58 comments/ 100880 views/ 28 favorites Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 01 By: DanielQSteele1 (c) 2012 (Author's Note: I apologize for the disruption and having to repost the first part of Ghosts, but it should run smoothly from this point.The second part should run rather more quickly and from that point the last four should run about weekly. This story is, as all my writing for this site, part of what I call First Coast Stories, meaning they are set in Florida's Northeast area called the First Coast by PR types. As always, I hope readers will enjoy the entire story and I look forward to your comments. And I continue to thank "curiouss" for his editing work on this saga. DQS) CHAPTER ONE- NOTHING PERFECT LASTS I am not a dramatic man. Not for me the grand gesture, the flourish that captures the eye and the memory. When I graduated from the University of Florida I had business tending to the estate of my father, who had died suddenly, so I skipped the graduation walk and screams as the students hurled our student paraphernalia into the sunlit sky and had my diploma mailed to me. When I asked Mary, now my wife, to become my bride, I didn't hire a blimp to float across the sky with letters saying "Marry Me, Mary!" or a plane carrying a banner proclaiming, "Make me a happy man Mary," I didn't drop to one knee in a crowded restaurant and open a box containing a two carat diamond while diners around us sat and gawked. I didn't order Oysters Rockefeller and let her open one containing the said two carat diamond ring. No, I rolled over next to her naked, luscious body in the bed we shared in my off campus apartment, after bringing her to three orgasms with my tongue, fingers and dick. I ran my hand down her sweaty side. She lay back breathing slowly. From past experience, I thought she'd probably nod off and we'd share a few hours of sleep and wake one or the other for some touching if I couldn't get hard again that soon. I ran my hand over her right nipple, which had softened. She opened her light brown eyes to stare at me with a quizzical smile. "Are you going for some kind of new record, Hugh? Not that I would object, but you wore me out that last time." I just stared at her for a moment. I'd had other women before her. My family had money and, when I was 15, I'd fucked an 18-year-old who had cleaned our house while my parents were gone. If you have a car, aren't too bad looking, know how to talk to girls and have some experience, it's not hard to get laid steadily in high school and college. However, Mary was different. She had been from the moment I'd set eyes on her taut body and pretty face, framed by the long, straight, brown hair in the fashion that every coed wore three decades ago in an economics class in 1970, when we were both seniors. She was going steady -- a step away from being engaged to a Harvard man. He was wealthy and with a Harvard degree behind him looked set to provide the kind of life any girl could look forward to. But then, he was at Harvard, and I was with Mary, at the University of Florida. I worked on her for half a year. I was nice, not pushy, and I was a gentleman, but she knew I wanted her. Not hearts and flowers and hand-holding, but I wanted those high-set 36B cup breasts and that pert ass which no dress could hide. I invited her out for coffee and studied with her and when boyfriend forgot to call or was "busy" I was there to take her out for a pizza and to commiserate and hint that he was probably banging some wealthy northern cutie. We took long walks on the campus and talked books and I persuaded her to go with me to see movies and plays -- just as 'friends'. I apologized for stealing our first kiss and she told me she wouldn't go out with me for anything again, class would be our only meeting place, but she did, and I kissed her again, and again. I stroked her breasts in my car through her blouse until she shivered, then slipped my hand in on her bare flesh and made her moan. Then I planted my lips on those pink buds and sucked and nibbled until she gasped and I knew if I could get my hands into her panties, they'd be soaking. She was guilty because she was still semi-engaged, but I had no conscience and I kept asking her out and stroking and sucking those breasts and got her to put her hands on my dick, which felt like a bar of steel, and stroke me until I came. Then she wanted to see it happen and even though she told me she'd never done anything like that before, she planted those luscious lips around my dick and sucked me off in my apartment. She cried a little the first night I fucked her. That night I fucked her, but the next time WE fucked, and when I finished she sucked me hard again and rode me until I came again, and there were no more tears for the guy at Harvard. We spent almost every night until graduation together. I was inside her in one way or another. When she was on her period, she'd suck me off and I'd make her come with my fingers. One time I fucked her anyway, to hell with the blood. I looked at her lying next to me and remembered those days and nights and I didn't even have to think about what I was saying. "I love you, Mary. I know I've said it before, but this is the real thing. I want to live with you and make babies and wake up with you and go to bed with you...for the rest of my life. Let's get married." She looked at me and then my heart sank as she got a serious look on her face and shook her head 'no'. "Wha...?" "I don't know that I can, Hugh." "I thought...I thought you loved me too. Was this all make believe?" She reached out to touch my face and tears ran down hers. "Oh yes, baby I love you, probably too much. It scares me. If we get married and something happens, like you die or meet somebody else and fall in love with them, I couldn't survive it. I wouldn't, I'd buy a gun or slit my wrists or take pills. I love you so much you scare me." "I will never leave you, not voluntarily. I will never love another woman and I'll do any damn thing I can to make sure I out live you. My family lives a long time, except for my father, and that accident was a fluke. I'll make very sure my brakes always work." That was how it began nearly 40 years ago - now it's 2006, we are long married, parents of a 32-year-old neurosurgeon practicing in Los Angeles and a 29-year-old editor with Random House in New York City and grandparents to a three-year-old boy named Austin and a one-year-old girl named Calabria. Where the hell that came from I'll never know. I work out and I've tried to watch my diet. I'm in pretty good shape for a 57-year-old man. I've got most of my hair, which is turning fashionably gray, and most of my teeth. I still have a few secretaries and female execs send out signals once in a while in 'those' kinds of smiles, that little touch on the arm that isn't required, jokes about what they're going to be doing while their boyfriend or husband is out of town on a business trip. It's flattering but I never consider them seriously. I went through one patch, one fever spell, about ten years ago when for some reason I daydreamed about fucking every nubile female that came within a dozen feet of me. I flirted and made halfway serious dates, but I could never make myself go through with them to the ultimate infidelity and one day, the fever just went away! Mary has become a beautiful and sensuous woman. She's 57 but she could pass easily for early 40s. At parties and get-togethers, I've grown used to younger men attempting to cut her out and away from me to put their brand on her. She gets a kick out of the fact, as she describes it to me afterwards, how these young men -- some of them not even born when we fucked for the first time -- rub the evidence of their excitement against her. "It's a sign that pornography has taken over the culture," she says laughing as she lays against me in bed afterwards. Sometimes I get it up and I pound her into incoherent climaxes, other times I can get it up once, maybe, or I satisfy her with fingers and my tongue. I'm looking at 60, after all. "They really think that all they have to do is rub their penises up against me and I'll be overcome with lust. Tell me, Hugh, when you were that age, did you really expect that all you had to do was rub it up against a woman to seduce her?" "You forget that when I was their age I already had a woman and I didn't need to rub it up against her to get her hot. Just being in the same room did it." She'd poke me in the side, "Asshole, I was never that easy." So, she was hot as hell and I wasn't bad. We had a good life and I expected that we would glide gently into old age, together, loving and enjoying as much of a sex life as was physically possible. I worked for the Hunt Bank in Jacksonville, one of the biggest independent banks in the Southeast, as an upper level executive. I'd worked for them for more than 25 years, back to the days when Old Man Hunt had still been around. He'd built it up into a financial powerhouse and groomed his beloved granddaughter Gail so that she took over the bank in 1990. Mary worked as a sales rep for McDaniels Educational Enterprises, one of the nation's largest suppliers of educational testing materials. She was a senior rep and as a result did a LOT of traveling. It wasn't unusual for her to be on the road three weekends out of the month. Sometimes they were three or four-day trips when she headed north or out to the mid-west. There were months when she'd be away more than she was home. But she loved the job and it took her places she'd never have been able to afford if we were paying for it ourselves. We were comfortable, not Hunt rich. She took tons of pictures and always had stories for me. And as often as we could, we went back and visited the places she'd told me about, together. Quite honestly, her being away as much as she was made the time we were together seem like mini-honeymoons. For a couple of near-sexagenarians, the sex was pretty hot and regular. We laughed as she told me about the nights when guys she'd met for lunch or supper would call her in her hotel and ask her, in low voices, "what are you wearing?" Sometimes they'd identify themselves, sometimes they'd make crank calls. She said at first it threw her. Her first reactions were anger, then nervousness, but nobody ever showed up to hammer on her hotel door and, if they had, there was hotel security. Then, one night as we lay together after a particularly exhausting pounding we'd given each other, she looked at me with what could only be described as embarrassment, and said, "Hugh, I've been bad." I laughed and said, "You sure as hell have. I'm going to need a transfusion if you get any worse." She reached out and laid one small hand on the side of my face. "No baby. I've been bad - on this last trip." "What do you mean?" I wondered what it was. "Bad" for her could have been anything. I was curious, not worried. "Tell me and let me decide if I'm going to have to take a belt to you, or a tire iron to some guy." "No tire iron, but you might want to spank me. I might like that." "Spill." "You know guys call me up asking me what I'm wearing, and flirting and stuff." "Yeah." "I get so damned tired of it. These are middle-aged guys who can't get up the nerve to make a pass at me while we're together, and somehow they think that talking about what I wear is going to get me so hot I'll invite them up to my room for some nookie. Is that what they call it nowadays?" "So you want them to be man enough to make passes at you eye to eye?" She hit me on the chest with her fist. "You bastard, the only man I want making passes at me is you, but it is aggravating, and this night, in Chicago, a superintendent at some level in the city school system -- I forgot exactly what his title was - called me up and asked me that question. Then he laughed and apologized and told me who he was and said I was so hot he had to ask the question." "And.........." "Well, we got to talking. It was so refreshing to talk to a guy who was actually honest enough to talk to me instead of being a pervert on the phone. He's married, but..." "I know, she doesn't understand him." "He said that, and then he laughed. He said she loves him and he loves her, but they've been married for nearly 20 years, out of college, and they've gotten - stale." "There's a lot of that going around, baby, at least from what I hear around the water cooler at work. So did he ask you to meet him?" I expected she would say he had and she had shot him down. Why should this guy be any different from the legions before him that had fought so hard to get into her panties, without ever getting a sniff of the promised land. "No, he never did anything like that. He was a gentleman." "Who called a married woman to ask her what she was wearing in bed and talk about his 'stale' marriage?" She shook her head and there was a flash -- only a momentary flash -- of something that I realized was irritation. For as long as it took the emotion to appear and disappear it felt odd. She was irritated with me. We were always on the same side. "No, Hugh. I know it was a stupid thing to do, but he didn't really act like a creep. We just talked - and joked and..." I was trying to figure out what she was trying to tell me. She had acted like she was joking, but she actually did seem a little embarrassed, and so far I had no idea what she might be embarrassed about. "And...." "You know, with the traveling I've done the last couple months, we've spent less time together than in a long time." "I know." "And....I....I was a little horny. Make it a lot." "And?" "While we were talking.....we...I....got a little...risque." "Risque? Like...." "Yeah.....phone sex." "You actually talked about fucking him?" "No - no. We just talked about, how we looked and, what we liked. I told him about how we, make love, and he talked about what he and his wife - like to do. And...." "You used your fingers...." "I didn't tell him what I was doing, baby. I swear to god I didn't. But...." "You get pretty loud. He knew you were playing with yourself, didn't he?" She stopped and I looked deep into her eyes and she lowered her eyes, then raised them to me. She was blushing. "Yes - he knew and he told me he knew what I was doing, and he was doing the same thing and he described what he was doing." "Did you hang up on him then?" "No." "Did you help him out, tell him what you'd be doing to his dick with your mouth and fingers and pussy?" She pulled herself up to look at me while she placed both hands on either side of my face to hold my gaze on her. "No, Hugh, no. If you've ever believed anything I have said to you, believe me on this. I didn't play that game with him. I didn't say anything while he was.....talking." "But you didn't hang up?" "No." She lowered her face to my chest. "I felt so dirty afterwards. When he was through, I hung up. I know he called me back, but I didn't take any calls, and the next day...I stayed away from him and wouldn't talk to him." "Did he try to get it started again?" "Yes. I finally got him aside and told him we'd both been acting like high school kids and that wasn't me. I didn't want to have to bring it to the attention of his superiors and if he didn't forget about the whole thing, even if it cost us a contract, I would." She kissed my right nipple. "Baby, I am so sorry. We've been married 30 years plus and I have never done anything like that. If we live together another 30 years, I never will again. Please tell me you believe me." I thought about it for a minute. "Just tell me one thing. Did you think about meeting him, about carrying it further?" She was silent for a long time. "I want so bad to lie to you, but I know you'd know it. Yes, for just a small period of time, I was - thinking about it - not that I wanted to have sex with him, you've always been more than enough but, I've only been with four men in my life and nobody except you in more than 30 years. I never thought about it seriously" I put my arms around her and hugged her tightly. "Do you still love me?" "Yes." "Have you been faithful to me? "Oh, yes." "Do you want to fuck again as soon as I can get it up." "Oh, God, yes." It shook me a little I have to admit. It was the first time anything like that had ever happened, on her side, but I remember the period of my sexual fever. Only luck and maybe someone upstairs looking out for me kept me from cheating on Mary and going so crazy that our entire marriage might have crashed and burned. It helped that I could read her, just as I knew she could read me. She had told me the truth. She had been tempted but had walked away. She was human and I couldn't ask any more. Our life went on. She traveled from Jacksonville to Atlanta, Charlotte, New York, Hartford, San Francisco, Denver and Portland, but not again to Chicago. Then it was 2007 and she was on a business trip to Indianapolis. It had been nine months since the conversation about the Chicago phone sex experience. Sometimes it felt like something had changed but there was nothing I could put my finger on. She was just as passionate most of the time, yet there were times when she was cool, but we'd always gone through those mountain peak and valley cycles. Nobody can be smoking hot all the time, so other times it felt like nothing had changed. Then, one Monday, she came home from a four-day to Indianapolis. I was supposed to be at work. She picked up her Audi TTS Coupe from waiting at JIA where she normally kept it between trips and drove to our Mandarin two-story home, where we'd lived for the last seven years. She came in the front door carrying a pull-behind travel bag and stopped in the doorway. "Hugh, what - what are you doing here? Why aren't you at work?" "I'm not feeling well. Something's upset my stomach. I talked to Gail and she said to go on home and take it easy for the rest of the day." She left the travel bag and came to stand, then squat, beside me. She reached out to feel my forehead with her cool hands. "You're not feverish. Have you been nauseous? Have you thrown up? Have you taken anything?" "No - a little, no. No!" "I don't - I don't understand, Hugh. You sound so funny and - you're looking - at me - so strangely." I took her hand away from my cool forehead and held it between mine. "I feel like, I'm dreaming, Mary. Like I'm caught in a nightmare - and I can't wake up." She was staring into my eyes and trying not to see. I knew that's what she was doing - we had been married too long. "Make sense, Hugh. You're scaring me." "Why did you change your hotel from the Canterbury to the Wyndham West?" She looked at me and her lips moved but no words came out. She stared into my eyes as if the answer to some cosmic puzzle lay concealed there. "You're asking me why I..." "Changed your hotel reservation from a hotel where the meeting you were attending was being held to one halfway across town. You'd have to get up an hour earlier in the morning to get to meetings Nobody else from your company was staying there. The hotel management said it didn't come from your company. You personally asked for the change. The Wyndham was actually more expensive for that room, but you paid the difference yourself rather than having your company handle it. Why?" "How....how do you even know that, Hugh?" "I called and checked with the hotels. Then I talked to some people at your company. The change was all you. They said you've done it before, starting about six months ago, but you're so valuable that they don't question you. One of the Human Resource people said that you always get the job done and you've always paid any differential from your personal account. It's one of the perks of being a key person, they said." Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 01 "Yes, I changed hotels, because I've been in the Wyndham before. I love the hotel and it's far enough away from all the circus atmosphere of the meetings that I can relax in the evenings. It's worth spending a little of my own money. I earn a lot of money doing what I do baby, you know that. "But I still don't understand why you even bothered to check on where I was staying. Why in the world would you...." and then her eyes widened. It felt for all the world like we were actors in a play, reciting our lines, looking ahead to the climax we knew was coming. At least, it felt that way to me. For the first time in nearly 40 years, I couldn't be sure about her. "Hugh, you don't - you don't think - how could you?" "Where were you on the nights that I called your cell. At 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. and 12 midnight and 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.?" "But you never...." "They weren't from any number you'd recognize. One of the hacker gurus at the bank did me a favor and gave me some hardware that allows your call to be bounced around the world so it comes in from unknown numbers. You would have ignored them as crank calls, but where were you on nights when you had to be at an 8 a.m. meeting and you weren't answering your phone past 5 a.m.?" "Did you ever stop to think, Hugh, that the phone might have been turned off, that I might have had it in the other room and couldn't hear it. That I might have had a migraine -- which you know I've gotten for 35 years -- and put the phone under a pillow so I could go to sleep early so I could get up for one of those damned 8 a.m. meetings?" "Honestly Mary, no, but I could see any of those things happening. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being out of touch, with transferring your hotels, with paying the extra from your own funds. You're well paid and you could do that easily. I wouldn't tell you how to run your business anymore than I'd expect you to be instructing me on how to run a bank. But what about the meetings in Des Moines, Madison, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Kansas City. What about the nights when I caught you just before you went to bed and you said you were undressed and in bed, yet you were breathing so damned hard. Or the time in Madison when I could swear -- I could swear -- that I heard a man laughing in the background as you answered your cell in your room at midnight." She stood and tears glistened in her eyes. "You mentioned that and I told you the television was on. That's what you heard, and I was running from the bathroom to catch the phone because I was afraid I'd miss your call and I was afraid you'd wonder where I was. I was running because I was afraid, because I know you've been -- afraid - of something happening, ever since I told you about Chicago. I had to tell you but I wish I hadn't now. You said it didn't bother you, that you could forget it, but you haven't. It's been sitting there in your head, festering and poisoning every look you've given me for nine months. Every time you try to call me and you can't reach me, it's because - I'm with him. When you hear the radio, or a television show, it's him in there making love to me. The only thing - the only thing - I don't understand, Hugh, is why you haven't had private detectives following me and taking pictures. Why haven't you put tiny tape recorders in my purse or my car or in my phone, so you can have proof that I'm fucking a strange man behind your back. So you can divorce me, throw me out of your house, give the pictures of me fucking around to our children to make them hate me too. You used to love me. You used to trust me. I used to know who you were. I don't anymore." She stood five feet away from me looking at me as I sat in the easy chair, and it felt as if she were on another continent. I tried not to, I tried as hard as I could to keep my dignity, but I felt the tears come. "When we lie in bed together, when your naked skin is against me, it's almost as if I can see him. It's as if there's a ghost in the room, in our bed, with us, between us. When you laugh, I can almost hear him saying something and I think it's him you're laughing at, or with. In the bed, in the dark, when you should be asleep, your eyes are open and I know you're thinking of him. When you're gone, I try to think of what you're doing and imagine you doing what you've always done, meeting and selling and being my friendly wife who would never touch another man, but I can't see you anymore. It's as if there are shadows between us." I stood up slowly until I was facing her. Now the tears were flowing down my face. "I haven't hired private detectives because, how could I be hiring private detectives to watch my wife? To watch you, Mary? What kind of a world am I living in when I could even think about hiring detectives to watch you? About bugging your purse or your cell phone or tapping our home phone? That happens in cheap novels, not in our life. I keep telling myself, this can't be happening. Then, when I confront you, it's the television, or you racing to catch the phone, or a radio broadcast, and you're changing your hotel away from anyone who knows you and could spot you with another man, because you like the other hotels better. I don't know what the truth is, but I KNOW, Mary, I know. I know you've requested trips to Madison and Kansas City and those other mid-west cities because they're close enough that a Chicago education exec could get to them for a few days, could spend them with you and inside you and you thought I'd never know." I raised my hands to her and even that seemed so melodramatic. It just wasn't me. "How could you do that, Mary? How could you do that to a man that loves you? How could you betray me like that? Just tell me. Make me understand." She just stared at me and now the tears were rolling down her face. Now we were both blubbering. I reached out to her, grabbing her hands and pulling her to me. I looked down at her and felt her flesh, then I remembered what she felt and looked like on those nights so long along when I stroked her and she stroked me, when I filled her and she moaned her pleasure at my touch - so damned long ago. "Just tell me, Mary. For God's sake, tell me. You can go on torturing me, driving me crazy, knowing but not knowing. I can't make you be honest, but if you ever loved me, if there's even a tiny bit of that love left, don't leave me hanging here. Tell me the truth. I don't want to hear it, but I need to hear it, and I can't hear it, yet I do hear it, soft but clear and distinct. "Yes, I've been meeting him - being with him, since three months after - you were right, about everything. When you heard laughter, that was him, I had just climaxed, cum so hard I almost threw him off the bed and he was trying to stifle his laughter. When you couldn't reach me, I was with him, all night, three and four times a night. I even missed a few morning meetings because I couldn't tear myself away from him. I think about him at night, lying next to you and I think about him when you're inside me. It's him I'm thinking about." I let her go because her touch burned. It hurt to even look at her now. "Why?" "I - it was just something - I had to do. I fought it, Hugh, I really did. Because I knew I'd lose you and our life, but in the end, I threw everything away to have him." "Do you love him?' This was the last handhold. This was the last thing holding me to even a tiny fragment of the life I loved. "I - I don't know, Hugh." That said it all. Game, set and match. The fat lady had sung. All hope gone. I could have said something dramatic. I could have cursed her faithless heart, placed a gypsy curse on her and her lover. But, like I said, I'm not a dramatic sort of guy. "I'll find an apartment, Mary, and get a new phone -- my own phone - where you can reach me. I'll forward the number. I guess you can tell the kids." I looked into her eyes. "Get an attorney. We don't need to fight. We can divide our assets. We both make good money. The kids are grown." She still didn't say anything. "Goodbye, Mary. Thank you for a lot of good years. I hope you're happy with him." Then I walked out on 36 years of my life. CHAPTER TWO WHAT TO DO AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD The next few days are a little fuzzy in my memory, because I don't think I was ever sober for more than 30 minutes to an hour. Just long enough to walk from the dive I was renting to a liquor store on the corner. It was down on 8th street in downtown Jacksonville. Pawn shops and video shops and hamburger joints and hookers in short shorts watching the cars go by and sometimes stop. I've never been really sure how I got there. I've lived in Jacksonville on and off for 30 years and I've driven through the neighborhood often enough that I know what 8th street is like. Guys that look and dress like me only show up to buy crack or pot or hookers. The cops would give me an odd look, and once or twice they asked me for ID, which I gave them. I was so drunk I don't know why they didn't put me in the drunk tank, but these young men and women seemed to be just embarrassed about confronting a sobbing man old enough to be their grandfather. Sometime -- it could have been five years or three days -- after I checked into the Heart of The Southland motel someone was tapping me on the face and then trying to drown me. I coughed and wondered who the hell would be water-boarding a 57-year-old bank executive. Had I somehow run afoul of Homeland Security? Someone turned my head to the side and I first coughed and then vomited over the side of the scummy bedcover. God only knows what had dried on it. I really didn't want to think about it. I gasped and choked and thought I was going to die there. It felt like water had gone down into my lungs and I couldn't breathe in oxygen too. Somehow I was on my feet with two sets of strong arms supporting me. I was hacking and coughing, still trying to draw oxygen into my lungs. For those few terrifying seconds I just knew I'd never inhale another breath and I was going to black out in this cheap suburb of hell. For the first time in a long time I remembered my son and my daughter. Why the hell had I done this to myself? Why had I decided to commit suicide in this cheap motel room. Then I remembered why and I wanted to forget again, or get drunk again, or just black out and never have to worry about anything again, but some asshole kept pounding my back and telling me to breathe. I remember vomiting again, after which I found myself breathing once more. The next thing I knew I was leaning back against cool leather, swaddled in clean-smelling towels that wrapped my naked genitals, naked arms and naked legs. Hell I was stark naked. And I smelled a familiar scent. I managed to pry my eyelids open. As I thought, I was sitting in the back of Gail Hunt's stretch Rolls Royce. She was sitting across from me, dressed as immaculately as ever, cool in green and blue blouse and skirt. It was cut low enough to show the swells of her breasts. Her cold blue eyes, so brilliant they seemed to gleam against the overhead lights, were focused on me. Her legs, which gave her breasts a run for their money in terms of showiness, were crossed and garbed in sheer silk that was sexier than nudity. "H-hi - boss. Fancy meeting you in hell." I could see Percy Coals sitting to one side of me. For a guy named Percy, he was the biggest hunk of manhood you'd find outside most NFL locker rooms. Despite his size, he was as gentle a man as I'd ever met. He was the Vice President for Personnel for the Hunt bank chain. On the other side of me sat Bobby Beaufort, Vice President for Financial Planning of the Hunt banks, and the only man I'd ever seen put Percy down in the arm wrestling championships that were among the favorite spectator sports of the semi-annual team building weekends Old Man Hunt had instituted to build team morale 20 years before. Percy was whiter than typewriter paper and Bobby blacker than the inside of a coal bin. I had known both of them more than 20 years and had held Percy's head, while he threw up into a wastebasket at his desk, the day his longtime lover had told him they were through and he had found another man. I had pulled Bobby's black ass out of a Beaches biker bar the night he found his wife with his brother and had invaded the Biker Bar challenging any and all comers to trade punches. "Hi guys." I paused, then continued on, "You should have left me where you found me. I'm dead. Just take me a little while to make it official." "Shut up, Hugh," Percy said, not unkindly. "And please try to stop throwing up on us," Bobby said. "Go back to sleep, Hugh," Gail said. I tried to remember why I had never even thought about fucking her over the nearly 30 years I'd known her. She was a beautiful, big-breasted, blonde worth, conservatively, 50 million dollars. What was not to like? Then I remembered that she had been a little girl when I first met her and that was always the way I'd looked at her. Also that her grandfather, Old Man Hunt, had been one of the finest men I'd ever known and he had hired me and I'd built my life around his bank. When I woke up again I was in clean sheets, didn't smell of vomit, I couldn't hear roaches rustling in the corners of the room and my mouth didn't taste of blood and alcohol. I was wearing stiff, clean white pajamas. Memory came back with the clean smell and feel of the room and I wondered how long I'd be able to stay out of hell this