with her. She wasn't a second mother to him. And he had always been so fucking rigid and moralistic. Clarice always said he must have been born with a stick up his ass.

Now she was inside and it was fairly un-crowded for 8 p.m. on a Thursday night. There were people at the big horseshoe shaped bar, some couples dancing, others playing pool. She looked around but didn't see a blonde almost as tall as she was anywhere. 

Two of the pool players, pseudo cowboys with black hats, moseyed on over and smiling, asked her if she felt like a game or...something. 

The taller one just grinned and never took his eyes off her boobs. The shorter one, who at least had the manners to pretend to be checking out her face, asked if they could buy her a drink if she wasn't with somebody.

"No thank you, boys, although the offer is appreciated. If I didn't have business, I'd love to play with you..."

She grinned as she said it, knowing their tongues would be dragging the floor and they'd do almost anything she asked now that she had flirted harmlessly with them. Sometimes it seemed almost unfair to take advantage of men's horniness. Sometimes... 

"I'm looking for a friend. An older lady. Blonde. About 5-6. Mid-50s. She might have been in here with some friends -- male friends. Any chance you might have seen her in here tonight?"

They exchanged glances.

The taller one managed to drag his gaze away from her chest and said, "Yeah, I think she's in here. She headed into the bathroom. I guess those other guys must have gone in with her to hold her hand."

The look she flashed him made him quickly add, "Probably they all just had to go at the same time. A lot of beer gets drunk in here."

"Thanks boys. Maybe I'll see you in here again someday."

She walked across the room trying to tone down her natural wiggle. It came naturally after so many years of practicing it, but they'd been helpful and there was no need to tease the animals in the zoo.

As she approached the bathrooms painted with Western Cowboys and Cowgirls art, she hoped she was wrong about what might be happening back here.

She walked into the Cowgirls' bathroom. It was a big place. There was somebody in a stall and a girl who looked to be 15 with long straight hair, no boobs, and a pierced bellybutton putting lipstick on in the mirror. 

The girl gave her a quick glance and quick as that Debbie knew she had earned another enemy. Women were bitches. She glanced at the bottom of the occupied stall. The legs were black.

She pushed on the door to the Cowboys' bathroom and it moved a little then stopped. Someone was blocking the door. 

"It's occupied. I got a sick friend in here. Let me get him cleaned up and you can come in."

She stepped back two paces and hit it at a run, trying to take the impact on her shoulder. The door swung open hard and the man who'd been blocking it went down to his hands and knees. Beyond him was...

"Clarice!"

The guy who had been grinding his heel into her naked breast stared at Debbie for a moment, then lunged at her. 

"Bitch. Grab her you morons."

Debbie put all of her weight into the kick that landed squarely between his legs and left him gasping on the floor. 

Before she could move the guy she'd pushed away from the door had grabbed her from behind. She tried to kick backwards but he was smart enough to wrap her legs up with his own.

With her arms pinned, she started to scream. With the music outside, and this far back, they might not hear her, but no one was going to hold her down again and use her against her will. Not without a fight.

The third man who'd been standing over Clarice came at her and she braced herself. She didn't even think about it as she shouted, "You touch me and my husband will hunt you down."

He didn't stop but barreled into her, grabbing her by the shoulders and using his momentum to slam her and the guy behind her into the wall next to the door. 

The head of the guy holding her slammed hard into the wall and the man holding her shoulders rammed him into the wall again hard. The man behind Debbie loosened his grip and the man in front of her grabbed Debbie and threw her to one side.

The man he'd rammed into the wall put his hands up only to get a fist to the face that bounced him off the wall again. In the next instant, the third man who'd thrown Debbie to the floor had him in a bear hug up against the wall.

As they struggled, the third man looked at the one Debbie had kicked in the balls. He had risen to his feet and started toward Debbie.

"Danny, don't. You stupid fucker, don't."

"Are you fucking crazy. The bitch could send us all to prison. Now we have to grab her and take her somewhere where we can convince her to keep her mouth shut."

"Let go of me Bobby."

"Both of you, shut up. Listen to me. We are so, so fucking close to spending the rest of our lives in Raiford, if we even get that far."

"Yeah, if we let her call for help. I'm not going down for raping some old slut that wanted it."

The one called Bobby kept his arms around the man he was holding.

"LISTEN. Listen to me. I've seen her. I've done work around the courthouse. She's that guy Maitland's wife. He's the fucking top State Attorney in Jacksonville.

"Touching her is worse than going after a cop's wife. He's a fucking asshole and if the stories I've heard are true, we hurt her and we won't live to go to trial."

"You might not make it that far anyway."

The three men looked at the doorway and the short dark haired man who stood there tapping a baseball bat lightly in one hand.

Debbie recognized the owner of the bar, O'Brien, and she knew of his reputation. With or without the baseball bat, the three of them were about to enter a world of pain.

"You stupid assholes...you got the balls to do this in MY place. I hope you fight back, I really do."

He gestured to the trio with one hand, beckoning to them.

"Come on, please try to get by me. I'm just one old man. You might make it."

The man called Bobby let his friend go and held up his hands in a placating gesture as he backed away from the man with the bat.

"O'Brien, don't. The old bitch wanted this. She told us she wanted us all and didn't want to wait till we could go somewhere private. It turned her on to get gang fucked in a public place. It got out of hand, but she wanted it. She did."

"Call the cops, O'Brien," Debbie said, rising unsteadily to her feet. Her nylons were ruined and her left breast was sore where she'd hit the floor.

"Already done, Mrs. Maitland."

The three men looked from one to the other. Gauging their chances of making it past O'Brien against waiting for the cops to arrive. The one called Danny breathed hard and Debbie knew he was getting ready to charge.

As he set himself she stepped in behind him and buried the point of her right shoe deep into his balls from the back. He went down like a pole-axed steer.

"Debbie, baby, don't....."

Debbie looked back at the woman on the floor. White strands of cum ran from her hair to her face to her half naked body. Piss had pooled around her on the floor. The smell of that the vomit on the floor and on her was enough to make Debbie nauseous. Clarice's voice was so reedy and thin Debbie almost couldn't hear her.

She knelt down beside her and pulled her body close to her, ignoring the smell.

"What, Clarice...what?"

She whispered into Debbie's ear, "no, let them go, please."

"No. I'm not going to let them go after what they did to you. They raped you, the bastards. Bill will send every one of them to Raiford for life."

"please...please..just take me home...."

"How can you ask me to do that? God, Clarice, look at what they did...."

Her aunt forced her with one trembling hand to look into her eyes.

"It's true, baby. I came in here of my own free will. I wanted them...to.....and it just got...out of hand...."

"They still didn't have the right-"

"Deb....if they're arrested....it will all come out.....and Frank...with that fucking little bimbo of his...will get a good laugh....at how desperate for cock I am since I lost his. I couldn't stand it. I'd kill myself."

"It's not right that they get away with this."

"They're just pigs, like every other man. I let them have me. It's my fault."

It took her just a second. The cops would be here any time.

"O'Brien, let them pass."

"No."

"Please, for me. For Bill. I know he likes you and this dive. She's my aunt. I can't let this go public. Please."

He stood there for an interminable minute then stepped back. The three men stepped warily around them. As they passed he touched Bobby on the shoulder and Bobby froze.

"I know your daddy, Bobby. You and your friends will never come in here again. If you see me on the street, you'll cross to the other side. Because if you ever cross my path again, I'll hurt you, and I'll tell your daddy exact what kind of animal he raised. And you know that will break his heart."

Bobby nodded and the three men stumbled away.

"What can I do?"

"Can you get me a blanket or big towel, and is there a back way out of here?"

When he came back she took the towel and said, "Please, keep everyone out and don't come back for a few minutes. And, O'Brien, for the love of God, don't ever tell Bill anything about this."

She could read the question. 

"He's never liked Clarice and he won't have any respect for her if the finds out. And he won't let it lie. He'll go after them and it will all go public and she'll be humiliated. No matter what it looks like, she deserves better than that."

He finally nodded. 

"Nothing ever happened back here. Just another boring night."

As she walked by him she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He touched it as she passed and said with a smile, "Now I can't ever wash my face again."

Ten minutes later she had a shivering Clarice slumped over in the front seat of her 2001 Cadilac CTS. It was Autumn, early September, but unseasonably cool and her aunt couldn't stop shivering. Debbie had done everything she could to wipe the fluids off her and clean her hair, but she was still a mess. There was an ugly bruise on the side of one breast.

"It'll be okay, Clarice. Thank God you didn't let them....inside you without protection. No telling what those assholes might be carrying."

Clarice kept her eyes closed but said, "It's okay baby. I know you think I'm a miserable slut. Sucking off three men in a bathroom. Not the way you remember me, is it?"

"Clarice...God knows I can't act Holier than thou. You've pulled me out of some nasty situations. You know what I was like. You remember the time when I was 16 and you stormed into that Biker Bar at the Beach and pulled out a .38 and threatened to start shooting off balls if they didn't toss my drunken ass out of that place."




When We Were Married Ch. 06B



AFTERMATH

September 23, 2005

My name is William Maitland. Officially I'm an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Unofficially I am THE State Attorney as far as day to day functioning goes, or I was. I think I must be dying. I've been shot by a crazed cop among a whole gaggle of other armed cops who weren't able to save me.

My friends, the few I have, called me Bill. My wife, when I had a wife, called me Bill. 

I'm pretty sure the cop who shot me, Shawn Smith, who has made an unfortunate habit of shooting men in the back, got in a head shot because I'm bleeding like crazy, I can't see for the blood running in my eyes and I'm down on the ground. I'm trying to move but it feels like I can't move my arms and legs.

I wonder curiously how long it takes to die and wondered whether you really know what's going on as your life drains away.

I remember, somewhat incongruously, a great movie called "American Beauty" I saw a few years ago, which ends with the main character shot in the head and dying and he says the moment of dying lasts for an eternity. 

In the movie the main character says that moment of dying is the afterlife and you spend an eternity reliving your life before the lights go out forever.

I wonder if that's somehow the truth of it and when I will start the long journey back through all the moments of my life. 

It must have started already. Through a blood red haze, I see the features of the woman I have loved for 20 years, who convinced me she loved me and then destroyed me by giving her body and love to another man. It would be alright if I could relive the days when we met and when we had a happy marriage.

It's too bad I don't believe in reincarnation or second chances. If I could go back and learn from my mistakes I would never have taken a job in the prosecutor's office. 

A man I respect told me once that we are all tools in God's hands and that I had served a greater purpose as a prosecutor by alleviating human suffering and balancing the scales of justice.

In God's eyes, he indicated, that role was greater than that of a husband to the beautiful Debbie and father to Kelly and BJ. I had sacrificed the chance of mere happiness to serve God.

I don't really believe in God and less in Heaven, but if I'm wrong and I wind up on a cloud somewhere staring up at the face of the Almighty, I already know I'm going to tell him to go fuck himself and just give me back the life he took from me, and if he's going to punish me for blasphemy, well let him try to hurt me more than he'd already done.

I don't think even God could do that.

I know he can't as Debbie's beautiful face comes closer. Tears stream down her face and I wonder if somehow I'm dead and watching from heaven.

As memories war within me, I know I hate her. God, how I hate her, but for now I'll just love her and her memory for a while. Maybe I'll just do it forever, if that "American Dream" flick has it right.

############################## 

September 23, 2005 -- 8:12 p.m.

"Let go of me, you bastards, let me go."

She struggled against the two men grabbing her arms and trying to keep her away from the bloody scene on the FOP floor. One was black and one was white. She was crying; watching the figure she knew so well covered in blood and spasming on the floor under the grip of two or three cops trying to hold him down.

There were bodies all over. Bill lay there with his head covered in blood. A figure that must be Shawn Smith lay sprawled on the floor a few feet away. He was bathed in blood oozing from what appeared to be a dozen places. Fortunately, he lay face down because there was a large hole oozing blood and white stuff from the back of his skull.

A big black man sat on the floor to the right of Bill and the men with him. A white cop was holding him as he leaned back and another pressed his hand down over the black cop's hand pushing down on his abdomen as blood flowed out around their fingers.

A tall, thin cop with thinning brown hair was being held up by two men. He breathed in and out with gasping sighs. A big bald cop was saying, "Breath in and out, don't force it, Phil. You're going to pass out if you panic and you need to stay awake. Hang in there. Rescue will be here in a couple of minutes, no more."

Debbie tried to kick one of the cops holding her in the balls but he turned so her kick glanced off the side of his leg.

"Let me go you sons of bitches. Let me go. That's my husband."

The cop holding her left arm stared at her and for just a moment relaxed his grip on her and that was enough. She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and jerked hard enough to pull free of the other cop. She threw herself down on Bill's bloody body.

There was so much blood, so much damned blood.

Two of the cops that had been holding his lower body down fell back and she pulled his head toward her. She felt the mass of blood that made the back of his head slippery to the touch but she forced herself to pull him until his head rested against her shoulder.

"You fucking idiot," she screamed in anger and fear. "Why? Why?"

"Just....stupid...I guess....."

She almost dropped him, bouncing his head off the concrete floor, but she managed to recover and put her arms around him to cradle his head, letting him lean back so she could see his eyes open through the film of blood that covered his face.

"Bill, you're alive!"

"Jesus Christ," said one of the cops that had been holding his legs down. "Jesus H. Christ I thought you were dead. I though the twitching was your last dying..."

Bill looked straight at him and incredibly a faint smile flickered on his bloody lips.

"Reports....of....my...." 

He took a deep breath and blew out bloody bubbles.

"....death.....were....."

Somehow she read his mind and knew what he was trying to say. Being married and together for 20 years made it nothing magical. She just knew him and how his mind worked.

"Greatly exaggerated...." She said.

He smiled at her and somehow that made the tears flow even harder.

 A black cop moved her hands away from the back of his head and held a handkerchief to the bloody mess there. Patting away the blood revealed a long gash almost deep enough to put a finger into, running from near the right side of the back of his skull to near the right temple.

She couldn't make herself, but the cop pressed in and a moment later said, "It's deep but it didn't penetrate the skull. No messy brain stuff leaking out. Maitland, you're the fucking luckiest bastard that ever walked the earth."

"Then why..." she asked, unwilling to believe yet, to hope that what she saw wasn't the reality of it. 

"There are more blood vessels and they're closer to the surface around the head, neck and face than anywhere else in the human body. You bleed a hell of a lot when you have a bullet put a groove this size in your head, but I don't think he'll bleed to death. We need to mop up the blood. I'll get some rags from the bathroom. We need to clean him up enough to make sure there aren't any more bullet holes in his head, or anywhere else. Can you keep him supported until I get back."

She didn't answer, just held him tighter in her arms. Even now, there was a part of her that was pissed off at him. Why the hell had he risked his life, risked the life of his children's father, the life of his ex-wife's ex-husband so cavalierly. It was as if he didn't care what he was risking, as long as he was "doing the right thing."

But those were only words. She had talked with him often enough about his last memories of his father's leaving to know why they resonated so deeply in his mind and heart. For good or ill, they had scarred and shaped the man he'd grown to be.

But, goddammit, she thought, at some point you have to grow up. You couldn't be a crusader going out to battle evil and not caring if you lost your life in the process. You could when you were single, but when you married, when you brought two lives into the world, you lost the freedom to throw your life away in grand gestures and it seemed like he'd never grown up enough to realize it.

She had only been halfway sarcastic when she referred to him as "Saint Bill," to her mother and children. She had thought sometimes that it was like being married to a secular saint. Everybody looking in from the outside would 'oooh' and 'aaahh' about how wonderful it was to be married to such a noble creature. 

 But what it meant in reality was that she had never had more than a portion of him. No matter how much he swore he loved her and their children, actions proved more than words. When it came to the way he lived his life, for the last ten years he'd shown over and over again that he cared more for living up to the mythic legend of his father than he cared for the welfare of the people he said he loved the most.

 She held him tight to her chest, cradling his head against her breasts, and she knew that if they hadn't torn each other's hearts out he'd have joked about the chance to feel her up making nearly dying worth while.

But they'd never joke like that again. She could still hold him against her and be glad that she wouldn't have to call Kelly and BJ and tell them their father had died in her arms.

He was trying to twist in her arms and she tried to hold him still. She understood why the cops had been trying to hold him still. There could be other injuries, damage to the spine and the general rule was to keep victims as still as possible in such situations, but he kept twisting.

"Bill, try to stay still. Even if the bullets didn't hit anything vital" - and here she couldn't help smiling down at him "and if they only hit your brain they didn't hit anything vital - you shouldn't be moving. Stay still till rescue gets here."

He returned a weak smile and managed to raise one trembling hand and wiped at the blood in his eyes.

"I feel....like shit....and I'm dizzy....but I'm not dying."

She let him twist around and he saw the cops holding up the man they'd called Phil.

"Oh shit!" he said softly. "Phil! Phil!"

 His voice was still weak but the big bald man helping to hold Phil up heard and pointed to Bill. Phil looked up, saw him and his eyes widened in surprise.

"I thought you were dead." His voice whistled as he spoke and then he coughed up blood. He was gasping for air.

 "What?"

 The bald headed guy said, "One of Shawn's bullets must have collapsed a lung. At least he didn't hit his heart. He'll make it. We all thought you'd bought it."

 Bill looked over at the black cop whose skin was starting to go a shade of pale gray while a current of blood kept gushing out around the white and black fingers trying to hold it back, now pushing hand towels against the growing tide of red.

"James?"

The black cop looked over at Bill and shook his head.

 "You know you're a real pain in the ass, don't you Maitland? Or a pain in my gut, anyway."

 "...I'm sorry..."

 James took a deep breath, then spit on the floor.

"It's all on him, and he paid for it."

 "What..." 

 The big bald cop glanced over the bleeding corpse on the floor, then at Bill.

 "You're alive because of Phil. I think his shot hit Shawn in the neck, enough anyway to where the bullet that was going to splatter your brains all over this room hit the back of your skull and skidded. But Shawn would not go down. He turned and hit Phil while I was pumping into him along with a half dozen others.

"He turned his gun on me and I thought I was dead when James hit him. We must have stopped firing because we didn't hear anything until Shawn stuck his Glock into James' fat gut and fired. When James fell back we unloaded and he finally went down. Son of a bitch. We had to put two into his brain to finally bring him down."

The bald cop looked at the body leaking body and brain matter onto the floor and Debbie thought for a minute a hint of sadness flashed across his face.

 "He was a tough son of a bitch. Stupid but tough. Anyway, that's what I remember happening. Things were popping kind of quick."

Bill turned his head slightly and looked up at Debbie. She had grabbed a couple of paper towels and was wiping the blood off his face. He swallowed hard.

"Damn...I'm dizzy, Babe."

She made herself not respond. He was still in shock. 'Babe' didn't mean what it once had.

"You're going to be okay, Bill. You've got a hard head, but that bullet must have shaken you a lot."

He closed his eyes and then they snapped open as he stared into her eyes.

"What....what are you doing here, Deb?"

Her heart flipped in her chest. This was the question she feared. How could she answer it?

"I......Dennis Leary told me you were going to meet with the cops here tonight."

"And?"

He was slipping back into that damned interrogator frame of mind.

"Why are you here?" 

He wouldn't let it go.

"You remember I said you don't have the sense to be afraid of things you should be afraid of. I guess....I just wanted to be close by."

 "And you were going to be my bodyguard?" 

 "No, you bastard. I...I was worried about you. You happy now? You got it out of me. I was worried about you. You've got two children that love you and you don't have sense enough to protect yourself for them."

"So you were here for our kids?"

"Why do you have to be a prosecutor right now, Bill?"

"I'm just trying to understand. Why are you crying for someone you don't love anymore?"

 She closed her eyes and when she opened them the room was swarming with cops and rescue EMTS and firefighters and high level Sheriff's Office officials. Two rescue types were leaning down and trying to separate her from Bill but she held him tightly.

"I said I didn't love you that way anymore, Bill, not that I didn't love you."

They were pulling him away from her and she had to get out the last words.

"I came here tonight, Bill, because I know you. I know you better than anyone else. You did what you always have done because you're the kind of man you are. I just....forgot....who you were. For a while."

She released him, pulling her bloody hands away while two techs leaned him down on a rolled up blanket. She leaned over and kissed his bloody forehead.

"I'm sorry I forgot, Bill."

He looked up at her and for once she couldn't read him.

"So am I, Debbie."

Then the room descended into organized chaos as rescue personnel swarmed the three wounded men and tried to shoo away the men who'd been caring for them. Debbie stepped back and looked at her hands and dress. Jesus Christ she was a mess. In minutes she knew the television crews would be swarming outside. She needed to call Kelly and BJ. If they heard the first reports that their father had been shot and she showed up on a newscast covered in blood it would not look good.

As she watched the techs clean off his head and face, turn him gently and inspect him for other injuries, she could see that there appeared to be only the deep gouge from the right back side of his head running almost to his temple. It was a flesh wound. He'd live, and she realized she was just now letting out the breath she seemed to have been holding since the second she'd heard the first shots.

So the vision was false. It had seemed so real but it was just her mind playing tricks on her. 

They had brought in rolling stretchers, lowered one and, with three men helping, lifted him onto it. Then they raised it to waist level and while talking on their radios began pushing him toward the entrance. She started to walk toward him then stopped.

When it was happening, when everything seemed to have changed forever, she had held him without thought. It was as if the last six months - the last four years - had never happened, but they had. 

Now, as she thought about walking to him and holding his hand, she found herself wondering how that would look to the men around her. If they knew what had happened, would they think the spectacle of the cheating wife holding her wounded husband's hand was just a show for the crowd?

She walked beside him without touching him.

"Do you want me to ride with you - in the ambulance - to the hospital, Bill?"

He looked back at her walking slightly behind the stretcher.

"No, that's okay."

She'd expected it, but...

"I'll be okay, Deb. I want you to find Kelly and BJ. Let them know I'm okay. They're liable to say I'm dying on the television and radio casts."

He focused in on her eyes.

"I'm good, Debbie, really. I'll be alright. I won't be quite as cute as I used to be, but..."

If she had said what was really in her mind, she was afraid she'd break down again so she forced a grin and said, "Well, no great loss then."

He grinned back.

"Bye Deb. Kiss the kids for me."

Then they were pushing him out the front door and she was alone with a host of strange men. They were checking her out and, for the first time in her memory, it made her feel uncomfortable, but she walked over to where the big bald cop stood.

 "I wanted to thank you, and tell your friend Phil thanks for me too. In case you weren't aware, I'm Bill's ex."

 He stared at her and took in her breasts but the smile on his face didn't reach his eyes.

 "I know who you are. I've seen you with him around the courthouse, before you screwed around on him."

"We got a divorce. It happens. But I still want to thank you for what you did."

He shook his head.

"I'm divorced. Most cops wind up divorced. Fact of life. But Maitland wasn't screwing around on you, best I hear. You screwed his head. I kinda blame you for this. If you hadn't messed him up, I don't think he would have come down on Shawn like the wrath of God. He might have been more of a human being."

She stared him down.

"Doesn't matter what you think about me. He has two kids that didn't do anything to your friend. Thank you for them."

She turned and walked out. If he had said anything in reply she didn't hear and didn't care.

###################### 

September 24, 2005 -- 6 p.m.

I lay back in a hospital bed in the St. Vincent's Medical Center trauma ward. I was laying on my side which was not all that comfortable, because a fairly good plastic surgeon had stitched up the back of my head last night after they had brought me in. 

The bullet that Smith had tried to put into my brain had come just close enough to breaking through my skull - about as close as the width of a sheet of typing paper one doctor had said - that they felt duty bound to run CAT Scans and MRIs and all that other crap to make sure there wasn't any damage up to and including possible swelling of the brain as a result of the trauma. 

Then there was the little matter of a concussion and a coma after my defense of Debbie had nearly gotten me killed the first time. I hadn't thought about that in a long time and it had never caused any residual problems except for a tendency to get headaches if I spent too much time reading or didn't get enough sleep. But that's what they invented Tylenol for and I'd never worried much about it. 

 Another ongoing effect has been what they called painless migraines, where brightly colored light flashes migrate across my field of vision. These were also triggered by exhaustion or overuse of my eyes and I'd had doctors tell me they might be inconvenient but not dangerous.

However, the doctors who examined me in the St. Vincent's emergency room and the specialists up in the head trauma ward were concerned that brain damage could have been caused by the compound effects of the old and new traumas. 

 So, for the last 24 hours, they'd put me through every damned diagnostic test I'd ever heard of and some I hadn't. They'd sewed up the back of my head after implanting some artificial cow bone to fill in the large groove so I wouldn't look like a real freak, and kept me from having more than half an hour of uninterrupted sleep at any one time.




When We Were Married Ch. 06B



I kept drifting off from time to time. In snatches of dream pieces of the previous night and today came drifting in and out of my consciousness.

############### 

Noon:

"Dad. Dad."

BJ and Kelly walked quickly across the private room that the Big Man had procured for me. Debbie walked behind them. Three nurses hovered around. My head was covered in bandages where the plastic surgeon had tried to repair the damage from Smith's bullet. The drugs they'd given me kept me flashing in and out. 

I could read the looks on both their faces so I smiled at them.

"It's okay. I look a hell of a lot worse than I really am. I just got a graze across the back and side of my head and they went and sewed it up.."

When they reached me, BJ grabbed my hand, the one with a needle stuck in it, while Kelly stood behind him and grabbed the other.

I couldn't help tears appearing in my eyes.

"It's okay, guys. It's lucky your mom was there last night. Everybody thought I was dead until she showed up and brought me back to life."

Both of them looked back at her where she stood silently. I read the glances and I could almost feel sorry for her. She'd ended her life with me and she'd done damage I hadn't realized to her relationship with the children. I'd wanted her to pay for what she'd done, and only now did I realize that she really was paying for her actions and might for a long, long time.

There was a time I would have loved it, but those emotions had been growing more muted as time went by and I realized that I wanted her to have a good relationship with them. It didn't take away or change anything between us, but they needed a mother.

"Dad, you gotta stop doing stuff like this," BJ said, "I got enough flak about you when they started calling you the Angel of Death, but now - I'm never going to get any action if every girl I try to hook up with is afraid that Heaven's going to be watching us every step of the way."

 Kelly half-heartedly slapped him on the shoulder.

"He's such an idiot Dad, but he's right. You gotta stop getting into situations like this. I'm supposed to worry about keeping gold diggers and whores away from you, not letting them take advantage of you because you've been out of the scene for so long, without having to worry about whether some cop is going to shoot you."

I'd been able to stem the flow of tears without looking too stupid. I shook my head as much as I could and said, "I'm sorry guys. I never expected things would turn out this way but it's what I do. Nothing like this will probably ever happen again."

"He's right," Debbie said, the first words she'd uttered since entering the room, as she walked up to my bed. "We were married for nearly 20 years and he's worked as a prosecutor for more than 10 years - nothing like this has ever happened before. It probably won't ever happen again."

We exchanged glances that the kids didn't pick on and I knew she knew about the Welaka Cannibal and his threats, and probably other things I'd always foolishly thought I'd protected her from. I'd come to realize she knew more about my life than I'd ever thought. Maybe if I hadn't tried to protect her...

I shut the thought off. What was done was done and I couldn't change the past.

The phone rang. They were supposed to screen my calls and leave messages at the front desk because the damn thing had rung almost continuously most of the night until the hospital administration let the nurses on call know to hold ALL calls and simply give me a list every few hours, and that only because I'd insisted. Ninety percent were media calls, a few were from people at the State Attorney's or Public Defender's Offices and one was from Sheriff Knight. Nothing that I couldn't call back on. 

A moment later an attractive brown-haired nurse, who looked to be in her late 30s or early 40s, walked in quickly and leaned over, whispering in my ear.

"The call was from a gentleman who said you would know him as The Old Man."

She stared at me with the first beginnings of alarm on her face.

"He told me my home address, what music my daughter is listening to on her IPOD in her bedroom, and...."

Tears welled up in her eyes and she leaned in closer, whispering with a glance at Debbie and the kids.

"He......told me.....about the affair I'm having with a friend of my husband. We've only met on Fridays when my husband is out of town. Nobody in the world knows about it except...the man and myself. The....Old Man said if you didn't pick up his next call my husband will receive photographs of ....my friend and I..."

She stopped.

"Please take the call. I love my husband, no matter what you might think. I can't...he would..."

"I'll take it. Get out and don't worry. He's....he likes cruel practical jokes. He won't do anything to you. Trust me. I've known him for a long time. He was just trying to get my attention."

Debbie had heard part of that and her eyes showed her alarm. I motioned to her and the kids. 

"I'm sorry, guys, I have to take this. Give me a moment, but don't leave."

In thirty seconds the phone rang again. I picked it up. There was a brief silence, a clicking sound and then a faint static and I heard his voice.

"Hello, Mr. Maitland."

"Hello."

"I trust you are recovering. Our sources within the hospital's medical department said your wounds were not believed to be life threatening but they are taking no chances."

"That was a cruel thing you did."

There was a dry laugh.

"You might have heard, I can be cruel if the occasion calls for it."

I knew he had killed many men and women, had watched men tortured to death, had men and women torn apart in front of him by other men and animals in medieval torments.

"As far as I know, those have all been for business, for matters that you considered crucial to your survival. Tormenting this poor woman wasn't worthy of you."

"What did I do, Mr. Maitland? I did not threaten her family or herself physically. I merely let her know that her betrayal of her husband, that poor, blind, hardworking idiot of a husband, has not gone unnoticed. Do you think that if I, through my contacts, could not discover her adultery in a few minutes, that her poor, blind husband will never stumble upon it?"

There was a short silence. Again the static on the line and the clicking.

"You think that was cruel? To give her a chance to save her marriage, to possibly spare her husband from...the pain that you know all too well? Tell me what I did that was so terrible?"

He was as intelligent as he was cold blooded and possibly even a little more dangerous because of all that. When you have almost limitless power and no moral compass at all, there were no limits to what you could do.

"Why are you calling?"

"Just to check in. When we heard that you had nearly been killed, I was notified and we investigated. This appears to be merely the act of an unhinged man so there is nothing for me to do. I am glad that you came through mostly untouched. I am told the bullet wound should leave no appreciable scar."

"As always, your sources are impeccable. I'm grateful that you are continuing to watch over me."

There was another silence, longer this time.

"You know that I have never loved anything in this life, except for one person. And now there is nothing I love because he died without heir and my line died with him. But he died with dignity and in peace because of you. You didn't know who he was and had no reason to treat him as you did, but you did because of the man you are. I can never repay the debt I owe you in this life, but I can try."

There was another long silence and then I said, "I'm sure you've heard of the Mexican Cartel whose man is scheduled to be tried in the U.S."

"Yes, and the Cartel has already moved against anyone they think will take part in that prosecution. I think I know more than you do."

"Yes?"

"They are already planning ahead and there is one thing they fear."

When I didn't respond, he said, "That is you. The Angel of Death has acquired mythic status among many of the poor in Mexico and nearby countries. The Mexicans are queer for anything having to do with death, and the Angel of Death overlays the pre-Columbian myths about death gods. The Cartel leadership is hoping the trial doesn't come to your office."

"They're frightened of a media myth?"

"Myths are real to those who believe in them and, if the trial does come to you, the Cartel faces a very real danger."

"They face a danger?"

"They cannot allow you to prosecute their man. They would lose so much face rivals would pop up because the myth of their invincibility will have been shattered."

"If they kill me that would solve that problem."

"True, but if they try and fail...."

I thought about that, then, "It's still a long way between here and there, but it brings up a point we need to discuss."

"You need say nothing. If they move against your family, they will pay."

"And I will be your man and you will own me."

"Yes."

"Acceptable. If they hit my family, my life is over anyway. And if they hit me..."

"Protection of your family is guaranteed if we have to kill every last one of them."

"Then it is agreed. I'd appreciate your keeping an eye on things for me. And if they take out my family and myself....unleash hell upon all of them."

"To the last drop of my blood and all who follow me."

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Mr. Maitland."

I hung up the phone softly. Whenever I had spoken with him, on the few occasions it had occurred, I always felt like I had crossed over into another realm of being, as far as you could get from the real 9-5 world that most people live in. It wasn't a pleasant experience but it wasn't anything I'd asked for. I had simply showed mercy to another human being and wound up being ensnared in a dark and deadly world that I wanted no part of.

But the Old Man who felt he owed me a debt couldn't be persuaded or threatened into leaving me alone. It was like walking through a dark wood and finding a huge and dangerous wolf dogging your tracks and leaping to engage anything that threatened you. You might not want or need his protection, but how did you call him off? It was a trick I hadn't figured out in more than seven years. Maybe I never would. Until he died, and hopefully those who followed wouldn't feel the obligation he did.

