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Talkin' In Your Sleep

By: StangStar06



 Hey Folks. Here's another story of woe and regret. Again I'm blessed to have Barney-R editing it. This one is shorter since some of you like that. Let's see how it goes. 

* * * * *

It's said that every criminal deserves his day in court. I was facing the first of two. This first one would be the hardest. Although I wasn't the star of this one, I was very involved. My loving wife had the distinction of being the focus of this investigation. Nearly everyone in town had gathered to see a civil suit. It was a severe impairment suit brought about by the wife of the victim. She alleged that my wife was directly responsible for the loss of her husband's ability to function normally and or earn an income and provide for his family.

The DA was sure that he couldn't get a conviction on murder charges or even assault charges against Tammy, so he hadn't filed any charges. That had angered Samantha to the point that she decided to sue Tammy for the loss of her husband's ability to function. 

Two women who were once, if not the best of friends, at least cordial ones, were now arguing tooth and nail over what happened to the asshole that one of them used to be married to. My wife Tammy claimed that what had happened to Bob had been a terrible and tragic accident that she herself was in no way responsible for. Samantha on the other hand maintained that it was Tammy's fault that Bob was in a place that he never should have been in. She also maintained that Tammy was directly responsible not only for pushing Bob into the place he ended up, but for negligence in maintaining a safe environment in said place. 

What neither of them realized was that what happened to Bob wasn't exactly an accident. It had been forseen and calculated if not planned or executed. The random nature of the incident was what made it so brilliant. I had my own opinions on who was at fault. I believe that Bob himself was directly responsible for what happened to him. And I myself was indirectly responsible, since I had actually set those random events in motion. I was not a suspect though. And I was keeping my mouth shut.

I was there to provide some insight into the device that led to what happened to Bob. I got out of my Black 2012 Mustang in the parking lot adjacent to the courthouse. There was a crowd of people already gathered there. I noticed the District Attorney and one of his assistants walking towards the courthouse as I summoned the courage to brave the crowd. I thought it was interesting that in this case, the DA had declined to forward charges, waiting to see what happened in the civil suit. Usually the process went the other way. 

I saw an older couple moving quickly towards me. The man grabbed my shoulder and turned me around to face him. 

"Dave you have to help her," he said. "I don't know what happened to her. She sure isn't the little girl I raised, but she's still the woman you married. I think it was a hormone imbalance or temporary insanity that led to it. But despite all of that, she loves you. She has maintained that throughout this nightmare."

"I'm not sure what I should do or even what I CAN do Mr. Miller," I said to him. He looked hurt. "I'm not really here to say anything about Tammy. From what I understand, I'm only going to be answering questions about the device. Besides that I have to be very careful what I say about Tammy personally because my words, if entered into the public record as part of this trial could affect my divorce." He looked as if I had punched him in the gut without warning.

"So things have gotten that bad?" he asked sadly. "When did I become MISTER MILLER instead of DAD?" It was a really awkward moment and for a second neither of us knew what to say.

"Her lawyer may have decided to ask you a few personal questions in reference to Tammy's character and personality. Since I'm warning you about them, you could instruct your friend's lawyer to allow them, or just to allow a couple of them before he objects," he said. "And as far as this divorce goes, it's really bullshit. There shouldn't be a divorce. The two of you should be going to counseling and working on putting this whole tragic incident behind you." He looked around as we both noticed the couple walking towards us at the same time.

"I think that you should walk into that courtroom and sit beside her," he continued. "I know that right now you're still shocked and hurt and angry about this whole thing, but dammit Dave, you have to put your petty feelings and ego aside here and stand by your woman."

"Are you harassing a witness?" asked a deeper voice. My soon to be ex-father was interrupted by another older man. This one also had his wife with him. "Leave him alone and just let justice prevail," said the newcomer. "Maybe I should alert the judge that you were out here trying to influence the witness to help your murderous whore of a daughter. Dave is the victim here. He's better off without that bitch."

Tammy's dad turned and punched the other man, Bob's dad, in the face. Within seconds the two sixty plus year old men were fighting and rolling on the ground in the parking lot while their wives hissed and spat at each other. I turned and continued towards the courthouse as the building's security squad descended on the scene and separated the combatants. 

When I finally made it into the courtroom, Tammy's lawyer directed me to the bench where she sat. I shook my head and walked across to a seat in the third row of the opposite side. Two rows ahead of me, I saw a waterfall of crimson curls as Samantha took her seat. 

Within a few moments the trial began. The lawyers postured and sparred as they went about presenting their cases. Samantha's lawyer started out by talking about Bob. He was described as a very popular local business owner and man of the people. The lawyer painted a picture of a Bob that made him seem nearly saint-like. 

Then Tammy's lawyer refuted all of the accolades that his opponent had presented. He painted Bob as an evil and conniving sexual predator who lured unsuspecting women into kinky and bizarre sexual machinations while ignoring his own wife. He also threw in the fact that Samantha's sexual frigidity may have been what spurred Bob to pursue his extra-curricular relationships. He maintained that Samantha knew what Bob did and often threw other women to the wolves herself, so she didn't have to participate. 

The reporters from the local and a few state and national papers were having a field day with the suggestive legal fireworks. They would undoubtedly sell an unbelievable number of papers before the case was over. 

I wasn't called to testify for over an hour. My lawyer had arrived by then, and I told him about Mr. Miller's request. "Hell no," he spat. He ducked low, supposedly so he wouldn't distract anyone from Tammy's lawyer's soliloquy. He whispered something to Samantha's lawyer who nodded and whispered back. 

Although, I wasn't on trial here, my lawyer had decided to come for the trial. He wanted to be here to prevent me from doing anything to hinder my efforts to divorce Tammy. He and Samantha's lawyer had shared information since Sam was also divorcing Bob. 

I stepped up towards the witness stand and was sworn in. Tammy's lawyer made a big show of smiling at me as he came over to me.

"Can you state your name for the court and describe your relationship with the defendant and the unfortunate Mr. Enthrust?" he asked.

"My name is David Pike," I said calmly. "I was ... I am currently married to Tammy Pike. Bob Enthrust is my neighbor, golf buddy and until recently my friend."

"You've heard Mr. Enthrust described two different ways. To some he was described as being an angel and to others, he was close to being the devil himself. How did you feel about him?" he asked.

"Objection!" yelled Samantha's lawyer. 

"On what grounds?" asked the judge.

"The witness is obviously hostile towards Mr. Enthrust because of the illicit nature of the relationship between Mr. Enthrust and Mrs. Pike," said Sam's lawyer. 

"Sustained," said the judge.

Tammy's lawyer backed off and began another line of questioning. "Mr. Pike do you recognize this implement?" he asked me. 

I looked at it. "Yes," I said. "I believe that I made it."

"How did you come to make it and when did you do so?" he asked.

"I guess I did it because I love Tammy," I said. I paused and shook my head. I squeezed my hands together while gritting my teeth. "What I meant to say is that I LOVED Tammy. So when she took up gardening, along with half of the women in our neighborhood, I wanted to support her hobby. One of her biggest problems was weeding in between smaller plants. And there were places that a rake or a hoe were simply too large. There was also the problem that we needed a lot of leverage. Being an engineer, I like to tinker so I went into our small shed to find one of our garden tools that I could modify to do the job. We are one of the few houses in our neighborhood that has a separate garage and shed.

We needed the shed to store lawn and garden supplies. I hate keeping that crap near my Mustang. Especially because Tammy is a great wife ... well ... I thought she was. But she tended to be kind of disorganized and a little sloppy. So I just figured that keeping my car stuff and the garden stuff separate was a good idea. It saved a lot of arguments. So anyway that day I stepped into the shed and almost knocked myself out. 

I remember opening the door and there was a blinding flash of intense pain. I don't think I was truly knocked out but I was dazed and definitely knocked on my ass. It turned out that as usual Tammy had been remiss in putting her toys away. As I stepped into the shed, I stepped on the upturned end of a rake. The shaft had smacked me in the face. 

Anyway, what I came up with a few days later was to take the rake and drill hole across the shaft at the opposite end. I mounted a long thin spike through the hole. I showed Tammy and some of the women in the neighborhood how to use it the next day. I called it "Pike's Pick," kind of like the car race. Anyway I made a few more of them for a couple of the other women in the neighborhood. And until a few weeks ago, I never thought about it again."

"So when was the last time you saw the one you made for your wife ... I mean your ex-wife?" Ne asked. 

"Probably about a month ago," I said. I was tense for a couple of seconds as he looked at me and decided not to try to use me as a character witness for Tammy. 

As I looked at the shaft of the rake and the gleaming spike that jutted from it, a chill went down my spine.

"I thought about trying to market it and even took one over to the local garden store, but they had too many ideas of how to alter it or improve it. And they all wanted me to do all of the work and give them most of the profits. One of those suggestions was to take the rake head off of the other end. And now, thinking back on it; that might have been a good suggestion. But, I just gave up on it. Tammy still had one and she used it in the garden a lot, but I lost interest in it."

"So how would you describe your ex wife? Is she an emotional person or...?" he began. Before he could ask me anything else my lawyer again piped up.

"Objection," he said. "My client is currently in the process of divorcing his ex. Anything he says for or against her can be used against him in that case. It is also very unethical to ask a witness to answer questions like that during a time of deep emotional upheaval. 

"He's here as an expert witness," spat Tammy's lawyer. "The two things he's an expert on are this thingie, and his wife. And we're done talking about the thingie."

As they argued I thought about his question. What kind of woman was Tammy?

When I first ran into Tammy, I was working my ass off in college. We were about the same age, but she didn't go to school. I had seen her around the campus at several parties, but she was an enigma to me. She made minimum wage working in a fast food restaurant near the school. I wondered what kind of woman knew most of the people our age in the school, but didn't consider going there herself?

Tammy was also pretty difficult to describe. She taught me a lot about grading a woman's looks. Tammy wasn't exactly what I'd call beautiful, but she wasn't a dog either. I guess I'd describe her as cute. I thought she wasn't the kind of woman who would ever stop traffic, but then too she also wouldn't stop a clock. 

