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Sundown

By: StangStar06



Hi Literotica people,

In response to some of the posts about this story (only the 2nd thing I've ever written)

This is a repost of Sundown after being edited by DB448

I truly must admit that he did a masterful job of smoothing out my many rough edges, but doing it in such an unobtrusive way that it didn't change any of the story's flow.

Several (well actually more than that) of you have expressed discontent over the fact that the story's ending was vague. The conclusion with all of the answers will be posted shortly it is being edited as we speak. To all of you who offered constructive or positive criticisms and e-mails thanks, for all of you who just spit hate, well the world needs you too. Lastly several (again it's more than that) have talked about the fact that I mention Mustang's in all of my stories or the Dream Cruise, well it is coming up next week in Michigan and I will be there in one of my Mustangs.

Sundown

edited by DB448

I could see her lying back in a satin dress, in a room where you do what you don't confess.

Sundown you'd better take care, if I find you've been creepin' round my back stairs

Gordon Lightfoot.

The PI looked away as I watched the small TV screen in his cramped office. He pretended to busy himself doing anything but watching the screen or watching me watch it.

The images on the screen tore my heart out, and ended my life as I knew it that day. On the screen, almost as if it was a cheap porno movie, a woman was lying on a bed in a cheap motel room. A man came in and she started taking off her satiny dress. There was nothing remarkable about the man or the room. As a matter of fact there was nothing even vaguely remarkable about the sex they engaged in. He stood there kind of awkwardly while she disrobed in front of him. She was kind of shy about it, which was unusual for a whore. But she was kind of remarkable. She was beautiful, at least I thought so. Her face had a few too many lines in it, and the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes were beginning to become almost noticeable if you looked closely enough. And she didn't smile, which was a relief. Her breasts were large and when she revealed them the man instantly became aroused. She pulled off her plain white granny panties and turned to pull the cheap blanket off the bed, which showed her big round ass and increased the man's arousal. The only thing that wasn't above average size on the woman's body was her waist line as it was still tight and trim, despite her years. She was obviously closer to 45 than 25 but you couldn't tell by the man's reaction to her.

She turned to the man and pulled his boxers down then lay back and spread her legs.

The man looked confused, as if this wasn't going the way he'd imagined it.

"I was hoping for...." He began.

"Honey, foreplay is not required or recommended but it's your time so you can do what you want" she said in a soft voice with more than a hint of her Texas drawl, "But I will not suck your dick for any amount of money"

"I wanted to do you" the man said in a voice that was almost whiny.

The woman shrugged her shoulders and lay back on the bed spreading her legs even further. The little man leaned down between them and began softly licking the rose colored folds of her vagina. If he'd been expecting the woman's demeanor to change he was disappointed. Perhaps the sex books he'd read had been wrong. He redoubled his efforts to no avail, she just lay there with her legs spread and let him lick her. He added a finger to his tongue and gently worked it into her lightly furred pussy. After a few minutes of this he was able to get another finger in. He looked at her intently trying to gage her reaction. All of the other whores he'd been with were usually a puddle on the floor by this time, or were good enough actresses that he couldn't tell. So for that reason alone he didn't think he was doing anything wrong. She looked at the clock on the desk by the bed, and reached over and got a tube of lube.

"You're probably going to want this if you do intend to fuck me" she said with about as much emotion as if she'd been telling someone they'd need a new bag for the garbage can when they emptied the trash. Nothing about her signaled arousal, or even interest in the act they were participating in. But he was paying for sex, not entertainment.

The man squeezed some of the fluid onto the tip of his member and smeared an equal amount onto the surface of the woman's vagina. Then he placed his dick gently at her opening and pushed. The woman exhaled as he entered her mostly due to the fact that the lube hadn't yet gotten inside her, so there was some pain involved. But she didn't ask him to slow down, or wait for her vagina to adjust, she just took it. It was as if she wanted the pain as payment for some secret sin she'd committed. The man just sawed away at her for about 3 minutes and then tensed up. The woman moved as quickly as a snake and pushed him off of her.

"You know you can't finish inside me, only my hu..."

"I'm sorry" whined the man, cutting her off, "It just felt so good"

The man got quickly off the bed, threw his clothes on, and left flinging another "Sorry" over his shoulder as he closed the door.

As the man's footsteps echoed down the hallway, tears rolled down the woman's face.

I continued to watch the scene on the screen unfold, hoping to find some clue to why my wife was fucking other men in a motel. For the life of me I just couldn't see it.

I loved her with all of my heart and I thought she felt the same. I was obviously wrong though from what I was watching on the closed circuit TV. Then as she dressed, I saw the reason.

He walked into the room like he owned it. And he probably did. A ruddy faced guy with a greasy 80's porn-star mustache, and tattoos all over his arms. Though I couldn't hear him clearly you could tell something was wrong with him. Why else would a white guy, talk like some black gang member from the ghetto. The bastard had been in and out of jail his whole life, and now he was trying to be some kind of pimp, and using my Mary as his whore. Folks around here called him Sundown, because you never saw the mother fucker until evening. During the day when most of the honest people in town were working this asshole was holed up somewhere, asleep or hiding. He'd never been known to do an honest days work, but had broken up several marriages and families, due to gambling, or drinking, or his loan sharking, or drugs, if you could name it, he steal it, do it or sell it. Obviously my marriage was his latest project and he'd stolen Mary from me, had probably done her, and was now selling her.

"I've seen enough," I said to the PI," make a copy of the tape for my lawyer and send me the bill"

"Wait a minute John" he said. "This is not and open and shut case, he could be coercing her somehow. She clearly does not want to do this, she isn't enjoying it, she's not doing this for pleasure, this is not a clear cut case of cheating no matter how you see it"

"How I see it is that my wife of the past 10 years is no longer faithful to me, though I've always been so to her, which means I can no longer trust her, and without trust, what is there?"

I left the small storefront office with an extremely heavy heart. Even the sight of my pride and joy, an 06 Mustang GT, failed to lift my spirits. God I loved that car, from the first Christmas when Mary had given it to me, it had never seen snow or even rain. I never did figure out where she got the money for the down payment, since we weren't anywhere near rich, but I had faithfully made sure to keep up the rest of the payments.

The bank would take that car away from me and re-sell it in a heartbeat, since everybody in town wanted my car.

It's a funny thing, but whenever I saw that car I thought of Mary even though she didn't actually like it. She said it was too loud, too raw, and the ride was too rough. She said it was more of a man's car and it was just not refined enough for a woman. It was also pretty bad on gas.

Getting me that car had made me sure that Mary reciprocated my feelings for her, but maybe it was just a way to make me so sure of us that I wouldn't notice her cheating.

Sometimes I think It's a shame, that I get feeling better when I'm feeling no pain.



I felt too bad to go home so I stopped for a while in one of the hole in the wall bars that dotted the neighborhood. I got a shot of Jack and told the bartender to leave the bottle. He looked at me kind of strangely, but he left it and moved on. Bartenders have a kind of psychic ability, they seem to always know whether someone wants to talk or just be left alone.

I just felt like shit, I'd put everything I had into my relationship with Mary. All my heart, all my soul, I lived ate and breathed Mary, she was all I ever thought of and I just couldn't understand what had led us to this situation. It wasn't a case where I'd neglected her, or beat her; hell I'd never even said a cross word to her in all of our years together.

I thought our sex life was great too, we were always all over each other. After making love with her just last night she'd held onto me the whole night, and I remember her whispering into my ear that she would love only me for the rest of her life, after she thought I had gone to sleep.

So why would a woman who said something like that to a man, spread her legs for someone else less than 24 hours later?

Maybe she was like those women who just needed some strange dick every once in a while, or even more often. Maybe our sex life wasn't as good as I thought it was. Maybe she was just bored with me and with us, and she'd gone to Sundown to liven up her boring existence. It no longer mattered to me, my marriage was over. I just needed to plan it out, and handle it. Tonight would be the last time I ever saw the cheating slut if I had anything to do with it. I already had the lawyer and the evidence so all that was left was to get my stuff and file for the divorce. Luckily we had no kids since Mary couldn't conceive.

We also had no substantial assets. We had the house; she could have it. I'd take my car. Case closed, divorce granted, then she could fuck Sundown until Sun up if she wanted to, but they could no longer make a fool out of me while they did it.

As I drank everything got clearer. I wasn't a big drinker, so 3 shots was all it took to get me to the point where I gave the bartender my keys and told him I'd be back for my Mustang in the morning. Everything all of a sudden seemed simpler and I actually felt better, but it was just the alcoholic stupor masking my pain, emotional and physical.