time. However, it wasn't fair to Peter and Nicole. They were married, had children and I was one half of their parents. I had lost my father too early and my mother only a few years later. It was one of the few things in which life had not treated me kindly. How could I make them semi-orphans, just because their mother had turned out to be a fucking whore. But how could I go on breathing when it felt like one of the sandspurs, those little round balls of sharp spikes that used to grow all over the yards of my childhood, had somehow gotten lodged deep within my heart and every breath made the spurs tear my flesh. There had to be a trick to it. If I could keep breathing long enough, I'd find it. The door opened and a vision in pink and white silk glided in and sat down on the bed beside me. As she moved, her heavy breasts swayed to and fro under the dressing gown. I tried to understand how Gail Hunt could be here in what had to be sometime during the late morning judging by the light coming in through the large French windows. Why wasn't she at the bank? "It's Saturday, Hugh," she said, reading my mind effortlessly. Saturday? Mary had flown in on a Monday and this was Saturday? What had happened to the week? "You've been drinking yourself into a stupor for most of the week," she said, again reading my mind. "Why, Gail? Why all this?" I gestured to the room around me. I knew where I was. I was in the Hunt estate's main house, a 20-room Shangri-La that had been started and mostly finished by her grandfather. I had been here during parties. I had been here when she was married. I had been here when she announced that she was leaving her husband, a high school teacher, because the marriage hadn't worked out. I watched her face as she beamed upon the tall, good looking, evil son of a bitch who everybody knew she'd been fucking around with for months before her idiot husband ever had the slightest idea of what was going on. I'd wondered then how any human being could be so stupid. Now I knew. I'd been there a year later when the evil son of a bitch made the mistake of backhanding her in front of his crew of thugs. Only before I could reach him Percy had broken both his arms and threw him through a door. And Bobby had sent his three cronies through a large plate glass window, one at a time. They say love is blind. But it only took that one blow to dissolve her second marriage. And now she, like me, was enjoying the single life. Of course, she had a head start on me. "You didn't show up for work, Hugh. That was all it took. We couldn't find you. And when I finally tracked down Mary, she would only say that you had left your house and wouldn't be coming back. She had no idea where you were." She looked at me and the pity was clear in her eyes. "She flew up to Chicago Tuesday, the day we learned later you'd started trying to drink yourself to death. We talked to her on her cell. She didn't say, but we found out she was in Chicago. She didn't waste any time. She was so closed-mouthed that I started checking around. You obviously knew about it. "His name is Richard Kelly. Forty five years old. Assistant Superintendent for Purchasing of Textbooks and Academic Supplies. Makes $110,000 a year because he has an uncle on the Chicago City Council and his family has been deep into politics for a hundred years. "He was married but six months ago he split from his wife, moved into a townhouse and has been seen frequently with a lady that very closely resembles your Mary. "Mary has been staying in his townhouse since she arrived there Tuesday night. She took a two-week leave from McDaniels." She reached out and put her hand on mine. "I got pictures, video and audio. It wasn't hard. If you need anything -- anything -- for whatever legal action you want to take, just ask and it's yours." I reached up to wipe the moisture away from my eyes. "Why?" "Because you're a very valued member of the Hunt organization. You're a good man and you're the closest thing to a real Uncle I've got in this world. I loved Mary like an aunt, and I still can't believe what I saw and heard." I stared at the streams of sunlight refracting through the window. "Thank you, Gail but, I won't need any ammunition." "You're not going to divorce her?" "No, she'll divorce me, I guess. I don't plan on remarrying and, in any case, I've got more than enough money to be comfortable. We don't have anything we need to fight over. I imagine she will file. It looks like she's going to try to - make a new life - with this guy. I won't stand in her way." She stared at me. "You were married for 36 years and you're not going to do anything? Just let her walk away?" "She's been seeing him for six months and hiding it from me. She's been talking to me and pretending to be my loving wife while he was naked in a bed with her, and probably inside her at the same time. She was thinking about him when she was with him, and thinking about him when she was with me. It's probably longer than six months, maybe back to that first time she met him nine months ago. She hasn't been my wife in almost a year. "She told me she's missed meetings because she couldn't bear to tear herself away from his fucking. He's 12 years younger than me, which translates to a more vigorous lover. She told me, in a round about way, that he can go three and four times a night. It's been decades since I could go four times in a 24 hour period. "Really, she wants to be with him. The minute I walk out she flies to him, and he left his wife, almost certainly to be with her. Who am I to stand in the path of true love?" She grabbed my hand and squeezed. "Hugh, I am so sorry. If there was any couple in the world that I thought would make it forever, it would have been you two." I squeezed her hand back. If there was ever a time I wished I were twenty years younger, it was right now. "I'm showing my age, Gail, but there was an old show called Gunsmoke on television. It was a great show. They had one episode where the hero, a marshal called Matt Dillon, met a gunslinger who was faster on the draw than he was. That never happened. Everybody was stunned. But Dillon wasn't surprised. 'Never a horse that couldn't be rode, never a rider that couldn't be throwed.' That's a short way of saying, 'never say never.' Nobody is guaranteed anything in this life, except dying." Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 01 She just shook her head and stood up. "Are you going to be back to work Monday? I'll give you more time if you need it." "I'll be in the office. I think I'm all boozed out, business doesn't stop and I need to work." She was at the door and stopped. She just stood there for a moment and then turned back to me. "You haven't said anything, Hugh, but I know you have to be thinking about me -- and Robert and Cameron." "No. No. That was you. This is me." "You don't have to be in 'uncle' mode, Hugh. I know you're thinking it. Robert loved me and I cheated on him for months, I screwed Cameron in boardrooms and in motel rooms and in limousines. Then I dumped Robert after Cameron and his friends nearly killed him. After I dumped a good man, the man I loved turned out to be a world class shit." "Things happen, Gail. I stopped judging people a long time ago. And if you look at me as an uncle, I have to admit I've looked at you as a kind of niece. I thought you were making a mistake. I thought you were hurting a good man and I knew Cameron was a piece of shit who would hurt you. Everybody knew it, except you, but it was your life." She ran her hand through her mane of blonde hair. The sunlight gleamed on it like a soft helmet. She was a beautiful woman. I loved Mary and there was no woman in the world I would have chosen over her for my bed, but I knew objectively that Mary was just an attractive woman, and Gail was a stunner. But she slept alone except for the regular turnstile of tall, dark and handsome studs that she ran through her bedroom since she'd thrown Cameron out. Meanwhile Robert Sandler, who had loved her, had vanished off the face of the earth as far as the Hunt Banks were concerned. No one could mention his name in her presence. I thought sometimes that she fought too hard to ignore him but, like I'd said, it was her life. "The reason I mention it, and I know I've made it law that nobody ever talks about that anywhere I can hear of it, is this. I know I'm royally pissed at Mary right now for what she's doing. It hurts me to see you hurting like this, and you are, no matter how much you carry on the stiff upper lip act, hurting. However, despite my current view of Mary's actions, I know what it's like to fall in love, to be obsessed, overcome with passion for someone when you know it's wrong and you know you're hurting people you shouldn't hurt, yet you do it anyway. It's like falling off a cliff. Suddenly you're there and you don't know how you got there, but nothing else matters except that one person. "I've talked to other people who've gone through it and I know it happens to men, but I think it hits women harder, because we're supposed to be the GOOD sex. We expect men to be dogs." "The point is....?" "Have you thought about, what if she comes back? What if she decides she was wrong and tells you she just went crazy for awhile?" When I didn't answer her, she asked, "Well?" "There isn't anything to come back to, and she won't." "How can you be so sure?" "You didn't see her face when she was talking about him. She isn't coming back." Work turned out to be a tonic. I went to work that Monday and walked into my office. If anybody knew what was going on, I couldn't tell - it was just another day, except that in that day and the days that followed, nobody asked me how Mary was doing. None of the secretaries that had exchanged recipes pulled off the Internet mentioned trying to reach her and being unable to. There was a dinner and dance the very next weekend at The Lodge and Club in Ponte Vedra, a high dollar beachfront hotel south of Jacksonville where the Hunts had been wining and dining investors, rich clients and important politicians for a generation. This was a combination business bash and $1000-a-plate Goodbye Dinner for former Jacksonville State Attorney Dallas Edwards. He had been a personal friend of Old Man Hunt going back more than 20 years, and Gail had been a good friend of the woman who had been the wife of Edwards' former number one Assistant, who had played such a part in the Massacre at the Courthouse. All the major officers were expected to show the colors and be there, so I attended. There was a time when Mary would have been at my side, but Coffee Allaporte, a 30-ish mathematical whiz who had revolutionized the computer side of the banking business and looked better in a formal gown than most women did in nothing at all, sat beside me at one of the four head tables. I felt like a cradle robber. She looked younger than her 35 or so years, and there was so much damned gleaming, Mocha-colored skin showing that I felt like I should show an erection just to be polite. But she made little jokes about the banking business and about how secretaries had been subtly hitting on me since the early 20th century, and got me to smile. Not to laugh, but even smiling was saying something. She talked me into going out on the dance floor and she molded herself snugly against me and I could feel the soft spheres of her breasts cushioning themselves against my chest. She looked up at me in the middle of a slow dance and there was a hint of a smile, a sad one, on her face as she said, "You're going to give me a complex, Hugh. I'm practically giving you a massage with my boobs -- and nothing. Am I losing it?" I bent forward and gave her a slight kiss on the forehead like you'd do to a favorite grandchild as I said, "If you weren't young enough to be my daughter, and if - things were different - I'd be embarrassing us both, Coffee, but I wanted to thank you for volunteering to spend time with me. It was a charitable gesture on your part." She leaned forward and cradled her face against my shoulder and said so softly other dancers couldn't hear us, "I know I should keep my mouth shut, but if that damned bitch was here right now I think I'd scratch her eyes out." The following Monday about 11 a.m., as I was reading The Drudge Report on my desktop while pretending to be working, my secretary Lucy buzzed me to tell me I had a visitor. When she told me who he was and why he was there I just leaned back in my chair and tried to catch my breath. It was like being hit a good, swift punch just under the ribs, so hard that your breath caught in your throat. Then I told her to send him in. Matt Henry was about 6 foot 1, with a mane of silver hair, dressed sharply and you could have known he was an attorney from a mile away. He handed me a large manila envelope. I didn't bother to open the tab. He extended his hand and I automatically took it. "Mr. Davidson, my name is Matt Henry. I'm with the firm of Martin, Devon, Bailey and Bartley. Thank you for seeing me." I just looked him with open curiosity. "Mr. Henry, I have to admit I'm puzzled. Why are you wasting your valuable, billable minutes doing what any courier could. You don't need an attorney to deliver divorce papers." He gestured to the seat in front of him and said, "Could I sit and I'll explain why I'm here." "Sure." He sat and pointed at the manila envelope. "I didn't tell your secretary why I was here or what was in that envelope. Why would you assume those were divorce papers." "You said you were here representing my wife, Mary. Not much suspense there. The only question is what exactly she wants." He sat and just looked at me for a moment, and I could tell his curiosity had been piqued by something. I waited. ------- "Quite honestly, I'm here because your Ms. Davidson - only now she's going by Meadows, her maiden name, right? -- asked our firm to personally deliver these documents and a message." "She's already gone back to her maiden name? I was surprised she moved so quickly to kick me to the curb, but dropping her married name? After 36 years?" "That's what I was curious about, Mr. Davidson, to be honest." He gave me that same odd look. "What?" "I was trying to figure out what the hell a husband could do to arouse those kind of feelings in a wife." "I'm not sure I follow, yet." "It's uh, fairly simple but pretty stark. Ms. Meadows wanted us to inform you that she has already moved her residence from Jacksonville to Chicago and her company is transferring her to an open position there. She wanted us to let you know that she's taken any and all possessions she has any interest in from her former home. She has no interest in the home itself and will allow you to buy her out for 30 percent of the assessed value, or you can sell it and send her share of the proceeds on to her." "That neat and surgical? That doesn't sound like my Mary, and she wants nothing else from the house. She took everything she wanted in a few days?" "You have no idea how neat and surgical she has been. She said to tell you that you are welcome to keep all your photos. She took only a handful of photos of your children. Any and all personal items of hers, including clothing, that you find still in the house you're urged to sell or give to Good Will. "She noted that you are probably aware, or should be, that she has removed about 40 percent of your combined savings and that she is in the process of separating all IRAs or combined financial assets. Again, if you have any questions, you are urged to contact, or have your counsel, contact our firm. There should be no reason for you to need to contact her, but if you should try, she will refuse to speak or communicate with you." "She said that?" "She told me that personally in a conference call Friday. She said to tell you personally, myself, that she does not wish to ever see or talk to you, or be in the same city, if that is possible. "She said further that she has requested the simplest type of divorce possible, simply separating your financial affairs and allowing both of you to walk away and make new lives for yourselves. Again, that is to avoid the necessity of ever having to engage in further contact with you." I just stared at him. Even after what had happened already, I was stunned. He lowered his voice and ran his tongue over his lips as if they were dry. "You're welcome to have your attorney check out the documents, but they're simple and clear cut. Ms. Meadows is literally cheating herself out of the settlement she could have after such a lengthy marriage and considering your income and assets. I tried to convince her to do the legally responsible thing, but she said the only thing she wants is her freedom, at the earliest possible time." He shook his head a little. "So I have to ask - what the hell did you do to piss off your wife so badly?" "Nothing. She just fell in love with somebody else. It does happen, even to people who've been married for 36 years." He stared at me again, undoubtedly wondering what I was lying about and concealing. The lawyers I've known have had the milk of human kindness curdled by constant exposure to the worst impulses of human nature and the formalized tortures of the legal system. If, like him, I'd walked into a situation where a couple, happily married two weeks before, had suddenly been cast into the lowest realm of Hell in Dante's Inferno, I too would have figured there was more than the obvious going on. I knew what he had to be thinking. I was the bastard who had been screwing around on my long-suffering wife and I'd finally gone one step too far. I gestured at the manila envelope. "I'll have an attorney look at it and get back to you." Henry looked down for a moment and then back at me with a look of almost embarrassment on his handsome face. "I hesitate to ask because this is somewhat unusual, Mr. Davidson, but is there any chance you could do this on an expedited basis? That is, see your attorney today and possibly get back with the signed papers by Wednesday at the latest?" I tapped my fingers on the gleaming washed oak surface of my desk and thought idly that I needed to get a manicure. I'd had a problem with biting my fingernails -- actually my fingers - until they bled when I was younger. I never could quite figure out where I picked that up, but manicures were cheaper than visits to a psychiatrist so I'd made that, along with $25 haircuts religiously the first of every month, a routine for the last 20 years. The last few months had played hell with my routine. "Just so I understand you correctly, Mr. Henry, my wife - who leaves me and our home of nearly 40 years AND our married name - wants me to drop everything so I can EXPEDITE the paperwork to make her a free woman in an seemingly over hasty fashion? Am I following you? I guess she forgot that I am a professional too, that I have a job and responsibilities." Henry held my stare for a moment, then dropped his eyes again and reached into his jacket pocket. He opened a piece of typewriter paper and looked up at me. "I'm sorry, Mr. Davidson. But your -- Ms. Meadows -- read the following statement to me and asked me to read it to you if there was any -- if you had any problems complying with her request for haste." When I said nothing, he ran his fingers around the edges of the paper in some practiced gesture and then said softly, "Hugh, I know this has been hard on you and I am not giving you much time to come to terms with what's happened. However, as you said, if you ever loved me, if any part of that love still exists within you, give me my freedom. Let me go." I had thought I was past it. I had thought that she had done all the damage to me that she ever could. I was so wrong. I sat there and wanted a drink so bad I trembled. Henry stood up, carefully folding the paper up and putting it back in his jacket. He wasn't looking at me. He walked to the door and then looked back at me. I met his eyes. "I'm sorry Mr. Davidson. There's nothing easy about divorce and I know this is hard. I can look at you and tell how hard this is going to be - I've handled a lot of divorces over the years and the only ones where it ever made sense to delay and dig your heels in were the ones where there was hope of a reconciliation - where both sides still wanted the marriage to work. "In this case, have your attorneys check it carefully, but your wife isn't out to screw you. It's the fairest proposal I've ever seen except for maybe one I handled last year. And that was a divorce that shouldn't have happened. I still have bad feelings about that one. But in this case....it's like pulling off a band-aid. This is personal, one man to another. Don't draw it out. Get it over with for both your sakes." Then he was gone and I was left with the manila envelope. Nobody came in for the hour I sat staring at it. Finally I lifted the telephone on my desk and made the call that I knew I had to make. ####################### CHAPTERS THREE AND FOUR COMING Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 02 (c) 2012 (PRECEDE: To bring you up to date: Hugh Davidson is a successful, 50-ish banker with the powerful Hunt banking chain headquartered in Jacksonville. He's been married to Mary for 36 years and they have two children, a grown married neurosurgeon son in LA and a married literary editor daughter living in New York City. Mary is a sales rep for an educational materials firm traveling the country. On one trip she meets Chicago educational exec Richard Kelly and within months begins a six-month affair. When Hugh confronts her, she admits it and he walks out. She then leaves him for Kelly in Chicago and moves rapidly for a quickie divorce....continued thanks to editor curiouss for tempering my worse writing tics.) CHAPTER THREE: CLOSING IT OUT Even with the expedited rush due to my agreement to let the case be heard in Chicago, where her boyfriend's contacts made justice a very malleable proposition, it took almost a month before I got the paperwork by overnight UPS. During that month I went back to the house and tried to sleep in our bedroom. I tried. I made myself go back one night after another. It was just a house, a thing of mortar and wood and glass. There was no such thing as ghosts. I was a rational man, and yet... When I turned the lights off and lay in our bed that as far as I knew had always been ours alone, I felt her presence. I felt that if I suddenly clicked on the lights, I'd catch her lying next to me with that half smile that made me nickname her "Mona" for the first years of our marriage because of her resemblance to a brown-haired Mona Lisa. What was worse, I also could feel HIM in the room. I couldn't see him. I had never seen a picture of him in the flesh. I'd made sure that I'd never seen any of the material Gail's private detectives had gathered, and I believed Mary that she had never brought him into our bedroom. Nonetheless he was there. Just as he'd forced himself into our lives, he had forced his way into our home. After two weeks, I gave up. I found a Baymeadows one bedroom condo not too far from the Hunt main corporate office and moved enough supplies to live on a daily basis. I let myself have three Scotch on the rocks every night between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Sometimes two, but never more than three. I felt like every time I had that third drink that one more would make things a little better, but I didn't want to wind up on 8th Street again. No one mentioned her name, but Percy and Bobby and several of the other more veteran officers of the bank made it a point to invite me out for dinner or to see a Sharks arena football game. Bobby would have taken me off the coast for a deep-sea fishing trip one weekend but I've never been real comfortable with the water and I couldn't see taking Antivert tablets for a couple of days to avoid having my inner ear go crazy and to make my ass sore sitting in a chair for hours wrestling with some damned huge fish that I wouldn't eat and I wouldn't put up on any wall. He called me a pussy but took me out to some of the dirtiest strip joints in Atlanta that weekend where we proceeded to get drunk and I passed on a blow job by a lady he swore was clean but I let her jerk me off onto her silicone-enhanced breasts. As we were chauffeured back to Jacksonville Sunday night, I stretched out and drank hot Starbucks straight coffee. Nothing fancy. Just hot coffee which was the way I liked it. "Does Chauvonne know you've been ejaculating into professional's mouths -- and other places - this weekend?" I asked him as he swished some $1000 a bottle champagne around in his mouth. He glanced over at me and the grin died. "I don't check in with her, but I could bring a woman in and fuck her in front of Chauvonne and she wouldn't open her damned mouth." I just stared at him. "You really mean that or is that just an example of black machismo?" He tried to give me a scowl, but then his characteristic grin broke out. "Okay, Okay, I wouldn't do it in front of her. I'd have to sleep sometime and I'm pretty sure she would separate me from my family jewels. So no, I wouldn't do it in front of her, but there was a time when I did. "Nowdays, I tell her what I'm doing, if she asks. We don't keep secrets, but I know she's not going to give me any shit. Same as if I roll over to her in bed at night and tell her to get the assgrease out. She'll do anything -- anything -- I want her to do." We just sat there silently for a few minutes and I knew what he was thinking and I'm pretty sure he knew what I was thinking. "Was it hard - I mean, how did you do it? How did you take her back and make things work?" He thought about it for a moment. I'm sure he was choosing his words carefully because of who he was talking to. "There was a while there I didn't think I would. It was two weeks before I said two words to her. She called me a dozen times, begged me to forgive her, said they had been drinking and got carried away. It didn't mean anything. Typical meaningless shit. I called my folks, told them what had happened. My dad told me to come up to Nashville. When I got there, Mom and Dad were there with Andre, Gaston and Philippe." Andre was Bobby's younger brother who had his dick halfway up Chauvonne's ass when Bobby walked in on them after Gail had cancelled a late night bank meeting The only thing that saved Andre's life was that Chauvonne threw herself in front of him after Bobby had gotten a couple of good shots in. Gaston and Philippe were their two older brothers, and bigger than any humans had a right to be. "They put us in the back yard the way they used to and we started beating the shit out of each other. Gaston and Philippe kept me from killing him and pulled me off when he couldn't raise his arms any more to defend himself. After that - it's hard to describe - but we put it behind us. What can I say, we're family. We're not lovey-dovey at family gatherings, but we can stay in the same room. With Chauvonne it was harder. I couldn't beat the crap out of her. It took another month. I went out and screwed a half dozen women, had some good times but, I found out something really shitty." "Yes?" "I love the bitch." "That's a problem." "Tell me about it. I finally let her drag her ass back into my life. I made her work to get back in. Like I said, she will let me do anything, anywhere, anytime. For a while there I did other women in front of her, to give a feeling of what she put me through. However, eventually, I realized I was cutting my own throat. I didn't want to push her away, just punish her ass for hurting me." "You got past it?" "Yeah, you can live with it. You can live with anything if you want to bad enough. The hardest part, the hardest part is I'll never know, or be one hundred percent sure she's telling me the truth. She swears that she doesn't know why she did it. She was drinking and she'd always liked Andre and - it just happened. That's what she said, it just happened." He looked out the window away from me. "I'll never know and sometimes that eats at me but - there have been times I've done things that I couldn't tell you why I did if you had a gun to my head. Sometimes - you never know why. You just have to go on..." He smiled at me and there was a sadness there because I knew he knew there would never be any getting past it for me. "Because you love the bitch..." "Yeah." The next Tuesday I got a call from Peter. He had his own life, a business that ate up 80 hours a week of his life mucking around in people's brains and spinal cords, a wife he loved and a son he loved more. We got together physically maybe twice a year and he'd call if Mary or I didn't call him maybe once every other month. "Dad, what is going on with you and mom?" "Hi, Peter. How are you and Marlena doing? How is the smartest three year old in the world doing?" "I'm working too many hours, Marlena is working too many hours and Austin is getting smarter every minute. Now, what the hell is going on between you and mom?" "Not sure what you're talking about?" "Dad, dammit, be straight with me. I called Mom and she said she's living in Chicago and you and her have split up. I tried to get her to admit that she was putting me on. But she just got strange on me and said it was no joke. You two are living in separate cities and working on a divorce. Am I going crazy? I thought there was a law against getting a divorce when a couple has been married as long as you two." "You're not going crazy, Peter. Your mother has filed for divorce and I signed the papers to give her the divorce. She's moved to Chicago, cleaned out all her stuff from our house and told me to sell it and split the proceeds with her." "What the hell is in Chicago, and did either one of you happen to think about telling your children how stupid you've gotten in your old age?" "As to what's in Chicago, you'll have to ask your mother about that. It's not my place to tell you. As to our splitting, I know you think you've got to watch over us like we're children, but we're not that far gone yet. We don't need your permission to split up. The split has nothing to do with you or Nicole. It's just - something that happened. I won't say any more than that." "You realize, father, that you're not being fair, either you or mom. You drop this bomb on us and then neither one of you will tell us what is going on. When I call Nicole, she is going to freak." "I am sorry, Peter. I'll just say, this isn't my doing. Your mother filed for the divorce. You want to find out what's going on, go talk to her." Two hours later, Nicole called. "Dad, this is crazy. Peter just called me. I told him this had to be some complicated practical joke. Then I called Mom. She doesn't even sound like the same woman. She said you two guys are divorcing, splitting up after 36 years! What are you two doing?" "Just what your mother said. She filed for a divorce. I signed the papers to let it go through. We'll be divorced in a fairly short time. She wanted an 'expedited' divorce, as quick as humanly possible and it looks like she'll get it." "Dad..." Then came the question I was expecting. "Did you do something? Did you -- have an affair? That's the only thing I can possibly think of that could explain this - if you're serious. I can't believe it, but that's the only reason I could ever see why mom would divorce you. Even then I would find it hard to believe." I wasn't upset. Mom was a saint. Moms are always saints to their kids. It's fathers that screw up marriages. "I didn't have an affair. I'm not going to say anything else, Nicole, except to tell you what I told Peter. This is not your concern. I know you are impacted by it, but it's between your mother and me. It has absolutely nothing to do with you and Peter. I still love you both and I know your mother does too. If you want to know anything else, talk to your mother." She wasn't happy about it, but she finally said she'd talk to Mary and try to get back to me. I never expected to see Peter walk into my office Friday afternoon. It looked like he'd been wearing the same clothes for two days, he was unshaven and he carried an overnight bag. He didn't look like a world-class neurosurgeon. He is taller than me and has Mary's light brown coloring rather than my black hair. He's also better looking than me. That I think he gets from her. He walked in before Lucy, my secretary, could announce him. At first I couldn't believe my eyes. I stood up behind my desk and just stared at him. It was a major feat for him to clear his calendar to meet with us for a day at Christmas. To show up in the middle of the year - on a workday...! His hair was windblown and the brown eyes he'd inherited from Mary were cold. I thought at first he was just furious at me. I figured she'd lied to him and he thought I had precipitated the breakup. "I flew to Chicago," he said, after just staring at me for what seemed like minutes. "I met the son of a bitch she's shacking up with, and she told me what she did. She was fucking around on you for nearly a year, and then she just walks out on you to play house with a guy closer to my age than hers. I still cannot believe that bitch is my mother." He threw the overnight bag onto a chair and came around the desk and hugged me. I stiffened for a minute. We'd never been real touchy-feely, an