I think the main reason that some lucky guy hadn't scooped Tammy up already, was because she had kind of a reputation of being easy. She wasn't a slut by any means. She wasn't one of those girls who show up at a party, and go straight up to the rooms and fuck every guy who comes into her room. But it was pretty much established that if you took her out on a date, you were almost guaranteed to get laid.

She had dated and fucked a lot of my friends. I had even gone out on double dates with her as the date of some of my best friends it got to the point where we knew each other pretty well. Most of my friends that had dated her had no complaints. Some of them dated her several times. Others dated her off and on for long periods of times. All of them smiled when they mentioned her name. 

Tammy had short brown hair back then. She's let it grow out over the past few years to the point that it's about shoulder length. She's short and while she isn't fat, she isn't thin either. Her waist is a little thicker than optimal, but not thick enough to be jiggly or off putting. Her legs are pretty thick too, but in the right light they're sexy. She has a big rounded butt and big breasts too and they're her best assets. 

Because of those big jugs and big butt, Tammy stands above the girls that most men would consider plain and although she isn't pretty, she is sexy. There are times when a man will walk right by a pretty woman to get to a sexy one. So although Tammy very rarely had what anyone would call a boyfriend, she never lacked for male company. 

There were times when we'd see each other and smile or wave, just to be polite, but for the first three years that I was in college, Tammy and I never dated. My last year though, that changed. It was on one of those rare weekend nights that Tammy didn't have a date. She decided to go to a party on campus that one of the frats was throwing. When Tammy showed up unescorted, one of the frat guys got the idea to hustle her up the stairs and into one of the rooms. He even tried to strong arm her up the back stairs. 

Tammy called to me when she saw me. The look of fear on her face told me everything I needed to know. "Hey, Bart, Tammy's with me," I said. I couldn't think of anything else to say and Bart was huge. He was the Center on our football team. Bart was the biggest corn fed Iowa farm boy I have ever seen. Even today I'm pretty sure that I could probably use one of his old shirts as a car cover for my Mustang.

He just smiled and nodded at me, giving me the thumbs up sign and turned to look for another girl to take upstairs.

I just nodded at Tammy and went back to the main room. Tammy followed me. I was just about to ask another girl to dance, when I felt a hand on my arm. 

"Dave, I'm here with you, remember?" she said. "If you start dancing with other girls, that gorilla will come back and try to force me to go upstairs to be one of their pincushions. So tonight, you're stuck with me."

She'd smiled as she said it and although I didn't consider Tammy, my type, I nodded, thinking that no good deed goes unpunished. The night went better than I expected. Tammy was easy to talk to and we were very comfortable with each other from the start. That was probably a combination of two factors: the first being that we had been on several dates with each other although not as each other's dates. And the second was that once again, I didn't think that Tammy was my type so there was no pressure for me to try to impress her. 

We ended up having a great time. It made me wonder why I had never dated her. And just to show that we were on the same page, when we got ready to leave she looked at me.

"Dave, why didn't we ever date?" she asked. She had a very serious look on her face and her hand on my arm. It was almost as if she was desperate. 

"Maybe it just wasn't in the cards," I said lightly. "But that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. Tammy would you like to go out sometime?"

"No!" she said with that very same serious look. "Dave, I don't want to go out "sometime." I want to go out with you tomorrow night." Then she looked down at her watch. "Actually it's after midnight so I mean tonight."

That evening was our first date. We ran into a friend of mine who was out on a first date with a new girl. He smiled and nodded at me but I had no idea why. He asked if we wanted to double, but Tammy quickly told him that we were doing something with her parents. 

"Dave, I wanted to go out with you, ALONE," she said. "I don't want to go to a club. I don't want to go to a party. I just want the two of us to get to know each other, better. And we did. We saw a movie together. It was one of those blood and guts horror movies. I let Tammy pick it and I think she chose that movie just so she could grab onto me and hold my hand. My arm spent so much time between those big soft breasts that I had a hardon throughout the movie. Then we had dinner in a small intimate restaurant and finished up with a walk along the river. 

We ended up back at my place where we exchanged lots of soft wet kisses. Before I knew it, I found myself in the warmest most willing pussy I had ever been in. Maybe it wasn't the tightest, but the way Tammy moved more than made up for it. 

I knew then that things had changed. The first time we had sex that night was wild and crazy. Tammy literally let me do anything I wanted and she responded in kind. The movements of her hips mesmerized me and I had never cum that hard in my life. But the second time was the one that blew my mind. That time we didn't fuck, we made love. 

Our mouths and tongues were entwined and we hugged our bodies together as our organs joined in a very sensual, very slow rhythm. It wasn't very fast; there was no frenzied movement, no bodies slamming together with speed or force; just a slow, unhurried pumping that went very deep. When we both came, her hungry pussy swallowed every drop and it was as if we could tell what each other was thinking. It was after midnight and Tammy got out of bed. 

Seeing her boobs jiggling and swinging as she walked towards the pile of her clothes on the floor started my dick, rising all over again. The movement of her ass as it swayed back and forth and then spread as she bent over the pile of clothes, made me want to be inside of her all over again. She fumbled around in her clothes, found her phone, and made a call. 

"Yeah mom," she said. "It's me. Lisa and Brandon got into a really big fight. She's all broken up about it. I'm going to spend the night with her and come home tomorrow. I love you too, Mom." 

Then she padded her way back across the floor and got back in bed with me. We started gently kissing again and fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms. 

Over the next few weeks, things got complicated between Tammy and I. Several of my friends noticed that I was dating Tammy and commented on how much I was probably enjoying it. 

My best friend Jeff Thomas even told me to let him know when I was done with her because he missed fucking her. He started talking about some of the things he'd done with her and heard about her doing. It started me to wondering exactly what I was getting into. On one hand I was beginning to really fall for Tammy. But on the other hand she kind of seemed like a real slut. 

Tammy noticed the difference in my mood and asked about it.


Talkin' In Your Sleep



"David, what's wrong?" she asked. 

"Tammy, I know that you love me," I began. She went into shock. We had never told each other about our feelings. That was almost a huge mistake on my part. I almost let a cat out of the bag that I probably wouldn't have been able to put back in. 

"I never said that," she blurted out angrily. "When you assume..." But she never finished her statement. She just looked up at me in confusion. "Davie, are you some sort of psychic?"

"It doesn't matter, because I think I love you too," I said. "But I keep hearing things from my friends and..."

"You're worried about being seen with the town whore, right?" she spat, almost in tears.

"You're right Davie. Guys talk about me. I've dated a lot of guys. I've had sex with a lot of guys. I like sex. You certainly don't seem to mind fucking me. Why is it that a guy who screws around is a stud, but a girl who does the same thing is a slut?" She looked at me with tears running down her face.

"Okay, Davie, I get it," she said. "You're tired of fucking me too. You want someone new or maybe no one at all. So as a way to get away from me, you're throwing my past in my face. I wish I could throw yours at you, but the girls you've dated all told me how nice you are. Not that I needed them to tell me that. But I'll make it easy on you. You don't have to date me anymore and I'll let everyone know that it wasn't your fault. And if you ever..."

"If you ever shut up, maybe we could talk about this," I said putting my hand over her mouth.

"Tammy, I don't care about the past," I said. "I'm worried about the future."

She just looked at me strangely. "What future? Can you see the future? Is that another one of your psychic abilities?"

"Our future, Tammy!" I said.

"You still want to date me?" she asked. She wiped away the tears and her smile lit up the room.

"No, Tammy," I said. "I don't think that will work."

"Oh," she said almost in tears again. I began to see how much control I had over her emotions. I realized then that she really did love me as much as I already knew.

"Tammy, I was thinking that maybe you and I should be exclusive. And that maybe when I graduate in a few months we should get engaged, but I'm kind of worried about..." Before I could finish talking she was in my lap and had her arms wrapped around me. 

"But I'm kind of worried about..." I was able to slip in between kisses. 

"Stop worrying," she said kissing me again. "Davie, I would never cheat on you. I've never cheated on anyone. I've never been in a relationship with any of the guys I dated. We went out, we had sex. As a matter of fact I want you to think about something. Of all the guys I dated, have you ever heard about me screwing any guy while I was dating another?"

I had to admit that I hadn't.

"Of course you haven't because I've never done it," she chirped. "And Davie, there's something special about you. You're my first boyfriend. The rest were just guys I dated with no strings. But you're also the first guy I've ever spent the night with. Every other guy, I just had sex with, and then he went his way and I went mine. When the sex was over there was no reason to be around them.

But with you Davie, I dream of just lying there in your arms. I love waking up with you. Ask all of your friends if I ever actually slept with any of them."

It made sense. It was probably the reason that I knew the things I knew. 

She was looking at me with a sort of desperation in her eyes. "I believe you," I said.

"So, I'm officially your girlfriend?" she asked excitedly. I smiled and nodded. "And I can tell people and everything?" 

"Yes," I said smiling. 

"Are you ready for the test?" she asked.

"What test?" I asked.

"There are three parts," she said. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head and lifted her big breasts out of her bra. "Suck these," she said. I passed the first part of the test with flying colors. For the second part of the test she sucked my dick until I was dying to cum, but she wouldn't let me. 

For the final part of the test she wrapped he legs around my waist and fucked me like crazy. Tammy and I had sex pretty often. She was always spending the night with me after our dates, but that day we broke new ground. It was also the first time we tried anal sex. 

I was sure it was painful for her. So I tried to stop, but she insisted. "I need you to have something that no one else has ever had," she said. 

"Tammy, Honey, I already do," I said. She looked at me again. "I have your heart," I told her.

"And you have the rest of me too, Davie," she said. "I am your property. I belong to you from now on. I had to fuck a lot of frogs to find you, but I found my prince. I'm not going to do anything to break us up."

There were some people who were very happy for us. Tammy's parents seemed to be ecstatic. I was the first man she had ever brought home to meet them. I think that both her mom and her dad had heard rumors about her around town and seeing her in what seemed to be a stable relationship made them feel better. 