She's been looking like a Queen in a sailor's dream and she don't always say what she really means



It took me the better part of an hour to walk the 6 blocks to our house in my condition. Actually the walk was good for me because I wasn't nearly as drunk when I got there. Before I even got the door open Mary was on me, hugging me and kissing me and wondering where I'd been. She still had a lot of fucking make up on. When we first got together she never wore any and in fact it was only recently that she'd started wearing anything other than lipstick. Now it was so thick she looked like something out of a drunken sailor's fantasy. Of course my new knowledge of her activities made me a little more suspicious and a little less naïve about her motivation. Was she really worried about where I'd been, or just establishing the fact that she'd been here all night, which I now knew wasn't likely.

She smelled really good fresh from the shower and she'd put on some of that perfume that she knew I loved, and washed and brushed out her long pretty hair. Did she really do all of that for me or was it to wash the scents of her lovers off so I wouldn't suspect anything?

"Have you been drinking? Did you stop off at some bar after work?" she asked.

Who did this bitch think she was fooling with the June Cleaver act?

"You supper is ready Hon" she said "I waited for you so we could eat together"

"Not really hungry" I told her.

Her face fell a little as I said it, but I couldn't tell anymore if it was a real reaction or just more of her God damned acting skills.

"Well do you want to watch some TV, or just sit outside on the deck and watch the sky?" she asked taking hold of my arm.

Had she always been this fucking needy? Or was I the one who was different? Perhaps finding out what she really did while I was out working had made me see things more clearly. I guess maybe my love for her had always prevented me from truly seeing how funny people who supposedly love each other are. How they accept seemingly retarded behavior and even participate in it because they love someone so much. There was also the possibility that the bitch's guilt over what she'd done had her starved for forgiveness and affection. Well if that was what she was hoping for she could just go shit in her hat, because there was no forgiveness here, and even less affection.

"I'm really tired so I think I'll just go to bed"

"Well you're not getting any unless you take a shower" she said.

Apparently I wasn't as drunk as I thought I was, that or her words must've fully sobered me up, but I was smart enough not to say any of the thoughts that went through my mind. I just turned on my heel and headed into the bathroom. What I was really thinking was that I wouldn't touch her with someone else's dick. I was also thinking that it was strange that she insisted on her own husband having to take a shower to get into bed with her, but she'd had no similar scruples about some guy whose name she probably didn't know just shucking down and fucking her. Also her assumption that I even wanted any of her mercy or guilt fucks was just too much for me.

Though it seemed like I was taking a long relaxing shower, some of the time that the shower was running I was packing most of my essential toiletries and personal items. I put them into one small travel case so that when I left in the morning I wouldn't have to pack anything. I was just planning on leaving most of my clothes and buying more. I would try and gather together work clothes and a few outfits while she slept tonight. Hopefully I could convince her to sleep in tomorrow morning, so I could get what I was taking into my car without her noticing. The thought did occur to me that if I gave her a good hard fuck either tonight or tomorrow morning it would do 3 things for me. One it would tire her out enough that she might sleep in. Secondly, it would keep her convinced that everything between us was fine until I could get the fuck away from her cheating ass. And lastly, she really was a good fuck, despite the way she'd been on the screen, and I didn't know when I'd get any again. I wasn't even thinking about meeting another woman for a long ass time if ever. But despite all of the reasons for me to do it, the thought of fucking her turned my stomach. The crazy part about it was that I still loved her as much as ever, maybe more because I knew I was about to lose her and it just made what we shared seem all the more precious.

I walked out of the shower in my robe and put on fresh boxers. I turned off the light in the bedroom and got into bed. She was immediately on me.

"Don't you need to take a shower too?" I asked, knowing that she already had.

"I did just before you got in" she said sweetly. "I've been waiting for this all day long"

Boy what a fucking liar, I thought, fortunately for me, my revulsion, and my low tolerance for alcohol conspired to relieve me of having to do anything as I turned my head to the side suddenly and just vomited into the trashcan we kept beside the bed.

"Oh honey, you're really sick" she said with what really appeared to be genuine concern.

She jumped naked out of the bed and ran across the room to get me a towel and clean me up. I was struck as usual by the bounty and beauty of her natural gifts. As hard as I was trying to be right now, the love I still felt for her was evident. She wiped my face and my mouth and emptied out and rinsed the trash can. Then she got back into bed with me and just lay down beside me.

"I'm not grossed out or anything, you can still hold me" she said.

She rolled over closer to me and wrapped my arm around her and spooned her ass into my frontal area. She was literally forcing me to spoon with her. Her need for affection due to guilt must be monumental because she was acting like a love crazed teenager. She turned her head around and kissed me right on the lips. Who would kiss someone who had just thrown up, unless they were trying to prove something?

She said "I love you" and I pretended I was already asleep.

I'm normally up at 6:30 a.m. for the early morning shift but my eyes clicked open at 5:30 and I started to ease my way out of bed. During the night I'd tried several times to pull away from her, but she would always instinctively roll back against me and start to wake up. I had to admit the bitch was good; she could even keep up her performance while she was asleep.

"Why are you getting up so early?" she asked groggily as she pushed back against me. "Ooh, looks like one part of you is already up".

Although she was right, and I wanted her so badly I could taste it, I got up out of bed anyway.

She was visibly disappointed, and I truly believe a little hurt. In all the time we'd been together, I had never turned her down if she wanted sex. This made twice in less than 12 hours. Last night was mitigated by the fact that I was sick enough to vomit. But this morning's refusal had no easy excuse and it clearly hurt her but the only thoughts going through my mind were "She must really be feeling guilty" and "Damn how much dick does this bitch need?"

"I get it" she said "My honey went to bed without dinner last night after working all day" She clearly needed to find a reason for my rejection of her advances. "You must be starving, Do you want me to make you breakfast?"

"No honey you stay in bed" I said "You've already put up with enough, with my vomiting and drinking and being tired. Tonight will be different" I lied, forcing myself to squeeze her breast. It struck me as funny how I had to force myself to do something that only 24 hours previously was one of my and her greatest pleasures.

"I'll just warm up the plate you made me for dinner last night" I told her.

I re-tucked the covers around her and kissed her on her forehead. Even though she hadn't kissed the last guy, I wasn't going anywhere near her lips. After all who knew where her lips had been. she probably refused to suck the customers dicks because she saved that for Sundown. I wasn't taking any chances on picking something up.

"I just like being with you, you're going to be away from me all day" she said, as if it was tearing her apart for me to go to work.

That was it, after work today, maybe on my way in, I had to buy this bitch an Oscar statue. Maybe I could present it to her when they served the divorce papers. "For best acting performance in the category of cheating slut pretending to love her husband, the award goes to....."

I went into the closet to grab my work clothes and actually fooled her by grabbing 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants and taking them into the bathroom and then came back and got a couple more sets. I kissed her on her forehead again but she was really almost asleep.

"Love you honey" she mumbled. Yeah right!

She'd probably be up and plastering on her make-up before I was clear of the driveway. Before I got to I-Hop she'd probably have Sundown creeping up the stairs to the backdoor. (I meant the house's, not hers, but I could be wrong)


Sundown Ch. 02



Sundown-Conclusion

edited with great skill by DB448

You'd think that by the time a man got to be my age he'd know the difference between acceptable risk, and genuine stupidity. But as I walked into the teeth of the building storm, I just didn't care. My intention was to make it to the comfort station that was located a little more than a half a mile from the truck stop. There were food machines there, benches, maybe even cots to lie down on, and hopefully no one there to bother me.

Over the past 3 days since I'd left the town that had become my home since Mary and I left Texas I'd gotten over some of the initial pain and heartache of Mary's betrayal. I could see that some of my actions over the past week or so had been fueled more by anger, and my bruised ego, than by rational thought. But hey, an emotional situation sometimes requires an emotional response. 

I was ashamed of the way I'd spoken to some of the townspeople. After all, people in general are just fucking nosy. That curiosity and need to know things has helped the species survive and thrive, so I guess them wanting to know all of the gory details about our breakup, while embarrassing for both Mary and me, was only normal. 

I was also really ashamed of my treatment of Mary. I should have been, and had really tried to be, more civil about the whole thing. I'd offered her a quick easy divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences, which could really mean anything. But she had thrown it back in my face, steadfastly refusing to grant me the divorce. So she had really forced me into threatening to drop the hammer on her and bringing out my big guns. 

My big guns were changing the reason for the divorce to infidelity, suing her lover/pimp and posting the pictures of her whoring, in a local motel on the internet and sending copies to her parents and all of her friends. I was going to also sue her pimp Sundown for alienation of affection. She had basically laughed in my face and told me that rather than divorce me she'd go door to door all over town and personally tell everybody what she'd done, and she'd have billboards made with my pictures of her on them because she didn't care what anyone thought of her. She was just not willing to let me go.

