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Miracle Man

By: StangStar06



One of the things I enjoy most about writing is all of the people I meet doing it and the exchange of ideas and info from other writers. The kindly delivered criticism and encouragement they offer fuels my desire to get better at it. I recently met a new writer who I truly believe is going to set this genre on fire. He calls himself "The End Begins" and he gave me the idea for this story. Of course my final version is probably different from what he originally saw. It probably isn't as extreme and of course there weren't any Mustangs mentioned but this is a good thing because it means that he can someday grace us with his version too. I hope he likes what I did with his idea and I can't wait to see what he's going to put out. Thanks also to the incredible mikothebaby for both her editing skill and making me control my murderous impulses, I think she helped make this a stronger story than my original kill them all version. SS06

* * * * * *

After a hard day of work, it feels really good to clock out and just go home. I'd just finished my last repair of the day so my boss told me to go ahead and go. It gets really hot in August in Oklahoma and the funny thing about that day was that I'd spent the bulk of the day fixing the air conditioning in most of our customers' vehicles but the air in my 20 year old F150 didn't work.

I rolled the windows down and left the truck sitting open to cool its interior down then ran back into the garage to grab my cooler and a couple of cans of Pepsi. Even getting off work a bit early didn't mean anything since my wife Heather's car was on the fritz as well. I had to drive all the way into town to pick her up and then back this way past the station to go home.

I really wish there was another way to do it but since she had to be at work before I did, there was no way around it until we got her car fixed.

As I started the drive into town, I turned on the radio to keep me company. After a few miles the breeze through the open window cooled the inside of the truck down even more and it really wasn't that bad. Of course, Heather would still complain. She complained about everything. Ever since she'd taken that job with the church, everything had to be done a certain way.

My ten mile trip down the freeway was uneventful and my local baseball team actually seemed to be winning this one. Approaching the property owned by the church, I was as usual struck by the beauty of the church itself and the grounds surrounding it. Everywhere you looked, shade trees provided a welcome respite from the relentless Oklahoma sun. It almost looked like the entire campus was shady while everything else around it roasted.

Heather was lucky to work in a place like this. Heather worked as one of Reverend Jimmy Hubbard's secretaries and actually made a little bit more money than I did so her job was good for both of us. I tried calling her cell to let her know that I was early but it went straight to voice mail. That put an end to my plan to just let her know I was here, then sit out in the truck and listen to the ball game.

I walked up to the door and waved to the guard. He smiled back and asked for the baseball score. When I told him the Red Hawks were ahead by one in the eighth, his fist pump made me smile too.

I guess that was why I was still smiling when I walked into the office. Jimmy's office is huge. He has an outside reception area, then there's the main office where his secretaries work and finally his private office. The reception area was deserted which wasn't unusual in the afternoon during the week.

The main office area was empty too but there was a very dim light coming from Jimmy's private office. Jimmy is a good old boy. He's nothing like you'd expect from seeing him on TV. He's the kind of guy that you can just walk right up to and talk to. Maybe that was what made him so successful at convincing people that that if they sent him their money, he could get them into heaven.

I figured that I'd just walk in and ask Jimmy where Heather was. I guess I wasn't paying much attention until I got close to the office. I walked right in and as I looked up I found Heather. She was bent over Jimmy's desk facing me while the Reverend Jimmy Hubbard sawed away at her pussy like it belonged to him. I just stood there frozen for a moment, not knowing what to do. Heather also froze as she saw me. Jimmy was still there just pumping away at her. His eyes were tightly shut and he was mumbling about getting pretty close. I pulled out my cheap camera phone and took a picture or two. Then I stepped towards them. Heather looked down in shame but still didn't say anything.

"Stay just like that Heather, baby, I'm almost there," said Jimmy, his words thick with lust.

"You may be almost there, but you're not going to make it," I snarled. Jimmy opened his eyes just as my fist slammed into his face. The force of my punch knocked the two of them apart and Heather started screaming at me to stop.

"Robbie, he's an old man, you'll hurt him," she yelled.

"Fuck him," I yelled back at her. "When this shit gets out his career is over. Nobody in Oklahoma will watch his fucking show when they see that he's no better than any of the people he tried to save. How the fuck can he pull anybody else out of sin when he's so stuck in it his God damned self?"

"Robbie, we have to talk about this," she said. "You can't do that."

"Watch me," I said. "And Heather, fuck you too."

"Wait Robbie," she screamed as I walked out of the office. Jimmy just laid there on the floor stunned.

I walked back through the church as quickly as I could. Heather trailed along behind me but she was stuck trying to pull her panties up and button her blouse. I was in the truck and gone before she cleared the building. She couldn't afford to come out of the office area partially undressed and let the guards or anyone who worked for Jimmy see what had happened.

Long before I got anywhere near home, my phone started ringing. I picked it up off the seat next to me and spoke into it as I drove.

"Heather, I have nothing to say to you," I snapped.

"But Robbie we need to talk," she said. "Jimmy wants to talk to you too."

"Call me back when I get home in about twenty minutes," I said as I pulled off the road.

"Why can't you come back here?" she asked.

"If you want to talk to me, it has to be on my terms," I said. "I have to pack and do a lot of other things."

"Robbie, where are you going to go?" she asked. I hung up on her.

Having a cheap phone can be a blessing. As I sat there on the side of the road, I downloaded the pictures I'd taken to my Dropbox account. My phone had so little memory that if I wanted to use it to record the call I'd make when I got home that the photos I'd taken had to be deleted from the phone in order to do it. That actually saved me or at least it saved my evidence.

I got back to our small home and parked in our driveway. I'd made so many plans for this house and what we'd do here. The location was great and though the house was a fixer-upper our six years of work were starting to show. We didn't have a lot of money but I always thought we had a lot of love. Heather and I were twenty four years old and we'd gotten married right out of high school. I wished that I had time to look around but at that moment I was just running on instinct.

I packed all of my clothes that I could find and my spare tools. We only had about two hundred dollars in the bank and I'd take half of that. I didn't need any of the furniture or any of the other stuff. I'd leave all of that for Heather. Maybe the good Reverend would give her some extra money to cover my half of our mortgage payment.

After I'd packed everything I wanted to take, I went back into the house to take another look around. That's when she caught me. A long black Lincoln town car pulled into my driveway and Heather jumped out of it.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" she screamed at me.

"As far away from you as I can get," said calmly.

"You can't leave, we're married," she said. "You can't just walk out and leave me here."

"As far as I'm concerned, the marriage ended when I caught you fucking Jimmy," I said calmly. "I'm sure neither you nor the good Reverend would know anything about being true to the things you say in church."

"Robbie, we need to talk about this," she said. "Okay, I had sex with Jimmy, but it didn't mean anything. He's an old man for God's sake. He's not even any good. He doesn't make me feel the way that you do honey, and I don't love him."

I turned to her and couldn't stop the tears from running down my cheeks. For the first time since this had happened I allowed my pain to show. "Then why?" I screamed.

"Robbie, Jimmy spends more money on one of those suits of his than all of our monthly bills combined. I love you Robbie. As God is my witness, I love you more than life itself. But I'm tired of busting my ass day in and day out with nothing to show for it. Jimmy's wife is as old as he is and that bitch sits up in that house like she was the queen of Oklahoma. She rarely ever even talks to Jimmy. And that brat of theirs...That kid is six years old and he has more money in the bank than we do."

"What you saw today is going to get my car fixed so you don't have to keep coming out there to pick me up. Robbie, you're not a child. Can't you understand that we can improve our lives this way? It doesn't cost us anything and it'll be like money in the bank."

I just stared at her like I didn't know her.

"I never wanted to hurt you Robbie. This doesn't have anything to do with us. If you hadn't come in there today, you'd never have found out."

"Bull shit," I said. "I'd have known."

"How?" she asked. "You didn't know any of the other times."

"What other times?" I asked.

"Robbie, we're young," she said. "All we ever hear from people who are older than us is about the times when they were our age when they barely had enough food to eat. There have been times for us like that too. Maybe not with food but there were times when I had to help out."

"How do you think we got the washing machine?" she asked. "And do you really think that plumber fixed our water tank for free?"

"Giving Jimmy a little bit of pussy every now and then won't hurt you at all. Robbie, you're the only man I love, but I'm tired of us living like this. I'm still going to always belong to you. It would be like you're just loaning me to Jimmy sometimes. You'll still get all the sex you want so you won't be hurt by this."

"I won't be hurt by this because it's no longer my business," I said. "I'm leaving. You can do whatever you want."

"No, you're not," she said. "You love me. We both know it. In a way this is good because now I don't have to sneak around anymore. Jimmy wants to talk to you. I'm pretty sure he's going to offer you some money and a lot of it, just to make this all go away. Then all you have to do is just sit home and listen to the ball game sometimes when I'm a little late. Jimmy's kind of old so he doesn't last very long. All he'll ever be able to do is warm me up for you baby."

"Okay," I said.

"So you'll talk to Jimmy?" she asked.

"Hell no," I said. "You talk to Jimmy. You let him give the money to you. Use it to pay for our divorce. There's no way I want to be married to a whore. Fucking some guy for money only makes you a whore. I guess I don't have any choice in you being a whore, but taking that money would make me your pimp. I have a choice in that and also in whether or not I stay with you."

"I guess we're just too different Heather. Having a lot of money or a bunch of fancy suits never mattered to me, but I guess you just can't live without them. So you go ahead and grab for that brass ring. I'm sure you'll easily find someone to replace me, maybe even someone who dresses in those fancy suits like Jimmy's."

I turned and left the house. Before I got to my truck, three big guys jumped out of the Lincoln and came at me. I punched the first guy in the face and his nose erupted in blood. He backed off and another guy tackled me and held me down. Then he and the third guy picked me up and put me in the back of the Lincoln. I was struggling and trying my best to pull away but the steroid cases held me pretty easily.

"I think he broke my fucking nose," said the one I'd punched. "That little bastard throws a pretty good punch."

"That's why we aren't letting his arms go until we get him back to the church and tied to a chair," said one of the guys sitting next to me."