But for right now, that presence of a huge, dark and dangerous criminal organization that had my back, as I glanced at my ex-wife, son and daughter, made me feel better about my life.

As I gestured and they walked back toward my bed, Debbie said quietly, "Who was that?"

"Just a....man who was concerned about my welfare. He's a friend, of sorts."

"I think everybody in the world must have heard about what happened," BJ said excitedly. "I tuned into a French broadcast channel I caught on my friend's Direct TV universal channel and caught a news broadcast. I couldn't understand what they were saying-"

"You would have if you'd paid attention in your French classes," Kelly interjected. As usual, BJ ignored her.

"The only class you paid attention to was Sex Ed.," BJ said, continuing, "Anyway, they showed Dad's picture and some of the shots of people being taken out of the cop shop and I heard what I thought was 'The Angel of Death' in French and I know I heard his name -- William Maitland. France! They were showing it on French television. Can you believe that?"

"Yes, I can believe that and I am sure that there are people in France who will be fascinated to hear about your father's brush with death - some people in particular."

All of us picked up the ice in her voice. The two younger Maitlands couldn't help smiling. I kept my face neutral. I'd known she was jealous of Aline, but I hadn't realized how jealous.

The timing of what came next couldn't have happened again in a million years. It was impossible, but sometimes impossible coincidences do happen.

The phone rang. I ignored it, but a moment later the attractive nurse stuck her head back in the door.

I guess after the last time she wasn't taking any chances.

"Mr. Maitland, there's a lady, French I think, on the phone. She says her name is Aline. You want to take her call? I've got her on hold."

"Send her call through."

It was as if Debbie and I were the only people in the world. 

I remembered the last time she had looked at me like that. It was when she had walked in on Amy Sunderland and me fucking on CC's yacht. I had felt guilty for no good reason then but I didn't feel guilty now. I just played back the memory of her going to Doug's aid the night of that UNF ceremony and made myself feel what I'd felt then.

I held her gaze while I said, "Hello, Aline." 

There was a terrible hurt in her eyes but I made my heart a stone. She had no right to be hurt by anything I did anymore.

"Bill, are you alright?"

I had thought the pain of losing this woman had gone, but it was as if the morning she had left me alone had never happened. It didn't help that she sounded like she was in the next room.

"I'm good, Aline. Better than good since I'm alive. My son just told me the shooting was on the news in Paris. I couldn't believe it was that big a story."

"As always Bill, you underestimate yourself. The attempted murder of The Angel of Death, a shootout between a rogue police officer and a whole room full of armed officers, has been around the world, I believe."

"What did Philippe have to say about my brush with death?"

"I.....I don't know, Bill. He is...he is still at his office. I heard about what they are calling The Massacre when I logged onto the news. Andre is with friends so I took the subway into downtown Paris and found a public phone."

"You didn't want to call me on your home phone or cell? Why?"

There was a long silence.

"I....you must have known that Philippe was with me when I wrote you that email. It -- I would have written it differently if I were alone and not afraid he would find it."

"What do you have to be afraid of, Aline.?"

"I...Bill...it's different. I..."

"What is it, Aline? What aren't you telling me?"

For the first time since the shooting I wasn't thinking about myself or Debbie.

"Bill....it's just that....you remember I told you that I wouldn't know if our marriage would survive until I could look into his eyes. I have looked into his eyes. We have talked. I have been honest with him and I still don't know. For the first time in our lives, I look at him and his eyes are closed to me."

"You were honest with him. About...everything?"

 "I was too honest. I know he is hurt, although he hasn't said anything. Both of us have been with others. I thought - I hoped - that we could move beyond....my time with you. He has no reason to be hurt."

For the first time I heard anger in her voice.

"God knows, he has been with many other women and, although he claims to have been discrete, I know who they are - many of them. I've seen them, seen the look in their eyes when we are together. I've lived with that because I've had to. And now - now - because I have been with one man he knows, he is acting the wounded martyr."

"I'm sorry, Aline. I didn't mean for...what we had....to damage your marriage."

"It's not your fault, Bill. None of this is your fault. Philippe and I set the ground rules. We agreed, without many words, but we had an understanding. And he is the one who has broken that agreement! I will not feel guilty for doing what he has done times beyond number."

There was a long silence. I looked up and saw BJ and Kelly exchanging glances. They could only hear my side of the conversation -- much of it -- but they were old enough to put the pieces together. I looked beyond them to Debbie. If looks could kill I would have been only a radioactive spot on the bed in which I lay.

"So....what.."

"Is going to happen? I don't know, Bill. I do not wish to hurt you, but I still have feelings for him. We have made a life together and there is Andre. I cannot just walk away but, I do not know if he wants to be with me. Perhaps only time will tell."

She was silent again. Then:

'I have no right to ask. I am with another man. I have told you that I love him. I am in his bed. You owe me nothing at all, but....If....I know I hurt you when I left that morning. But I could not say goodbye and leave. I took the coward's way out.

"I have done nothing but cause you pain on top of what your Debbie has done to you. Still, if..."

"What I feel for you hasn't changed, Aline. I can't say what will happen if you decide to come back, but I know what I feel right now."

"I love you, Bill Maitland. I am in another man's bed and his life, but I love you. Take care. Don't take foolish chances with your life, because it is precious to me."

"I love you too. Take care. Au Revoir."

I met the eyes of my children and I knew something important had changed in an instant. They looked at me very differently than they had when they'd walked into the room minutes before. Their mother and I were divorced and they were old enough to understand what that meant. They had seen Aline in the flesh and the way I looked at her, but there must have been something in the back of their minds, some memory of when our marriage had been good, that left a faint hope.

And now it was gone.

I looked into Debbie's cold eyes and saw that they glistened. I remembered the look of contempt she had shown me as she stood with her tall young stud boyfriend in the UNF Arena. I remembered how small, old and alone I had felt in that moment. Only a stubborn core of anger had pushed me not to walk away with my tail between my legs.

I remembered her telling me to pay someone for sex because it was obvious I was not man enough to attract any woman on my own merits.

I remembered the first nights I had spent on the River listening to cars in the night, lying alone in a strange bed and knowing the woman I'd loved for half my lifetime was in another man's arms. And there was nothing I could do about it.

There was a part of me that wanted to comfort her. Maybe I couldn't kill it out. Maybe I would always love her, but there would be no comfort now. She had brought all of this on herself. I had pulled myself out of the pit with no help from her. Let her find her own way.

We stared at each other until she finally lowered her eyes and walked out of the room. BJ and Kelly looked at her as she left and then Kelly bent down to kiss me on the cheek and BJ squeezed my hand.

"We'd better go," Kelly said, gesturing toward the doorway.

"Yeah, go on. All this has been a shock for your mom, too. She thought I was dead or dying last night."

"That's not what she's upset about," Kelly said.

"I know but, anyway, I'll probably be out of here by tomorrow. I'll call you guys and keep you up to date. Okay?"

############# 

September 26, 2005 -- 12:30 p.m.

They had already checked me out. A young doctor and an old doctor had given me the results of all the tests that they'd tormented me with for 48 hours. Boiled down, they couldn't find anything wrong with me. Other than a lingering headache and a slight ringing in my ears which they said was to be expected when someone fired a high powered pistol at your head from a few feet away, bouncing the bullet off your head.

 The headache would probably go away in a day or two and the ringing might last a week or two but it would go away, said the older balding doc with a fringe of white hair running around the back of his head between his ears making him look like a wise old Greek philosopher.

 The tall dark-haired young doc, who the nurses couldn't keep their eyes off, had stepped in after the old doctor and warned me, "Apparently you've managed to avoid all of the bad effects of having your brains rattled twice in a lifetime. You could have died 20 years ago and there's evidence on the CAT scan of some residual scarring from that old injury, but nothing serious. And you got past this one.




When We Were Married Ch. 06B



"But," he said, stepping close to me and lowering his voice as if we were the only two people in the room, "I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that anytime you start shaking up the brain you're messing with things you shouldn't mess with. I was told that you've been doing some amateur boxing."

"Yes."

"I won't tell you that you can't keep doing it, but I'd strongly suggest that you ALWAYS wear headgear. And if you ever drive a motorcycle, never, ever get on one without a helmet. You've been a very lucky man, Mr. Maitland, and you might stay lucky, but I wouldn't bet it all on staying that lucky. Understand me?" 

 I thanked him and asked him in passing how Officer Howser and James were doing. I knew they'd both been admitted, but I hadn't heard anything about either one since Saturday.

I knew in the instant that I asked the question - I just didn't know which one it was, but his face closed up. The old doc stepped forward. I guess he'd had more experience at it than his younger colleague.

"Sergeant Howser appeared to be responding well to treatment. His system suffered stress from the bullet wound and the collapsed lung was a strain on his heart. He had some problems that had never surfaced but they would have responded to medication. His physicians expected he'd been able to leave today."

"But?"

"Apparently, his wound resulted in a blood clot forming in his lung and it made its way to his brain last night. There was no warning - no way to really anticipate it or take action until it was too late. He suffered a major stroke at 2 a.m. It was....quick....if that makes a difference. I hope it did, for his sake. It is possible that it happened in his sleep and he was never aware of what was happening."

I felt myself sitting back on the hospital bed. The young doc stepped forward and grabbed my shoulder. 

"Are you alright, Mr. Maitland? Sit back and take a few deep breaths. You can lay back on the bed for a moment if you're dizzy."

 Phil Howser was gone. Why the hell had I agreed to meet with him, when I knew I was never going to change my mind about Shawn Smith. He'd still be alive today if I hadn't agreed to help him with a little internal politicking to keep his members happy.

It wasn't my fault, I knew. None of us had any idea what Shawn Smith was going to do. But, yet - he had saved my life, and it had cost him his. 

"I'd like to see his room."

"His body was removed early this morning."

"I'd still like to see it. Is another patient in there?"

"No," said the old doc.

I stood at the entrance to the semi-private room where Phil Howser had breathed his last. The hospital bed he had died in was fresh and the sheets were tight and starched. I remembered the way he'd looked in the last moments before Shawn had burst in, relaxed and happy and holding court with his buddies.

"He liked you, you know."

I didn't want to turn and face her, but I made myself. She was a little shorter than me, a heavy set brunette with brilliant blue eyes and a normally ruddy complexion. Now she was pale and bloodless.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Howser. God, but I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault, Mr. Maitland," she said, looking around the room with the same expression I'd probably had. As if we neither one could believe that he still wasn't around here somewhere.

"He knew Shawn was wrong. He needed to pay for what he did. He just couldn't say it because they were both cops. But...he told me a few times that guys like you were the only good thing about those 'candy assed pencil pushing shysters in the SA'."

"That sounds like Phil. Are you...are you okay? Is there anything I can do?"

She looked back at me and licked her lips.

"No, I'm not okay. Both our kids are out of town. Bert is in the Army on a tour in Iraq and Molly is working at Jackson Memorial in Miami. She's an emergency room nurse. She's flying home tonight. I think Bert will be coming in in a couple of days. So it's just me. 

"Used to be me and him. 

"Now....it's just me.

"It feels....wrong."

"If there's anything I can do...."

"There's nothing anyone can do, nothing."

 When she turned away and began to shudder silently, I stepped away from her and left the room. I could hear her crying I walked to a nurse's station and rang up Cheryl. Two of our female ASAs would be at the hospital within a half hour and would stay with her until her children showed up. She wouldn't have Phil, but she wouldn't be alone.

###################### 

I was going to go by and visit James anyway, but I found that I had a bad feeling about him because of what had happened to Phil. I found out where he was and went up to his floor, in the intensive care unit. I know a gut shot is dangerous, but I wasn't sure why they'd have him there three days after the shooting.

As I approached the room a nurse moved to intercept me.

"I'm sorry, visitors aren't being allowed to see Mr. James."

"My name is Maitland. I'm the Assistant State Attorney who was shot Friday. James saved my life. Could you let me in there for just a moment to say hello?"

An older nurse stepped toward us and had heard me.

"You can go in, Mr. Maitland. His wife is in there with him, but we can bend the rules for just a moment. But..."

"What?"

"He's not well. He's running a high fever right now. He might not be too coherent."

"Why?"

"I won't bore you with the full name, but it looks like he's infected with one of the two or three super-resistant strains of bacteria that you find in a lot of hospitals today."

"Resistant? That means-"

"Only that it's going to be hard to knock down. We're hitting him with super doses of antibiotics. It will kill every bacteria in his body, hopefully, which will leave him vulnerable to anything around him for a few days or weeks until his natural resistance builds back up. If we can keep him alive, and if he's tough enough, he'll make it."

I noticed the 'ifs'. She wasn't being super-optimistic. I had known that bullets to the stomach or abdomen are bad news because they are good sites for all kinds of opportunistic infections. But a super bug on top of that? I decided I'd have somebody light a candle for him beside the ones I'd had lit for Dunleavy and O'Collins at the downtown Catholic church. 

And I'd say an extra prayer. Most of the time I think it's just praying to a fantasy. But on the one in a million chance there was somebody or something up there actually listening, it couldn't hurt, and he deserved it.

I walked in behind her. He was a horse. He seemed to dwarf the bed, but he was tangled in cord and tubes. His skin still had that sickly gray sheen. A pretty black woman about a third his size held a cup with a straw up to him holding the straw to his mouth.

"C'mon baby, you need to drink. Just sip a little."

She didn't notice I was in the room until I had approached James from behind her. Sweat covered his face and there was the smell of male sweat in the room. He must have soaked through his hospital gown. And he was a big man so he could sweat a whole bunch.

I didn't register at first. I imagine so many doctors and nurses streamed through here that she was used to strangers walking in. But then she recognized me.

"You haven't done enough?"

Something about her tone roused the big man and he forced his eyes open. There was almost a smile on his lips.

"Maitland. God damn."

She was a very pretty woman. Deep, black eyes, lips that didn't look natural with the hard line that had frozen them now. Hair straight and down her back. She was petite but everything was there in abundance. James had been a lucky man until he ran into me.

"Mrs. James, I'm very sorry for what happened. I never meant for any of this to happen."

"I'm glad to hear that. I'd hate to think that you meant to put my husband into this hospital bed while you walk out of here."

"Elexus."

James managed to put a little strength into his voice.

"Baby, don't be that way. Maitland didn't shoot me. It was all Shawn. If the asshole hadn't been screwing around with that white woman.."

He started to cough and then spit up green slime. Elexus James put the cup down and grabbed a cloth. A nurse behind me bustled toward him and helped him sit forward. He coughed and spit for a moment and then calmed down. The nurse helped him lay back on the bed.

After a moment he opened his eyes again and said, "Got to tell 'ya, Maitland. I feel like shit. Probably look like shit too, right?"

I smiled at him and said, "You're still a fine figure of a man, James. I imagine the wife has to beat the nurses off you with a stick."

He lay back and closed his eyes, "...only in my dreams.....only in my...."

And then he apparently drifted off and I could hear him snoring in a moment.

I stood there but I couldn't think of anything else to say. Elexus James just continued to stare at me with a look that would have skewered me to the wall if it had had physical force.

Finally, I said, "James. I hope you feel better."

I reached over and took one his huge hands in mine. His skin was clammy and warm. I squeezed it twice, then let it go.

" Mrs. James, if there's anything I or the State Attorney's Office can do, call us."

I turned to walk out. She caught me before I hit the door, touching me on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Maitland. I know....I know...you didn't do this. You didn't put him here. But, we've been together since I was 13 and he was 16. I used to sneak out to meet him after my parents fell asleep. We've been together 20 years. Never been another man in my life. Never wanted anyone else. And they're not saying it, but - he could die. I never been so scared in my life. I don't know what to do. I don't know - if I even want to live if he goes. But we have a daughter. I can't leave her. I'm so damned scared."

 "I know you're scared. The only person I've ever lost was my father when I was a little boy and I didn't know enough to be scared, but I know what you're feeling."

"The thing is - they thought I was dead and I survived. James is a big, strong guy. The nurse told me they're hitting him with every antibiotic they have. It depends on his will to live and he's got you and his daughter to live for. I think he'll make it. That's not much, but you have to have faith that he'll walk out of here. He's a good man. If there's any justice, he will."

I left her there holding his hand and wishing to God that my words would turn out to be true.

 September 26, 2005 -- 3:45 p.m.

I walked back into the floor where my office was located and noticed the hush that swept through in my wake. Secretaries stopped their telephone conversations and stared at me. A couple of Assistants stepped out of their offices to stare at me also. 

As I approached Cheryl's desk she stood up and I stopped. She came around the desk and hugged me - hard!

She was wetting my shirt, my black shirt. The Big Man had insisted on black a while back and I'd given in. I bought all my outfits in black, except for a couple of casual wear things, shorts and that kind of thing. Today I was dressed in black slacks, a black button down shirt and a black dress coat.

Finally I pushed her away.

"What is this, Cheryl. You're acting like I almost died or something."

Funny, but I felt tears welling in my eyes. I was turning into a fucking woman myself.

She sniffed.

"Don't make jokes, Bill. You could have died."

"I could get hit by a car crossing the street from the parking lot on my way into this building. It was pretty dramatic, I'll grant you that, but it's over, Cheryl. Now I just have to survive the media onslaught."

"God, tell me about it," she said, pulling back and checking out the bandages that wrapped the back of my head in a swath. "We've had over 200 calls from media outlets all over the world. There hasn't been much time to get any work done today. Of course, Mr. Edwards isn't TOO unhappy."

I grinned at her.

"As long as they spell his name right, right?"

I didn't wait for her to answer, but headed for my office. I opened the door and stopped. There was a tidal wave of paper on my desk, telephone notes and post-its. I pulled up the first few - New York Times, Sky News, the U.K. Guardian, then I started wading through the rest of the pile.

Six months ago I'd been an unknown Assistant State Attorney in a big/little Florida City/Town. My fellow lawyers here and there might have known me, but as far as a public presence, I was happily unknown. I had never wanted to be famous. Oh, I had the stray daydreams of fame and fortune but I'd never really needed that.

 I had a wife I loved, two kids who were turning into insufferable pains in the asses as they were supposed to in their teens, a job I believed in and sufficient income. Who needed more than that.

Now I was the fucking Angel of Death and people around the globe were apparently vicariously living my life for me. I knew I'd have as much luck withdrawing back into my personal world as I'd had of convincing the Old Man to leave me alone.

Cheryl stuck her head in my door.

"We have another call. It's CBS in New York. You want to take it?"

"No, hold all my calls, all of them. If you think it's one I might want to take, stick your head in the door." 

I sat down at my familiar desk and put my head in my hands, then buzzed Cheryl and asked her to get somebody to go down and get me a Starbuck's Cappuccino, mostly foam, and then tried to collect my thoughts.

Twenty minutes late my door opened without a knock and I looked up curiously. There was only one person who did that and I didn't expect him.

Austin Edwards walked in carrying my Cappuccino and handed it to me across the desk.

He sat down in the chair across from me and we looked at each other curiously for a minute or so. In the meantime I sipped the foam and licked it off my upper lip.

"Are you trying to steal my job?"

"That's been the plan for the last 10 years. When did you figure it out?"

"It's pretty obvious, based on the media interest and the calls I've been getting. I think some people want to put you in for Sainthood. Others just think I should abdicate, walk away and leave the office to that heroic Angel of Death who has no fear."

 "It is kind of overwhelming. I feel like I'm going down a mountain with no way to stop."

 "Get used to it. Calvin Coolidge and Teddy Roosevelt became public heroes and look what happened to them. You should start practicing your speeches."

"Not going to bother. Look, Austin, this is your bag. You're the guy with the ideas of making a better world, serving the public and all that other crap. All I am is a lawyer who knows how to talk and deliver a final argument. I like what I do and I think I'm pretty good at it. I'd be out of my depth doing anything else."

"Like they say, if you can learn to fake modesty, you can do anything."

I gulped more steamed milk.

"Do I have to move up my timetable for looking around for another job? Since there won't be a trial, I could start sending out resumes anytime. At your pleasure."

He shook his head and looked down at his fingers, which he'd steepled in front on him on my desk.

 "No, whether you stay or not is up to you. Maybe you'd be uncomfortable working with me now. I won't ask you to stay on if things have gone too sour for you to be able to keep working here."

"Not up to me, Austin. You told me when this was over you wanted me to move on. Odds are you're still going to be hurt by this, so what's changed?"

He stared into my eyes. I felt the old awe come over me for a minute. I'd been a fledgling prosecutor when he had hired me, mentored me and finally gave me a chance to do something that very few men or women my age and with my experience got to do. He'd been the man I looked up to and tried to model myself after. Even now, I thought that in a lot of ways he was a better man and a better attorney than I'd ever be.

"You know, I hope you know, that it was more about my opinion of the case than pure politics. I really thought there was serious doubt about whether we should be pursuing him. I honestly thought you'd gotten your personal problems mixed up in this case and the thing - with Debbie - had made you harder than you used to be."

"You know as well as I do the power we wield. We can crush people if we want to, and get away with it. I'd always thought you'd done as good a job as anybody I ever saw in using the power of the office the right way. After Debbie, I really thought you were just pissed at life in general and that was coloring the way you thought and your decisions. Now..."

He looked down at his hands, then back at me.

"I need to know, for my own peace of mind, that you know I wasn't willing to sell my soul to reach the Governor's Chair. It wasn't all political calculation."

"I know that, Austin. I knew it was a close call and that an honest man might come down differently than I did. I knew the political end of it bothered you, but it was more than that. If it had been simply that I thought you were trying to cover your ass, protect your run next year for Governor, I would have walked, right then, and gone public, because I couldn't have kept working for you. But I know you better than that. You forget, I've worked for you for 10 years. I know the kind of man you are. You're more than just another politician."

"So you want to stick around?"

"Until you ask me to leave."

I finished slurping the rest of the Cappuccino and licked the foam mustache off my upper lip.

He stood up.

"By the way, I've already had a preliminary poll run and it matches the calls I've had. There are a lot of African Americans in this community who are happy we didn't let a cop get away with murder, regardless of his color, and what Smith did shooting at his own fellow officers has pretty much eliminated all of the support he had at the Cop Shop. The general public just thinks we prosecute bad guys no matter who they are or where they work, and that's what they want. 

 "The only problem I see is that more people are starting to know your name than mine. "

But he smiled when he said the last.

"So doing good paid off?"

"Looks like it."

"Who would'a thought?"

He was almost to the door when he stopped and looked back at me.

"A little birdie told me that you rode to the hospital without Debbie, who was there somehow when this was going down, and I think she was kind of wanting to ride with you."

I nodded.

"And I believe your French girlfriend called you in the hospital. Is she flying back to your side?"

I just shook my head no.

"So you're in between romantic entanglements?"

"On the administrative chart, where does being nosy about your subordinates' romantic lives fit?"

"A good administrator is always concerned about his staff being happy and content. A happy and contented staff is a productive staff. Managerial science 101."

"If it will allow you to rest easier at night, no, I don't have anybody in my life right now. As far as important relationships go, I'm batting zero for two."

He put his hand on the doorknob. 

"I just thought you should know that a female member of my staff has been very interested in your personal life since your -- blowup -- with Debbie occurred. She waited patiently for you to get past Debbie only to see Aline des-Jardins swoop in and grab you. Now that you're between women, I thought you might think about at least asking her out for a coffee or something."

"Do I know this lady?"

"You see her every time you come up to my office."

A couple of things kept me quiet for a moment.

"Are we talking about-"

"Yes."

"Austin...I...we....she..."

He just waited me out.

"Okay, Austin, assuming you're serious. One, why in the hell would she need to have you run interference for her. Every male in this building would give his left nut, or both, to have a chance at her. She probably is wined and dined every night. She sure as hell doesn't need me. Secondly, why didn't she pick up the phone or come by here. And lastly....what about...I mean....you...."




When We Were Married Ch. 06C



© Daniel Quentin Steele 2011

#################### 

THE CLEAN UP CREW -- SECRETS

Here's the latest chapter of WWWM. My thanks once again to Curiousss for his hard work on editing, which I definitely think has improved the story. Believe it or not, the next chapter will not be long in coming. It's already written and Curiousss is laboring on it as this is posted. As always, I hope the readers who've stuck around continue to enjoy the story.

DQS1

################### 

My name is William Maitland. I am 42 years old. I almost died a few days ago. I almost lost my job a few weeks ago. I lost the second woman I've loved in 20 years a month ago. I lost the first woman I ever loved and my family and my marriage six months ago.

I have gained a new nickname, international fame, and I'm having sex with women I never could have imagined approaching six months ago and I think I will be having sex with the sexiest woman with the biggest breasts in the Western Hemisphere within a not too distant length of time. That thought frightens and yet exhilarates me at the same time.

I have learned the basics of boxing and beaten the crap out of the man who stole my wife, albeit having the crap beaten out of me at the same time. I have repaired the rupture in my family due to the example of a man who died trying to make the world a better place, and a man who is a savage killer rescued my family and myself from a terrible and legitimate threat.

I have hurt a friend who has been cheating on his wife for years, that I know of, and possibly destroyed his marriage, while a man who has killed hundreds and ordered the murder of thousands has promised to watch my back against a drug cartel that might be coming after me and my family.

It's been a strange six months.

October 2, 2005 --Sunday 10:35 p.m.

I looked out over the sparkling galaxy of lights that was the New York skyline and almost had to pinch myself to make myself believe I was really here. I was 60 stories above the city, in a prime suite, all expenses paid by CBS. I held a glass of really good champagne, not sure what the exact year was but I was never really a Champagne connoisseur. I sniffed the goblet in my hand and let a few of the bubbles rise to tickle my nose.

The beautiful blonde standing behind me tapped me on the shoulder and I looked at our reflections, standing together in front of the glassed window.

"It is something, isn't it?"

I nodded.

"I love Jacksonville and I'm a Florida boy, born and bred, but I have to admit, you could get addicted to this view."

"I know what you mean, Bill. It's why so many men and women scramble and bleed and bust their asses to get to this city. You can't compare it -- I don't think -- to anyplace else on earth."

I turned to look up slightly into the deep blue eyes of Celestial Madonna, now Jane to me as I was Bill to her, and said, "Actually, I might have had this, but I turned it down."

She gave me a curious look.

"A few months back, before I became the 'Angel of Death', an attorney offered me a shot at a defense position in a firm with offices around the country including New York."

"You turned him down?"

I looked back out at the New York night sky and said, "He asked me the same day that my wife told me she was divorcing me. I was kind of off balance and wasn't ready to make any big moves in my life."

She put one slim hand on my right arm.

"That must have been terrible. I've been divorced, twice, but the first time we just grew apart. At the end we were just two friends sharing a place and there was no real pain there. The second time was harder. I've heard that she really broke you."

"That would about describe it. She tore my heart out, tore my balls off, wrecked my confidence in my manhood. She did a number on me."

She ran her hand up and down my arm. I had dressed for the 60 Minutes interview in my trademark black, only this time a black tux with a black shirt and dress pants. Following the interview, Jane had taken me as her guest to a restaurant I'd never heard of before which looked like a hole-in-the-wall dive and served the best French food I'd ever tasted, here or in Paris.

I had agreed to do a series of interviews for a number of CBS and other network operations, but Jane had basically taken over showing me around the city and getting me from one interview to another. Her bosses let her because they figured the bond would get them the best long term results for their dollar.

It was easy to forget that she was Celestial Madonna with the ever-so serious delivery of fluff pieces about the very important life events of very unimportant celebrities. She was funny, charming and didn't seem to be aware of just how unbelievably hot she was, with tight, taut firm C cup tits, a tiny waist, and an ass to die for when she wasn't dressed in her television uniform. This was the real woman, Jane from Pahokee.

"You recovered well, Bill. I'm thinking your ex is kicking herself in the ass right now."

"No, she found a young stud to play with and then an older guy who turned out to be an alright type. I couldn't hate him even when I wanted to. I think she might have some regrets, only because we were together for twenty years. But...."

"Trust me, she's kicking herself in the ass."

I turned to her and couldn't help grinning.

"It's okay Jane. You don't have to keep selling. You've already got most of the taping you needed and before I leave the city you'll have some good stuff."

She stepped in toward me until our faces were almost touching.

"I'm not selling the show, Bill Maitland."

"Then what are you selling?"

"I'm buying."

She leaned in and we were kissing, first with closed lips and then open mouths and her free hand dropped to my rising erection and began rubbing and squeezing it.

I pulled away from her and said, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"I think it's a great idea."

Then she was dropping to her knees, her long legs in sheer stockings visible crouched underneath her, unzipping me and she took almost all of me in one fluid motion. I looked down at her and still couldn't believe the woman I'd watched on television for a few years was on her knees sucking me off.

She pulled away and held my wet dick in one delicate hand and said, "I've wanted to do that since that day in the courthouse. I don't know what it was but, God I was hot, probably because I could almost smell that detective's pussy that was with you. She was dripping. You guys were so fucking obvious. Everybody around you knew what the two of you were going to do. I heard you fucked her in one of your empty offices. Is that true?"

"A gentleman never tells."

She squeezed, sucked and jerked and I finally broke down and said, "Yeah. Yes. We did it in one of the empty offices."

"Was she good?"

"I don't know. If you're starved and you're eating the best steak in the world so fast you don't even chew it, you don't know if it's good or not. You just know you have to have it."

She sucked hard and then let it go and looked up at me, smiling.

"Are you starved now?"

I pushed her down and knelt beside her, running my hand under her panties. She was dripping and my fingers came out wet. I started coming out of the tux and trying to get my pants down at the same time.

"The dresser," she said, pointing to a dresser near the entrance to the suite. I went over and opened it, finding a packet of condoms.

'You little slut. You were ready for this, weren't you?"

"Since you got to town. I've never fucked an Angel before."

"I hope I'm not a disappointment. That's a big rep to live up to. And as you can tell, I'm not the biggest guy in the world."

She reached down and squeezed.

"Big enough, baby, big enough."

I slipped the condom on and knelt between her long legs. I ran my fingers down her slit and they came up dripping. I held it to her lips and watched her lick them clean .

"You are such a fucking slut."

I lasted about five minutes the first time. Twenty minutes later she got me up again and I lasted twenty minutes before I came inside her mouth. I'd used a second condom but when I got close she had me pull out and slip it off and stick my cock, which was so hard it actually did hurt, into her mouth and she made it feel better.

The third time came about two hours later as we lay in a bed that reminded me of the one on the Bonne Chance, at least in its size. This time she mounted me and did a reverse cowboy. I'd seen it on porno films, but I'd never actually done it before. I guess I've been kind of slow, sexually speaking. Missionary, doggie, anal and oral had always been enough for me with Debbie and then Aline.

It was a strange sensation, watching her and visualizing her in her television persona and superimposing that over the naked figure slipping up and down on my cock wet with her juices. I almost felt like I was outside my body watching myself, except the sensation of hammering myself into her as far as I could go every time she rammed herself down on me was all too real.

Later she lay with her back against my chest and I cupped her sweaty breasts and played with the inch-long nipples.

"I still don't really believe this."

"Believe it, Mr. Maitland. This is all real and you felt very real inside me a few minutes ago."

I kissed the back of her neck and said, "I could never even have daydreamed this six months or a year ago."

She rolled over into me and kissed back.

"It's only been six months, Bill. It didn't feel real for me for more than a year after my split with my second ex.. I felt -- honest to God -- like I was cheating on my ex, and we'd been divorced for awhile. But, sometimes -- and I didn't fuck around all that much -- when I'd wake up next to a guy I'd have this momentary flash of guilt and wonder how I could be doing this to him -- my ex. And I'd only been married for four years."

'It took a year?"

"To stop feeling guilty? No, about six months. But I still dreamed about him for another six months."

She leaned back.

"I know it must feel like a hundred years ago since you were single, Bill. But we were all single before we got married. There is a life outside of marriage. There are millions of us, and most of us are pretty happy, most of the time. Just, stop being so serious. Have some fun and, if it's meant to be different, it will happen."

Sometime that morning I woke up with her nestled against me, her sweet smelling fragrance all around me, and realized where I was and who I was with. And, for the first time, other than the nights I'd spent with Aline, I didn't feel as if I'd awakened into a nightmare, lost and alone.

################ 

October 5, 2005 -- Wednesday - Noon

Bad things happen in threes. 

I stood behind the widow, in the second row of mourners. We were standing as the police honor guard fired their rifles into the brilliant cloudless skies. She wore black, as did her daughter. It looked like half the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office was in attendance.

I caught some hard looks when people thought I wasn't looking. Some of them didn't bother to look away, just stared at me when I caught them. Sheriff Knight stood in the front row. He had looked at me as I walked into the church filled with blue uniforms. I stared right back at him. I didn't blame him for his feelings, but I had gotten James killed. The least I could do was attend his funeral.