Her closest girl friends were also happy for her if not a little bit surprised. That surprise was magnified when she abruptly stopped going to parties or anywhere without me. She didn't even go out on their girl's nights. "Why the hell would I want to?" she asked. "The whole point of girl's nights is to go out and meet some guys. I've got mine."

There were also a few girls who weren't quite as happy for her. They included some of the girls I had dated and few others who thought of Tammy as a slut and didn't think she deserved a good guy.

But by far the most upset about us were my friends, including my best friend Jeff. A group of them spoke to me at school about it.

"What the hell are you thinking, Dave?" asked Jeff. He seemed to be the spokesperson for the group. "Tammy isn't the kind of girl you want to get tied down to. You date her for a while and then you move on to someone more suitable. Then someone else has her. Or if you're between relationships, Tammy is your girl."

"Maybe that's the way it was," I said. "But it's not the way it is. From now on, Tammy is all mine."

"That slut will cheat on you the first chance she gets," he said.

"Jeff, we've been friends since we were wearing short pants," I said. "And I appreciate your concern, but don't call her a slut again."

"I'll call that whore a slut or anything..." He abruptly stopped talking when my fist hit his jaw. Jeff and I had come to blows a few times over the years. We were both fairly athletic. I ran track and cross country and Jeff was a serious baseball player with aspirations of becoming a pro. My first punch had rung his bell and Jeff was loopy. He was also enraged. 

"You thelfith thon ob ah visch," he screamed. I guess having his jaw rapidly swelling up had affected his ability to properly enunciate his curse words. He swung at me wildly but my starting gun honed reflexes from all of those track meets helped me. I sidestepped and Jeff punched the brick wall behind me so hard that I swore the building moved. 

Jeff started screaming in pain and jumping up and down holding onto his right arm. "Get him," he said to the other three guys who'd come with him. They looked confused and then took off running. Both of them apparently had better sense than Jeff did. As the three guys disappeared, I turned back to Jeff who was writhing on the ground in pain. I picked him up and hustled him over to my aging bit still powerful 1988 Mustang. That car was my first. It got me all the way from getting my license at 16, to graduating from college. My parents had bought it for me used, but I had never cared. I loved that car.

Jeff was so out of it that he barely understood what was going on. I drove him to the hospital on campus. I filled out his registration card in the emergency room and called his parents. I also called the baseball coach. 

As it turned out, nothing happened to either of us. Originally, I was suspended from the track team for fighting and Jeff and the other three guys were suspended from the baseball team. The other three guys had their suspensions lifted because they showed good judgment in refusing to take part in the fight. My suspension was lifted, because I had showed leadership qualities in putting the fight behind me and taking Jeff to the hospital.

Jeff's suspension was lifted because he was off the team. Jeff had shattered three finger on his pitching hand and destroyed something called the metacarpophalangeal joints on the same three fingers. He also had a fracture of several of the bones in his wrist, and a spiral fracture of his radius and a posterior dislocation of his shoulder joint. It took four surgeries and a bunch of rods and pins to put Jeff's pitching arm back together. According to the doctors he would regain a very fragile but almost normal use of the arm eventually but with certain limitations. I thank the heavens that I moved, because with all the damage Jeff did to his hand and arm, I could just imagine what he would have done to me if that blow had landed.

Unfortunately one of those limitations was that Jeff would never throw a baseball again. He would also have to rethink his career, because baseball had been Jeff's true focus. Most of his classes had been geared towards that and a career in physical training as a fall back. Since Jeff wouldn't be able to lift anything heavier than seven pounds without damaging his right arm. He would also be limited to activities with his right hand that didn't require a lot of fine motor control. Even Jeff's signature changed.

It took a long time for Jeff and I to get over it. I often wondered why Jeff wanted to fuck Tammy so badly that he tried to hit me hard enough to kill me over it. It was hard to imagine your best friend literally trying to kill you over something or someone that didn't belong to him. 

I finally found out years later that Tammy had been Jeff's first. And that whenever he was between girlfriends, he always ended up back in her bed. At the time of our fight, Jeff had been publicly dumped by one of the cheerleaders. So he'd been humiliated and he was very horny at a time when Tammy was unavailable. His anger and his hormones had combined to make him crazy enough to try to kill me and end up killing his career.

Things buzzed along for Tammy and me as if they were fated. A lot of guys thought that I was a fool and so did a lot of the women, but I knew that Tammy loved me. I also knew that I would know if she ever cheated on me. I in fact knew something about Tammy that no one else knew. 

Tammy and I got engaged as scheduled on the day that I graduated. And less than a year later we were married. 

Married life for Tammy and me was great. I got a job as a construction site manager and worked my ass off to provide Tammy with everything she wanted. By the time we'd been married for seven years we moved into the nicest house we'd ever had. We met and knew most of our neighbors, but our best friends lived directly across the street. 

Bob Enthrust was a guy who at forty seemed to have life by the balls. Over the next few years, Bob became the friend that I had lost after the incident with Jeff. We golfed together. We fished. We hunted. And we had a lot of barbecues. Our wives became friendly too. But they were never as close as Bob and I.

Bob and I had a lot in common, but we had a lot of differences too. Bob always wanted to be seen and admired. He wanted things. He always wanted the best of everything. Bob was proud of the fact that unlike me, he owned the business he worked for. Bob had a chain of printing stores and the dream of taking his chain national or even worldwide. 

I worked for a large building company. I had degrees in architecture and building construction but worked for someone else as an engineer and site manager. To Bob appearance was everything. He drove an aging and unreliable Bentley that he'd gotten at an estate sale. The car had once been beautiful, but Bob could barely maintain it. The parts and service fees for the car were immense. I drove a brand new 2014 Mustang GT. I loved my car although Bob looked down on it. But despite what he claimed. I saw him secretly glancing at it several times. And he always noticed when people complimented it.

Our wives were also different in their approaches. Tammy was a stay at home housewife. Bob's wife Samantha was a secretary. 

The only time that I remembered anything odd happening between us was about six months ago. It was right after Tammy and I celebrated our seventh year of marriage. We were out on the deck behind our house and Bob asked me if I had ever given any thought to swinging.

"Swinging what?" I asked. "Is this another pitch for us to take golf lessons at the club? Shit Bob, we play golf for fun. I'm not paying a hundred bucks to have some has been golf pro watch me with a golf club and tell me what's wrong with my swing. If any of those guys were any good, they'd still be playing on the pro circuit. So why do I want to swing a golf club like some guy that lost?"

"Not that kind of swinging, Dave," he said. "You know;, the kind where we pick a night or two each week where you turn left and pull into my driveway and I turn right and pull into yours. Then we go into each other's houses and do what comes naturally."

"Bob, are you out of your mind?" I said. "Tammy would never go for that and neither would Samantha. Samantha had gone home a while before that because she had to be up to go to work the next morning. 

But when I looked at Tammy, I got a surprise. "Honey, I told you a long time ago that I loved you and I'm your property. I'll do whatever you want me to."

"Well, I don't want you to do that," I spat. "Bob, I think it's time for you to go home." I was pissed. It just seemed like I was about to lose another friend. It just seemed like every guy I knew wanted to fuck Tammy. In Bob's case it made no sense. Samantha was beautiful. In terms of pure aesthetics she was far more attractive than Tammy. Bob was a fool. 

All kinds of things went through my head that night as Tammy and I settled into bed. I remembered the song they had played at our wedding reception. The one song that I picked for people to dance to was part joke and part confession. Tammy knew that as a boy growing up in Royal Oak, Michigan, I had taken guitar lessons at Music Castle on Woodward Ave. My guitar teacher was Mike Skill who used to play in a band called the Romantics. 

So when I had them play "Talking in your Sleep," at our wedding reception, everyone thought it was a nod to my youth, but there was more to it. That song was running through my mind as we went to bed. 

"When you close your eyes and you go to sleep. 

And it's down to the sound of a heartbeat

I can hear the things that you're dreaming about. 

When you open up your heart and the truth comes out."

The lyrics of the song went through my mind and as Tammy fell asleep, I concentrated on staying awake. It wasn't that I didn't need sleep. I had another hard day on the construction site ahead of me. But I needed confirmation more. And after an hour or so, I heard Tammy begin mumbling.

"You tell me that you want me. 

You tell me that you need me."

You tell me that you love me. 

And I know that I'm right. 

'Cause I hear it in the night."

I listened closely and heard the words I needed to hear from Tammy's own lips.

"Love you, Davie," she mumbled. "Love you so much. Don't be angry. Backed into a pole and busted my tail lights. Love you Davie.

I was pissed. Tammy had told me that some kid had backed into her car and damaged her tail lights and had driven off before she could get his license plate number. Our insurance had gone up when I filed the claim. But I was far happier that nothing was going on except that. I fell asleep with the jangling sounds of the Romantics' guitar riff playing in my mind.

"I hear the secrets that you keep. 

When you're talking in your sleep."

I hear the secrets that you keep. 

When you're talking in your sleep."

I felt so much better. I wrapped my arms around Tammy and she sighed contentedly as I joined her in sleep. From the first night that Tammy fell asleep with me in my apartment, I had noticed something about her. I guess it hadn't gotten around because as Tammy had told me, I might not have been the first guy she fucked, but I was the only one she had ever slept with. That was probably why I was the only person who seemed to know that my wife talked in her sleep. Every one of us lies, hides the truth, or just bends it a little. Tammy was no different. But whatever was on her mind, be it good bad or in-between came out while she slept. And it came directly from her subconscious. There were no lies and no half truths. Things that Tammy would never tell a soul were there for the taking. I knew far more about Tammy than she would ever tell me. 

So that night I was ecstatic that the only things she had to say was that as usual she loved me and that she had torn up her own tail lights and lied about it. Tammy had lied about it because she had a habit of running into things when she drove. Tammy was a terrible driver. It was why as much as I loved her, there was no way Tammy would ever drive my Mustang.

A couple of days later on a bright and beautiful Saturday morning, Tammy came over to me while I was washing my car. "Honey, I need your help in the garden," she said. "And I'm willing to pay for it."