The fact that Sundown was dead and no one was willing to believe or even care that I'd killed him meant that I couldn't sue him either. I really needed to think this out and I needed privacy to do that, so the comfort station in the middle of a blizzard seemed like the perfect place.

The problem was, as anyone with half a brain knows, that when you walk into a snowstorm of that intensity everything starts to look the same. It becomes very easy to get turned around or start walking in circles and after about fifteen minutes I was not only lost, but beginning to become uncomfortable from the cold. I turned around hoping to spot the lights from the truck-stop I'd just left, but I could no longer see them in any direction. I then tried moving to the side so I could find the edge of the road and the drainage ditch along either side of it. If I could find the ditch, I'd be able to know which direction to walk in, because going along the road either way would be good. If I went one way I'd end up back at the truck-stop, and if I went the other way, I'd end up at the comfort station. Either way I'd be out of this storm.

The problem was that somehow I'd already left the road apparently, so at least I now knew that I didn't know where the hell I was. As you can see except for where Mary was concerned I was extremely optimistic so I just started walking again, and the snow got thicker and piled up deeper. I was so cold after a while that I hoped my fingers would just drop off so they wouldn't hurt any more. Then I started thinking that in just a few more yards I'd be home and Mary would make me feel all better, so I kept walking. I just had to get home to Mary.

I don't know how much longer I was out there but an SUV pulled up next to me and the door opened up. At this point I could barely see but I was shocked.

"Mary" I said.

"Get in the truck John" she snapped.

I got into the truck's rear seat and the sudden warmth was a shock to my system, I started to get dizzy. The woman behind the wheel reached past me and closed the door, then started inching forward through the snow. The big SUV had a light bar across it's roof that lit up the road ahead of us but you could still only see maybe 20 -25 feet in all of this snow. The driver was talking to me, but I could barely make out what she was saying.

"Talk slower Mary" I said.

"My name is Arlene" she snapped. "That bitch has you twisted up really badly doesn't she?"

I sat right up at that point; I was exhausted and half frozen, but I wouldn't stand for anyone talking about Mary badly.

"Don't call my Mary a bitch" I snapped.

Then I fell over on the seat out cold. Arlene just shook her head and continued driving.

When I woke up I was in a bed with blankets piled on top of me, and nothing on but my boxers.

There was a gentle glow from a small lamp on a desk near the bed. The whole room had a cozy feel; it just felt like someone's home. It had a lot of nice personal touches in it that let me know that it was a woman's place. We men never did things like that. We could live in a place for years but it would never seem nearly as homey as a place a woman had been in for a month.

I smelled food and my mouth started to water, I looked up and there was.....

"It's Arlene" she said. "Don't fucking call me Mary again, or I swear I'll throw you out"

"John, how long has it been since you last ate anything?" she asked.

"Yesterday I think, at the truck stop" I replied.

"You had coffee, I served you remember" she said. "I made some soup, nothing to heavy, just some Campbell's tomato. If you can keep this down, we'll move on to something heavier."

Arlene even had a robe like the ones Mary had back at home and only wore if she was sick or having her monthly.

It was uncanny. except for their faces, she was so similar to my Mary that I couldn't help staring at her. Even the cast of the faces though when you got right down to it weren't that different. If I didn't know that Mary had no sisters, I'd swear that this woman must be her twin.

I watched Arlene intently as she fed me the soup. It didn't feel very good when it reached my stomach, but at least it stayed there. She was right, almost any solid food might've come back out. As I concentrated on her, if she noticed it, Arlene gave no sign of her displeasure. It was as if she wanted me to take some time to notice the differences between them, and see that she was truly not Mary.

A week ago I'd have been able to see the differences much easier. Up until then Mary, always had a purely angelic glow to her. They say that pregnant women have this glow about them, and Mary had that all the time. But in the days that we'd been apart, she'd gotten paler, and colder, perhaps that whole persona was just a part of the snow-job that she and Sundown had pulled on me.

Both Arlene and my Mary were kind of thick, but definitely not fat. I think Mary had bigger tits but maybe they just sat up higher on her chest, or sagged a little lower.

Arlene's ass was a little bit bigger but Mary's legs were in a class by themselves.

I was getting dizzy again but I could still hear Arlene talking to me.

"Are you satisfied?" she asked me

"What?" I asked confused

"Can you tell that I'm not your precious Mary?"

"Unh hunh" I said as I passed out again.

"This is one seriously fucked up family" was the last thing I heard her say before the darkness took me.

I woke up a little while later and Arlene was in the bed next to me. I was starving and only the small light was on. The human condition is one of the most amazing things, because as soon as I looked over at Arlene's large robe covered ass, I got a hard on.

"OK, turn over the other way" she snapped. "While you were asleep, you couldn't help it but now that you're awake, I'm not taking any chances with that thing. Especially under the circumstances"

"What circumstances?" I asked.

"Better you don't know" she said softly.

"That was a good nap" I said. "I'm hungry again, can I have the rest of that soup please?"

"What soup?" she asked.

"The tomato soup you gave me a little while ago" I said.

"John that was 2 days ago, you've been asleep for longer than you think. I was starting to get worried, so I called the doctor from town. He took a look at you and said that you were dehydrated and suffering from exposure. After I told him about your situation, and what that bitch did to you"

"How did you know about my situation?" I snapped. I started to get up but the room started spinning. Once the objects around me were stable again, I dove right back in

"You read my letter" I accused.

"Yep, sure did" she snapped.

"You promised me that you wouldn't open it" I whined. "Opening someone else's mail is a federal crime"

"So's murder" she snapped.

"How did you know about that?" I asked, confused. "That wasn't in the letter"

"What the hell are you talking about John?" she asked.

"How did you know I killed Sundown?"

"I don't know what you're talking about John. I was talking about me killing you, if you don't let me talk" she said. "First off, the only reason, that I read your precious fucking letter to your precious fucking Mary, was because you forgot to close the word processing program you used to type it on my computer at the restaurant. Normally to save someone's privacy, I'd have just closed the program and not saved the letter, but after seeing the name on the envelope I was a little more than curious, especially since you and I have a little more in common than you know"

Now it was my turn to be confused

"I'm sorry Arlene, I had no right to accuse you, without having all of the facts. I'm just kind of still sensitive when it comes to Mary"

"Aren't we all. I'll get you something to eat" she said and got up.

As she got out of the bed, I couldn't resist trying to sneak a peak at her as her robe gapped open.

"Stop that" she snapped. "I'm not used to having to wear a robe in my own home so stop trying to look at me like that or I'll tell your precious Mary"

"Sorry" I said.

I swear she was smiling as she left the room.

"Call your lawyer, your cell phone is on the table to your left" she yelled

I checked my phone and there were several missed calls from my lawyer, so I called him back.

"It's good to hear from you" he said. "For a while there, I feared the worst"

"I wrote Mary the letter explaining my side of things" I told him she should be getting it any day now.

"We're in kind of a dangerous are for blizzards and snow storms so the mail service in this area is kind of spotty" I said

"Uhm John" he interrupted.

"Tell Mary" I'll give her a choice, after she signs the papers. She can either have an hour on the phone, or 30 minutes face to face but only after the papers are signed"

"John" he said again, this time more insistently. "Your wife doesn't seem understand the legal process" he said hesitantly.

"What do you mean?" I asked "We explained everything to her the other day, or last week before I left, didn't we?"

"When I took her the papers, she said that she'd been thinking about it. She told me that your idea of her being free to marry someone else made absolutely no sense, because she was already married to you, and wouldn't ever want anyone else so signing the papers wouldn't be in her best interest. She also said as the papers being signed would however give you the right to marry someone else or start dating, and seeing as she'd never allow that, she tore the papers up, right in front of me. I told her that I'd just print up more copies and she said go ahead and she'd just tear them up as well. I told her that we'd send out copies of the PI file to everyone in town and she told me not to waste time mailing it and just give her the copies so she could take them around and pass them out. She also said that since you live in a small town, half of them probably know already but that she'd just tell them the whole story and eventually they'd forgive her or forget about it. She said the only thing that mattered to her was you, and she wouldn't give you up, period. I tried telling her that you'd never speak to her again and that signing the papers was her only option for a chance at closure and she told me that she had other options that I wasn't aware of. That was the last I heard from her, and that was yesterday"

"I need some time to think, I still don't have my strength back yet, I'll call you tomorrow, but isn't there a time limit on these things, so that after it passes the divorce is granted whether both parties sign the papers or not?" I asked.

"In some states in some situations" he said.

"I'll look into it" then we hung up.

Arlene came back into the room, instead of the robe she had on earlier, she now wore a short thin kimono. It was silky and molded to fit her body precisely. Her big legs had no stockings or anything on them and her tits were straining the kimono's ability to stay closed as they bounced around. My physical reaction was immediate and strong. As she leaned over and tried to kiss me I backed away. She laughed and put the tray down on a table next to the bed. As I reach for it I almost knocked it over. I was still not quite back to normal.

she started to laugh. "You're still going to need someone to help you for a couple of days, until your strength comes back."