We drove the rest of the way in silence. When we got back to the church they dragged me out of the car and into Jimmy's office. I noticed that no one, not even the security guards, were there. Another long Lincoln pulled up near ours. Jimmy got out. Looking inside the car I could see his wife sitting there beside him. She was a beautiful woman. She had their son who was about five or six years old sitting with her.

Jimmy blew her a kiss and closed the door. He followed us as we went through the church and into his office.

"Robbie, we got off on the wrong foot back there," he said. "I think that we can come to an arrangement that will work for both of us. I was wrong as hell and all you have to do is tell me what I can do to make up for it. What do you want? A car? I'll buy you a new one. How about if I pay off your mortgage? Just tell me what you want and it's yours."

"I'd like a plate," I said.

"Oh that's too easy," he said smiling.

"With your head on it," I finished.

"Robbie, we can make this easy for both of us," he said. "I can see that you're a man of honor. If what you want is for me to stop screwing your little wife, I will. She was just convenient, since she works for me and all. She doesn't mean shit to me. I can have much better looking women just by snapping my finger. But part of that is that there's a difference between screwing a whore and screwing the girl next door. You know?"

"Nope," I said, still straining to get loose from the gorillas. "I've never had to pay for sex, so I can't tell you about whores. And I've never had sex with someone else's wife and bragged about it. I guess you have to be a preacher to do that."

"All right then," he said. His voice took on a harsher tone. "How much is this going to cost me?"

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"How much is it going to cost me to keep you quiet?" he asked again.

"I'm sorry Reverend, but I'm not for sale," I said. "You said you could have better looking women just by snapping your fingers right? Well you should have snapped your God damned fingers, because Heather may not be the most beautiful woman in the world, but she was mine and you're going to pay for ruining my marriage. Shit, Jimmy your wife has to be one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I don't know why you'd even want..."

"I tried to be nice about this," said Jimmy. "Search him and take his phone."

The third gorilla, whose face was swollen up badly checked all of my pockets and came up with my phone. I'd only deleted one of the pictures to make room for the call I was going to record. He showed the picture to Jimmy and they deleted it. I just smiled.

"Now you can say whatever you want," smirked Jimmy. "Do you know how many frivolous lawsuits I have against me every year? Yours will die down just like the rest of them. You have no proof of what you're claiming. Your own wife won't back you up. You see she just got a nice raise and a lot of perks."

"My eye hurts," he said. "You need to learn some fucking manners." He looked at the two gorillas holding me.

"Take him outside and teach him some manners," he said in a very calm voice.

The two steroid cases holding my arms started wrestling me towards the door. The third one the one with the swollen face just smiled as he looked at me. As they hustled me towards the door it opened. Jimmy's wife, all barely five feet tall of her, stepped inside the door.

"Jimmy, what's going on?" she asked. She held onto the small boy's hand as she walked into the room and saw me.

"Aren't you Heather's husband?" she asked me. I nodded.

"He's had a little too much to drink and was acting out," said Jimmy. I looked at him strangely.

"He seems to be fine," she said. "Let go of him." The gorillas holding my arms let go of me and she took my hand. "I'll walk you out," she said. Jimmy just smirked at me.

"I'm sorry we couldn't make a deal," he said. "But you had your chance."

"What kind of deal were you going to make," she asked. I looked back at Jimmy and his face had gone hard. At the same time I really didn't want to do anything to hurt his wife so I didn't say anything.

"I'll walk you out," she said.

After we got clear of the room, she began talking again. "So Heather is Jimmy's latest fuck toy?" she asked. "I'm sorry, but don't worry about it. He doesn't stay with the same one for more than a few weeks. Before you know it, you'll be a lot richer and have her back all to yourself. He'll probably fire her when he gets bored with her so you guys can move away and forget all about it."

"Someday, your husband is going to pay for what he's done to my marriage," I said.

"What you're not happy with the money?" She asked.

"I didn't take any money," I snapped. "But I swear, I'm going to bring that asshole down someday." She just smiled at me.

"Finally," she said. "I doubt that you'll succeed. My husband knows all of the right people. He has the mayor, the police department and even the local judges in his back pocket. But it's nice to know that there really are some people out there who can't be bought. If you need any help, let me know."

She slipped a card into my back pocket and went back inside to her husband and child. As I started to walk away one of the gorillas ran over to me and handed me my phone. It had been emptied, even the contacts list were gone. I started trying to hitch a ride as the sun began to go down in the early evening sky.

My phone rang and I answered it. I recognized my home number though the display no longer said home.

"Robbie, where are you?" asked Heather. "How much did Jimmy offer you?"

I didn't say anything so she continued to talk. "The only reason that this means so much to you is because you love me so much, honey. I swear I'll make this all better. We'll talk when you get home. Are they going to bring you home soon? You'll see Robbie. This won't make any difference between us honey. I'm still all yours."

I put the phone down on a bench in front of the bus stop I was passing. I listened to her still yammering as I walked on.

I did stop at an ATM and withdraw all of the money from our bank account. I figured Jimmy could take care of her bills from now on.

As the skies and the night got darker around me I kept walking. I guess maybe I was too busy thinking about my future to feel tired but I walked for most of the night. I remember I did feel a pang of sadness when I walked past the turnoff to the house I'd shared with Heather for the past six years. My original intention had been to simply walk home and get into my already packed truck and drive away. But I guess thinking about it and remembering what she'd been yapping about over the phone gave me the idea that she was probably waiting for me either by the truck or in it.

It must have been about two or three a.m. and I was really starting to feel it when a truck stopped in front of me. I hadn't been hitchhiking, the truck just pulled over. I was too tired to even move around it so I just kept walking.

The guy driving the truck lowered his window as I passed.

"Hey buddy," he called. "Do you need a lift?"

"To where?" I asked. He looked at me with the strangest look on his face.

"We're doing this all wrong," he said. "You're supposed to be the one who tried to flag me down. When I pull over, you're supposed to ask me for a ride. And I'm supposed to tell you that I'm only going as far as...wherever I'm going..."


Miracle Man



"Okay maybe the next guy you stop for can do it right," I said and I started walking again. He got out of the truck and walked next to me. He took my arm and guided me back to his truck.

"Look," I said. "I don't have much money. So robbing me will be a lot more trouble than you're going to get."

"Relax buddy," he said. "I recognize that look and that set of your chin. I had it once myself. Now it looks like it's my turn to do for you what someone else did for me."

"How long have you been walking?" he asked.

"What time is it?" I asked him.

"It's three fifteen a.m." he said.

"I've been walking since six thirty last evening," I said.

As I got into the truck the air conditioning chilled me, but it felt really good. I realized he was still talking to me but I couldn't make out a word that he was saying as I fell asleep.

* * * * * *

Heather

I was sure that once again something was wrong with Robbie's cheap phone. Maybe that should be one of the first things we buy with the money we get from Jimmy. Good cell phones for both of us. I settled down on our sofa in the living room to wait for Robbie. I was kind of conflicted. I didn't know what I should do when he first got home. I knew that what I did would determine how quickly he'd get over this. On one hand I could try to get him in bed quickly because doing that would show him that I still loved him and wanted to be with him. But on the other hand, Robbie had called me a whore several times so maybe sex wasn't the way to win his heart back. I decided to make him something to eat and just go with the situation.

Jimmy really wasn't very good at sex. It was probably because he wasn't very well endowed and compared to Robbie I could barely even feel him in me. He was also pretty old and though he fancied himself some kind of stud, nothing could be further from the truth. I'd been with him three times and each time I just lay or stood there thinking about what I'd do with the money, until he was done.

Since I didn't know how much money we'd get, I really didn't know what to plan. If it was a substantial amount, my plan would be to send Robbie to school. If he went to college at night or to a good trade school, he could get a much better job and support us in a finer style. Between the two of us, Robbie was the smarter one. He'd do much better in school than I would. I actually worried a bit because if Robbie went to some fancy school, he could probably meet girls who were prettier than I am. I mean I'm not a troll and I do have the advantage of being twenty four, and in the absolute peak of my life and health. I'm the best right now that I'm ever going to be. Maybe that was what made Jimmy so hot for me.

But my life couldn't be based on now. My life had to be based on securing a future for Robbie and me so we could become one of those cute old couples. Whatever it took, whatever I had to do. I know that what I was doing seemed bad. But I was doing it for the best of reasons. There were so many things that we needed. It's like that old question that people always ask young people. Are you going to live on love? Well for the past six years we literally had. We'd both worked our asses off and we had a place of our own and food but that was about it and I was just tired of it.

The average college student has more than we do. We don't even have a TV. One emergency would wipe us out. I know that I was the one who pushed for us to get married so young. But I didn't want the risk of losing Robbie. I only hope that he can understand that we have to live in the real world right now and sometimes you have to do a little bad, to get the greatest good.

Another way of saying it is that we have to be ready to use every resource at our disposal to get the things we need or at least to put us on the path towards getting them. And right now one of the resources we have is my body. I hope Robbie can understand that and stop being such a selfish child.

As I wondered again what was taking him so long, I fell asleep there on the sofa. I woke up the next morning thinking that Robbie had come home during the night and just left me on the sofa. That meant that he was probably still angry.

I got up to go and check on him and found that he wasn't anywhere in the house. I looked outside and saw that his truck was still there. I ran out to the truck to surprise him, but he wasn't there either. I tried calling his phone but he didn't pick it up. I decided that I'd just drive the truck to work and call him once I got there. I could always call him at work. He loved his job so he'd never miss a day there unless he was really sick.

He'd probably stayed with a friend overnight. It might take a few days for him to get over this but we'd talk eventually. I started to get ready for work myself. I was very sad that Robbie was angry at me but I was sure he loved me enough for us to get past this. We'd been through so much over the past six years. This was nothing compared to some of the things we'd endured.

When I walked into the office, Jimmy wasn't there yet. It wasn't unusual for him to breeze in at about noon or later if he didn't have a meeting or something for the show to work on. He had associate pastors and deacons to handle a lot of the heavy lifting. He just concentrated on the show and public appearances.