When Tammy said, "pay for it," we both knew that she was talking about something sexual. That was the way that Tammy always wanted to do everything. The two of us had more sex than any couple I knew. As we'd gotten older Tammy's sex drive had gone through the roof. Not that I ever complained about it. She never wanted to do anything weird or kinky, she was just happy to be there in my arms. But she used sex as currency for everything, changing a light bulb that she couldn't reach, to giving her a kiss. That one always seemed silly to me. "Davie, come over here and give me a kiss," she'd say. "I'm willing to pay for it."

So I followed her to the garden that she had put in behind our garage. The garden was more a hobby for Tammy than anything else. It was something that she could do outdoors, usually while I puttered around, working on my a Mustang. But it was also a social thing for her. And that day there were a couple of our neighbors who also had gardens who'd come over to help her. 

"I brought my hubby, he's a genius," she said to the ladies who stood there with cold glasses of lemonade. They were staring at the ground around a couple of plants and a lot of weeds. After they talked about the problem of clearing the weeds and aerating the areas between the small delicate plants and the difficulty of doing it with a full sized rake, I suggested one of those smaller handheld tools. They immediately discarded that idea because they couldn't get enough leverage with the smaller ones to break through the hard packed clay. 

"Give it some thought, Honey," said Tammy. She and her friends went around to our deck and sat at a table to sip their lemonade and gossip. I looked around for a rake. I had the idea of cutting the ends off of the rake and leaving only two or three tines on it. 

"Anyway a few days later after knocking the shit out of myself with a rake that Tammy had left in the doorway of the shed, I invented Pike's Pick as we called it. 

Bob had come over that Saturday to apologize too. "Dave, I guess I was drunker than I thought," he said. "I probably shouldn't have presented an idea like that to you so soon. Can we play some golf?" 

I noticed that as he waited for me to get my clubs, he spent a lot of time looking at Tammy's boobs, and her ass as she bent over the table to serve the other women drinks. He smiled when he noticed me watching him. 




Talkin' In Your Sleep



"Bob, why would you even suggest something like that, drunk or sober?" I asked. "You already have a very beautiful wife. Samantha is probably the prettiest woman on the block."

He smiled when I said that and nodded his head. I could almost see the wheels inside of his fat head turning. 

But I was still surprised the next day when it happened. Tammy and her friends had gone down the street to look at one of the women's new kitchen cabinets. A few moments after Tammy left someone knocked on my door. I went to the door and saw Samantha standing there. I opened the door and started to tell her where Tammy had gone, but she walked in. 

She looked nervous and my concern grew. Samantha had never spent any great deal of time with me. And to be truthful she only spent enough time with Tammy to be social. Her relationship with Bob was different from mine with Tammy. I wondered what she wanted.

Samantha is taller and thinner than Tammy. She's also beautiful. She has a long mane of red hair with waves and curls that trail their way down her back nearly to her ass. She has long thin legs and a very tiny waist. Her boobs unlike Tammy's big jiggling tits were mere handfuls. And her tiny butt was well shaped but it wasn't like Tammy's big round ass. 

As I was standing so close to her, I could see the smoothness of her skin. The light smattering of freckles that covered her cheeks and nose were flawless and her smell was intoxicating.

"Did you need something, Samantha?" I asked. "Tammy probably won't be back for an hour or so."

"I didn't come to see Tammy," she said. "Bob sent me to show you something." 

She dropped her coat then and was naked under it. Her body, though thin and petite was far more beautiful than I had ever imagined. The freckles appeared again, this time lightly dancing across the top of her breasts. And though it took more strength than I thought I had, I picked her coat up and handed it back to her. 

"Tell Bob that he's a fool, "Tell him that the answer is still no, and that we are no longer friends." 

She quickly threw her coat on, with a confused look on her face and left. I was angry beyond belief. Apparently telling Bob, "no," wasn't the end of it. Now he was trying to tempt me by offering his own wife."

Bob came over later that day and tried to apologize again. I yelled at him to get off of my property. I told him not to ever come back. He looked really hurt and kept muttering about me not understanding. 

Over the next couple of weeks, Bob called or came by every other day or so. Tammy didn't understand my anger at him. She urged me to listen to what he had to say, which only served to put me on edge. I put my name on the bulletin board at the golf club and got a new golf partner. And almost every day when leaving the house to go to work, I saw Samantha leaving for her office. Sometimes she'd smile and give me a shy wave, but most days we pretended not to see each other.

I got used to not having Bob in my life. But just as soon as I did that, he came roaring back and in a way that I least expected it. I should have remembered that Bob always seemed to get what he wanted eventually. 

I'd had a really hard day on the construction site. We'd lost several pieces of expensive equipment. I had to fill out all kinds of forms and call the main office to see about getting them fixed or replaced. The losses also put us behind schedule. We'd have to make up the lost time, which probably meant overtime or Saturday shifts. 

So by the time I got to bed, all I wanted to do was to sleep. Tammy cuddled up near me and we drifted off to sleep as usual. I don't know what I was dreaming about when I came back awake. But more than the dream was over. I didn't slowly drift out of sleep, I was immediately awake. Anger pooled in my belly and rage burned in my heart as I heard the words. 

"No, I won't tell Davie. He'll be upset. Just shove that big fat dick in me, Bob. Just keep fuckin' me, Bob," she mumbled. 

Tears rolled down both of my cheeks for what I'd lost. I guess in the back of my mind, I'd always known that it would come to something like this. On the bright side, I'd gotten seven years out of a relationship that no one really believed would last more than a few weeks. I lay there in the bed listening as Tammy occasionally mumbled. But deep in my heart although I knew that my marriage was over; there was something I needed to figure out more. I needed to figure out how to pay Bob back.

More than pain, more than sadness, more than love even, I felt the need for revenge. I needed to know how best to get back at Bob. I got out of bed being careful not to awaken my soon to be ex wife. I looked at her and cried again. 

The next morning I was up and out of the house early. And as if fate had driven it, so was Samantha. 

I backed out of my driveway and headed slowly down the street. When I got to the corner, I stopped at the stop sign just as Samantha pulled up behind me. I got out of the car and pointed to the restaurant at the end of the next block. She nodded. We both pulled into the parking lot. And I walked over to her car. 

"As I recall it you don't leave quite this early," I said. "What gives?" 

"You don't leave this early either?" she said. 

"I have to get to work early to put In some requisitions for new equipment," I said. "We're behind schedule so I'm going to have a very long day."

"You always did work really hard," she said. "I wish some of that had rubbed off on Bob."

"You still didn't tell me why you're out here so early," I said. She looked down at the table.

"I wanted to get out early to avoid seeing you," she said. 

"But why," I asked. 

"Because of what happened a couple of weeks ago," she said. "I didn't want to be there. It was embarrassing enough to have my husband try to use me as a bargaining chip. But it was even more embarrassing to be turned down."

"Samantha, I didn't turn you down," I said. "I just didn't want to play Bob's game. I married Tammy and I'm not into the whole swinging thing. I think that when people get married, they do it for love. And they stay together and keep to their vows. Remember that whole forsaking all others clause in the agreement?"

"I remember it well," she laughed. "But all I've been hearing from Bob lately is how he wishes my tits were as big as Tammy's. If it's not that, he's talking about how her ass moves when she walks."

"Tammy has her faults just like everyone else," I spat. I tried to calm myself down. I didn't know how much Samantha knew about what was going on, so I couldn't trust her. It wouldn't do me any good to let her find out that I knew and run back and tell Bob.

"How about breakfast," I asked. She nodded and we went inside and got a table.

"I've always envied Tammy," she said. "The two of you have always seemed to be so much in love. You two talk about everything. And you make all of your decisions together. Bob never listens to me about anything. I'm trying to find another job so we can put the money into keeping the shop afloat."

"Don't you mean shops," I said. "Why not close down the ones that aren't performing?"

"Don't tell Bob I told you but there is only one shop. For a while we had two, but we closed the second shop a couple of years ago. The chain printing places are driving us out of business. They have bigger budgets, lower operating costs and name recognition. I begged Bob to take the offer and sell the shop to Kinko's, but he won't. He can be really stubborn sometimes. He likes pretending to be a big shot."

Samantha and I had a nice breakfast and an even better talk. After the first few painful moments, we didn't talk about Bob and Tammy anymore. I had to admit that I still intended to do her husband wrong, but talking to Samantha had taken a little of my bitterness away. 

I did a couple of things during the day whenever I could get a break. I spoke to a couple of guys that knew about divorce lawyers and I spent my lunch hour at an electronics store. I got a few of those tiny wireless cameras. My plan was to mount them in several locations around my house. 

It was a simple thing to mount the cameras. One I mounted inside the housing of the new porch light I installed. While Tammy made dinner I mounted one in the living room; another one in our guest room. I put one in our bedroom, and the last one over the back door. I was sure that I had covered most of the possible rooms. I knew that the cameras probably wouldn't be admissible in court, but there were several other ways that I could use them. 

Tammy's feelings seemed to be hurt that I didn't want sex that evening. I just told her that having to work the extra time had drained all of my energy and I'd make it up to her once I got the project back on schedule. 

One of the advantages I had was that Tammy was terrible with computers. She could check her email and log onto face book but that was about it. So hiding the program that I used to compile the fed from the cameras wasn't even necessary. My intention was to simply check the feed every morning before I went to work. 

When I got home the next evening, I was dying to check the cameras, but I knew I had to wait until the next morning. Tammy rarely got out of bed when I did, so I could safely check them then.

Tammy had a surprise for me, that evening though. She wanted us to have dinner at the neighbors' house. 

"Which neighbor?" I asked thinking it was one of her gardening buddies.

"Samantha and Bob," she said. 

There's no chance in hell of me ever sitting down with that asshole again," I said. "I've already told you that, or weren't you paying attention?"

"Bob is your best friend," she said. "This thing between the two of you is some sort of misunderstanding. He just wants a chance to apologize."

"You go," I said. "I'm sure he's been apologizing to you a lot lately, hasn't he?"

She looked shocked. "Whuh ... what do you mean, Honey?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said. "You do what you want. I'm not going."