She started untying the belt around her waist, which was the only thing holding the Kimono closed.

"Arlene, I don't think that's such a good idea" I said hoarsely.

"Why not" she snapped "You're already trying to divorce that bitch. You've got to move on sooner or later and you'd be stupid to turn this down" she said running her hands across her breasts.

"Yep, I would be" I said "But right now, I'm still married to her and I told you not to call her a bitch. Next time you forget, as much as I appreciate your hospitality, and the fact that you probably saved my life, I'll walk or crawl out of here back into the snow"

"But why?" asked Arlene.

"I've never once cheated on Mary, and since we're not divorced yet this would be cheating"

"But if she already did what you wrote in your letter, wasn't that cheating?" she asked

"To me yes it was, it was the worst kind of cheating, and that's why I can't be with her anymore. But just because Mary stopped loving me and needed other men, doesn't mean I ever stopped loving her" I explained

"How can you still care for her, after all of that" she asked.

"I don't know" I said with tears in my eyes 'But I just do"

"So you still love her?" she asked, her voice had lost its hard edge.

I just nodded my head up and down.

"Too bad" she said tightening her Kimono up.

"Did you hear all of that?" she said a little louder.

"Yes, I did" said Mary from the doorway.

She stepped into the room and looked at Arlene's outfit.

"Why are you dressing like a whore around my husband?" she demanded.

"So you could see that this idiot doesn't want anybody but you" said Arlene.

I tried to get up. I was leaving.

"What the fuck is she doing here?" I yelled.

The room started spinning again and the sudden increase in blood pressure caused me to black out. 

When I woke up, the first thing my eyes focused on was Arlene's kimono, she was sitting on the bed next to me close enough for us to touch and it felt so good, I almost went back to sleep just to continue feeling like that. I'd been stupid to turn her down.

She was reading something and crying softly.

"Arlene, why are you crying?" I asked.

My eyes focused better as she began speaking.

"Because I just read your letter and I'm not Arlene" she replied.

I immediately rolled as far away from her as I could get without falling out of the bed. I started trying to get to my feet, but the blackness started around the edges of my vision and I didn't want to black out again so I sat down.

"Are you trying to hurt yourself?" she asked.

"Maybe I'm just trying to finish off what you started" I snapped.

"John, I love you" she said slowly "I have never in my life, before you, or since you, loved anyone the way I love you. That's why when you didn't come home I had to be hospitalized. I simply can not live without you" she said, as if it was the most obvious fact in the world.

"Get the fuck away from me" I said coldly.

"No, We need to talk" she said.

"We were going to have a talk as soon as you signed the fucking papers" I said. "Remember you get 30 minutes, I won't interrupt, and you can say whatever ridiculous drivel you need to say to make you feel better but not until you sign the fucking papers"

"John, I won't ever sign those papers" she said emphatically.

"My lawyer is looking into time limits for we as we speak and if I have to I'll simply file from a state where I can wait 6 months or a year so whether or not you sign the papers the divorce will be granted"

"Why would you do that?" she asked, she was noticeably paler now.

"Mary, just sign the papers and we can talk about anything you want for 30 minutes"

She started to say something else until she noticed that I was looking away from her and had my fingers in my ears. It was very childish, but also very effective.

She started trying to feed me but I told her I'd wait for Arlene.

Mary started crying and sent Arlene in. 

Arlene sat down on the bed next to me and began to feed me.

"You're kind of an asshole" she said "But I guess in your position, I be feeling the same way but you know you can't win this don't you?"

I just ate, every time the spoon was in front of me I opened my mouth and took food in. The sooner I got my strength back the sooner I'd be on the road.

"Trust me I know where you are, I've been there. Even if you win you lose, and she'll never give up" she said.

"How do you know that" I asked between bites.

"Did you notice how pissed I got every time you called me Mary? Mary and I are cousins, we grew up together, we were closer than sisters for all of our lives until we had a falling out. We argued over a guy. Mary had fallen in love with him first, but I had to have him. She told me that he wasn't the guy for me, but while they were together, he was fucking me on the side. He'd gotten Mary pregnant, but neither of them knew about it. When Mary found out about him and me, she confronted him, and he beat her up so badly that she lost the baby. What made it worse was that she couldn't have kids any more. He and I ran off together, even though everyone warned me to stay away from him, but to tell you the truth, I was just tired of playing 2nd fiddle to Mary. Even though I'm the oldest of the two of us, it was always Mary and Arlene. Mary has always had this way about her, everybody loves Mary and I was just her side kick then finally there was someone who wanted to be with me instead of Queen Mary. With Mary he had been loving and kind, until he snapped, but with me he was an asshole from the first day. We argued constantly and had physical fights regularly. He was always comparing me to Mary and I always came up 2nd or 3rd . Finally I couldn't take it anymore and walked out on him but the damage had already been done. Mary wouldn't forgive me and neither would the rest of our family. That was 12 years ago, and if you hadn't come along, she still wouldn't be talking to me. Mary has a great capacity to love, but she's also the most stubborn bitch to ever shit between 2 shoes so if she says she'll never let you go, she won't and you have another problem too"

"What's that?" I asked 

"Right now, you're hurt, your little ego is bruised, but you love her more than anything I've ever seen. You can refuse to talk to her about it and run away from her, but you're never going to get away. First because she loves you as much as you love her, and she'll just follow you, and secondly because you carry her in your mind and in your heart everywhere you go. Every woman you see, you compare to her, don't you? When you look at TV and see beautiful women there, they don't compare to Mary in your mind, do they?"




Sundown Ch. 02



I shook my head negatively. 

"Do you know what that is?" she asked 

"No" I replied.

"It's love" she said simply.

"My cousin, is not that pretty. Her tits are too big and they're sagging, her ass is too big, and shit she's what, 46 or 47? Unless she was lying there naked in front of them most guys wouldn't give her a second look! But you look at her through love colored glasses, so she's just everything to you. That won't just go away, no matter what she's done so you might as well talk to her. Hear her side of it, she already knows your part from that beautiful letter you wrote her but that letter, as beautiful as it was, and as mean as it was in some parts didn't do anything but strengthen her resolve to be with you" she paused for a second.

"You know what happens when a puppy shits on the floor? The owner spanks the puppy with a newspaper and then rubs the puppies nose in the shit. The puppy immediately forgets about having his nose rubbed in the shit and few hours later the sting of the paper is gone, but the memory of the pain makes the puppy not want to shit on the floor again. You packed up your stuff and left Mary and then you wrote her this letter and called her a whore, and a bunch of bitches but you also told her that you still loved her. The woman almost had a fucking heart attack when you left her and the whole town you live in thinks she's a whore but the one thing she focuses on is the fact that you still love her. That alone will give her the strength to follow you anywhere you go so why not just talk to her and try to resolve this some how?"

"There is no resolution to this Arlene" I said softly. Then I fell asleep again.

My first thought was 'Why was I always waking up, in the middle of the night spooned up against Arlene?' but something seemed off about that. 

Oh shit, even in the darkness I could tell this was Mary. For one thing she still had the kimono on. It had risen up and she was slowly and gently rubbing her ass against me, and my body was into it.

I pushed her away from me like she was a rattlesnake. The move exhausted me, and although she wasn't physically damaged Mary started to cry.

"Do you know how much I've missed that?" she asked through her tears. "I swear I wasn't trying to take advantage of you, and you started it" she said.

"I was asleep" I said pointedly.

"Well maybe your body knows what it needs more than your brain does" she said.

"Mary what do you want from me?" I asked. "I mean what will it take for you to just let me go? There is no future for us" I said in a matter of fact tone.

"I'm not saying that I don't love you, because I do" I noticed that as I said that her face got a tiny bit of its color back.

"But it's not because I want to. I hate you Mary, I hate what you did to us but I also can't turn off the love we built over 10 years, just like that. I am working on it though, and I'm working hard"

"Why would you try to stop loving me?" she asked

"Mary if we sit down and talk right now for as long as you need will you go home and give me some time alone? Because if not this conversation is over. I know this isn't what I wanted but I'll do it, if you promise to leave me alone for a while"

"How long?" she asked.

"A year" I said quickly.

"Never" she said just as quickly.

"Six months" I said.

"Two days" She countered.

"Two weeks" I offered.

Mary started to nod, but then in a quiet voice said "one week and we talk again on the phone, then the 2nd week"

I could accept that so I said "Deal" she stuck out her hand reflexively for me to shake, and the tears started up again when she noticed that I didn't even want to touch her hand.

"You find me repulsive now don't you? I'm just another wrinkled up old whore and I really messed this up didn't I?"