I had driven my own car to the Evergreen Cemetery on 45th Street. Traffic was blocked for miles as the funeral procession filed into the cemetery. I had to walk nearly a half mile and I was hot and sweaty by the time I got to the burial site. They had chairs for nearly a hundred people, and there must have been another 400 standing.

I made my way through the crowd of blue and they melted away as I walked among them. When I got to the row of seats immediately behind Elexus James I stared at the cop sitting behind her. He didn't have to, but he got up and moved away. I sat behind him and tapped her on the shoulder. 

I hadn't seen her since that day in James' hospital room. He had fought a good fight. It had taken him another four days to die. It looked like she'd aged ten years in the four days.

"Mrs. James, I'm sorry I was out of town when your husband passed. I didn't want to talk over the phone. I couldn't get back any sooner, but I wanted to come and express my condolences in person. He was a good man."

She just looked at me for a moment. Her eyes were red, but dry. It looked as if she didn't have any more tears in her to shed.

She still didn't say anything but the pretty teenager sitting next to her started crying and said, "You....you..."

"No, Conisha! No!"

She looked from her daughter to me.

"She's young, Mr. Maitland, and this has - hit her hard. Please, forgive her. She's young, and we're..."

I was wrong. She had a few tears left.

Knight stood beside her and put his arm around her. He sat down beside her and held her through the funeral. She never looked back at me again. Neither did he.

As I sat there and listened to the minister my mind wandered back to the previous Thursday. It looked like the same group of men in blue had surrounded Howser's wife, daughter and son. His son wore the Ranger uniform he hadn't even changed after arriving from Afghanistan via Jacksonville Naval Air Station on a straight fly-in.

Howser's parents had flown in from Michigan and he had a brother and sister who had flown in from Alabama and California respectively with their children. I had deliberately come late to the Oaklawn Cemetery on San Jose Boulevard, but the cops knew who I was, as did the television and press photographers who took my picture.

This funeral took place under an overcast sky that threatened to rain at any minute. The relative darkness seemed more appropriate for saying goodbye than watching men carrying the casket containing your mortal remains to your final resting place on a day when you should have been going to the beach. It was a typical Jacksonville October day, unseasonably warm. 

Back on Thursday, I had waited until the minister had finished, the police squad had fired into the sky and Howser's friends had said go

odbye to his widow. Knight just nodded at me. I had a feeling he was going to be a long time, if ever, getting over the hard feelings he had for me.

Finally, there were only the television crews waiting a good distance away with the still photographers, Howser's family, a few cops and myself. I walked up to Mrs. Howser and she held her hand out. Her son and daughter stared at me with unreadable expressions. I don't know what I would have felt looking at the man in some way responsible for the death of my father.

"I'm glad you came, Mr. Maitland. I wanted Molly and Bert to be able to meet you. I've told them about what happened and why, and I've told them that their father admired you. I didn't want them to have any false impressions of what happened."

Molly Howser just stared at me, shook her head with the tears running down her face and stumbled away. Her mother followed her, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her to her. 

Bert Howser was almost a younger carbon copy of his father, rail thin, six-foot-two, but with a full head of sandy hair. He put his hands behind his back, as if he was on parade inspection. His uniform was rumpled, but his shoes were shined.

"My mother has told me....about what happened, Mr. Maitland. I appreciate your coming by here. Dad would have appreciated the gesture."

"He was a good man and a good cop - it's Sergeant, isn't it?"

"Yes. I...uh....if..."

He stopped for a moment and took a deep breath.

"I'm a soldier, Mr. Maitland. I enlisted knowing that I might not come back. I've got a fiancee and she's....she knows what the deal is. But, you don't expect your father...."

He shook his head and looked into the distance beyond me.

"He loved what he did. He was a little disappointed that I decided to make a career in the military - but he understood and I understood him. I'd never tell Mom but, I think if he knew he was going to die, he'd rather have gone out this way than die slow with cancer or something."

He looked down at the ground and rubbed his lip with his forefinger.

"The doctors told us they found heart problems in the autopsy. In a few months or more he probably would have had an attack or had symptoms. They'd have taken him off the street and given him a desk job, if they didn't put him out to pasture. He would have hated that."

I held out my hand and he shook it without looking at me. I walked away leaving him standing alone near the place where his father would be buried. I thought that at least he was lucky in that he would have a grave to visit. I hadn't been back to the mine where my father lay buried since I was eight years old, and I probably never would.

I'd heard the clicking of cameras as I'd shook his hand and figured they'd appear somewhere. 

As I walked away from James' funeral the same cameras were clicking. I knew the stories that were coming. 

"Maitland's deadly touch continues."

People died around me. Good or bad. It had seemed almost humorous when I'd first been tagged as the Angel of Death and people started treating me differently. It had stopped being funny a while back, especially because I'd begun to wonder myself.

Oh, and the third bad thing...

Two hours after I'd walked away from Bert Howser I drove down the paved road under the arch reading Old City Cemetery. It was a smaller cemetery in the largely black section of downtown Jacksonville. It was seemingly deserted except for Channel Four and Channel 12 television trucks parked just inside the entrance.

Camera crews stood outside the trucks and stared at me as I pulled in, but I was already by them before they could get their cameras aimed at me. I drove down a winding road until I saw a small knot of vehicles off to the right. I pulled in behind one and got out. A small group of people, maybe thirty in all, was standing near an open grave site. A casket was set up on a stand and a black minister stood in front of the casket.

In the front row of mourners was a small black, white-haired woman surrounded by three good-sized men. As one of the men, alerted by the murmurs of the crowd, turned to look at me I saw the resemblance. It was an older, heavier Shawn Smith. All of them turned to look at me as the first man to spot me came toward me at a fast walk.

"Get the fuck out of here," he said, his fists clenched. He was about six-two, heavily muscled. He was trembling. One of the other men with the old woman walked up behind him. 

"Eddie, don't. Don't do this in front of momma."

"I'm gonna kill him with my bare hands if he don't walk his ass out of here. Now."

I held my hands in front of me, palms out in a conciliatory gesture. He had six inches and probably a hundred pounds on me. Even with the boxing lessons I'd had, I didn't want any trouble with him, especially since in his shoes I'd probably feel the same.

"Mr. Smith? You'd be Eddie Smith, Shawn's older brother, right? And you're Carl, right?"

Carl Smith put his hand on Eddie's shoulder and told me, "Mr. Maitland, please get out of here. My brother is a law abiding man, but this is a bad day for him, for all of us. Don't make it worse."

Eddie Smith pushed his brother's hand away and stared at me.

"Where are the photographers, you piece of shit? Just couldn't pass up another chance to get a little more publicity. 'Angel of Death comes to the Killer Cop's funeral.' I bet the tabloids will eat it up."

"No photographers and I won't stay long, if you'll give me just a couple of minutes. I was going to stay at the back until the service was over and have a couple of words with your mother, if I could."




When We Were Married Ch. 06C



"You get the fuck away from her, from us. I'll kill you before I let you hurt her more. You killed her baby, you fucking asshole. My baby brother."

"Edward!"

The white haired woman had come up behind him. She leaned heavily on a cane. She looked like she weighed 100 pounds if she was soaking wet, and yet she had borne four bruising sons.

"Momma, go back. This is that piece of shit- "

"Edward, I'm not one of your floozy girlfriends, and this is your brother's funeral. You will not use that kind of language on this day."

She stared at me, Her face was lined and the lines had lines. I couldn't imagine when she had been a young woman conceiving and bearing these sons.

"Mrs. Smith."

"Mr. Maitland, why are you here?"

"I came to express my condolences for your loss, Mrs. Smith."

"You fucking hypocrite. You got him killed and you have the balls to come here and-"

"Edward, show some respect for your brother. Mr. Maitland, you could have sent a card. Why did you feel it necessary to show up in person.? You have to know that my sons are very upset. Shawn was my baby, our baby, and they helped raise him after my husband died when he was just a toddler."

"I'm very sorry to intrude on your personal grief, Mrs. Smith. I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry it turned out this way. I never intended for it to end like this. I knew that Shawn might, probably would, have to serve some prison time, but people go in and come out all the time. He could have built a new life, a different life, and he had a lot of friends. He could have come back."

The brother who hadn't spoken, Cyrus, had joined us.

"As what? A crooked cop who shot a man in the back and killed him? How do you come back from that? I tried to talk sense to him, but he thought it was the end of everything. When he lost Elise, it was like the heart went out of him. I knew he was going to do something crazy, but he wouldn't have, and he wouldn't have lost Elise, if you hadn't kept hounding him."

"I thought he had murdered a man, maybe in passion, but it was still murder, and I couldn't walk away."

"It's done now. It's over, Mr. Maitland. We'll bury my son and go on with our lives. I appreciate your having the decency to come here and talk to me."

Eddie Smith said, "We'll go on with our lives as the family of the killer cop who murdered three men and then shot down two of his fellow cops before they shot him down like a mad dog. That's what we'll go on with and what we'll have to tell his nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews when they come along. That's what we'll tell them about my baby brother."

I shook my head and reached out to take his mother's hand. She stiffened, but didn't pull away.

"No, tell them that your baby brother, your son, Mrs. Smith, was a good and a brave cop. He saved lives and shot down bad guys. He earned commendations. He was liked and respected by the men he served with. He served the public for ten years. He never had a blemish on his record, but then he fell in love. Love makes people do strange things. He made a mistake and it cost him his life, but the way he died doesn't change the way he lived his life. Maybe the public will always look at him as the Killer Cop, but you can tell his nieces and nephews that he was a good cop and a good man, and there are records to prove it."

As I walked back to my Escalade I knew they'd probably never forgive me for the part I had played in Shawn's death. But they hadn't committed Shawn's crimes. They just had to pay for them for the rest of their lives. I hoped my words would help them, even a little bit, to remember the good that Shawn Smith had done in his short life.

I felt tired as hell - maybe it was finally all over. However I didn't know as I drove away from Smith's family that James would die in the hospital within 36 hours. I'd have one more funeral to attend before I could start trying to forget about Shawn Smith. I also knew that, try as I might, I never would.

The gunfire in the FOP hall had only taken seconds, but the ripples of those seconds would change lives for years to come. The sad thing is that I had learned over the past ten plus years that that's the way it always is. Episodes of violence never ever end nice and neat, maybe because life isn't that way.

######################## 

October 5, 2005 -- Wednesday - 3 p.m.

She had thought she was too late. By the time she had found parking at Jacksonville International Airport, made her way to the departure terminal and found the ticket counter for United, it was already 3 p.m. She knew that Clint was flying out on a 5:30 flight and he'd said he had to be at the airport by 3 at the latest to make that flight.

She looked around trying to make out his slender frame topped by dark hair streaked with gray, but there were so many people. This was a silly, foolish thing to be doing, but even though they'd said goodbye the night he told her about his African adventure, she felt like there was too much unsaid.

He found her. She turned around and he was standing there, two suitcases at his feet.

"You're really trying to make it hard for me to leave, aren't you?"

She was in his arms and kissing him as hard as she could. She heard laughter and even a little applause from passengers streaming around them. Finally they separated and she saw that his shirt was wet with her tears. He looked at her strangely and she realized his eyes were misting.

"Why are you doing this, Debbie? I know you don't love me. I'm your friend but I never thought or said I was anything more. Have I been misreading the signals all this time?"

She took his hand and said, "Can we talk? Do you have a few minutes?"

He looked around, then said, "probably a few minutes. Let's find someplace to sit down and have a coffee, but I can't take too long."

They found a Starbucks and he ordered while she sat at the one free table in the place. In a few minutes he came over with their Cappuccinos and said, "Somehow this feels like Déjà Vu all over again."

She drank, to have something to do with her hands and to avoid having to look at him directly.

"I'm glad you came, Debbie. I'm glad I had a chance to say goodbye, but what's going on? What the hell was that kiss all about?"

She finally made herself look up at him. He was just Clint. That made her feel so damned good, yet terrified her at the same time.

"I know..." 

She took a breath.

"I know that you said you didn't love me. You've never made a secret of that and I never said I loved you. We're friends with benefits, but I love you like a friend. You don't know how important you've become in my life. No matter how shitty I've felt, no matter how guilty I've felt, no matter how bad I've felt, you've been there for me."

He grinned that familiar grin and made a casual gesture toward her body and said, "Okay, Deb, but it hasn't been hardship duty. There's a world full of guys that would have killed for the pleasure of consoling you. As the old saying, goes, it's a rough job, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do."

"I know, Clint, but all I gave you was sex and you could have gotten that a lot of places. You helped me keep my head on,"

He reached out and took her hand.

"You value yourself too lightly, Deb. You remember what I said. There are guys who would die for your smile - not your body, not sex with you, but your smile. If I could have loved anybody, if I could ever have got my head on straight and got over my wife, I could have seen myself with you. The thing is, by the time I got there, you'll be back with Bill. The timing was never right for us."

"Why do you say that? Why won't you believe me when I tell you Bill and I will never get back together, ever?"

He smiled and ran a finger along the side of her face.

"You'll never know, unfortunately, what it's like for a guy just to look at you. You can't think like a man, so you'll never know how we look at female beauty. Trust me, you're a very rare treasure. Why I'm so sure you'll be back with Bill? Because you still love him, because you get a look on your face when his name is mentioned, because you get so damned angry when his name is mentioned. You don't get angry like that at people you've left behind."

"I'm not going back because I don't want to. Our marriage died a slow, painful death and I won't go back to that but, even - even - if I wanted to, he would never take me back. I can't tell you why, but he won't. He's moved on."

"I won't say writers are psychics, but we do have a pretty good grasp of human emotions, and I'm pretty good at reading people as an old newspaper reporter and writer. He was in love with you that night that I met him at your place. It was written all over him."

She sipped at her drink and said, without looking up at him, "Maybe, but you didn't see him the night that we met him and Aline at his condo. Maybe he did love me, and I was egotistical enough to to think he always would, but he's in love with her now."

"He wouldn't be the first man, or woman, to be in love with two people at the same time."

She turned her attention back to her drink. After a moment, she said, "Even if you don't love me, I know you love fucking me. If you think what we had was hot, stay with me, don't get on that damned plane, and I'll drain you so dry you'll need IVs every night. We'll try every position in the Kama Sutra and come up with a few new ones of our own."

He just smiled at her.

"I don't think any woman, any person, has ever paid me that great a compliment, Deb. If it was just the sex, shit, I'd stay. If I didn't know you were in love with another man, I'd think seriously about winning you for myself. I have no idea what it would feel like seeing that look in your eyes for me that you have when you hear his name. I have a feeling it would be wonderful, but..."

"But...?"

"I don't know how to explain it and I wish I could. I just feel like this is something I need to do - something I have to do. It's just like when I had to write that first novel, and it changed my life. I don't know what I'll find in Africa, but I feel like I can't live the rest of my life not knowing what I've missed."

Then she was crying again and hating it.

"I don't know why I can't make you understand, Clint. I have this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that when you walk away to the boarding area, that will be the last time I ever see you. I don't think you're coming back. I think you're going to die over there and that thought....devastates me.

"Bill - Bill is never coming back. Doug is gone and I won't see him again, and you've getting ready to leave me. My husband, my lover, my friend. It feels like I'm losing everything."

He moved around to put his arms around her.

"It might feel that way, but you're not. You've got your kids, a good job, friends and your ex working in the same building. He's alive and I will come back. Your feminine intuition has been wrong before."

He put his arms down and reached into his wallet. Not looking at her, he took a crumpled check out and put it on the table. He motioned to it and she picked it up. It was a check for $10,000 -- made out to her. Beside it he put a folded piece of white copy paper.

"What?"

He deliberately looked down at the table rather than meeting her eyes.

"I -- uh...I need to ask you for a favor, Deb, a big favor and I don't want you to get upset when I tell you what it is, okay?"

"What kind of favor?" But even as she was asking the question she remembered their late night conversation and knew what it was.

"I plan on coming back but, nothing in life is certain, and if I don't..."

He took a last sip of his Cappuccino.

"I would like you to cash and deposit this into your account and hold it. If I don't come back, this will pay for a pretty good sized marble monument. I want you to have it put up on her grave. It's in Palatka Memorial Gardens cemetery. There's just a little marker there now. I....after she died I wasn't.....real happy with her and I didn't put anything but the bare minimum at her grave site."

He reached back into the wallet and pulled out an old and frayed color photograph. It had been sealed in plastic so it had stood up pretty well to the ravages of time. The woman, who had long, black straight hair down to her waist, sat in the bend of a huge tree trunk on a lushly manicured lawn with a large building that had to be a courthouse behind her.

She wore a green blouse over a dark green short skirt that rode up on her thighs as she sat forward, smiling at whoever had taken the photo.

"I've carried it for 25 years," he said, biting his lip, "It's the last picture I have of her -- when she still loved me."

He ran his thumb over the picture.

"You can see how beautiful she was. Too beautiful to die as young as she did. She was only 24 - only 24."

He stared at it and Debbie felt that he had gone somewhere where only two people existed.

He took a deep breath.

"I should have done this a long time ago. She uh....she was an only child and her parents are gone now. My parents died a few years ago and my brother never really knew her. He lives up in Canada. All our friends are long gone, scattered to the four winds."

He looked up and met Debbie's eyes. She wondered if any man would ever again look at her the way he looked at the faded photo on the table.

"She was so beautiful. Before it all fell apart, she was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. But I'm....the only one left alive who knows how beautiful she was, how wonderful she was. If something happens to me..."

He took her hand.

"It's not right that she should be forgotten like that. If we had had children, there would be somebody to mourn her, somebody to bring flowers, to keep her memory alive. It's not much, but all I can do is put up a memorial, a granite marker, to tell people who pass by that somebody special lived and is buried there.

"I want you to have her name -- Margaret Elise Abbott -- put on the marker, and the dates January 3, 1956 and November 7, 1980, and these words -- 'Here Lies A Most Beautiful Lady.' The $10,000 should more than cover the expenses."

"No."

She tried to pull back but he held her hand.

"I don't expect you'll have to. I expect to come back and I want to do it myself. I want to say goodbye to her properly but, I couldn't stand the thought of dying and letting her be forgotten. I don't want you to do anything until you know I'm not coming back. Do this for me, Debbie. Be my friend. "

She closed her eyes and felt him release her hand. He slipped the check under her palm. He kissed her cheek and stood. When she opened her eyes he and the photo of the love of his life were gone.

######################### 

October 5, 2005 -- Wednesday - 4:30 p.m.

I had returned from James' funeral and was diving back into the accumulated paperwork that had piled up over a week. I make it a habit just to glance at arrest reports, to see if anybody interesting might have entered the system. I almost overlooked it, but something caught my attention and then I realized the name I was looking at.

I rang the Lieutenant in charge at the jail and asked him about the prisoner who'd been brought in Monday and had sat in the jail for the past two days.

"The charge is aggravated battery and attempted murder but there's no bond. Why?"

"He was going to go before a judge Tuesday morning," Lieutenant "Red" Butler said with his Arkansas HillBilly Twang that 20 years out of the Ozarks had never eroded.

"He nearly killed a woman, tried to strangle her, but he didn't finish the job. He scared the hell out of her and she filed an order to keep him the hell away from her regardless of the charges the arresting officer filed. However, before he could go in front of the judge, the son of a bitch nearly killed two inmates in the general holding cell where we were keeping him. He also sent one of my guys to University with a dislocated shoulder when he tried to get in the middle of it."

"What happened? Why weren't more charges filed against him?"

"Two of our alleged tough guy thugs moved in on him Monday night. Before it was over, he'd crippled one guy -- smashed his knee up, broke his arm and collarbone - and beat the other guy so badly that he's in the hospital in a coma. Harrington, Bob Harrington, was on shift duty and came in to try to save the guy. The 'victim' did something that nearly tore Harrington's shoulder out of its socket."

"Why the hell no charges?"

"Cameras caught the whole thing. He was defending himself. The two guys in the hospital started it all and he -- uh -- he tore them up before anybody could do anything to stop him. When he realized that Harrington was a jail officer, he backed off. He even helped pop his shoulder back in its socket before the other officers could get in there."

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Cameras don't lie. We have audio as well. One of your guys told us we'd be lucky if he didn't wind up suing us and making a bundle off the city for not protecting him better than we did."

"Where is he now, and has he seen a judge?"

"No, we couldn't charge him, but in light of everything that happened, and the fact the woman he nearly killed is terrified and begging us to keep him behind bars, we managed to put off a court appearance for a few days. That gives us a chance to figure out what the hell is going on and maybe let this guy cool down. We're keeping him in a solitary holding cell. It's not safe to leave him in the general population."

"I'm coming down, Red. I'll be there in 10 minutes. Don't tell him I'm coming."

"To what do we owe this honor? You don't usually come down for a face to face with anybody."

"It's personal."

Butler himself was waiting at the entrance to the maze of halls and walkways that make up the jail when I got down there. They buzzed me in through the admitting door and he led the way. It took 10 minutes to reach one of the few individual cells we kept for dangerous visitors or those who were in danger themselves in the general population.

There was a hallway about four feet across, bars and a room with only enough space for a cot, a sink and an overhead television. A dark haired man lay on the cot, his arms folded under his head, staring at the television which was broadcasting soap operas at that time of day.

Butler stood beside me and he noticed that I didn't get close to the bars, or close enough so that the man lying relaxed on the cot could get to me before I could move back.

"I guess you do know the guy," he said.

"Paul. Paul Donnally."

After a moment, Donnally turned his head toward me and glanced at both of us. Butler he didn't recognize, but I could tell he remembered me. I looked for what I'd seen in his eyes the day I'd fought Doug at UNF, but they were simply blank. He turned his head back away from me to stare at the ceiling.

I told Butler to get me a chair and when it came I sat down across from Donnally.

'Mr. Donnally, I need to talk to you. Could you give me a few minutes of your time?"

He was silent for an unnerving amount of time, then sat up on his cot so quickly I almost leaned back away from him.

"I guess I've got the time, Mr. Maitland, but what brings a man of your stature down to talk to a simple wife beater?"

"Not beaten, the hospital records said she might have permanent damage to her vocal cords. You strangled her so severely you actually broke a number of blood vessels in her throat. They say it's a miracle she didn't die there, choke to death on her own blood. That was your wife, your wife of nearly 20 years. Why did you try to kill her?"

He looked at the floor as though studying the tile pattern, then said, "I didn't try to kill her. If I had, she'd be dead."




When We Were Married Ch. 06C



"You came very close."

"I just lost it for a minute but I didn't want to kill her."

He could have been discussing the weather, or the last Jaguars game.

"You know that you're a very dangerous man, don't you?"

He shook his head.

"We're all dangerous."

"You nearly kill your wife. You send two big bruisers to the hospital, one with life threatening injuries. You nearly tear a jail officer's shoulder off. That makes you more dangerous than most. That makes me wonder if I should do anything I can to keep you off the streets and away from other people you could hurt."

He looked at me for a moment, dropped his eyes and then looked back at me and I almost jumped out of my skin. Whatever it was that he was hiding flashed across his eyes for a moment.

"I guess you're probably right, Mr. Maitland. I probably shouldn't be let out of here. I'll make it easy on you. I'll plead guilty to aggravated battery and attempted murder. That should put me away for a while."

I just stared at him for a moment. I wondered what was going on behind those blank screens of eyes. I still had the certainty in my gut that he was a very dangerous man, but I just didn't get the vibes that he was a bad man, and yet he had nearly murdered his wife. Forget the two thugs, they'd deserved whatever they got, but he had nearly strangled the mother of his two college age children.

"Do you want to talk?"

"No."

"Would you mind - are you going to raise legal hell with us if we keep you here a few more days investigating what happened - before you go in front of a judge? You could get out quicker if you ask to see the judge."

He shook his head again.

"No, I'm fine here. It's good for thinking, no distractions."

"I'll be back, Paul. Is it okay if I call you Paul?"

"Why not? It's my name. You mind if I call you Mr. Maitland?"

I shook my head. How the hell could I like the guy, and not want to be in the same cell with him?

I stood to leave. He looked at me again and I didn't see the darkness in him.

"You ever think, Mr. Maitland, how we wound up like this? Me in here with a wife I love more than life itself and want to strangle until her heart stops, and you out there with a wife that you gave your life to, and she threw you away. How do things like that happen?"

"I wish I knew, Paul. I really wish I knew."

I was walking across the street and back to the courthouse when I saw Debbie walking in from the Bay Street entrance. She carried the briefcase she'd started using since she'd started with the Public Defender's Office and as always she looked good. She also looked like she'd lost her last friend and it was plain she'd been crying.

I kicked myself, but there was always the possibility that something was wrong with the kids. I knew that's what I told myself but I knew it just kept her thinking that I still cared about her and, of course, I didn't - I really didn't!

I cut her off and it was an indication of how deep in her thoughts she was that she didn't see me until I was standing directly in front of her. She had to stop abruptly.

"Bill. I didn't-"

"Is everything okay, Deb? The kids alright?"

"The kids? Yeah - they're both fine, I think. Haven't talked to Kelly in a couple of days. BJ's back in school and seems to be doing okay, if I can stay on him to do his homework."

"Then?"

"Clint...just flew out of JIA."

I couldn't help feeling a little twinge of, something, but I had liked the guy.

"I'm - sorry, Deb, I know you liked the guy. Is he coming back soon, or at all?"

She clouded over and I knew I'd said exactly the wrong thing.

"Why are all men such fucking macho idiots?"

"To give women something to work with?"

She looked at the big clock on the wall of the entrance to the courthouse and said, "I'm sorry, but I have to check in with Johnny. You're looking good, Bill. That head wound cleared up nicely."

Then she walked away. Something felt odd about that encounter and then I realized she hadn't been the one pushing for us to talk. She must have really developed feelings for the guy and, again, I didn't know quite how that made me feel.

When I got back to my office there was a blonde guy in the waiting area who looked vaguely familiar, although I wasn't sure where I knew him from. Cheryl said, "This is Mr. Tucker, Mr. Maitland. Do you have a moment?"

I headed into my office and told her to send him in.

He folded his long, lanky frame -- he had to be about six foot three or four -- into the chair opposite me and said, "It's Gil Tucker; we met on the Bonne Chance. I could see you trying to place me. Remember, at the Captain's Dinner."

I remembered. I was surprised that Ms. Stein hadn't eaten him alive but he looked none the worse for wear.

"Yeah, it's good to see you again. What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to talk to you about Paul Donnally and see if I can get permission to see him. The officer on duty down there said he was being kept away from the general population and not receiving visitors."

"How do you know Donnally?"

"We used to be next door neighbors, for years, and I'm his best friend."

"What kind of guy is he? Did you have any idea he was going to try to strangle his wife?"

"No. Not that she didn't deserve it. Actually, that's kind of strong but, anyway, Paul is the last person on earth anyone would ever expect to do ANYTHING violent. It's not in his nature, or it wasn't. I don't think I've ever seen him get really angry in all the years I've known him -- until recently."

"What happened?"

"Too long to go into. She's been cheating on him for years and he was blind. She's the...the kind of woman...I'll tell you the kind of woman she is. Paul is my best friend. He pulled me out of Hell when my own marriage fell apart. Even knowing what she's done to him, if she showed up at my apartment at 3 a.m., I don't know that I wouldn't fuck her. That's the kind of woman she is. Anyway, he found out what she was up to, the kind of woman she really is, in the worst possible way. I had to scrape up what was left and try to put him back together again. He might have been able to walk away, but the bitch wouldn't let him alone. He tried to avoid her but....and when he met her....he snapped. That's all I can figure. I still don't understand it."

He was silent for a moment, then said, "I need to talk to him. I can get him the best defense attorneys around. I have a little money, actually, a lot. I worked for Bell Labs and I have a few patents. I'd like to get him out of the jail."

"He doesn't want to get out. I was just down there and he's in a single cell for the safety of everybody else down there. He put two inmates into the hospital and nearly put one of the jail officers out."

"Paul? Paul did that?"

"There's things about the man you obviously don't know."

"Obviously. It's like finding out that the world is flat. But I'd still like to see him."

"Sure, I'll call down and let them know to let you in. Do I need to remind you not to bring in any files or hacksaws?"

He smiled back.

"Attorneys are much more effective."

As he stood to walk out, he looked back at me and said, "He's not the kind of man you think he is, Maitland, he really isn't, no matter what it looks like."

I watched him as he went out the door, thinking that everybody deserved one friend like Gil Tucker, or Lew Walters.

########################## 

October 6, 2005 -- Thursday - 6:30 p.m.

I was in my Escalade heading for Baymeadows, where the woman with the biggest, or at least the sexiest, tits in the world was waiting to go out to dinner with me when my cell rang. I saw that it was an SA number.

"What is it, Mitch? DO NOT SAY an emergency has come up."

"An emergency has come up."

"I told you not to say that. What is it?"

"We've got a lady here who apparently is a cousin of Wilbur Bell. She's doing her damnedest to talk old Wilbur out of testifying against Sutton. I've got the room bugged so I could hear what was going on and she's telling him he's wasting his time because they'll never convict Sutton. Also, Wilbur's daughter might 'come into some money' if Wilbur conveniently develops amnesia about the whole thing."

"That asshole and his mother never quit. Let me get over there and see if I can convince the cousin to roll over on Sutton and momma. It would be nice to put them away for jury tampering even if we never get him on murder charges. Get her out of there but don't let her get away. Wilbur is too far gone to even let him be disturbed by shit like this. Sutton will get the same benefit if she precipitates a heart attack and kills him off."

It was a gamble because we couldn't use the information obtained by the bug if the cousin turned stubborn on us and refused to admit she was trying to tamper with a witness. However, it gave us a shot, and that made it worthwhile to leave the biggest tits in the western hemisphere unexamined for another few days.

I punched in Myra's number.

"Hello, Bill. Please tell me this is to confirm that you're on your way over here. I got dressed up and this one has buttons strong enough to hold me in but it's low cut enough to be....interesting."

"I wish, Myra. Something has come up. I've got to go. It's important or I'd be over there in 30 minutes. Is there any chance that, maybe, we could get together for drinks later tonight?"

"Tomorrow's a work day Bill, you know that, and some of us need our beauty sleep. Besides, you show up on my doorstep at 11 p.m., we get to drinking and we're liable to do something we'll regret."

"You might, I won't."

"I don't think so. Besides, it's not like you're dying for - relief, is it?"

"That means.....?"

"A little birdie told me that Celestial Madonna was grinning ear to ear when you left her in New York this past weekend, and it wasn't just because you give good interview, was it?"

"Myra, you think I'd mix business and pleasure?"

"I think you're a man."

"It was an interesting weekend."

"You'd have had more fun with me, but that's too catty. I'm glad you had a good time. Let's try to reschedule."

"I'll call you tomorrow or come up and see you. I don't know about this weekend, but we will get together."

"I'm looking forward to it. Right now I guess I'll get out of these clothes, lay down naked on my satin sheets and rub lotion where I need it. Bye."

I ALMOST kept going to her apartment, but the ghost of my father whispered in my ear and I did the right thing. I drove to Baptist Medical Center, made sure Wilbur was still breathing, spent a frustrating hour trying to threaten or cajole the cousin into rolling over on the Suttons but finally gave up. She was either too stubborn, too stupid or too greedy to be rollable, but I made sure the nurses and staff knew this lady was never to be allowed in or anywhere near Sutton's room again.

Then I went home and for the first time in a long time jerked off to a porno about a huge breasted nympho on one of the better computer porn sites. It helped -- a little bit.

########################### 

October 7, 2005 -- FRIDAY - 9 a.m.

I stood up in front of Judge Larry Martin, a young black judge only a few years older than myself, and watched Paul Donnally being walked by bailiffs to the defendant's table from the area where prisoners were kept before they were called. Johnny August stood at the table waiting for him. That alone was enough to raise a stir among the knowledgeable courthouse watchers. The Public Defender never appeared on first hearings before a judge. The newest and lowliest of the low did this scut work, but not today.

Before Donnally had even gotten into place, August turned his nearly sightless eyes toward me, then looked back at the judge and said, "Your honor, I want to formally protest the action of Assistant State Attorney William Maitland. The bond he is requesting is an affront to decency,"

Martin looked at me and asked, "Mr. Maitland, do you have anything you want to say about this matter. Not that I have any doubt that you do."

Before I could answer, August in his best tone of feigned outrage, interrupted, "Your honor, how can there be any justification for a million dollar CASH bond in a case that -- at worst -- might involve attempted first degree murder and will likely be pled down to a much less severe offense. Serial killers and terrorists don't face million dollar CASH bonds. It is unheard of, unless Mr. Maitland thinks we're dealing with a multi-millionaire cold blooded murderer who will run to a country without an extradition treaty as soon as he walks out of here. My client is a public relations professional at a local university, a white collar worker of limited financial means, who has never been guilty of even a traffic infraction, much less a serious crime. I am more of a flight risk than Mr. Donnally."