inheritance of my Boston Yankee father and his people. I can only remember him hugging me once, but I knew he loved me. I tried to be more tactile with my children, but I was always kind of stiff. Peter had inherited that from me and yet he held me tightly. "I'm sorry, Dad. I was like Nicole. I thought it had to be you. I couldn't imagine - I still can't. I want to throw up when, I think of him and her together." I spun him around, sat him down in a chair facing my desk and buzzed Lucy. When she stepped in I told her, "Two brandies from my stock." When she brought the two snifters in I handed one to Peter. "Take it. I know you don't drink, but this will help. He took a small sip and gulped, then gasped. For a non-drinker, brandy can hit hard, in the quantities he'd taken in. When he got his breath back, he ran his thumb around the edge and spoke without looking at me. "She didn't tell me about him until I got to his place. She said she was staying with a friend. So I walked in there expecting it was some lady friend of hers and she came out and - I knew there was something. She took me into the den; we sat and I asked her what the hell was going on. "She said - you two had just - gotten tired of each other, nothing dramatic. You'd realized one day that you were operating on automatic and decided you were too young to stop living." He took another sip. "I told her I didn't believe a damned word of that. That's when he came out of the bedroom. The bastard was wearing pajamas and he sat beside -- Mom - and put his fucking hand on her breast. He just as good as told me he was fucking her. She lowered her eyes and I thought she wouldn't have the nerve to look me in the eye. "But she did. She didn't take his hand off her. She just looked at me and said that she had fallen in love and was going to marry again as soon as she was legally divorced. She said she had hesitated to tell me because it would be hard to understand, hitting me cold like that. She wanted to hold off on breaking the news until we'd had a chance to get adjusted to it." He took a deep breath. "I asked her what had happened and between her and him, despite her lies, I managed to get a pretty good idea of what happened. By the end she couldn't look me in the eye." He fell silent. He didn't speak for a long time. "She didn't want me to stay there, but she wanted me to get a hotel so we could talk, so I could get to know - him. I stood there and told her the last fucking thing in the world that I ever wanted to do was get to know that slimy bastard. I told her that if I was Jewish, I'd be Sitting Shiva, because my mother -- the woman I loved - had died. "I told her she was dead to me and Marlena and Austin, that I hoped this guy would be enough for her, because she'd lost her husband and her son and her grandson and if I knew Nicole, she'd probably lost her daughter and granddaughter as well. "I told her that I didn't want her new number or any contact. I looked her in the eye and told her that was the last time I'd ever be talking with her. Then I walked out of that hellhole and didn't look back." We just looked at each other. "I'm sorry, Dad. I don't even know what to say." "You could say goodbye." "What?" "You just lost your father and mother. I think you're going to be lonely." "I don't understand..." "She is your mother and Austin's grandmother. She has loved you as long as you've been on this earth. She loves that baby. She has never done ANYTHING to lose your love." "She's a fucking cheating bitch." "Maybe, but she didn't cheat on you. Her problem is with me, not you or Austin or Nicole or Calabria." "I'm taking your side." "I'm not asking for it. It's not your affair, Peter. She didn't kill me. She didn't send me to prison. She left me for another man. You don't turn your back on your mother because she's with another man. I hope you'll be able to look at this more, calmly, after a bit. You don't have to call this new guy 'dad' or make friends with him, but you have to treat her as your mother, because she is." "Or..." "Or don't bother ever calling or coming back here." "I don't believe you." "I hope you do, Peter, because I love you, Austin and Marlena. I don't want to lose you, but your mother gave me a life, short one year, and I can't let you walk away from her just because she decided she didn't want to be married to me anymore." My grown son, who held people's lives in his capable hands, just stared at me for a moment and I couldn't believe the tears that rolled down his face. He left Jacksonville that afternoon. I didn't hear from him for three days. I was home, sipping the second of my three Scotches and watching a re-run of 'House' when the phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and picked it up. "I called her this afternoon, Dad." "I'm glad, Peter. I guess it was hard but, in the long run, you'll be glad you did." "She started crying before we stopped talking. I told her what you'd said. I told her I couldn't forgive her for what she'd done, not yet, but I would. I'm not going to lose my mother, or my father." I didn't want to, but I couldn't help myself. "Did she -- what did she say, when you told her." "She just started crying harder, and then she said, 'Of course - that's your father'." I didn't say anything, but I couldn't help thinking, "too damned bad she didn't remember that earlier." The papers came a couple of weeks later. I waited a couple of months before I put the house on the market. I knew there was no point in holding it, but something in me baulked at cutting the final cords. However the paperwork was quite literally the handwriting on the wall. We were through - there was no more Davidson family living in Mandarin. I put it on sale and deliberately listed the price about $20,000 less than most of the surrounding homes. I could have held out for more, but it was like pulling off a band-aid as Matt Henry had said. At that price, it was snapped up within a month. I signed the papers, accepted the payment, and sent 30 percent to Henry's law firm. I received a formal acknowledgement of the payment, but there was only a vast silence from the direction of Chicago. I shouldn't have been surprised, but a part of me was. It was like Charlie Brown and that damned football that Lucy kept snatching away in "Peanuts". Mary kept doing it to me, and I kept being surprised. I finally had to acknowledge the obvious. She had moved on. I tried. The following Thursday I walked into Gail's office as one of the few people that could do that and found her going on figures on the profit and loss picture for the entire bank chain with Coffee Allaporte. The two women looked up from a computer screen as I walked in. "I didn't get the word that you wanted to talk to me," Gail said. "What's the latest problem?" I have had a lot of job descriptions over the years, but basically I am the guy they hand problems to. Under-performing banks, finding new markets or getting out of unsuitable markets, easing out executives who'd risen above their appropriate level, potential PR disasters, I'd handled them all over the years. I had the appropriate professional qualifications, but I was basically a troubleshooter. When I needed expertise I found and bought it. "I need some guidance in setting up new interpersonal relationships." Coffee just glanced at me curiously. Gail laughed and told her, "He wants help in getting laid." Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 02 Coffee looked at Gail, then at me. "Did I miss something?" "You don't speak the language, Coffee," Gail said smiling. "We've known each other too long." She looked at me, "I'm glad you're moving on Hugh. I was beginning to worry about you." "I held out as long as I could, but life goes on." Coffee looked at me with a faint smile. "I'm just amazed that you would need any help, Hugh. I haven't been here that long, but I've heard about how you've sidestepped a lot of ladies' attempts to get you to step out on - to play outside your marriage, and since - I imagine you must know who's single and available around here." "Thank you, Coffee. I've had -- opportunities - but I've never taken advantage of any of them, and I haven't been out hitting the night spots to any great extent for a long time. I'd just like some help getting steered to a nice nightspot where an old fossil like myself might...." "Get lucky," the two women howled. "That's inelegant, but accurate." "You can rest easy, Gail," Coffee said. "Let me take him in hand. I know a few spots where he might get lucky." CHAPTER FOUR MOVING ON At 8 p.m. I stepped into Pelicans, a downtown bar that I'd been in a couple of times, squiring around business clients of the bank who wanted to check out Jacksonville's nightlife, such as it was. I tended to like the Beaches bars or a down home place called O'Brien's on Jacksonville's Westside, but Pelicans had a cachet and had been featured in national and regional publications as the 'in place' for the young and hip, or hep, or whatever the hell they were called nowadays. Coffee stood beside me as we stepped in and guided me to one of the tables for four that were scattered around the floor away from the long bar that ran the length of the establishment along one wall. She saw friends and waved at them. A minute later we were standing at a table where four attractive young women held court for six guys who were holding and buying drinks. "Who's your grandfather, Coffee," one of the young guys said with a grin. The tall redhead sitting immediately next to him jabbed him in the side with her elbow. "Don't be an asshole, Greg. Don't you get enough of that at the law office?" "No insult taken," I told them, reaching out to shake Greg's hand. "I know I'm a little out of the age range of this crowd, but I still manage to get around pretty good without my walker." He just grinned and shook his head, taking my hand briefly and then dropping it. "My bad man. Sorry, just jealous. Any guy walks in with Coffee, I hate him on principle." A blonde came up behind me and linked her arm inside mine. "Why do you always grab all the good ones, Coffee? You are such a greedy bitch." "You're just jealous you can't have them all, Brittany. Actually, you've had most of them, haven't you?" The blonde just stuck her tongue out at Coffee, then said, "You're married, aren't you? All the good ones are." Coffee jumped in, "No, Hugh is free. He's just been out of circulation for a while and I decided to give him a taste of the nightlife here in Jax." "So what do you do, Hugh?" Brittany said, moving her large breasts, that were obviously unconstrained by a bra, against my arm. "You look like a lawyer or a banker." "He's one of the top men at my bank," Coffee said. "Oh, what's your title, Hugh?" "Trying to complete your collection, Brittany?" Coffee snickered. "You are never going to forget about Rodney, are you?" "Who? Anyway, you can call Hugh 'The Trouble Shooter'. He's the guy they give problems to." "That sounds so fascinating. Do you think you might want to buy me a drink and tell me about it?" Coffee grinned at me and then at Brittany. "I'll let you have him, if you promise to be gentle. That okay with you, Hugh?" I looked at the tall blonde dressed in a silver outfit that revealed almost as much as it hid, the glossy lips and heavy breasts whose nipples poked out against the fabric. "That depends -- Brittany! Do you bite?" She grinned at me, "If I really like you." I looked back at Coffee, "I'll take my chances. Thanks, Coffee." "Thank me Monday if you survive." I have to admit, it was touch and go there for a while. An hour after we left Pelicans we wound up in her Beachfront condo. I was looking out of the plate glass window at the surf rolling up on Atlantic Beach when I saw her in the glass padding up behind me. She had shed her clothes, her heavy breasts bouncing with each step, and she balanced two snifters filled with a dark liquid. "I feel kind of overdressed," I said without turning to her. "That's easy to take care of," she said, setting the snifters down on a nearby coffee table. She turned me and dropped to her knees, unbuckling my belt and pulling my trousers down, followed almost instantly by the Hanes briefs. She fastened her mouth to my rapidly rising dick and gave me a minute but very thorough tongue bath of my genitals. "That's nice," I said, for lack of anything else to say. It had been a long, long time. What DO you say to a beautiful young woman you've just met who has your dick in her mouth. "Oh, you don't know," she said, letting me go and turning to pick up one of the snifters. She took a sip, swirled it in her mouth, and sucked me in. Mary might have done something like that -- actually she had and it hadn't been decades ago but, as some wit once said, every blow job is the same and every blowjob is different, and this one was different because of the face and mouth I was sticking it in. I closed my eyes and opened them yelping a moment later to find she had placed my very rigid extension into one of the snifters that should have been a block of ice from the way it felt. Before I could scream she had sucked it in again. The competing sensations of painful cold and warm suction threatened to blow the top of my (big) head off. I was squirting into her mouth as I leaned back toward one of her couches and she let me go down, but never lost her lip-lock. She took everything I had and then crouched over me with the expression a mountain lion must have when it gazes down at a ripe hare it's cornered. "That was nice," she said, letting a little of my byproduct dribble down onto her fingers from the corner of her mouth. "It's always good to get the first one over quick, so we can take our time with the second, third - and fourth. I've got a kitchen stuffed with food we can cook, or snacks, or frozen meals. We never have to get out of the bedroom at all until Monday morning." I wanted to tell her that, from previous experience, that might be my LAST time until sometime late Saturday, but the look in her eyes was a little frightening. I wondered if Coffee had been really joking. Actually, I wasn't afraid of getting eaten alive. What scared me a little was the thought that she was used to virile, horny 27 year olds, not a 57 year old - well preserved, but still 57 year old - grandfather. I'd never been embarrassed because I'd never had to perform for a stranger, not in this lifetime. Still, I'd do the best I could, for God and Country, that kind of thing. I did survive to stagger out of her front door to a waiting limo Monday morning, but I thought I might have seriously damaged my sex organ. It hid against my leg as I escaped. She gave me a last kiss, but I seriously thought she was just being kind. I got the impression that, while she liked me and probably would have given me a score of three out of five, she wasn't really impressed. Like I said - 57 years old. I was in my office, leaning back in my chair with my eyes closed and trying not to nod off -- she had really given me very little time for sleeping -- when I heard Coffee say, "Sleeping the sleep of the innocent?" I opened my eyes and looked into her beautiful face. She was grinning. "I don't know whether to thank you, or consider some sort of lawsuit if my penis never returns to working order." She just smiled and said, "Brittany said that she was very pleasantly surprised. She's never slept with anyone your age. She said you convinced her to widen her parameters of the age of men she'll consider going to bed with." "Why do I feel like such a trailblazer?" She came over to my desk, draped her shapely ass on the side of the desk and sat there bouncing one nylon-clad leg upon the other. "I know you enjoyed the sex, Hugh. Did you have a good weekend otherwise?" I thought about it. She obviously knew her friend, if Brittany was a friend. "Honestly, there were a couple of times she put porno films on her DVD player, and not because we needed the stimulus. You can't fuck 24 hours straight. When I wasn't inside her, we really got bored. There really wasn't - we didn't - there didn't seem to be much to talk about." I was being charitable. The waits between the times when I recharged, if I wasn't eating her out or using vibrators front and back, were deadly. I'd forgotten how easy it was to talk with Mary, and if we didn't feel like talking, we could sit outside and watch the squirrels or the birds in a companionable silence. She looked a little embarrassed. "I feel a little bad about that. Brittany is really an intelligent woman, but outside of stocks and bonds, and fucking, she really doesn't care about that much. Do you want me to look around for someone else? Maybe someone a little....older, more mature?" "No 80-year-old women, please." She laughed and said, "I know how to talk after sex, you know?" I looked at her and, for just a moment, I was tempted, just for a moment! "That is a fantastic compliment, Coffee. In all honesty, I know you'd be the kind of person I'd enjoy spending time with, in and out of bed, but that is such a bad idea. I think we'd be fine friends, with benefits, but you never know. If either one of us got, oh, attached or our feelings hurt, we'd still have to work together, and Gail wouldn't want to lose either one of us. So, let's just go on being platonic friends and you find me someone who likes talking after sex." She just shook her head and got up. "I know you don't believe it right now, Hugh, but you are going to be alright. Finding a good woman isn't going to be a problem for you at all. 'You letting go of Mary' is going to be the problem." So, that next weekend, I went out with a very attractive 45-year-old. We had drinks, talked about the Iraq War, why the Jaguars sucked so badly and found out that despite a decade's difference in our ages, we had the same taste in movies and we both -- astoundingly -- liked modern country. We didn't go to bed that date. That happened the next weekend and it was good. She was 5'8 and willowy rather than stacked, meaning she was slender and had great legs without having much on top. However, she was a sweet lady and her breasts, although small, were sensitive. I had a good time. The next weekend, I was back inside Brittany, pumping and moaning and biting those cantaloupe breasts and being the perfect pig that men at heart are. I had a perfectly nice mature lady I could have been with, but I was fucking a young, very hot and demanding 20-something with whom I couldn't have one minute of intelligent conversation. This time, I had used my head. On Saturday afternoon my cell phone rang with word of an emergency I just had to come into the bank to handle and so I left Brittany with great regret, but at the same time, although I couldn't show it, great relief. She was great for a night, or a night and a morning, but that way I didn't have to talk to her. I alternated for a while between Brittany and my grown-up lady, comfortable in my subterfuge, but one always has to pay the piper eventually. One Saturday, after the third or fourth time I'd used some kind of excuse to get away from Brittany, she stopped me as I was slipping my pants on. She stood there magnificently naked, those heavy breasts lying on her chest like teardrops. They were mottled and red where I'd sucked and bit on them all night and morning. "Do you really think I'm that stupid, Hugh?" "I'm sorry, what?" "Do you think I'm that stupid? Would it surprise you to know that I have a Masters in Economic Theory from the University of Chicago and I am working on my Doctorate from Florida. I watch C-Span for relaxation and I do the New York Times Crossword with a pen, but you think I'm just a mindless bimbo." "I don't-" "Fuck you Hugh. Get your clothes on and get out of here." I knew, but I played it out, because I really didn't want to hurt her. "I don't know what you're talking about. Emergencies come up all the time. Banking isn't a 9-5 business, no matter what people think, and my job is to be on the job 24-7. It pays me a good living but I have to go when they say come." "Oh fuck that, you lying old fart." She slapped me hard across the face and she was a big girl with a nice swing. I staggered back. She had bloodied my lip. "Funny how your 'emergencies' never happen while you're in the middle of fucking me. When you're sucking on my titties and pumping me hard, you never get those calls. Why is that, Hugh?" I rubbed the blood off my lip. The funny thing was, I liked her more now than I ever had when I was balls-deep in her steaming pussy and sucking on those gorgeous tits. "I guess I'm transparent, right? I'm sorry, Brittany. All men are pigs. You deserve more than an old fart coming around because fucking you is a fantastic experience, but I -- we - we just don't have enough in common. All we have in common is that I love that body of yours and what you do with it in bed, and you-" "And I really have enjoyed what you do in bed, Hugh. It's not just the mechanics, you're pretty good, but you really work to make me have a good time in bed. You'd be amazed how few times that happens when I go out with guys my age." I reached out and gave her a kiss - she let me! "Give them time, Brittany. Sometimes guys grow up. You have time. Guys are always going to be coming after you." "Just not you." I looked over her amazing body and had to shake my head. "No baby, I'm just too old for you." She just shook her head, kissed me back and said, "Go away old man and think about me when you're on top of some 50-year-old that you have more in common with," but she smiled when she said it. "Coffee was right, you have a definite mean streak in you." "Says the man who was fucking me and then faking emergencies to get out of having to talk with me between fucks." What could I say, she was right, but she was smiling when I walked out of her condo. So, I went back to my mature lady, we had decent weekends and the sex wasn't bad. There came a Saturday night about 11 p.m. We had been out to Benny's, just off the Riverwalk, the best steak place in town by most people's estimation - you wouldn't get an argument from me - and we had walked down the Riverwalk, staring out into the water. We gazed at the plaque commemorating the spot where two Jacksonville Sheriff's Officers had fallen during the Massacre at the Courthouse and talked about that terrible day when so many had died. Then we headed back to my place. I spread her legs, ate her, fucked her and, if it was nothing like with Brittany, it wasn't bad. It wasn't that good but not that bad. We lay together in bed. The television and lights were off, but there was a faint light from the streetlights not too far down the street and an overhead full moon coming through a curtained window. Her flesh was painted by the faint light, giving it a look of gleaming marble. I reached out to touch the flesh of her shoulder and ran fingers down her arm. I didn't even know it was coming until I burst out in sobs. For moments I didn't know what I was crying for. She nestled my head against her small breasts while I wept because I knew who and what I was crying for. Later that night she flipped the overhead light on and dressed. "I'm sorry," I told her. "I don't know where that came from," I lied. She sat beside me and kissed me on the cheek. "It's been fun, really fun. You're a nice man, but there are too many ghosts around here for me to be comfortable. Don't call me again Hugh. I hope - I hope someday you'll be able to start living again." I had her flip the lights off as she left. After she'd gone I lay in the wash of moonlight. It had been nearly six months since Mary had walked out of my life, and neither hot sexy young women nor kindly older women had been enough to drive her out of my mind and heart. I had tried moving on, the way she had, yet I hurt as bad as the moment she had told me the truth, when something inside me had died. Why the hell couldn't I do what she had done? CHAPTERS FIVE AND SIX COMING Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 03 (c) 2012 BACKGROUND: Hugh Davidson is a 57-year-old executive in the powerful Hunt bank chain headquartered in Jacksonville. Married for 36 years to educational materials executive Mary, he was stunned by the loss of his wife to a 45-year-old Chicago education official in mid-2007, followed her quickie divorce and move to Chicago to be with her new man. Six months later as Christmas approaches, he's tried but hasn't been too successful in finding someone to replace her in his life. And Mary, to all intents and purposes, has vanished from the face of the earth. PERSONAL NOTE: my continued thanks go to my editor 'curiouss' for both editing and insight. CHAPTER FIVE COLLATERAL DAMAGE At Christmas of 2007, I split my time between Peter and Nicole. LA and New York are big cities, major metropolises, but outside of the definition, I don't think you could find two places on earth more alien to each other. It was invigorating -- or at least it had been -- visiting both cities in the course of December in past years. New York was often snow, frigid winds, surly cabbies and plays; LA a few days later was 70 degree/shirt sleeve weather, hookers in hot-pants on side streets, and the latest movie premieres. We usually managed to stroll down Venice Beach and enjoy the boardwalk, the musclemen and the roller bladers. I thought about that while I sat in Nicole and Simon's den in their 23rd floor condo holding little Calabria. Despite the name, she was as beautiful a baby as ever breathed on earth, or the most beautiful little girl baby. Naturally I was prejudiced. Austin had been the most beautiful baby boy and now he was the most intelligent and beautiful toddler on earth. Actually, at this point, Calabria was also a toddler. She wriggled until I let her down and she staggered toward her father Simon's waiting arms. He grabbed her bottom, made a face and said to Nicole, "I think she needs changing, dear. Don't you want to demonstrate the superior connection between mother and daughter?" She just laughed and said, "No dear. I wouldn't think of interfering with the father/daughter bond. You go have fun." He made a face, but kissed his daughter and swept her up and out to the bedroom. My brown-haired daughter, who looked so much like her mother that it hurt to look at her hunched forward on the couch, put her hand over mine. "You're losing weight, Dad, and you look - tired. How are you doing? I know we talk, but you can't tell anything over the phone. You could be dying, yet you'd be cheerful and telling me funny stories about the bank and you'd never let me know what was really going on." "I'm okay, Nicole." "You know exactly how little that tells me. How are you really? I, why don't I think you've ever gotten over - mom?" I freed my hand from hers and held both mine up in a surrender gesture. "What's there to get over, baby? She's gone, that's the reality of it. 'Getting over it' doesn't change it. Whether I do or not, she's still gone. She's always going to be gone, and life goes on. It has to. I want to see little Calabria driving you and Simon crazy when she drags home some scuzzy-looking boyfriend covered with tattoos and piercings." She gave me a sad, half smile. "I know it's coming, Dad. I shouldn't tell you this." "What?" "I promised Mom...." I couldn't help myself. "Is she alright? She's not...sick?" "Not physically." "What do you mean?" "She made me promise." I just looked at her. I'd been around long enough, I'd dealt with enough people who didn't want to talk, who were afraid of the news I was bringing, who didn't want me to know how badly they had screwed up, to know what to say. "Nicole, you brought it up. You want to tell me. Whatever it is, you must think it would be for the best for your mother for me to know it. Is your promise more important than your mother's welfare? Whatever it is, you know I wouldn't hurt her. Even now, I would never hurt her." She sniffed and I saw the first tear trickle down her cheek. "She told me, months ago. Maybe - maybe I should have told you, but she made me promise. She seemed - it was so important to her, that you not know." I just sat and looked at her. "She left him. Two months - two months after she left you and moved to Chicago to be with him. It was less, less than a month after the divorce papers came through." "Him - Kelly? Richard Kelly? She left him?" She licked her lips, which were wet with her tears. "She said, she said - they just realized - it was over. He went back to his wife, and she...." It sank in on me. "...and she didn't come back to me. She never even thought about it, did she?" She wouldn't look at me. "You can tell me, baby. I'm a big boy, and the truth....the truth is always better. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. No matter how hard, it's better than lies." She finally looked into my eyes. "She said, she said she never wanted to see you again - she wanted to make a new life away from you. She said you would never check up on her, you might never know, and she didn't want - didn't want..." She buried her face in her hands. I sat beside her and held her. "She said, she didn't want you to know because, you'd try to get her back. She said you'd never stopped loving her and she didn't want to hurt you again. She just - she just, didn't want to ever see you again." That was as simple as it gets, no second thoughts for Mary. I was part of her past, a part she never wanted to lay eyes on. "I'm sorry, Dad but, I knew she was telling me the truth. I could see it in her eyes. You're still in love with her. If you knew she was through with him, you would have...you'd have gone after her again and she was just going to hurt you all over again. Telling you would have hurt you both. I did it for you as well as her." "Did Peter know?" "Yes, we talked about it. It was for the best that you didn't know." I hugged her. "Can you forgive me? I didn't know what to do. I did what I thought was best." I hugged her again. "I know you did baby, and there's no reason for you to feel guilty. If you'd told me, it wouldn't have changed anything. Like you said, she was never going to come back. I guess I knew it all along, but there's nothing like having your nose rubbed in the truth. Thank you for telling me. If I had any daydreams, they're gone now." That was two weeks before Christmas. I knew, in the roundabout way the kids worked out their schedules, that Mary would be with Peter before Christmas while I was with Nicole, and she'd be with Nicole after Christmas while I was visiting Peter. I flew into LA on December 27th. Peter had been able to arrange for three days off and we ate at a trendy LA restaurant and exchanged our presents under the still green living Christmas tree in their family room. We stayed up past Austin's bedtime for me to enjoy him and then Marlena, a pretty redhead who had been a nurse at the hospital where Peter had practiced before she'd broken him of his bachelor ways, took Austin to bed and left the two of us looking out the large picture window at a pretty good nightscape of LA. The house was located in the hills, but not high enough to worry too much about mudslides. "Nicole told me that she told you about Mom and him." "Yeah." "Also that I knew and helped keep the secret from you?" "Yeah, but don't beat yourself up. Like I told her, knowing it wouldn't have made any difference. You were honoring your mother's wishes, and it didn't do me any harm. There's nothing to feel guilty about." He took a sip of a non-alcoholic beer from a chilled Coors mug and didn't look at me as he said, "I don't feel guilty, dad. I don't think it would have done you any good. What I feel is sad, sad for both of you." I just looked at him. "Both of us?" "Yeah." He looked at me then. "You can lie to Nicole, but I know better. You're still in love with her. You might be banging ladies back in Jacksonville, but you haven't moved on. I know you, that's what hurts. You're a one-woman man and I don't think you're ever going to be able to move on." I just shrugged. "You probably have me pegged but, I know your mother is probably broken up about what happened between her and him. After all, she gave up a lot to be with him but, she's still a beautiful woman. She's probably in another relationship by now, or she will be. She won't be alone." "You're wrong, which is what makes it so fucking infuriating!" I looked at him, wondering what caused the sudden strong rush of emotion. "We saw her a couple of times while she was with him. Once she came here and the other time Marlena flew to Chicago with Austin. We both thought the same thing." I waited him out. "She wasn't happy, Dad, I don't think she ever was. Marlena had the same impression. She asked her, flat out, if she was in love with him. She was trying to figure out why she would have left you for him, and Mom just shook her head. Then I talked to her through Skype video a few days after the divorce went through." He took another sip and then looked me in the eye. "I know you won't believe me, it makes no sense, but she was miserable. She sounded....she sounded like she was going to break into tears after every other word, and that's made what happened make sense." This was new. "What! What happened?" "Nicole didn't tell you?" When I shook my head, he said, "A week after she told us she and Richard had split, she called us from San Francisco. She had gotten another transfer. She's been there for more than four months now." I took a strong gulp of the Napoleon Brandy in my snifter and couldn't help saying, "Well, that makes sense anyway. She moves to Chicago to get away from me and then she keeps heading west to California. I guess the only way she could get any further away would be to head for Hawaii." "I think she was trying to get away from both of you. I can understand it though." I gave him a curious look. "I think that, when she thinks of you, she realizes what she gave up, and when she thinks of him, she realizes what a waste, what a mistake, it all was." After another minute of silence -- what was there left to say after that - he turned away from me to look out through the plate glass window. Our reflections wavered in the moonlight from outside. "I know, I know Dad, that you must have wondered..." "Wondered?" "Why I took it so hard, finding out about mom and that guy. I mean, I'm not 15, I'm a grown man. I know you're adults and I know parents split, but I acted like I was some emotional teenager." "Looking back, yeah, I wondered a little bit. You've always been so calm, rational, like me." He turned around and looked behind me, to the doorway leading to the second floor where they had their bedrooms. "I didn't even realize what it was at the time. I knew I exploded, but it was weeks later when it finally hit me. I was afraid." "Afraid?" "You and mom are our rock -- me and Nicole. A lot of my friends went through one divorce, some two or three, with all the crap that involves; your parents fighting and wanting you to pick sides and dads trying to bribe you with presents and squeeze a weeks worth of living into a weekend and moms spending every minute telling you what a piece of crap your father is. You guys just sailed along. You were always there for us. When I met Marlena and started getting serious, the first thing I started asking myself was whether she was like Mom, and she is. You probably don't see it, but she is. She's loving and funny and she's hotter than hell and I've never spent one second worrying about her, even when she was working around dogs that were used to banging every nurse and female volunteer within arm's length. She's honest, that's the word. There have been a few times when she's been attracted to guys. She's told me about it and I fucked her brains out until she got over it, but I knew she'd never go behind my back. I knew if she ever wanted out, she respected me enough that she'd tell me." He took a sip of non-alcoholic beer, which to me is nothing more than flavored water, but he had never been tempted by liquor and that was a good thing for a man in his line of work. "Then - then Richard Kelly happened. I tried, I really tried to get Mom to explain to me HOW it happened, yet she never could. So, I go to work and try to focus on patients and cutting into people's brains without worrying about Marlena and guys she might be meeting. She's a home maker now, but she shops and I used to use supermarkets as prime hunting grounds for new fuck toys. She takes Austin to pediatricians and specialists and there are guys there. She still has her nursing certification and once in a while she has to take a short course or go to a seminar to keep it up and there are guys there." He looked at my reflection in the glass. "You know, I trust her, dad, I really do, but I would have bet my life, put my head on a guillotine on a bet that Mom would never look at another man. I play these little psychological games in my head. I picture the day when Marlena walks into the den after she's put Austin down, or maybe he's grown and out on a date, and she tells me, 'Peter, I've met someone and I'm leaving you'. I guess I run these little scenarios in my head to see if I could go on breathing, go on working like you have, after my life ends." He stopped again for a moment. "Mom stole my certainty. She took away the belief that 'happy ever after' can ever be a reality. There are days when I hate her so much. I'll never be able to trust that Marlena and I will stay together and that kills me." I gave him some time. "You know you have to get past this, don't you? You're too smart a man not to see it. If you keep wondering, keep seeing her cheating in your mind's eye, keep seeing that day when she'll walk in and tell you she's leaving you, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You'll make it happen." "I don't know how." I walked up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder. "You're a rational man, like me, Peter. You know there are millions of couples in this country, hundreds of millions around the world. Millions of them will break up, hearts will be broken and lives destroyed. That happens, but remember and realize that millions of them will sail through and never be tempted, never be tested. Yet other millions will be tested and, maybe, fall but they'll get back up and make their marriages work. Life is a numbers game and you just have to assume that you'll be one of the lucky millions. Let's say you're one of the unlucky ones. Say that one day a year, or 36, from now, Marlena walks in and says she's leaving you. Say she breaks your heart. Would you regret marrying her? Would you regret having Austin with her? Would you regret one minute of your time with her?" He was silent for a long time. "No, I don't think I would. Have you ever been sorry you married Mom?" "Not for one minute. Look, Peter, we can't ever know the future. If I'd known 36 years ago what was coming, and I'd had a chance to see what those 36 years would be like, I wouldn't have done anything different, except keep her away from that trip where she met Richard Kelly." ###################### CHAPTER SIX: HARD TIMES I knew it was a mistake but I couldn't help myself. I emailed her at her old email address, assuming that she would have kept it for business continuity. I wrote: "Mary: Nicole and Peter just spilled the beans. Don't blame them. It was a heavy secret to keep and they did a good job for four months. I don't know that my opinion or concern means anything to you, but I'm sorry that things didn't work out between you and Richard. I know you and I know that even if you couldn't tell me, he meant something to you. You're not the sort of woman that would throw away a life for a momentary thrill. Peter told me that he doesn't think you're happy. He's a pretty smart man - gets that from me, I guess. If he's right, I just wanted to tell you that you are welcome to email me -- anytime - about anything. We've always been able to talk about anything. We're not together, I've accepted that. We will have separate lives from this point on, but we were friends, as well as lovers and husband and wife. Despite everything that's happened, I still consider myself your friend. There are no strings or conditions. E-mail me if you want to talk about anything, Hugh." I never received a reply. I really didn't expect one. It was just something I felt I had to do. Life went on. I went on "Plenty of Fish" because the idea of getting involved with someone from the bank or the banking community or someone I might have to rub shoulders with seemed less and less like a great idea. An online meeting place for singles seemed like a better idea. I could meet and date and flame out and not have to face unhappy, or disappointed or rejected women on a daily basis. It seemed like a perfect way of life. I met some nice, intriguing women on the Fish market, as some called it. Some were desperate for husbands, some just wanted a great fuck after being told by their husbands or significant others that they were dogs in the bedroom. I stayed away from the husband hunters, but I convinced a few ladies who might not have been as curvy or slender as they had been decades ago, that in the right hands they could still burn up the sheet, and there were a few ladies that never wound up in my bed, but became friends. These were ladies I could talk to, exchange jokes online and go to the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Jacksonville for a local production of a Broadway play and maybe drinks later with no expectation of orgasms afterward. Business went on as it always had, but there were disquieting rumbles on the national stage and the mortgage market and the homebuilding sector quivered as the first shocks of an approaching earthquake began to be felt. Something bad was coming. Gail and Coffee, and wiser heads than mine, met and started hunkering down for the coming storm. Bad things were indeed coming, even if the majority of the banking industry and the business community continued to whistle past the graveyard, but Gail was as hard headed as her grandfather had ever been. She had learned at his knee and she was ready to do whatever was necessary to keep the Hunt brand alive for another generation. Me, I was the hatchet man, the muscle. I closed banks on the bubble. I called in loans that were already dead but not buried, foreclosed, presided over the sale and liquidation of companies that either had always been bad ideas or had become bad ideas. I closed out investments and in every case went for cash over stock and other options. I spent a lot of time closing weak banks, firing people and buying new banks, consolidating positions and firing people. I fired a lot of people that year. I told middle-aged men that their positions had become redundant and they would have to go out into a hostile world and make a new life for themselves. A few of them didn't make it past the day I had told them they were out. One dropped dead with a heart attack walking out of what had been his office. Two committed suicide in ways they thought might not invalidate large life insurance policies for their families. One guy got away with it, one didn't. It was not a warm and fuzzy period, either in my personal life or business. However business, even the banking business, is not the dry ledgers and green eyeshade picture people on the outside have - it is kill or die, survival of the fittest, done wearing suits and ties. It is still nature, red in tooth and claw. Another Christmas came and went, 2008; a new President, a new world in a lot of ways. Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 03 Peter asked me, "Is there anybody special in your life, Dad?" "No, I've got a decent social life. There are ladies who are good friends. They make me laugh." "Getting any action?" "Enough.' "Details?" "Pervert." "He is one, isn't he?" said Marlena with a smile as she came up behind Peter and rested her head against his chest. Then she grinned and said, "Thank God." I just looked at my son and he looked back at me as he kissed the top of his wife's head and I felt better about the two of them. I thought he had gotten past the wound of his mother's infidelity and I was glad somebody had. Nicole asked me the same question, more genteelly. "Are you happy Dad? Is there anybody, special?" "Yes and no. I have friends, I go out. I'm not alone. I've got my work, the people at the bank, a job that takes up about 60 hours of my week. It's not a bad life. "Honestly?" "Honestly. It's not as good as the life I had with your mother, but it's as good as a life can be without her. Really, I'm looking at 60, I'm not going to remarry, not raise any more kids. The real part of my life -- you guys -- is behind me. I'm ready to be a doting grandpa. Don't worry about me, Nicole. I'm alright." She didn't say anything, but I could tell she wanted me to ask. "How is your mother?" "Not good." "Physically?" "Partly, she's lost weight. She looks older. She's never looked her age. She's starting to look her age." "She's had a rough couple of years, baby." "Rougher than you?" "Maybe! Remember, I was the innocent party. Breaking somebody's heart, cheating on them, leading two lives, it can't be easy. Then we broke up. Then she broke up with her new guy and, has she had anybody in the year since then?"' "She's gone on dates, I know that, but nobody serious." There was a part of me that was happy hearing that. I wanted her to hurt but I put myself in her shoes. If it had been me ten years ago and I had been the one who'd cheated on her for nearly a year, and I'd had to face her and confess what I'd done, it probably would have killed me. It's easy to be the innocent party. If all the blame and guilt and shame had been mine, especially if I still had any feeling for her, it would have torn me up. If she was human, she had to have guilt over what she had done to a man that loved her. "I don't know what I can do, baby. I sent her an email awhile back, letting her know that I still considered us friends and that she could always talk to me. I never heard back from her." "Is that true, Dad? Do you still think of her as a friend, after everything that's happened?" "Yeah, we were always friends as well as lovers. There was never anybody else I could talk over anything with as easily as I could with her. I valued her advice, her intelligence. She could always make me laugh, no matter how bad the day had been. If we hadn't been married, hadn't been lovers, I think we would have been good friends. There was just something - we clicked. I don't know how to describe it better than that." "Could you be her friend again, Dad?" "She doesn't want my friendship, baby, or my love. It can't get any clearer than that." "She needs a friend, Dad, she needs you. She will never tell you or let you know, but she's dying, dying inside. She's not the woman we've always known. Could you try to contact her, for me and Peter. I know it will be hard for you but, you can do anything. You remember when I was little? You told me there would never be anything I could ask that you wouldn't do, and there was never anything I asked that you didn't do. I really thought that if I asked you to grab the moon and bring it to me, somehow you'd do it." "...and I would have, but this..." I looked into her eyes and saw her mother and knew that I'd never be able to deny her anything, even when I knew it was impossible. "I'll try to talk to her, Baby. I'll do my best." I emailed her the next week and found that she'd changed her email address. It came back no such email address on her server. I got the number of the McDaniels' San Francisco office and called and asked to speak to Ms. Mary Meadows. "Can I tell her who's calling, sir?" "Hugh Davidson." "Please hold." After a LONG hold, the pleasant voice came back on the phone and said, "I'm sorry, Ms. Meadows is out of the office." "Well, could I leave a message on her voice mail?" Another long silence. "I'm sorry sir, but her voice mail box is completely full." "Well, could I leave a message with you?" "I'm very sorry, but I have four calls holding. Could you call again later?" She was unavailable 10 minutes after her office opened, 10 minutes before lunch, 30 minutes after lunch and a half hour before the close of business. Repeat this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Add to that her voice mail box was always full or on the fritz. Naturally they couldn't release her email address as it was contrary to company policy. I tried for two weeks before, finally, a frazzled, once friendly, voice said, "I'm sorry you're having so many problems sir, but this is a business office. I hate to be rude so please excuse me, but your calling has become somewhat of a problem. We have people calling on business matters and we really can't afford to be besieged by personal calls for our staff." "How do you know it's personal? I've never told you why I'm calling. It could be business." After another long silence, "I'm so sorry, sir, but you're putting me in a very...awkward...position. Please?" I knew I was. She was just a secretary/receptionist, following her boss' orders, which were to shut me out completely. Mary wouldn't give an inch, wouldn't even let me explain why I was calling. I remembered what she had told Matt Henry, no contact, no messages. She didn't even want to breath the same air that I was breathing. She didn't want to be in the same city. I could have flown to San Francisco and walked into the front door of the main McDaniels office, but I knew I'd never get past the phalanx of secretaries, staffers and security she would throw up to ward me off. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. It took a day to reach critical mass. It wasn't enough that she had destroyed my world, broken my heart, left me alone in the moonlight with ghosts and shadows while she first fucked Richard Kelly and then her unknown boyfriends. She couldn't even show the common decency to acknowledge my existence. It was as if, for her, I had already died. So the next day, amidst my anger and distress, for just a few minutes I let out the demons. I emailed a message to the general communications URL for the McDaniels San Francisco office. Right then I didn't care how many secretaries, flunkies or co-workers saw it. "Ms. Meadows -- Mary, or, should I say, You Bitch! This is your ex-husband, the man who loved and cherished you for 36 years before you decided to turn into a slut and fuck some younger man. In case you've forgotten, I am the man who never cheated on you. I apologize for trying to call and talk to you. Obviously the thought of hearing my voice is so distasteful that you bullied a receptionist to lie to me repeatedly. You didn't have the simple decency to come on the phone yourself and tell me you didn't want to talk to me. Why am I surprised? That you have no decency should not have come as a surprise. I made myself believe that you were a decent woman for 36 years, but that was always a lie, wasn't it? A lie because you have always been a cheating slut. I just never let myself see it. I was too blinded by love, which I'm sure you don't understand because I am certain that you have never had a moment's love for me in all our years together. I look back and remember that you belonged to another man when you sucked my dick and let me fuck you. You were cheating on a man you had planned to marry. Because you were cheating with me, I made myself believe it was simply an overwhelming passion that led you to my bed, but our marriage started with an act of betrayal on your part. I assume, am fairly certain, being the cold blooded bitch that you are that you made a conscious decision that you'd have a better, more profitable life with me than your former fiancé. You knew I came from money and you made a bet that riding my coattails would lead you to a comfortable life, which it did, for more than 30 years. There was never anything you wanted that I didn't give you willingly. I gave you two children you loved, unless you were lying about that too. Looking back, I can't help but wonder if Richard Kelly was the first man you sucked and fucked while pretending to be my loving wife. I was such an idiot. I knew you were gone so much of the time, that you were a sexual dynamo, and I really believed that you were celibate all those long nights you spent away from me. Now I really do believe, and this isn't just anger and spite, that you were cheating on me for so many years. I think your story of resisting Richard for months was bullshit. I think that very first night you sucked his dick and let him have what you had promised to me alone. I think you are a liar and a cheat. I think you are a selfish, cold-hearted bitch, in every sense of that word. Looking back, even if it had cost me Peter and Nicole, I wish that you had decided that your Harvard fiancée was a better long term bet than me. I wish you had never pretended to fall in love with me. I wish that I had had the chance to meet a loving, kind and true woman to make my wife. I wish I had not wasted the larger portion of my life being devoted to a woman who existed only in my imagination. Now it is too late. I am nearly 60. There will be no opportunity to relive my life and find a better wife, or possibly just an honest whore that I could have fucked and known what the bargain was going in. When I left you, the day you finally were honest with me, I thanked you for the years you had given to me and wished you well. You have to know I was lying. I am happy only that your boyfriend finally got tired of you, kicked your aging ass out, and went back to his wife. I've heard your story, but I am sure mine is the more reliable. You are an aging, fading stupid beauty. You are getting old, your looks are going, and you really believed a 45-year-old man wanted to start a new life with you? You believed his bullshit and left a faithful husband for a few months of good fucking. You are still an attractive woman, in a certain light, so I think you can keep whoring yourself out, although your Johns will be getting older and more desperate as time goes on. I can only hope that your desperate search for new sex leads you to contract one of the uglier, more painful, or possibly fatal sexual diseases going around. When you are gone, I want you to know that I will come to your graveside. I will come, not to your bedside to forgive you while you are still alive, but to your grave to piss on the soil lying above the decaying body of the worst woman that it has ever been my misfortune to know. You will never know the depths of the hatred I feel for you, and that is the chief regret that I live with daily. Hugh." I wrote it in the white heat of passion and hit the send key without a thought. A storm of emotions swept through me, but chief among them was - release and relief. I had previously been noble and loving and forgave a woman who tore my heart out, but what I really felt was contained in the words I pounded out in just a few minutes. I hoped to God that she was still capable of being hurt by me because I wanted to hurt her. I thought, just for a moment, of destroying Richard Kelly. I could do it, no matter his political connections or his family's power. I had been the hatchet man, the destroyer of lives and careers and communities for all these years, my own native intelligence backed by the power of the hundreds of millions of dollars the Hunt family controlled. I could have him killed, could destroy his marriage if he really had gone back to his wife. I could leave him bankrupt and on the street, or in a cell somewhere being fucked up the ass by the largest, meanest concentration of human monsters I could round up. I toyed with the idea for a few hours. Gail would back me up and it could be done without leaving fingerprints. Then, reluctantly, I dismissed the fantasies. I wasn't that kind of man. I didn't want to become the kind of man who could do that for personal revenge. The terrible things I'd done, I'd done dispassionately. The people whose lives I'd ruined or hurt, I'd damaged only as part of my job. There was a line I wasn't willing to cross, not now, hopefully never. Then I had time to regret the words I'd sent to Mary. I felt better than I had in more than a year. They were the words in my heart from the moment she'd told me about Richard Kelly. I felt the way you feel when you're totally nauseous; then you manage to vomit and the nausea wanes. No, I felt bad because I imagined what Peter and Nicole would think if they saw that e-mail. It would hurt them as well as their mother but, it was too late, the message was gone. I somehow doubted that was the help Nicole had hoped I'd give her mother but sometimes - even the greatest miracle worker fails - and I had tried to reestablish contact with Mary. The blame was on her. I never heard back from the email. Peter and Nicole never indicated they were aware of it, and neither one of them is that good an actor, so she never told them, although I imagine she must have known of it. It was like dropping a pebble into a well and having it vanish without a sound, a ripple, as if it had never been dropped. It was clear one more time that I simply didn't exist for Mary any longer. Life went on. The housing, banking and economic crises that shook the nation became real. Most banks around the country quivered and trembled and bank directors resigned or were approached by feds wanting to know if they had played a part in bringing the crisis on. The feds came sniffing around us, but not because we were in trouble. We were one of the only major banks in the nation that stood like a rock. Our books were good, our loans were solid and our customers were protected. Gail Hunt and her Board of Directors did not want, would not accept, any federal aid, loans, guarantees -- nor any hint of federal control through federal strings tied to money that was going to prop up other banks. That brought a lot of interest in certain quarters and we had visits from nameless, but very powerful individuals, wanting -- in very simple terms -- a finger in our very prosperous financial pie. I attended one meeting with Gail, Percy, Bobby, two other directors, a man from an unnamed important federal agency and two highly placed FBI officials. The meeting began low key, then rather quickly deteriorated into thinly veiled threats from the feds. The Hunt Bank was a financial powerhouse, but it wasn't the sovereign government of the United States. It would be best for everyone concerned if the Bank could work in harmony with the policies and aims of the federal government. In the interest of harmony, the Bank would have to accept federal funding and federal oversight of its operations. Gail indicated that would not happen. The federal official looked at her like she had lost her mind and said that she was a beautiful woman and that beautiful women did not do well in federal prisons, due to attentions from male and female guards and inmates. "I would hate to see that happen to a vibrant person like you," the fed said, "but policy differences between private businesses and the government inevitably come down to a moment of choice. Will you do what we ask, or will you violate the law and give up your freedom and the future growth of this bank that your grandfather devoted his life to?" She just looked at him for a moment, then stood up. The fed looked at her curiously. "I have a private office in the other room," she said calmly. "Would you please come with me. I have something I'd like to show you and we can discuss this matter further." They walked out together and ten minutes later they walked back in. The fed never said a word, just gestured to the FBI guys and they walked out. We never heard back from him. We continued to have visitors but they were low level and very polite. I never found out what Gail said or showed to the unnamed fed, but back in the 80s when first Mafia and then South American criminal elements tried to move into the banking business, Old Man Hunt had simply made phone calls and suddenly they went away. I knew he had been a smart man. He liked to find out secrets and keep them tucked away for future use. I had never had any curiosity about what secrets he kept. I thought it was healthier to pretend I knew nothing about them. We approached the summer of 2009 and I got a call from Nicole telling me that Brandy Summers, her best friend and our almost-adopted daughter, was getting married in New York City. Brandy was a lithe redhead who had been Nicole's best friend before her parents had suffered an acrimonious divorce in the summer of 1994. In the middle of the divorce, her mother had been diagnosed with a particularly malignant form of breast cancer, while her father had moved to Brazil after falling in love with a 24-year-old graduate student he'd met while teaching a course at the University of North Florida. Brandy had no other close kin and with the approval of her mother, the benign neglect of her father, and an okay from distant maternal grandparents, the 15-year-old moved in with us and lived with us for three years until she went off to college with Nicole. She was as close as you can get to being a daughter without having blood ties. "She's met this great guy from Boston. He's a college professor, teaches English. He actually lived and taught in Jacksonville for a while. He's divorced and she met him when he came on the staff at the private school where she's been teaching for the last five years. She put up a fight. After all the assholes she's been involved with over the years, she was very gun shy, but she's head over heels. Anyway, she wants a June wedding. She's going to have it at the home of the Dean of the school where she's teaching and she wants you to be there, to give her away, as her father." After a moment, I had to ask, "I'm honored, but what about her father?" "She hasn't heard from him in five years. That was when he emailed her that his new bride had just had twins and that between those and his job in Sao Paulo, he just wouldn't have time to keep up the connections with her. As if the son of a bitch had stayed in contact since he left the country. No, you're the closest thing she has to a father. She wants you." "Of course. I'll be glad to give her away. Let me know the time and I'll be there with bells on and a very nice wedding gift." Three days later I got another call from Nicole and I knew it was bad news before she said more than a few words. "Dad, I don't know how to ask this, but.." "What?" "Brandy wanted both of you at the wedding. You know how close she was to mom." I knew. As much as I think she loved me as a surrogate father, Mary had been her mother in everything but blood. Brandy had needed a woman during that period in her life as she became a young woman, and Mary had been there for her. "I think I know what you're going to say. Tell me." "Brandy didn't -- I didn't -- I couldn't believe that Mom wouldn't...she wouldn't be able to put the past aside. But.." "She won't come if I'm there." "I'm so sorry, Dad." I thought about it for only a moment. It was Brandy's day, the most important of her life, and she needed Mary more than she needed me. Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 03 "Tell Brandy I'll be there in spirit and I'll visit with her and her new hubby later this year. Tell her to get good pictures for me, okay?" "Okay Dad," and I could hear her crying. It was on a warm Sunday in July and the Dean's house was a big old, comfortable New York upstate farmhouse transformed into a 21st century mansion. It was in the center of what had been an apple orchard at one time. Guests parked all around and the back yard had been transformed into an open-air chapel. I came in by taxi, walked in quietly when I knew most people were gathering for the ceremony. I stood at the back window and watched as Brandy and her slightly shorter Professor fiancée exchanged their vows under an apple tree groaning with red fruit. After the vows, there was a meet-and-greet line and I slipped in at the end, holding her wedding present wrapped in green and blue paper. Family and close friends stood at either side of the happy couple. Brandy looked up and realized who I was. "Hugh," she almost shouted, and then ran to me. As she ran I looked beyond her, to the tall, brown haired woman dressed in a light, summery creation of sheer fabric and embroidered flowers. When she heard Brandy's call, her gaze turned from a woman who had been shaking her hand toward me. Maybe Nicole and Peter were right and she had had a hard life these last almost two years. Maybe she had aged and lost the sheen of youth, the tight skin and clear eyes that had made her seem a decade younger than she was but, if she had, I couldn't tell it. We stared at each other for what had to be decades. I couldn't take my eyes off her and she didn't move her gaze an inch in either direction. Then Brandy was in my arms and I had lowered my gaze to kiss her forehead. We babbled. When I looked up again the tall brown-haired woman was gone. I met Brandy's young professor, talked with Nicole and Simon, had one piece of cake and then made my excuses. I had urgent business back in Jacksonville, I'd only flown up to say hello, and I would see them later. When both Brandy and Nicole refused to believe those lies, I looked up at a sea of strangers and said, "There are a lot more wedding festivities to go. Mary won't come out again if I'm around. I'm not going to spoil things for you. I was here, I gave you a kiss, met your young man, and now it's time to go." As I was getting ready to go I remembered the package I had brought with me and gave it to Brandy, asking her to put it into the pile of wedding gifts they'd open later. She shook her head and said, "No, Hugh. This is from you. I want to see it now." Like a kid tearing into a present on Christmas morning, she destroyed the wrapping. Nicole and Simon and Brandy's new husband looked at her with amused eyes. Then she held the framed photograph up in the afternoon sunlight and began to cry. Nicole took one look at it and began to cry and put her arms around her. Simon and Brandy's husband just looked at the picture and then realized what it was. It had been taken when Mary and I were a loving couple, with our almost grown two daughters and Peter standing between us. It was a Christmas photo, of a time long gone. I hugged her one last time, saying, "For the good memories we had," and then I left and on the flight back to Jacksonville I closed my eyes and saw that brown-eyed, brown-haired lady in the lace and flowers like the after image of a nova that has burned itself into your retina. I couldn't erase that image, but I didn't really want to. ################ CHAPTER 7 AND 8 COMING Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 04 (c) 2012 INTRO: Hugh Davidson is a 50-ish banker with the powerful and influential Hunt Bank in Jacksonville. After discovering his wife, Mary's, six-month-long affair with a Chicago education executive, he walks out on a 36-year marriage and tries to drown his sorrows, permanently. Mary transfers her home and work to Chicago, moving in with her lover and pushing Hugh into a rapid and total parting of the ways. Despite his inability to find someone to replace Mary in his life, life goes on for Hugh and his bank, struggling to stay afloat in the face of the economic tidal wave hitting the U.S. in 2008. Hugh learns from their grown children that she has left her lover and left Chicago for San Francisco. Despite her refusal to see him, he catches a glimpse of her at a adoptive daughter's wedding in New York. AUTHOR'S NOTE: My continued thanks to curiouss for correcting mistakes. Any that may have slid through are my responsibility. CHAPTER SEVEN: SAD STORIES I had thought it would be harder, seeing her in the flesh. She'd been a memory for two years, and a painful memory at that, but somehow....somehow, I felt better. I realized that hearing about her, imagining what she had become, visualizing what she looked like after two years, was not the same thing. She could have been dead for the past two years and everyone could have been lying to protect my feelings. Crazy, I know, but things like that crept into my thoughts sometimes late at night. I could have used a private detective to get pictures of her, but I couldn't make myself. She had cut herself out of my life. It was stupid. I had forced myself back into her life for just a moment, only long enough to convince myself deep in the part that doesn't accept logic, that she was still alive. Well, now I knew, and maybe I still loved her. Maybe I could never breathe the same air again but we were in the same world. It was enough! Life went on. It was August and, as usual, hotter and muggier than hell. Gail as was her habit invited some of the officials highest up the totem pole and closest to her on an all-expenses paid junket during the most miserable part of the month. In the past she and a couple of dozen staff and spouses including myself, and once upon a time Mary, had vacationed in the South of France, in Alaska, in Hawaii and on Bora Bora. This year she'd booked rooms for her group on the Bonne Chance, a French-owned cruise ship that came through very rarely, the previous time being four years ago. Because she was a friend of the ship's owner, the Bonne Chance sailed on a special two-week tour of the Caribbean, instead of the regular week-long excursion. She'd invited me, but for some reason I didn't feel like it. I went down to Saint Augustine, rented a condo on the beach and spent a week by myself. I didn't turn on the TV or read the paper. I walked the beach from early morning until late at night. I pondered deep thoughts and enjoyed the feel of beach sand between my toes. At night I hit the bars at St. Augustine Beach and one night drank Brandy with a hooker named Renée and the DEA agent who'd left his wife and career to be with her, even though she was dying of AIDs. One day I was out walking the beach and had made it about three miles from my condo. It was hot and I was sweaty and thirsty. I walked over to one of the carts they allow at access points and was about to pay $2 for a snow cone when I realized I'd left my wallet. "Here, let me," said a young dark haired guy in shorts and some loud Hawaiian shirt. He passed the kid behind the cart two dollars. "That's okay, my treat, don't sweat it." "Thanks, walked out without my wallet. Are you here on vacation? Family here?" He nodded. "Nobody's out on a Thursday unless they're on vacation, right?" "Not in the middle of the day. You're not a Yankee because you don't look like a lobster. From around here?" "Jacksonville, Kevin - you?" "Hugh Davidson. Same, small world. Wife and kids back in the condo?" A funny look crossed his face, "No wife, one boy. He's not mine, but he is." The kid, a smallish dark haired boy whom I thought actually looked like Kevin ran up and gave me a suspicious look, and stayed to the other side of Kevin. "Can I get a cone, Kevin? I met this girl, Caroline, she's over there but she doesn't have any cash. Could you get her one too?" He smiled at the boy. "Just a snow cone, Rob? You're not going to ask me for cab fare to take her to the movies later, are you?" "Kevin, get real. She's 14. She's not going to go out with a 13-year-old. Besides, she's got a boyfriend back in Charlotte." I found myself saying, "It's been known to happen." Rob gave me another quick look. I didn't need to be a mind reader to detect the almost flinch when I surprised him by speaking. Whoever he was, he'd had bad experiences with grown men. "I wish, but..." Kevin brought two snow cones and gave them to the boy. "Have fun. Be back at our condo no later than 6 p.m. tonight and keep that phone where I can reach you at all times. Understand? About the girl...she's cute but she's an older woman. So...be careful." The boy made a face and ran off with the cute, freckle-faced blonde who had altogether too many curves for a 14-year-old. "Not yours? Seems pretty much father and son to me." "The kid grows on you. He's not mine by blood, but...I'm in the Guardian Ad Litem program and I got assigned him. I wound up getting him out of a pretty nasty situation with a stepfather and the court assigned me as his guardian. He's a good kid, although he's still got some problems." "Seems like the kid lucked out." "We both did. I was wandering...down pretty far when I grabbed onto the Guardian Ad Litem deal. It probably saved my life." We walked and talked for a half hour and before we split he said, "Rob's pretty good on his own. Meet me at Murph's, down near Crescent Beach, for a couple of beers tonight. Our condo is a block over. You free tonight or have a hot date?" "Tons, but you can't do hot sex 24/7." He just shook his head and said, "What world do you live in?" but smiled as he walked away. We were on our third Icehouse drafts when he said, "Pardon me for being nosy, but I notice you're wearing a wedding ring and your wife is nowhere to be seen." "No mystery. I'm divorced, two years ago now. I never got around to taking it off but don't plan on remarrying so it shouldn't be a problem." "Can't get over her, can you?" "Probably not but I'm still young. I might yet do it." "If you figure it out, tell me how." "Divorced?" "Yeah, but she was dead first and then I had to divorce her." "You know I have to know the story." "Not much of a story. Just sad as hell." "Come on." "We got into a fight and she stormed out, vanished. No one had seen her, knew where she was or what had happened. I didn't see her for three years. When I did, she was a different woman. She'd....lost her memory. Got into bad, bad trouble and some hero rescued her. Not me! Now she has a kid and a man she loves and wants to marry, and she doesn't even know who I am. I looked at her when a cop brought her and her hero into my kitchen and asked me to sign papers to allow her to divorce me and marry her new man. I wanted to refuse and tell her new man to go to hell. She was my wife! However, the cop told me I'd be taking her away from the man who loved her and saved her life, and asking her to live with a stranger. What kind of love was that? You know, he was right, I'd lost her the moment she walked out the door. The fact that I loved her didn't change anything. She -- the woman I'd loved -- was dead and gone." He drained his beer. "So I have my job and my Guardian Ad Litem duties and a 13-year-old teenager to try to keep in line. It's a fairly full life as long as I don't think of what I lost." I clinked my chilled mug against his. "Here's to never looking back." In case you think it was nothing but pain and sadness, there were the good stories. For example, the night a man, who sat drinking with one of the most beautiful redheads I'd ever seen, bought me a Brandy. When I couldn't help looking at the long, knife-shaped scars on either side of his mouth, he told me the story of how he'd acquired the beautiful redhead and what he called "The Scars of Love." His girlfriend, or wife, I never figured out which, stroked the scars with supple fingers and smiled lovingly at him, telling me, "I have to watch this scoundrel like a hawk, Mr. Davidson. Those scars are like catnip to women. He tells me he keeps them as a reminder of how we met, but I know he just likes flirting with strange women." They were in their early 30s at the most, and I had a flash of jealousy almost too strong to stand as I thought of all the years they had to look forward to, while I could only look back. Exactly one week after I'd checked into my St. Augustine condo, I walked back into the corporate headquarters of the Hunt Bank and expected that Gail and her group would still be gone. Everyone was, except Gail. I had checked in with her secretary about something but she indicated that Gail was in her office. It was early, only 8:30 a.m., but Gail had always been early to work. It was a habit her grandfather had drilled into her. I could have walked in, but this was strange. I knocked but, after a moment, she said, "Go away." I opened the door without words and, when she glared up at me from behind her gleaming polished black marble desk, I said, "Who do you want me to kill?" "I'm not good company right now, Hugh." I sat down across from her and, after a long silence, I said, "I thought you'd be gone another week." She rubbed her lower lip and bit it. It was a habit she'd had since she was a little girl. Other women would have cried. "I ran into something that disagreed with me." "Why didn't you just make it go away?" "The son of a bitch wouldn't go away." "THE son of a bitch?" "Himself." I didn't' say anything. Percy and his new boyfriend and Bobby and Chauvonne had been on the cruise. If Cameron had tried anything, they'd have pitched him over the side. "What did Cameron do?" "Not Cameron." Her mouth puckered up as if she were sucking a lemon. "Robert." "Robert? Your Robert?" "Of all the ships sailing the Seven Seas, he has to show up on the Bonne Chance. What are the odds?" "You had to run into him sooner or later, Gail." "Not on the Bonne Chance. That damned loser shouldn't have been able to afford a cabin in the crew's quarters. He shouldn't have been able to afford a regular cruise on a goddamned teacher's salary, much less the Big Cruise." "Maybe he saved up his quarters?" "Hugh, I booked the most expensive cabins on the ship, $2,000 a night, and he was sleeping above me, in the owner's suite. It rents for $5,000 a night." "On a teacher's salary?" She closed her eyes as if she was trying not to scream. "He got rich, Hugh, some stupid video game idea, and he was sleeping over my head - with a fucking bimbo whose tits were bigger than her head. She was the friend of some Hollywood piece of shit who got him into the room, and he smiled at me -- SMILED at me - while that bitch was rubbing herself all over him, deliberately." I tapped the desk with my fingers to seize her attention. "Gail, you're got more money than God, you have guys left and right, and you've been divorced for five years. Why does it bother you so much? He's history." She shook her head, then swiveled in her chair to look up at the portrait, of her grandfather, that was the centerpiece of the room. She was quiet for a long time and I was ready to leave, figuring we'd exhausted the conversation. "I know you think I was a total bitch to him, Hugh. I know you and everyone else thought so, too. Would it surprise you to know he had a woman?" Like learning that he could jump 10 feet straight up, but I didn't say it. Robert Sandler had been as loving, and as straight, a husband as I could imagine. I couldn't see him cheating on a woman he'd loved as much as Gail. "I don't expect you to believe it but Cameron and I weren't lovers, then, although he was hot after me. It's just that - Robert was spending too much time at school - he should have been through by 3:35. Even with grades and other stuff, he should have been leaving by 4 or 4:30 p.m. We....were drifting and he was spending a lot of time away from me. Then Cameron asked me why he didn't get home until 6:30 or 7 p.m. a lot of nights. I knew Cameron was trying to get into my pants, but I got to thinking and I asked Robert. He said he was working on school stuff, sometimes with other teachers." "Then Cameron said he was cheating on me, so I had Robert bugged up one side and down the other and I heard him with her. He was with another teacher -- Cynara, Cynara Keyes. No, they weren't doing anything but talking. I didn't hear them kiss, but they talked - God, did they talk! When I nagged him enough, he admitted that they spent more and more afternoons after school just sitting and talking in his classroom or hers, or going out for coffee. They were talking, just talking, but she was in love with him. She told me that to my face. At least she was honest." She swung around to face me and this time there were tears. "He actually said, he actually said to me, that it was easier to talk to her than to me, that he had more in common with her than with me. He was more COMFORTABLE with her than with me." She glared at me. At that moment I was just another no-good male. "Don't you tell me that I was the bad guy. Maybe I fucked Cameron first, but Robert was involved with that bitch and he could lie all day long that he wasn't in love with her, but I knew better. I knew better from the moment he said her name. He deserved everything he got, from me, from Cameron, from Cameron's friends. He deserved every bit of pain that Cameron put on him." I had never heard that version of the story before. She had obviously never felt the need to enlighten me, even after Mary first left, when we had talked after she rescued me. It did put a vastly different light on it but, whatever the cause, just as with Mary and I, they were history. "Want me to kill him?" She stared at me for a moment, then couldn't help grinning. "Would you...please?" "At your command." After a moment she shook her head. "We are a miserable pair, aren't we, Hugh? Everybody else is able to move on. Why can't we?" If it was a test, I'd have scored zero, because I didn't know the answer. CHAPTER EIGHT THE SADDEST STORY It was 2:30 p.m., Thursday, September 17th. I will never forget the day, the hour or the minute that the phone rang. I was in my office so I picked it up and my secretary said, "Hugh...." Her voice broke and I knew something very bad had happened. She clicked me through and a man's voice came on. It took me a few moments to realize who it was. "Simon, what is it? What is it?" It's one of those times that make you believe in telepathy, or premonition. Before I could make out one word clearly, I knew who it was. "Nicole. What's wrong, Simon? What's wrong with Nicole?" "It's - she...Hugh, come up here! Please!" "What is wrong? What happened?" "We're at NY - NY Presby...byterian. Nicole, she's hurt...hurt real bad. I.." then his voice broke. A moment later another man's voice came on. "Mr. Davidson?" "Yes, who is this? What's happened to Nicole?" "This is Dr. David Sloane. We're here at New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell. Your daughter has suffered severe injuries in a traffic accident." "How severe?" "Really severe. She has fractures and there was substantial damage to the left side of her face, but -" "There's more?" "We know she's also sustained some degree of brain damage from the accident - we just don't know how bad. You should really get up here as soon as you can." He didn't have to add anything else. "Let me talk to Simon again." "Dad...!" "Just hold it together, Simon. I'm on my way - whatever she needs, money is no object. Let them know that. Tell them, money is no object!" I was walking quickly toward Gail's office when first Percy and then Bobby intercepted me. "How bad, Hugh?" "Bad as bad can be - I've got to get up there." Bobby peeled off. "Tell Gail and I'll have her jet fueling on our runway and ready to go by the time you get there." Percy was with me when Gail stepped out of her office. "Something's happened to Nicole?" "She was hurt -- bad -- in an accident. There's...", just for a moment I couldn't get the words out because, somehow, saying it made it more real, but I rallied, "...brain damage, they don't know how bad. The doctor just said to get up there as soon....as soon as..." "Where is she?" "New York Presbyterian.." "Percy, use my corvette. Don't stop for any lights and, if any cops chase you, keep going. I'll call the Sheriff personally and clear the way. I want Hugh in the air in 15 minutes. Hugh, get to New York. I'll get on the phone and see what I can do." Before I could turn she had her arms around me. "Let them know, money is no object! Get her the best and don't take any shit from anyone. I've got your back. The Hunt Bank has your back." Before we reached the airstrip my cell buzzed and I heard Gail say, "Bret Wallinsky is one of the best brain men in the world. He's based In London but he just happens to be lecturing at Harvard. I just got off the phone with him. He owes me a favor. He'll be at Presbyterian about the same time you get there. If there's anybody in the world who can bring Nicole back, it's him." I tried to make my mouth form words. "Don't say it, Hugh. You give loyalty to the people who give it to you. You heard my grandfather say that. He lived it! I'm going to!" I sat in a passenger chair with only the pilot, co-pilot and one stewardess aboard. She made me drink a stiff Scotch and then eat some cold wild salmon filet and Castelmagno cheese crumbled on crackers. I wasn't that hungry, but I knew I'd need the protein because I didn't know when I'd eat again. I tried to organize my thoughts, but they kept revolving in my head. Of all the things I could have been thinking of, memories of Nicole as a little girl, of her getting married, the million and one things that could have run through my mind; I thought of an old television show. It was an old Don Johnson show that ran in the late '90s called "Nash Bridges." He played a smart-ass character, who was really the same character he'd played in Miami Vice, only older and divorced, with a grown daughter. He was Sonny Crockett, grown older and semi-tamed. What stuck in my mind was an episode in which his daughter and another girl had been injured in an accident, but the hospital got their identities confused. A spokesman came out to tell him that his daughter had died. I thought at the time that, for a cheesy formula television show, this one episode drove a needle through the heart of every parent watching. Johnson's despair at the thought of a life after his daughter was gone was real. I kept remembering his anguished cry, "What am I going to do? What am I going to do without her?" I didn't say it, but the same cry kept echoing through my mind. Then I was at the hospital, where Gail already had a private security guard standing at the entrance, waiting to take me directly to the critical care unit where Nicole was fighting for her life. Simon didn't see me until I was on top of him and when I grabbed him he held me tight and shook like a leaf. "Hugh, Hugh!" "Where's Austin?" "He's....my mother...she's watching him at her place." Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 04 "Hang on, Simon. My boss got one of the best neurosurgeons in the world on the way here. He'll be here any minute. She'll be in good hands. What happened?" He rubbed the tears from his cheeks. "She was.....walking back from lunch. A cab....the cabbie....cops said he had a heart attack, jammed the accelerator, hit her just before she reached the curb. She...she was thrown 30 feet through the air. She was....she was.......so broken...." Just hearing the words, without seeing it, made my stomach turn. "Mr. Davidson?" Bret Wallinsky was a tall Brit, wire haired, big nosed, and the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. He was dressed in slacks and an open necked shirt, under which I saw a large silver Star of David pendant. "Gail called me and gave me the details. I've been on the phone with Dr. Sloane and some specialists here. I don't have my team here, but I'll do what I can and the key people are on their way from London right now." "Thank you, doctor." He shrugged. "I owe your boss more than I can ever repay her. She came to my aid when I desperately needed a friend. I'll do everything I can to bring your daughter back. No guarantees because it sounds like she's suffered an extreme amount of damage, but I don't like to lose patients, it makes me cranky. If you pray, that wouldn't hurt." She was almost on us, her gaze focused on the doctors and nurses and on Wallinsky's back when she saw me and Simon. She froze, like the proverbial deer in the headlights. I wondered how she could have gotten here so quickly, unless she was visiting or had changed her place of work from San Francisco to New York. She wore jeans and a blouse, open a few buttons from the top and showing a little bit of tummy. It was 30 years too young for her, but she made it work by looking like a 30-year-old! She wore no makeup, no lipstick, her hair windblown, and she was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Simon looked up and saw her. "Mary! Mary...." She turned and walked away, first quickly and then almost running. "Mary....?" Simon said to her back, relief turning to confusion. He stared at me and something inside me snapped. I ran through the doors to the critical care waiting section. As I reached the hallway, I saw her almost trotting to the left down a long corridor. A couple of nurses stared at me as I broke into a run but I ignored them. When I reached the end of the corridor I looked first to the left and then to the right. To the left was another long corridor gleaming empty under hospital lights. To the right, halfway down the hall, I saw doors marked, "Men" and "Women". The door to "Women" was swinging shut. I walked swiftly toward it, not running because I didn't want to attract too much attention. I stood in front of the door, then pushed it open. A heavy-set woman in nurse's white stood washing her hands in front of the mirror. The door to one of the cubicles was swinging shut. She gave me a questioning look and was starting to say something. I pulled a card out of my wallet and jotted a number on it. I handed it to her and she accepted it with a questioning look. "Get out of here and call this number. Don't tell anyone what you saw. Call the number and tell the person that answers what just happened and you can expect a fairly comfortable bonus this Christmas. You call security, and your life is going to be a living hell from this moment on." She just stared at me and I could almost read her mind. "I'm not going to kill her or hurt her but, if I did, you'd be a witness and you're walking out of here to testify against me. Think about it. This is the biggest decision you're ever going to make in your life." Maybe she thought I was mob, or some spook, but she just cast one glance back at the cubicle and walked out. I walked to the cubicle. I could see her feet, clad in comfortable flat shoes, under the edge. I was sure she had locked it from the inside. "Come out Mary! You don't have to talk to me. You can pretend I'm not here but she needs both of us. Come back with me." There was only silence. I thought I could hear her breathing. "I don't know what your problem is, Mary. If - if it's that email I sent you...I apologize. I was just pissed, royally pissed at you, but it doesn't matter now. We need to go back, together!" No answer. I am not a dramatic man, not given to dramatic gesture. Still....! "Get away from the door, back up as far as you can Mary. I won't apologize if you get hurt if you don't." I gave her 30 seconds and kicked it open. The lock broke with a loud metallic clang and the door banged hard against the inside, then swept closed again. I reached out with one hand to push it open. She sat inside on the closed toilet seat, feet under her, her arms closed around them to make her as small as possible inside the stall. She was looking down. Even now, she wouldn't face me! I didn't touch her. "I am going back to the critical care waiting area, Mary. You're going with me. You're going to get up and walk with me. You don't have to talk to or acknowledge me. You can stand on the other side of the room, but you ARE going back now! If I have to, I will pull you by the hair or drag you down this corridor. Don't doubt me, Mary. You are going back with me." "Why?" One word! The first word I had heard her say in more than two years. "Because our daughter may be dying. She may die tonight. That little girl may breathe her last. If she wakes up for even a moment, before she passes, she is going to see both of us together! If it's the last thing she sees on this earth, she will see us! That's why!" I never expected it, but she reached her hand out to me and I pulled her to her feet. I backed out of the stall and let her pass by me. She was careful not to let our bodies touch. As I stepped out, I saw two hospital security guards heading for us, just before they were intercepted by one of the private security men hired by Gail. After a brief flurry of conversation the three men stared at each other, then at the two of us walking toward them. Then they turned around and walked away. I followed my ex-wife down the corridor, watching the way her ass swiveled as she walked. I'd always loved that ass. Probably not as well as Richard Kelly, but I had loved it. Simon threw himself into her arms and she comforted him the way you'd comfort a sobbing child. "It'll be alright," she said over and over. "God couldn't be that cruel, Simon. He isn't that cruel." We sat in the waiting area with another family and watched cable news. Mary ordered a hamburger for Simon, delivered by one of the two security guys bought by Gail. Simon ate part of it, then bent over one of the couches and threw it all up. The security guys cleaned it up. Mary made him lie down and eat a few saltine crackers, washed down with water but he couldn't be still. He was up and pacing and then he had to leave the waiting area. Mary walked with him. At 7:30 p.m. my cell rang and Peter said, "I've been in surgery and I just heard. I called a friend and he told me what's happening. I can be at the house in 30 minutes and I can take a friend's jet and be there in two hours." "I know you want to, but there's no need." I told him what was happening. "Wallinsky, I think I've heard the name. Gail said he was the best?" "Everybody says he is. Even if he wasn't, I wouldn't let you operate on your sister, Peter. How could you live with yourself if she...if she...died under your scalpel? That's too much for anyone." After a moment: "Alright, but I'm getting someone to stand in for me and Marlena, Austin and I will be there by tomorrow morning." About ten that night, after Simon had been back and left again four times, I finally found myself getting hungry. The security guys, who seemed to know everything, were back in an hour with a hot pastrami with sauerkraut, a huge, fat dill and a cold Pepsi. I wondered how they had known what to go get. I don't know why, but it tasted better than anything I could remember eating in a long time. Then I remembered that Nicole and I had shared one when I was teaching her the delicacies of fine dining at a Jewish deli in Jacksonville, when she was only nine years old. I had forgotten that. It's funny the things your mind pulls up at a time like that. I realized I was crying and looked up to see Mary staring at me with an indecipherable emotion on her face. She had told the security guys what to get. She hadn't forgotten everything about our years together. I'd always been able to read her before but, like the guy at St. Augustine, my wife had gone away and she was never coming back. She wasn't the woman I had known. At 2 a.m., a tired-looked Wallinsky walked into the waiting room. He ignored me and headed for Simon, who had slumped over, his head almost on his chest, until Mary tapped him and he saw Wallinsky. "She's not out of the woods yet," he said, putting his hand on Simon's shoulder. "We won't know, until I get my team in place, the extent of the damage to the brain from the bruising and bleeding. Fortunately, she's stabilized. She's tough. She's a fighter. She's got a strong heartbeat. I'm fairly confident she'll live." An embarrassed Wallinsky pried Simon off of him. Mary grabbed him and guided him to a couch. I shook Wallinsky's hand and tried to thank him. "Don't thank me until she's the girl you remember, and she's back with her family. I think she's got a shot, but she suffered a horrendous amount of damage." "But, like you said, doctor, she's tough. She'll make it. She is a fighter." He looked at me and nodded, "Like her father, Mr. Davidson. I don't think you realize the regard in which Ms. Hunt holds you. She looks upon you as much more than a valued employee." "Likewise." Then Wallinsky was gone. Simon had pulled himself together. "Hugh, I'm going to stay here. Mary will stay for a while. Why don't you go back to the apartment and get some sleep and you can spell Mary in a few hours." At 3 a.m. I stood wearing Simon's pajamas as I stared out at the New York nightscape through Simon and Nicole's balcony window. My reflection stared back at me. A figure appeared behind me. I hadn't heard anything, but she would have had her own key. I saw the nightlights flickering through her image reflected off the glass. Her features swam in and out of the moonlight as shadows drifted across the moon. "Ghosts and shadows. They seem to follow you." She shook her head. "You're the ghost, Hugh. Why won't you stop haunting me?" CHAPTERS NINE AND TEN TO FOLLOW Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 05 (c) 2012 PRECEDE: Hugh Davidson is a 50-ish Jacksonville banker who had what he thought was the perfect 36-year-old marriage with Mary. Until he discovers her six-month affair with a younger Chicago education official in 2007. After Mary confesses to the affair, Hugh walks out on her and she flies to Chicago to live with her lover and divorces Hugh. For the next two years she refuses all communication with her ex and it is only through their children that he discovers she has broken up with the lover and fled from Chicago to San Francisco. Except for one brief meeting with Mary, the two do not see each other until their daughter Nicole is severely injured when hit by a runaway New York cab in 2009. (Ed Note - My editor curiouss continues to do superb work in editing and cleaning up my prose. Any mistakes are on my head). CHAPTER NINE USUALLY, YOU HAVE TO DIE FIRST "Usually you have to be dead before you start haunting people, but then, I guess I've been dead to you for at least two years." She was standing beside me looking out into the darkness of early morning New York. "Your face is the first thing I see when I wake in the morning and it's the last thing I see when I close my eyes at night. For two years! Every day! Every night! Drunk or sober, I can't get you out of my head. I thought after I left Richard that maybe fucking other guys would do it, so I tried, but it's like you're a monster from some horror movie. You keep coming back." "None of this is my fault." "I know, that's what makes it so bad. If only you had cheated on me first. I'd still feel like shit, but...no, not you, Hugh. You've been a straight arrow for 36 years. I was the one who became a slut and betrayed everything I ever believed in, everything I ever cherished." I didn't say anything. "You could at least argue with me." "When you're right, you're right." "Lest you get too self righteous, Elaine cried when she came to my office to ask me to give you up. She really cared for you." I wouldn't look at her. "It wasn't the same." "You sent her sexy emails and flowers and made out with her in your Mercedes in her apartment complex parking lot. She told me she let you suck on her breasts and finger her to a climax. You let her suck you but, when you got close, you pushed her away and said you had to go. Then you called her the next day and told her you had to go away for business. That was the trip you made to Atlanta that weekend. "When you came back, you kept avoiding her and finally told her over the phone that you'd made a mistake and you couldn't go any further. You broke that poor girl's heart. Did you know that? She really cared for you. But you didn't have the balls to do what you got her set up for, did you?" "No, I guess I didn't." I watched her features shimmer in the moonlight on the glass. I had gone two years without a word from her, and now we were talking like two bitter exes. It was hard to believe. "I knew I was hurting her but...I didn't have the...I don't know. I couldn't do it. I wanted to but I couldn't. I kept seeing your face in my mind when you found out, like I knew you would. And...!" "And?" "I knew it would be like eating one Lays Potato Chip. I know you remember that commercial. I knew if I did it one time, that first time...if I came in her mouth, if I pounded into that hot, very tight young pussy of hers, I'd never be able to make myself not do it a second time. Then I'd be lost, I'd lose you." I couldn't resist, even though I knew it was unfair since I knew now that she knew. "So, I gave up that hot sweet young ass for you, and guess what...I lost you anyway." "She came to me to ask me to give you up. She thought if I'd give you a divorce you'd give in to your burning love for her. She was already planning on two children and a home in Baymeadows. When I told her you were just going through your typical male midlife crisis, that's when she started crying, and she really started bawling when I told her about that blonde waitress from Hooters that you'd been seeing before her." I turned from the images in the glass to look down at her. She was nearly 60, but she could have passed for mid 40s. How did she do it? "But I didn't fuck her, or the blonde from Hooters, or the Ad exec from Channel 4 that I went out with three times when you were away. I didn't fuck any of them. I was wrong and I was stupid and I owe you apologies for every time I did something that a husband shouldn't do, but I never fucked any of them. I never crossed that line. I wanted to, but I could never make myself, because I loved you, and I wasn't willing to lose you, to lose us." "And I was! I was the bad one. I threw everything away. I know it." We stood in silence together. Finally she sighed. "I'm glad you tracked me down to that bathroom. It was so exhausting hiding from you." "Why, why hide? We got divorced, it happens. You cheated on me. It hurt but a lot of women do that and a lot of men. Why the disappearing act?" "I couldn't stand the thought of what it would be like to face you again. I kept seeing the look on your face, when I told you -- about him. I felt like I wanted to turn into ash and blow away. I never wanted to see that look in your eyes again. There was nothing I could do to make it better. I couldn't ask you to forgive me, I couldn't forgive myself. I just wanted to pretend that you had ceased to exist." "You did a good job." Another silence. "Do you think she'll be alright?" "I don't know. Wallinsky is supposed to be very good and, like he said, she's a fighter. I have to believe she'll pull through." "She's your daughter, Hugh. I believe she will." We stared back out at the lights of the city that never went out. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. "You know what I hate the most, I mean, besides the fact that we're here and she is in that hospital bed?" "No, I don't know you anymore, Mary. I can't read you anymore." "Any other couple, no matter how much they might have hurt each other, no matter how bitter their divorce, they could still hold each other. They could wrap their arms around each other and be strong for each other, but I know you couldn't stand my touch, and I couldn't stand the look on your face if I tried to touch you." When I didn't say anything she lowered her hands to her side and stepped back and away from the window. "At least now we won't have to slip around each other. We can be here for her. Even if you never get over hating me, at least we can be together for her and I can face you." She walked toward the hallway that led to their bedroom. I'd already put my things in the guest bedroom. "I'll sleep in their bedroom tonight. I'll see you in a few hours. Goodnight, Hugh." She stopped before she entered the hallway. "'Goodnight', that sounds so funny, so strange, after two years. I never thought I'd say it again." There was a wistful tone in her voice, but I knew that had to be wishful thinking on my part. ##################### Wallinsky's crew pulled in the next day, as did Peter and his family. When Peter and Marlena walked in, having dropped Austin off with Simon's mother, and saw Mary and me both in the waiting room, they just stared at us for a moment. I shook my head and they didn't ask any questions. About 3 p.m., I stepped out for a bite to eat and to get some fresh air. Peter walked out after me. "You aren't going to tell me what's going on?" "There's not much to tell. Your mother and I, we had a talk! She's not hiding any more." "And?" "And nothing. Nothing else has changed, Peter, except that we can be in the same room at the same time, but that's enough." It really was enough! We didn't talk much, but we could talk. Once in a while I'd look over at her and she'd be bent over talking to Peter or Simon and I could make out the swell of that ass in a dress or jeans, or the curve of her breast through her blouse, or the graceful curve of her neck under the thick, chestnut-brown hair that seemed as rich as it had when she was 23. For a second I could forget and feel the tightening in my crotch as I remembered the feel of her skin under my hands. Somehow, with that ESP that long-married couples develop, she would look up. I'd see it in her eyes, that look she'd given me long ago when she told me about spending all those nights with Richard Kelly. Somehow she'd sense it, see it in my eyes, and drop her gaze. So we moved around each other carefully, but Nicole improved every hour. On the third day she opened her eyes and recognized the people around her bed in her private room - in a section where there were no private beds, until Gail had asked for one. She looked at her mother and me, standing together in front of her. We didn't touch, but we stood together. The left side of her face was swathed in bandages from her scalp to her chin. They had shaved all the hair off her head, but I had never seen anything more beautiful when she opened her eyes and tried to smile. Wallinsky and an assortment of doctors stood around her bed observing her. In a group of medical prima-donnas, Wallinsky unconsciously took control. "The brain scans are looking very good," he said to Simon, but speaking loud enough that the entire family could hear him. "We won't know for sure until she's speaking and we can run tests, but I don't believe she'll suffer any substantial or long-lasting mental impairment. We were able to save both her left leg and arm, although she'll require several surgeries on both and probably she'll need rehab for six months to a year. She'll never run in a marathon again but, I understand she hadn't run in any recently, anyway." He smiled at us - doctor humor! "She will likely have some facial scarring, but I think we can save the muscles in the cheek. In a year or two it's likely you won't be able to tell there was any damage, unless you know what to look for." Simon and Peter were crying. I didn't realize Mary was in my arms until she was. I couldn't push her away, at least for a minute or so. Then I did. She wiped her eyes. "Tell Gail that I owe her big time. More than I can ever repay her. Maybe, someday..." I stayed another two days and we were very careful never to touch again. I flew back commercially after I'd had time to visit with and talk with Nicole privately. I told her what had happened and that I'd be back, in a few weeks, for a weekend. I walked back into Gail's office and told her what had happened, although we'd spoken regularly by phone. "I'm happy, Hugh. I'm also happy that you were able to, talk with Mary." "Your spies?" "People talk. Is there any chance...?" "No, there's no cold war anymore. We're just two divorced people now but, I can't forgive, or forget. She betrayed me, Gail. She came from his bed and lived a lie with me. I can't...get close to her again. I still love her but I could never trust her again. Still, I don't...I don't wish her ill. Let her live her life in New York, or the West Coast and I'll live mine here." And I did. Life went on. As the year drew to a close, the Hunt Bank stood solid, but we were bleeding too. Nobody stands untouched when the economy around them is crumbling. We cut our personnel and cut more banks. Gail worked longer hours, we all did. It got grim. Because we lived in a world of money, we saw what was happening more clearly than your average civilian. We were going to be able to keep our heads above water. Unless the entire U.S. economy sank, we'd survive but it wasn't going to be any fun. It got to be less and less fun as the year drew to a close. I don't know why, but it seemed to affect Gail more than the rest of us. Perhaps it was because she'd always been the 'Princess in the Glass Tower'. She had lived a fairy tale existence, provided by a doting grandfather. She'd probably needed it after what happened to her mother and father. The Old Man hadn't been able to replace them in her life, but he'd loved her as much as any human being could. Then she'd met Robert Sandler in high school, and he had loved her as much or more than her grandfather. So, she was incredibly rich, incredibly smart, incredibly lucky in love and business and able to play with hundreds of millions of dollars, business plans and long-range forecasts. She didn't have to fire people, close businesses or tell people that, in effect, their lives were over. That was my job and the job of people like me. She didn't hang out with poor people, or desperate people, or hurting people. She lived in a bubble. As somebody once said, the rich are different. I was wealthy enough to know the difference between rich and Gail's kind of people. She was human enough to bleed from the end of her marriage but that was the only time reality forced its way into her world. Eventually though, the stench of failure and desperation and the sheer ruthlessness that we had to engage in seemed finally to get to her. There were too many nights that she sat in her office, when everyone but myself and a few others had left, staring at a computer screen and sipping various liquors. There were nights I'd come in just before leaving, she and I the last people in the bank, except for the cleaning crews, and find her sleeping with her face in financial papers. I would awake her, walk her to my car and make sure her servants put her to bed. Those nights she was too drunk to argue with me. It was late November. I'd flown to New York to spend Thanksgiving with Simon and Nicole. She was out of the hospital and, while she still had surgeries to come, was able to get around with crutches. Peter and Marlena had flown in this year -- because of what had happened -- and when I got there I also found Mary waiting. It was the first time we'd been together as a family in nearly three years. I thought it would be worse than it was. Mary and I could be around each other now, but I wasn't sure how it would work with the family. Could we all ignore the elephant in the center of the room and tiptoe around her infidelity and our divorce and separation and, I hoped, my almost-infidelities of ten years earlier? I didn't think she'd ever told the kids and I hoped she hadn't while we'd been apart. I wouldn't appear quite the noble, suffering, hero if they had known I'd been fingering young women to climaxes without Mary's knowledge. Still, I kept telling myself, I hadn't fucked them, and I hadn't fucked them for six months while lying to my wife. Happily, the Thanksgiving period passed without mishap. The next week I was back to work. Came Friday night and we had wrapped up work. Gail was making preparations to go out. From her secretary I knew where she was going and was pretty sure she was going to go to a private club with one of her walking vibrators, take him home and fuck him. Unfortunately she would wind up feeling lonelier in the morning than she had the night before. I knew the feeling. Sometimes friendship is better than hot sex, hard as that may be to believe. I had talked to Percy and Bobby and they had already cleared their schedules. I arranged to meet them there. A few minutes after 5 p.m., I poked my head into Gail's office. She sat back in her chair, her back to me, staring into a desktop computer screen. It had gone blank while she tapped her fingers on the desk. "Plans?" "Nothing special Hugh, just...wrapping up things. Then I'll have Billy pull my car around and I'll go out with a - friend - for some drinks. A quiet night - guess I'm getting old." "You're still a child and I've already sent Billy home with the Rolls." She turned to face me, surprise on her face. "You did what?" "I sent Billy home with the Rolls, told him to park it and take the rest of the night off." "Why?" "We're going out tonight. You and me and a group of the guys and their better halves." She shook her head. "You don't have to do that, Hugh. I wouldn't be good company tonight." "That's why we're going out and you're not giving me any arguments. Remember, it's 'Uncle Hugh' talking." So we pulled out of the bank parking lot in my Mercedes and I wouldn't answer any of her questions as we left the downtown and headed south on 17, until we crossed over onto the Wild Westside and then I turned on the side street that led to the big barn-like structure that took up a good chunk of a block. "O'Brien's," she said, when she realized where we were headed, "Of all the places! If you'd told me we were headed for a low-rent saloon I'd have dressed better." I laughed at her. "It's not Ponte Vedra, or the Club at Avondale, but it's what you need right now, Gail. You need a honky-tonk where you can strut your stuff, get a lot of young guys real horny, we can all get drunk and Percy and Bobby can clear out a saloon. They haven't gotten into a real brawl in years. I think we all need it." CHAPTER TEN: HOT TIMES AT O'BRIEN'S It was jumping by the time we got there. I'd called ahead and asked the owner, a former professional boxer named O'Brien, if he could save a spot for me and he'd promised there would be a table or two when we got there. Of course, some urban cowboys had spotted the tables, brushed off the objections of the waitresses trying to hold it for us and were sitting and being obnoxious when we walked in. Normally, O'Brien would have cleared them out, but he had his hands full with a catfight between two ladies over some guy in the back and the three cowboys were sitting leaned back in our chairs and drinking Longnecks. Percy, Bobby, Percy's boyfriend and Chauvonne stood at one of the tables, looking at the cowboys with their store-bought Western duds but not saying anything. As Gail and I walked up, I heard one of the bigger cowboys tell Percy, "No saving spots in O'Brien's sweetheart, everybody knows that. Why don't you and your girlfriend head downtown! There's a really NICE queer bar down there. Take the nigger and his bitch with you too, unless you want to get hurt." Then he looked at Gail and me. "Grandpa, you can sit on the other side of the table, if you'll let Big-Titty come over and sit down with us. What about it, darling? You look like you could, really, really use a real man right now. Been awhile, hasn't it?" Gail looked at him and an evil grin spread across her beautiful features. "There's a real man around here? Where? I could use a good night's hard fucking, but all I see are three candy ass punks that couldn't keep it up long enough to satisfy a high school girl, much less a woman. Can you even get hard?" That's when the fun began. Percy threw the biggest one across the bar, which was a considerable feat seeing as how it was 10 feet away. His friend hit Percy from the back and knocked him down. He couldn't have held him down, except the cowboys weren't alone and two more dived onto his back. Then Percy's friend dived in, and he was no small man. The cowboy who'd insulted Bobby stood up and, in the same motion, threw his beer bottle at Bobby, who moved without realizing Chauvonne was behind him. The beer bottle hit with a solid 'thunk' and she went down holding her mouth. Bobby took one look, screamed and climbed over the table and began trying to beat the cowboy to death. Another two cowboys jumped Bobby but all they did was to slow down the process of Bobby killing him. "Oh, shit," I said, pushing Gail out of the way, and wading into the mess on the floor that was Bobby and three and now four of the cowboys and their friends. Like I said, I work out and stay in shape, and I'd boxed in the Army and then in the Police Athletic League for a few years when the Hunt Bank provided 95 percent of its funding. The first cowboy I pulled off Bobby had a glass jaw. A straight right to the jaw sent him to the floor and he didn't even move again. The second one was a little tougher, but after I buried the point of my shoe into his balls, he lay down and didn't want any more. Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 05 "Hugh" I heard Gail scream. I was turning and saw something out of the corner of my eye. It looked a lot like a mug full of beer coming straight at my head. I'd seen a guy walk into one of those in a bar fight in Berlin back in the 70s -- and he never got up again! This guy wasn't playing. Except, it never reached its target. A hand grabbed it and stopped it in its arc. I backed away enough to see what was happening. A guy who was big enough that he didn't need the weapon -- he had at least three inches over my 6-foot-2 -- was poised to put my lights out permanently, but for the dark-haired guy who had stepped between us. He was about my height, maybe an inch shorter. He had the bruises to show he'd been in some serious disagreement in the not too distant past. He wasn't muscle-bound, but he looked like he kept in shape. Right now he was staring at the guy holding the mug. "You don't want to do that! This was just a friendly brawl. You hit somebody with that, you're going away for a long time. Just walk away." "Let me go you cocksucker, or I'll put you down before I take care of the old man. You got two seconds." I heard a voice I recognized from behind me. "I ought to let you try to take him, but I already lost one plate glass window last month and I don't want another riot in here tonight. Take a good look, asshole! You REALLY want to take him on?" The tall backstabber took a closer look at the man holding his arm, then his glance flickered toward the front of the bar, where a long plate glass window ran the length of the establishment. Something...some recognition, flashed in his eyes. A short, dark-haired, limping guy more my age came forward, carrying a Louisville Slugger. "If, by chance, you make it past G, I'll put you down myself. You still want to fight?" The man with the mug, who looked more like a trucker than a cowboy, thought about it, then jerked his hand away and the man called "G" let him go. "Fuck it, it's not worth it. There are plenty of better places to spend my money, my money and my friends' money." "I'll hate to lose your business, but if that's the way you feel," and O'Brien pointed with the business end of the bat toward the front of the bar. In five minutes a dozen cowboys and their friends had made their way out after making numerous promises to see the queer, the nigger and the old guy again. We just enraged them by pretending to shiver in fear. I know, I know, it was juvenile as hell, especially for an old fart like me, but it felt good. Percy and his boyfriend rubbed the blood off each other's face and noses and Percy laughed as he caught Bobby's eye. Bobby had loved on Chauvonne's lip where the bottle had busted it, but it hadn't damaged any teeth. Bobby turned to me as I sat next to Gail, "Hugh, you gotta stop dragging us to these dives. Two upstanding banking executives can't be going around kicking ass in low life dives." O'Brien had come up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder with the Louisville Slugger, saying, "Smile when you call my low life dive a low life dive." "He meant no offense, Mr. O'Brien," Gail said, leaning forward so that lush acres of soft breast gaped invitingly. O'Brien grinned as he stared down into her cleavage and said, "None taken, Ms. Hunt." Gail turned to look at the bar and the dark-haired man who might have saved my life. "Who is your gallant friend, Mr. O'Brien?" she asked. "I'd like to buy him a drink. I'm very fond of Mr. Davidson, and I think your friend probably saved Hugh's life, or at least kept him out of the hospital." O'Brien gestured to him and he walked over in time to hear the bar owner say, "He's just a barfly who hangs out here now and then. I keep trying to talk him into accepting at least a part-time job as a bouncer, but he keeps saying no. Maybe you'd have more luck than me." As he approached her, Gail swiveled in her chair to give the man called "G" a great view of her assets. She extended her hand to his, he took it and, with an air of old-time formality, bent and kissed it. She looked at him with an incredulous expression on her face, grinned at me, and then told him, "An old-time gentleman. Please let me buy you a drink and would you do us the honor of joining us at our table." "Thank you, but that's not necessary, Ma'am," he said, unable to take his eyes off her cleavage but fighting the good fight not to be totally obvious. "I didn't do anything, and don't believe a word O'Brien says about me. He's got it in his head that I'm some super fighter. I'm just a guy who...got in a few lucky punches the other night." O'Brien shook his head, pointed to the plate glass window displaying "O'Brien's Bar" in large gold letters and said, "A month or so ago, it was G who pretty much protected two women from getting themselves badly hurt by some really cowardly assholes. He also wound up taking out the entire plate glass front of this place by hitting it with the body of a bruiser who made your friends look small and delicate by comparison." G just shook his head and said, "O'Brien, stop it, you're embarrassing me." "Please, Mr. -- G -- what is that anyway -- sit and let us buy you a couple of drinks." "Giovanni - Giovanni Palpatino. I'm not from Italy directly, born and bred right here in Jacksonville. I wouldn't mind a drink but I didn't do anything tonight. I just didn't want to see your friend get seriously hurt in an otherwise regular Friday night scrimmage here." He turned his attention away from those breasts to look at me curiously. "I could swear I know you. O'Brien said you're some banking guy? Where do I know you from?" I looked at him and he began to look oddly familiar. I thought about it and from nowhere, it came to me. I stood and made a feint at him with my right while putting up my left to block. He just stared at me for a moment, and then a smile broke out on his bruised face. "I'll be damned. You're the o-" He stopped and I smiled at him. "It's okay - I'm the old guy. We used to spar once in a while." I looked over at Gail. "This guy used to work with kids at the Police Athletic League boxing matches. He was pretty good in the ring. Are you still a..." I stopped and looked at Gail. I thought she was getting into the good-looking young guy, but it would come up sooner or later. "A teacher, no. I got out of the business a few years ago. I'm not sure I did the right thing - some days I know I didn't, but..." "Where'd you teach?" Gail asked softly. "Frank H. Peterson - what used to be the Westside Skills Center." "Did you ever know a guy named, Robert Sandler? He was a teacher there." "Yeah, I met him the first year I was there. He was a good guy. You know him?" "I did -- it's ancient history. Anyway, it was still good of you to step in," she said, laying one soft hand on his arm. I swear, you could almost smell the female pheromones flowing off her in waves. G must have sensed them too, because he hesitated, saying, "Ms...Hunt, I would love a drink, but..." O'Brien walked around behind him, placing one calloused hand on his shoulder. "What G is too much of a gentleman to say is that he's in the process of divorcing a cheating wife he's still a little hung up on, and he's in love with a female cop who doesn't seem to be returning the feelings. Young love! He's also trying to be a gentleman and give you a heads up!" Gail gave the young man a hard look. "God, men are such narcissists! I'm not asking you to marry me, G. I might drag you back to my mansion before the night's over and fuck your brains out, if you're not too much of a gentleman for that - but I just want to have some fun tonight. You wanna have some fun?" G just looked down at the table for a moment, then raised his gaze and met her eyes squarely. "I think I really need some fun tonight, Ms. Hunt, if I haven't already pissed you off." "Oh, you haven't," she said, taking his hand in hers and doing everything but making love to it on the table top. Things got noisy and alcoholic from that point, as G got Gail up for some line dancing for what I think was the first time in her life and then when slower music took over, Bobby and Chauvonne and Percy and his friend got up for some cheek to cheek action. I was sitting back, congratulating myself on being a Master of human relations, when I glanced across the bar's large and crowded dance floor, to see something that was impossible. Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 06 (c) 2012 (PRECEDE: Hugh Davidson is a 59-year-old executive in the powerful Hunt Bank organization in Jacksonville. Two years ago he discovered his wife of 36 years, Mary, had been involved in a six-month affair with a younger man. She left him and moved in with her love. Then he learned through his children that she left her lover two months later. For two years he's lived without the sight of her or the sound of her voice. With the help of good friends and his two grown children, he's made a bachelor life of sorts for himself in Jacksonville. Then, after his daughter in New York City is nearly killed in a traffic accident, he finally has a showdown with Mary. And learns that she knows about his mid-life crisis involving other women a decade before. And that, as he hasn't been able to put her behind him, she hasn't been able to make a new life for herself. They discover they can be in the same room together, but they live on opposite coasts. And then one night Hugh goes to a bar owned by a guy named O'Brien....ED'S NOTE: I want to thank my editor and friend, curiouss, not only for technical help but also wise counsel. The story is much better for his involvement.) * CHAPTER ELEVEN GHOSTS IN THE LIGHT I thought at first it was just someone who looked like her. There are a lot of tall, brown-haired ladies with great asses walking the earth and, if this one moved the way I remembered Mary moving, well, that could be a coincidence. As I looked at her more closely, I realized it wasn't a coincidence. Mary was dancing slowly, hip-to-hip and cheek-to-cheek, with a tall blonde guy dressed in a blue pullover and blue slacks. He had to be my height, or a little taller, from the way that Mary fit against him. They were moving slower than they had to. The song was Sarah McLachlan's 'I will remember you', "for the lovers", as O'Brien's DJ termed it. The song is slow, but they were practically statues, swaying rhythmically to the tune. I noticed he had his hand on her ass and she was rubbing her thigh against his. What the hell? She was supposed to be in San Francisco, or New York, or anyplace but here! This was MY town now, now that she had thrown me away and fled to a better life elsewhere. I knew it was stupid. We were divorced, long divorced. She had the right to be with anyone she wanted, to do whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted. You'd think, though, she'd have the decency not to flaunt herself in front of me! I gently tapped my forehead against my table. The woman made me stupid. She could have no idea that I would show up at O'Brien's on a busy Friday night. In any case, she had told me that she'd had other men since leaving me AND Richard Kelly! I had no claim, no reason to even be watching her. I tore my eyes away from her and started in on another Icehouse Draft, then pulled out my cell and punched in a number I hadn't called in a while. "I'm only answering this because I'm curious as hell, Hugh. You haven't called me in a long time. I thought you'd moved on -- to someone more age appropriate!" "And I thought you'd have met some nice young man and gotten married by this time, not be accepting calls from old boy friends." "Ha! Old booty-call bed partners, you mean! Old, old bed partners." I could sense her grin across the ether. ""Why would you be that mean?" "Maybe because I get mean when a guy makes it clear he's only after my pussy and drops me when he gets tired of that." "He would be a really bad guy, somebody who would do that. We don't have anybody like that around here. You know I stopped calling because you were just too much woman for me." "Because you got bored with me outside of bed, you mean!" "Because we missed each other by a generation, Brittany. Believe me, there have been lots of times when I wished you were either 20 years older, or I was 20 years younger, and that's no lie." "You should have been a securities salesman, Hugh. You could sell ice to the Eskimos, as they used to say. So, why are you calling me tonight? You couldn't be desperate enough to try to talk me into giving you another taste, could you?" "I'm sitting here at O'Brien's, on the Westside, with some friends and I'm alone. There's good music, the booze is flowing and I got to thinking about you. We never did much dancing, you know?" "We did plenty of horizontal dancing. You weren't too bad, for an old fart!" "Be still my heart! I know you've got to be busy, but if you weren't too tied down, I thought you might bop over here and I'd buy you a few drinks. A little change of pace for you if you're not busy." "Actually, I'm sitting at a table at Pelicans right now. My date went to get me another drink. He's hoping he's going to get me drunk enough to spread my legs. I was getting ready to bail on him, anyway -- Boring! So, actually, your suggestion sounds pretty good. I'll grab a cab and be over in 30." "I know you can handle it yourself, but since this is sort of a date, call me when you get here and I'll come out and pay the tab. Oh, and, how are you dressed?" A long silence, then... "My god, you really must be horny tonight. I'm in something tight and sheer and see through and silver and gold." "Does it show a lot of skin?" "Y.....essss! Oh shit, now I AM pissed. I have some pride, Hugh! I'm not going to let you use me to get some bitch you're really interested in jealous." "It's not...uh...yeah, I guess it is but, it's for a good cause! I'll explain when I see you. It's somebody who needs to be eating her heart out tonight. I want you to look as hot and slutty as humanly possible!" "It's not...okay, I'll be there. I want to see the bitch who ruined you for everybody else!" My cell phone rang two Icehouses later. I was moving fluidly, but was still FAIRLY sober -- sober enough, anyway. When I walked out and Brittany wrapped herself around me, I couldn't help remembering some of those sessions on her bed. Maybe she had learned how to hold an interesting conversation after sex by now. The cabbie gave me an envious glance and said, "You ever decide to bottle and sell whatever you got that attracts women like that, let me know and I'll buy a case." I leaned over and whispered in his ear along with the $100 I deposited in his hand, "It's called money - large amounts of it." He just shook his head and pulled away. I turned back to her, admiring her large breasts, which were -- ALMOST -- on the verge of falling out of her low cut top. The top was low enough that the pale pink circles around her nipples were almost completely exposed. If there's anything hotter than big boobs about to pop out of a woman's dress, I've never found it. "Put your tongue back in, darling," she said, running her hand quickly over my dick, which began to get hard at light speed. "Will this do?" she asked, with a grin. "More than adequate, Brittany, more than adequate." She grabbed my hand. "Let's go torment the bitch." We walked back in and straight onto the floor. There was a faster song playing now, but not out of my range and we moved around to it. Gail and G were out on the floor. Gail took one look at me and burst out into the widest smile. G just gave me the thumbs up. We'd been out there about ten minutes, two songs, when I happened to glance to my left. There, not ten feet away, was the brown-haired heartbreaker and her tall blonde ass-grabber. She was facing me, her companion facing away from me. Our eyes locked and I knew she had already noticed me. I looked away, pulled Brittany to me and put a lip-lock on her that should have scoured the enamel from her brilliant white teeth. She tried to climb into me while I was doing it and one large breast popped free while she was enthusiastically rubbing it all over me. We got a little smattering of applause for the exhibition. When I looked back at Mary, she was just staring at me, no emotion on her face that I could read. Her date gave me a decidedly unfriendly look but, at that point, I would have welcomed him starting something. She saw the expression on his face, pulled him down to her and tried to swallow his tonsils. When she finished, she looked straight at me and ran her tongue over those lips I remembered so well. It was as if she wanted to