"Mary we have a deal, so start talking" was all I said.

"That wasn't our deal" she quickly replied. "This wasn't supposed to be like what you were offering me before. You said "we" would have a talk not I could talk for 30 minutes while you pretend to listen and then say see ya later bitch" she said through her tears.

"Like it was some sort of community service" she spat out.

"Mary what do you want?" I asked

She turned off the lights and pulled me back down on the bed, and then lay down in front of me, and pulled my arms around her.

"For the past 10 years" she said. "This is the way we've always talked about things. When you asked me to marry you, this is how it was. If I wanted to change the brand of toothpaste we were using, or you didn't like my Lasagna this is how we told each other" she said trying not to cry.

"We have to get used to not doing this though, so maybe we should sit up and face each other and talk like everyone else does" I answered.

Mary didn't often swear, so when she said "fuck everyone else" I was shocked.

"If you have your way, I'll never get this again, so why shouldn't I have it now? Even now I can feel you trying not to touch me, like I'm some piece of dog shit on the ground. It hurts me more than you can understand and I feel like I just want to die" she said.

"Take that and multiply it by 10, and you'll know how I felt seeing you in that motel but the thing I just don't understand, Mary, is why? What didn't I do for you? What did you need that you weren't getting from me. I didn't think that we were bored with each other and if there was anything you wanted all you had to do was ask me. I would have died trying to do whatever it was to make you happy but you wouldn't even tell me what was wrong with us or give me that chance. You had to go to someone else, and now that Sundown is dead, you want me back. Do you even have a clue how much it hurt me to see the woman I love more than I love myself, fucking some other guy, some other guys? How would you feel if you walked in and found me fucking one of those 20 year olds at work? But now that I've seen it you with those guys, every time I think about it, I hurt all over again. I don't think we can go back, to what we had ever and if you're thinking that maybe we can have one of those modern relationships where you have your guys and I have my girls and we even watch each other, I'm just not interested in that."

For a long time, nothing was said. Mary held onto my arm fiercely and wouldn't let me pull it away. Our proximity naturally resulted in my dick swelling up and Mary sighed as she felt it. I tried to back my pelvis away from her, and heard her sniffle.

"John, I have never in my life felt about anyone the way I feel about you" she began. "I would literally die for you, or die without you, so to me there's really no choice between you leaving me and me moving on. I just couldn't do it. If you said we'd stay together but we could never have sex again or I could be with someone else and have all the sex I want, there's no choice. I'd pick you. Your Attorney showed me the videos that you want to show my parents and the whole town and the world and that's fine, I can live with that, but I can't live without you. If every man in town wanted to offer me money to fuck them, it wouldn't do any good because it won't ever happen again"

"So you just fuck guys for Sundown?" I asked.

"I hated Sundown" she snapped. "And I never had sex with him"

I pushed her away from me, and rolled to the other side of the bed.

She sat up. 

"I swear to you it's the truth" she said turning on the light. "I swear on my love for you."

"Oh like that's believable" I said.

"I do love you" she screamed. "I did all of this for you."

"Oh yeah" I said, "Just what I always wanted, to see my wife in a motel fucking strange men"

She moved over to my side of the bed and tried to maneuver me back into the position we'd been in. At first I refused, but then she said "please" very quietly and in an almost desperate tone.

I lay back down and so did she, and again we were back against each other.

It made me think about magnets, you put them next to each other on a table and they just came together.

"This all started about 2 years ago" she said.

I stiffened up and tried to pull my hand away from her.

"You've been fucking around on me for 2 years" I hissed.

"No only a few weeks" she said "will you please just listen. Anyway, we're not rich" she said.

"I know that" I replied. "It never seemed to bother you before" I continued trying to pull my arm away from her.

"It hasn't bothered me since either" she said "I don't care about money, but I do care about you and every time we went to a car show or saw one of those TV shows or picked up a magazine you got that faraway look in your eyes. You're fifty years old, and you've worked hard all of your life and I just wanted to give you the one thing that you wanted most. But I knew that no matter how much we save and tried to put away it just wasn't going to happen. Then when I met Sundown, through Milly and Budd McQueen, he seemed so nice. He was Budd's nephew, so I thought he was OK. He loaned me the money for the down payment and he was talking about .5 percent interest so for a 10,000 dollar loan I was thinking that it would amount to about 50 dollars a year in interest. I didn't understand that he meant .5% daily. So after a couple of months of paying him whatever I could skim from our household budget plus whatever I made selling stuff on ebay, I owed him more than when I took out the loan. After a year, it had doubled. And then Sundown started coming around threatening to tell you, or beat me up or hurt you and I couldn't deal with it so I asked him if there was anything else I could do to work off the money. I thought he'd want me to sell or make or hide his drugs for him or arrange loans for someone else but he started to tell me about how there were men out there that would pay a lot of money to be with me. We could split the money 50/50 so if I did 3 guys a day, at $200 each, that would pay off $250 a day plus the interest. Sundown also agreed not to charge me interest on the weekends since you'd be home and might find out. So I thought that, at that rate, in a few months the whole nightmare would be over and you'd never find out." She paused to take a deep breath.

"Did you watch the videos?" she asked. "What those men got from me, was it like what you and I do, or did? All I did was let them do what they wanted I just laid there like a rock, and thought about you. I cried after almost everyone. Sundown would tell me that some of his customers wanted me to be more lively but I told him they were paying to fuck me, and that was how I fucked. No kissing, that was only for you, No blowjobs, that was only for you, no anal, just plug and chug and go home. When we make love, you know how I move, how I sound how I react. Is that what you saw on the screen? And then when I got home, I always cleaned myself up before I'd let you near me and I always, after the purely physical acts that I allowed them, gave you all of my love. Physically and emotionally in every way I could" she paused again and I looked at her tear stained face.

"Did I ever once turn you away? I belong to you, body, mind and soul so it seemed a small price to pay for something you love so much. There were times when I just hated myself for what I was doing. when I really felt like just a whore and I wanted to just die but then you'd start telling me about something you wanted to get for the car and I'd see that light in your eyes, and I'd think just 3 months. Hell, I'd do this for the rest of my life to see him that happy. If you know anything about me you know that for me sex without love is just something cheap and nasty and this wasn't even that because when they plugged in I just checked out. I thought about us going away somewhere, or doing the bills. I couldn't even think about us having sex for fear that I might react subconsciously and make them think that I was enjoying it. How long does it take for you to give me an orgasm or 2? Not long does it? Whether it's from you eating me, or making love to me or sometimes just from you rubbing my breasts I'm always screaming and quivering and fucking you right back. Did you see any of that on that screen? did you see even one of those guys give me even one shitty little orgasm? In most cases all they gave me was pain that you quickly took away as soon as you got home and as far as Sundown goes, he only thought of me as his whore. He was always telling me he didn't understand why they wanted some wrinkled up old bitch like me. Sundown only liked black women honey, I was not his type. Honestly, the only person who sees me as anything more than some chunky old woman is, or at least was, you. People pass me on the street everyday on my way to the market or the store and never even notice me. The only thing that made me special is the fact that you love me and after 10 years I don't think I could live without that. I know that what I've done is totally and completely wrong but I didn't get any pleasure out of it. I didn't do it for the strange sex, or because I needed someone other than you, because I don't. I'll never need anyone but you but as much as I hated it, as much as I've become the town whore by now, or I will be when your video and pictures go out, I'd do it all again. Except for the part about losing you, because that almost killed me, I'd do all of it except that, over to see you that happy. I don't have anything else left to say, except that I now that you only agreed to the 2 weeks with the call after a week because the doctor said you'd be ready to get out of bed in a couple of days. I also know that in the back of your mind you plan to take off as soon as you can get out of here but please call me after the week is up, just so I know you're alright, before I come looking for you. And I am going to find you again, or at least I'll never stop trying. And please come and get your car, in the spring" she was crying again.

"I'd hate to think that our marriage, and all of the sacrifices we both made for you to have it went for nothing. At least if you still have it, and it still makes you happy, then it was worth it." Her body was racked with little spasms, and I couldn't help holding her tighter.

"I know this has taken longer than my 30 minutes" she said " but I'm almost done. First I just want to thank you for the happiest 10 years any woman has ever, ever known and before this I was never unfaithful to you in any way, and I never would have been. I also want you to know that there will never be another man for me and if you need me in any way shape or form, whether it's to take care of you, or to talk, hopefully this kind of talk, or even just a booty call, I'll always be there for you but you also need to know that you are a part of me, so if you start trying to find someone to replace me, you need to find someone you can be around 24 hours a day because I will kill her or at least hurt her badly, and that includes my cousin. The last thing I want is just for one last time can we stay here tonight and let whatever happens happen, and start the 2 weeks tomorrow, please?"