Martin let August make his spiel, then directed his attention back to me.

"I'll grant that a million dollar cash bond is unusual, your honor, but I do think it's justified in this case. First, the defendant is charged with attempting to murder his wife by crushing her throat with his bare hands and almost succeeding. His wife sent a letter to my office begging us to keep her husband in custody because of her very real fear that the next time he sees her, he will complete the job. She has hired private security preparing for the possibility that he might make bond.

"Secondly, while in custody, he became involved in a disturbance with fellow inmates that left one in a coma and the other with serious injuries, both of whom are still being treated at University Medical Center. In the same incident he ripped a jail officer's arm literally out of its socket. He attempted to aid the officer afterwards and it appears the officer might not suffer permanent damage.

"To sum up, while in custody and being overseen he did serious bodily damage to three grown, good-sized men, with his bare hands. I leave it to your imagination what he might do to a five-foot-four, 120 pound woman with those same bare hands. Also, we are dealing with a domestic situation here. You and I are both aware that some of the most heinous violence we see comes in exactly such situations. Finally, the bond is appropriate because Mr. Donnally has requested and agreed to such a bond."

August must have been warned because he quickly said, "It's clear, your honor, that Mr. Donnally is under severe emotional pressure and quite honestly feels so guilty about the attack on his wife that he feels being kept in custody is an appropriate punishment for what he's done. Nonetheless, bond is not our system's way of punishing people for what they've done. Mr. Donnally has friends and family who will stay with him and monitor his behavior to avoid any recurrence of such an incident."

"Ask Mr. Donnally," I told Martin. "Ask him what he thinks."

Martin looked at Donnally, in handcuffs and leg chains unlike any other inmate brought over from the jail. Both his bailiffs were carrying police-issue Tasers as well.

"Mr. Donnally, is what Mr. Maitland says true? You asked for and agreed to a million dollar cash bond?"

"Yes, your honor?"

"Why?"

"I asked for a high cash bond so I couldn't be bonded out. My wife and I, are having serious problems and she will not leave me alone. I am afraid that, if I wind up in close proximity to her again, I will kill her, and we have two children. I'm doing this to protect her until it's safe for me to be free again."

"You realize, Mr. Donnally, that we are not running a free hotel and recovery unit in our jail? It wasn't designed to give individuals such as yourself a place to get your emotions under control before venturing out again."

"We are, as are his friends, in the process of obtaining psychiatric counseling for Mr. Donnally," I told Martin, "The state has no intention of turning the Duval County Jail into a recovery facility. This is a short term strategy to prevent a tragedy, your honor. No one will be served if Mrs. Donnally is murdered, her husband becomes a murderer, and their children are deprived of their parents. We merely ask that you let this bond remain in place for a relatively short period of time."

"The state might have the best of intentions, your honor, but this is not the proper way to go about it," August said.

Martin thought about it for a half minute, then said, "I tend to agree, but in the interests of public safety and with the understanding that this will be brought back before the court shortly to be changed, I'll set the bond at this time."

October 7, 2005 -- FRIDAY - 3 p.m.

David Brandon, one of the other two ASAs equal to me (on paper) in the State Attorney food chain walked in without knocking. There were only three people in the department who could do that. Even though I carried the most weight in the office, Brandon had been here longer, had taken my leapfrogging him to head the office under the Big Man with good grace, and basically was an all-around nice guy.

"Hi, guy," he said, extending a letter to me across my desk.

"Hey Dave, what is this?"

"Read it and be astounded."

I opened it and read.

------

"Mr. Brandon,

"I wish to formally rescind my previous request that my husband, Paul Donnally, be held in the tightest custody possible. I would like to request that he be released as I am formally withdrawing my complaint against him. 

"I know that formal charges have been filed against him for assault, but those charges are not valid. We had a fight and I attacked him with a knife and he was defending himself. If anybody should be in jail it should be me, not him. He took the blame for the assault because that is the kind of man that he is. I accused him of choking me in anger over a fight we had and faked the injuries. I had a friend choke me after my husband left our home to leave marks and he accidently choked me harder than he realized.

"I will not testify against my husband, regardless of what action the State Attorney's Office decides to take against me. I regret the actions I have taken and am ready to take responsibility and any legal punishment that may result from this letter."

"Sincerely, Paula Donnally."

------

"Are you believing that crap?" Dave said, shaking his head. 

"Not really. I wonder if she knows that he's already shown how dangerous he is and that there is no way in hell anyone is going to believe her story about her faking those injuries."

"I know. I talked to the officer who took the call. She was terrified when they showed up. She could barely breath and she was trembling and hyperventilating. The officer is a veteran and he said no way was she faking. She was scared shitless."

"So why would she try to retract her testimony, get the husband who came within an eyelash of killing her out of jail, and face prosecution for faking an assault and a criminal charge? Does any of this make any sense at all to you?"

He shook his head. 

"No, but you know that at this point if Donnally wanted to walk, I'd probably suggest that we let him. If she's serious about retracting her accusations, even if we have physical evidence, we'd have a hard time winning a case. It's hard to overcome a weeping wife testifying that she lied to get her husband in trouble after a fight. As to the jail, hell you know that we'd face liability there. I think the Big Man would tell us to let him go before we piss him off enough to take us to court."

I couldn't argue with his conclusions, but something in me rebelled at the thought of turning Donnally loose on the world. I needed to look into the attack on the wife try to figure out what was going on before I did anything I couldn't take back.

"Anyway Bill, she called about an hour ago and asked to come in to talk with us about the case. I figured we could work something out and maybe make this whole thing go away."




When We Were Married Ch. 06D



(c) Daniel Quentin Steele – 2011

SECOND ACTS

October 14, 2005 – FRIDAY - 7 p.m.



My name is William Maitland. I am the official second in command and unofficial lead prosecutor for the tri-county area of Duval, Clay and Nassau Counties in Northeast Florida. I prosecute bad people and try to clean up the messes they make in their own and other people's lives.

For the past six months I've thought the mess I've made of my own life, over the past decade since becoming a prosecutor, was beyond redemption.

On the plus side I've escaped death, found out that casual sex doesn't have to be meaningless sex, and that there really is a life beyond divorce. That last is a hard lesson that I've paid dearly to learn, but I'm beginning to believe there really are Second Acts in our lives.

I've looked into the heart of some terrible darknesses, not least of which is inside me. It's getting harder to believe that I'm as moral and incorruptible as I once thought I was, but I tell myself that I am trying.

Right now, I am shivering a little as I walk out of the courthouse headed toward my Escalade parked down the street. 

The weather in Jacksonville had swerved from unseasonably hot to chilly in the space of a week, as it was wont to do, and the temperature was already in the 50s and looking to fall into the 40s by the time it got dark. Alright, not that bad if you were a Yankee, but for an almost life-long Florida boy, it was chilly.

I had prepared, wearing a nice black turtleneck sweater over black slacks, dress black shoes, and the rest of the outfit that Austin insisted I wear most of the time to keep the image up. I'd brought an electric razor to work with me and shaved just before I left. I reeked of cologne and didn't think I needed a shower too badly. 

I'd considered running by the condo for a quick shower, but I had a 7:30 p.m. date with Myra. While I knew she was a nice lady, I wasn't sure how many more times I could stand her up without her getting a little peeved at me.

I should have left earlier, but there were always last minute critical things that needed doing. I was still trying to postpone Sutton's murder one trial until Wilbur Bell slowly recovered in the hospital from a heart attack that, by all accounts, should have taken him out. Luckily he was a tough old bird and I wanted him to be able to walk into the courtroom for Sutton's trial and testify that he had seen Sutton driving out of his mother's Ocala home on the night that Sutton's wife and unborn son had been murdered.

I had videotaped his testimony, but live testimony always trumped tape.

On another potential major case for me, the whole office was watching at long range the maneuvering to put the Mexican cartel warlord on trial. Nobody else had died lately, but there was an anticipation like the silence before a thunderstorm breaks. No one knew yet where the trial was headed as the feds deliberately kept their plans a deep dark secret.

 On the distant horizon I watched the legal maneuvering to see where the trial of New York financial whiz kid Bobby Kelso would wind up, out of the glare of the New York City media world. It would be one of the biggest court events in years, wherever it ended up. How often did you have a hotshot Wall Street financial whiz kid arrange for mob hits on his wife and her lover, only to change his mind at the last minute and save both their lives, while taking a bullet meant for her lover. However, a mob gunman had died after Kelso's crisis of conscience, so the Money Man was being tried for Murder One because his plot had led to a man's death during the commission of a crime. It was so perfect a media story with sex, love, big money, murder and the mob all mixed together. Television execs were probably having orgasms just thinking of the ratings they'd get covering his trial.

If it came to me I couldn't even imagine how heavily the media would cover it - I'd probably have to live in the courthouse until the trial was over, but I really hoped that trial didn't come to me. Although I was honestly worried about the cartel trial, I would have no problem sending a drug thug to his death. I would, however, have really serious misgivings about sending a man, whose wife had driven him over the edge and who yet had made the right choice in the end, to death row or lifetime imprisonment. Yes, I saw myself in him! I hadn't tried to kill Debbie or Doug, but if things had gone differently...who knows?

 I waited every day to hear a report of Paul Donnally's body being discovered, or Paul and Paula being found somewhere in a murder/suicide. I didn't know how I'd live with that if it turned out I'd made a very bad decision. So far, so good. They had both vanished back into comfortable anonymity, although I'd called Gil Tucker one time and he said that Donnally was making it, day by day. He had never called Dr. Teller, but I held out hope that eventually he would.

As I slid into the Escalade I made a conscious effort to push all that out of my mind. In thirty minutes I'd, for the very first time, be walking up to Myra's condo door and see what she looked like away from the courthouse. I still, even now, couldn't see exactly what she saw in me. Strip away the fame from a devastated daughter's throw-away remark after her father's death and a reporter's story that caught fire, and I was just another 42-year-old short, bald, divorced guy.

 Whatever 'it' was, I was glad she saw it. Maybe if something – eventually – developed, she'd explain it to me. I was thinking of breasts, that smile and those green eyes when I heard the sudden wail of a police siren. I glanced in my rear view mirror to see flashing blue lights. What the hell! I looked at my speedometer and saw I was doing 60 in a 55 mph zone on I295. There was no way that God could throw another road block in the path of my eventually meeting Myra somewhere away from both our courthouse identities.

I pulled over to the side of the road, leaving the motor running. Sometimes showing the State Attorney ID helped, not always but sometimes. The Jax deputy had barely stopped when he was out of the cruiser and striding quickly toward me. I started to get curious - this deputy wasn't acting like a man making a traffic stop.

"Mr. Maitland?"

"Yes?"

"Chief Martin says would you please – let me quote him – get your head out of your fucking ass and turn your cell on."

Someone up there hated me. I never turned my cell off, but this one time, one time in all the years I had worked for the State Attorney's Office, I did. I figured one night off would not cause the world to stop turning, and the one time I try to get a little privacy, they send a cop out with flashers and sirens wailing to hunt me down. There was no justice.

I pulled it out of my pocket and punched the power button. As soon as the screen came to life the Cranberries' "Linger" rang out and I hit the talk button.

"Maitland."

"Martin, to what do I owe the pleasure? You realize that I left word with the office that Brandon was taking my calls tonight. I'm flattered that you guys can't live without me, but unless the world is ending, I really am off the clock."

 "Did you hear about the murder this morning?"

 "Which one? I know there was the guy that died in that drive by over on Jammes and a guy's body was found way off San Jose. Pretty busy day, but..."

 Jacksonville, while a wonderful place to live and no Detroit, was definitely the murder capitol of the Sunshine State. I never had quite figured out how we could put Miami in the shade, murder wise, but my hometown had racked up more murders than any other metropolitan area. Of course, as a consolidated county we were a hell of a lot bigger geographically than most other major cities, but still, we were a pretty violent bunch.

 Anyway, two homicides in a day was a pretty active tally, but there had been plenty worse since I'd been with the SA. Why was Martin calling me up, on my off time, about one murder?

"You get any of the details?"

"No, I heard we didn't have an ID and this has been a busy day. I figured I'd hear about it sooner or later."

"We put the clamps on this one early and we've been keeping quiet about it so we could do some checking before we released anything. The car was in a wooded lot behind that Walmart shopping center, the one that hasn't been developed yet. Some kids skipping school looked in it, then freaked and called their parents."

"What was in it?"

"A dead guy, in his 30s, maybe early 40s. Hispanic, not badly dressed. The ME says he was probably dead a couple of days. He was more than likely killed elsewhere - then the body and the car were dumped there last night."

"They come up with a cause of death?"

"The ME came up with a couple of contenders, but probably having his head sawed off didn't help."

"What?"

"He had a couple of bullet holes in him, and they'd tortured the hell out of him, but the ME figures he was still alive when they took his head off. Or at least started the process."

"That doesn't sound good."

"Not for that poor bastard anyway, They cut his head off and when they dumped the car they laid him down in the seat and put his head in the seat beside the body. Next to the plastic bag where they put his hands after they sawed them off."

 "Makes it sound like it wasn't a run of the mill car jacking or robbery, definitely not somebody pissing off somebody else's husband or boyfriend."

"No, this was an outside job, a professional job."

"How do you know?"

"We had to go through the feds and then the Mexican federal police to get an ID, but we found out he was Cartel muscle. He worked with a partner we haven't found, but he'll probably be fished out of the St. Johns, if the body ever turns up."

"Cartel? THE Cartel."

"Yeah, the Cartel whose Mendoza is going to be tried somewhere, if the feds can ever find a place to do it."

 I began to get a very bad feeling.

"Why did you have a cop pull me over to tell me this?"

"When we had the car searched, we found some bags with belongings in them. A couple of guns, some drug paraphernalia and some cocaine, apparently for recreational use, some cameras...and some photos."

"What kind of photos."

"We weren't sure at first. There were some photos that appeared to have been taken at a school, and headshots of a kid. Then we found photos taken with a telephoto lens of the same kid, going to school, going around the school campus, getting into a private car. That's what tipped us off."

 "Who was the kid?"

 "We didn't know who the kid was until we got a clear shot of the woman picking him up after school."

"Who was he?"

"The woman picking him up was your ex-wife, Debbie. The boy was your son."

He must have said something but I didn't hear him. It was as if I standing at the far end of a very long, dark tunnel. I saw BJ, but I didn't see him as the gangly adolescent he was. No, I saw him as a one-year-old toddler taking his first steps, holding onto a glass coffee table as he launched himself across the couple of feet between him and Debbie's waiting arms. I saw her take him into her arms and I wished then with every thing in me that my father could have seen him for even an instant. 

"Mr. Maitland..."

The young cop pushed my arm.

"Are you alright?"

I ignored him and listened to Martin on the cell.

"....one of our detectives who had been at a baseball game with his son when you were there with your son recognized him. As soon as we knew, we tried to call you but you weren't answering your phone. We tried to call Ms. Bascomb, but she had left her office and we can't reach her. We don't have numbers for your kids so we've got cruisers headed to your house right now."

"You can't reach Debbie?"

 "Sorry no, we just started 15 or 20 minutes ago. She could be shopping and left her phone behind, or in the shower. It could be anything."

 I felt a sudden sharp pain in my chest. I knew it was psychosomatic. I've been afraid in my life, but I knew that any fear I'd ever experienced in my life was only the palest shadow of the emotion that was beginning to build in me. It was like looking out to sea and watching a tsunami build strength as it approached. I knew I had to start moving or I'd be paralyzed.

 "I'm headed for my house, Martin. I'll meet the units there. Send your guys and tell them to kill any son of a bitch that even looks suspicious to them anywhere around there."

I clicked off and told the young deputy, "I'm going to be breaking every speed law you ever heard of. Give me a spare flasher and get behind me with your siren going."

Thirty seconds later a blue light was flashing on the Escalade. I was hitting 60 going on 90 and on the way home – Debbie's home – with a cop wailing behind me. As I drove one-handed, I hit her number on the cell. It rang endlessly...!

I gave up and dialed Roy Bascomb's home phone. It ran four times and then Cathy picked up.

"Hello."

"Cathy is Kelly there?"

"Bill? Bill, what is it?"

"Cathy, is Kelly there?"

"No."

"Where is she?"

"I think....I think she had a date. She wrote down a number for a girlfriend's house. They were going to meet their boyfriends there and go out to a party."

"Call the number, Cathy, NOW! Tell Kelly there's an emergency. She needs to get back to you. Don't let her tell you no, make her come back...NOW!"

 "But...okay - but what do I tell her."

"Don't tell her anything. Just tell her to get back there. I'll explain later. It's an emergency and ask her if she has any idea where BJ is. Is Roy there?"

A moment later:

"Bill? What's going on?"

"Roy, do you have a gun?"

There was a silence.

"Yes. I've got a .38 I always keep in my bedroom."

"Get it out and go get Kelly if she needs a ride home. Make her come home. Call the cops. Tell them you're my father and tell them they need to send some units to your place. Keep the place locked until you see uniforms, and don't let them in until you see ID. And Roy, if anyone else shows up and tries to come in, kill them. Don't warn them, don't talk to them. Shoot them."

 "Bill, what is happening?"

"I can't explain Roy, not now. Just do it. Call the cops."

I tried Debbie's cell again, then the house phone. Images of the carnage in Texas invaded my mind and I couldn't get the pictures out.

 On the eighth ring I heard, "Hi. Bill, is that you?"

 I felt like an iron collar had been released from around my throat and I could breath again.

 "Debbie, why haven't you been answering your phone?"

"Um....uh....I was in the tub."

"For thirty five minutes or more?"

"Is that a crime now? Honestly, Bill-"

"I'm sorry, Deb. I didn't – It's just that I've been trying – we've been trying – to reach you for awhile."

"Okay, I didn't mean to snap. It's just - the kids are out - and believe it or not I'm not doing anything but watching some TV and eating ice cream. It's been a long week so I took a long, hot, restful bath."

"Debbie, listen to me carefully. Are the doors locked?"

"Uh, yeah. Yes. Why?"

"Don't ask questions. Is the Glock in the safe? Is it loaded?"

"Yes."

"Go straight to the safe but look around when you leave the bathroom. If you see or hear anything, if you even have a bad feeling, get back in the bathroom and lock the door. Put that chair in front of the mirror jammed up against the door and stay away from the door."

"Bill....what...tell me what's going on?"

"Just listen, it would take too long. If you think it's okay and no one's in the house, go straight to the safe and get the Glock. Go back in the bathroom but take a home phone and cell with you. If you see anyone other than a uniformed cop, or me, in the house, shoot to kill. Don't hesitate. Even if it's a cop, make them show ID."

"You're scaring the shit out of me."

"Good, baby, good. I want to scare the shit out of you. Being scared could keep you alive. Now, where is BJ?"

"BJ? Bill?"

"Where is he?"

"He was going to go over to that Tommy Wilson's house. They were going to hang out, maybe see a movie."

There was a momentary twinge of....something. I didn't recognize the name. It was a friend he'd made since I'd moved out of his life - just another reminder.

"Call the Wilsons. If he's still there make sure he stays there and call me back. Tell him a police cruiser will be coming by to pick him up. Get the Glock, then call the Wilsons. If he's there, call me back. Move as quick as you can."

"Bill..."

"Don't talk - MOVE."

I hung up on her, then called Martin back.

"Send in uniforms at my place and mys. I told them to shoot anybody but a uniform, and tell your guys to be ready to show their ID."

"They should be at your ex's house within a minute. Give me the's address and I'll try to have somebody there in 15 minutes."

I'd nearly been wiped out in accidents a half dozen times in the last several minutes, but the flashing lights and the sirens saved my ass several times as I approached San Jose and pulled off on the way to my – Debbie's – house.

My cell rang and Debbie said, "I've got the Glock and a patrolman named Suggs is here. I've seen him in the courthouse and in the PD office. I let him and his partner in."

"Let them do their thing but stay away from windows and you hold onto the Glock anyway. Have you had a chance to call the Wilsons?"

"No, I was just going..."

"Hang up and call them, Deb. The first second you get confirmation BJ's there, call me back."

The cell rang and Martin was saying, "Slow the hell down, Maitland. Rutledge says you're hitting 90 and have nearly killed a dozen motorists. You're getting ready to get onto residential streets. Our guys are there and no one is going to get at your ex. Don't kill yourself getting there."

I made myself take my foot off the gas and slowed to 60 and then 50 as I headed toward what had been my home. I even stopped for red lights.

The cell rang as I was approaching my former residence.

Cathy Bascomb said, "Roy is on his way to pick up Kelly. A police officer just called here and I told him where Roy was headed, described his car and they said they would meet Roy there and escort them back here."

"Thank you Cathy and thank Roy. I'll call you guys in a few minutes and tell you what's happening. In the meantime, stay close to the cops that are headed your way."

"Bill...this is scary. Is this for real?"

"I don't know, Cathy. I hope this is all a false alarm but, be careful."

There were already three police cars parked on the street in front of the house, with two sets of officers checking out the front and back. Neighbors were coming out of their houses as cops waved them back inside. I pulled into the drive and was out of the door before the motor had stopped turning.

Two cops made a human shield in front of me and had their guns drawn as I held out my State Attorney ID, which is a photo ID. I stopped long enough for them to glance at it and then pushed past them as they gave me a nod. They were reacting the way I wanted them to.

I was inside the door before it hit me and I slowed in mid-stride. I'd only been here twice in more than six months and each time had been painful. It felt too damned good to be in here, but I made myself trot forward toward the den.

She came out dressed in shorts and a light blue blouse that as usual she was bulging out of. Her hair was wet and hanging straight down behind her. I instantly got hard, remembering the last time I'd had that fantastic body in the shower, but this time I didn't care about letting her know the effect she had on me and I didn't bother to hide it.

"Bill."

She was in my arms and I was pressing her hard against me, feeling her soft tits flatten against me, burying my face in her still moist, fragrant hair. After a fraction of a second of resistance she molded herself against me. I could feel her heart beating against me.




When We Were Married Ch. 06D



Finally, and it was only a little less difficult than cutting my arm off with a rusty spoon, I pushed her away and held her at arm's length.

 "Why?" There were tears in her eyes.

"I was just glad to see you alive, Debbie."

"I...I just got off the phone with the Wilsons. I told them to keep BJ there with their son until the police get there. Now you tell me, Bill, what is going on here?"

I told her. She stumbled a little and I held her elbows to keep her upright.

"Oh my God. You're sure, they were watching BJ?"

"JSO identified you and BJ and the school has to be Mandarin High. They were stalking him, and maybe both of you."

 She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

"No, No....not BJ. Is this-"

 "I can't think of any other reason, Debbie. Someone who knows told me the head of the Mexican Cartel Menendez worked for is, concerned, about the possibility that it might come here. This might just be a warning to me, to scare me, or maybe they were planning to make me worry that they could come after you and Kelly after BJ. I don't know."

"The Mexican Cartel? Bill, what are you talking about?"

I realized that not everybody in the courthouse would be hooked into the gossip hotline and so I told her. 

"I don't believe this, Bill. Why didn't you tell me? Let me at least get prepared for-"

"For what, Debbie? There's no indication the trial is coming here. I got word, strictly unofficial word, that there are people in Mexico who don't want it to come here, but there's been nothing solid until today. Do I tell you there's a possible threat against you and the kids so you spend every day worrying everytime you can't reach the kids on their cells, or when they go off with friends and forget to tell you? Do you want to live like that? Could you live like that?  

"Suppose you decide to move away, get away from me and Jacksonville? Where are you going to move that they couldn't find you? How am I supposed to provide protection, or even know you're in danger, if you're in another city or state?"

She stared at me and whispered, "Why the hell did you join the State Attorney's Office Bill? You could have been making big money in private practice and we'd still be together and not looking over our shoulders for someone coming to kill us?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. For what it's worth, there have been plenty of times over the last six months that I wished the same thing."

 This time she hugged me. Even after Aline and Heather and Meagan and Jane, she felt good. Finally she pushed me away. 

 "BJ and Kelly should be here before too long. What do we do now?"

 "You stay put, Debbie. It's easier to protect you in one place. I'd suggest your parents come here for the weekend too. If you don't mind, and it wouldn't be too weird, I'll stay here too. The cops will be trying to find out what the two thugs were up to and we'll contact the feds to see if they can come up with anything. We need to know exactly what these assholes were doing, and if there's a real threat or they were just trying to throw a scare into me."

 "But – if they were here to scare us, who cut that guy's head off. And why?"

 I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell anyone, but I had an idea. Unfortunately, the only cell phone I had that I could use to contact the Old Man was in a drawer in my office and I was going to make damned sure that Debbie, Kelly and BJ were safe and surrounded by as many uniforms and weapons as I could bring to bear before I drove back to the office. I'd also need protection myself, just in case.

 "You got coffee?"

 "Some."

 "Any made up?"

 "No."

 "You were the coffee drinker. The only coffee I drink is at Starbucks."

 We just looked at each other for a moment and she said, "I still have some. I could brew up a pot."

  "Was Doug a coffee drinker?"

  "No, you bastard. Can't we call a truce, even now? If you have to know, Clint was a coffee guy just like you, any time of the day or night. You going to be pissed off about him, too."

 "No, Debbie, and I'm sorry for the crack about Doug. Old habits die hard. Old feelings too, but a pot of coffee would be good."

 The cell rang then and when I punched it I heard Myra's voice. Debbie could hear it too.

 "Bill, please tell me the traffic is terrible and that's why you're not standing outside my door."

 "I wish I could, Myra but...something's come up."

 In the long silence I could hear her breathing. I could feel Debbie's glare and then felt it soften. When I looked up at her I didn't see the anger I'd been used to. There was something else there, something I couldn't put a name to.

 "I'll get that pot of coffee going, Bill," she said, and turned and walked toward the kitchen.

 "Was that her?"

  "Yes."

  Frost carried through the telephone lines.

  "You're at her house, when we were supposed to be going out tonight?"

  "Yes."

  There was a click.

  I punched her number in. It rang until the message clicked in.

  "Myra, please answer my phone or call me back, or I'll call for the rest of the night and when I get a chance I'll be over at your door to explain. Please let me. There's an emergency, a REAL emergency. I never would have bailed on you otherwise. Call me back."

  I stood there for two minutes, two minutes that seemed a lot longer. The call finally came.

  "I'm sorry, Bill. I'm acting like a crazy jealous girlfriend before we've had our first date, but when you said you were over there - it's just that she's like the monster in one of those movies that will never die or go away."

  "It's okay, it's okay, but things have been crazy and I didn't have a second to call you. Here's what happened..." and I told her.

 "Oh, God, Bill, I had no.....no idea. You say BJ and Kelly are safe and on their way, back to your old place?"

 "Yeah, but we still have no idea exactly what's going on, so I'm going to stay here with Debbie and the kids for the foreseeable future. I think they're safer here than trying to run them to some safe house and I can't....leave them alone. I'm going to sleep on a couch, but-"

 "No, you don't need to explain. They're your kids. She was your wife. You're going to stay there to protect them. I understand that. We'll....get together later. It's okay. We'll have another chance, and someday we'll laugh about this."

 "I don't see it Myra but I hope. I shot your Friday all to hell and I'm sorry."

 "Not as sorry as I am. I'll grab a bite or see a movie. You pay attention to taking care of business. I'll talk to you later, Bill. Bye."

 I walked into the kitchen where Debbie had the coffee maker perking and was taking some milk out of the fridge. I liked flavored creamers, but apparently Clint had been a black coffee guy. I'd have to tough it out.

 She got a coffee cup out of the cupboard and without looking at me, said, "I...I hate to keep saying I'm sorry. I...don't know why I react that way. We're divorced and you know I've been with two other guys and there's no reason in the world why I should be upset that you're with other women, except that that cow Myra is an insult to the laws of nature. No. No. I'm just jealous of her and you together. I know how you are about boobs, or at least the way you were until Aline, and I figure if you get with Myra you'[ll never be able to wean yourself."

 She looked up from the coffee maker and stared at me.

 "Why are we so crazy, Bill? Other divorced couples are able to be civilized, able to walk away. Why are we this way?"

 "I don't know Debbie, except that I still have feelings for you and it doesn't matter how much I try to pretend I don't, I do. I don't think you'd have been such a bitch toward me if you didn't still have some kind of feelings for me.

 She held her hands out open palmed in a questioning gesture.

 "So what do we do?"

 One step would have taken me to her. A second step would have her in my arms, those fat, heavy, soft tits rubbing up against me, my hard cock rubbing against that pussy that had been my playground for so many years. We had cops all around and our kids and her parents would be bursting in the doors at any minute. So I couldn't possibly bend her over the kitchen table where Doug probably had taken her and fuck her the way I wanted to this instant, but I wanted to, yet couldn't. There was too much swirling around in my head. Doug and that night at UNF, Aline on the Bonne Chance, Heather bent over the desk in the empty office and Paula staring at me with those knowing eyes.

 "Nothing."

 I answered her question and then walked away from her into the safety of the den. Ten minutes later she brought me a cup and I drank it standing up and moving around, taking calls from Martin, Sheriff Knight, the Big Man and a half dozen others. A few minutes later Kelly came in with Roy and Cathy.

 When they came in I sat them down in the den with Debbie and two uniformed cops just outside and told them what had happened. Cathy just put her hands to her mouth as if she wanted to scream and Roy put his arm around her. Debbie sat down and put her arm around Kelly.

 "We don't really know what's going on at this point, don't know that there's a threat to BJ or any of us, but we can't afford to take chances either. These people have butchered whole families when they THOUGHT a trial of one of their guys was going to a particular prosecutor's office."

"Do you have any idea when we'll know what's going on, if there is a real threat?" Roy asked.

"The Sheriff's Office investigators are working the case right now. They've called in the feds, and our people in Mexico with the DEA are trying to find out anything. Hopefully, if it's a real threat, we'll know shortly and can take precautions. If this is just a feint, just to get us nervous, we'll know that too."

 Of course I couldn't tell them that I had a pipeline to better information than the feds or our intelligence services probably had, if I could get to the cell in my office and the Old Man was answering.

 Just then BJ came in flanked by two cops, his friend and the Wilsons. Debbie grabbed him and enveloped him, kissing him until he went "MOMMMMMMM!" and she finally let him go. A moment later Kelly had him and he put up with her a little bit longer and then he pushed her away.

"You guys are acting like I went and died. What's going on?"

 I told him. He gave me a stunned look and said, "They were watching me? Taking pictures? You're sure? Is this for real?"

 "Real enough to get one man killed and probably two if we ever find his body."

"What do you think they were going to do?"

I told him and the others what they had done to the Texas prosecutors' families. He went a little pale. I didn't blame him, or any of them. This kind of thing didn't happen in our world. 

Mr. Wilson asked, "What about us?"

"You're going to go home with a police escort and I'll talk to Knight about having a cop stationed at your house. This manpower thing is going to get expensive, but I'll see it we can hit up the feds to pay part or all of the associated manpower costs. This is really more of a federal than a state responsibility even though they're going to try him in a state court because it's easier to put them to death in a state with an active death penalty like Florida – or Texas.

 "However, I don't think the cops will need to stay with you guys or that you'll need to change your lives because I don't think you'll be in any real danger."

 "You can say that after what you just said they did to those families?"

 "My family might be in danger, but I don't think they would bother you. Even the Cartels can't kill EVERYBODY with the slightest connection to one of their targets. I don't think they'd have any reason to go after you, which is one of the reasons I think you need to get back to your home and not spend a lot of time around here."

 When they had left, we talked and decided that the Bascombs would stay in the house with us at least for the weekend. While we were standing there I called Knight and Edwards, asking them to get the authorities down there to put a couple of men into my mother's home and watch them over the weekend as well. I called Mom and told her and Charles what was going on and that I didn't really expect the Cartel to strike that far away even if they had plans, but better safe than sorry.

"Bill, you take care of Kelly and BJ....and....Debbie. But you be careful too. I've already lost..."

"I know, Mom, I'll be careful."

It had been over 30 years, yet I knew that day was still fresh in her mind, and nothing would take it out of her head until the day she closed her eyes for the final time. I wondered in passing if it ever bothered Charles to know his wife loved another man that much after all these years but he must have been able to live with it or they wouldn't still be together.

 With all the arrangements made, I told Debbie and the kids that I had to go back to the office. I didn't explain, just said it was important.

"Be careful, Dad," Kelly said, coming to me, hugging me and kissing me on the side of the face.

 Debbie stunned everyone by grabbing me and kissing me full on the lips.

 "Remember you're not bulletproof," she said, backing away.

 "I'll try not to forget. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

 It was nearly 10 p.m. when I headed out in a police cruiser with another riding shotgun behind us. Knight and Edwards had both insisted on double coverage, just in case.