"But I already told him, we'd come," she said. 

"Don't you mean you told THEM?" I asked. 

"Uhm, Samantha was still at work," she said nervously. "But I'm sure she's okay with it." 

"Great," I said. "The three of you, have fun."

"I'll go and tell him that we can't make it," she said. "But I still don't understand why you're being such a hard ass about this."

I just turned and left her standing there. Things were getting out of control in a hurry. While Tammy ran across the street to tell Bob that we weren't coming, I got a chance to duck into the office and look at the video feed from that day. I found out two things. The first tore my heart out. Tammy had definitely fucked Bob. I had proof of it on video. The second thing was that the deal I got on the cameras wasn't as good as I'd thought. They were video cameras only. They didn't have sound. 

Over the next few days, I continued taping the goings on at the house. For some unknown reason; Tammy and Bob were only getting together once a week. Wednesday seemed to be their big day. Other developments were going on in the background during that time though that further disintegrated my marriage. 

For one thing, I couldn't bring myself to have sex with Tammy. I couldn't even bring myself to hold her while we slept. It just felt like sleeping with a stranger. And she noticed it. That brought about more friction between us. And Tammy kept trying to talk about it, which only led to more arguments. 

Another thing that happened was that my breakfasts with Samantha seemed to become an almost daily thing. That was what led to my figuring out why Wednesdays were the chosen day for Bob and Tammy. On Wednesday, it was usually Bob's day to make his weekly deposit at the bank. He always went just after lunchtime. So if he was gone longer than it took to go to the bank, the two guys who worked with him just assumed that he'd had lunch after going to the bank. 

I think he did it on that day also because both Samantha and I were less likely to make surprise trips home in the middle of the week than we were on a Monday or a Friday. That was especially true in my case. I hadn't lately, but I had often taken a longer lunch to come home and spend some time with Tammy. 

I did notice something else on the videotape the kids in the neighborhood had a habit of ringing the doorbells in some of the houses and running away. It happened that day. On the video feeds I noticed that Tammy and Bob were just getting started, when it happened. She had her shirt pulled up and Bob was licking one of her tits when she suddenly pulled her shirt down and pushed him away. 

They both looked towards the front door and Bob ran out the back door and into the shed. Tammy answered the door and noticed the kids running down the street. She went back and let Bob back into the house, but the mood was broken for both of them. Bob left and went back to work. 

The next morning Samantha was a little more withdrawn than normal. She'd gotten used to confiding in me and told me that she and Bob had gotten into a big argument the previous evening. She had come home from work to find Bob pacing the floor and expecting her to just strip and take care of him. She'd been tired from working but he hadn't taken no for an answer. She had just let him do what he wanted to get it over with. He got upset about her lack of enthusiasm and had started just using her like an object. That was the first time I saw that beautiful face torn up in tears. 

I couldn't help myself. I scooted over to her side of the booth and wrapped my arms around her. She buried her face in my shoulder and just cried. "I feel like I was raped by my own husband," she said softly. "It's not supposed to be like this. It's supposed to be like you and Tammy. We're supposed to both want each other." 

As I looked into her eyes, I had the idea that she could sense what was going on with Bob and Tammy, but maybe I was wrong. 

"Ever since you said no to the swapping thing, he's been a real asshole," she said. "Bob is just not used to not getting his way."

"I just don't understand why he wanted to in the first place," I said. "Samantha, I don't want to wreck our friendship, but you're so pretty. I can't figure out why he'd want Tammy."

"That's easy," she said. "Bob sees me as some sort of little doll. He can dress me up and take me out to impress his clients and friends. But, I don't have big breasts like Tammy does. And he was always talking about the way her ass jiggles and the way she was always rubbing herself against you. He says that she probably just loves to fuck."

I was shocked. I guess I never considered the way Tammy and I acted around other people but we were fairly obvious.

"Were we that open about it?" I asked. She smiled and dropped her head and then nodded.

"Sometimes, we got the impression that the two of you were sneaking off to do it even when we were at your house," she said. "And most of the time it seemed to be her dragging you off, just as often as you dragged her away. And you weren't as subtle as you thought about sneaking feels on her butt or her boobs. And she just smiled when you did it. Bob and I were never like that."

"But you're so beautiful," I said in shock. I whispered to her. "I don't see how he could have kept his hands off of you."

Her face was pale, like most natural redheads and for a moment, it turned almost as red as her hair. I thought for a second that I had gone too far. I was about to try to apologize, when she looked up at me. "Dave, sometimes I really wish that you had taken Bob's offer." Then she practically ran out of the restaurant in embarrassment. 

As I sat there, an idea started to form in my head. Perhaps the best way to get back at Bob and Tammy would be for me to fuck Samantha. But I abandoned that idea as quickly as it formed. Samantha was too nice a person for me to do that to.  

I decided that the best way to handle things would be to catch the two of them in the act and beat Bob's ass. I was going to just stomp the cowboy shit out of my old buddy and then divorce Tammy. 

And I needed to catch them in the act, because none of my video feeds would be admissible. I also wanted to have a disinterested third party there when I caught them. I decided that Kirk James, who was one of our neighbors, would be the perfect person.

Kirk worked at the Ford dealership that serviced my Mustang. Often after I had gotten some work done on the car Kirk and I would take it out for ride so I could let him hear or feel a problem that I had noticed about the car. 

My plan was that I would take the car in for service on Tuesday. I'd take a cab home and on Wednesday afternoon, Kirk and I would drive the car home and I could pretend to listen for some tiny ping or shimmy. We'd drive up and I'd invite Kirk in for a beer. That usually happened anyway so it wouldn't be unexpected. Kirk and I would walk in and find Bob and Tammy either going at it, about to go at it, or just getting done. I would beat Bob's ass and immediately throw Tammy out of the house and file for a divorce.

Unfortunately, the plan, like most, didn't work out that way. Over the weekend, I did my best to make things up with Tammy. By Sunday, she was all over me. She was back to constantly smiling and rubbing herself against me. It was almost like we'd never argued. But late Sunday evening, she ruined it. "Honey, could you do ONE little thing for me?" she asked in her most seductive voice. 

I was sure that what she wanted me to do was have sex with her. It had been almost a week and Tammy was an extremely sexual woman. I was prepared to take one for the team and just the thought of grabbing those big firm jugs and painting her insides had me ready and willing. As much as I hated her at that point for cheating on me, I had to admit that Tammy was a really good fuck. I was going to miss that part of our relationship if nothing else. 

I started rubbing her shoulders even as she spoke. "Could you at least talk to Bob?" she said. "He really doesn't have very many friends except for you. You started playing golf with different guys and he..." I lost it. For the first time since I met her, I screamed at Tammy. Even when we argued, I might get a harsh tone in my voice, but I had never just outright shouted at her.

"Fuck you, Tammy," I yelled. "Fuck you and Bob! What the hell is going on between the two of you anyway?"

"Nothin', Honey," she said. "It's just that I see him sometimes and he looks so sad. I haven't spoken to him, but I remember all of the fun we used to have. Sometimes his stuck up wife even came along and ... forget it. I don't want you angry at me again."

"It's too late for that," I said sharply. For the rest of the day and into the evening any time that Tammy came near me I just went somewhere else. That evening I was out on the deck behind the house and Tammy came up behind me. I'd been drinking a beer and watching the moon as I wondered what the rest of my life would be like. I'd been thinking about Tammy and me. I'd been wondering if this really was something that we couldn't get over. I didn't see any way around it. When we'd first become a couple, seven years before, I had told Tammy that if she ever cheated on me, we were done. I guess she'd forgotten it. I also wondered what my life in the future would be like. I thought about all of the people who'd warned me against marrying Tammy. 

I was still running that through my mind when she came up behind me. "I'm sorry Davie, I'll stop trying to get you to make up with Bob..." she began. Before she could finish I left the deck and went into the garage. 

On Monday she watched me and kept trying to talk to me, but I kept the frost level up. On Monday, I also noticed that Samantha was waiting by her car, when I left the house. She nodded and I knew that she wanted to have breakfast. We had skipped a few days since her confession that she'd wished I had taken Bob up in the swinging thing. 




Talkin' In Your Sleep



"I'm sorry Dave," she said. "I missed having breakfast with you. But I was too embarrassed after what I said to face you." It was funny. She was already red with embarrassment from what she had just admitted. It only served to make her more beautiful. 

I was so used to Tammy's unabashed, in your face manner that it was really refreshing. Tammy would never hold anything back. If we were having lunch with another couple, even if it was her own parents, she would just let her feelings fly. I remember, her shocking her gardening buddies a few times when she would just suddenly declare, "Excuse me ladies, my husband wants some pussy." They would be embarrassed or just burst out laughing, while Tammy just grabbed my hand and dragged me into the house. 

Samantha was far too shy and reserved for something like that. 

We ate our breakfast and as if to change the subject, she started talking about my least favorite topic. "Bob misses you," she said quietly. "We've been pretty much fighting nonstop since you..."

"Since I what?" I asked. 

"You know, since you turned me down," she said shyly. "But I don't blame you. I'm not very sexy." I burst out laughing, spitting little bits of bacon all over the place. One of the bits of bacon landed on Samantha's face near her mouth. Several more landed on her blouse. 

"What's so funny?" she asked. Then her tongue snaked out and licked the bacon near her mouth inside of it. She reached a finger out, and picked up one of the bacons bits and ate it too. If I could have done anything at that moment, it would have been to lean over and suck the rest of those bacon bits off of her breasts. 

"God, I wish I was Bob," I said. That brought both a smile and that shy reddening of her face again. But at least this time she didn't just bolt.

Monday evening found me ensconced in my garage. I used my tuner to dial up a more aggressive profile. It would kill my gas mileage, but it would make the car faster, and give me better acceleration. The real thing I wanted was that it would also make the car louder. I was sure that when Tammy and Bob heard the car pull up, he'd run into the shed to hide. There was only one door to the shed and I'd beat his ass there.

Tammy looked into the garage a couple of times and tried to ask me what I was doing to the car, but I didn't answer her. 