I didn't answer, but I did pull her closer to me and hold onto her a little tighter.

I rubbed her breasts a bit through the silk of the Kimono and when I trailed one of my hands down between her legs she was already so wet, just from me touching her.

We didn't do anything that night but just held each other and slept. When I finally woke the next morning she had gone home. 

"She told me told tell you she loves you and please call her in a week, like you promised. She said she'll keep her promise and not hunt you for the week. You know when she left here this morning she looked at least 10 years younger. It's amazing that someone can love you so much that just being with you can have that kind of affect"

"Start feeding me Arlene, I've got to get my strength back"

"You're really going to run out on her? Are you even going to call her?"

"Nope, I'm not" I said smiling.

"You really are an asshole" said Arlene. "And to think I was going to give you some pussy now that she's gone"

"Well I guess that's my loss" I said "But in a couple of weeks I need a big favor from you, and Mary will too. I think it just might lead to the 2 of you regaining your closeness"

"Well call me in a couple of weeks and tell me what it is" she said. "But I can't guarantee that I won't turn you in to her again; I really think you two losers deserve each other"

A week later I was waiting outside of my old house, as Mary left to go and do some shopping. It was her habit to go out and buy fresh ingredients for dinner and I guess she still did. I let myself in the back door and noticed that not much had changed around the house. There were more pictures of me around for some reason, and there was a pad of paper by the phone. There were also 2 suitcases by the door in the living room. I guess Mary was intending to go look for me as soon as I didn't call, just as she said she would. I quickly ran out to the garage and saw our Mustang was just like I'd left it. I put the cover over it, to keep her warm. I'd forgotten on the day I left her and Mary hadn't done it either. I gave the car an affectionate kiss and headed back for the house.

I got back inside the house just as Mary's aging Toyota pulled into the driveway. 

Damn, she got done with the shopping a lot faster than I'd expected. 

She ran into the house and quickly checked the messages on the phone. There were none. She threw the grocery bag down dejectedly and just sat down next to the phone staring at it. Suddenly the phone rang and she smiled and wiped the tears from her eyes as she picked it up.

Then she sat down again.

"Hello Arlene"

"No, he hasn't called me yet"

"You did tell me that he said he wasn't going to call me"

"It doesn't matter if he doesn't love me, anymore, I'll always love him"

"I have to get off the phone just in case he calls"

"He said what?"

"I don't know anything about it"

"What do you think he wants you to do?"

"Arlene stay on the line I think I heard something"

She turned around, and saw me standing behind her with my arms open.

"Oh God!" she said and ran to me.

This time I did not pull away from her, and I did kiss her because I didn't care where her lips had been, as long as they were on mine.

One year later almost to the day Mary and I sat holding hands in the delivery room as our daughter Mary-Arlene was born.

She was a test tube baby, we'd extracted several of Mary's eggs, they were fertilized with my sperm and implanted in Arlene. Arlene had carried her niece to term and was delivering her. Mary and I both cut the cord and both Arlene and Mary-Arlene were doing fine. 

I never thought that I'd be able to get over what I saw on the screen that day, but my love for Mary, and hers for me was far stronger than one little misstep. And her reasons for doing it were, though not wise, genuinely done out of love for me.

In the end it took a lot of time and some patience and some counseling before things were back anywhere near normal for us. We also spent a lot of time talking things over in bed, and we probably always will. The last time we talked like that was just last night, when Mary decided that we really needed a car seat for the Mustang.



Sundown



It no longer mattered to me, I told myself, Mary could do what ever the fuck she wanted from now on.

In the early pre dawn light I drove to an I-hop restaurant and got myself breakfast.

My heart was heavy, but my mind was clear except for one nagging thought. Why did she go to so much trouble, with all of the acting and trying to fool me, when she could have just left me? Maybe her and Sundown just got off on making a fool out of me, or maybe she didn't want to lose my income. Well the game was over now and after work there'd be some screaming and crying when she realized that I wasn't coming home, but I was sure that after a few days she'd go right on back to Sundown full time and our sham of a marriage could die a quiet death. To make it easier on both of us, I left my cell phone at the house with her. We weren't allowed to have calls at work unless it was a serious emergency, but after work when I didn't come home, if she tried to call me she'd hear the phone ringing in the bedroom, and know the game is over.

I don't know how I made it through the day at work. Everything I saw reminded me of her and what I was losing. Every fucking song on the radio was our song. If I saw one of those hot young women who worked in the office, I didn't think Holy shit what a babe. I thought Mary has better tits, or Mary's ass jiggle like that too. Most of my cop-workers would have had me committed if they knew that I was comparing my 40+ year old soon to be ex wife's attributes to a hot 20 year old, and the 20 year was losing in every category. But that was the way I felt about Mary. I had loved her from the moment I saw her, and I probably wouldn't ever stop. When it was quitting time, I was almost crying, but this was it, and tonight would be the hardest night of all. Tomorrow during the day my lawyer would deliver the divorce papers to Mary and she'd have the details about what was going on. If she fought the divorce, or refused to sign the papers then plan B would go into affect. I really and truly hoped that plan B wouldn't be necessary. If Mary just did her part, I'd move out of town as soon as I could find other work and she and Sundown could do whatever floated their boat. But if she didn't I was prepared to send her a copy of the PI's report as a warning, and then send copies to her parents and everyone she knew. I would also change the reason for the divorce to infidelity and sue Sundown for alienation of affection. And since I would be the injured party, I'd keep the house as well, or maybe the court would force us to sell it and split the proceeds.

The Mustang's aggressive growl calmed my nerves somewhat as I drove around the outskirts of town looking for a cheap motel that wouldn't hurt my wallet too badly. I also didn't want anything where any of our friends might accidentally see me and be able to tell Mary where I was.

I finally checked into one of those mom and pop establishments with the names that sounded good but made little or no sense when you thought about it. This one was called the Highway Motel. I was told they named it that because it was the motel nearest to the highway. Anyway I checked in and immediately went to sleep, or at least I tried to.

I kept seeing Sundown, getting out of my shower, putting on my robe, getting into my bed and just fucking the cowboy shit out of Mary. Then they laughed at me for letting him run me off and taking Mary away from me. What kind of wimp was I?

I could hear Mary defending me somewhat. "Oh he's not a wimp Sundown" Mary would say.

"Please bitch, what kind of man let's somebody fuck his woman for months and then just disappears when he find's out about it? Bitch, I played football in school, what sports did he play?"

"Well he was special forces in the military" she said.

"Bitch that's not a sport, that's just a job"

"Well he did fencing in high school" she said.

I could hear Sundown laughing as he turned to Mary and started rubbing my/her titties again. It didn't register fully in my brain at that time, but I think my sub-conscious knew then how this story would play out.

The next morning as I walked into the I-hop for my breakfast, I ran into Budd McQueen. Oh shit, I thought just what I don't need. Budd hopped down from his stool and waddled over to me.

"John, what the fuck are you doing? You do know that your wife is in the hospital, don't you?"

"Why is she in the hospital?" I asked "Did Sundown hit her or something?"

"I don't know anything about Sundown" he said, but he did set his lips as if it was starting to make sense.

"She waited for you to come home last night, and when you didn't show up she started calling everyone she knew to see if they'd heard anything. She was worried sick and by about 1a.m. when you still weren't there she just knew something terrible must have happened to you, and she just started turning pale and was having trouble breathing. They took her to the emergency room, and it was a good thing they did, she had had some kind of panic induced mini stroke over you" he said. "Now, what does Sundown have to do with that? he's a lowlife bastard, I'm ashamed to call him family"

"Ask her" I said as I turned on my heel and left the I-hop. I had no desire to eat anymore. I still had about an hour before I had to be at work, so I went in and filled out some online job applications, hoping to find work out of state.

Sundown you'd better take care!

Seemingly everything happened that day while I was at work. My lawyer served the divorce papers to Mary who was back at the house being looked after by several of her friends. I'd told him to be very polite and very discreet when serving her the papers because I wanted everything to be as civil as possible. Even though my heart was breaking, I wanted this to be as painless as possible for Mary. Unfortunately the best laid plans of mice and men.... You know the rest.

Mary got the papers and the shit hit the fan. She totally lost it and had to go to the hospital again. Budd's wife asked Mary about Sundown, telling her that I'd mentioned him to Budd when he saw me. If the divorce papers were a shock to Mary, the fact that I knew about Sundown almost killed her, she went into tachycardia, with her heart beating so fast they had to medicate her to save her life.

Budd in turn tracked down Sundown, who it turns out is Budd's nephew ( I honestly hadn't known that at the time) Sundown didn't react well to Budd's questions, so that led to Sundown waiting by my Mustang when I got off from work that night.

"Why you be throwing my name around in yo conversations?"