 "This isn't just for your benefit, Bill," Austin told me before I walked out the door. "You're a symbol of this office, of the judicial system. We're not going to let those bastards kick us in the balls again."

 The courthouse was spooky, as it always is late at night, an island of light in the darkness, harsh white light casting deep shadows. Both Miller and Costa, the patrol officers riding with me, got out of their cruisers first, checked out the area in front of the courthouse, then called down the cleanup crews to unlock the front doors and let us in. A couple of them surreptitiously crossed themselves when I walked past them - my legend was growing.

 We rode the elevators to the top floor and both officers preceded me. I made them wait outside my office while I unlocked the drawer in my desk that held the Old Man's dedicated cell. I punched in his number and waited while it rang, and rang, and rang.

 Oh well, I know he didn't sit around waiting for my calls. I hadn't called him that often and I'd had to wait before. I didn't say anything. He'd know where the call came from.

 It was 10:45 before I got back to the house. Everybody was still up, as I'd expected, watching television, surfing on the Internet, listening to music or, in the case of Cathy, Roy and Debbie, just talking. I walked in and it was only awkward for a few minutes. In ten minutes we had moved into the den with coffee, tea and the baked chocolate chip cookies for which Cathy was famous.

There were glances shot back and forth that told me things unsaid were being thought, but as we talked about the things that I'd been working on, carefully leaving out the Donnally saga, Debbie started talking about the travails of riding herd on a crew of young, ambitious, horny male and female lawyers. There was laughter and it almost felt like the old days.

Then Cathy gave me a look that needed no words and I silently shook my head. I had thought Debbie and her father didn't catch it, but the looks they exchanged told me they had. That was the trouble of coming out of a 20-year relationship - it was hard to hide your feelings and thoughts.

"I always thought you'd missed your calling, baby," Roy told Debbie. "You should have gone to law school like Bill."

 She glanced over at me and her words had no venom or regret in them, although I expected that.

 "Maybe, but it was more important to work so that Bill could get through law school. We always knew he was going to be the primary breadwinner. I have never regretted staying out and working at the bank. It actually helped me when I decided to go into business education."

I looked at her and wondered if she felt the same way now. She'd given up five years of her life when I was advancing myself to work at a bank executive job, raise a little girl, and keep me happy. It had worked out pretty good, but I wondered if she now regretted putting my life first.

At 11:30 p.m. Roy yawned and held his hand out to Cathy, saying, "Come on old girl, I need my beauty sleep."

She grinned at him and said, "I don't?"

"Never," and the look he gave her told me that Debbie had put them together in Kelly's bedroom, moving Kelly in to sleep with her while BJ kept his own bed. There were two beds, which we'd put in a few years ago for the times when he'd want male friends to sleep over, in his room, but I doubted she'd put Kelly and BJ in the same room

As Roy pulled Cathy to her feet and they looked at each other, it hit me harder than I thought it would. They were who I had always thought Debbie and I would be in another 20 years. Now we never would be.

As they left the den Debbie gave them a look that made me think she might be having the same thoughts I'd had. There was a definite sadness there.

 "Did you find out anything?"

 "No. Everybody is still checking things out. If and when I find out anything, I will tell you first. I promise."

She stood and, as always, it was a symphony.

"Well, I'm going upstairs to try and get some sleep. Will you be alright down here?"

"Always have been."

 She turned to leave, then swiveled to face me again.

"They told me you almost killed yourself a dozen times trying to get here tonight. I – I'm touched that you were that....concerned."

"Being divorced doesn't change some things, Debbie, not at all."

We stared at each other for a minute. There were a hundred things I wanted to say, yet I couldn't think of one of them.

 I slouched on the couch after she left and clicked on the Television From Hell. The local news was over so I found CNN, checked the headlines, then switched over to Fox. I listened to the world's woes and felt the house all around me, like a living thing. It felt like it was in my blood, every square foot had been a part of my life. As long as I stayed away, I had kept the memories at bay. It was as if all this had happened in another life.

 Nevertheless, it was my life.

 I had begun to convince myself that this old life was behind me and I'd begun to feel like I was settling into the single life. I'd begun to think that the day would come when I would look at Debbie and not see her through the eyes of the 20-year-old who had fallen in love with a gorgeous woman on first sight.

 However, like Michael Corleone in one of the 'Godfather' flicks, "they had pulled me back in!"

 I had started out the evening as an increasingly well adjusted single man lusting after a very big breasted woman whom I'd never seen naked, but was looking forward to, and I'd ended it as a divorced father living a lonely life forcibly separated from everything I'd ever cared about.

 I was sleeping on the couch the way I had hundreds of times before over the years when the Old Man's cell phone rang. It must have been ringing for a minute or two but I shook the sleep out of my eyes and keyed the talk button.

 "Mr. Maitland, I apologize for being away on business. Did I wake you?"

 "Yes, but thank you for returning my call."

 "I think I know the reason for your call."

 "Why am I not surprised? I assume that the man with no head lost it to your people, and you probably know what river we should drag to find his partner?"

 "He sleeps not with, fresh water, fishes, to use a line from that great old classic Godfather film, but salt water fish - whatever is left of him. Sharks tend to leave very little uneaten."




When We Were Married Ch. 06D



"What is going on? I think I know, but please confirm my suspicions and tell me how great a threat my family is facing."

 "Both of them were employes of the Cartel. They had been shadowing your son for three days."

 "What – why were they watching him/"

 "It was psychological warfare on the Cartel's part. They had no intention of doing anything. They were merely going to see that photographs of your son and wife made their way to the police along with some vague threats. Their goal was to make you so focused on the threat to your family that you would have no desire to become involved in their affairs."

 "How can you be so sure?"

 "My people spotted them and after – eliminating – one, they discussed matters with the other. After a – lengthy – discussion, they were convinced the remaining employee was completely honest and forthcoming in his answers. He was convinced this was strictly a psychological ploy."

 "But..."

 "Obviously, often low level employees are not kept informed of policy, but, following our termination of the two men some of my people contacted some Cartel representatives. Up until that point they were not aware of our interest in this matter. When our position was made clear, they indicated that this was merely a feint, a precautionary effort. Following our recent contact, the Cartel representatives have given their word that no one from their organization will in any way threaten or come anywhere near to anyone close to you."

 "Do you believe them?"

 There was a long silence and I wondered if he was taking the question as some affront to his own code of honor.

 "My business – and that of the Cartel – is surrounded by many myths and stereotypes, but they are at bottom businesses. We employ violence because that is the nature of the world in which we live and work. If we did not employ violence we would be murdered, our women taken and our riches plundered. Regardless, when you strip away everything else, a business is a business. It exists to provide products and services, to make a profit - to make money.

 "A war disrupts business, the supply of products to customers, frightens off customers, results in the destruction of product, brings down the disruptive force of government upon our organizations, results in the death of valued employees and, the bottom line, it costs everyone money – great amounts of money. The Cartel - any organization such as our own – tends to be cautious when it comes to attacking powerful government officials. The Mexican Cartel has become – arrogant – about such actions because of the situation in that country. This attitude has shaped their actions in your country because they – and we – operate outside the legal world. They tend not to fear retribution from official sources but, we are not a government.

 "Our people were very clear, that any attack or hostile action against you or anyone close to you would bring forth an - unlimited - response. In other words, war, without regard for any damage that might result to either or both of our organizations. In other words, in language they would understand, no quarter. At this point, they know only that this is a personal matter to me, but they will investigate and will learn of the connection between us. It makes no difference, except that before this I stood in the shadows watching your back. Now it will be a secret no longer. This doesn't mean they will take no action against you, only that they will consider their next steps very carefully and weigh them against the threat of what they stand to lose. This means that, if the Mendoza trial comes to you, I have no idea what they will do. Until that time, I can guarantee you there will be no further threats to you or yours."

I considered what he had said, then asked, "Does this place me in your debt?"

"You did not ask me to take this action. Consider it what you would call - a freebie, I think the word is. However, if you were in my debt, would that be such a terrible position in which to be? There is very little that I would ask you directly to do, and you could become immeasurably wealthy and powerful with my backing. There are a number of politicians around the world who have made good lives being in my service."

"As I've said before, I have to decline your gracious offer."

"Ah well, that does not surprise me. You can sleep securely tonight. There is no immediate threat to your family."

 Before he could hang up, I said, "Unfortunately, the local law enforcement will have no way of determining that the threat has passed, and I obviously can't tell them how I know. Could you...?"

"Within the next several days, we will ensure that information is received from sources within the Cartel about the nature of their attempts to spy on your son. Your intelligence agencies will receive confirmation of these reports."

 "Thank you."

 "Good night, Mr. Maitland."

 I looked to see Debbie's eyes gleaming in the darkness, reflecting the light from the hallway. In the dim light I could see that she wore a robe, and apparently nothing else.

 "Is that the man who called you in the hospital?"

 'It's better that you don't know, Debbie."

 "You know that I kept secrets from you, Bill, but I've always known you had secrets of your own. This involves us – me and Kelly and BJ. Don't you think I deserve to know your secret?"

 I told her everything.

  "You would have betrayed all you've ever believed in to keep us safe?"

 "I would have sold my soul to the devil to keep you and Kelly and BJ safe. There was a time you would have known that."

 She just stared at me for awhile, then turned without a word and left the den. I lay back on the couch which seemed to have the imprint of my body in it, and fell almost instantly asleep.

#######################       

October 19, 2005 – Wednesday - 2 p.m.

I stopped at the desk outside Debbie's office. I didn't know her secretary. She was an older woman, probably a holdover from an earlier regime. Johnny August was famous for never firing anyone. Because he was as close to blind as you could get without being technically stone cold blind, he was one of those rare bosses who actually judged people by the quality of work they did, rather than being affected by cup size or a pretty face.

"Mr. Maitland. I'm sorry. We didn't receive word that you were coming down. Is Ms. Bascomb expecting you?"

"No. I just had something I wanted to talk to her about. Could you buzz her and see if she could give me a few minutes?'

"Yes sir."

A moment later I heard Debbie's voice, then she was opening the door to her office and giving me a curious look.

"Mr. Maitland? Connie said you had something you wanted to talk to me about?"

 "Could I come in?"

 She pretended to look amazed but gave me a little smile.

 "Of course, Please come in."

 I walked in past her and stopped at one of the two comfortable plush chairs set in front of the wide, natural mahogany desk that held a name plate giving her name and title. I looked around and saw pictures of BJ and Kelly apparently recently taken in large frames on her desk, and a picture of the two of us from our Hawaiian cruise of ten years ago on the wall at head height behind her swivel chair. 

 I also noticed that the desk and her chair were raised so she'd look down on anyone sitting in front of her. I knew that was one of the tricks she had picked up working at the Hunt Bank. She might have sacrificed five years of her life, but she had learned a lot more than the mechanics of running a business.

 She just nodded toward the picture and said, "Everybody knows our story, Bill. There's no point in trying to hide it so I just put it out for everybody to see when they walk in."

 Then she looked at me and the manilla envelope I held in my right hand and said, "You realize this is the first time since I've arrived here that you've been in my office. Are you here on official business or, does it have anything to do with....you know?"

 "No and no."

I placed the manilla envelope on her desk, swung around and caught her by the wrist. I pulled her toward me. Her eyes widened but she did not resist as I pulled her to me. I caught her face in my hands and placed my lips over hers. I had to stretch slightly to my tip toes, but I'd always done that. She had her arms on my shoulders and she was leaning into me. Her lips opened and I tasted the sweetness of her mouth and tongue.

 It seemed to last forever, but it was probably only twenty to thirty seconds. I let her go and stepped back. It seemed hard to breathe and I felt moisture at the corners of my eyes, but I made myself breathe regularly. She looked at me with her lips open and she seemed to be struggling for words.

"Of all the things in this world I expected to happen today, that was absolutely the very last thing. Why....how...what? You took the words away from me, Bill."

 "I had to find something out."

 "What?"

 "I had to find out if I could hold you in my arms and let you go."

 We stood there staring at each other and she reached out with one hand toward me but she didn't touch me. I couldn't blame her because for most of the last six months I would have bitten it off. I reached out to her, took her hand and directed her to sit in one of the chairs next to me.

"You're not going to give me the high ground?" she said with a hint of a smile.

"You forget, Debbie, you told me in bed all about the tricks you were picking up with the Hunts. You may not have thought I was paying any attention, but I was."

"What are we negotiating?"

"Not negotiating, Deb. I just - I felt like I should come in here and talk to you. I have a lot of things on my mind and we haven't really talked - since all this started. I know you wanted to but I just wasn't...wasn't in a place where I could be in the same room with you."

"You must have gotten better, Bill."

She rubbed her lips with her thumb. 

"You got a lot better."

"A little. But I have to tell you, it is still tearing me apart to be sitting here."

"Then why are you here, Bill? You said it doesn't have anything to do with the Cartel."

"No, I didn't really say that, although I can see where you might think that. I'm not here because anything has changed in regard to the Cartel but...what happened over the weekend...it was one of the things I've been thinking about."

 "I don't understand."

 I couldn't force myself to sit still so I stood up and walked away from her, then turned back to her.

 "I can't tell you that there isn't a part of me that doesn't still hate you, Debbie. You hurt me, you hit me way below the belt and it took me a long time to pull myself together. I'll never forget some of the things you said to me back then. I'll never forget you turning your back on me to go to Doug that night. I'll never get those images of him and you together in our bed – in our bed – out of my head. If I'd seen it, it would have been bad but, in a way, not seeing it makes it worse because my imagination - I can't shut it off and even now there are times I'll be sleeping and I'll.....dream about you and him together."

I could tell from the narrowing of her eyes that the old anger was building and I expected her to flare up, but she didn't say anything.

"I know that we both crashed our marriage. I know that I left you alone. But, damn it, Debbie, even though I feel some guilt, I can't help believing that you could have changed things. You could always twist me around your little finger. You didn't, and that makes me think, it makes me know, that you didn't try to change things because you wanted out. If it hadn't been Doug, it would have been somebody else."

 She sat back in her chair and ran her hand over her long mane of blonde hair. She was dry eyed, but...

 "Well, I've been trying to get you to talk for six months, so I guess I should be happy, even if you're using the opportunity to unload on me. You're entitled, I guess, you got hurt the most. Even though you hurt me plenty for years leading up to...Doug, but if it makes you feel better..."

I walked back to stand in front of her.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Debbie. Even if it may sound that way. I just wanted to clear the air. There's no point pretending that I'm not still hurting. I've got bruises that haven't healed and may not for a long time. I want you to know just how bad you hurt me, but it's in the past and it will get better."

"Then what..."

I knelt in front of her and took both her hands in mine.

"I wanted to know that I could be around you and not be crazy, that we could be....maybe not friends but co-parents. We can share the kids and share raising them and go to their graduations, their marriages and welcome our grandchildren into the world. I hope we'll be in each others' lives for a long time to come."

I didn't want to but I felt myself tearing up.

"We were married for a long time. We had a good marriage and we made good memories. Remember I told you once that you'd pissed all over the memories we made. Actually that was the way I felt... then, but with time I'll be able to remember the good times again, because we did have some good times."

She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time.

"What happened to you, Bill? Jesus Christ, what happened? I never thought I'd hear words like that come out of your mouth again. I figured I'd have to wait years and years before we could even be civil to each other."

"I saw us from another angle, Deb. You remember that old Jimmy Stewart movie that we loved - 'It's A Wonderful Life'? He saw what life would have been like if he hadn't been around, and I saw what our lives might have been like....if we had been very, very unlucky. I saw just how lucky we were that we're the people we are. It could have ended up so much worse for both of us."

 "What are you talking about, Bill?"

 I told her about Paul and Paula Donnally. When I told her what had happened with Dave Brandon I said, "This can't ever go out of this room, Deb. I'd probably be in trouble for what I did, but I don't care about that. I can take care of myself, but it would destroy Dave, and his wife, and their marriage."

She just gave me an innocent look and said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I never heard anything."

I told her everything, except the end of my meeting with Paula Donnally. It made me feel dirty. It didn't help that I'd jerked off twice since then remembering her touch. I had never checked the number she had left for me. I knew I wasn't going to call her, ever, but it felt like a viper had sunk its fangs in me and the poison lingered. 

"I can't help believing they loved each other once upon a time. Maybe as much as we did. Now, I heard the expression somewhere about two scorpions trapped in a bottle, and that's what I think about when I remember them. I'm afraid she'll kill him or he'll kill her or they'll kill each other. They've lost each other and everything they ever had, and they'll never have anything together again. 

 "I decided I couldn't let that happen to us. You hurt me, I hurt you, but we'll get past that. Their story is over and it will never get a second chapter. Our story is over, but we can have a Second Act."

 She gave me a troubled look.

 "Bill - I don't know. God, I am so glad that you are finally talking to me. I miss what we had, but the problems we had, I don't know if we can..."

I shook my head.

"Not a Second Act for us – together. A Second Act and a second chance to find people we can build new lives with. I want you to find someone you can love and make a life with, someone who'll be a good and caring stepfather to BJ and Kelly. I don't know what will happen to me. I don't know if this thing - with Myra that doesn't seem like it will ever get a fair chance - has a chance to develop. Maybe it won't be her, but I hope that there will be somebody out there that I can build a life with. It won't be like what we had. Maybe it will never be as good as what we had, but it will give us both a chance to find happiness again. I don't want to think of you being alone, and I know I don't want to stay alone.

 Now the tears came.

 "Why are you doing this, Bill? Could I feel any shittier about the way I treated you? I didn't think so."

 "Debbie, I know it was never going to work with Doug. Your mother said he was a fling and I know now he was. Apparently, Clint Abbott left you, but there are other decent guys out there. On the Bonne Chance, I met a guy, an insurance guy, and we got to talking. He told me something I haven't forgotten. He said you'll never know when you'll walk into an office or around a corner and you'll meet someone and you have to be willing to take the chance. As long as we're alive, there's a chance of walking around that corner and changing your life. You're too hot to stay alone."

 This time she got up and walked away from me. She walked behind her desk, head down and then she looked up and stared ten years into the past. She moved her gaze from our younger selves on the Hawaiian cruise and turned back to me. She did something I couldn't put my finger on that drew my eyes to her fantastic chest. Myra might be bigger, but Debbie was a wonder in her own right.

 "That night in the den, if you had made a move, if you had touched me, you would have gotten lucky. Did you know that? I looked at you and realized that no other man I've ever known loved me the way you did. You risked your life for me 20 years ago, and you'd give up your soul for me after the way I treated you – with Doug. Why the hell did I ever give up on you?"

 I had to take a deep breath.

 "That's the other reason I'm here, Deb. I want to keep you in my life. Being back in the – in our – house for the first time in six months - it all came back to me, my life came back to me. Even after our marriage turned to shit and I wouldn't recognize it, it was still a good life, because I had you and the kids in it. When I was lying on the couch that night after you walked out - it was as if the last six months never happened. It felt like I'd had a bad dream - a terrible dream - but it was all ending and I was going to wake up back with you.

 "But...."

 I looked at the woman I'd always known was going to tear my heart out and I felt a sadness so deep, so bone-aching cold that I didn't know if I could make myself say the words.

 "But.....it wasn't a dream. The last six months were real. They happened. You took that bastard's side against me at UNF - you walked away from me. You lay with him....and you fucked him...while I was dying in that shitty little condo. I met Aline, and I fell – at least a little – in love with her. I found out that I wasn't really as terrible a lover and as miserable a man in bed as you'd made me think I was for years."

 There was a time when I would have loved, eaten up, the expression on her face, but I didn't enjoy it now.

 "What I felt when I went back to the house that used to be ours, what I felt laying on the couch and remembering our lives - that was the dream. The reality is that I'm learning to live without you. I'm better now than I was three months ago, and in a year, it won't hurt at all.....or much. A part of me will always love you - but I'm moving on like you told me to."

 She smiled at me through tears running down her face.

 "I guess....we always get what we deserve. Don't we....?"

 I walked over to her desk and picked up the manilla envelope I'd placed on it, opened the clasp and handed it to her.

"What....?"

 "Just give it a quick glance, before I go."

 She pulled the paperwork out and wiped her face, then sat behind the desk. She started reading, looking up again and again as she read further.

 "Oh, God, don't tell me that there's something really wrong? What aren't you telling me?"




When We Were Married Ch. 06A



SOMETIMES, DYING IS EASIER......

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2005

My name is Bill Maitland. I'm an Assistant State Attorney in the Jacksonville State Attorney's Office. Unofficially I'm the chief prosecutor which means that although in an organizational chart there are two other SAs at my level, in reality I'm the number one guy under the Big Man, State Attorney Austin Edwards, at least for right now. I've finally made the decision to take a black cop, who shot three men breaking into his home including one of them in the back running away, to a Grand Jury.

I might wind up out on my ass at any moment and 10 years of prosecuting will be a memory, but I can't see any way out of it, not and be able to face myself in the mirror.

At the same time, a woman I have feelings for has left me to go back to her husband and son in France and I'm not at all sure that I've recovered from being dumped by my wife of nearly 20 years for a younger, prettier, more well-hung rival. So, it hasn't been the best six month period of my life and I'm not sure things aren't going to get worse....

####################

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1985 – 6 P.M.

I was hitting the books for my sociology class, one of the requirements of pre-law, when Mark Cumber tapped on the door of my bedroom. I was sprawled across my bed, trying to read four books at once, take notes, and prepare for a final that I didn't see any way in hell I could pass. I'd been studying since I got out of classes at 3 p.m. that afternoon and my eyes were beginning to cross. 

I almost welcomed the interruption, although I knew I couldn't spare the time for Mark's perennial request that I go out partying on a Friday night with him and the other two guys who share the rent with us for the luxury of an off-campus apartment.

It really wasn't a luxury. I'd tried dorm living, and, while it was cheap, it was almost impossible to get any real studying done, what with the booze and pot and hot and cold running females that zipped in and out of the bed of any roommate I happened to land. Not for nothing had Florida been named one of the top partying schools in the land.

Not that I had anything against hot or cold females passing through. I'd snagged a couple myself, but most of the guys I'd bunked with came from money or had scholarships or didn't mind taking out loans it would take them 30 years to repay. They could afford to screw around, maybe flunk out as a lot of freshmen did, and someday soon come back with daddy's blessing and financial support. I couldn't do that.

"Whatever it is Mark, I can't man. I've got a month of studying to make up for in a couple of weeks. Just go on without me."

Mark was a tall, skinny, white dude trying his best to raise an Afro and look cool. It just made him look stupid but somehow girls pitied him and he wound up scoring pretty regularly. He just looked at me funny.

"It's not me, Bill. Somehow, I think you're going to want to make time for this interruption."

I looked up. Standing behind him in the doorway was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. It was a warm day for March in Gainesville and she wore red shorts, a fairly loose white top that somehow bulged out, and a smile that would raise the dead.

Debbie Bascomb was a gorgeous wet dream of a 19-year-old college sophomore at the University of Florida where I am currently working, hopefully, toward a law degree someday in the not-too-distant future. I'd seen her around campus at times, always escorted by one of the school's football or basketball stars or guys who could afford $50,000 cars on their daddies' lines of credit.

Then one night she'd been the center attraction at a would-be frat house gang bang where I was earning a few extra bucks doing waiting and 'scut' work duties. Something, maybe only the distinct impression that she hadn't got involved voluntarily, led me to poke my nose into her personal business and I wound up in the hospital in a coma for my efforts.

I felt pretty silly afterwards. I nearly died, saving the dubious virtue of a reputedly very sexually active coed who never bothered to come by and see me a single time in the hospital, call me or even send me a card. I'd told myself I hadn't done it to make points. I'd have stepped in even if she hadn't been inhumanly beautiful. I told myself that.

I found myself staring at her breasts, then somehow raised my eyes to look into those cool eyes, found mine drifting lower and dropped them to a safer region, which were those hips and legs and found myself getting lost again. She was a big girl. It was a long way from those breasts to her feet. I managed to look up at her face again.

"Hi."

"uh – hi."

"I'm –"

"I know who you are, Debbie. I've seen you around campus."

A little twinge of something that might have been embarrassment flashed across her face for a moment.

"I'm sorry, but I don't remember running into you."

"You didn't. We don't travel in the same circles. I just meant I'd seen you a few times," and then, although I knew it was stupid, added, "You're hard to miss."

That smile flared on her face again and it was as if the room had gotten 20 degrees warmer.

"Thank you, Bill."

She looked down at the bed which was a patchwork of books and papers and asked, "Could I sit down for a minute?"

I looked around. The two chairs I'd gotten from Goodwill were also covered with academic debris. There was just enough space in my room to turn around and that was it, the bed or nothing. I swept a pile of books and papers up and deposited them behind the bed in a heap.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and folded one knee under her. Up close she was even more spellbinding. Her eyes were an odd shade of blue green. She stared at me and I felt like a bug pinned to a specimen slide. 

I tried to think of something to say but my mouth didn't seem to be working right. I noticed Mark gave me a thumbs up, grinned and vanished.

"I'm kind of hurt."

I stared at her, trying to figure out what she meant.

"You save a girl from a fate worse than death and then you completely abandon her. I figured you'd at least call me, but not a word. It's been more than a week since you got out of the hospital. Do you go around saving so many damsels in distress that you lose track of them?"

She smiled as she said it and I couldn't help smiling back.

"No, I generally don't make a habit of it. But..."

"But...."

"I – uh...I don't imagine you know anything about me, but I'm here on a partial scholarship and working and keeping up a full academic load. When...uh...when I went in the hospital I lost nearly a month. I've got finals coming up in a little more than a month and I can't afford to fail any of them. I've been studying my ass off, plus going to classes. And..."

"And?" 

She leaned forward, her breasts swaying gently inside her blouse. I could tell now she wasn't wearing a bra because of the thimble sized nipples poking out at me. I had lost my train of thought.

"And?"

She was smiling gently and she followed my gaze down to her chest.

"And...I know you've got a very busy life. You...uh – have an active social life. I didn't want to...uh...intrude."

"Intrude?"

The smile faded.

I tried to make it sound casual, but I couldn't keep a little emotion out.

"If you'd wanted to see me, to thank me, you would have come by the hospital. You never came by. I just assumed....that you weren't interested in....bringing back any memories....of that night. I figured you probably just wanted to forget all about it. My mother told me about how you were hurt, and that you probably were embarrassed. So I just thought.."

"I never came by the hospital? That-"

Then she stopped herself. Her breasts heaved, which was a show all in itself.

She took a few deep breaths. Then:

'I came by the hospital. Three times before I ran into your mother. She made it very plain that she didn't want me anywhere around you. I managed to sneak into your room twice when she wasn't around...just to sit with you. 

Then she walked in one day and found me there and gave the nurses orders to keep me out of there. She was family. They had to do it. 

"When I heard you'd regained consciousness, they wouldn't put any of my calls through to you. 

I have a friend who's an orderly and he told me when you'd been released. I just assumed...you would contact me. I was waiting. And when you never called, I said to hell with it and came over."

I felt like shit for what I'd thought. And what I'd thought was that she was just a rich little slut girl who really didn't give a shit about a nobody that had wound up in the hospital helping her.

"I'm sorry Debbie. I didn't know. I – uh...look, my mother's not a bad woman. She's just protective. She – I – we lost my father when I was a little boy. She's never remarried. I've been her whole life. I was an only child. And she thought you were-"

"A stupid, reckless slut that nearly got her son killed screwing around at a frat party."

"Debbie, I-"

"You don't need to deny it. That's what she told me when she found me in your room the first time. Do you feel the same way?"

I just shook my head.

"I can't say anything about the way you live your life. You're over 18."

Her voice rose.

"You think I went there wanting to be raped. To have those assholes rape my ass until I was torn up inside? To tear my vaginal walls so I might not be able to have kids? To line up and fuck me over and over? That son of a bitch I thought was my boyfriend got me drunk and drugged me."

She lowered her voice.

"I like parties. I like guys. I like sex. Sue me. Show me that many coeds on this campus that don't feel the same way. But I'm not a punchboard. I don't go to bed with just anybody."

Somehow, without knowing how it happened, I'd wound up holding her hands in mine. Her eyes glistened.

"That wasn't what I was saying. I'm just saying that I can't pass judgment on how you live your life. If I'd thought you...wanted to be there...wanted what was happening, I wouldn't have stepped in. But I didn't think you wanted it. And I was right. I'm glad I stepped in. I always will be. It was the right thing to do."

"Do you always do the right thing?"

"I try to."

She was close enough to me that I could smell the dizzying scent of her. It wasn't perfume. It was her. Another few inches and those hard nipples would be grazing my t-shirt. I had never wanted anything more in my life than to lean forward and kiss those red lips. But I couldn't. 

She was grateful to me for saving her but, if I leaned forward and took that kiss, I knew she'd stiffen and draw back and give me a look I didn't want to have to live with. She had come here to thank me, but she was still light years out of my league.

She licked her lips and I thought I was going to die, or cum in my pants. Whatever, one of those things. Then she pulled back and looked around my little room designed in late 20th century poverty.

"You save me and sink yourself Bill. That doesn't seem fair."

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't. You shouldn't be punished for coming to my rescue."

She picked up the sociology book, looked it over and said, "You've got Williamson?"

"Yeah."

"I took his class last semester. I got an A. I can tutor you on what you've missed and I guarantee you an A on the final. What else are you taking?"

I told her.

"I haven't taken the math yet, but I'm pretty good at math. I have taken the econ and while I haven't taken your lit class, I always ace English. Let me help you on these and you can probably pass everything without killing yourself. Two heads are better than one you know."

"I can't ask you to do that, Debbie. You've got your own classes to worry about."

"I'm ahead on everything right now. And...my econ 2 class is the hardest one I've got. Jerry Harvey has been trying to get me to go to bed with him since I started his class. If I rub my titties on him a little bit, he'll do my assignments himself."

I couldn't help smiling at her, although I didn't like the mental image of her rubbing those big breasts up against an old man.

"And there are whole armies of frat boys who'll do the work in my other classes if I just ask them to, ever so sweetly."

"You make it sound so easy."

She grinned at me again.

"You think I'm just a pretty face and a pair of D cups? There's a brain inside here, Bill Maitland."

"Yeah, I'm beginning to see that."

"But in the meantime," she said, standing up suddenly and holding her hand out to me, "let me take you to dinner."

I didn't grab her hand..

"I can't, Debbie. I have too much-"

"Bullshit. Give me your hand. There."

She pulled me up and for the first time I realized how tall she was. She wasn't wearing heels but I still had to look up slightly. Not a lot, but it was strange looking up into her eyes. It didn't do anything for my self confidence.

"Come with me. You have to eat something so let me treat you to a steak at Merriweather's and when we come back I'll help you study. I don't have a curfew and I'll stay as late as you want me to."

Merriweather's was the best steak place in Gainesville and I couldn't afford to even think of going there.

"I don't want you to spend that kind of money..."

"It won't cost us anything. I dated the son of Ritchie Merriweather, the owner, last Fall. It's too bad he's married because I liked him better than I did his son, but he loves me and he'll feed both of us for free."

She looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, taking in the faded jeans and holed tee-shirt.

"You got decent clothes? Maybe a jacket?"

"Decent clothes but no jacket."

"Doesn't matter. He keeps jackets and ties for special guests. Come on, get dressed. You want me to turn around, in case you don't have on underwear under those jeans?"

She grinned at me.

"If you want me not to, I won't turn around."

I thought about arguing with her for a second, then realized she'd get me out of there if she had to throw me over her shoulder and carry me out. I had run into a stacked steamroller.

The only problem was, I was already falling in love with an angel and I was never going to be able to fly high enough to win her.

########################

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2005

I still woke up sensing her presence in the bed next to me. I had not heard from her but I hadn't really expected to. I wondered what had happened when she met Philippe for the first time on her return, when she had looked into his eyes. I didn't want to think about their first night together after months apart.

Not thinking didn't make it go away but, even though the thought of Aline with Philippe hurt like hell, it didn't make the feelings I had for her go away. 

I made myself NOT think about what I'd told Debbie the day she left. What if she walked back into my office one day in the near future? What if she told me that she and Philippe hadn't been able to put their marriage back together?

What if I was unemployed, or moving to another state, my life up in the air, trying as hard as I could to keep a relationship with my kids long distance and still missing Debbie and trying to start a new life? Could I add Aline into that mix?

Damn straight I could. One thing the end of my marriage had taught me was that a job and responsibilities and doing the right thing weren't a substitute for protecting what was the most important thing in your life.

In my case, it had been Debbie and I'd let her slip away. If Aline came back, no matter what it cost, I wasn't going to let the same thing happen again.

Despite how I felt emotionally, which was drained and tired and old, physically I woke with energy and I felt good. All the propaganda about the value of hard physical training and conditioning had turned out to be true after all. Who knew? Even though I'd slacked off while Aline was here, the conditioning carried over.