I sat down at my desk and started going through the rest of Jimmy's mail that I hadn't gotten to yesterday. That was one of my biggest responsibilities. Jimmy never read and rarely answered his mail. There was simply too much of it. Ninety-five percent of it was stuff that I could handle for him. I simply typed out an answer and signed the letters myself. If there was anything out of the ordinary going on, I flagged it and spoke to him about it during one of our mail meetings. Threats, letters from influential or famous people and anything that might look good on the show were things I alerted him to.

A couple of hours later Jimmy and Rhonda, aka Mrs. Hubbard wandered into the office. They were arguing as usual but this one seemed to be more venomous than their average set to.

"Why the fuck do I have to beg you to come to personal appearances with me?" he hissed. "I'm telling you it doesn't look good for you not to be there to support me."

"If I'm supposed to be a family man, I need to have the family there to show that you're behind me, God damn it."

"When was the last time you thought of your family as anything other than a prop for one of your appearances," she hissed back, matching him in tone, volume and in venom. "Josh and I don't need to be there every time you kiss some politician's ass or speak to some dumb assed actor."

"And why the hell did you name my son Josh anyway? Why the hell didn't you put James Hubbard Jr. on his birth certificate like I wanted you to?" asked Jimmy

Rhonda just smiled at Jimmy and said she had to go.

"You will be at the tour today though, right?" asked Jimmy.

"Maybe," she said. "But if you get on my nerves, you can pencil me in for a no."

Jimmy grumbled and watched her leave his office. Rhonda grabbed a cup of coffee as she passed the coffee pot and picked out a big glazed piece of coffee cake as well. If I was as slim as she was and looked as good in her clothes, I'd eat anything I wanted too.

Surprisingly, she didn't head out the door. She waved at a couple of the secretaries and came straight to me. We'd never really spoken very often during all of the time that I'd worked here. She carefully placed the coffee and the cake down on the corner of my desk.

"Thank you ma'am," I said.

"Don't mention it," she said. There wasn't a hint of malice or anger in her voice. And she looked just as sweet as she does on TV.

"If I eat these kinds of things, I'll never get to be as slim and beautiful as you are," I said.

"What good would that do you?" she asked. "What good has it done me?" I looked at her wondering what she was talking about. I was sure she was going to hit me with a church sermon. Preacher's wives are sometimes known for preaching nearly as much as their husbands do.

"You should eat and get everything you can, while you can honey," she said. "It won't last long, it never does."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Oh, Heather," she smiled. "There's no need to be shy. You're my husband's new whore. I have to take care of you and give you advice. We're on the same side here. You make my life easier. If he wasn't fucking you in the bathrooms or bending you over desks, I might have to fuck him myself occasionally. And with all of the women he goes through, Lord knows he probably has some kind of disease by now."

I was shocked. I guess I thought that it was a big secret. Or that she'd hate me. Shit if the shoe was on the other foot and some woman was fucking Robbie, I'd claw her eyes out. But she looked at me with genuine affection. She just shook her head as she looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I just wondered why...I mean don't get me wrong. I don't care. If it wasn't you, it would be some other whore, but you just seemed so much better than this. You seemed... I don't know, smarter. It seemed like you had your shit all together, you know."

"Maybe I'm looking at this wrong," she said. "You're what barely in your twenties. You and your husband are out on your own. You have your own home. You each have vehicles. You're both working. Shit you have most of the couples who are ten years older than you beat; especially in this economy."

"You're also a good secretary. You handle all of Jimmy's mail alone. We sometimes need two secretaries for that. And your husband, he's younger and better looking than Jimmy. He obviously loved you. You two had that forever kind of thing that most women dream about going on. What would ever have possessed you to give that up to fuck Jimmy for a few weeks?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Robbie loves me and I love him. He was angry when he found out, but we'll get through this." I tried to smile and put on a brave front. But she just continued looking at me and shaking her head.

"Sweetie, maybe you're not as smart as I thought you were," she said. "I'm a lot older than you are. I've been in this game for a very long time. Jimmy and I started out when I was about your age and he was only a few years older. We did tent shows and revivals before we even had our own church. I've seen so many people that it's forced me to become a good judge of character. I can pretty much suss out a person's intentions with a glance."

"It got to the point where I could tell when a promoter or the preacher from another church was going to try to fuck us out of our fair share of the take just by the way they smiled at me. I could tell which of the people in the audience were faking it and which ones were just so struck by Jimmy's fame that they forgot why they'd really come. I could also tell the ones who just wanted to be on television and the ones who thought they could replace me." She smiled as she said that.

"You're the type I really feel sorry for," she said sadly.

"Why do you feel sorry for me?" I asked. She looked at me again. Her smile was really unusual. It conveyed a host of emotions all at the same time. It was as if she was trying to give me advice, warn me and pity me all at the same time.

"Because you don't belong here," she said. "You've just got caught up in all of this and you're not on any of the sides. You're just trying to make your way through this ocean of bullshit and not only do you not have a paddle, honey you don't even have a boat."

"Huh?" I asked.

"Sweetie, there's real religion and church on one side. And then there's what we do. If you look around throughout our camp, there are lots of different types of people. First you have what I call suckers. They're stupid. They really are very religious and very truthful and honest people. Most of them are so enraptured by Jimmy's words and the bible that they can't be convinced that my husband is just a con man with a good act. They do what they do because they really believe that he and, therefore, they, are helping people to get with God. No matter what they see or hear, he doesn't need to convince them of anything because in their own minds they believe that Jimmy shares a piece of God's divinity."

"If they walked in on you and Jimmy fucking, they'd be sure that they'd done something wrong. They'd beg him to accept their apologies and keep going on. After a while they'd literally forget what they saw because to think about it would be too damaging to the foundation of their lives."

"The second group of people knows that what we do here is all one colossal con game. We bilk innocent and stupid people on a grand scale. We're especially hurtful to the elderly, the sick and those who have dying or sick loved ones. They know what we do and not only do they not care, they're trying to grab their own piece of the pie. The people in the sales and collection departments are especially bad. They get bonuses for getting more money or donations from people. So the more they con, the more they get."

"The last group of people is simply here to work and make a living. They're neither religious nor non-religious. They simply want to do their job and get paid for it and move on."

"You, on the other hand, are a babe in the woods," she said. "I get the feeling that you were just going through a bad patch in your life. Maybe the bills were piling up a little too fast and you saw some easy money and decided to grab it by doing something you thought was free and easy. Honey nothing is ever free or easy. And I think that when you grabbed for the brass ring you fucked up."

"I don't understand," I said.

"I thought not," she told me. "One of the first things I learned growing up in Kansas is that we only have two hands. And we need to hold onto the things that are the most important to us with both hands or we tend to lose them. You reached out to grab yourself some of the finer things in life the quick way. You probably figured that fucking Jimmy would get you a couple of things done pretty easily. What did he promise you?" She looked at me closely.

"Let's see, he offered you a raise or to take care of a couple of your bills right?" she asked.

"He said he'd pay to get my car fixed and I'd get a raise at the end of the month," I told her.

"Did you get any cash from him?" she asked.

"Well...no," I said.

"Sweetie, always get cash. Get something in your hands before you let them get their hands in your panties." She shook her head like I was stupid.

"But you can trust Jimmy," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because he's..." I began.

"He's the kind of man who preaches hellfire and damnation on television for even the smallest of sins, but cheats on his own wife," she said. "He lies to millions of people every week for a living and gets away with it. He's practically thumbing his nose at all of them. Honestly I'm not even sure Jimmy believes in God anymore. I think in his own twisted way Jimmy thinks he is God."

"No," I said. "He wouldn't lie."

"Sweetie when it's time to pay for your car, he'll claim he doesn't remember saying it. Or he'll twist your words around. He'll say he promised you a raise at the end of the month that would let you get your car fixed. The reality is that by the end of the month he'll probably have gotten bored with fucking you and moved on to someone else. By then his tastes will have changed and instead of cute fresh faced farm girls with big old tits he'll like something else. And if you push it, he'll just fire you. Even if you don't push it, he'll probably fire you anyway. He won't want to look at you because he'll feel guilty about what you've done together. And you'll just be a reminder of it."

"Plus there's the fact that if his next fuck toy is someone else around here, the chances of the two of you getting into it are just too great. You'd really have to go then. The worst part is Jimmy wasn't offering you anything you haven't earned. Think about it Honey. Let's say that you never fucked him. At the end of the month what makes more sense, to pay you 50% more or to pay two people for doing what you can do by yourself. You're a great secretary, but you reached out to try to grab something that you already had coming in the first place."

"The worst part, sweetie, is that by you reaching out to grab what you thought was better, it looks like you've lost the best thing you had." She started shaking her head again.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"I was there last night," she said. "I spoke to your husband. I think I saved him from getting an ass whipping, but shit he might have won. He'd already knocked the shit out of one of Jimmy's bruiser body guards. He might've gotten the better of the others too. Anyway, I only stuck my nose in it for a couple of reasons. The first one was because I stood there and listened as Jimmy tried to con him, then tried to buy him off and finally even tried to scare him off, but he wouldn't have any of it. That's the mark of something really rare these days. He was smart enough not to fall for Jimmy's bullshit and honest enough not to go for getting something for nothing. But mostly it's because he loved you more than money or anything else. He wasn't willing to sell that out. That's pretty God damned special and I don't think you know what you've lost."

"The second reason, of course, was purely selfish. He told Jimmy that Jimmy was stupid for going after you when he already had a woman as beautiful as I was. I'd have saved him for that alone. But the last reason was because like I told you, I've been around a lot of people. It's like I have a built in bullshit detector. That man had that look in his eyes that said someday, someway, he was going to make Jimmy sorry for ruining his life. And I really think he might."

"Why do you keep saying loved," I snapped. "You're trying to make it seem like my marriage is over or something. Jimmy has screwed around on you a lot according to you. And the two of you are still married. I just made one mistake and now that I understand what I've done, I'll never do that again."