lick the taste of him off to savor, and she as good as said with her eyes, "So there, you son of a bitch! See if I care!" I was determined I was going to prove I didn't care either, so I went back to concentrating on Brittany. We stayed out on the floor another ten minutes before walking away, without a backward glance, to our table - where the rest of our party had already returned. Gail extended her hand to Brittany and said, "Brittany, haven't seen you in months. What are you doing slumming in a place like this?" Brittany smiled at her, undressing G with her eyes as she did so. The sheer aura of sexuality given off by the two blondes had to have cocks getting hard in all directions around us. "I just got an interesting invitation to see how the other half parties. I've never been in here before, this is fun!" "It is -- bracing, invigorating! I understand you've been out with Hugh before." "Yes, we had some fun, until he decided that I was too boring to be worth fucking. His standards are too high for somebody like me." "I love boring," came a call from a nearby table, followed by a lot of laughter. Gail stood and said, "I've had too many drinks and I've really, really got to pee. Come with me, you too Chauvonne, let's exchange a little gossip." Brittany turned to me and planted another kiss that covered my entire face before letting me go and saying, "Now, don't run out of here on another banking emergency while I'm in the lady's room." Then the three of them left us males at the table. Bobby leaned back in his chair and said, with a lazy grin, "Life is good. Life is good." "Sometimes I think it is, and then again...," said G. "Don't think too much," Percy said, kissing his friend on the side of his face. They held hands like young lovers, though Percy would never see 45 again. "You're here and then you die. Just enjoy what you've got, while you've got it, friend." "I see you're trolling the school yards now!" "Hello Mary," Percy said, looking behind me. Bobby sat up a little straighter and said, more coolly, "Hello Mary." Both of them had known her for nearly 20 years. I turned my head and saw her standing behind me, an expressionless stare on her beautiful face. "She's 29, not that it's any of your business. What the hell are you doing here?" "The last I heard, it was a free country, Hugh. Are you going to tell me now where I can go to get a drink and do a little dancing?" "No, you can go anywhere you want to drink and dance and...whatever. I have a pretty good idea what you're going to wind up doing with your friend. You were practically doing it on the dance floor anyway. I meant, what are you doing back in Jacksonville? I thought you wanted to stay as far away as possible...from your old haunts." "I'm probably going to be doing the same thing you're going to be doing, and at least I'll be doing it with a grown up." She looked at Bobby and Percy and, if I didn't know better, I'd have sworn she was embarrassed. "For your information, I'm back in Jacksonville because this is my home. I've lived here for nearly 35 years. My friends are here. I know the people at McDaniels here in Jacksonville. I'm tired of living in exile." "Well, don't let me stand in your way, Mary. Welcome back, but don't expect any housewarming gifts from me. Oh, and Brittany, that's the blonde, is all grown up, and she is better in bed than she looks, hard as that may be to believe." "Oh, I have no doubt she is a hot young thing. I'm just wondering why she's with you." I just stared at her and felt the weight of Bobby and Percy's gaze on me. G didn't know enough to realize what had happened but they did - I felt their pity! I pushed myself away from the table and stood. "I'm walking away now, Mary. You've managed to ruin a good night out, the same way you ruined our marriage and my life. Don't say another fucking word before I get away from here, because I'm not going to be responsible for what I say or do if you open that lying, cheating mouth again!" I made it outside on autopilot, not aware of who I passed or what I saw. It felt like she had jammed a sharp blade through my heart. I leaned back against the plate glass front of O'Brien's and took deep breaths of the cold November air. The miserable fucking bitch! With seven words she'd dredged up every bit of pain, anguish and doubt in my manhood that I'd lived with for two years, since another man effortlessly took my wife away from me. The woman who'd known me the best, who had loved me the most, had chosen to suck another man's dick; had wanted him, not me, between her legs. How do you answer that? No matter what we say, a man's worth, his sense of himself as a man, doesn't come from within. It comes from the women in your life, the woman in your life! Show me a man whose prowess and abilities in bed are scorned, laughed at, rejected by the women he's been in bed with, and I'll show you a man who's had his balls cut off. You can tell yourself as much as you want that their rejection doesn't mean you are less of a man, but you're lying. You won't feel like a man again until you find yourself between the legs of another woman, one who treats you like a man. "I'm sorry, Hugh." "Go away!" "Hugh, I didn't mean-" "You meant every damned word of it! I thought it was bad when you ran away but, now you're back, I wish you'd go away again!" She stepped in front of me. I wasn't going to close my eyes and try to hide from her. "I was trying to hurt you. That girl is so young, so beautiful and I'm old, my breasts are sagging and my ass is starting to droop and I'm getting wrinkles in my face. I am so damned jealous of her that I could spit!" "Mary, go away, please, just leave me alone." "I'll go away Hugh. I never meant to hurt you, to drag up - old memories. I don't know why, I have no claim on you. I knew what you were doing but, when I saw her all over you, I just saw red! I was so jealous I had to stop myself from coming over and getting into a hair pulling spat with your little playmate." I looked at her standing in the night in front of me and I found myself seeing her naked body under those clothes. I had known every inch of it, I had kissed every inch of it, I had come in her mouth and ass and pussy so many times. Even knowing what she'd done, even remembering that day when she had told me about Richard Kelly, I couldn't help myself from wanting her still. "You're right, Mary, you have no claim. You gave it up, you gave ME up! You put me through hell for nearly three years because you wanted another man's cock. I would have died for you, do you know that? No exaggeration, I would have died for you." "So this is the bitch!" Brittany was there, slipping next to me and putting her arm around my waist. She looked like the dictionary definition of "slutty." She looked Mary in the eye. They were both tall women. "You're Mary, the famous Mary. What the hell did he see in you? You're just a flat-chested, wrinkly old bitch and stupid to boot." Mary didn't say anything, she just stared back at her as people streamed by us in and out of O'Brien's. "How do you get that stupid, lady? He is a good looking man, and way past his prime but he still hits it pretty good in bed. You have any idea how many women would kill to have a man who looks like that, rich and successful with his balls still working, loving them when they get as old as you? And he does love you, the idiot." "I know," she said softly, "take good care of him. He deserves the best. He deserves better than I gave him." She turned and walked away. I looked at Brittany and I didn't have to say a word. "I know you're going to go after her. Like I said, an idiot. Just...I hope, someday, some guy loves me that way." She walked back toward the entrance to O'Brien's as I caught up with Mary halfway down the block. "Do you even have a car down here? Didn't you come with the guy you were with?" "Yeah, I was just going to wait until you went back in, then call Harry -- the guy I'm with -- and tell him I was calling a cab and going home." I grabbed her shoulders and stopped her, then turned her around. The tears were ruining her makeup. I dabbed at her face with my handkerchief. "I'm -- I'm sorry for what she said, Mary. You're not old and wrinkled and flat-chested. You're still hotter than hell and probably always will be. I still don't understand how you've managed to stay 45 while I got old." "When you looked at me at Brandy's wedding, I knew that's who you were seeing, Hugh. When that blonde was standing there, I knew you didn't see how old and wrinkled I've become. I'm not ready for a nursing home, but I look like a hag compared to her, and you don't see it." She reached out and rubbed her finger over the side of my mouth and it came back red. I realized I was still bleeding a little from a lucky shot one of the cowboys had gotten in. "That's what hurts the most, Hugh. Even now, you don't see me as I am. You see the girl I was in college, and you always would have, if I hadn't gone with Richard. I had the best husband, the best father, the best man in the world - and I threw you away!" "Go back inside Hugh, with your blonde, and Gail, and your friends. Go back to your life and let me go back to mine. I'll be alright." CHAPTER TWELVE SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T GET WHAT YOU WANT, BUT... The next day I walked into Gail's office without going through the secretary. "I don't believe in coincidences, Gail. You told her I was going to be there. Nobody else would. Why?" She had vanished when I had gone back inside O'Brien's. I assume she had gone home with G, since both of them were gone when I went back inside, so I hadn't been able to accuse her in hot blood. Now I was just pissed - and curious! She looked at me without embarrassment. "Yes, I knew she was back - has been for a couple of weeks. We've talked a few times and I went out to dinner with her at Benny's the other night." "And you didn't think to tell me that she was back in Jacksonville, or that she was going to ambush me at O'Brien's?" "You want me giving her daily reports on what you've been up to and your actions?" "It's not the same." "You've worked for me and been my friend for more than 20 years. Mary and I have gossiped and shopped and been friends for more than 20 years. I know she screwed up and hurt you, and I was royally pissed at her for a long time, but she's still my friend." "So why did you tell her we were going to be at O'Brien's?" "She had asked me to tell her when we went out." "Why?" She gave me that female look. "You're not stupid, Hugh." "That makes no sense." "She fell into another man's bed, fucked him and kept it a secret from you. She made a mistake and let her pussy think for her for six months, but remember you let your dick do your thinking for months while you were going right up to the brink of fucking other women too! Yes, you stopped just short and you never stopped loving her, but I don't think she ever stopped loving you either." "I don't believe it but, even if I did, it doesn't change anything." "It changes everything! She's trying to find a way back to you. She thought you'd see her at O'Brien's with another man, get jealous and approach them, then she'd have a chance to talk to you. It just didn't work out that way." "What if I don't want her back?" "Then, I guess...you'll go on living the same wonderful life you've enjoyed for the past three years." Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 06 I just stared at her for a few moments. We had always been on the same page, except for the period when she had dumped Robert Sandler for that asshole Cameron, but I hadn't interfered because it had been her life. "I don't give a damn what you do with Mary - be her friend, but it has nothing to do with me! If she listens to you, tell her I will never forgive or forget what she did to me. We have our kids and grandkids and I can be polite, but it will never go beyond that." I almost called Brittany the next weekend but something stopped me. We weren't, had never been, serious. A good romp -- hell - a good fuck in her beachfront condo would do us both good! At least it would do me a lot of good, yet I couldn't make myself call her. What had changed? When I figured it out, I still didn't understand why, and about what, I felt guilty. I wouldn't be using her. If anything, we'd be using each other. I'd never promised Brittany anything and there was nothing I could promise her, so how could I possibly be cheating her of...something! When I figured that part out, I felt even worse. I had somehow grown fond of this 29-year-old buxom, boring, brilliant young woman who just liked fucking. Yet, because I liked her, I couldn't treat her like a simple fuck-toy. Well, I told myself, I'll just go through my new and improved Little Black Book, where I'd accumulated names for three years. There were a few hotties and a lot more women closer to my age who were friends or friends-with-benefits. I went on a few dates in December but it was the last one, in the middle of December, that finally showed me the handwriting on the wall. She was 51, blonde and a little heavier than she had been 20 years before. She was fighting an inferiority complex her asshole husband had implanted within her before leaving for a 25 year-old secretary but, she had really big tits and she could cum just from my sucking on them. She was also losing inhibitions after discovering that she loved sucking cock and anal, after never having tried it before. After our second night together, when she'd had seven consecutive orgasms and learned she really was multi-orgasmic, she had told me she'd always be available anytime with 30 minutes notice. I lay in her Orange Park bed one cold December night while she planted those heavy, soft, marshmallow breasts around my cock, rubbing and squeezing as she sucked. I'd been pretty hard to start with but then I started deflating. She looked down on my Incredible Shrinking Dick and I could see the hurt in her eyes. I ate and fingered her to a couple of pretty hard orgasms, then loved on her while explaining that my failure to launch really didn't have anything to do with her. The problem really was with me, and I knew now what the root of the problem was. Unfortunately, knowing what the problem was and overcoming it were two completely different things. On Christmas Eve 2009, I was in New York. Since we were a family again, Peter and Nicole had decided they'd try to have alternating Christmas get-togethers and, for at least a couple of years, it would be held in New York because of Nicole's medical problems. Mary was there when I walked into their condo. I went over to give Nicole a hug. She still couldn't move well but she seemed, mentally, to be the old Nicole and that was all the Christmas present I'd ever want. I hugged everybody and, when it became awkward, went over to Mary to touch her shoulder and give her an air kiss. We had a Christmas feast that was partially catered and partially cooked by Marlena, who had flown in ahead of Peter to help with the preparations. Then the proud parents let Austin and Calabria open two presents apiece, with the promise of a real Christmas the next morning. Everybody had said their goodnights by midnight and retired to the main or guest bedroom. There were four bedrooms, including one used by Austin. We had been told that, for the few nights we were there, the children would sleep in their parents' bedrooms, meaning Mary and I would have our own bedrooms. I was staring out of the window at the New York nightscape. I loved Jacksonville, but there was something magnetic and irresistible about New York City at night. Mary came up to stand beside me. "Gail told me she told you." "Yeah." "I should be embarrassed, but I'm not." I didn't say anything. "I know I hurt you. I know you'll probably never forgive me. We'll never be the way we were but...I just want to be back in your life. No rings, no titles - I just want to be back." I looked at her with real curiosity. "Why?" "Because I loved you for a lot of years. Even after I betrayed you I never really stopped loving you. I had hoped I could, I tried. Richard...we were good in bed. I won't lie because you wouldn't believe me, but I never loved him, not like I loved you. I had men after him, hoping I'd find somebody who would free me of you, but I never did. I finally figured out it was never going to happen. So, since there isn't, and won't be, anyone who makes me feel the way you did, I had the choice of living my life alone and miserable, or trying to crawl back into your life." "Why shouldn't I let you enjoy the feelings I've had for the last three years? Short of killing you, there's no other way I can hurt you the way you need to be hurt." She looked up at me and there was a calm assurance on her face. She thought she had the answers. "Because you're still in love with me. I knew it the day I told you about Richard. I knew it at Brandy's wedding. I knew it that night outside O'Brien's. I don't know why, but you are. Gail knows it too. Anyone who knows you, knows it." I looked at her face and body and I ached for what I could never have again. "You're right Mary, I am still in love with you, so in love that the other night I couldn't keep a hard-on with a perfectly hot woman - simply because I knew you were back in my town. You may now screw up my sex life the way you did my emotional life for the past three years but, being in love is not enough. "A man has to have his pride. I can't go around lapping up other men's leftovers simply because you might make me happy. I can't forget and forgive that you lied to me for six months. "If you'd come to me and told me you'd fallen in love, or lust, with another man - it would have hurt, but I think I could have lived with that. At least you would have been honest! You'd have shown me respect, instead of which you made me a fool! 'I can imagine what you said with him while you were fucking, sucking his dick, and I was calling you or going about my business believing you were still my wife. I see the two of you laughing at me in bed. I can only imagine how amusing it must have been when I was doing my best to fuck you and you were thinking in your head how much better Richard Kelly's dick felt." I turned away from her to look out the window. "The bottom line, Mary, is that I trusted you. I was loyal to you in the most important ways. You know how important loyalty is to me, in my personal and business life, yet you betrayed me. There is no room in my life for you anymore." I left her staring out at the city lights. #################### New Year's Eve, Thursday December 31, 2009. Even though banks were closed, Gail and her top staff had met during the day to get a running start on 2010. I had called Nicole and Peter during the day. Both of them had pumped me for information about their mother and I, knowing now that we were both back in the same city. I had given them both the same answer. I hadn't even seen their mother in the month since our meeting at O'Brien's, except for Thanksgiving with them. I didn't tell them what had happened that night in Nicole's condo and I gathered their mother hadn't either. Neither of us had called the other before or after Christmas - we just lived in the same city. Gail had reserved a large room at Pelicans for a private party. A chauffeured limo, one of a fleet hired by Gail, picked me up at my condo at 7 p.m. and dropped me at the door. When I walked in to the party room, I had no idea whether Mary would show up, either solo or with a date. I had thought about inviting someone - even, for a little while, Brittany - but something inside me rebelled at that. I knew she liked me, God only knows why, but she did. How could I play on that and take the chance of it growing into something more when I already knew that Mary had spoiled me for other women. No, there could be no good ending to any relationship between Brittany and myself. I remembered what Mary had told me about Elaine coming to her. I had never meant for her to fall in love with me. I was only making myself feel better as a man by proving that a woman a little more than half my age could be excited by my flirting and moan when I thrust my fingers into her hot wet pussy -- just the way I had 40 years before with other girls, before Mary came along. Maybe it was just a mid-life crisis, but who the hell ever knows that when they're going through it. I just knew I felt alive when I was with her, when I saw the look on her face as I walked into her office. When I was with her, I could forget that Mary existed, that I had been married for more than half my life, that there would never be the excitement of that first time again, that I would never be young again. As long as I didn't fuck her, as long as I didn't slide my dick between those long lovely legs of hers it wasn't real, it didn't count! I know that is crazy. Maybe that's why they call it middle-aged crazy. It was all just fantasies, that's all it was. But if Mary was telling the truth, the truth I'd never known for all those years, Elaine hadn't realized it was all just a middle-aged man's fantasy. She had thought it was real. That's why she had never called me again after that phone call to her telling her I couldn't go forward. That was why she hadn't been in her office the next time I'd walked by and she'd accepted a transfer to a branch in Atlanta, but I'd never looked too closely into her disappearance. It was more comfortable after she'd left, I never had to worry about her going to Mary! In the days after Mary had told me about her meeting with Elaine, I wondered why Mary had never said anything, but really I knew. There are things you can live with, as long as you don't have to admit that you know them. If she was ignorant of my actions, if she didn't know what had happened, she didn't have to do anything about them. If she had confronted me, what could I have said in my defense? 'I'm afraid of getting old' or 'You're not enough for me anymore'. Both of those would have gone over like lead balloons. Would she have had to divorce me, or separate from me to protect her pride? Or would she had come to me and said, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I'm going to fuck other men and you'll never know anything about it." Would I have been able to accept that or would the suspicions, once planted, have poisoned our marriage beyond any hope of salvage? It would have been my fault but could I have withstood the torment of wondering, every time she left, whether another man would be between her legs in strange beds? No, her silence had saved our marriage, had given us a good 10 years after I had destroyed it without even knowing it! Now I couldn't make myself forget what I knew, root out the images of her breasts in another man's mouth, of another hard dick sliding slowly into the center of her while she moaned. So I knew and she knew - what in the hell was I going to do about -- anything? So I went to Pelicans alone on New Year's Eve, the one time in the year when you should always be with someone, even if only for the length of one kiss to symbolize the death of the old and the birth of the new. I stood at the entrance, looking around for someone I knew. I saw people I knew, mostly by face rather than by name. There were clients, customers, bank staff and business people from around the state. Gail walked over to me as I looked around. She was wearing something low cut, translucent and crystalline, embroidered with what looked like real gems. She looked literally like a million bucks, but her breasts, skin and blue eyes put the rubies and diamonds in the shade. It was ironic. If there was any one woman on the face of the earth who could have had a man to love and be happy with, it should have been the woman in front of me. She had everything, yet she had screwed her life up - some of her lowest level employees probably had happier personal lives. There had to be a moral there somewhere. "Here by yourself, Hugh? Why no date?" "Don't really know, to be honest. I just didn't feel like it. I might have a couple of drinks, stay long enough to see the New Year in and then go home. I'm getting a little old for New Year's blowouts." "That's okay - I'm here without a date myself. I think one might show up. If not, maybe you can give me a kiss at midnight?" "I'd be honored, Gail." So I met, mingled and talked pleasantly with ladies who I could have fucked if I'd shown even a little interest. I exchanged talk about politics and the 'Jaguars' with husbands and boyfriends who wouldn't have been happy with me if they could have read my mind. I danced several times with Coffee, who was there with the young attorney named Greg I'd met long ago at Pelicans that first night with Brittany. During one dance I noticed the looks she was giving him and said, "You finally getting serious about a man? I get the impression he might have been serious about you for a long time." She smiled at me, "He's an asshole but he grows on you. Why did you think he was interested in me?" "Just something he said to me one time." During a break I'd grabbed a glass of champagne and was walking up to Gail as she stood talking to Hank Clark, the head of a local boutique PR firm who did some good work for us. His tall, dark-haired wife Patricia, who was almost too sexy to be allowed out by herself, stood with them. As I approached them, Patricia turned and smiled at me. It was a friendly smile. During the time that I had gone a little crazy, she was one of the few women -- and the hottest -- that I had never even tried to play with. I had stopped myself, even though she was very willing at the time, because I had known instinctively that she was a marriage killer. Before I reached Gail, a familiar face came between us and I found myself taking his hand. "Hello, Hugh, you're looking well preserved." Then the grin took the sting out of his words as he added, "Hell, you're looking better than me. How do you do it? A deal with the Devil?" "Good clean living, Robert. You're looking good, prosperous. A little birdie told me you'd struck it rich." Robert Sandler was looking good, a hell of a lot better than he'd looked the last time I'd seen him, in a hospital bed. As his presence registered with Gail, who had been talking to Hank Clark, she stiffened then slowly turned to stare at her ex. "How the Hell did you get in here?" "You're slipping in your old age, Gail. You forgot to put my name on the 'Keep Out At All Costs' list." "Only because I thought that, finally, you would get it through your head that I never wanted to see you again!" "Still holding a grudge?" "Why are you here, Robert? Speak quickly, before security gets here to toss your ass out onto the street." He stood there, dressed a lot more stylishly than I remembered him in his school teacher outfits. His eyes ran up and down her gem-encrusted dress and the body it contained, then smiled. I could see her temperature rising. "It's been six years, Gail. I thought we could...have one dance for old-time's sake." "I don't want a last dance or a last anything else with you, Robert. You've already rubbed in your new-found wealth with your little big-boobed playmate on the Bonne Chance. I know you really enjoyed that! We have nothing to say to each other." He grinned, "Maybe I rubbed it in a little too nastily Gail but, honestly, you deserved it. You remember the last time you left me, in that hospital bed, unable to move because your asshole boyfriend, and his friends, broke my neck? Some guys would hold a grudge over something like that, but I don't." He stretched his hand out to her. "One last dance, Gail. I'm re-locating to Los Angeles in a few days, for business -- and personal - reasons." "With your little -- or not so little -- Bimbo?" "Yes, Sydni is coming with me. She's not a Bimbo. She's a sweet, very intelligent woman. The funny thing is, I think you two would have been friends - under other circumstances." "No, we're done!" He kept his hand extended. "I loved you Gail, and I know you loved me once upon a time. Come on, one last dance, for two people who almost made it. If for no other reason, for your grandfather! You know he always liked me, even though he never thought we'd make it." She looked at him and her eyes glistened. "You know this is such a bad idea." "We were always a bad idea but it never stopped us before." She took his hand and they stepped onto the dance floor. Hank Clark, who knew their story, looked at them as they danced, then glanced back at Patricia and reached for her hand. She took it and gave him the kind of smile she had never given me, even when she was trying to work her wiles on me. "You know those are two people who should, but probably never will, be together." Patricia looked at her husband, "You never can tell, Hank. Look at us - what were the odds?" "Sometimes people beat the odds," came from behind me. I turned to look at Mary. Despite the chilly weather, she wore the light, summery creation of sheer fabric and embroidered flowers she had worn to Brandy's New York wedding, under a jacket. 'Hello Mary." "Hello Hugh. Where's your date?" "Flying solo tonight - probably make an early night of it. You?" "The same. I really came to see if there was any way you'd put your arms around me and forget the past for one night." "You can never forget the past, Mary. You might be able to live with it, maybe even get beyond it, but you can't ever really forget it." "Then why don't you see if you can get beyond it for one night, just a few hours and then I won't bother you again." "You keep making that promise, but you keep coming back. You don't keep your promises, not even the really big ones." She stared at me. "I seem to remember you had a little trouble with that too." "Okay, so neither one of us is -- was -- perfect. What good will it do for us to share a night. It won't ever happen again." "Do you have to have a reason to want to hold someone?" She held her arms out to me and we melded as if we were one. It seemed that time went away. We were still dancing when Robert Sandler walked up to us and we stopped. Both Mary and I had known him well from the good old days. He said hello to her and then shook my hand. "I'm going now, Hugh. I had thought about staying for a few days, but there's no reason to stay any longer. I think I'll scrounge a last minute ticket and fly out tonight or tomorrow morning. Sydni has already gone." "Good luck, Robert. I wish you well." He looked backward and I could see Gail watching us. "I don't need to ask but, take good care of her, okay?" "As always." When he walked away, Gail turned her back on us and walked in the opposite direction. We danced every dance throughout the night. We never sat one out, although we broke twice for drinks and bathroom breaks. No one came up to ask her to dance, but I wouldn't have let her go if they had done. If this was the only night I'd ever have, I would use it to store up memories that would have to hold me for the rest of my life. Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 06 It was close to midnight. "You know it's coming up on that time." "Are you going to be able to do it? It's only a kiss." "Probably, but you scare me." "A big strong man like you, scared?" "No one in my life ever hurt me like you did. I tried to kill myself with alcohol that week. If I hadn't been a coward, I'd have used a gun." "I know! Why do you think I ran for two years?" "Why did you do it, Mary? That's what I've never understood. I thought we were happy. Was it revenge...for Elaine and the others?" She looked up at me and tears were in her eyes. "Not now, Hugh, just give me the rest of this night. Then, if you still want to know, I'll tell you everything." Then they raised and lowered the lights and the DJ was saying, "let's count it down -- 15,14,13..." and finally, "Happy New Year!" Then she was in my arms and it felt like we were trying to crawl inside each other. It was the best feeling I'd ever experienced...and the worst! She pulled her lips back. "Happy New Year, Hugh...my love." I wanted to say something but, as I lifted my gaze, I saw Gail standing alone in a crowd of partiers. "Don't go away, Mary, I made another promise." I made my way to Gail. She stood with an open bottle of champagne in one hand. She had given up drinking out of Paloma champagne flutes and was chugging straight from the bottle. "May I have a kiss? You promised!" "You have a woman, Hugh. You don't need to do this." "You're my friend, Gail. I'd like to start the New Year off right." She came into my arms. I tasted the champagne, and what might have been the salt of tears, on her lips. "Happy New Year, Gail." "It will never be happy again Hugh! Now go back to Mary. I'm going to look around, find somebody cute to fuck, and get out of here." When I returned to Mary she molded herself against me and said, "I feel so sorry for her. She's still in love with him." "I know. Now, where were we?" For a few minutes we made out like teenagers in the back seat of a car at the drive-in. Then it was 1 a.m. and people were drifting out, although the party went on. "What now?" "Could we go back to your place, your swinging bachelor pad?" "I don't know. I'm not sure there's any point, or if I can even get it up." She pushed her hip against me and felt my hardness. "Then what's that?" "I should have said, keep it up. I've been having a few problems in that area recently." "Now I'm feeling ready bad Hugh - was that me? It must not have been a consistent problem or little Miss Slut wouldn't have been so passionate in your defense. She had a crush on you, did you know that?" "You are so wrong." "Oh, not one of those schoolgirl crushes. She was too much of a slut for that but she had that older man thing going on." "Anyway, it wasn't a problem -- with her." "So I didn't completely destroy you." "You came close enough, Mary, and you destroyed us." She stood back and looked at me, holding my gaze without flinching. "Take me back to your place and I'll answer your questions. I don't know that you'll want me afterwards, but I'll answer your questions." I wasn't sure if I wanted those answers but I had to have them. It felt like we were walking into my off-campus apartment in Gainesville that first time nearly 40 years before. I held the door open and let her walk in ahead of me. She looked over the one bedroom third floor condo - the combination kitchen/dining room, bathroom with a sunken bath and terraced balcony. She just looked at me and I couldn't help saying, "Not exactly our happy home, is it? But it's all I need now." She reached out to take my hand. "Where's your bedroom?" "I don't even know if I want to do this, Mary. What good is it going to do?" "Can we just sit on the bed and talk?" I took her hand, leading her to the bedroom where dozens of women had spread their legs for me over the past three years. I felt like we were bashful college students again. We sat together and she placed my hand on her left breast - it still made a nice, soft handful. I felt her nipple harden in my palm but, suddenly, I saw the ghost of Richard Kelly sitting on the other side of her. He was smiling at her and she was on her back, her legs spread, looking up at him with love in her eyes. I pulled my hand away and lurched to my feet. "I can't do this Mary, I can't!" She pulled me down and pushed me back at the same time with surprising strength. I was off balance and fell backward. Her hand was on my dick, closing around it, squeezing and pumping. Against my conscious will, it grew and hardened. I reached down to remove her hand but didn't have the strength. Then she had it out, stroking it firmly, squeezing and letting go - then she had it in her mouth and it felt like the first time in my off-campus apartment so long ago. She lifted her mouth, saliva dripping onto my hard cock, and said almost angrily, "Don't think about him, Hugh! He's not here - we are - I am! I'm not Mary! I'm just some horny coed you've brought home from a party and you've been fingering me until I'm dripping - I want you! I want your dick, not your love, not your devotion, not 36 years of your life! I want your dick in my mouth, I want your cum. Give it to me, you bastard!" I knew what she was doing, but her mouth felt so incredibly good and she sucked like a pro. Then I rolled her over onto her back, holding her face with one hand as I half leaned over her and fed my cock into her mouth, slamming it hard into her, not worrying about being gentle. I growled, "Okay you slutty cunt, you want my dick, choke on it!" I probably was hurting her, but at that moment I didn't care. I knew who she was but, with some split view of reality, at the same time she was just a half-drunk piece of ass that I'd talked into my room. Whether she had a good time or not didn't really matter - I just wanted to get off. I almost screamed when I came, squirting so hard it actually hurt. She gagged but kept sucking. I slid onto my back and, without a pause, she raised her naked cunt over my still rampant erection and slid over it. I was starting to get soft but the constant up and down motion caused it to start to stiffen - in moments I was hard again. She pounded up and down at what seemed a supersonic speed, moaning out what could be "I love it, I love it, I love it," or "I love you, I love you, I love you." Even after that volcanic first time, I couldn't hold out and, in what seemed like seconds, I was cumming for a second time. I don't know how long after, but I became aware that I was still dressed in shirt and tie and my pants were down around my knees. She lay next to me, still wearing her blouse and shoes. She rolled her head back toward me, looking at me with no expression on that beautiful face. Then a slight smile flickered on her lips as she said, "Now that does remind me of the old days." "Except that back then, I was fucking you. You just raped me." She grinned, "Oh, puh-lease, you can't rape the willing, and you were very willing." I took a deep breath and slid a little way away from her. "Thank you, Mary. That was great, but..." "But it doesn't solve the problem, does it?" She rolled over and put her hand on the side of my face. "I said I'd answer your questions, Hugh, even if you never want to touch me again. I'll tell you the truth. What do you want to know?" I looked into her eyes and it seemed like the Mary I knew had come back, at least for a little while. "Was it because of what I did? Was it revenge for Elaine and the others?" "No." She kissed me gently on the lips. "I knew about you before Elaine. People saw you. You've not that great a philanderer. You forget, I had my own money. When I heard stories I hired a private detective. He did bug you. I heard you with the waitress from Hooters, with Elaine, and the woman from Channel 4!" She smiled at me. "I was angry at you but, honestly, it was funny at the same time. You were like a little boy whose mother has told him he can't cross the street so he goes right up to the street corner, puts a foot out, but always runs back to the safety of the sidewalk. You wanted to fuck them and you went through all the motions, did all the right things, but you couldn't QUITE get up the nerve to cross." "Jesus, that makes me feel as masculine as hell!" She shook her head a little as if she couldn't believe her ears. "I was supposed to feel bad that you loved me too much to seal the deal, when you could have had all three of them and plenty of others? I'm not stupid - Gail and others at the bank have told me over the years about the offers some women put out. After a while I realized you were never going to go all the way. It was just a matter of waiting for your mid-life crisis to pass, and it did." "Then -- why?" She raised herself on one elbow to look down on me and her tears glistened in the glow from the streetlights outside. "Because I was the slutty tramp who you thought I was, Hugh! That's what it boils down to. I betrayed you and your love and 36 years of marriage to fuck a younger man. It's more complicated than that but, really, that's what it boils down to. That's why I couldn't look you in the eye." "But, Jesus, tons of guys hit on you over the years. Some good looking really smooth types hit on you, because I saw some of them. Why did...why did you give up everything for him?" She lowered her eyes and I remembered the way Peter had said she'd been around him and Richard Kelly. What the hell was his secret? "He was...different." "Oh shit, you're not going to tell me he had a foot-long dick, are you? Was it just that?" She smiled a strange smile and I felt something freeze deep inside me. That was it, the bastard had something I could never compete against! I'd heard about it, of course. Before Mary, I'd actually fucked one divorced woman who'd been married to a guy so big that, when we did it, she had to squeeze her thighs together, she said, to get sufficient friction to get off. She liked what I did, but the bastard had ruined her for normal-sized guys. "No, baby, he didn't have anything special down there. He was about your size. That wasn't it." "Then what the hell was it?" She stared into my eyes. "He was you, Hugh! He was you!" I stared back at her, trying to understand. "Do you remember when we met, back at UF?" "Of course." "And you remember David, my fiancé? We'd been together for three years and it was settled that we would marry as soon as he graduated. We even talked about pushing it up a couple of years if we couldn't stand being apart that long. I did love him, or I thought I did, but then I met you." She ran a finger over my lips. "I knew what you were doing. Girls aren't that stupid. Wanting to be my friend, wanting to go see movies? I knew you wanted to get into my pants, but I wasn't worried. I'd been hit on before, but I wanted David. You were no threat and I liked you. You were funny, and a nice guy. You took me to movies and bought pizzas and gave me something to do on Friday nights while David was gone. I figured out pretty soon that, unlike a lot of guys, you weren't going to get ugly or pushy to get between my legs. You were safe - that's the word." She licked her lips and rubbed what looked like a spot of me out of the side of her mouth. "But I underestimated you. You got through my defenses. You kept pushing and, little by little, I wanted you to kiss me. Then I wanted you to touch my breasts, then I wanted to feel that big hard dick of yours. You never stopped, never got discouraged. I realized you were just going to keep on coming until you had me." She bent down to give me a long kiss. "You're not a woman, so you have no idea how...exciting...it is for a woman to realize that a man wants her like that. And I could see that you wanted me that badly, that you weren't going to give up and go away unless I made you. I should have, but by then it was too late. I didn't want you to give up." She pulled away from me and tears began to flow. "That's what Richard did, Hugh. He came after me and he never stopped. He was funny and charming and I told him to go away, but he kept coming back." She wiped the tears away. "I have no excuse, Hugh. I was single when I let you seduce me. I was married, happily married, when I let Richard seduce me. I made him work for it but I could have stopped him. I should have, but he was younger, handsome, big and funny. By the time I realized I didn't want to, I knew I was going to cheat on you. We just stared at each other for a while. Finally, she said, "I told you, you might not want to be with me again after I told you the truth." "So you did fall in love with him? Even though you told Peter and Marlena that you weren't in love, you were." She shook her head. "No, you're the only man I've ever loved. It was lust with him. I never thought about making a life with him. I would never have left you. I knew, I knew in the back of my mind that when, when I let him have me the first time, that was probably the end of us. I knew, I just knew, you'd take one look at me when I came back from that trip and you'd see it and you'd throw me out but, somehow -- you didn't! So, we met again and we made love -- no we fucked -- and I began to tell myself that somehow I'd be able to have him and keep you. I knew deep down that I was lying to myself but I wanted him too badly." She wet her lips and touched my face as if afraid I was going to run. "I know that hurts you, Hugh, but what's the good of lying now. The sex was fantastic. We did it three and four times a night and he could just go...and go...and go. I couldn't give it up." "I guess that makes it alright!" She took my face in her hands so I had to stare into her eyes. At that moment I wanted to grab her and throw her across the room, but she had said she'd be honest, no matter how much it hurt. I just didn't know anything could hurt that much. "You remember I said that he was you. He didn't do anything that you didn't do -- 20 or 30 years ago. You remember? You used to pound me all night long and that beautiful cock of yours never went soft. When I was with Richard, it was the way it had been with you, and I was the way I had been 30 years ago. I was young again, Hugh, there was no way you could compete with him! He was just, young for his age. He could do things you couldn't do anymore, in the same way I could never compete with your Brittany. Time just dealt us both a bad hand." I didn't like it, but I understood it. "So why did you go to him, and why did you leave him?" "I went to him because I saw it in your eyes that day you confronted me. You would never have taken me back. If I hadn't run, you'd have divorced me anyway, refused to see or talk to me. I knew you better than you knew yourself. Like I said, I'd have had to watch you hating me for weeks or months and I couldn't do that." She took a deep breath and then lay her head against my chest. "Richard still had this fantasy that we could make a new life together. I don't think he ever loved me. I think he really did still love his wife but he'd committed himself to us, put his job on the line, left his wife. I knew we wouldn't stay together but I didn't have anywhere else to go. I couldn't go to the kids and tell them I'd been cheating on their beloved father for six months - I'd have lost everything! "That's why - that's why he was such an asshole when Peter came to visit me that day. He was - he was putting his mark on me, saying that I belonged to him, not to you anymore. I was so embarrassed I couldn't say anything! When we were alone, I told him we'd never be together, he had humiliated me in front of my son. He talked me into staying with him a few more months, because I didn't have anywhere else to go, but we were through." She sat up in bed. "That's the whole ugly story, Hugh. I said you wouldn't want me when I was through. You probably hate me more than you did when you didn't know it all but you deserve the truth." She got up, turned on the light and dressed. She pulled out her cell and called a cab, then stood at the bedroom door and flicked the light off. She stood outlined in the moonlight. "I'm sorry Hugh - you will never know how sorry - but I promised I would leave you alone and I'll keep that promise. Goodbye!" I lay in the moonlight for a long time. A week and a half later I showed up at McDaniels corporate headquarters and asked if Miss Meadows was there. It was 11:30 a.m. The receptionist looked at me oddly and said, "I'm sorry, we don't have a Miss Meadows working here." "She would have been a new transfer, just in from your San Francisco office a few months ago I believe." She spent a couple of minutes looking at the computer console on her desk, then picked up the phone. "Nancy, do we have anybody named Meadows working here? This gentleman says she would have been a recent transfer in." A minute later she looked up at me and said, "I'm sorry, sir. Are you sure she transferred in to this office?" "I guess I was mistaken. She has a habit of jumping around. God only knows where in the world she is today." "How about standing right behind you." I turned. "I just assumed-" "That I'd run off again? I'm through running, Hugh." "Then why don't they have a record of you working here?" "Because Mary Meadows doesn't work here. Mary Davidson does." "I thought Mary Davidson was gone." "It's the name they've always known me by here and it is my name, unless you have any objection." "No." "Why are you here, Hugh, I didn't think I'd see you again." "I got hungry." She had given me a cold stare, which turned curious. "It's close to lunchtime. I thought I'd grab a bite at Benny's - one of their lighter deals, maybe steak tips and rice. Would you like to go have a bite?" "Just dinner?" "Unless they let you order a drink with your dinner around here. I seem to remember they were pretty loose about that kind of thing." "I've got some work I have to finish." "Alright, another day." "But nothing I can't finish this afternoon. Stell, tell Miriam I'm taking a long lunch." Stell gave us a look but said, "I will, Mrs. Davidson. Enjoy." The next night we went out to a formal dinner at Benny's with Percy, his significant other, Bobby and Chauvonne. The four of them sent a lot of looks back and forth to each other, but the night went fairly smoothly. I dropped her off at her apartment. "Thank you, Hugh." "It was my pleasure." "Thank you anyway." I didn't kiss her goodnight. She showed up at my office on a Tuesday at 3 p.m. I looked at my watch and said, "It's too late for lunch and too early for dinner." She handed me a sealed envelope. "You never asked that night. I know you've been with other women, and I've been with other men besides Richard. I hadn't been with anybody in nearly a year, before that night. I've been having myself tested every six months. I wanted you to know I was clean. If I had HIV or anything serious, it would have shown by now. The proof is in that envelope." Then: "Have you been tested?" "I've tried to be careful. I used condoms most of the time but I knew there was a danger. So, yeah, I've had myself tested every three months. I seem to be in the clear." We stared at each other. I had this insane impulse to laugh. What in the world were two people within spitting distance of their senior years doing getting tested like teenagers? That hadn't been our world but the world had changed. "Are you going to keep on being tested?" "No. I don't intend to be with any other man. It's fun, but it's too depressing. I think I'm going to take up knitting." Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 06 When I didn't say anything, she stared at me. "And you?" "It's fun but I've kind of lost my appetite. I think I'll just rent porno and jerk off." She turned and walked out. She did have a great ass. In late January we went with Bobby and Chauvonne to a touring production of a Broadway show, following it up with drinks and some dancing at Pelicans. It was near 2 a.m. when I got close to my place. "It's so late and I'm about to collapse, Hugh. Could I sack out at your place? I promise I won't attack your virtue." "Is that a promise that you're going to keep?" "You're big enough that I think you could defend yourself if I tried to molest you." She woke up in my arms the next morning. "What are you doing?" she asked sleepily. "Just watching you." After a moment her head dropped to my lap. "Would you throw me out of bed if I tried to suck you?" "Only one way to find out." I didn't throw her out of bed. We kept seeing each other, dating without calling it that. Sometimes she stayed over and sometimes she didn't. Once in a while I'd get questions from Gail or other friends. "We were married for 36 years. Why shouldn't we go out for drinks, or get some lunch?" One Tuesday in early March she showed up at my door at 7 p.m. It was already dark, shadows encroaching where the street lights ended. She rang the doorbell four times before I finally staggered to the door. "Hugh? I thought we were...." I stared at her. "Hugh!" "I thought I could do this but I was wrong!" I closed the door and made it as far as the couch before I gave it up as a bad idea and the world went away. She came to my office just before closing the next day. She was inside the door before my secretary could stop her. I just looked at her. "I didn't think you'd let me in if I came to your condo. What happened?" We just stared at each other for a long time. "I had a dream." More silence. "I was in the hotel room watching you and him. Watching him push it into you and you squealing the way you do when I hit the right spot. I saw you licking his dick and begging him to come in your mouth. I saw you turn over in the bed and push that ass of yours up and tell him to plug it with his beautiful dick. I saw him standing in front of you with his cock up and out and I could read it in your eyes, how much you loved it." More silence. "None of it was real. I never saw Gail's videos but it WAS real, it was the way it would have been. I thought I could get past it, I thought it was the past, but it isn't - and it never will be! He'll always be there!" We stared at each other and it was one of those rare moments in life when words really aren't necessary. I saw the hurt in her eyes but I couldn't help what I was feeling. I couldn't MAKE myself, by force of will, get past what she had done. She turned around and walked out. I had wanted to drink myself unconscious when I got back to my condo that evening, but I finally put the bottle of Brandy down and put the top back on. I stood in my kitchen/dining room staring at my image in the mirror. The bottle had never been a good answer to my problems. The pain never went away. It was just suppressed for a little while but it was still there when I sobered up. What the hell was I going to do? I had spent three years pretending I was over Mary. I had fucked a lot of women; young women, older women, blondes, brunettes and a few redheads. I was still in pretty good shape for my age, I had money, was successful professionally and I could fuck a lot more women before I died. But what was the point? I was looking at 60. What the fuck did I have left to prove. I would never be any more successful than I was today. I would never be much more rich than I was today. I continued working because work was my life. It was the reason I woke up every morning. I could retire, walk away and never work another day in my life, then die slowly of boredom or pick up some sexual disease or drug habit. I hated golf, I had never played cards. How many goddamned times can you wake up on a beach and watch the sun rise over the water? I could look for a good, kind and caring woman. Assuming I found one, I could go through the rituals of courtship - marry again, sleep beside and wake with her - pretend that she fulfills me and know every second that I was playing a part -- the happy husband! The only thing I could look forward to was watching my children and grandchildren grow older and live vicariously through their lives. I'd be happy, or as happy as you can be living life second hand through your children. THE FUCKING BITCH! She had been the only woman I'd ever really wanted. I had wanted to fuck others but she was the only one I wanted to live and die next to. I couldn't stop loving her but I couldn't live with her. I awoke to the faint glow of the moonlight lending a silvery haze to the night. There was a full, fat moon sitting in the window. I was startled for a moment, but then I recognized the shape under the sheet next to me without seeing her face. Her hair gave her away. "What are you doing here? You know I could have you arrested?" "You'd be surprised what Gail can do if you ask her for a favor." "I wouldn't be surprised at anything you could do with $50 million." She sat up in bed, the sheet dropping away from her. The moonlight gilded the nipples of her breasts. "You need to leave, Mary." She lowered her eyes. "I'll put on some clothes. I brought pajamas. I didn't come here to seduce you." I sat up in bed. I'd always slept nude. It had never bothered me until tonight. "Do you think you could request a transfer again? I mean, you've moved around so much the past three years, one more move wouldn't hurt. I know they have a great office in Atlanta! Or New Orleans! That would be a great place to live and work." Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. "I've just moved back, Hugh. Is having me around so distasteful that you want me to move out to give you some space?" "Not necessarily. It occurs to me that Gail has a branch office in Charlotte that covers the Mid-Atlantic region. The kids are gone. I've grown moss here, been here too long. Maybe that's what we both need. I need new surroundings, new co-workers, a new city, while you need a chance -- to get back into your old life, without me here." "You make it sound so reasonable." A tear dropped and hit one nipple. "There's no chance for us. None at all?" "I can't see it, baby." "Don't do this Hugh, please don't do this." I reached out and took her hand in mine. "I can't NOT do this, baby. I can't be in the same city with you. I can't see you, know you're alive and not be with you, but I can't BE with you! It hurts too much." She pulled her hand out of mine and lowered her head to my lap then lower. She rested her face on my knee and wrapped her arms around my legs. Her tears wet my skin. "Please Hugh, I know I hurt you. I know I betrayed your loyalty and your love. Maybe I don't deserve another chance but give me one. I'll do anything. I'll keep my own apartment. You can have other women. Just...don't make me watch and...if you want, you can put a monitor on me. You can have me followed. Anything to prove that there won't be any other men." She rubbed her face back and forth on my leg. "I still have sexual urges but I'll use a vibrator if you can't make yourself love me. We don't have to have sex...if that makes you uncomfortable." She tightened her grip on my legs, as if afraid I was going to rise up and throw her over. "I've lived without you for three years, Hugh. When I was with other men, it wasn't any different than using a vibrator to get myself off. As much as you love me, I love you that much and more." She released my legs and raised her eyes to me. "Let me stay in your life, Hugh. Don't cast me out. If you ever loved me, don't cast me out." We stared at each other until I patted the pillow at my side. She slid up to lay beside me and that's how we fell asleep. She went back to her place in the morning. We didn't see each other for a couple of days but she showed up one evening at 7 p.m. with a chicken and onion rice casserole, which she knew I loved. She brought pajamas and spent the night. We got together two or three nights a week. Sometimes we went out and sometimes we stayed in. Unless I'd had a bad dream we slept in the same bed, chastely. A month went by and we had gone out to see the horror/suspense flick, "Shutter Island" with DeCaprio. We went to the last showing, it was a Friday and neither of us had to work the next day. I poured us a couple of brandies while she slipped into pajamas and curled up on the couch in the den next to me. As I sat beside her, I handed her a goblet with dark liquid in it and a manila envelope. She gave me a look. "I want you to have your own copy." She took a sip, then put the drink aside and opened the envelope. She took out the folded paper and looked it over. "Is this what I think it is?" "I had to buy new adjoining plots in Evergreen Cemetery. The ones we had, well, I got pissed and sold them while we were apart. I never thought I would ever want to be near you -- living or dead." "And now?" "I told you once that I would never leave you and that I'd do my best to outlive you so I wouldn't leave you by dying on you." Tears welled. "I will never leave you Mary, living or dead. You're stuck with me." We spent the night naked in bed together. For the first time in three years, I didn't feel the presence of any ghosts in the darkness. THE SUMMING UP There are still times when I want it to be like it was. I awake next to her and, in the early fog of half-consciousness, I feel the warmth of her body. For a little while there is no Richard Kelly, no three-year gap in our lives, no pain, but then I awake fully and the memories rush in. Then I realize it will never be like it was - there is that moment of incredible loss and pain, like a sharp stabbing pain in the heart, but it goes away. She rolls over next to me and she is still Mary. I did what I did and she did what she did, but we are still together here and now in the Year of Our Lord 2010. That's pretty much the end of our story -- for now. We are officially senior citizens, having hit the 60 mark, although when I join her in the shower and the water runs down the smooth flesh of her back and breasts, I have a hard time believing it. The calendar doesn't lie, but as the poet said long ago, if we cannot make the sun stand still in the turning of the days, we can make him run like hell to catch up with us, or something like that. I check on Richard Kelly every now and again. Not that I am worried about Mary - I trust her once again - but, he nearly destroyed my life! While I still don't plan to ever cross the line and become someone I've never been, if he was to approach her again...! However, from everything I can tell, he has made his peace with his wife. They have no children and I have no concept of what it would be like to approach late middle age or senior years with no children or grandchildren to cushion the passing of the years. It must be lonely. Peter and Marlena are happy. Peter continues mucking around in the brains of strangers and his professional reputation grows. Marlena works as an increasingly highly paid RN. Austin grows increasingly brilliant and cuter than should be allowed by law. He is a young first grader in a highly expensive private school. I've set up a trust fund for his college education -- as long as he attends the University of Florida - Go Gators! Nicole has had three surgeries in less than a year on her left arm, leg and, unexpectedly, her hip. She needs two more so it will probably be closer to two years than the one Wallinsky predicted, but she gets around on crutches or a walker. Her publisher has allowed her to work out of her home and, as Wallinsky predicted, she is 100 percent the girl I knew. She has edited two best-sellers since her recovery, working from home. Simon is Simon and Calabria...well, all I can say is that the name has grown on me. Even at this young age, I can tell that one day she will be the heartbreaker her grandmother was so long ago. I have begun the process of setting up a trust fund for her college education. Simon pushed for Harvard but I put my foot down. No grandchild of mine will ever go to Harvard. Now Yale? That's a different story. I think sometimes at work of those three years, of the people who entered or passed through my life. They say you do a lot more of that as you get older, not that I'm old, but...! Percy is still with the same boyfriend. They seem happy. Percy can still take anyone in the teambuilding retreat arm-wrestling championships, except Bobby. Bobby and Chauvonne are together and they seem happy. Especially so since the day that Bobby came in passing around cigars to celebrate their adoption of a three-day old boy, the son of a friend's 15-year-old daughter. Coffee has shown up at several company get-togethers with the attorney, Greg, in tow and I'm pretty sure she isn't seeing anyone else. They stick close to each other and, while it's ancient history for us, Mary reminds me that Coffee is in that period of time when her biological clock is ticking ominously and she may be getting ready to do something about it. Gail is still -- Gail! She works harder than any of us and takes her boy toys home to fuck most weekends. She hasn't made any serious connections. She tells me she's happy, but there are times when I'll stick my head in the door and I see her looking at the portrait of her grandfather, rubbing her lower lip in that gesture of hers, when I wonder! I wonder if she is thinking of Los Angeles and the man who walked away from her to make a new life there. I tell myself, because I do love her like a niece, that she is still young. There is still the possibility of a happy ending. If it can happen to me it could happen to her but, even if I wanted to meddle, I won't. It's her life! In idle moments I wonder what ever happened to the hooker, Rene, and the DEA man who had given up everything to be with her as she died. Is she still alive? Did he ever go back to his wife, or his job? Was Kevin able to forget that his amnesiac wife was still alive with another man and that man's child. Rob, the boy he's raising, would be 14. Talk about a challenge, raising a bruised 14-year-old in today's world. I wish him luck. I wonder if the beautiful redhead is still together with her scarred lover. I hope so. There are people you meet that you just like, for no reason, and those were two like that. I hope she continues to fondle those scars lovingly for many years to come. I see Wallinsky on the television news once in a while, still working medical miracles, saving lives. He's been married and divorced in one six month period. Evidently he's a better physician than husband. He married and divorced one of the most beautiful women in the world, and on the rebound he's dating one of the wealthiest women in the world. He'll be alright! Brittany - is still Brittany! It's hard to believe she's looking at 30. I will really feel ancient when she turns the big 3-0. I see her sometimes at bank functions and social events. She's become a good friend of Gail's. When she sees me she approaches me with that hip swinging, boob bouncing gait that reminds me of nights past. Her smile tells me she remembers them too. Of course, with that innate wife radar that spouses possess, before we can spend too long together Mary is between us, friendly and charming as always, but making sure that Brittany gets the subliminal message of whose property I am now. I'm back in bed beside Mary. She holds her long, lithe body against mine and I feel the first risings of hunger. She buries her head against my chest. The Stones said it long ago. Sometimes you can't get what you want. What I want I'll never have again but, if you're lucky, sometimes you can get what you need - what I have here is what I need! I know there are those who know our story that wonder, but don't have the balls to ask, how I could take her back? The answer is simple - I love the bitch!