"What?" I asked. I was already pissed.

"Don't be mentioning my name when you be talking to people, you be messing up my bidness and I aint gone axe you again, so stay outta my bidness"

"Speak English, so I can understand you" I said. "Sundown, I don't want this to come as a shock to you but you're white"

"Stay outta my fuckin bidness yo"he repeated, tugging on his pants to pull them up.

"If your business is my ex wife to be, she'd all yours, enjoy" I said, smiling.

"Why you be laughing, Ah on't want da bitch like dat, she all ole an wrinkled an shit, a ho only good fuh makin me money an she jus a ho ta me"

"Sundown, you'd better take care"

"I better what?" he sneered looking at me

Then he just laughed and walked off. He was about 4 inches taller than me and outweighed me by at least 50 pounds. Under the over sized football jersey he wore I could see the outline of a holster, but it didn't faze me. Any day now we were expecting that first snowstorm of the winter, but all of a sudden I was warm. No, I was hot.

I still loved Mary and that asshole wasn't getting her. The idea from my sub conscious was beginning to percolate.

I decided to go and see Mary one last time to see if maybe we could talk about this and try to work something out. But realistically even if she believed the way that asshole talked about her, I didn't see myself living with what she'd done to us. there was no way I could ever be with her again.

When I got to the hospital, things were going down hill fast. I was already pissed, but after trying to get into Mary's room I was told that she could only have a certain number of visitors at a time and that I'd have to wait for someone there to come down before I could go to see her. Fuck this shit, I was about to leave but the woman at the desk asked me to wait. She telephoned the nurse lounge on Mary's floor and told me to go on up.

A really nice nurse went into the room to inform them that Mary's husband was there. A couple of people decided to leave so I could go up, but all of the nosiest old bitches stayed in the fucking room. If something was going on they wanted to be there for it. As I walked into the room they looked at me with nothing but accusation and derision in their eyes.

Myra Dennings, the town school teacher and head busy body, stepped right up to me and said "John Matland, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for treating Mary like this"

"Mrs. Dennings, you don't have all of the facts, now if you please I'd like to talk to Mary alone"

"She can't talk to you, they've given her something to make her sleep" said Myra. "And I don't think she'd talk to you any way after you stayed out all night on her, what are you doing, playing around with some floozy?"

Two things happened in rapid succession, the first was that I saw Mary, all wired up and connected to tubes. The second was that I lost my temper.

"Myra you cadaverous old bitch, not that it's any of your fucking business, but yes there was some cheating going on in our marriage"

Myra looked away from me.

"Where are you going?" I screamed "This is what you wanted right? Only it wasn't me, I have never, ever cheated on Mary, I never would have. I loved her with all of my heart so when she wakes up, you can ask her who cheated on who."

Myra just stood there looking stunned as I continued to yell.

"Is this what you do, for a living?" I shouted."Since no one wants you and you have no life, just go around sticking your long assed nose in other people's lives?"

With that said I turned to leave the room just as my loud words woke Mary. From what everyone has told me, the drugs they used on her should have prevented her from waking up at all. Apparently our emotional connection, for her at least, hadn't been severed because when she heard my voice upset and obviously in a lot of pain she woke up despite all of the drugs in her system, but I was already gone.

I sometimes had to open packages for work and I carried a pocket knife for that purpose. It was actually a little longer than it should be, and it had a Japanese Tanto styled blade. It wasn't, as I've heard said, a switchblade. It was more of a military styled tactical knife. You know, the ones that have a stud for your thumb on the blade so you can open them pretty quickly if necessary.

I walked into that same bar as the night before, only this time I was angry. The bar was also not deserted tonight. I saw Budd again, he was playing cards with 3 other guys that I didn't recognize, but they weren't the reason I was there. I was there because I'd been on my way back to my motel to think, and I saw Him go in there. But when I got inside Sundown was no where to be seen. The bartender said something to me that just didn't register, because as he started talking Sundown emerged from the bathroom door about five feet to my left. My anger at Myra, at Mary, at Sundown, and at the whole situation was written all over my face. My intention had been to tell Sundown to stay the fuck away from Mary, but he misread it and went for his gun. In my dream last night Mary had told Sundown that I competed in Fencing. She hadn't lied, I'd been very good at it, and some things you never forget. Coupled with my military training it gave me the attitude I needed to do what I had to do. As soon as Sundown reached for his gun, I did one of the most basic fencing footwork combinations, Advance-lunge. All designed to quickly cover ground between the fencer and opponent and get into striking range with the weapon. In this case it was my knife. Sundown met his twilight as my blade slammed home up to it's hilt in his chest, just before he got a good grip on his pistol. I was still in shock as he hit the floor. I turned and saw Budd McQueen and the other guys in the bar. Their mouths were open in surprise. The bartender yelled "call an ambulance" as I ran out of the door. "Where are you going?" I heard Budd's voice screaming at me.

I jumped into the Mustang and drove it home quickly. There was no reason for my car to suffer, and it was time to put it up for the winter anyway. I probably wouldn't see it for a long time, if ever again.

Then I went to the police station and turned myself in. I told the officer behind the desk that I'd just committed a crime and wanted to see someone. He looked really busy and told me to wait for a detective. I'd been waiting for about a half an hour when a tired looking guy came over to me.

"I have a real case to investigate, a stabbing" He said, looking iritated.

"Well I can save you some time" I said.

"How?" he asked.

"I did it. I killed Sundown" I said.

"You're shitting me" he said. "It was Sundown that got stabbed. Well that will save the state a hell of a lot of money, where'd you hear this?" he asked

"I didn't hear it anywhere" I said" I did it"

He called for a uniformed officer and had him read me my rights, and put me in a holding cell. I still don't think he believed me but he had to cover all of his bases.

After a couple of hours in the cell, I fell asleep. They didn't do any of the things you see on TV. They didn't take my belt or my shoelaces, and there was no one in the cell with me. I guess it was one of the benefits of being in a smaller city.   First thing in the morning the detective came back, and brought me some coffee that was really good, and a couple of doughnuts, that weren't.

He was looking at me kind of funny. "I didn't think you were the type" he said

"Anyone can kill somebody if they have the right motivation" I said.

"OK Nut-bird" he replied. "But I was talking about the type of guy that goes around filing false police reports"

"But I did kill Sundown" I said.

"You have a visitor, says her name is Mary" he said, ignoring my statement.

"I don't want to see her, that's over" I answered.

"Well regardless, you should be out of here in a few hours" he continued. "The only reason I'm not throwing your ass out of here now is because even with the multiple eye witnesses, some of whom are beyond reproach, this is still an ongoing investigation" and with that he walked away muttering about crazy people wasting the taxpayers dollars.

From the next room I could hear Mary crying; he'd probably told her that I wouldn't see her. I could hear someone else saying "Mary you've got to give him some time to get over this"

The detective, after making me promise to return first thing in the morning to take care of all of the details of the case, let me out through the back door where I could avoid seeing anyone. I still didn't understand why they let me out, or how Mary had found out that I was in jail or if she even knew why. I mean I'd been honest with them, I had clearly killed Sundown in front of witnesses and even if he was a scumbag, it was still murder.

I went back to my motel room called, my lawyer and asked him if Mary's attorney had contacted him or if she'd signed the papers yet. He told me Mary didn't have a lawyer, wasn't getting a lawyer, would not sign any papers at all concerning a divorce and had told him that she would fight any attempted divorce with everything she had for as long as it took to get me to come to my senses.

I told him to go ahead and warn her about plan B, but to be as gentle about it as possible and maybe wait a couple of days to allow her to get her condition stabilized. I didn't want her to have a heart attack when she found out just how much I knew about what she'd been doing. He gave me the standard talk about going to counseling to try and work out our issues and save our marriage since I obviously still loved her and she even more clearly loved me. It might take a while he said but he was sure that with that kind of love we could someday put this all behind us. I laughed and gave him the number for my new cell phone and told him we should stay in contact, at least until the papers were signed.

I went out to get something to eat, I was starving, I didn't really want to go to that little bar, so I went to I-hop, as there really weren't many places I go get to on foot and with snow looming, the Mustang was put up for the winter. A couple of people I knew or that knew me were there, so I gave them a wide berth. I didn't want to hear about what an ass hole I was being to Mary. I wondered again why every time a marriage broke up it was instantly assumed that the man had done something wrong.

The next day I showed up at the police station and they had me talk to a man who was clearly some kind of psychologist. They obviously thought that I was crazy for some reason.

"What are you current plans" the same rumpled detective asked me.

"I'm planning on leaving town as soon as you clear me" I said.

"What about your wife?" he asked.

"I don't have a wife anymore" I said

"Shit you don't have a wife any less" he replied "She's been here for four fucking hours waiting for you, every man should have a 'not wife' like yours.