"Honey, there are like I keep trying to explain to you, a lot of different types of people in the world. Your man was one of those honest and true types. He's the kind of man who would love you forever and all of that bullshit. The kind of guy we all want our daughters to marry. The problem is they're awfully hard to live with because they expect us to be that way too and you fucked up."

"That kind of guy will forgive almost anyone anything except for the people he's closest to. If someone he loves betrays him, the chances of him forgiving you are so low that you'd have to go underground to measure them. There's a bigger chance that he'll forgive Jimmy than you honey. He knows what kind of a scumbag my husband is. But he believed you when you told him that you loved him, so you betraying him is something that will either destroy him or drive him crazy."

I felt my eyes welling up with tears as she spoke.

"People like that don't even have a moral compass," she said. "A moral compass has directions, it allows for variations in some cases or some situations. People like your husband...it's like the part of their brain that tells them right from wrong is powered by a tiny little rubber band, like those little Japanese hybrid cars. When that rubber band snaps, they just go fucking crazy."

"Robbie isn't like that," I said. "He'll stew for a while. Then we'll get together and talk. And we'll work this out."

"I hope so, honey," she said. "I really hope so. But I really think that he's gone and gone for good."

She got up and walked out of the office. I noticed that what I'd thought was a private conversation had been picked up by a lot of the women in the office. Several of them were looking at me differently and not in a nice way. I picked up the phone and tried to dial Robbie's cell phone. It rang a couple of times and then was answered.




Miracle Man



"Robbie, where are you?" I asked quietly. I didn't want to give the busy bodies anything else to talk about.

"This ain't Robbie," said a man's voice. "I found this phone on a bench last night, so it's mine." I quickly hung up. Robbie was so pissed at me that he'd probably just thrown the phone away in the middle of our last conversation. I realized now after talking to Rhonda that Robbie had been right. I needed to call him and beg his forgiveness before this went too far and messed everything up.

I knew that unless he was so sick that he couldn't function, Robbie would be at work. His boss never minded me calling, as long as the calls were short. So I called the garage and asked for Robbie.

I recognized his boss's voice instantly. "Heather, Robbie isn't here," he said. "I'm worried about him too. He's my best worker."

"I did something pretty bad and Robbie is angry at me," I said. "If he does call or come in could you please ask him to call me?" He said that he would and he hung up. My entire face was getting red as my blood pressure went up. I was afraid then and I was far more afraid than I'd ever been my whole life.

Just as I was trying to figure out what I should do next, Jimmy opened the door to his office and called me in. I noticed the women glaring at me. I heard one of them mumbling that it was kind of early in the day for "Dick-tation."

As soon as the door closed Jimmy started talking. "So how was your little hubby when he got home?" he asked. "Did you guys have a talk? It doesn't look like he beat your ass too bad. So he must be thinking about one of my offers."

I noticed then that Jimmy had a light coating of makeup on his face and it was much heavier around his right eye.

"So maybe later on, after this fucking tour, you and I can finish what we started yesterday," he said. "I should get to continue test driving the product until we settle on a price," he laughed.

"Robbie didn't come home last night," I said quietly.

"That's rough," said Jimmy. "He's probably still pissed and stewing about it. He'll come home when he calms down. See you later and remember to lock the fucking door, this time."

* * * * * *

Robbie

I woke up thinking that I'd slept for several hours. My body was stiffer than I ever remember it being. I quickly felt my back pockets and was relieved to discover that my wallet was still there. I pulled it out and all of my money was intact.

I was lying on the sofa in someone's living room. My shoes were on the floor next to the sofa. I tried putting one foot at a time down on the floor and my stomach groaned so loudly I could hear it.

"Damn, if you'd slept another day, I was going to call a doctor," said a voice behind me. I looked up and saw an older woman standing in the doorway. She had long curly blond hair and incredibly blue eyes. The smile on her face spoke of genuine concern. My stomach growled again.

"Okay, I heard that, we'll put off everything else until I get some food into you," she smiled. She came over and grabbed my hand before I'd even gotten my shoes on.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Robert Morrison, ma'am," I said.

"Well Robert Morrison ma'am," she smiled. "We're both in for a treat. I get to watch someone who'll enjoy my cooking. And you're so hungry you won't care how terrible it tastes."

"I'm sure it'll be great ma'am," I said. "I appreciate it."

"Oh my God," she said. "You're such a polite young man. I almost hate to do this to you."

As she turned towards the refrigerator and pulled out several plastic containers I noticed that for a woman who was probably close to sixty, she had a great ass. I'd already noticed the rather sizable protuberances on her chest. Though they now rested at nearly waist level, I was sure that they were impressive when she was younger.

"Almost hate to do what Betty?" asked another female voice. This one was kind of scratchy and came from a woman who was even older. By a conservative estimate I figured 80 at the very least.

"This is Robert Morrison, Mom, "said Betty. "I'm making him something to eat."

"Should I get out the stomach pump or the Pepto Bismal," asked the old lady who was surprisingly spry. I just smiled.

"He's never going to marry Katie if you kill him on their first date," said the old lady.

"He's not one of Katie's," said Betty. "He's one of Dan's."

"Oh," said the old lady. She wandered back out of the room as if she'd suddenly lost interest.

As soon as the plate came out of the microwave I dug in. The first thing I went after was something chewy. I thought it was some kind of meat, but the consistency of it was more like bubblegum. It did taste kind of meaty but that might've been because it was covered in gravy.

As I ate, Betty just sat next to me and stared with a smile on her face.

"You don't have to eat all of it," she said. "You've already gone way beyond the call of duty."

"It's...filling," I managed to get out.

"Do you know what it is?" she asked proudly.

"And I thought I had a rotten day," said a man's voice that was strangely familiar. A tall, lanky man whose hair and short beard were all so gray they were white walked into the kitchen. He immediately hugged Betty like he hadn't seen her in months. They started kissing right in front of me. I wasn't used to seeing that from older people.

"Betty, you've tortured the boy by making him eat it and now you want to give him a test on it?" he asked. "At least let him get back on his feet."

I stood up and shook his hand. "I'm sorry to be such a bother sir," I said. "I've had a couple of hours sleep and some food. So I'll be on my way. I don't have much money but I'd be glad to give you whatever you think is fair."

He looked at his wife. "You didn't tell him yet?" he asked.

"It hadn't come up yet in the conversation," she said. "Robert Morrison, we were beginning to worry about you because you slept for almost two days straight."

I was shocked but I could believe it. "My husband told me about meeting you on the road," she said. "From what I've heard it sounds like you were in a hurry to get away from something."

"It's not anything illegal," I told her. "It was just time for a change in my life. Circumstances beyond my control made living where I was impossible."

"He always talks that way, Dan?" she said.

"I'm no stranger to troubles myself," said Dan. "If you need someone to talk to while you're here, just let me know."

"But I..." I began.

"Robert Morrison, you're getting away from something, right," he asked. I nodded.

"Well if all you're doing is going away from something, how will you know when you get to where you're going?" he asked.

"I have no idea sir," I said.

"So maybe you're already here," he offered. "There's always something to do around a farm this big. Why not stay for a while until you get your head on straight? We'll talk about the particulars when we get a chance. You can sleep in the bunkhouse, but I have to warn you in advance about it. We usually have college kids, around your age maybe a bit younger staying there. The place is a mess."

I just smiled. "I'll show you where it is once I've had something to eat myself," he said. He got some bread out and started making himself a sandwich.

"I'm sorry did I just eat your dinner or something?" I asked. He just looked at me and laughed.

"We have a cook who also helps out with the house work," he said. "Today is her day off. Usually on Rosa's days off, we have fast food or just scrounge. Nobody eats Betty's cooking. I love her but she can burn water."

"Ha ha," said Betty. "I keep trying though."

"Yup," he said. "And sooner or later you're going to kill somebody." They both laughed and started talking about other things.

"You said something about your day being bad honey," she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Remember, one of the trucks broke down last week? Well today that old diesel tractor died too. It seems to be the motor too but neither me, nor the other two guys can figure out what the hell is wrong with it."

Later on, Dan took me over to what he called the bunkhouse. I was expecting a barn or something like that with a few beds in it like in those old western movies. It was actually a well appointed small house. The problem was that all of the rooms looked like rats had nested in them. I told Dan it was fine and thanked him again for letting me stay. "You really are polite," he said.

The first few hours that I was there I spent picking out a room and cleaning it. There were four bedrooms and two of them were already occupied. I picked the smaller of the two remaining rooms and started to clean it up. First, I gathered and bagged all of the trash I found. Then I arranged everything else on either the shelves that lined one wall or the closet. After that I swept the entire room and opened the windows to let some fresh air in. I repositioned the slats under the mattress to make the bed functional again and shook out the mattress itself. All I need was clean sheets which I'd assumed would be in the linen closet.

I'd apparently gotten the wrong idea though. All I found in the linen closet were more dirty sheets. I did get lucky though. I found a pair of jeans that would fit me and a couple of sweat shirts from some colleges I'd neither been to nor heard of.

Just like that I'd doubled my wardrobe.

I wandered around until I fell asleep again.

The next morning Betty knocked on the wall in the front room to let us know that breakfast was ready.

I started getting my shoes on just in time to hear a voice say, "Morning Betty, about that breakfast, did you cook it?"

"No smart ass," she laughed. "Rosa's back. Have you boys met Robert yet?"

She walked into the other empty room and then noticing that I wasn't in there stepped into the room I was in. She looked around and then pulled out a cell phone and called Dan.

"Dan, get over here quick," she said. She just smiled at me. "Hey, Joe, Greg, come in here."

Dan showed up a few minutes later and she brought him into the room. Joe and Greg were just getting dressed and they came into the room too. Dan looked around the room and whistled. He took his hat off and looked at the other two men. "Did either of you guys realize that there was a room under all of that shit?" he asked. They all laughed.

"I guess I know where I'm sleeping tonight," said Joe.

"Hell no," said Greg. "I think Robert should sleep in the other rooms with us and we should save this one for when we have dates."

"Good idea," said Joe.