On Tuesday morning, I kissed Tammy goodbye before I went to work. Her eyes snapped open and she thrust her tongue down my throat. "Stay home with me," she said. 

"I can't Sweetheart," I said. "We're so far behind schedule that I can't afford to miss any time."

"Sometimes, I wish you owned your own business like..." she began. Then she covered her mouth, realizing what she'd just done. 

I just turned and left. At my breakfast date with Samantha, she was smiling like I had never seen. Her mood was lighter and more upbeat. Every time our eyes met she smiled. I felt as if she was dying to tell me something.

"Dave, can I ask you a favor?" she said. 

"Of course," I said. 

"Okay," she said excitedly. "Bob is going to try to talk to you this upcoming weekend. I think he's going to try to bring up the swapping thing again. He's been screaming at me and telling me not to blow it again. So the favor is ... could you just say yes?"

I was shocked. "I'm sorry Dave," she said. "I just thought..." She suddenly got up and I grabbed her hand to keep her from leaving.

"Sammie, you're not reading this right," I said. "I would love to be with you."

She was still squirming and trying to run away. "Then ... Why?" she asked. "You don't think that I'm a worthy trade for your sexy wife, right?"

"No, Sammie," I said. "I just think you're worth too much to trade you like a piece of furniture. I think that a woman like you should be loved and worshipped. I also think that when you marry someone, you keep your marriage vows. If I was married to you..." Her face was so red that I thought she would explode. She snatched her hand away from me and ran out of the restaurant.

When I got home Tuesday night, Tammy was just coming out of the house to go and work in the garden. She ran over to me in shock as she saw me getting out of a taxi cab. 

"Are you okay, Davie?" she asked. "Where's the Mustang?"

"It's at the dealer," I said. "I'm having them check it out."

"Why didn't you call me? I could have come and picked you up," she said.

"I thought you'd be too busy trying to get me back together with Bob," I spat. I went into the house then, leaving her standing there. I had to be very careful. My timing had to be just right. I took my time changing clothes, and then lit the grill. Tammy saw me cooking and came over to see what I was doing. She could see the deck from the garden. She was using the spiked pick that I had made for her. I had forgotten about it. When she saw the two steaks and the salads I'd made she smiled and hugged me. 

"I love you so much Davie," she gushed. "Can we talk this all out?" I nodded and as the sun went down we sat at the small table to eat.

"I don't love Bob," she said. "I've always thought of him as an asshole. I put up with him because he was your best friend. It just seems like ever since the two of you stopped talking, you've been angry all the time. You're not happy Dave, so I'm not happy. And then with all of the pressure you're under for work ... I just wanted you happy again."

"I loved you more than anything Tammy," I said. "So when Bob started talking about ... swapping ... it just pissed me off. You belong to me. No one else."

She laughed then. "Of course I do, silly. Bob wasn't talking about forever. He just meant for an hour or two. Lots of our friends have done it. It's just a way to spice things up and keep them fresh. I thought you'd have loved the chance to sleep with old stuck up Samantha."

"Why don't you like her?" I asked. 

"We've lived here for four years," she said. "She never comes over unless she's with Bob and even then she doesn't say much. Whenever she did, it was usually about you, and how nice you are. She's far prettier than I am, so I got my back up because I didn't want her anywhere near you. She's too pretty. But after a while I noticed that you didn't really look at her so I didn't feel threatened anymore. I realized then that you love me and no woman, no matter how pretty would ever change that. Of course I really don't know about that anymore..."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because you haven't done your husbandly duties in ten days nine hours and ... forty three minutes," she smirked.

I smiled. "No time like the present," I saithrower eyes lit up and she smiled and nodded.

"What about the garden?" I asked. 

"Fuck the garden, Davie," she gushed. "Fuck me!" She quickly grabbed the garden pick off of the deck and threw it into the shed. I remembered when I'd smacked the shit out of myself with it when it had been a rake. I needed to talk to her about putting her tools away, but at that moment I wasn't thinking. We never made it into the house. 

Tammy pulled her shorts down and turned off the outside lights. She lay back on one of our lounge chairs and beckoned me over to her as she pulled her shirt over her head. 

I stripped my own shorts off as well and just rammed my dick straight into her. There was no foreplay asked for and none was given. I just tried my hardest to punish her. We weren't making love at all. We were just fucking. It was like watching two animals rutting during mating season. And whore that she was, Tammy loved it. Her screams were probably heard all over the neighborhood. At one point I had to put my hand over her mouth to shut her up. 

"Ohhh! Davie, fuck me," she screamed. "Yeah, yeah yessssss, baby, yessss!" I picked her up, and carried her into the house and continued my assault on her.

I was like a crack fiend. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but it couldn't stop. Every time I thought I was spent, she sucked me back to life and urged me on. I was exhausted and so was she, but we continued. When my dick would no longer respond, I switched to my fingers. Finally, Tammy grabbed my hand. "Davie, no more," she begged. "You do know that we can do this some more tomorrow, right? I mean we are married. We don't have to explain anything to anyone. My parents aren't going to jump out of the closet and tell you not to fuck me. I belong to you, remember? Besides, this is all your fault. If you hadn't put a cap on our conjugal activities, we wouldn't be so backed up."

Then she yawned, grabbed my arm, looped a leg over my hip, and snuggled her face into my shoulder. Within moments she was asleep and buzzing lightly. 

She'd been wrong on a couple of her points. First, we wouldn't ever do this again if my plan worked. By this time the next night, I'd be alone. And for all intents and purposes our marriage would be over. 

The following morning, I felt like a used dishrag. I was wrung out and limp; in more ways than one. It was like a hangover. I felt awful, but I had so many pleasant memories of what it took to get me to feel that way. 

And Tammy, she was snoring loudly enough that most bulldozers would be jealous. I kissed her lightly and headed off. 

At breakfast, Samantha had a look on her face that I had never seen before. I didn't get one smile out of her. Whatever was on her mind was serious. 

I loved watching her eat. She took such tiny delicate bites. And she seemingly savored the flavor of each item on her plate.

Finally when she was done, she looked up at me. "You liked watching me eat," she said. I couldn't tell if it was a statement or a question.

"Good," she said. "I figured out what's going on with you." 

I smiled. I couldn't wait to see what she had to say. For some reason she was being really serious. i was sure she knew what I had planned to do to Bob.

"You really confused me for a while," she said. "Yesterday especially. But I understand you now. I thought about it all day. You have a problem, Dave. It's the same one I have. You like me. You like me a lot. But you're torn between Tammy and me. I know that you're married to her, Dave, but there is something going on between her and Bob. They talk far too often. But I know Bob. He'll get sick of begging you for a chance with her and find someone else. So you have a decision to make. Do you care about me as much as I think? Or do you want to see Bob trade me off to someone else? Do you really want to see Bob give me to someone who won't care about me the way I think you do?"

"Okay," I said. "You win. If Bob asks me to do the swapping thing, I'll say yes." I was lying through my teeth but only because I really needed to let her know that I did care about her. It wasn't love. At least I didn't think so. Maybe it was weakness. Maybe I just wasn't ready to be alone and I needed to keep her on my side. At any rate, it was a harmless lie.

There was also the fact that, Samantha was even more in the dark than I was. She didn't realize that Bob was already fucking Tammy. I wondered what she would do when all of the shit hit the fan. 

Another problem was that the sex with Tammy the night before was really on my mind. It just seemed like a crime to get rid of a woman who fucked like that. Maybe the answer would be to just punish her. Tammy was clearly afraid of losing me to Samantha. Maybe there was a way to punish both Tammy and Bob. What if I started telling Tammy about how great sex with Samantha was. I could also start telling her how we should probably make the swap permanent. And in the meantime, to get back at Bob, I could get Samantha pregnant. 

I was so busy thinking about alternate plans that when I got to work and got swamped because of several problems with the concrete on the second floor, I forgot all about the confrontation with the cheaters. As a matter of fact when Kirk called to tell me that there was nothing wrong with my car and that he'd drop it off at my house, my secretary took the message. 

I was inspecting the repairs that had been done to the arch over the main entrance and was very happy with it. I had just told the guys who worked on it that I wished they could do concrete, when the call came. I looked at my cell phone and saw that the call was from Tammy. I don't know why but I answered it. 

"Dave, you have to come home now," she said. Her voice had kind of a manic quality to it. I could tell that she had been crying and I remembered what was probably going on. 

"I can't come home in the middle of the day," I spat. "I have a hundred things to do."

"Dave, Honey, it's an emergency," she said. "I really need you." 

"What kind of emergency?" I asked. 

"Honey, it's Bob. He..." I hung up the phone angrily. I wished that I had gone ahead with my plan and confronted her and Bob. I was angry all over again. 'Fuck her and Bob,' I thought.

Bob could have her. All of those stupid old sayings went through my mind. 'You can't turn a hoe into a housewife,' was one saying. 'And once a cheater, always a cheater' was another. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense for Bob to have Tammy and me to have Samantha. 

And just as I thought about Samantha, my phone rang again. I answered it, thinking it was Tammy. I was surprised when Samantha's voice came out of the earpiece. "Dave, I really need you," she said. "You have to come home, NOW!"

"What the hell is going on?" I asked. "Why does everyone want me to come home?"

"It's Bob," she began.

"Fuck Bob!" I yelled. 

"Your whore of a wife did," she spat. "She fucked him and then she killed him. Your wife killed my husband. I want that whore in jail," she yelled.

I got one of the guys on the crew to drive me home. When I got there, it was a mad house. There were at least five police cars, including one on my lawn. I walked up to the cops and demanded that they get that car off of my grass. 

One of the cops looked at me and asked me who I was. I showed him my ID and told him again to get the car off of my lawn. He gestured for one of the other cops who apologized and moved the car. I noticed that two officers were talking to a distraught Tammy and another group of officers was talking to an equally distraught Samantha.

As one they noticed me and then both of them tried to run to me. They got to me at the same time and started fighting each other. The police pulled them apart. 

"Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?" I screamed. Just then two burly paramedics pulled a stretcher past us. I looked at the body on the stretcher it was Bob. There was no sheet over him. But for some reason they had a rake on top of him.