Why the fuck had I never even considered doing this when I was with Debbie and she had begged and nagged me to set foot in a gym, to go with her, even sweetening the deal with an occasional blow job or a really hot fuck? 

She had wanted it and even though I knew now it was for herself, to try to keep alive a flicker of the desire she had once felt for me, she had also been doing it for me. And now, I couldn't even remember what had been so vital that I could never find the time.

Regret is the most useless emotion, or so I'd read somewhere, so I forced myself to think about William Sutton and Shawn Smith and the mechanics of the office and I managed to put Debbie and Aline out of my mind for awhile.

The process of getting ready to go to the grand jury is not all that simple, particularly when you're preparing to toss them a political hand grenade like Shawn Smith, so I spent time on that one.

Also, although we'd done a lot of prep work on Sutton, actually filing the charges and setting up the case was a different story. I had two Assistant SAs preparing the case but I was going to be the face of the case.

If it blew up in our faces, I didn't want to cripple two young attorneys just starting their careers. Better that I go down.

We'd just started the hurricane of legal forms, but Sutton's attorney, a fairly good trial lawyer named Barry Mahon of the famous Jacksonville Mahon legal dynasty, already was firing back at us as fast as we hit him with motions and counter-motions and requests for delays.

I knew what he was doing; just what I'd do in his shoes. He was going to delay, delay and delay again in the hopes that our star witness would die before the case went to trial. No recorded or written testimony is ever as effective as a live, warm, breathing human being on the witness stand.

Then, there was that distant dark cloud on the horizon. We'd heard more about the snake-bit trial of the Mexican drug cartel warlord who'd been set for trial in the West until the cartel had killed the two U.S. prosecutors on the case in that circuit.

There had been talk of moving the trial to Idaho and only a week before, the lead federal prosecutor in Boise had come home to find his wife and three children murdered, their heads missing.

Written in their blood on the walls of his home were words in Mexican that roughly translated to "Touch us and we will kill you all. El Degüello."

U.S. prosecutors around the country had received a flash education in Mexican culture and tradition, learning that "El Degüello" was the name of the trumpet tune played by Santa Anna's army surrounding the Alamo in 1836.

It meant, according to different sources, "no mercy," "no quarter?" and more literally "slit throat." One book translated it as "The Beheading." The cartel thugs who had butchered the prosecutor's family obviously went with the book definition.

The cartel had moved on the RUMOR that the case was going to Idaho, so prosecutors and cops around the country were justifiably nervous. It had been a long, long time since any organized crime groups in this country had felt free to attack cops or prosecutors.

This Mexican cartel had dared to go to war against the entire law enforcement establishment of the United States and so far they were winning. 

The DEA and U.S. black Ops groups were moving in Mexico, but the entire country was so corrupt that you never knew who you could trust and often the law enforcement allies you needed were hired killers for the cartel, so taking out their heads was more than difficult.

All of this was highly sensitive, but prosecutors knew about it and knew the storm was heading for someone. The American government couldn't back off on its prosecution of the cartel warlord who had killed hundreds in Mexico and the U.S., and the cartel wouldn't or hadn't backed off on its pledge to keep him from going to trial.




When We Were Married Ch. 06A



Like a lot of people who held my kind of job, I half wanted the case, yet halfway hoped it would pass to someone else.

And I promised myself that if it came to me, I'd make sure Jimmy, the husband of Debbie's younger sister, Clarice, was called in. I had heard enough to know that he had resources in black Ops he could call upon, and I wanted someone who was of our blood protecting Debbie and the kids if that day ever came.

The routine, the job, was good for me. I stopped thinking about Aline, about Debbie, about the past and what couldn't be changed and the future and what might be coming. I could just do my job.

At 11:45 a.m. Reverend Montgomery stormed in. That is, Cheryl had barely enough time to say, "Mr. Maitland, Rev. Montgomery is headed in to see you."

If this had been a cartoon, steam would have been hissing from his ears. He pursed his lips tightly and gave me what was probably an intimidating stare.

"I don't know what hold you have over Edwards, but I want you to know the black community is not going to let you railroad a good police officer into prison, Maitland."

"Well, hello Reverend, and how are you today?"

He breathed hard.

"Extremely upset, Mr. Maitland, and you know why. Despite the urgings of the African American community and the police community, you have decided to go forward with this witch hunt designed to put a good police officer into that hellhole of a state prison at Raiford. You know as well as I do that that is tantamount to a death sentence.

"What's worse, you have somehow managed to intimidate the duly-elected State Attorney to be derelict in his duties and refuse to order you to step down. I don't know what hold you have on him, but it must be truly powerful to convince him to commit professional suicide."

I tried to be as low key and calm as possible.

"Reverend, I'm sorry I've upset you. At the time we last spoke I told you I hadn't come to a decision on the disposition of Office Smith's case; I since have. All I'm doing is bringing the facts before a grand jury and allowing representatives of our entire community to make the final decision on how to handle the case. I would think you'd be glad to have the decision made by a cross-section of the community and not by one man."

He just gave me a long look and then sat down in one of the chairs and got up again as quickly as if he couldn't bear to be still.

"You truly are smoother than duck shit," he said, dropping the Reverend guise for a moment, "You know the right words and the right tone, but I'm not some idiot reporter or Chamber of Commerce law and order booster. You and I both know you're running this show and whatever happens to Smith is on your head."

"You're exaggerating my influence, Reverend. I think all that 'Angel of Death' nonsense is getting to you. It is quite possible the grand jury will hand down a nolo and refuse to indict Smith. Grand juries tend to be reluctant to indict police officers minus some overwhelming evidence of wrong doing."

"Only this time they won't, will they, Mr. Maitland? You think you can get away with this because you have your boss buffaloed. You have some dirt on him or what? But let me give you some advice. You do this and you'd better get ready for protest marches in front of this office every day – for as long as it takes. Our community will picket your home as well, not just YOUR condo, but the house in which your ex-wife and children currently reside. There will be television crews and radio reporters and media trucks and everybody in the neighborhood will know they have a nest of white racists in their midsts."

I stood up from behind my desk. Something must have passed across my face because Montgomery backed up.

"You realize you're threatening my family to frighten me off from pursuing this prosecution?"

"Not at all," and he smiled. A partial smile but he knew what he was doing.

"You know we are perfectly within our rights to picket your home and actually anywhere else we think we can pressure you to drop this unjust prosecution. The Constitution protects our free speech and assembly rights. If it inconveniences some, or possibly causes an illogical fear, that is not our problem."

"Like you said, Reverend, smooth as duckshit. But you and I both know the impact of shouting protesters, camera trucks parked all over neighboring lawns, the crazies that always come out at such events. 

"And if something happens to my son, or daughter, or ex-wife, well, you had no idea something like that might happen. Right?"

"No, I don't know that anymore than you know that Shawn Smith will be indicted and probably convicted."

We stared at each other for a moment.

"I don't want to do this, Maitland. I think you're a piece of shit, but I don't want to force your ex and your kids to pay for your persecution of Shawn Smith. However, if you go ahead with this, we'll have to start the ball rolling and they will be sucked in. Don't go to the grand jury. I'm not a bad man, Maitland, no matter what you may think now. I don't want to have to live with myself if anything happens to them."

"We're at an impasse, Reverend. I'll make sure my ex-wife and kids are somewhere else when you start your protests and I'll use every resource of this office to prosecute anyone who makes even a threatening gesture against them if you do find them."

I used my best intimidating stare and tried to visualize him in a prison jumpsuit.

"Maybe I'll be able to nail you. Maybe I won't. You'll have to decide, in the words of that old Clint Eastwood movie, 'Do I feel lucky'?"

Stepping to the door of my office, he said, "I'd ask you the same question, Maitland. Do you feel lucky?"

After he had left, I sat thinking for awhile, and then I headed up to Edwards' office.

Myra said, "He's inside, Mr. Maitland."

I went inside. He was sitting behind his desk, looking through a file.

I stood there and after a few moments he looked up at me. He looked tired. He looked his age, where he usually looked strong and energetic and maybe in his late 40s. Today he looked every bit of his nearly 60 years.

"I just talked to the Reverend. Thank you for refusing to take me off the Smith case."

He shook his head.

"Why thank me for something you blackmailed me into doing. You know that's the only reason I'm letting you go ahead."

"Myra came down and talked to me. She thought you'd say to hell with it and just fire me. Why didn't you?"

He put the papers down and leaned back in his chair. That easy smile was gone.

"I took some time and thought it over. If I let you go ahead, I'll be crucified by cops and the African American community. If I fire you, I'll probably have most of the newspaper and television editorial writers after my head. Worse, the average Joe SixPack that doesn't read beyond the headlines will only remember that I'm another corrupt politician cutting deals. They won't remember the name, just the stink associated with it. That's what will kill me.

"Oh, don't get me wrong. I still think I'm probably sunk in next year's elections, but I think letting you go ahead may be slightly less damaging than firing you. Because you'd do every damned thing you threatened. I know you, Bill."

I didn't sit down.

"I know you disagree with me, but I think you're wrong, Austin. The cops and the blacks will be upset with you, but you have a year to mend fences. And the media will spin this that you're an incorruptible prosecutor willing to take on his own side to find justice. Calvin Coolidge got to be president bucking cops, and Thomas Dewey almost made it as a tough crime fighter. You're not dead yet."

Edwards gave me an almost-smile, then looked down at the desk. I think it was one of the private political, name recognition polls he had run every once in a while to see his standing in the public eye.

"You might be right, Bill, but I doubt it. And I don't think you even realize why you're doing this."

I just looked at him curiously.

"I know you think you're doing this out of deep moral conviction, do the right thing and all that crap. But you can't see yourself clearly. Nobody can. 

"From where I'm sitting, you've never recovered from Debbie dumping you. You almost went over the edge and I very graciously sent you on a cruise to recover and you wound up falling for another woman who put you back together again. Now SHE's dumped you."

There was pity mixed with anger in his gaze.

"You're still off-kilter. Your head's not on straight, Bill. I think you're trying to destroy yourself the way you did with alcohol. I think you want to be fired, want to be driven out of a life that's let you down, that's hurt you. I think you want to be forced out of your safe, comfortable womb here and given a chance to start over new somewhere else."

"I can see how it might look that way, Austin. But I don't think it is."

He rubbed his chin. 

"Doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong, Bill. I'm going to give you that chance for a fresh start."

"You're firing me anyway? After what you just said."

"No, go ahead with the grand jury. See it through. But once that's done, in a respectable time, I want you to resign and go somewhere else. Maybe a few months after the start of the New Year. Take until the Spring. 

"But I don't want you by next Summer. That's long enough there won't be any appearance that you're leaving because of Smith. 

"And," he said, "I'll write you any references or recommendations you want. You are a very good attorney. Anyway, the 'Angel of Death' can probably go anywhere he wants and get a job, prosecution or defense, although it might do you good to go back on the other side for awhile. It pays better and you would have a better chance at a private life."

We were both silent for a long time.

"You sure that's the way you want it, Austin?"

"Yeah, I was pissed at you, but I knew what I was getting when I made you my number one. It's just that I don't think I want you around here anymore. I think it would be bad, especially if I go down in flames next November. I'd look at you everyday and blame you. It wouldn't be comfortable for either one of us."

Finally I said, "All right, Austin, I'll start checking around."

As I walked by Myra I saw her working on her computer. She glanced up at me for a moment, but for the first time in a long time, she wouldn't meet my eyes. She knew.

I sat in my office for a few minutes when I got back. I didn't lock the door but I asked Cheryl to keep anyone away that she could. I sat back, then spun my chair around to look at the pictures on the wall, the plaques, the evidence of a decade lived as a prosecutor.

The kids had been little when I'd taken the job. Debbie and I still had a good marriage. It had been a different world.

Now it was all going away. I wouldn't stay here. I knew that in the moment Edwards had told me my time here was ending, which meant that at least, in a way, I'd be leaving the kids behind. I hated that.

I'd be leaving a job I loved, and now hated at least a little bit. I'd be leaving Debbie. I might be able to start healing if I didn't have to see her every day and remember all the years we'd had together.

The intercom buzzed.

"You have a visitor."

She didn't even tell me who.

I didn't turn around.

"Hello, Bill."

"Hello, Debbie. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I had a minute. Can we talk?"

I spun around. It hit me like it did every time I saw her. Women weren't supposed to look that good when they were approaching 40. Why the hell wouldn't she show her age?

"Talk."

"I just wanted to ask you to be careful."

"Careful?"

"I've heard about the Shawn Smith case. There's a lot of buzz among the cops that he's coming unraveled. They say he's drinking, and talking crazy talk. Talking about getting you before you get him."

"Talk is cheap. He knows things are coming to a head and he's scared. I don't blame him. He's got a 50/50 chance of walking away, but not many people would risk their life on those odds."

"You mean he's a desperate man who carries a gun, knows how to use it, has killed people with it, and thinks you might send him to prison."

"Pretty much."

She surprised me by coming around my desk. I pushed my chair back a little. She stood close enough to me that I could smell her perfume. And under it I could smell her scent. I started getting hard despite myself. She'd always had that impact on me until the last few years when had I gotten so old that that scent didn't make me want to throw her down and spread those luscious thighs? How could I have forgotten? But I had, and now when it was too late all that came flooding back into my mind and my body.

"I've always known more about your work than you wanted me to. People talk. I'd see memos. I looked at your paperwork when you were asleep. You never knew I snooped, did you? When did you start thinking I was just another stupid soccer mom?"

"I never thought you were stupid, Debbie. You were smart enough to leave me out of your life for years, fool me into believing you were still my wife."

"Only because you never cared enough to check up on me. You never cared enough to wonder where I was all those nights."

"Because I promised you once upon a time that I was going to trust you."

"Trusting someone doesn't mean not even getting curious those nights I came in late and never said anything about where I was. I wasn't sleeping around, but any normal husband would at least have asked me where I'd been. You didn't even ask." 

"You told me you weren't cheating and I believed you, which makes it worse. You didn't even have the excuse of having another woman to distract you."

I shook my head and pushed myself as far away from her as I could.

"Stop, Deb, I don't want to rehash this shit. It's the past. What's this have to do with anything today?"

"I know you, Bill. Better than you think or know. You don't have the sense to be afraid of things you should be afraid of. Shawn Smith is dangerous. He shot three men to death, one of them in the back. I want you to be careful, look out for Smith and make sure you have someone around you. You've got investigators, people who carry guns. Assign yourself a security detail. If nothing else, for Christ's sake, start carrying a gun."

She was leaning toward me and I put out my hand to stop her. I didn't want her to get close enough to touch. It was hard enough being in the same building with her.

"He's scared, but he wouldn't be crazy enough to shoot a prosecutor, especially when he'd be the first person they look for."

"Scared people don't use logic, Bill. You should know that. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

I felt like a trapped animal. She just wouldn't go the hell away and I couldn't get past her without touching her.

"Look, Debbie, I'm touched that you care. I'm not being sarcastic. It's...I know you are probably worried. That's why I never told you everything that goes on here. I knew you would have worried but, really, this is not worth worrying about. I've had people threaten to kill me before, people who could have and would have if they'd had the chance, and I'm still here."

Then she had my hands in hers and she was staring down at me. A simple touch shouldn't be that intense, but for a moment I couldn't breath.

"I'm not asking you for myself, Bill. I know I don't have that right anymore, but you have two kids who love you. You've re-established bonds with them and you're a better father now than you have been in years. Take care of yourself for their sake. I don't want to take them to your funeral. 

"Not for a long, long time."

She released my hands and stepped back, then walked out of my office with only one glance back at me. I could feel her touch long after she'd gone. 

Why, why, why the fuck had she taken Doug into my bed. I could see her in my mind's eyes screaming in pleasure as he rammed his cock into her, because she'd done it when I fucked her. And I knew I'd never get that image out of my head which meant there'd never be a tomorrow for us.

Only yesterday.

#######################

SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1985 – 9 P.M.

I was scarfing up the remains of a cold pepperoni pizza with some lukewarm and flat Pepsi when the door to the room swung open. Debbie stepped in, as usual preceded by those unbelievable tits. 

If I could have sold semen by the quart, the amount I'd wasted in the bathroom jerking off thinking about them and other assorted parts of her anatomy could have financed my college education.

She took in the picture of me on the bed surrounded by books, cold pizza, flat Pepsi and a couple of Playboy centerfolds on the walls of my room that didn't come close to being as hot as she was fully clothed and just grinned at me.

"What am I going to do with you, Bill. I guess you can take the boy out of Palatka, but you can't take Palatka out of the boy."

I had made the mistake of telling her somewhere along the line that when we'd moved south, my Mom and had taken me to Palatka for a year before moving up to Jacksonville. Now she never hesitated to remind me because for some reason, in her mind Palatka was the ultimate hick town.

"It's Saturday night, the middle of the summer, the living is easy, professors are bored, and the girls are horny, and you're in here eating old pizza and reading textbooks and jerking off when everybody is gone."

I guess I started to blush. Even after knowing her for two months, that mouth of hers surprised me sometimes.

"Debbie..." I started.

"Come on, Bill, now you're going to tell me you're the only guy among thousands of males here who doesn't jerk off. Or are you getting so much action you don't need to use your hand?"

"Anybody ever tell you you got a mouth on you, Ms. Bascomb?"

She made a sucking motion and even though she was playing I got so stiff I couldn't have stood up right then without embarrassing myself.

"Actually," she said, gesturing with her hand as if she was giving a blow job, "guys have always told me I have a great mouth."

I tried to think of a clever comeback to that but the words stuck in my mouth. I finally said, "Anyway, what are you doing out alone on a Saturday night? I thought that was against your religion?"

An emotion that I could almost believe was disappointment flashed across her face for an instant, but I knew I was reading something into them that I wanted to be there and, in reality, it wasn't.

"I'm on my way over to CC's place. Some people are getting together there, listening to some music, smoking a little dope, just hanging out. I didn't feel like doing anything so I'm headed over there; halfway there I thought about you and figured this is what you'd be doing. It's depressing as hell, to be honest.

She stood there in front of me and reached out with one slim hand.

"I probably couldn't enjoy myself tonight thinking about you here alone. Come with me and eat something, have a few drinks and a couple of tokes. You might get lucky and hook up with somebody and then you wouldn't have to beat your own meat. You'll go blind if you do that too much, you know."

I pretended I couldn't see her and gestured with my hand as if I couldn't find hers, saying, "What happened? I'm blind."

She pulled me to my feet so hard that we bumped fronts and the soft pillows of her breasts cushioned the impact, but her nipples were hard enough to cut glass. She wasn't so tall that we didn't' press our important parts together. Then she moved back and she might have been breathing hard. I know I was.

"Idiot," she said softly, "you know that's the only reason I hang out with you. You're so weird you make me laugh."

"Whatever it takes," and although I knew she didn't realize it, every word was the truth. If she was with me only because I made her laugh, I'd take it.




When We Were Married Ch. 06A



Then she looked down at the bulge in front of my jeans and licked her lips, saying, "You might want to take care of that before we get to the party. Unless you want to advertise what you've got to the unattached ladies."

Two months ago I could never have imagined joking so easily with anyone who looked like Debbie, but we'd become something like friends.

"It'll go away. Besides, I want to keep my powder dry just in case..."

She just shook her head, saying as she turned to leave, "You keep it too dry and you'll blow some poor girl's head off when you explode."

"But she'll die happy."

She looked back at me and shook her head, saying, "I think you're a nice, sweet, shy guy and every once in a while I wonder if it's just an act."

"It's all an act."

She started out the door, wiggling that ass and I almost reached out to pat it but stopped myself just in time.

CC was Charles Carter Winfield, heir to the Winfield Tobacco Fortune and more money than I'd ever be able to imagine having. Winfield himself was a roly-poly plumper with a really nice personality for a guy who lived a life 99.99 percent of the human race would never enjoy. 

But, then he usually had three super hot women in his bed or jousting for a position in his bed. So who wouldn't be jolly?

His off-campus apartment was a three-story compound with eight bedrooms, game room, pool room, theatre room, room room or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. Debbie pulled up in the circular driveway larger than the house and yard I'd grown up in and let one of the attendants take the keys to her restored 64 Cherry Red Mustang and park it.

We found our way through rooms where wine, tequila, scotch and Coors, which was imported as tradition would have it straight from Colorado although it was now on sale nationally, flowed in fountains and bartenders were available with glasses, bottles, snifters and anything else your heart could desire. 

Pot in every brand and species I'd ever heard of, as well as every form- bombers and blunts and hookahs were available from smiling waiters. 

Just some people hanging out. I guess in Winfield's world that's what this was.

I followed Debbie as she wended her way from room to room with an ease that showed she'd been here before. I hated it, but I wondered if she was one of the hot babes Winfield fucked in tandem with any friends he felt like sharing with at the moment. If she was, so what. Winfield didn't have to force any woman into his bed. They climbed in willingly.

We found Winfield on a long couch in the movie room watching a movie called "Back To The Future." which I knew wasn't going to be released until the next month. I figured I'd have to wangle a chance to see it before we left.

He turned to look at Debbie as we walked in. He had a sheet covering him and a dark complexioned beauty with naked breasts like ripe Macintoshes was obviously jerking him off under the cover. Then she dipped her head under the sheet and the bobbing shape of her head made it clear what she was doing now.

"Deb, give me a kiss," he said and she leaned forward. As he zeroed in on her, she turned her face slightly so he brushed her cheek. He looked at her for a moment and then at me and laughed. It was a good natured laugh.

"So the stories I've heard are true. God damn, I wouldn't have believed it. It's still good to see you, babe. I've missed you and your-"

I couldn't see her face but something flashed across his and he stopped, then added, "that beautiful face of yours. We've all missed you. Ramone, I think, most of all."

She looked back at me and I couldn't read her expression. 

"Bill Maitland, this is CC. CC, this is my friend, Bill."

He reached out and took my hand, then squeezed it as he closed his eyes and groaned. I realized he was cumming in the mouth of the head bobbing under the sheet. Debbie just rolled her eyes.

"Um, damn..."

He just took a few deep breaths and then opened his eyes.

"So you're the knight errant that's captured our Debbie's heart."

She reached out to rap him on the nose, hard enough to make him draw back.

"CC, Bill's not familiar with your...warped sense of humor. Ignore him, Bill. He thinks it's funny to play with people's heads. CC, leave Bill alone until he's had time enough to know when you're joking."

Unfortunately I had no idea whether he was joking or not, but he had to be and it was the kind of joke one of the beautiful and rich people would run on a poor kid who was completely out of his element. The way Debbie had reacted told me she didn't appreciate the joke.

"I've heard a lot about you," I told him, "and it looks like it was all true. Who do you have to kill to become your friend?"

He looked at Debbie and said, "I like him," then to me, "Make yourself at home Bill. Things get pretty relaxed around here. Find something, or someone you like and have a good time. With Debbie around, I don't think you'll have a problem finding something fun to do."

She took my hand and said, "Let's go get a drink Bill."

"Later," CC said and sank back onto the couch as the head under the sheet went back to bobbing and a guy I'd just noticed slipped a hard cock into the pussy of the beauty sucking CC and started pumping her vigorously.

I stood there for a moment just watching and realizing I was getting hard until Debbie pulled on my arm.

"Come on, Bill, unless you want to join the orgy."

"This kind of thing go on all the time?"

"You think I know all about it? You think I'm one of the ones that winds up sucking and being fucked. Asshole."

She was stalking away from me and had walked out of the orgy room when I grabbed her arm and spun her around harder than I expected to.

"Debbie-"

"Asshole - let me go."

I let her go and then grabbed her upper arm again.

"Why are you getting pissed off at me, Debbie? You act like you're a friend of his. I expect this isn't the first time you've ever been here. Why wouldn't you know what goes on here. I didn't say you were fucking or sucking anybody. I do a good enough job of sticking my foot in my mouth without your help."

She jerked her arm away from me but didn't walk away.

"I have been here before, plenty of times. CC is a good guy. There's always plenty of booze, good food, good drugs. And, yes, hot guys. And fun things to do. 

"But you see CC having fun and the first thing that pops into your head is that I must be fucking him. Tell me the truth. You saw her sucking him and being fucked and the first thing in your head was me down there doing that. Right?"

"No. Maybe....look you're hotter than hell and I know guys would give their left nut to have you. Why wouldn't you have fun and CC has a reputation for having the best women in his bed? So, yeah, I guess I could see you there. But..."

I stopped because there was a hurt expression on her face that made no sense.

"But why do you care what I think about your sex life? Why would you give a second thought to me? We're – what are we? Friends, I think. I like hanging with you. But we're nothing more than that. 

"You and I – you're an eagle and I'm a turtle. We travel in different worlds. I got you out of a tight spot and you saved my ass and kept me in school. I guess you must like me, or you wouldn't keep dragging me to places where I can have a good time. But again, Debbie, why do you care?"

"I – I don't know, Bill. Maybe...maybe because....you saw me at my worst. You saw me at my slutty, stupid worst. I don't give a shit about the others, because they're all shit. But you're different. And every time I see you, I see myself there. And I feel..."

"You remember the first time we met. I told you I thought you didn't want to be around me because I reminded you of what had happened that night. I think I was right, Debbie.

"I like you and I am grateful for what you did for me, but I don't want to keep bringing you down every time we're together. I'll go down and call one of the guys. I can get somebody to give me a ride. You stay and enjoy yourself. Thanks for getting me out of that room, for a little while anyway."

I had made it back almost to the front door when I heard steps coming up behind me.

"Don't go away, Bill. I was being stupid. I didn't..."

I put my hand on the doorknob and sensed people hovering but nobody interfered.

"I don't want you to go, Bill." She put her hand on my shoulder. "You are a friend. You're the only guy I can spend time with and not worry about when you're going to try to grab a boob or get in between my legs."

"Thanks one hell of a lot."

"Don't go all macho masculine on me. You know what I mean. I know you get hard around me, which is sweet, but I think you actually might like me as a person, apart from my tits and there haven't been many guys I've ever known that I could say that about. I like being with you. Don't go off pissed. Stay here and let's get drunk and stoned and have a good time."

"Shit, you can be persuasive when you want to be."

I turned and she hugged me and couldn't help rubbing those sweet yielding mounds against me as she gave me a kiss on the cheek. It was a sisterly kiss, a friend's kiss. 

There is no fucking kiss of death in the world that can compare to a sisterly kiss from a girl you want to be more than a friend to. But what could I do? I was a nice guy, and we all know how that story ends.

So I want back in and we shot pool and took a dip in his heated indoor pool and watched a porno featuring John Holmes and ate caviar on crackers, drank Tequila and shooters until we both puked, and then smoked about a pound of pot while watching a Three Stooges marathon and both laughed until we puked again.

I loved that she loved The Three Stooges. Girls generally didn't get The Stooges. Oh, they say they do, but they don't. How often would I ever meet a girl who got The Stooges and could also honestly say that her boobs were bigger than the starlet in the John Holmes feature.

"Did you ever notice that I have big boobs," she said at some point during the evening.

"Nope, I can honestly say I've never noticed," I said with almost a straight face and then both of us started laughing so hard we nearly strangled.

I came into and out of consciousness and at one point I noticed a big, dark haired Latin type sitting cross legged with us with Debbie's head in his lap. He leaned over to kiss her and I started to say something.

He looked up at me and said, "So you're the hero, huh. You don't look so tough."

Debbie opened her eyes and seemed to see him for the first time and rolled to one side and then sat up.

"He's tough enough, Ramone, tough enough. I don't think you would have done what he did, and you would have had a reason to defend me. He was a stranger."

"He's a nobody, a kid, Cara Mia. You can't possibly –"

"He's a man, Ramone. Being a man is more than having a big dick. You're born with that. You have to become a man and, in that, you don't measure up."

"You're just hurt, Cara. She meant nothing to me. She had just...heard about me and...had to satisfy her curiosity. She caught me in a weak moment."

"I was hurt, but that was then. This is now. Get the hell away from me."

"Cara-"

He had grabbed her and was pulling her into his embrace.

It was more of a drunken slap than a punch, but it caught him on the side of the face and in the process of rising it caught him off balance and he went down. An instant later he was up. 

God damn, but he was big. He looked down on me from about six and a half feet, all lean muscle and sinew. At that moment I really didn't care.

"You're a little punk," he said, staring down on me with the contempt that big men always have for a little man.

"A little punk who's going to kick your ass."

There were guys in waiters' white uniforms and two black guys even bigger and better put together than Ramone between us and then CC was standing between us.

"Guys, guys, let's not put a damper on the party. No rough stuff."

He smiled up at the glowering Ramone and then over at me and came over and put one chunky arm around my shoulders.

"Hey, I got an idea. Everybody, everybody who's still able to move. Get your asses out to the vans. We're going to fly down to Miami, be there in an hour or two and you can spend all day tomorrow on my dad's yacht in the Bay. You don't even need to bring along clothing if you don't want to. That's right, clothing optional. Come on."

To a chorus of drunken cheers, the crowd was herded out to a fleet of vans in the driveway. I looked over at Debbie. She stared at Ramone with sheer malice in her eyes and then as he watched came over to me and tucked her arm in mine, making sure to rub a big titty all over me as Ramone simmered.

"Let's go, Bill. For once, don't do the right thing. Just come with me and stop thinking about things."

I could have resisted her as easily as I could have flown away under my own power. A few hours later I woke up in the shade of a tent that had been pitched on a gently rolling polished deck. A soft roundness cushioned my head and someone gave me a gentle kiss on the back of my head.

"Back in the land of the living?"

"Maybe. At this moment I'm not really sure."

"Let's get you some coffee and something to eat if you can keep it down."

Within 10 minutes ship's crewmen dressed in starchy whites had given me two cups of the best coffee I'd ever tasted and within a half hour Eggs Benedict, waffles, crisp thick cut bacon, hash browns with mushrooms AND caviar, oysters on the half shell, Oysters Rockefeller, some kind of vaguely Arabic dip with thick cut potato chips and a half dozen more items.

Because I'd grown up respectably poor, I'd never eaten like that before and I'd developed a taste for things I couldn't afford that I didn't think I'd ever shake. I was in heaven. 

It didn't hurt that due to some physiological quirk I'd never understand, I didn't' get hangovers no matter how drunk I got the night before.

Over the next few hours the guests and CC did the meet and greet thing, I met some beautiful girls and interesting guys, a few of them very wealthy but not in CC's category. 

At some point in the early afternoon, somebody suggested skinny dipping. There was a microsecond of hesitation and then one guy slipped off a pair of tiny blue Speedos and stood proudly in the Miami sunshine. Then the women started stripping and I started getting a hard-on, which grew as first one and then another set of tits and firm asses were bared.

Finally Debbie looked around and as if challenged, stood up and reached down to take my hand. This time I shook my head no. This I wasn't up to, particularly looking at Ramone by the side of the ship. He had a dick that would have given a stallion an inferiority complex and he looked at Debbie with an air of complacent ownership.

She gave me a look I couldn't read and walked toward the railing. She slipped her blouse off, the bra underneath it in one quick motion and stepped out of her shorts and panties. Even the other women stared. 

She had a perfect hourglass figure, slender waist and round heart-shaped ass. As she turned to stare at me with another impenetrable glance, her breasts swung on her chest, great teardrop fruit topped by heavy, swollen nipples sticking out more than an inch, the saucer-shaped, plate-sized pink areola puffed out as well. I'd never seen anything so perfectly 'suckable' in my life.

Then she was over the side in one fluid motion, followed by other women and men. Ramone just gave me a nasty smile, swung that dick and then went over the side. In the next few minutes I could hear laughter, shouts, squeals, hoarse grunts. If they weren't fucking they were doing a really good imitation.

"If you're thinking they're fucking, you're right." 

I looked up and had to shade my eyes for a moment as the bright Miami sun sent bolts of brilliant lightning into my brain. By the time my vision had cleared, she was sitting beside me on one of the deck chairs that littered the deck.

She was a leggy brunette, hair cropped short to the base of her neck, but, despite the cut, there was no doubt she was female. She wore a pair of shorts cut way beyond THERE. I thought I might have spotted a few curly wisps from her crotch that proved she was a natural brunette. The rest of her, in a light blue tee shirt over what obviously were unencumbered C-cup breasts, was nice. She was pretty as well, not in Debbie's league, but pretty with nice lips and deep brown eyes, kind of a little pug nose. Not beautiful but cute. Perky would probably be the best word.

"I'm sorry?"

She reached out in an old-fashioned handshake, which I took, and said, "You're Debbie's pet. You probably already know this, but she's down there fucking and sucking Ramone, and probably every other guy she can get her hands or mouth or pussy around."

"And you are? And why the fuck should I care who she's fucking and sucking?"

"It's okay, Bill. Don't get pissed. You have to know she's the village pump. She's fucked every guy on this boat, probably most of the crew and maybe some of the caterers. I'm Amy, Amy Sunderland."