"When would either of you two losers have a date," asked a woman I'd never seen before. She was about my age or a little younger, I thought. She had Betty's curly blonde hair and the same eyes but she seemed not to have Betty's cheerful attitude or disposition. She took one look at me, stuck her nose up in the air and walked out of the house.

"Uhm, that was my daughter Katie," said Dan laughing. "It takes her a little time to warm up to new people. But once you get to know her, it gets worse."

We all went back over to the main house where Rosa, who was not what I expected, had breakfast on the table. I guess I was expecting a chunky, older, Hispanic woman. Rosa was a tall, slim, middle aged, black woman. She had several pots going on the stove and was constantly walking over to the table to drop off things.

"Rosa cooks several meals for us all at the same time," said Dan. "She does that so we don't starve when she goes home. Don't let Betty warm up your food for you either. She can over microwave it until it's either hard as a rock or dry as a bone."

"Dan, Honey, I'm sitting at the table with you," said Betty. "I can hear every word you're saying."

Everyone at the table except for Katie laughed. She just rolled her eyes like she wanted to be somewhere else. I did notice that she kept staring at me when she thought I wasn't looking though.

After breakfast, Dan started telling the other two guys what he wanted them to do. I raised my hand and he looked at me strangely.

"Robert, if you have something to say just say it," he said with a smile. "We're pretty informal."

"Well, sir, I was just wondering if you have anything I could do?" I asked.

"I'll have Katie take you around and show you the layout of the farm and then we'll figure out where we could use you," he said. "But truthfully, if I lose much more equipment, I'm going to be in trouble. I may have to get another truck as it is."

"Great," said Katie. Her voice was dripping sarcasm so thickly, that I wished he'd asked someone else.

After everyone left, with the men going out to the fields and the women heading off to do laundry or more cooking, I was left with Katie.

"Well, let's go," she snapped. "I don't want to waste my whole day with you."

"I'm really sorry," I said. "It wasn't my idea. If it's that much of a problem maybe I could just walk around and figure things out by myself. I'll just ask questions later."

"That's a great idea," she said. "That way you can still get used to things and I don't have to waste my time on one of daddy's useless drifters. Those other two freeloaders are bad enough. At least they're going to be here for the entire summer, but I don't have time to waste on transients."

"Katie, you're twenty years old and you keep surprising me," said Betty sharply. "I'll take Robert around. You can spend the day helping out with the laundry."

"Sorry," I told Betty. "I didn't mean to cause any problems. Maybe I should move on."

"Robert, you're welcome here for as long as you want to be," said Betty. As we drove around the property with her showing and telling me things about the farm, she told me about her history. The woman she called mom actually wasn't her mother. She was her mother. She was Dan's mother but she loved Betty like her own daughter. The farm had been in Betty's family for longer than anyone could remember. Betty was sixty two years old. Dan was sixty six. In 1970, just after his stint in the war in Vietnam ended, Betty's dad had spied Dan walking down the road near their south field. Dan had obviously not had a good time. He was upset and fuming, but Betty's dad knew that more than anything else Dan had been hurt and hurt badly by someone. He invited Dan to stay for a while on the farm. Dan didn't know anything about farming but over the years he'd become good at it.

Those were the end of the free love days and eventually Dan and Betty had gotten together. Betty hadn't been as pure as the driven snow in those days. She'd sowed her wild oats but when Dan came along the two of them just knew that they were more than right for each other. It was like love at first sight and they hadn't lost sight of each since. They still carried on like teenagers to this day. Hearing that kind of made me smile and Betty noticed it.

The last things she showed me on the tour were the buildings around the farm like the barns and sheds. When we got to the one that the broken down truck and the tractor were in I smiled.

"Betty, do you think that Dan would mind if I looked at his truck?" I asked.

"Well it doesn't run," she smiled. "What could you do to make it worse? He was going through the papers last night looking to see if we could get a better deal on a new truck or a used one. He was also looking into having this one hauled away. The problem is that we live so far out of town that most of the guys that would want it for parts would want us to pay them to haul it to their places. So you go ahead. There are some tools in the shed."

When I looked at the truck, I almost immediately found the problems and there were several. The truck needed a new fuel pump and a new alternator. The spark plug wires were also bad. This was something I could do to pay them back for their generosity. I got on the phone and found the fuel pump at a "You pull it," junk yard in town. They also had the alternator. They could let me have the alternator for only fifty bucks if I took it off of a truck in the yard. The fuel pump was even cheaper. A new set of spark plug wires I got from an O'reilly's auto parts on the way home. Katie had volunteered to drive me into town to pick up the parts. I worked through lunch and Betty brought me a plate of food out to the barn.

"I didn't cook it," she said smiling.

Just before dinner, I took Dan out to the barn. Joe and Greg came along as well. Just before my big demo happened Betty wandered in too.

I handed the keys to Dan and he smiled at me. "Do you want to do something with this pile of garbage?" he asked. "I'd sell it as a boat anchor if I could."

"Start it," I smiled. He looked at me strangely.

"Robert, this thing is done," he said. "It's only good for scrap."

He turned the key and the truck roared to life. Everyone in the barn started yelling and patting me on the back.

"How did you fix it?" asked Dan.

"I'm a mechanic," I smiled.

"How much did the parts cost me?" he asked. "Where'd you get them from?"

"Under a hundred dollars," I said. "I had a couple of hundred dollars on me. I figured it was the least I could do to repay you, sir."

"That fucking bitch," screamed Betty. "Dan, I've had it up to here with your daughter."

"What are you talking about Betty?" asked Dan.

"Katie volunteered to take Robert into town to get the parts. I thought she wanted to make up for acting so stupidly this morning. I gave her three hundred dollars in case they needed to pay for any parts. Robert used his own money, which he shouldn't have done. But I guess he didn't know. Your daughter brought me back seventeen dollars in change. I figured if he could get that truck running for less than three hundred dollars we'd have saved a mint on buying another one. And if he couldn't we were only out three hundred more."

Betty had fire in her eyes. Dan just shook his head. "She's got to find her own way, honey," he said sadly.

"Yeah Dan, but her way shouldn't include stealing from her own parents. And it's like she's stealing from poor Robert too. He just used half of all the money he has to try to help us. She has it coming."

I figured that might be a good time to change the subject. "I noticed a couple of other cars and trucks that I might be able to fix depending on what they need," I said.

Dan looked at me then very seriously. "Robert, have you ever worked on a tractor?"

"Well, I haven't yet," I said. "But we could go on the internet and download the service manuals. From then on it's just a matter of ordering any parts that are necessary. I'd be willing to give it a try."

Dan's eyes got bigger. "Robert, after dinner I'll give you the money you spent on parts for the truck back. You've already saved me a lot of money, buddy. If you can fix that tractor, I'd be the happiest man in the county. The rest of those old hulks don't matter. Two of those cars I bought at an auction and thought I'd fix them up and get them running but that's easier said than done. If you want, you can have one of them. I'll even give you some money for parts. You've already saved me from having to buy another truck. If you get that tractor working...do you even know how much a tractor costs these days?" He patted me on the shoulder and walked away smiling and mumbling about picking me up on the road being his lucky day.

Joe and Greg were smiling too. "Why are you guys so happy?" I asked.

"That truck you fixed means the two of us don't have to walk with a wheelbarrow to get our work done. The truck will hold at least five times as much as the wheelbarrow and we won't have to push. We'll be able to get more work done tomorrow with a lot less strain. I see a date in my future tomorrow night," said Greg. "I may even bring her home and use your room." He patted me on the shoulder too.

Things around the dinner table were interesting that night. Joe and Greg were happy about having the truck back and Dan was over the moon at the prospect of getting the tractor fixed as well. There was a slight bit of tension in the air though and it all came to a head as Katie, who'd been gone all afternoon flounced in just in time for dinner wearing a new outfit. The smile on her face was the kind you'd expect on a cat who'd just tricked a canary into sitting in his mouth.




Miracle Man



She strutted around the room posing and twisting in her new clothes. "Katie, you'd better get a good night's sleep tonight," said Betty.

"Why mom?" asked Katie. It was the first time I'd ever heard her cheerful. "I was thinking about going into town tonight if I can still use the car."

"Well that's a pretty long walk, especially considering what you're going to have to do tomorrow," said Betty smiling. "Whoever you're going into town to screw might have to wait a couple of days."

Everyone around the table found somewhere else to look or concentrated on their food then. Katie leaped up, fighting mad. "Mom, are you trying to say something?" she asked angrily. "You know you weren't so pure yourself when you met Daddy."

"Katie, you're over eighteen and you can do what you want in terms of your affairs," said Betty. "But some of the things you do go far beyond anything I ever did. But that's really not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is, exactly where did you get the money for your new clothes?"

"Uhm, I had some birthday money left over that I'd been holding onto," said Katie. Everyone around the table stuck their heads even further into their plates. Even Dan started looking at the floor.

"Robert," said Betty, looking at me strangely. "Haven't you ever seen chicken before? Look up at me for a second." I pried my eyes away from my plate.

"How much did the parts for the truck cost?" asked Betty.

"A little under a hundred dollars," I said quietly. Katie glared at me.

"Where'd you get the money for the parts?" asked Betty. Both Betty's and Katie's gazes bore into me.

"I uhm had some money when I came here," I said. Now it was Betty's turn for the sneaky grin.

"Katie, when you took Robert into town, I gave you three hundred dollars. You brought me back seventeen dollars. Where's the rest of my money?" asked Betty.

Katie turned three different shades of red. "I was going to pay you back," she said.

"Katie, when you borrow money from someone, you're supposed to ask them first. Borrowing money without asking is called stealing. You STOLE two hundred and eighty-three dollars from me. How are you going to pay me back?" asked Betty.

Katie just looked at the floor. Her beautiful eyes filled with tears. "I just wanted to look nice," she said.

"The guys you visit really don't see you in clothes anyway," said Betty.

"Katie, you're a pretty girl," said Dan. "You don't need to get yourself all gussied up to attract a man."

"So I have an idea," said Betty.