"He's alive," I said. The two women's reactions were different.

Tammy seemed to be relieved; Samantha not so much.

An hour later we were all in the hospital's waiting room trying to find out Bob's condition. A police detective wanted to know exactly what had happened. 

Tammy seemed not to want to talk about it in front of me. The detective pushed her to answer.

She started crying but no one was moved. "About, three weeks ago, Bob suggested that we try swinging," she began. "My husband absolutely refused. Bob kept trying to convince me that it would be good for all of us. He had all of these reasons. And I guess that Bob had noticed that I can't stand Samantha. He played on my weakness. He told me that it would spice things up in my marriage. But he also told me that it would show Davie once and for all that Samantha might have been prettier than me, but she sucked in bed. I know they were weak excuses and shit, for the past seven years I've been totally faithful to Dave. I guess I just wanted to try someone else just once. At any rate I gave in and we did it. It was okay. Bob has a really big dick. The biggest I've ever had. But it wasn't really good sex. 

I felt bad about it. I had never cheated on Davie before and I decided that I never would again. Bob decided that he wanted to continue it, though. He seemed to be fascinated with my body. He kept calling me his hot little slut and a bunch of other stupid nicknames. I told him that I was Dave's little slut, not his. He told me that if I didn't keep fucking him whenever he wanted, that he'd have to tell Dave. He told me that the only way out of it would be to get Dave to go along with it. He had this whole idea in his mind about the four of us starting a swingers group. 

So he made little miss stuck up over there, throw herself at my husband. I was really afraid at first, but all it did was to show me that Dave loves me and he wouldn't be fooled by just a pretty face. But I began to see that Bob was right. I was stuck in the middle of a big fucking mess. Dave told me years ago that if I ever cheated on him, we were done. So the only way to save my marriage would be for Dave to go along with it. But he just didn't seem to want Samantha. And every time I suggested it, Dave got angry at me. 

Anyway today, Bob came over for his weekly screw and this time he brought another guy with him. As much as I didn't want to do anything with him; the idea of a threesome had me pretty turned on. But as soon as we got undressed, I heard it. It was that low rumbling growl that Dave's Mustang makes. It pulled up in the driveway and I thought that Dave was home. We all panicked. I pushed Bob and the other guy out the back door. I told them to hide in the shed."

That was when Tammy started crying. 

"They ran into the shed but as soon as Bob went inside...he stepped on the...and it...and he..." she broke up crying then. 

"I ... I ... called 911. He had just fallen and he was jerking like he was having a seizure. The other guy ran away. I ... I didn't know what to do. I was going to pull the thing out of his forehead, but the 911 operator told me not to. I just stood there naked waiting for them. It took them only five minutes to get there but it seemed like forever. Samantha came home and saw all of the police cars and she came into the yard with a bunch of our neighbors. I didn't know what to say to her. She started screaming that I had killed him. I called Dave then."

She looked at me and I glared back at her. "Dave, you have to forgive me. I love you. It was an accident."

"Maybe what happened to Bob was an accident," I said. "But you knew how I felt about cheating." I looked at the officers. "Can I leave?" 

They looked at each other and discussed the fact that not only did I not know that Bob and Tammy had been carrying on, but that I hadn't been home when the incident happened. 

"Yes Mr. Pike you're free to go. We need to question your wife further. She might need a lawyer. So maybe you should..."

"You heard her," I snapped. "She cheated on me. We're done. She can call her parents. I'm done with her." 

"Nooo!" she screamed as I walked out of the room. 

I knew. I literally had known that Tammy had cheated on me with Bob. But having it all out in the open had only pissed me off more. I guess deep down inside I'd hoped that there was more to it. I wanted to think that there was some special or redeeming reason for it. But it was just the same old bullshit. Out marriage hadn't needed any spice until Bob came along. And as far as the rest of it. I'd been married to her for the same amount of time and I hadn't cheated. 

In a way, I had to look at it as if I was partially responsible for what had happened to Bob. Perhaps it had been the perfect shitstorm of events, but it had been an accident, hadn't it?

On the other hand no one had forced Bob to come over to my house and fuck my wife, so he deserved what he got. And no one had forced Tammy into it either, so she deserved what she got. 

I went home. I made myself something to eat and pushed it around a plate for an hour or so. Then I started doing what I always do when I need to think. I washed the Mustang. 

I'd been at it for an hour or two when the car pulled up. My father got out and slowly walked over towards me. 




Talkin' In Your Sleep



"You missed a spot," he said. Somehow he was smiling. I looked to where he was pointing, but I didn't see anything. 

"I guess life is like that," he said. "We all see things from different angles. Sometimes things that are obvious to us aren't quite as obvious to others. And sometimes people who aren't as close to things can have a better viewing angle and see things that we miss because we're too close to them." He paused and took the rag from me. He wiped away a smudge that I hadn't noticed.

"This thing between you two is only a bump in the road," he continued. "You two have been driving along on a smooth stretch of road. Then you hit a bump. While you're going over the bump, it seems terrible and terrifying. But a little while later you're looking back at the bump and things are smooth again. A little while after that, you can barely even remember the bump. You two will get over this and be fine."

"But sometimes a bump in the road, fucks up your suspension, or even breaks your axle and the car isn't worth shit anymore," I spat. "And most of the time if a bump is bad enough, you remember it and never go down that road ever again. You have to change the route you drive or the way you get from point A to point B, just to avoid that bump. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to fix the road so it can't hurt your car."

"When Tammy and I first got together, we made some promises. She's always known what would happen if she ever cheated," I said. 

"Look, Dave, you guys have been together for seven years. It doesn't seem smart to throw all of that away, because she lost her head for a few weeks. She just wants to come home so the two of you can talk, okay?" he said.

"I think it would be better for her to go home with you two," I said. "I don't think we have much to talk about. I'll have my attorney call her so we can get the ball rolling.

"The only balls that should be rolling around here are yours and you know where they should be rolling," she said from behind me. "I love you, Davie. I did a dumb thing. Can't you forgive me? I'm in enough trouble already."

"You being in trouble has nothing to do with me, or what we used to call our marriage," I said. "You wouldn't be in any kind of trouble, if you'd kept your legs closed."

"You seemed to like it when they were open for you," she spat. "After seven God damned years, I slipped. So what? And you had a chance to try out someone else too. It had nothing to do with love, Dave. It was only sex. I was already bored with him. I only did it the second and third times because he said he was going to tell you about it. In a way, I'm glad you found out. When you're ready to act like an adult and forgive me, I'll be at my parents' house."

"I forgive you," I said quickly. She smiled and came closer. 

"So I can come home?" she asked. 

"Why don't you come home tomorrow while I'm out?" I said. 

"Why do I have to wait until then?" she asked. 

"Because that way you can grab as much of your stuff as you can carry and I won't be here," I said. "It'll be better for both of us. Well it'll better for me. You don't seem to give a shit about our marriage anyway."

"What do you mean by that?" she yelled. 

"If you did care about US, you wouldn't have been screwing Bob, knowing that it would end things between us," I said.

"Dave, that's just it," she said. "I was under the impression that we loved each other enough to survive a small upheaval. I thought that you loved me as much as I love you."

"I think I loved you more than you loved me," I said. "I never cheated on you."

"Why are you using the past tense?" she asked. "You forgave me, remember?"

"Tammy, I forgave you because I won't really move on with my life until I let go of what happened between us. I have no intention of being one of those divorced guys who live in the past," I said.

"Why are you still talking about a divorce?" she asked.

"Tammy, I still love you. I probably will for a long time," I said. "But our marriage is over. There is simply no way that I could ever trust you again. Without trust, we have nothing. I won't change the locks until you have all of your stuff out." After that I left her crying in the driveway with her dad trying to calm her down. 

Being around Tammy had only gotten me more upset. It had actually let me know how fucked up her attitude was. Even as she had walked away, I got the impression that she was sure that things between us would blow over eventually. She had no idea now serious things were.

A little more than an hour after Tammy left, someone knocked on my door. It was Samantha. She stood there shyly until I invited her in. 

"Won't Tammy be upset that you have me in the house?" she asked. 

"Tammy doesn't live here anymore," I said. "We're getting a divorce." 

"The doctors operated on Bob for four hours," she said. "He's uhm, stable. They removed the spike from his brain. There was surprisingly little damage to his brain stem. That's the part of the brain that is responsible for respiration and controlling most of the body's systems. It's hard to predict the level of brain activity that he'll be capable of when the swelling goes down. His parents came in so I could come home and get some sleep."

"The police have decided not to charge your wife," she said. "They seem to think it's an accident. I have to tell you though, Dave, my lawyers are filing a wrongful death suit against her."

After that Samantha and I ended up just sitting on my sofa staring at the walls. Life was really funny. It just had a way of knocking you on your ass when you least expected it. I think at that moment both of us were a little bit broken.  

Samantha was far less broken than I was. Bob had a history of cheating on her and complaining about everything she did. She had considered divorcing him several times, but didn't have it in her to pull the trigger. There was also the fact that despite appearances, she and Bob had been barely staving off bankruptcy. They were always on the verge of foreclosure on the house. They were so far behind on the payday advances they were constantly taking out to pay the bills that they no longer really had any income. 

As bad as it seemed, what happened to Bob wasn't necessarily a bad thing for her. 

On the other hand, I was in so much shock and pain over the reality of Tammy's betrayal that I could barely function. I needed someone ... something ... anything to hold onto and anchor me through it. I had talked a good game earlier that evening to Tammy's face. But I was a wreck. If it hadn't been for Samantha, I might have called Tammy that first night. 

We were both so emotionally drained that we fell asleep together. We awoke the next morning wrapped in each other's arms and smiled awkwardly. Samantha ran across the street and showered while I did the same. We met for breakfast as usual only this time I was heading off to work as usual, while Samantha headed back to the hospital. 

Strangely enough, being at work made me feel better. I called the lawyer that I had chosen and had him draw up the papers and serve them on Tammy. There was no sense in waiting. 