She gave me a penetrating look.

"You do know she's the classic definition of a nymphomaniac, don't you? Ramone is bigger than a horse, and he couldn't keep her satisfied by himself. She used to pull trains with four or five guys and nearly work them to death."

I sat back and sipped at a Tequila Sunrise and wondered how a small town boy wound up in a sybaritic dream of a floating orgy while my mom undoubtedly thought I was hitting the books in my lonely little Gainesville apartment.

"Again, Amy, I appreciate the news flash, but I'm just laying here enjoying the sun and a break from classes and wondering why you think I'm keeping tabs on Debbie's activities."

She reached out and laid one slim hand on my leg.

"Don't be so defensive, Bill. Everybody here knows the story. You risked your life to save her from a gangbang she was probably looking forward to, despite her sob story about being drugged and set up. And she's been trotting you out and showing you off to her friends as her newest acquisition. She and her friends have a lot of cars and clothes and jewelry to show off, but nobody else has a genuine hero. You're the flavor of the month." 

"But, I wouldn't get used to it," she said. "She goes through guys and cocks faster than condoms, when she feels like using them."

She rubbed my knee a little harder and slid her hand higher. Despite myself, I started to get hard.

"With all this information, you must be one of her good friends," I said tongue in cheek.

She smiled. She had a nice smile.

"We're acquaintances. Debbie doesn't have any friends – male or female. She has girls she uses and guys she fucks. Debbie is all about Debbie."

"Everybody looks out for themselves, Amy. What do you want?"

She smiled and the tip of her tongue darted out as she said, "What do you think?" and ran her hand up to cover and squeeze my already-hard cock. I thought about it for perhaps a fraction of a micro-second, if that. 

"Lead on."

Five minutes later we were in a cabin downstairs as spacious as most hotel rooms and I was firmly inside her. She felt good and she smelled good, her lips tasted sweet and her ass was perfectly fine to hold onto while I pumped into her as fast and hard as I could. I thought I was going to cum quickly but I didn't and I was just as happy to settle into a rhythm.

On each downward stroke she gasped and grunted a little and dug her fingernails into the backs of my arms, every once in a while murmuring, "yes...yes...like that..that..."

I pulled her legs over my shoulders, which tended to be my favorite position because it allowed you a full stroke and she moaned a little more often. I happened to glance at her face and noticed her eyes open and a smile on her lips. She was looking at something behind me.




When We Were Married Ch. 06A



I slowed and looked behind me. Debbie stood in the doorway. She had her shorts and a top back on. Her golden hair hung heavily around her shoulders, still wet. There was no expression on her face, none at all.

I felt bad for just an instant, guilty. Why, I had no idea. She wasn't mine and you can't cheat on a friend.

I started fucking Amy even harder and this time she did gasp and groan as I hit bottom, hitting her hard enough to bounce us on the bed.. I wasn't showing off. Or maybe I was. When I looked back around the doorway was empty.

Suddenly I couldn't hold back and I was gushing into Amy's warm center and she was putting a death grip on my arms as her pussy spasmed around me. Then I fell to lay beside her and we both tried to get our breath back.

"It never fails," she said in a whisper. "Guys get a whiff of her and they start squirting. I wish to hell I could figure out what she's got, other than the obvious."

I wisely kept my mouth shut.

When I got back up on deck I learned that Debbie had taken a water taxi into Miami with a couple of girls and guys. They were going to do a little shopping. I didn't see them again until 7 p.m., when I rode in to the small private airfield where CC kept his private jet waiting.

As I stepped toward the midsection of the plane I noticed Debbie sitting there in the window seat. There were seats set out in rows of three. I hesitated but then sat down on the outside seat facing the other window in the same row, directly across from her. 

She looked toward the window and the front. Anywhere but at me. We didn't say anything for a few minutes as the plane readied for takeoff.

When we were in the air, I leaned over to her and said, "If I didn't say it before, thanks for twisting my arm to come with you. It was fun."

She still wasn't looking at me.

"I could see that. How long did it take that bitch to get your cock out? Thirty seconds? You must have given her a real tussle."

"It just came up," I said and I couldn't help grinning.

She turned to me and gave me a look that would have frozen water.

"I noticed you weren't wearing a condom. If you start getting any burning when you pee, see a doctor. That skank probably is passing around a half dozen known bugs and some that medical science hasn't' named yet. You'll be lucky if you just get the clap."

I couldn't believe she actually seemed jealous, pissed at least. I'd never seen her that way since the first day she walked into my room.

"That's funny, Deb. She thinks very highly of you."

If a look could have stripped flesh from bone, hers would have.

"I know just exactly what that scummy bitch thinks of me. I bet she told you I was giving Ramone and every other guy a blowjob and a fuck in the water, didn't she? Well, watch Ramone carefully when he gets off this plane and you'll see he's limping a little. That's what happens when you nearly get one of your balls torn off. 

"I told the son of a bitch to let me alone but he wouldn't listen. He really thinks that if he just flashes that dick in front of a woman she turns to jelly. He's been reading and watching too much porn."

She turned her gaze back to me and said, "And you, you moron, you wouldn't take off your shorts because you didn't want me comparing your dick to Ramone. That was it, wasn't it?"

When I didn't answer, she shook her head.

"Guys! You think we walk around with tape measures and if you're a quarter inch shorter than another guy we're going to throw you back. If it wasn't so stupid, it would be funny."

She lowered her voice.

"Look, Ramone is a freak. Nobody I know of has got a dick like his. Anybody that hangs with us knows about him. Guys bring their girlfriends around and, if the girl is any way decent, their guy doesn't need to worry about being ditched. Of course, he nails a lot of the girls who pass through CC's. But..."

Her voice got even softer. I had to strain to hear her, but I heard every word.

"You already must know that I was with him - and he was fantastic. There is something..exciting...about being with somebody that big. But it wasn't just his dick. I...cared for him. I really did. I didn't go with anybody else while I was with him, but the bastard couldn't keep it in his pants and I finally realized he never would.

"So, I dumped him and I dated a few guys and then another winner got me drunk and doped me for that gang bang that you interrupted. I've been having a lot of luck with guys recently."

Her expression softened.

"I wish you had gone swimming with me. We would have had fun."

She shifted back to stern.

"But you would rather have been fucking that slut. They talk about me, but she's been fucked so many times by doubles and gang bangs it's a wonder you didn't fall in."

If I'd said, "it would have been a hell of a way to go," I think she would have slugged me so I just leaned back in the seat and I was snoring, according to her, before we'd been in the air ten minutes.

Of course, five days later I was on fire when I pissed and I wound up at the campus health center and taking pills and wishing that I wasn't such an easy lay. Debbie laughed until she almost choked when she came by my apartment two days later and she could hear me moaning when I peed.

"A friend would not take enjoyment in another friend's pain," I told her sternly.

"Just remember this the next time you start thinking with your dick.... friend."

The summer went by and we went out for pizza, went to a couple of campus plays, took in some movies on campus and off. Mostly we just hung out at my place, helping each other with our classes because we were both going full time all year, watching TV, talking about girls and guys and sex and life and what we wanted to do with our lives. 

She was so smart it was scary. I'd always known I was book smart, but she was one of the few girls I'd ever known who could match me and didn't bother to hide how smart she was. I guess when you're built like she was and looked like she did, you could be smart and guys would still be all over you.

The summer went by even though I wanted it to stop, to stay. I loved every minute I spent with her and she seemed to enjoy my company. I knew this was going to end sooner or later. She could have been going out with a different guy every night, being wined and dined and having serious money spent on her.

I wanted to ask her every day and every night why the hell she was wasting so much time on me, but I could never get the words out.

Then it was Friday, July 19. I hadn't seen Debbie in nearly two weeks, which was kind of unusual. But I'd been busy getting ready for end of course exams as she had and she'd been doing stuff with her family, including going out of town to Disneyworld for a week.

I was still jerking off to fantasies of her as regularly as ever, but I missed her. I'd gotten to like her razzing me and grabbing a pizza on the spur of the moment and talking about anything and everything that popped into our heads.

She had called me a couple of days before to let me know she was back in town. As usual, we didn't make any plans. She popped in on me whenever the spirit moved her. 

This time, I decided, I was going to be the one popping in. Let me take her out for once. Even if it wasn't a real date, it would feel more like one.

I had a 1969 Volkswagen Bug that my mom had bought in '80 and I had kept running. I thought it would probably be the only time Debbie had ever had the experience of squeezing into a Bug on a night out.

I pulled up to her sorority house, a two-story structure on sorority row. Or rather, I had planned on pulling into the drive in front but it was a Friday night and the place was jumping. I had to pull into a parking space nearly a block away. It was almost 7 p.m. but still fairly light. 

I was walking toward her sorority wearing my best jeans and a short sleeved shirt and clean tennis shoes, thinking what it would like to walk up like a real date when I saw her walking out of the front door. She wasn't alone. 

A tall black guy had his arm around her waist and as I watched, he leaned down because he must have been 6-6 or 6-8. She leaned into him and kissed him.

I stood there and watched the two of them walk out without letting go of each other. He took her to a white Caddy and opened the passenger side, giving her another kiss as she stepped in. It wasn't unwelcome. She stretched up to kiss him again. Then he closed the door and walked around to the driver's side.

I thought I recognized him. He was Owen Davis-Smith, junior center for the Gators and a lock to go with a million-plus contract to the NBA during the next year. I had even seen him play a couple of times when I'd been given tickets to a few Gator games. 

I stood there in the rapidly dying sunlight, blinking like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming 18-wheeler. 

I couldn't think for a minute. Why was I so surprised? Not surprised, stunned. Why shouldn't she be going out on a date on a Friday night? I hadn't called her, hadn't asked her if she was free. I'd just assumed that she was waiting by her phone for the pleasure of my company.

I didn't even realize what I was doing until I found myself walking back to my Bug, starting it and heading after them. It was stupid. She was out on a date. What the hell was I doing? But I followed their tail lights as they drove away from Sorority Row toward the city's Restaurant and Nightclub Row.

The traffic was fairly heavy for Gainesville but I stayed with them. I wasn't thinking about what I was doing, maneuvering automatically while my head was somewhere else. The Caddy pulled into Merriweather's. Why wasn't I surprised?

It was crowded but not full so when the Caddy pulled into a spot about two rows from the entrance, I was able to find a spot two cars over.

I looked over and through the windows of two cars I saw a blonde head and a black one exchanging kisses and then I saw her head vanish, reappear, drop again and reappear and I didn't need to be a genius to know what I was looking at. She had told me that guys loved her mouth and I could understand why.

Finally it stopped and she rose again and wiped the back of her mouth with her hand. They kissed again and then he came around to open her door. I just slid down in my car and they walked in with his arm around her. I didn't think I'd seen them separated since they'd walked into my view at the sorority house. It was as if they couldn't stand to be apart for even a second.

They vanished into Merriweather's. I thought about leaving. I was still thinking about it an hour and a half later when they walked back out to the Caddy. They were laughing at something. She poked him in the side with her elbow and pretended to swing at him. He caught her hand and pulled her into another hug. It wasn't even a kiss. It was the hug of two people who knew and enjoyed each other.

I followed them to Bugsy's, a pretty hot nightclub on the east side of town where they stayed until 1 a.m. and then to a private home on the city's west side near Highway 301. It was a two-story Tudor. 

He pulled into a two car garage and closed it down behind the car. The lights came on in the living room, then in an upstairs room, probably a bedroom. After about 30 minutes the lights went off.

I sat in the darkness until 3 a.m. when I finally regained sanity. It felt like I had literally been out of my mind, not there, for hours. I tried to think back and remember what was going through my head, but there was only a blank there. 

This was crazy, literally crazy. A girl I knew and had been hanging out with for a few months had gone out on a date, given some lucky, rich, talented bastard a blow job, and now was being fucked silly in his bed. It happened every night somewhere. She wasn't my girlfriend, my wife, the love of my life. She wasn't cheating.

No, she was just doing what any healthy, beautiful young woman her age should be doing on a Friday night and I was hiding in the dark, stalking her, spying on her like some jealous psycho. This wasn't me. I'd never been like this about any woman.

I drove back to my apartment. It was 3:30 in the morning. Two of my roommates' doors were closed, with the traditional tie around the doorknob. What were the odds both those bastards would get lucky while I was out playing Peeping Tom. 

I'd stopped along the way and bought a bottle of Scotch. I sat in the dark, filled a shot glass and started sipping.

I felt the temptation to slip away into that warm and comfortable haze again but stopped myself. It felt like scratching at a scab over a bleeding wound. It hurt a little and made it possible to ignore the terrible pain just below the surface.

I had thought we were friends. We had joked and laughed together and once in a while she had swatted at me, or punched me in the ribs when I was aggravating her. But she had never hugged me like that, never kissed me except in that 'sisterly' way, never held me THAT way. 

She and Owen were friends, probably bed buddies. Debbie and I were...what? Nothing except a girl hanging out with a guy she felt gratitude toward and probably more than a little pity.

But I guess I must have known deep down. It was why I had never gotten up the courage to pat her ass, to try to kiss her, because ours was a mostly one-sided friendship, one-sided on my side.

The asshole who was fucking Debbie was tall, athletic, rich and had a life ahead of him I couldn't even come close to imitating. I'd never had a chance from the very beginning, not from the night at the frat house. 

Why the fuck had she come to see me? Why the fuck had she played at being a friend, joking about blow jobs and masturbation and keeping me constantly revved up, knowing she'd never touch me the way she'd touched that black bastard.

Half the bottle of Scotch had vanished and Mark and one of my other roommates, Dave, were holding me down while two girls shouted in the background. My right hand hurt like hell and my head was hurting from all the yelling. I didn't know what the hell was going on. 

My tongue felt fat and heavy but I managed to mumble, "Mark, what....what..."

Mark had my right hand which throbbed with my heartbeat held down with the weight of his body.

"Bill, Bill, calm down. Stop fighting us. Just stop man."

"Mark...what....let me up....let me up..."

"I will, Bill, as soon as you relax. Stop fighting us. Can you relax?"

I lay back and realized I was on my bed. After a moment, Mark and then Dave eased up and somebody turned on the overhead light and I looked around numbly. 

It looked like a tornado had swept through the room. The chairs were snapped and lay in pieces, the dresser had been overturned and the contents strewn around the room and there was a big, big damn hole in the wall next to the bed.

Mark and Dave warily got off the bed and left me lying there. Two girls in various states of nudity came up behind them to stare at me warily.

I realized my hand hurt so bad I wanted to scream. I looked down at it and it looked like I was wearing a red catcher's mitt.

"What-"

"That's what we'd like to know," Mark said, kneeling down beside the bed. "We were...sleeping..and all of a sudden all hell broke loose in here. You had the door locked and were throwing stuff around. We had to kick the damned thing down. By the way, you're going to have to pay for these repairs."

I looked at the hole in the wall and at my hand.

"All you," Mark said. You punched right through the sheet rock and I think you might have broken one or two of the two-by-four support beams. I think you broke your hand all to pieces as well."

Memory flooded back into me.

"Get me to the emergency room, Mark. I'll pay for all the repairs. I'm sorry."

"What happened, Bill?What in the world happened?"

"Growing pains, Mark. I just grew up tonight. I'll explain it to you someday."

Despite all the booze I'd had during the night, I was feeling stone cold sober, mostly cold. I wanted to shiver, despite it being in the 70s. After a few tense minutes, Mark and Dave helped me up and I staggered with Mark to my Bug.

I spent five hours at the Shands Teaching Hospital emergency room where I was x-rayed and splinted and told if I was lucky, I might not have done any permanent damage to the bones, tendons and tissues of my right hand and wrist.

I insisted on driving Mark back to our apartment. It was 9 a.m., the sun was shining and Gainesville was green and beautiful. He got out and was getting ready to come around to my side when I said, "I'm not coming in, Mark. I'll be back in a few days, but I think I'm going to go home."

It felt good to be alone and on the road from Gainesville back to Jacksonville, driving through the small towns and rural countryside of Alachua County. Then I was back on Jacksonville's west side and pulling into the driveway of the small, two bedroom house that had been my home for more than a decade.

I was turning the key in the front door when it opened and my mother took one look at me and gasped, then wrapped her arms around me. She was a small woman, but she seemed to envelop me.

"Oh, Bill...."

"It's OK, Mom. I just want to sleep."

She followed me to my old bedroom, which she'd kept untouched as if I'd never left. I didn't even pull back the sheets. I lay down on my old bed and collapsed into the soothing darkness.

I was disoriented when I woke up. The sun was shining through my bedroom window. Had it been only a few minutes?

My mother was sitting on the bed next to me.

"How long.....?"

"It's Sunday morning, Bill. You slept more than 24 hours."

I rolled on my back and held my hand in its cast up to see if it was still throbbing.

"Why don't you ever listen to your mother, Bill?"

I just gave her a curious look.

"I was trying to spare you. I knew she was going to hurt you, to hurt you bad, and she has. She will again if you go back to her."

I just looked at her.

"You kept calling her name out. I knew you were seeing her and I knew this was coming. She is beautiful and you're a man and I knew you were going to want her, but she is no good."

I lay back and took a deep breath. My heart was beating and so I was still alive. I'd survived the worst night of my life. I hoped it would the worst night I'd ever know.

"We're done, Mom. No need for more warnings."

I stayed in Jacksonville for two days and went back to my apartment. It was awkward wiping my ass with my left hand, I couldn't write worth a damn and driving was a pain but it was okay. Then she called.

Mark poked his head in my door the following Friday and said, "Debbie's on the phone."

"Tell her I'm not in. You haven't seen me today. No, tell her I'm visiting my mom in Jacksonville."

He looked at me with a surprised expression. I hadn't told anybody except my mother, and that an edited version, of what had happened.

"Tell her, Mark."

Saturday I stayed at the campus library till past 9 p.m. when they threw me out, hit a McDonald's for a late supper and saw a movie at the Campus Union, making myself as invisible as possible. I didn't get home until nearly 2 a.m. 

Mark had a tie on his door knob but when I walked in he opened it, stuck his head out because he was obviously not wearing anything and said, "She came by about 9 p.m. and again at midnight. What is wrong with you, man?"

"Leave it alone, Mark."

I avoided her the rest of the week, once sitting quietly in my locked room while Mark apologized saying that I had been playing the mystery man for more than a week and they hadn't seen me much. Mark knocked a few times and finally told me through the door, "It's alright. She walked out and drove off."

He stepped inside my room and said, "I'm your friend and roommate, Bill. Explain to me how any sane, straight male could send that away over and over."




When We Were Married Ch. 06A



"Someday. Not now."

He shook his head.

"Who the hell would have thought it would happen to you, of all people. You know this is hopeless, right? You can't hide from her forever."

"I can try."

Forever lasted until the following Monday. I was walking into my sociology class when she stepped out in front of me. I had to put on brakes to avoid bouncing into her and I didn't want, above all, couldn't handle hitting those tits. 

"If I didn't know better I might almost think you're avoiding me."

I didn't look her in the eye, just stared beyond her to the doorway leading into the lecture hall and said, "Sorry, Deb, but I have to get in there. I can't afford to be late."

As I tried to slip around her she moved to block me and I had to raise my eyes to meet hers. There was a hint, but not quite, of a smile on her lips.

"Yeah, I know. They'll throw you out of school if you're late to a sociology class during the summer session. They're really strict this time of year."

I had done everything I could do to avoid this, but it was here.

"Look, Debbie. I really do have to get to class. Don't take this the wrong way, but I've got things I've got to get done and I don't have the time to sit around and talk."

"You really are avoiding me, aren't you?"

I met her gaze straight on.

"Yeah. We, uh...I just decided that there's no point....no point in our spending time together any more."

"So hanging with me for a pizza or talking in your room or seeing a movie once in a while is just too much of a strain on your over-booked social schedule?"

Then she noticed my right hand for the first time and her eyes widened.

"What happened? Did-"

"No, this wasn't Ramone or any of your legions of boyfriends warning me off, just an accident. Anyway, Debbie, I appreciate your taking the time to take in movies with me and talk, but it's not going anywhere and it never will. You need to go back to your kind of friends, and I'll go back to my life. It's been fun, but..."

"Just like that?"

"No, I thought about this a lot. We're two entirely different kinds of people. Two different lives. It makes no sense whatsoever for us to hang out. Thank you, but let's call it quits."

"You didn't think about talking with me about this?"

"About what, Deb? We're friends. We hang out. I like you, you like me, but we're just friends and our lives and our interests would have split us apart sooner or later. We're not 'breaking up.' You have to have been together to break up. We were never together. I'm not going to run away when I see you, but I have my own friends, things I do and they're not things I would do with you. Maybe we'll see each other around. We probably will. I hope you don't take this the wrong way."

She stepped back.

"Oh. When you put it that way, I won't."

She gave me a look I couldn't read, but that happened a lot with her.

"See you around....friend."

She walked away without looking back. When she was gone I sagged against a wall, feeling like I'd been gut punched.

I didn't see her, or at least talk to her, for two weeks. I saw her a few times, but she just nodded at me as she walked the campus with friends. A few times I saw her friends huddle around her as we passed, but they never said anything to me. I thought it would get better with time, but I was wrong.

It was near midnight on a Thursday two weeks later. I was lying on my bed reading a beaten-up paperback version of a late 1960s alternate history science fiction novel called "Pavane," particularly the section titled "The Signaller." It was the saddest damned thing I'd ever read, the story of lost love and what it means to live forever without love. 

I'd been reading it when I was 15 years old and Sarah Newman, whom I'd loved deeply and without measure as only a high school sophomore could love, had told me she'd fallen in love with the 6-foot-4 right guard of the Lee High Commodore football team. It had taken me a summer to bounce back and I'd read "The Signaller" probably a hundred times.

For some reason it had become my emotional touchstone whenever my heart was broken. Since I was alone, and would be alone forever, reading about somebody even worse off than me had a therapeutic effect.

I envisioned my lonely life through my twenties and thirties and forties and beyond. I would have affairs and there would be women. As a successful and dashing attorney there would be women, but there would be an unyielding mass of ice where my heart had been that would never thaw.

I realized objectively how silly I was being, but I hurt too badly. I wished a thousand times I had never taken that frat house job and never got mixed up in Debbie Bascomb's life. Then realized that no matter what happened, I was glad I was there for her that night.

The door to my room swung open and she was standing in the doorway. I absentmindedly noted the low-cut blouse that showed the swells of those D-cups, the tight white slacks that hugged her curves. But it was her eyes that drew me in. Her lips seemed thinner and her cheekbones more pronounced. We just stared at each other for a couple of minutes and I wondered if I'd fallen asleep and was dreaming.

"How did you..."

"I had a key made," she said, showing it to me.

"What....what are you doing here?"

"I talked to Dave the other day. He told me how you hurt your hand."

When I didn't say anything, she stepped into the room, knelt beside the bed and took my cast hand in her two hands.

"What happened Friday night, Bill? That Friday night."

I remained silent.

"Everything changed that night. What happened? Why did you smash up your room and run home to Momma and decide you didn't want to be around me anymore?"

I still couldn't talk.

"Did you see us, Bill? Is that what this is all about. I didn't see you. Were you at the restaurant, or the nightclub?"

"I didn't see anything except your black boyfriend that night."

I didn't recognize my voice.

"And his cock. When you were sucking him off in his Caddy."

"You were spying on us? Why?"

"I decided for once I was going to surprise you. Got dressed and went to pick you up, but after I saw you loving on your friend I realized you were never going to have any room in your life for a stupid asshole like me."

"You followed us."

"You do have a head on your shoulders. Yeah, I followed you to Merriweather's and saw that blowjob, and to Bugsy's, and then to – that was his house, right? I thought maybe you'd gone there to talk UF basketball with him. But by about 3 a.m. I figured you were in for the night and just gave it up."

"Did you come up and peep in the window? Did you see him fucking me? Did you see him hammering that big black dick of his in my pussy. Did you jerk off watching us? Isn't that what peeping toms and voyeurs and perverts do?"

"No, sorry to disappoint you. I just sat out there in the darkness while you were fucking him and finally figured out there was no you and me and there never would be. I'm slow. It took me months to figure it out. You threw me with those conflicting signals. But I finally got the message."

"You're slower than fucking molasses, Bill. Slower than snails. And perceptive as a rock. The first month or so after we met, I did go out with other guys, and I fucked them. But..."

She straightened up and did something that made those phenomenal breasts quiver deliciously. I was enjoying the show. I doubted I'd ever get as good a view again.

"I started enjoying the time I spent with you. You're a smart, funny guy. You treated me with respect and I could tell you...had feelings for me, even if you never said anything. I enjoyed being with you and – I just stopped seeing other guys. I figured, sooner or later.... That's what CC was talking about. They couldn't believe it. 

"It got to be a month, and two months and three months that we'd been hanging out, dating without calling it dating. I was wondering if you might be gay, until I saw you with Amy. Then I realized you were just stupid, and last Friday Owen called me. We've known each other since I was 15. We both went to Forrest."

She stared at me defiantly.

"I like fucking him. He is good. Of course his dick's a little small. He says he's the only black guy he knows with a white man's dick, but he knows how to use it, and, I like him. I was also getting very, very horny. I've never gone three months without some action, not since I was 13. So since you've NEVER asked me out on a date and you hadn't called me, I went out with him. I sucked him off and I spent the night in bed with him."

Her voice trailed off.

"So..."

I sat up in bed and looked up at her.

"So why are you here, Debbie? Owen busy with another one of his basketball groupies tonight?"

"Why don't you have any self-confidence, Bill? You act like you're a complete loser. You don't have much money and you're not the most handsome stud on campus, but you're brave and smart and funny and Amy said you were pretty damned good in bed. But you would have let Ramone have me that day on the yacht if I'd been inclined that way. You didn't even try."

"It's called realistic, Debbie. I know what I am and what I'm not. And guys like me don't end up with women like you."

She looked at me sadly.

"No, they don't, if they're like you."

We just looked at each other. I expected her to turn around and leave.

"You know that you've never touched me. You've never tried to kiss me. Girls - women - don't throw themselves at guys. Maybe a slut like Amy. But women want a man to come after them. If you want someone that looks like me, if you want any woman, you have to take a chance. You have to step out. I like guys, but I'm not going to lay there and spread my legs and beg a guy to take me. I'm better than that."

She stepped as close to the bed as you could get without being on it and looked at me with a gaze that was partly challenge, and partly hope and partly fear.

"You may not be the best looking guy I've ever been with, not the biggest, damn well not the richest. But I think you're the best guy I've ever been with. It doesn't matter though because we'll never be together if you don't grow a set of balls.

"You have to take what you want, Bill. So, the question is, do you want me?"

I knew that someday I'd regret this because I knew that someday she'd tear the heart out of my chest and leave me bleeding. I knew what I should do. But I did what I'd known deep down I was always going to do, no matter what it cost me.

I rose from the bed and pulled her down to me.

"More than my last breath..."

##################

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2005

"How could I have forgotten all of that, doctor? Am I really crazy?"

Teller leaned forward and puffed on his pipe. She had told him what had happened with her aunt and the aftermath in which the embittered older woman had predicted a betrayal by Bill that apparently had never occurred, but which had sunk into Debbie's brain deeply enough to color her feelings toward her ex-husband.

He let the redolent smoke out of his lungs and allowed himself to feel a measure of self-satisfaction. He now had a pretty good handle on the forces that had wrecked the Maitland marriage. Most, if not all, of the pieces had fallen into place. Debbie Bascomb hadn't quite put them all together and he wouldn't push the pace.

For her sake it was important that they came out at the proper time. She needed to accept and understand what had happened, her role and responsibility and her ex-husband's responsibility as well. Psychiatry was nothing if not a way to learn to live with the actions and mistakes of the past, to accept the reality of what was done and could not be undone, and to find a way to make a new life.

"No, you're not crazy, Debbie. This is a somewhat extreme example of a common phenomena, but it happens often. Memories that are too painful to live with are buried in our subconscious. Embarrassments, disappointments, heartache. They are forgotten over the years and never surface until some event or trauma brings the memories forward."

She leaned forward and clasped her hands together.

"I could understand forgetting what happened to Clarice, but how could I possibly have dreamed that it happened to me?"

He took his pipe out of his mouth, tamped the tobacco down, relit and took in another soothing lungful of aromatic smoke. The delay was deliberate to allow her more time to think about her question. Pipe smoking was a wonderfully innocent way of working delay into a conversation.

"You've told me about the role that your aunt played in your life. You told me that she was your second mother in every important way. In fact, she was a combination of a mother and sister. When you were going through your wild teenage years, she was the woman you trusted with your deepest secrets you couldn't go to your mother with. She was the person who never betrayed your trust, who always – to use the common expression – had your back no matter what."

Debbie's eyes misted.

"She was a wonderful woman. I miss her more now than I did after she died. I guess...I guess forgetting what happened was a way of forgetting how much I lost when she died. If she....if her marriage hadn't collapsed and she had been around when I started to....fall out of love....with Bill, I don't think things would have happened the way they did."

"She would....she would have have made me get my head straight. I can hear her now. She would have told me to either tell Bill I was leaving him or....to...forgive my language but it was what she would have said...fuck him until his eyes crossed and drag his flabby ass to a gym and get him back into shape."

Teller saw the raw emotion and wondered if she had ever come to terms with the emotional impact of her aunt's death. Grief and anger at a cheating husband who had contributed to the older woman's suicide were other parts of the puzzle that she could not have known were poisoning her mind and emotions about her ex-husband while it was happening.

"Even now it's obvious how strongly you felt about her. Even more than the emotional bond was the identification you had with her. She was you in a very real way - blonde, attractive, busty. She taught you, you said, to have pride and confidence in your sexuality and your body. 

"Without training, she was able to provide the support and encouragement you needed to transcend what was actually early sexual abuse by older men. Women who are initiated into sex at such an early age often fall into a destructive pattern of sexual relationships that mirror those early experiences. With her help and guidance you grew into a strong, sexually aggressive but sexually healthy woman."

He released another plume of tobacco smoke and observed the tears streaming slowly down her face.

"What happened, psychologically speaking, was that you saw yourself in your aunt as her marriage collapsed and she desperately sought the approval and sexual desire of other men to replace what she had had with her husband. You knew, consciously, that the assault happened to your aunt but, in your subconscious mind, you saw yourself as the victim. Because she was you and you had mirrored her life experiences." 

She nodded.

"I can see that. I told you about my nightmare....the one where I saw myself growing old and my breasts were drooping..I looked so damned old. It was terrifying. I know now that I was reliving the way I felt when I was cleaning her up in the shower afterwards. She didn't look that bad, but I couldn't believe she was that old. She wasn't even 60, but she had gotten so old...so old...."

Teller nodded. She was putting the pieces together.

"She had always been so beautiful. When I was a little girl I wanted nothing more than to look like her. Men loved her. Even married men who were friends of her husband were always flirting with her. She told me once she'd never be unfaithful to her husband, but that there was nothing as exciting as knowing another man wanted her. I guess...."

"What?" Teller asked gently.

"That was the way I was with Bill. I loved him, the lazy bastard, and I never cheated on him after we got together in college, but I loved teasing men. I loved knowing they wanted me and I never really thought there was anything wrong with it. That was Clarice."

Teller probed a little more deeply.

"In the bad years at the end of your marriage, when you...engaged in manual sex with several men....did you really think that it was acceptable because Bill had betrayed you first, as Clarice's husband had cheated on her?"

She wiped her eyes with one of the tissues in a box in front of her.

"I don't know. I've thought about it. I told him I never believed it, not really. But...I don't know. Do you suppose I really always deep down believed it...and that's why I've been so angry at him?"

"I don't know. What do you think?"

She smiled.

"You know, that's the first time you've hit me with typical shrink language, Dr. Teller."

He laughed.

"I know. I couldn't resist. To answer your question, it is possible that doubts about your husband's fidelity, even if you consciously denied it, might have sparked anger at him. Particularly since, just as you identified with your aunt, you probably identified Bill with her husband."

She looked troubled. 

"Maybe...but somehow, I don't think that would be enough to have made me ....feel the way I did...do sometimes."

"You're probably right, Debbie. Why don't you think about it until our next session. Try to come up with any other reasons for this deep, stubborn, apparently intractable anger."

He wondered if she would come up with it on her own. She was getting close.

"There was something else I wanted to talk to you about, doctor."

"We have a few minutes left on this session. What would you like to discuss?"

"I know we talked about this one time before...but....I appreciate your help. I'm not throwing up and I feel a lot better about myself and my life now. It's just that I can't help wondering what's the point of going much further. Even if I find out what made me so angry at Bill, what purpose does it serve?"

She rubbed her hands together in a classic unconscious exhibition of uncertainty and stress.