"Any way why are you not locking me up and throwing away the key?" I asked.

"Look you're crazy but you're not a murderer so drop the act. We've spoken to the bartender and the four men who were there, 2 of whom were off duty police officers, and another who was the victim's blood uncle. We interviewed all 5 men separately, and their stories all matched. Basically they told us that scumbag Sundown had been messing around with your wife, he's been busted for carrying weapons several times, before this and implicated in the divorces of lots of people among other things so when he saw you come into that bar, where you'd been seen drinking just the night before, he freaked out and attacked you whipping out a knife, and as he jumped at you he tripped over the leg of the table and he fell on his own knife, and you ran out of the bar screaming like a little bitch" he said in exasperation.

At the look on my face he said "Sorry that was their words not mine. Our psychologist thinks that as a reaction to Sundown trying to kill you and your perfectly healthy fear, coupled with your emasculation at finding out that scumbag was playing around with your lady, led you to concoct this wild story about killing him, as a way of getting your balls back. Kind of crazy but I've seen worse, and since he also says that you're not a danger to anyone, if you're dead set on leaving town I'll drive you to the fucking bus station myself. But buddy do us both a favor and at least be man enough to talk to the lady before you go. The type of emotions you're dealing with here can turn real ugly if they're left to fester"

With that he got up and left, turning as he got to the door to tell me "you're free to go unless you want to confess to some other crime you didn't commit and it's up to you how you go out but you were willing to go to jail and do hard time for a chance to get your balls back and If you've still got em, the front door and your not-wife are through there" he pointed at a door to the right.

"Or, the back door, and the easy way out, are that way" he pointed to another door.

"It's up to you"

I stood there for a few minutes and walked through the door on the right.

As if on cue Mary stood up and ran over to me. She looked paler than normal, and older, as if she had aged over night. She smiled when she saw me and started talking a mile a minute as she reached out to hug me.




Sundown



"No" I said stepping away from her.

"But you don't understand" she said "I love you, I'll never love any other man"

"Yeah" I said "That's why you've been fucking every swinging dick with a couple of bucks"

She was clearly knocked for a loop that I'd said that, and she stopped trying to get closer to me.

"No" she said "That isn't tr.." "Before you lie again, I should tell you that I had an investigator on you, so I have pictures, videos, and even audio tapes. I guess the first lie was probably the first time you told me you loved me"

Mary's hand went over her mouth and her eyes filled with tears when I said that.

"So lie 2 would probably be when you swore to be faithful, keeping yourself only to me" She reached out like she really needed to be held then, but I wasn't having it. "That was a bad one because it was in church before God, the preacher and all of these sanctimonious assholes who are standing here getting off on our conversation. You see I didn't tell anybody why I left, I'd hoped we could just go our separate ways and after I left town you could tell them whatever you needed to get you through but you've kind of forced my hand and with all of these fucking busybodies around here by tomorrow it'll be national news, isn't that right, Myra?"

"Anyway you just started lie 3, which is that you didn't do it or that I don't understand the circumstances, or is it that you weren't Sundown's whore that I just didn't understand?"

She started crying and this time her friends were too shocked to do anything.

"Isn't it funny that now that they know, none of these good Christian people want to offer me a shoulder to cry on, or any comfort, I mean they were so judgmental of me less than 5 minutes ago, but now that they know they were wrong, not one of them has even had the guts or the decency to say they were wrong about me or that they're sorry. The truth is that they're all sorry, and in fact they're the sorriest bunch of assholes I've ever met. With friends like this it's no wonder I'm leaving town"

"No John" she screamed

"Don't worry Mary", I said softly, "There's at least 5 or six truck stops in this town so even with Sundown dead you'll be able to find all the dick you need. But if you need to talk to me so badly, I'll make a deal with you. I'm leaving this fucking town tonight, even if I have to walk, but tomorrow I'll call my attorney and have him bring you the divorce papers back and if you sign the papers, we'll either exchange letters or I'll have him give you my new cell phone number and you can call me one time before I change the number."

"But you can't leave me, what will I do without you. It'll kill me if you go" she said seriously. It was good to see that her acting skills hadn't been lost during our break-up. It reminded me to buy that damned oscar statue before I left town.

"You didn't seem to be suffering so much yesterday in that motel with that doofus while I was working to put food on the table for both of us, or do I cease to matter when you've got someone else's dick in you? In any case, after you sign the papers you can say anything you want. I'll give you 30 minutes uninterrupted or I'll read any letter you send"

"What if we decided to try again when we talk" she said.

"Then we tear up the papers and we try again" I said. "So what's it going to be, letters or a talk?"

"Both" she said.

"As soon as I here from my lawyer I'll write you a letter" I said "The phone number will be in the letter"

"I want my talk to be in person, not over the phone" she said through her tears.

"You don't get to call the play here Mary" I said.

"You've got nothing to bargain with either" she countered. "I'll go door to door and tell everybody myself, I'll take your sleazy little pictures and put them on billboards. I don't care what happens to me as long as I have a chance to be with you. So I'll sign the papers, just to get a chance to explain it to you, but our meeting will be in person"

I left then, I couldn't take seeing her cry because I still loved her so much. That's partially why I was being such a dick, because it hurt me as much as she had already hurt me to be mean to her.

What I really wanted more than anything else was to wrap my arms around her and forget that this had all happened. But there was too much water under the bridge for that.

3 days and 800 miles later, I got down out of the truck as the snow started to fall again. I waved to the driver and thanked him again for the ride and the company.

I made my way through the drifting snow into yet another truck stop. This one was a little better than most. It was warm, and actually served good hot food. My dollars were in short supply so I decided to just have coffee instead of a meal. The place was packed and the woman who gave me the coffee was another well stacked country girl.

Big breasted and broad in the beam, built more for comfort than for speed. As I looked at her she reminded me so much of Mary that a tear rolled down my cheek. Would I ever get over that woman? Probably not.

"All you want is coffee?" she asked.

"It's all I can afford, until I get settled, I'm on a budget" I replied.

"Well if there's anything you can think of, let me know" she said, smiling.

"Actually, there is...Arlene" I said reading the name off her name tag. "There's a computer in your office over there, do you think I could please use it for a few minutes?"

"Well the internet don't work on it and the owner is kind of partial who she let's use it" she answered Hesitantly.

"Well, I just wanted to write a letter, and have you mail it for me, but thanks just the same" I said.

"Oh shit, go on and write your letter, but I can't mail it until the snow stops and the mail truck comes"

It took a lot longer than I thought it would to write the letter. It's hard to sum up all of your hurt, anger, pain and other emotions, in just a few words, especially when you have to also tell the person why you now feel that way. I also ended up telling her a lot of things about just exactly how much she meant to me, and how I would love her until the day I died. I told her that I couldn't see myself with another woman so I'd probably end up some lonely broken old man, and I also told her about my plans for our future, how since she couldn't have kids I was hoping she'd adopt some with me. Maybe they wouldn't be our biological kids but they'd still have our psychological imprints and they'd be just as much our babies. I also told her that all the love in the world wouldn't be enough to put us back together and that she didn't need me. 

She was still a beautiful woman and she could find hundreds or even thousands of guys to take my place in her heart. I didn't mention that she'd already found lots of guys to take my place in her body and that was why we were here. Lastly I told her that the divorce papers were only a formality, so she could re-marry or If I was ever lucky enough to love again that I could. The terms etc. were just numbers for the court. I'd left her everything we had together and I took only a few items of clothing and the money I had in my pocket. I'd left everything we had in the bank, the house was hers and both cars were hers too. My lawyer, when he called to tell me that she still hadn't signed the papers and was refusing to let me go, said she thought that I was driving the Mustang. He also said that she had a PI of her own trying to find me. Good luck with that as I was walking and hitching rides everywhere. If she really wanted to speak to me ever again she needed to sign the fucking papers.

I folded the letter up in an envelope, sealed it and gave it to Arlene. By the time I'd finished the truck stop was closing up, and I hadn't had time to find my next ride. Luckily I remembered that we'd passed a comfort station about a half a mile before the truck stop. Those things were usually deserted and I'd probably be sleeping on a hard bench or maybe a nice cot if I was lucky, but either instance beat having to try to survive in this storm. I thanked Arlene and headed out into the blinding snow. She looked at the envelope with Mary's name and address kind of funny. "Please don't open it" I said.

"You can't go out in that" was all she said.

"Don't worry Arlene, you can only die once, and I had my heart ripped out about a week ago. There's nothing a little snow can do to me"

I walked out into the storm relishing the cold and heading for the comfort station.

By the time I'd gone a hundred yards I could barely see the outlines of the truck stop, but I could still see Arlene holding the door open and the lights from inside.

I smiled again, she really did look a lot like Mary.