Two days later Tammy got the divorce papers. She also got the news that the DA had decided not file charges against her for Bob's injury, it had been ruled a tragic accident. But it was also the day that Samantha's lawyer filed his wrongful death suit against her. 

The doctors were convinced that the injury to Bob's brain was simply too severe. There was very little chance that Bob would ever regain consciousness. The only thing ahead was a lifetime of him simply existing and breathing, but not really living. Samantha was prepared, as cold as it seemed, to pull the plug on Bob. His parents, especially his mother were fighting her tooth and nail. 

My lawyer decided that we should wait until after the wrongful death suit was settled because it could lead to a better settlement for me. I didn't really care about a settlement; I just didn't want to be tied to Tammy forever.

So that morning in court as the lawyers argued with me trapped there on the stand. One question went through my mind over and over. But before I worked anything out. I was told that I could step down. I was out of it.

"No further questions," said Tammy's lawyer again, as I sat there shocked. Somehow, I managed to get back to my seat as they called the next witness, but the debate in my own mind was ongoing. 

I had always been gifted with the ability to see things in a linear fashion. I could put patterns together and predict with relative certainty the outcomes of seemingly random facts. So as the lawyers dickered and dunked at each other about whether or not Tammy was responsible or at least liable for Bob's condition and possible death, if they pulled the plug, I began to wonder if I was the guilty person.

I had, several weeks before Bob's accident, done nearly the same thing to myself. I had stepped on that same rake and knocked the shit out of myself. A few days later I had put the spike in the rake. 

A short time after that, I had discovered that Bob was screwing Tammy and I had wanted revenge. I had watched on the security cameras what happened if Bob and Tammy were interrupted. I had seen Bob run into the shed when the teenagers had rang the doorbell. I had actually planned that Bob would do exactly that when I confronted him. I had arranged for myself and Kirk, who would serve as a witness, to drive up in my Mustang which could be heard from inside of the house. And finally I had watched as Tammy had thrown the rake haphazardly into the shed, in her hurry to get into the house for sex with me, the night before her weekly tryst with Bob. 

I had even noticed the location and orientation of that rake as we went inside of the house. Although it hadn't been what I had planned, I had literally put all of the dominos in place for what happened to Bob. I don't think that I consciously intended for Bob to end up the way that he did. But I did think that it was a very good chance that he'd have been maimed or injured. I guess at the time I'd hated Bob for what he'd done to our friendship and my marriage. In a way I did feel a little bit better, but I don't think he deserved what he got. 

I put all of those thoughts away as the trial ended for that day. More than likely, I wouldn't be back to see how it all came out. I actually had no vested interest in how it was resolved except for in the way that it affected my divorce. My lawyer could monitor the case for me. 

As I put on my Ray Bans and headed for my Mustang, I heard footsteps running up behind me. I turned and saw Tammy heading for me. 

"Davie, can we talk?" she asked. I wondered what she wanted. We had been sparringyer's offices for weeks at that point. 

"I ... I miss you," she said. I could see the sadness written on her face and in her eyes. Before I could answer, Samantha was there. The two women looked at each other and before words were issued, the tension was so thick you could cut it. 

"I guess I know why you haven't answered my phone calls, now," said Tammy. "I'm miserable. I cry all the time. Poor Bob, or what's left of him, is languishing away in a hospital, meanwhile the two of you are getting cozy."

"The difference is," spat Samantha. "That we didn't start getting cozy until "AFTER," you and Bob had ruined two marriages. And to be truthful, Bob and I didn't have much of a marriage. He was very dissatisfied with me. And I was no longer under the spell of his bullshit. That's why he needed to find some stupid whore to fuck outside of our marriage. Guess who he found?"

"That isn't true," said Tammy. "When I started with Bob, I did it because ... well ... it was supposed to help my marriage, not ruin it." 

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of," laughed Samantha. "When you cherish something, you try to protect it. You keep it away from harm. It's like Dave's Mustang. Did you ever see him just hand over the keys to anyone? Nope, he never even lets that car get wet, unless he's washing it. And that's how he treated you. He treated you like you were precious. And you repaid him by sleeping with some another woman's husband. You're an idiot."

"Then stupidity must be contagious," said Tammy. "Because it looks like you're trying to do the same thing."

Samantha just shook her head. "See what I mean," she said. "You're too stupid to even see the difference. Bob was always cheating on me. Bob was never satisfied with what we had or what we could afford. He always thought that he deserved the best whether we had the money for it or not. And then when we got what he wanted, he always wanted something else. Once he had something it had no value. Bob didn't love you, Tammy. Before you knew it he'd have been letting his friends fuck you, too. Just so he could seem like a big shot." Tammy's mouth dropped open but she didn't say anything. I knew that she was remembering the fact that Bob had brought another guy the last time.

"Dave on the other hand loved you so much that he got pissed at Bob for even suggesting that we swap. He broke off his friendship with Bob for even suggesting that he share you. Maybe I'm not as smart as you and Bob, but that sounds like love to me. My husband, the man I married, sent me to Dave to offer myself to him, just to convince Dave that we should swap. Does that sound like Bob valued me?" Tammy shook her head and tears rolled down her cheeks again.

"It was a mistake," she said. "I've already admitted that."

"No," I said, joining the conversation. "A mistake is something unintentional. It's something that you didn't intend to do. Screwing Bob was a deliberate act. It was the consequences of that act that you didn't intend. But even then, you knew how I felt about cheating. So you knew what would happen if you were caught."

"Davie, we've been married for seven years," said Tammy. "Haven't you ever thought about trying out another woman?"

"I'm human," I said. "I look all the time. There are some really beautiful women out there. But I married you, Tammy. And seven years is nothing. It flew by like the blink of an eye. I always thought that we'd be married for more like seventy years." 

There was really nothing else to say. I turned and walked to my car. Tammy and Samantha continued talking. I later found out from Samantha that they had mostly talked about Tammy's hope that even though they weren't really friends, Samantha would have enough class to wait until our divorce was settled before trying to start something with me. 

The judge ruled in Samantha's favor. Even though Bob's accident had been self inflicted, the judge felt that Tammy was partially responsible. He only awarded Samantha a hundred thousand dollars, though. He left it up to the lawyers to determine how it would be paid since Tammy didn't have a source of income. There was also the fact that since I had already filed for divorce and Tammy and I were not sharing a residence, I was in no way responsible for paying any of it. 

Samantha was another matter entirely. She was beautiful and she was also free for the first time in a long time. She had already begun to lean on me for emotional support. I guess we helped each other through the worst of things. Samantha was locked in a legal battle with Bob's parents over the decision to take Bob off of life support. They managed to settle out of court. Bob's parents allowed Samantha to keep the hundred thousand dollars that she had won from Tammy. They were going to foot the bill for Bob's care. Bob's insurance company used a loophole in the contract Bob had signed for the insurance policy to refuse payment. Since Bob had been killed in the process of committing an illegal or immoral act, they didn't have to pay. Screwing Tammy had been legal, but it was clearly immoral. 

As for Samantha and me, there was no need to wait. We had already started sleeping together. But sleeping together was all there was. Bob was an asshole with a capital "A" but he was a pretty good judge of pussy. Samantha, as beautiful as she was, had the distinction of being absolutely terrible in bed. As bad as the first time had been, I gave her the benefit of the doubt a couple of more times. But she was just awful. I could see why Bob had cheated on her. 

Another thing was that Samantha's personality was not all it was cracked up to be. Samantha was very aloof and very cold. She also had submissive tendencies that I was sure that Bob had manipulated. I wanted a woman that I could love and who'd love me, not someone who just did what I told her to do. 

A very kind judge gave me my divorce a few weeks later. Since Tammy's involvement with Bob was a part of the court record, I didn't need to prove infidelity on her part. I was awarded 60 percent of our assets. I bought our house from Tammy, for her forty percent of our equity. Tammy's share of our assets plus her share of the equity only amounted to about eighty thousand dollars. She had to get a job and arrange a payment plan to pay off Samantha. 

Bob's parents had him moved to a facility where his care was much less expensive than it would have been in the hospital. For the first few months they visited him every day. Then it was a couple of times a week. After a while that became a couple of times a month. On the day that Bob finally gave up the fight, he was alone. 

Samantha made out like a bandit. She sold Bob's printing business to Kinko's and sold her payments from Tammy to an annuity company. After a long heartfelt talk about how we simply didn't fit, she moved back across the country to the town she grew up in. I wished her well and we remained friends. 

There were a lot of women around town for me to date and I tried a lot of them out. But nothing seemed to click for me. A big part of it was that I no longer had the ability to just blindly trust and give my heart. Tammy had taken that away from me. There was also the problem that when it came to sex, Tammy was hard to match.

It just seemed so unfair to me. Everyone had gotten what they deserved, except me. Samantha had become rich. Bob was dead and Tammy would be working her ass off at Seven Eleven while living with her parents for years to come. Why was I being punished? It just didn't make sense. It was as if the fates were out of synch. Whatever happened to all of that bullshit about those who did wrong had bad things happen to them? Well that had come true. But the destiny of the good was to have good things happen to them. Where the fuck was my destiny?

One day in the fall, about six months after Samantha had moved away, a taxi pulled into my driveway in the middle of the night. A drunken Tammy got out of it. She looked like shit. She stumbled up to the door and looked through her purse for her keys. She got them and opened the front door. I had never bothered to change the locks. She came up the stairs as I watched and took off her clothes and got into bed. Almost a year apart had changed her. Tammy had never been as beautiful as Samantha, but she was warm and loving and hell on wheels in bed. She also had a body that was simply made for sex. 

The bags under Tammy's eyes and the color of her skin suggested that Tammy had been drinking a lot more than she should. This was the first time that I had ever seen her drunk. Her body was also not what it had been only a year before. She was thicker around the waist and her ass and thighs had picked up some cellulite. 

I picked up the phone from the table beside the bed and called her parents. I told them that Tammy had showed up drunk and got into my bed. Her dad apologized and told me that she'd been having a rough time. He told me that he'd be right over to pick her up. I told him that it was late and that I'd drop her off the next morning. It would be Saturday, so I wasn't expected anywhere.