"I mean, even if I discover why I was so angry, why I wanted out of the marriage...the fact is I'm out. Our marriage is history. He...I think sometimes he hates me and most of the time I can't blame him. If he had done to me what I did to him, even though I still think he left our marriage first, I'd never forgive him. 

"I think sometimes that the only feeling I have left for him is guilt. I know there are times I feel flashes....of something like what I once felt for him. But they're only flashes, so what's the point of finally understanding why everything fell apart." 

"I told you once, Debbie, that you could stop these sessions at any time. I think, honestly, that you would eventually figure out on your own the source of the emotions you feel toward your ex-husband. Similarly, although complex, I think you will eventually realize what destroyed your marriage, and he does share a portion of the responsibility for that.

"What you learn about yourself and Bill won't change the past. What happened, happened. The scars you both bear won't vanish. Your marriage is history. But, understanding what happened, and why, might make it easier to form a viable relationship with him in the future. You still share two children and eventually there will probably be grandchildren. You will be part of each other's lives for the rest of your lives.

"No matter what happens between the two of you, you are still a young woman. You will love someone else again. You might yet have more children and start a new life. I can't help but think you will be better able to forge a new life if you understand what led to the end of the old one."




When We Were Married Ch. 06A



She was silent for a moment.

"Thank you, doctor. You're probably right that we'll always be a part of each other's lives. Right now I'm losing sleep worrying about him and that cop, Shawn Smith. I don't think Bill appreciates just how dangerous he is, just how much danger he is in."

Teller reached out and took her hand in his.

"I'm aware of the situation, Debbie. I think you underestimate your ex. Bill Maitland might be a driven man who takes risks, but I don't think from my experience with him that he's a foolish or reckless man."

"I hope you're right, doctor, but nobody is bulletproof - sometimes I don't think Bill realizes that.

#############################

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005 3 p.m.

I have two accounts on my office computer. One is my business account, for anything official. The other is a personal account. I'm on the business account a hundred times a day. I'm on the personal account maybe once or twice a week. My mom still isn't real 'hep' with computers, as she would put it. My kids call me on the phone, and there are very few other reasons for anyone to email me.

Because I almost never go on it, I've set up a pinging alarm for any email messages that do come through. If I'm out of the office, it will be pinging when I turn the computer on, and if I'm on, it will give me the same heads up.

The phone had rung five minutes earlier and Cheryl had told me I had Phil Howser, the President of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) union on the line. I had talked with him a number of times over the years and he'd always seemed reasonable and not too hard nosed for a cop and a union rep at the same time.

"What can I do for you, Phil?"

"You really need to ask, Mr. Maitland?"

"You too? It used to be Bill."

He laughed.

"You never can tell. Someone might be listening in. You know they've got your picture up on some of the targets at the shooting range?"

"Seriously?"

"No, but it wouldn't surprise me. You have some guys over here seriously pissed off at you."

I'm not surprised. I'm told that Smith is popular over there. Somebody prosecuting him is not going to get any love letters."

He laughed again. 

"I don't know. I think a lot of guys over here would love to screw you."

"A cop that can use puns. Be careful or they'll drum you out. You probably read without moving your lips."

"The only reason I'm not offended about that Bill is that I've been drinking with you at some of the joint State Attorney/Sheriff's office functions and I know you're just yanking my chain. That's why I haven't come down on you with my guys, because I can't see you being the bastard that people are saying you are."

"I'm a sweetheart, Phil, but I'm not going to back off taking the shooting to the grand jury."

"When do you plan on doing it?"

"I'd hoped to get it to them this week, but some other things are going on and the foreman and vice-foreman of the jury both had personal crises pop up at the same time. Technically we don't have to give them time, but they wouldn't be able to concentrate with that stuff on their minds. They've had those positions since the grand jury was convened and they know what they're doing, besides being good leaders. I decided to wait.

"So it will probably be next week, maybe later in the week."

"That gives us a little time. Look, Bill, my guys want me to do SOMETHING. They pay their dues and sometimes they get the feeling they don't get all that much for their money. It would do me good to show them that at least you were willing to meet with us, let us put our two cents in, and maybe, we might change your mind."

"Never going to happen."

"You know that and I know that, but they don't know that.

"I don't have a problem meeting with you, Phil. When and where?"

"How about Friday, at the FOP Hall on Atlantic Boulevard. We don't ever do anything official on Fridays because no one will show up, so it's a good time for the FOP officers and a few key people to meet. Come by and we'll have some coffee and maybe wings and you can talk candidly with us about what's going on. Sound good?" 

"Yeah. Let me ask you something before you go. I'm hearing rumbles that Smith is coming apart at the seams. He braced me in the sandwich shop across from the courthouse the other day and I seriously wondered if he was going to try something in front of a dozen witnesses, including four or five armed cops.

"My ex-wife was just in here telling me I need to start carrying a gun because she's hearing the same rumbles over in the PD office. Do I need to start carrying a gun, and if he's having a breakdown, how come the Sheriff is letting him walk around carrying a Glock?"

There was a silence and then Phil said, "He is getting a little raggedy, I'll admit and he's drinking too much. He's got a lot of friends and they're watching him, babysitting him really. Knight won't pull him because he and everybody else thinks if he's removed from duty, it will just make it certain that the grand jury will decide he's crazy and indict him."

Another silence and then: "He's a good man, Bill. Or, he was. The shooting rattled him...a lot. He's killed men before, but I think the way it went down...it even got to him. I didn't say that, if anybody asks, but even his friends know he went too far. Then, afterwards, his fiancee walked away. He, uh...I think he thought she was the one. I don't think he's been right since she left him. Maybe you can understand that."

The computer pinged. I ignored it. I thought about what Howser had said. Yeah, I could understand a man going to pieces after losing a woman.

"Then, the strain of having this grand jury thing over his head so long, and that civil lawsuit that could wipe him out financially, it's all played on his mind. That's why his friends are trying to help him hold it together until this passes, one way or the other."

"Should I start carrying a gun?"

"It probably wouldn't hurt."

I'd almost forgotten the email but after I hung up it popped back into my mind. I called up my personal account and typed in my password.

It was an email from adjardin@aol.com. I just looked at it for a long time. Eventually I hit the button and opened it.

"Dear Bill:

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. Paris in the Fall is even more beautiful than I remembered it. Jacksonville and St Augustine and your beaches are very different, but I know you love them as I do Paris. I hope you are as happy today as Philippe and I are. We have found that being apart has made us cherish our marriage more than we once did.

I have told Philippe how you showed me your home town and the great kindness you displayed to me while I was there. I will never forget the two weeks we spent in your city. By the by, Philippe also thinks the Fleur de Lis pendant you gave me is exquisite and I want you to know that I wear it proudly. He said it is the kind of gesture he expected from you, because that is the kind of man you are.

As I know you will understand, I cannot express the joy that seeing André again has given me. He is my life, and as I have done every year since he was born, I am having to struggle with the thought of ever going back to the Bonne Chance. Perhaps this year, my decision will be different.

Finally, I hope that you have found peace in your personal life. I do not know what decisions you will ultimately make about your marriage but, regardless of what happens with Debbie, I want you to know that after knowing you for such a short time, I have no doubt you will find a good woman to share your life with.

I hope you will pardon me for making such a personal judgment, but you are not the kind of man who can lead a life of aimless affairs. You need a woman in the center of your life, and you deserve one. Once you get past the pain you are currently in, I know you will find one.

Regardless, Bill Maitland, I want you to know that I will think of you often. When I wear your Fleur de Lis, I will remember you on the Bonne Chance, and in Jacksonville and St.Augustine. Philippe, too, sends his well wishes and wants me to remind you that friendship, like love, transcends distance and time, and that he is your friend.

With deepest regard, your friends, Aline and Philippe."

I didn't' realize until the letters blurred that I was crying.

#############################

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2005 3 p.m.

The alarm buzzer went off as I stepped through the security booth at the front of the courthouse. The two bailiffs moved toward me drawing their pistols until they both recognized me at the same instant.

I raised my hands into the air very quickly as all activity came to a sudden stop around me.

The nearest bailiff, an older guy with a few springs of whitish hair still sticking up on an otherwise bald head, put his pistol down but didn't holster it as he stepped toward me.

"Mr. Maitland?"

I pulled my coat back to reveal the Glock in a shoulder holster.

"I have a special permit in my jacket pocket if you'll let me get it out, or you can fish it out yourself."

He looked at the other bailiff, then said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Mr. Maitland, but could I see the permit. Take it out slowly, okay?"

"Sure, I'm sorry. I meant to take the Glock out and show you the permit before I went through the machine, but my mind was somewhere else.'

I showed him the permit signed by the Chief Judge of the Circuit and Austin Edwards. He looked at it for a moment, then said, "I really am sorry, but do you mind if I call up to the Chief Judge's office. It's just that this is kind of unusual, even for a prosecutor.

"Sure, go ahead," I said, noticing out of the corner of my eye women and men who worked in the courthouse and knew me by sight edging away from me. Just another story to add to my courthouse legend. There were already stories circulating throughout the courthouse about several members of the largely Hispanic night cleaning crews refusing to enter my office, the lair of the "Angel de la muerte," or Angel of Death.

It would have been funny, except they were as serious as hell.

Maybe they had a point. Half the defense attorneys in the building would plead out clients rather than take me on in court and even some of our own people would take the stairs down rather than ride with me in an elevator. 

I had asked Cheryl about it a few days before and she had told me, "You probably haven't noticed Bill but, except for the two weeks when that French woman was here, most of the time, if you're not involved in a case, you usually walk around with a frown, or you glower at people. Or...you just...shit, Bill, you walk around looking like your best friend just died. It's kind of a downer."

I hadn't realized it. I hadn't realized it because even before my marriage went south, I hadn't been the most light hearted of guys. The job kept me from being a happy go lucky soul. But I didn't know that somber had shaded into gloomy and I knew that today I was probably grimmer than usual.

My mind kept drifting back to Aline's email. You didn't have to be a genius to read between the lines. She had managed to patch up her marriage and she had her son back. How could I be unhappy at that? I wanted her to be happy, but that meant I'd never see her again. That made me unhappy.

The bailiff interrupted my musings, handing me the permit and apologizing for nearly drawing on me. I assured him there were no hard feelings and took the Glock back after I'd gone through the screening machine again.

I had gotten the Glock from an investigator, oddly enough the one who'd spotted me with Aline at the restaurant, and was given some minimal instruction in how to use it since I hadn't had any firearms training in nearly five years. So now I was carrying and it felt awkward as hell, but I remembered Debbie's words. I didn't want either BJ or Kelly to come to my funeral until they were a lot older.

I had barely walked into my office when Cheryl buzzed me and I picked up the phone. Mitch McConnell, one of our investigators, was on it, talking so fast that at first I couldn't make out what he was saying.

Finally I understood and I nearly dropped the phone.

"Oh shit. What hospital?"

I barely remembered to alert security as I went out but I had a driver waiting before I hit the street and he drove me in one of the SA car pool to Baptist Medical Center and went to park while I headed to the cardiac section. McConnell was waiting for me as I walked into the waiting area.

"How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad," he replied. "Pat Peterson, the cop assigned to watch him, heard him gasping and found him lying on the floor in the bathroom at about 2 p.m. He was having a really hard time breathing and complaining of a pain in his right shoulder and arm. I just talked to the doctor examining him and he said it's pretty obvious he's had a major heart attack."

The treating physician, a youngish cardiologist who looked like he had just started shaving, came out a half hour later and confirmed what McConnell had told me. 

Wilbur Bell, our star witness against William Sutton, had had a major heart attack. They'd had to go in and clean out four blocked arteries.

"What's the prognosis?"

"At his age and with his health problems, not real good. I'd give him 50/50 at best of making it through the night - much worse odds of making it a week or two."

"Shit, shit, shit. Look doctor, the State Attorney's Office, that is the state of Florida, will be paying for his care. Do whatever he needs to improve those odds. If you manage to bring him back, my office is going to be very grateful and our gratitude can be very profitable or useful in a lot of ways. Understand?"

"Yeah, but you understand he's an old, very sick man and I'm not a miracle worker. I'll do the best I can, but it's going to be a long shot."

"Sometimes you have to go with what you've got and hope for luck."

Before I left I told McDonnell to arrange with the Sheriff's Office for an around-the-clock security guard to watch over Bell.

"You really think Sutton would try to get to him in a hospital?"

"I don't know, but any man who'd do what he did wouldn't mind throwing the dice if he thought it would save him from the Death Chamber. He or his mother could hire someone. Nature might do his dirty work, but I don't know if he's religious enough to rely on God taking the old man out without some help."

On my way back up to the office, I wondered if I was glowering again. Probably. That son of a bitch Sutton was halfway home to getting rid of his most dangerous witness. Without the old man I wasn't sure I could nail him, and this was entirely out of my hands. There was nothing I could do to alter events. It was up to the doctor, the old man and God. It was, to put it mildly, irritating as hell.

The only good thing about it was that the anger had driven out the sadness of knowing I'd lost the second woman I'd loved in my lifetime. So far I was batting zero for two.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2005 3 p.m.

I sat in my chair behind my desk and thought bad thoughts. Wilbur Bell had made it through the immediate crisis, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. He could still die and the moment he did Barry Mahon would start pushing for a speedy trial to keep us from digging up any other proof we could use against Sutton. Not that I had any idea what possible other evidence we could dig up at this late date.

The phone beeped. Cheryl told me, "You have a visitor."

"Is it who I think it is."

"Yes."

"Would you remind her that we're divorced."

I could hear her from outside my office.

"Would you remind Mr. Maitland, whose ego is swelling beyond all belief since he's lost a little weight, that every woman, particularly every official with the Public Defender's Office, doesn't come up to his office out of uncontrollable lust for his body."

I just grunted. Why the hell did she have to become more like the girl I'd first fallen in LIKE with AFTER we were divorced. If she would just remain a bitch the rules would be clearer.

"Johnny August would just file a complaint with the Big Man if I refuse to see her, so send her in."

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She was dressed in green and white, crisp and trim. She was obviously still hitting the gym religiously. The dress was cut high enough to show off her legs without appearing too slutty. I knew she was still seeing the writer, Clint Abbott, and I wondered who else she was seeing. Looking like this, there had to be someone.

"So what is so urgent from the PD's office?"

"Nothing. I lied."

I just stared at her.

"Oh, get a grip on yourself, Bill. I didn't come here to seduce you. I just wanted to see you packing."

She smiled and I couldn't help remembering the first time we'd met, all those years ago. She had the same smile.

"I heard through the grapevine that you took my advice and got yourself armed, a shoulder holster and all. I just never thought of you as a pistol-packing prosecutor and I wanted to see what you looked like."

Very slowly and deliberately I opened the jacket I wore and let her see the Glock in its shoulder holster. I'd received a little instruction in the easiest way to reach in with my right hand and slip it out quickly.

"Don't get fancy," my instructor had said. "Get it out, hold it in a two-handed grip, point it in the direction of your target and start squeezing the trigger. The Glock is a fairly rapid fire handgun. You might get all 10 rounds off in a few seconds. Throw as much lead as you can in the direction of the target. 

"Don't get fancy, don't worry if you miss with some. Don't pull it unless you're in fear of your life and then do your best to kill the bastard."

"Wow," she said, grinning that same sexy grin I remembered as well as the smile. "It's true what they say. A guy with a big rod is really sexy."

Even as she said it she realized what she'd said and the grin froze. My thoughts probably showed on my face as well.

"I am so damned sorry, Bill...so sorry. We can't even joke around anymore, can we? You know I didn't mean...."

"I know, Debbie. Someday we're going to have to get over tip toeing around...our history. Someday, But anyway, thank you."

"Thank you?"

"I'm carrying this Glock because of your warning, which was echoed by other people. I hope I don't need it, but if I do, I'll have it because of you.

"I hope you don't need it either, Bill. But...I'm glad you have it."

She couldn't think of anything else to say. She turned around and I remembered once again that she was as nice to look at going as she was coming. I must be getting better, because I suddenly wondered what Heather MacDonald or Meagan Whitcomb or even Myra might be doing this weekend. 

Debbie might have broken my heart and Aline might have crushed up what few little pieces were still intact, but at least my manhood had been restored. If Debbie could make me horny again, there was still hope for me.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2005 - 3:45 P.M.

As she had walked into her office three doors down from Johnny August she noticed Dennis Leary bending over Annette Nettles' desk, whispering something into her ear. The red-headed PD giggled at something and Debbie could have sworn she reached out to stroke Leary's crotch.

It was only a second and she could have been mistaken, but she was certain of what she had seen, which wouldn't be a problem except that Annette was married to a DEA agent and she had heard some hair raising stories about his exploits in the never-never land between law and disorder that was the DEA. He was a dangerous man by all accounts.

And Leary happened to be the best attorney on the staff, second only possibly to Johnny August. She decided she'd have to keep her eyes open and possibly have an informal chat with both Leary and Nettles. While it wasn't on her list of official duties, keeping your best litigator from being shot by a jealous husband was somewhere in there.




When We Were Married Ch. 06A



Thinking about jealous husbands, she kicked herself again mentally. It was as if some dark part of her unconscious kept pushing her to say the things that would hurt Bill the most. She really hadn't meant the crack about "big rods" but she'd known the minute it left her lips what it meant to him and she'd seen it on his face.

Why in the fuck didn't all men come with a one-size dick. It would make things so much more simple. Bill could have handled her falling for a taller, younger, flat-stomached stud more easily than the fact that Doug had a bigger dick. It was something that hit men where they lived, pun intended, and women had to walk gently around comparisons of dick size.

Of course she knew a lot of the damage she had inflicted, deliberately, in hot blood. It didn't make it any better because she was furious with him for known and unknown reasons. It still had left scars that she knew went back twenty years to when they had first met. He had always been insecure about his size, and like a miserable bitch, she had aimed her verbal blows at his Achilles heel.

But it didn't do any good to keep kicking herself for what was done. If she could just watch her mouth in the future for similar gaffes, they might one day get to the point where they were just a man and woman who were once married and were still co-parents.

At least, at least she thought with some satisfaction, he had gotten to the point where he could look at her lustfully again. She knew that look and he had been stripping her with his eyes. It had been six months since he could look at her just as a man and not a hurt husband. It was progress.

Leary stepped into her office, grinning like a little boy who had just gotten away with something. Despite herself she felt a tingle where she didn't want to feel a tingle. Damn, she had promised Johnny August to keep her legs together, and she knew he and Bill were friends, and she was getting regular sex from Clint, but still....

"Just wanted to pass on a little bit of knowledge, Ms. Bascomb."

Bill had just given her that look and the Irishman was stripping her with her eyes and her nipples were getting hard and scratchy and she suddenly hoped desperately that Clint was home and free tonight.

"And that would be, Mr. Leary?"

"A friend told me Bill is going to pow-wow with the top brass at the FOP tonight at their headquarters on Atlantic."

"He's going to go into the lair of the enemy? Is he going alone? Does he have a bodyguard with him?"

"I don't know. I don't think so, knowing Bill, because, these guys aren't crazy. Phil Howser, the FOP head, will be there and other top guys. I don't think Bill's in any danger."

"That's probably what Custer told his top lieutenants before the party at the Little Big Horn."

The grin faded and he said, "You really are worried about him, aren't you? Does he know you harbor feelings for him?"

"This whole damned office is nothing but a nest of frustrated romance writers. No, I don't harbor feelings for him. But he was my husband for nearly 20 years. He's the father of my children. Of course I'm worried about him. When is he supposed to go there?"

"I heard 7 or 8 p.m."

"Okay, thanks for the information. And..."

"What?"

"Nothing. Thanks."

He stared at her tits for a moment before leaving. She decided to let the matter with Annette ride. She'd get some information before getting into that.

She knew Leary was right and Bill's going to meet with the FOP was no big deal. Nothing would or could happen. Still....

She got out at 5 p.m., headed to her gym where she sweated for an hour and watched lithe young female bodies whose breasts hadn't started to droop and whose asses were still perfectly firm attract the envious gazes of young and no-so-young men. 

She received more than her share of lustful glances, so it wasn't jealousy of those firm young bodies that hurt. They might be better on paper if you were scoring individual features, but she knew that one on one there wasn't a one of these young hardbodies she couldn't walk up to and steal a boyfriend from, without breaking a sweat. Her tits and ass still gave her the edge.

But still, it was depressing. Maybe she was more ripe, more desirable, but it was the ripeness of fruit almost ready to spoil. They had youth and she couldn't match that. The damned clock only ran in one direction, and for her it would always be downhill.

She couldn't shake the depression the gym visit left her with. She was alone. Both BJ and Kelly were out, BJ spending the weekend at her parents and Kelly living there full-time now. She had called and talked to Kelly the night before. It had taken time, but she was beginning to repair the breach between them. It would heal.

She grabbed a Lean Cuisine meal from the freezer and microwaved it, then ate it without tasting it. She thought about calling Clint, but for some reason even that didn't appeal to her now.

It was Bill, she realized. Walking into a building filled with armed cops without a second glance backward. Why the hell would he do something like that when he could have met with them in his office or on neutral ground. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. For a smart man, he could be so stupid.

She looked at the clock. It was 7 p.m. He was already there or soon would be. She walked into the den and turned on the Television from Hell. She had thought about getting rid of it because every time she watched it memories of her old life would come flooding back. Bill had been like a kid at Christmas when he came home one day to find that she had purchased it and had it delivered without telling him.

They had been walking through the Orange Park Mall one day when he'd come across a display for the largest television in the world, with the most gadgets and whistles in the world of electronic entertainment. He had been entranced. Of course, he'd already turned into the world's Number One couch potato.

Their marriage had been dying, but there were times when flashes of the old feeling she'd had for him hit her hard, and it had that day. Maybe it was a way of atoning for the things she had already done to betray him, but she had loved the look on his face when he walked into the den.

Thinking about those days, she watched the television without watching it and at 7:30 she suddenly turned it off with the remote, grabbed her purse and keys and walked into the garage. She got into her 2004 Nissan 350Z, opened the garage door, and pulled out.

She'd just sit outside the FOP Union Hall and listen to her PD police scanner with channels the public didn't have access to - just sit outside and never even let Bill know she had been there. It made no sense, but she couldn't sit at home tonight.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2005 - 7 P.M.

I pulled up to the one story building that was the Fraternal Order of Police union hall. The sprinklers had just shut off and I had to step through puddles on the sidewalk walking up. I opened the door and walked in. There was a hallway with a door leading to a large hall where meetings of the membership were held.

I spotted a big bald guy in uniform in the doorway and he waved to me.

I thought his name was Smith or Jones, something like that. He was a Zone Sergeant, the head man for one of four zones the city was divided into for police coverage.

He didn't offer to shake hands, but he didn't spit on me so I supposed that was progress.

"Smith? Jones?"

"Delwin," he said. "Steve Delwin."

"Never forget a name," I said, smiling. He just shrugged. As I walked into the hall I saw about ten men in uniform sitting around a table hitting a coffee pot and three boxes of Ronnie's Wings. I recognized most of them, having met or worked with them over the years.

Phil Howser was a tall, thin guy who hadn't put on two extra ounces since I'd met him nearly ten years before. He got up and came around the table to shake my hand, then introduced me to the guys I knew and a few I didn't.

"Thanks for coming by," he said, then glanced at me again. I was wearing a light jacket because it was getting cool in the evenings.

"You're carrying. Did you get armed because of what I said?"

"You and a few other people," I said. 

"You wouldn't have to be carrying if you weren't being such an asshole about Shawn," said a big blonde who I recognized as a Narcotics Task Force Lieutenant named Martin.

"Buddy," Howser said, but I waved him off.

"He has a right to his opinion. I know I'm not popular with a lot of you guys right now. That's why I accepted Phil's invite to come out and talk to you tonight. Could I get a cup of coffee before we start talking?"

We talked for an hour and I went through three cups of coffee. Four of the eleven cops were black but they didn't seem any more irate than the white cops. Maybe it's true they all bleed blue blood.

"I'm doing what I think is right," I told one of one of my harshest critics, a SWAT commander named Meyers. "I know you think I don't have the right to sit in judgment on the actions a fellow cop took in a moment of crisis that I have never gone through. I know you feel a bond for him. But...I understand what you're saying and you have to understand where I'm coming from. When you're on the street, when you're in a crisis situation, you can't wait around for guidance on what to do, for a consensus to form that will guide your actions. You have to take the action you think is right and hope it works out."

"That's where I am. There is no one to tell me what to do. Austin Edwards is the boss, but I'm the guy that has to make the ultimate decision because he's delegated that authority to me and I've been doing it for five years. No matter what happens, I have to live with the result, the fall-out, and I have to be able to look in the mirror when it's all over and live with myself."

I looked over at Lieutenant Martin.

"I know everybody seems to think I have it in for Smith. I have to ask myself, why? They don't give me a bonus every time I send a cop to prison. I don't need any more headlines. I can probably coast on the "Angel of Death" crap until I retire. I didn't know Smith before all this started. We've never crossed paths."

"Maybe it's because you identify with those redneck crackers and especially that wife-beating sub-human who was married to my fiancee before I rescued her."

I looked up and saw Smith standing behind Delwin. The two of them had walked into the back of the meeting quietly. As Delwin moved aside I saw the Glocks in each hand. Delwin threw his hands up.

"He caught me by surprise, Phil. I never expected him to show up here."

Phil put his hand down to his Glock which he carried in a holster at his side. Smith trained one Glock on him, letting the other one wave back and forth.

"Don't do it, Phil. We've been friends for a long time, but if you pull a gun on me to save this piece of shit I'll kill you."

"Shawn, put the guns down. You blow me away and one of these guys will take you down. Look at the odds here. Use your head.

Smith bounced from one foot to the other, moving the pistols in his hands back and forth rapidly. He was either drunk or high, or both.

"You really think so, Phil? You sure one or more of them isn't on my side. How'd I know about this little meet 'n greet where my brothers are plotting with the asshole that's trying to railroad me into prison. Maybe a few of them are with me, and when you guys start firing, the guy next to you you're counting on you to have your back is going to blow your brains out. You willing to take that chance."

The cops sitting around me began to look at each other warily. I could see they were starting to worry.

"Now, Phil, all of you, take your Glocks out of your holsters, with your left hands except for Martinez. You use your right. And lay them down on the table.

Howser shook his head, but didn't move his hand.

"I don't give up my gun, Shawn. Not for you or anybody else. If you want to, you open fire and I'll do my best to kill you before I die."

"Looks like a Mexican standoff. Okay, keep your guns but keep your hands away from them and in plain sight. Everybody just stay cool. Anybody moves for a gun, and we all start dying."

Smith turned his attention to me. His eyes were glazed, fiery, the pupils dilated. He had to be on something strong.

"Now you, Mr. Prosecutor. I hear you're armed. Open that coat and reach up with your left hand and take it out with just the tips of your fingers."

I did it, moving very slowly. 

"Okay, good. I'm glad to see we're communicating. It's too bad it had to come to this, but you just kept coming after me."

"Shawn, stop," Howser said. "You're having a breakdown. With any luck, you'll get a suspended sentence and have to go into a hospital. It's not the end of the world. There are other jobs out there. You'd be a good private security guy and it might wind up being a better world for you. It's not worth being laid in your grave."

"I'm not going to be laid in my grave. This son of a bitch is. I'm going to walk away from this nightmare and you guys are going to help me."

"You're crazy," Martin said. "Look Shawn, I've been fighting for you. But no way are you going to shoot Maitland in cold blood and have the rest of us back you."

Smith looked at him and said, "In a few seconds, with no warning, I'm going to put a bullet in his head. He'll be dead before any of you can do anything, assuming you want to. Once he's dead, what reason do you have to open fire on me? 

"You, Martin? You remember five years ago, when we moved in on that Coke dealer in Avondale. You were first in the door when he leveled that sawed-off shotgun at you. It jammed, but I pushed you out of the way before we knew it was going to jam. I'd have taken the blast. I would have died for you, you son of a bitch. Because you're my brother and we have each other's back.

"Once this cocksucker is gone, you're going to forget that and kill me for this scum? He'll be dead and killing me won't bring him back. 

"Every one of you, I've had your back. Martinez, that pretty wife of yours would have divorced your ass and taken your two kids if she'd ever found out about that bitch you kept up in that apartment on 20th Street. But I took the bullet for that and said she was mine and it cost me my girlfriend at the time. But I did it."

Delwin just shook his head.

"I've been on your side, but it's just crazy, man. No way can you get away with it."

The police radio Howser carried crackled and voices came out of it at the same time that the radios carried by Martin and Meyers did.

"Howser, come back. Answer please."

Smith looked around the room.

"Turn the radios off."

Nobody did.

"Why not," Smith continued, answering Delwin's comment, "There are 11 cops here, 12 counting me. You're the leaders. If we stick together and give the same story, how are they ever going to break it? Is any jury in the world going to believe 12 cops lied?

"I've got a throwdown that can't be traced back to us. He came here to talk to you guys and when I showed up to try to talk sense to him he suddenly snapped and pulled it out and was going to shoot me. People will believe it. They know he's crazy. Everybody at the courthouse knows about how he broke down. They know he's been out of control since that slut wife of his dumped him.

"That's why he tried to kill me. He told me in front of all of you that I was just another guy like the one who stole his wife. Only I stole the wife of a white man. That's why he hated me, because I was another wife stealer. I tell you, people will believe it."

Howser just shook his head and looked like he'd swallowed something sour.

"No, Shawn. You've gone so far around the bend you don't know how crazy you are. It won't work. Even if you kill Maitland and throw your gun down, none of us are going to let you walk or perjure ourselves to save your ass."

The radios continued to crackle with messages ordering the holders of the radios to check in. No one moved to touch any of the radios.

Smith smiled. It was so confident it raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

"You'll lie for me. Otherwise I'll tell them that you let me walk in and shoot him and didn't raise a hand to stop me. You can deny it, but there are 11 of you and one of me. Everyone is going to be asking, how could 11 armed cops not stop ONE man. You may not serve time, but you're not going to be cops for that much longer and you may wind up serving time."

He grinned again.

"Besides, you said it yourself. I'm crazy. At worst I'll go to some nice mental hospital and after a few years I'll be cured and get out. I might even meet some cute nurse while I'm being cured."

"A good plan."

Smith and everyone else looked at me.

"But it has a few...just....a few flaws the size of the Grand Canyon in it."

Smith's smile was frozen on his face.

"Tell us, Maitland, what are the flaws. You going to strike me down with your Angel of Death powers?"

"No, nothing like that, more down to earth. You mind if I take something out of my jacket pocket? I'll do it slowly."

"Why not. You're about to die. The rest of you, keep your fucking hands away from your guns. I might only get a couple of you, but two of you at least are going to die. Get it out, Maitland."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a device the size of a cigarette lighter. I held it up very slowly, and as Smith watched I pressed a button. After a few seconds I hit another button.

"....I've got a throwdown that can't be traced back to us. He came here to talk to you guys and when I showed up to try to talk sense to him he suddenly snapped and pulled it out and was going to shoot me. People will believe it. They know he's crazy...." 

I stopped the recording and watched his face, then looked around at the others. Howser and a few others who were smart enough looked ahead, like a chess master planning out moves three or four steps in advance. They knew. Even if Smith had planted friends, they'd know.

"I hope you guys won't take offense, but I always tape conversations like this. No one will ever hear it, unless they need to."

"So fucking what? You're going to give it to me or I'll take it off your dead body and destroy it. No one will ever hear it."

Moving very slowly and deliberately, holding the recorder in my left hand, I touched two small prongs on the end.

"This is the latest model, Shawn. Maybe you haven't seen them. They're great. It records but it also transmits. There's a relay link in my car which boosts the message and sends it to a record in my office, in a locked desk. 

"You can destroy this, but Monday morning there will be people listening to this conversation. It's digital so it's recorded everything since I walked in here. Unless you guys plan on raiding my office, and good luck with doing that without leaving so much evidence behind that my office won't need the recording."

The tone on the police radios had turned to desperation before the calls suddenly stopped. The place was very quiet all of a sudden. 

I looked at Shawn directly and made myself smile.

"Oh, and by the way, I'm not giving you this. Shoot me and take it."

Before he could react I turned so my back was to him.

"Shoot me in the back, Shawn. You've had experience doing that so it should come easy. Try explaining to your fellow officers, and the guys from my office, how you happened to shoot me in the back as I was attacking you."

"Turn around, goddammit. I will shoot you in the back if you don't."

 "But that's not the only flaw in your plan. Just the biggest. There are others."

"Maitland, turn around."

"Shawn, dammit, don't, don't," Howser shouted.

"Your finger gets one inch closer to that gun and I'm killing you, Howser. Don't make me. Delwin, Belmont, keep your fucking hands clear of your guns."