"Joe, what is minimum wage now-a-days?" asked Betty.

"It's like seven dollars and some change," said Joe.

"It takes about four hours to muck out the stables," said Betty. "So at seven dollars an hour you have to muck out the stables the next ten times starting tomorrow."

"But..." began Katie.

Betty looked at her, ending the discussion.

"Well, why can't I still go to town tonight?" she asked.

"You still can," said Betty. "You're a grown woman. I have no intention of telling you what you can and can't do. I'm just telling you that you can't use my car. You stole from me, so until you pay the money back I can't trust you with my car."

Katie wrapped her arms across her chest and started sulking like a five year old girl. She glared at me and I knew then that if looks could kill, I'd be lying on the floor.

The next morning I got up bright and early. Before Rosa started breakfast, I was already in the barn looking at the tractor. The tractor had a diesel engine and it wasn't very drastically different from the motor in a small car. The engine needed several new gaskets and seals. New pistons and rings would also make it much more reliable. I was lucky I didn't actually need the service manual since the problems were just engine repairs.

Betty came to get me for breakfast and I told her I'd need to take a shower before I'd be presentable to sit at the table and she just laughed. I'd washed my only other pair of jeans in the sink and fortunately they'd had a couple of days to dry. They were loose on me and kind of wrinkled but they looked better than the ones I was wearing.

As I went into the kitchen and said good morning to everyone, Dan looked at me and I smiled.

"I'll need to look online to see where I can get parts for that diesel motor in your tractor," I said.

"You can fix it?" he asked. I nodded.

"It'll take a couple of days after I get the parts to do all of it, but I can do it," I said. Dan jumped up and started screaming. He was dancing around and slapping his knees so hard I thought he might need a hip replacement. He grabbed Betty and started kissing her. And the two of them weren't just giving each other pecks either. Betty was rubbing those big old tits of hers against him and kissing him back.

Nobody else seemed interested but I was shocked. Betty looked at me and smiled. "I told you he didn't marry me for my cooking; at least not for cooking in the kitchen."

After breakfast Dan, Betty and I drove into town in his truck. We got all of the parts I'd need for the tractor and then we stopped at another store in town. Before I knew it Betty had grabbed me by the arm and had loaded a cart with pants, shirts, socks and underwear for me. She wouldn't even listen to me when I told her that I didn't want them to buy me anything.

"Do you have any idea how much a tractor costs?" she asked. That was the end of it.

When we got back to the farm, I started right in on the tractor. I had all of the tools laid out neatly on the bench I'd set up and placed the new parts on a table nearby. All of the parts that I was going to reuse I was cleaning with mineral spirits and de-burring.

As I worked, I had the feeling that I was being watched. I looked up and there was a young woman staring at me. It was a hot afternoon and I'd taken off the sweatshirt so I didn't get oil on it, but also to cool down.

"Sorry," I said, grabbing for the shirt.

"Oh you don't have to cover up on my account,' she said, smiling at me. She was tall and kind of thin. She had on a short frilly skirt and a blouse in a contrasting color made of the same material. She had the top tied under where her breasts would be if she had any.

I just nodded at her and turned to get back to work. She stayed there and stared at me for a while longer and then left.

Maybe a half hour later she came back with Katie. Katie, as usual, was glaring at everything she came across. The two of them just stood in the doorway staring at me together and whispering.

Finally the girl reached out to Katie like she didn't really want to touch her and pushed her into the barn.

"Robert, this is Fanny," said Katie. "Fanny, this is Robert." That was all it took. Fanny jumped in and took over the conversation from then on.

"I just came over to show Katie one of my new outfits," said Fanny. Her voice was interesting. It sounded as if it belonged on a much older woman. "Katie told me she got a new outfit yesterday too," said Fanny. "But I'll bet it wasn't like this one. I'm glad she's not wearing it now. She's disgusting all covered in cow poop. If I hadn't been just dying to talk to you I wouldn't have even touched her."

"You're right," I said smiling. Katie seemed to just shrink in on herself. "Katie's outfit isn't like yours and I'm glad. She probably shouldn't try to wear anything like that."

Fanny smirked and Katie looked down.

"If Katie did wear an outfit like that one, no one in the whole town would be able to get any work done," I said. "All of the men in town would be too busy staring at her and all of the women would be jealous."

"What," said Fanny. This clearly wasn't going the way she'd expected it to.

"It's kind of like you said, Fanny," I continued. "Even right now, covered in cow poop, she's still probably the prettiest girl in the state. There's no one around here no matter how dressed up, that can come close to her."

Fanny started sputtering and then closed her mouth and glared at me. Katie's eyes shot open and she smiled so brightly that it lit up the barn. Fanny spun around on one heel and started stomping her way out of the barn. Katie followed her and I went back to work.

Some of the sealants that I was using needed time to dry. I thought that would be a good time to look at the other cars in the barn. There was a beat up Chevy Malibu that looked like with a little bit of TLC it might be drivable. I thought about it and decided to look at what else was there. An old Ford ranger with a lot of body damage but was still newer than the truck I had back home. I realized then that I'd just made a very big mistake. For all of the three days that I'd been here I hadn't thought about home or what I'd left behind even once. It was almost as if I'd simply started a new life and left the old one behind. I'd had three days of getting to know new people and a new place. When I started trying to fit in here, I'd left the pain that I'd so recently gone through behind with all of the problems I'd run away from.

I sat down and thought about it. I decided that I was in a better place. Heather had made her choice and it obviously wasn't me. We'd each have to make our way on our own from now on. I'd left her everything thing we owned. I'd walked away with two hundred dollars and the clothes on my back. I was sure she could get Jimmy to pay for a divorce for her. As I was taking long slow breaths to try to calm down, I saw a metallic gleam coming from under a pile of what I thought was hay.

I brushed some of the hay away and realized that there was another car in the barn that I hadn't noticed. I brushed away more hay and the car started to take shape. It was a mustang but not one of the recent models. The car was at least 10 years old. There wasn't any damage to the body, which was a good thing. Other than a few scratches and dings it looked pretty good.

I opened the door and started coughing immediately. The interior of the car smelled like a mixture of stale beer, old weed and pussy. It had been left to bake here in the barn for who knows how long.

"I'd forgotten all about that thing," said Dan as he came into the barn.

"The seals on your motor need to dry," I said. He waved his hand at me. "Robert you're not on a clock. I was just coming by to ask you what you did to Katie."

I was shocked. I wondered if she'd made something up about me to try to get back at me for letting her parents find out about the money.

"As far as I know," I said. "I didn't do anything. If I offended her in any way, I'll apologize immediately."

Dan started laughing. "Robert you've got it the wrong way," he said. "For the past few days she's been dragging her ass around here like an old wet hen. She's been constantly whining about wasting her time and telling us to lock everything at night because we have transients on the property. I had to look that word up in the dictionary. Now all of a sudden she's smiling like Miss America and she told her mother that you're really not that bad."

"She came by here a little while ago with that tall girl," I said. "That girl isn't very nice, she's..."

"Snooty as hell," interjected Dan.

"Exactly," I said nodding my head. "She was trying to put your daughter down with a few snide remarks, so I gave her my opinion."

"Uhm Robert, what was your opinion?" asked Dan.

"I told her that even covered in cow poop, Katie was probably one of the best looking women in the state and far better than anyone I'd seen around here." 

Dan just started laughing. He was laughing so hard he couldn't stand up. Betty came running out to the barn to see what was so funny. When Dan told her she started laughing too. I just looked at them strangely.

Finally Betty told me. "Fanny is the mayor's daughter. She's a normal looking girl if you like them tall and thin. But she likes herself a little bit too much. Way back when they were all in grade school she declared herself to be the prettiest girl in town. All through high school and beyond, her daddy's money made sure that everyone agreed with her. She'd get all of the latest games and toys or whatever and all of the kids who wanted to play with them or be around her had to agree with her. She was the homecoming queen, twice. She was always the head cheerleader. She was the "it girl" since she's been old enough to walk."

"And now, Robert, you've had the gall to come into to town and challenge the status quo. It's like that story the emperor's new clothes. You're the only person who's had the balls to tell her that she isn't the most beautiful thing alive."

"Oh boy," I said. "I hope I didn't mess things up for Katie."

For the next few weeks, things just settled into a really nice pace. It was great being among people who liked me and respected me. It was great just being able to do my part to contribute to the farm and the people who lived on it.

It took me a couple of days longer than I thought to get the tractor going, but Dan told me it hasn't run this well since it was new. I looked over the other cars and decided to get the Malibu running for Katie and I'd keep the Mustang for myself. After I got the interior aired out and cleaned the leather, I kind of bonded with the car and spent all of my spare time working on it.

I also helped out by fixing cars and truck and other mechanical things for Dan's neighbors. I gave the money I made doing it to Dan. His neighbors were happy because what I charged them was far less than they'd have paid anywhere else. Dan was happy because he had another stream of revenue and I was happy because...Well I was just happy.

* * * * * *

Heather

In the three weeks since Robert left me, my life had changed drastically. I was having more sex and enjoying it less than any time in my life. I was barely able to pay the major bills in the house. I was probably not going to be able to make the month's mortgage payment and I was surviving on the food and drinks they put out at the office.

Since my husband left, Jimmy was calling me into the office a lot more. It wasn't a once or twice a week, when everyone was gone thing anymore. There were days that he called me more than once a day. He was also rougher with me than before because he no longer had to worry about leaving marks on me. He was also making me do things that nice southern girls just don't do or at least we don't admit to doing. Jimmy had started treating me like a possession more than a person. And as dire as my financial straits were I couldn't really refuse.

On the other hand, the women around the office went completely out of their way to pretend that I didn't exist. I think I liked it better when they snickered and made jokes about me. Being the office whore was infinitely better than non-existence. When Jimmy, in one of his good moods decided to buy everyone lunch, Lucy counted all of the people in the office including the security guys.

Since she isn't very smart she pointed at each person and counted, much like a school girl would. She looked right at me and moved her finger past me as if I wasn't sitting there right next to her, causing all of the other women in the office to nearly fall off of their chairs laughing. For a group of supposedly steadfast Christian women, they were surprising low on good Christian charity.

As they all sat there laughing and pointing past me, mimicking Lucy's gestures, tears started running down my cheeks. I got up and ran out of the room. While I was in the bathroom crying and trying to muster enough courage to go back out there, things got really quiet. Then I heard a lot of shuffling around and people moving.

I walked back out of the office just in time to catch the last part of Rhonda giving them the worst chewing out I'd ever heard. After that, things were different around the office. Everyone there treated me much nicer. Unfortunately, I could tell that it was faked. They were nice to me because they were afraid of Rhonda. Not because they'd had any semblance of sorrow for the way they'd behaved.

None of that really mattered though. They couldn't treat me any worse than I felt myself. I missed Robbie so badly it hurt physically. I'd called his friends to find out if he'd gone somewhere but they had no idea where he was or that we'd argued.

I had no one to turn to. Most of my friends had been the women I worked with. Other than them, I'd always spent all of my time with Robbie. I was having trouble sleeping but I was tired all the time. I kept jumping up at every sound hoping it was him. I needed so badly to tell him what a fool I'd been.

Last week I'd passed out in the office. Luckily, Rhonda had been there. I was sure that the women I worked with would have just politely walked over me and went about their business while I died on the floor. I woke up in the back of that big Lincoln Town car of hers. She was taking me to the doctor's office. I told her not to bother I just hadn't been eating well and I wasn't sleeping either.

This morning I got the worst phone call of my life. The doctor called back to tell me I needed to eat better and get more sleep. He also told me that I needed to stop drinking because going by the tests they'd taken the previous week, if there was still that much alcohol in my blood from drinking myself to sleep the night before, than I was dangerously close to becoming an alcoholic. On the other hand if I'd been drinking that early in the morning on the day they brought me in, then I was already an alcoholic.

The worse news of all though, was that I was pregnant. I was six weeks pregnant and I needed to start doing some kind of improvements to my life and health for the sake of my baby. I went into shock.

That morning, I waited until nearly lunchtime for Rhonda to drop by the office. She didn't come in on any kind of regular schedule. She might come in every day one week, and only once or twice the next week. When she came in though, I asked her if I could talk to her.

We used Jimmy's office and I broke down as soon as she closed the door. "I'm pregnant," I told her. Her eyes got huge and she sat down too.

"We're screwed," she said in shock. "I have to figure some way out of this. At least I can get along with you. You're not trying to take anything from me or my son. Who knows how I'll get along with his next whore?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Honey, your ass is grass," she said. "And maybe mine too."

"What do you usually do when Jimmy gets someone pregnant?" I asked. She looked at me stupidly.

"Sweetie, Jimmy has never gotten anyone pregnant," she said.

"So except for you, I'm the only one," I said incredulously. I was thinking that I had the worst luck ever.

"Sweetie," she said slowly, as if her assessment of my intelligence had taken another rapid drop. "Jimmy has never gotten anyone pregnant but he doesn't know it."

"You mean..." I began.

"Yep," she said. "Josh isn't Jimmy's son, but he doesn't know that. It's a long story but let's just say that the bastard cheated on me so many times, that I decided to get a little revenge of my own. My son is the result of that. You're how far along?"

"About six weeks according to your doctor," I said.

"And you've been fucking Jimmy for about a month right," she said. Suddenly it hit me and I started smiling. 

"Why are you smiling?" she asked.

"Because in my entire life I've only been with two men," I said.

"What good does that do us?" she asked. "If Jimmy finds out you're pregnant he'll drop you like you're radioactive. He can't have any sign of impropriety around him so he'll have to get rid of you. Jimmy doesn't own the church. There's a board of directors that he has to answer to, so he can't just pay you off without their approval."

"Like some of the other girls, in order to pay you off or get rid of you, the board is going to want all of the details. This may be the straw that breaks the camel's back and gets Jimmy's dumb ass fired. The board may give him one more chance but they'd probably want to be able to prove that your baby is Jimmy's kid. Once they determine that it isn't, someone may want to do a DNA test on Josh. So, both of us could go down for this."




Miracle Man



"But I'm happy," I said. She looked at me stupidly again.

"Why are you happy?" she asked.

"Because I'm carrying my husband's baby," I said.

She pulled out a very expensive looking cell phone. "Call him and tell him the good news," she smiled. Then I saw her point. I would probably soon be out of work and pregnant. I'd have no income and no husband. I was already on the verge of losing my house. Even if I was going to move back home with my parents I'd have to tell them what happened between Robert and I and why. Under those circumstances, my dad might not even let me move in.

My life was like a snowball rolling down a large mountain of shit. The further I rolled, the more shit I picked up.

Two weeks after that conversation, Jimmy noticed that I was slowing down in my work. Since he was still fucking me as much as ever, he just hired me an assistant. She was a pretty college girl with long dark hair who wore short shorts a lot.

Shortly after he hired her, Jimmy stopped calling me into the office. Shortly after that, the office was hit by a round of layoffs. Each department had to lay off one person. The head of the secretarial department was Lucy. She decided to cut corners even more than the rules asked for. She laid me and my assistant off. She looked at the layoffs as being a house cleaning move. Jimmy had nothing to do with it. He had no say in which workers she chose. I later found out that my assistant was hired back the following week. It was Rhonda who told me. She gave me a few hundred dollars to help me out. She told me that my replacement was actually calling Jimmy into his office several times a day.

I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no way of contacting Robbie and even I had to admit that my drinking was getting out of hand.

* * * * * *

Robbie

Six weeks after leaving home, I was happy. I loved life on the farm. There was nothing else around the farm for me to fix unless one of the neighbors came by with something so I was learning to do the farm work. I took to it like everything else I did. Joe and Greg were great guys but they didn't put everything they had into it. I did and I could see that Dan was watching me.

Like most cases where a lot of different people live together in close confines, we'd had a few accidents but we all got along relatively well. I'd accidentally walked in on Betty and gotten quite an eyeful once. The bathroom in the bunkhouse was occupied and I had to go badly. I'd gone into the house and no one was around so I just walked into the bathroom just as Betty had gotten out of the shower. For a sixty year old woman she looked really good. She had a gut on her, but her boobs were just huge. For a long moment I just stood there staring at them and then turned and ran the other way.

Like most things, Betty charged into it like a bull. She came and found me later still laughing. I started apologizing as soon as I saw her and she told me to calm down because accidents happened.

I apologized for staring at her and she laughed again. "It was funny," she said. "Anyone watching would have thought that you'd never seen titties before."

"It's been a long time," I said. "And I've never seen any that big."

"Yeah but Katie's are nicer," she said. I shrugged my shoulders wondering why she was telling me that. Then she looked at me the same way.

"You've never seen..." she said. Then she shrugged her shoulders too. "I thought that you guys had at least..."

"I'd never do anything like that," I said.

"Why not?" she asked. "You're both healthy young people."

"Because that would be disrespectful of the hospitality you've shown me," I said. "You and Dan have been nothing but kind to me since I got here. It would be..." I couldn't think of a word to describe it.

"Normal," she said. "Robert, Katie has already slept with both of the other boys. There have been times when one or the other of them have thought they were in love with her and there have been some hard feelings all around over misunderstandings and the like. But they've all come to realize that Katie isn't going to marry either one of them and they both have girlfriends back at school. The two of them also visit and date a couple of the local girls when they're here for the summer. Katie has a few boyfriends in town too. But nothing serious."

"I know that something weird is going on with the two of you," she said. "I know my daughter pretty well. There are times when I don't like her, but I always love her. And after what you said to Fanny a few weeks back, Katie was following you around like a puppy. Then it abruptly stopped. I guess I just assumed that the two of you had gotten it on and one of you or both of you had been unhappy with it. Every pair of people are not sexually compatible. "

"No ma'am," I said. "We've never done anything like that. We've never even kissed or held hands." Betty just shook her head and smiled at me.

"Do you know why we're so loose about what Katie does, Robert?" she asked.

"I hadn't given it much thought, ma'am," I said.

"When I was younger it was the same way," she said. "I was kind of loose too. It was the era of free love and all of that. My generation was the first to realize that women liked to fuck too. It wasn't necessary for me to hide it so I experimented. I slept with a few guys, but I was up front about it. I was on the pill and I wanted to learn things about my body and what I wanted. When Dan wandered onto the farm, I tried him out too. My dad had warned him about me and he warned me about Dan too."

"He told me that Dan had just come back from the war and had been through some terrible experiences. He told me that Dan was a nice guy but he needed some TLC to get back to being that nice guy. He also told me that Dan would eventually need to come to terms with the things he'd done to forgive himself for them before he could truly be happy, so I should be very careful how I handled Dan."

"My Dad liked Dan, he didn't want me to just screw him and then hurt him by showing up the next day or the next week with someone else. My Dad was wrong as hell about everything. Dan hadn't had any bad experiences during the war. Dan was trying to hitchhike or walk 200 miles back to the recruitment office to get back to the war. Dan had come home and found out that his wife was pregnant by one of his best friends. She'd been cheating on him ever since he'd gone overseas. It wasn't the war that Dan was trying to leave behind. It was everything he'd seen since coming home."

"You have that same look. Dan told me about it. You remind him a lot of himself back then. When Dan and I did get together, that didn't go the way my Daddy thought either. Since the first time that Dan and I got together, no other man has ever touched me. It was a little rough at first and before we were truly happy Dan ended up having to go back and face his ex-wife. He also had to come to terms with his ex-best friend."

"Dan had beaten his friend nearly to death. When he went back six weeks later the man was still in the hospital. They talked. The friend apologized to Dan for betraying him. Dan apologized for the beating he'd given the man. Then they set about trying to solve their mutual problems. Dan's friend was an asshole. He didn't love Dan's wife, he just loved pussy. But he didn't want to own one. He had no intention of marrying Dan's wife even after Dan divorced her."

"Realistically, he made sense. He was honest. He told Dan that he wasn't going to marry a woman who would cheat on her husband. He'd just end up being the next husband she cheated on and he also didn't have any kind of romantic feelings for her. She was just available so he took advantage of her. In fact he was sorrier for the way he'd treated Dan than the way he'd treated the woman. He actually said that she deserved what happened to her and if it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. Shortly after their conversation, the man disappeared."

"Dan really wanted to be with me, so he filed for a divorce anyway. He got a good judge who, after hearing all of the facts really wasn't very pleased with Dan's ex. He laid down the law telling her how low a person she had to be to cheat on a man who was risking his life to defend our freedom while she was at home fucking a bunch of guys who didn't have half of his courage. He couldn't let Dan off Scott free, but he did set it up so that Dan just had to keep her on his medical insurance until she delivered her baby. She tried everything she could to get out of the divorce. She went to counseling and she tried every scheme she could think of. But Dan just didn't want to be with her anymore. You see Dan had fallen out of love with her and he really loved me then. We didn't have any secrets. He knew that I'd been around the block a few times, but I was ready to settle down. Plus I had way bigger tits."

"Anyway, in this day and age it's even harder for young people to find their way. So we'd be being less than forthright, if we didn't expect Katie to experiment a little. It's the only way she's going to find her own true love. A girl sometimes has to fuck a few frogs before she finds her prince."

I smiled and I was sure that Betty thought I understood what she was talking about. The problem was that she'd been right. Something had happened. I'd noticed Katie following me around and hadn't thought anything of it. Then one night I'd been really tired from working on my car and I'd wandered into the bunkhouse. As I walked down the hallway towards my bedroom, the only clean room in the house still, I heard voices.

It was Katie. She was screaming, "Oh yeah, fuck me Robbie," and the springs on my bed were squeaking. There on my bed were Katie, Greg and Joe. Greg was pounding her like there was no tomorrow while Joe squatted over her dangling his dick in her mouth and pulling it away every time she got the tip between her lips. Then Greg pulled out and shot a blast on cum on her stomach and collapsed next to her.

"My turn," said Joe.

"I need to rest for a second," Katie said.

"Katie," said Joe. "We all know each other but there's one thing I can't figure out. If you want to try Robbie out, why don't you just fuck HIM? I mean I don't even care about you calling out his name when I fuck you, but why do you need both of us to practice with unless Robbie has two dicks?"

"Because this is the first summer where all three of us have gotten along," she said. "And I don't want either one of you getting jealous of the other. Plus this way when I do get started with Robbie, you too will have known all along that it was coming. This is kind of a goodbye fuck for the three of us."

I was just about to simply turn and walk away. I'd go back to the barn and just stay there but I caught my foot on that God damned rug and fell loudly.

They all looked up and saw me at the door. I got up and pretended that I'd just gotten there. They were all still embarrassed and Katie tried to cover herself up. I just mumbled that I was sorry. And that I hadn't known anyone was in there. I did leave then. I went back to the garage. I turned off all of the lights in the garage and lay down in the Mustang's driver's seat. I reclined the seat all the way back and just let consciousness slip away from me. With the barn doors open I did see Katie slip out of the house a short time after I'd left the house. She came straight toward the barn and looked in. She turned the light on and looked around. Luckily with the seat reclined and the car in the back of the barn, I could see her but she couldn't see me.

After she left, I lay there unmoving for a long time. The next day I avoided Katie like the plague. I even avoided making eye contact with her at breakfast. When I wandered back to the bunkhouse after we ate, I ran into the other two guys. They were both apologetic and I told them that they didn't have to worry about it. I was a little upset that they'd done it in my bed though. They asked me but what about Katie? Aren't you pissed about her?

I realized that they didn't know how long I'd been there so I just told then that there wasn't anything going on between us and that Katie had hated me since I'd gotten there so I was sure that she'd been happy to mess my bed up because she disliked me.

Later on that day, I'd started cleaning up the other room. I just didn't want to sleep in the room they'd all fucked in. Katie came in and saw what I was doing. She started to say something, but when she saw the look on my face she just started crying and ran out of the house again.

Since that day, I hadn't said a word to her and to be truthful, I'd said a lot less to Joe and Greg as well. Two weeks later, I was having a talk with Dan when it happened. I'd just finished the Malibu and was suggesting that Dan should give it to Katie. He told me that he wanted no part of that and if I wanted her to have it I should give it to her myself.

Fanny and a couple of guys had dropped by and they were talking about going swimming at a local lake. Fanny had borrowed her dad's car and was telling Katie that they couldn't wait for her, but maybe she could get a ride with Greg and Joe when they got done with their work. Fanny looked over at me and asked me if I wanted to come as well.

Dan told me I really should go. I needed to do more than just hang around the farm fixing things.

"Well, all of you can't come together," said Fanny. "Only three of you will fit in the cab of that truck at the most. Robert maybe you should come over with me and my friends. Katie can come over later this evening with Greg and Joe." As much as I wasn't in Katie's fan club I did it. I could tell that Dan knew what was coming by his smirk.

"Fanny you don't have to worry about Katie getting there," I said.

"Oh I get it," said Fanny. "She can borrow her mom's car."

"No," I said. "Betty and Grandma are off doing something at the church."

"Then how's she going to get there," asked Fanny. "Walk?"

"Nope," I said. "She doesn't have to borrow her parent's car's, she has her own."

Fanny looked at me like I was crazy. Katie's eyes bugged out then too. "I do?" she said.

"The Malibu is yours Katie," I said, throwing her the keys. "I fixed the Mustang for me, but the Malibu was always going to be your car. I was waiting for Dan to give it to you but he said I had to do it."

"But you..." she said with her eyes getting wet and red. "You worked on that car for weeks, even after I...And you don't even...You think I'm..."

"He probably thinks you're incapable of finishing a God damned sentence," said Dan. "Just say thanks, Kathryn. Pretend for a second that you still had SOME of the manners we tried to teach you."

She just ran over and hugged me. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed her breasts against my chest. I couldn't help it, I'm a guy. There was wood present and she felt it.

"Is there any gas in my car?" she asked.

"I've got this one, Robert," said Dan. "Katie, this car has one of those new-fangled whatchamacallits in it. There's this little circle on the dashboard. It has two letters on it. There's an "F" on one side and an "E" on the other. If you look at it, you'll know when you need gas."

Without missing a beat, Katie smirked at her father. "Dad, I've got a little circle for you too. On mine there's an "F" on one side and a "U" on the other.

Everyone, including Dan laughed. Fanny even laughed to cover up how pissed she was. Unfortunately, she stopped laughing when she discovered that the guys with her both wanted to ride in Katie's Malibu because it was a cooler car than her Dad's Volvo.

After they'd left Dan was almost in tears. Betty, who'd just gotten back, asked him where all of the kids were going. When she saw him laughing she asked him what was going on. He told her that Fanny was probably going to have me killed. They were both laughing as he told her what had happened.

Katie and the boys didn't come home until well after dinner was over. The boys were full of stories about everything that had happened at the lake. Katie told me she needed to ask me something about the car. I politely told her that whatever it was, I'd be glad to fix it for her. But I asked her to wait until morning because I was tired and she couldn't drive the car until the next day anyway.

"But you're just sitting out here with the old people anyway," she said. "It'll only take a second."

Betty had heard enough. "Katie, go to bed," she said. "Robert was nice enough to take his time and build that car for you. Can't you understand that sometimes people are tired? He and your father spent the rest of the day working on the farm, while you were off relaxing with you friends. Believe it or not, tomorrow has seconds in it the same way today does. So anything you can do in a second now, you can do in a second tomorrow."

Katie stalked off. "You know Robert. This is partially your fault," said Betty. "Ever since you got here, you've been building that girl up in front of her friends and that snotty assed Fanny. Now she's starting to act like Fanny. She acts like she doesn't have to work for anything, that she's just going to get whatever she wants and everyone will just drop everything for her. You're going to have to tell her no sometimes."

Joe and Greg wandered off laughing. They were mumbling about me telling Katie, "No," a lot. And about how she wasn't getting what she really wanted at all. Both Dan and Betty pretended they hadn't heard them.

When I got to the bunkhouse, Greg and Joe couldn't contain themselves. They told me how the party at the lake had turned into a near orgy. Both of them had gotten lucky. I told them I was happy for them and happier still that they'd managed to do it without using my bed.

"Don't you want to hear about Katie?" asked Greg.

"Nope," I said. "What Katie does is Katie's business."

"That's just it," said Joe. "Katie didn't do anybody. She was probably the only person there who didn't get laid."

"I'm sure she could've found someone if she wanted to," I said.

"Dude, guys are always on Katie. There's usually some sacrificial lamb that has to deal with Fanny so she'll use her dad's money to buy the beer and whatever else we get, but after that all the guys are free to go after whoever they really want and a lot of them want Katie. She can pretty much pick and choose, but tonight for the first time since I've known her, Katie chose to keep her legs closed."

Then Greg started talking. "Robert, I'm not sure you know this, but Katie likes you. I mean she really likes you. I'm talking about she cries over you not liking her, likes you."

I just nodded at them and went into my room and went to sleep. A couple of hours later the door opened. I guess I heard it opening but I was asleep and my brain just processed it as normal or the wind or something.

When the covers beside me lifted up and someone moved next to me, I still didn't react. I guess again that my mind went back to a time when I was used to sleeping with Heather. She used to get up and get back into bed several times during the night. She'd get up to get water if her throat was dry. Or she'd get up to pee. And she always wrapped herself back around me when she got back in.

It took a few minutes for my mind to realize that the soft feminine form draping a leg over mine didn't belong in my bed. As soon as she kissed me my eyes popped open and I was pushing her away. I turned on the bedside lamp and stood up.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Thanking you for my car," she smiled.

"Katie, you don't have to thank me," I said.

"Robert, you don't understand any of this," she said. "I like you a lot. I think I have ever since you first got here. When you first got here I treated you like shit, because I was scared. You talk to my mom a lot, so ask her how I was for those first two days while you were asleep. I sat there beside you and stared at you the whole time."