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Too Late

By: erotowriter



I knew that he was never coming back.

I knew it because he left 2 days before Valentine's Day. He wouldn't have done that because it was our favorite day of the year. Nobody knew how to celebrate quite like me. He waited for it all year long. The romantic meal, the sexy lingerie, the elaborate gifts, and of course his favorite part: his sexual fantasies come true. I always let him do anything he wanted to me. I always did anything he wanted.

We met right out of high-school. We were the new food servers at a large diner. He had actually been there a few months longer than me. He was the first face I saw when I walked in to that restaurant. He immediately struck me as a cocky womanizer. Very "built", extremely good-looking, stylish hair. He carried himself as though he had been around a few times.

"Hi. I'm Alex. Are you the new waitress?" Strangely enough, his voice actually sounded nervous.

"Yes. Hi, I'm Megan," I answered politely.

"We'll be getting to know each other very well, I think." His voice sounded fake. As though he were trying to sound tough.

"No, I don't think so." I answered and pushed past him.

Things continued on like that for the next few months. Him hitting on me and me shooting him down. When he finally stopped hitting on me, I actually felt sad. Sometimes the best way for a guy to land the woman he's after is to lose interest.

One date was all it took for me. I think I fell in love with him that first time. He was sweet and smart and attentive. He was nervous and shy at the same time. I quickly realized that he had no experience with women.

Valentine's Day arrived after we had been dating a couple months. I started our Valentine's Day traditions that first year. I also took his virginity.

We saw each other every day after that. Every day for four years. We were in love. It was my first real relationship. I had dated but never anything this serious. We moved in together. That was when things started changing.

We started fighting. When you live together, you find things to fight over. Money, getting married, careers, neglect. Pick a topic. Occasionally when we would fight he would storm off and spend the night at his friend's house. He would always come back. He was always the first to apologize.

Two days before Valentine's Day we had a fight. It was a bad one. I just couldn't get past his reluctance to marry me. 

"Your family loves me. My family loves you. We love each other. What are you waiting for?!" I shouted.

"I hate feeling pushed! I don't understand the rush!" He countered.

"Rush?! What rush?! We have been together for over four years! It stopped being 'rushed' three years ago!" I shot back.

"Every time you bring this up it pushes our wedding date further and further away. I don't want to ask you when we just fought about it the night before!" He shouted.

"So I'm just supposed to wait and be content that you might ask me someday? If we don't have a future I need to know now. I have already wasted years of my time," I said.

"Wasted?!"

It went on and on until we finally called it quits and he left. Just 2 days before Valentine's Day.

And I knew this time he wasn't coming back. He would wait until I was at work and he would retrieve his belongings. No fight. No arguing over who bought this CD or who paid for the dog. Just cold silence.

Over the next couple of days I couldn't sleep. I just cried. I cried in the bath and driving to work. I even cried brushing my teeth.

On Valentine's Day I reached the point where I couldn't cry anymore. I was in a state of resolve. I would be alone for the rest of my life. Maybe I would be a lesbian.

I walked through the house and looked at the lingerie I had bought a month ago for Alex. The bottles of Asti were chilling in the fridge.

That's when I decided to celebrate by myself. I put on the sexy lingerie and looked at myself in the mirror. I had to admit I looked good. Black lace pushed my large breasts up so that the pink nipples stood up proudly. I felt sexy. The lace near the crotch tickled my newly waxed pussy. Alex would have loved this lacy, crotch less get-up.

I poured myself glass after glass of Asti and enjoyed the way it went straight to my head. After finishing a couple bottles I was ready to walk outside and have sex with the first man(or woman) I ran into. Who could resist a sexy, drunk woman?

I grabbed a fresh bottle and went outside, putting nothing over my exposed nipples.

The cold air hit my breasts, causing my nipples to pucker. I looked around for anybody but all I could see was darkness. A block away there was a street light. I thought I saw something move near it. I squinted hard and as my eyes adjusted I saw a dark figure leaning against the street light.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Ya wanna do it?" My words were slurred.

The dark figure stood there another minute.

"I've got wine and a pussy and you can have both!" I laughed and raised the bottle to my lips again for another gulp.

When I lowered the bottle I saw that the man was gone.

"Damn!" I swore and walked around to the side of my house to collapse on the grass.

I sat there for several minutes, drinking from the bottle when I heard a voice, low and husky in my ear.

"I'll have some of both," He said.

I passed him the bottle.

"I can't see you. Are you sexy?" I asked.

"Mmm hmmm."

"Is your cock big?" I asked.

"Mmm hmm."

"Are you-"

"No more talking," He interrupted and pushed me onto the grass.

He started licking and sucking my breasts as though he had been starving. As he licked and sucked I felt his hand come up to my pussy. Finding it bare, he began stroking and rubbing. I was wet in an instant. It felt so good to be touched by a mysterious stranger. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I would sorely regret this in the morning but I pushed those thoughts away and enjoyed the feeling of his big hands stroking my wet pussy.

I heard his pants unzipping and for a second, I tried to push away. His hands held me firm.

"Too late." Was all that he said.

I didn't care anyway. I was ready for him.

I felt his hard cock probing me, rubbing my slick pussy.

"Do you have a condom," I asked.

"No," he said as he rammed his cock in to me.

"Oooh!" I cried out at the sudden intrusion but the length of his cock driving in and out of my swollen, wet pussy felt so good that the only thing I could do was lift my hips to accept more of him. Dear god, he felt so good. We were fucking each other wildly now. He bit and sucked my breasts as he slammed his rod into me over and over. I felt an orgasm building and building in me. I just knew that I was going to pass out in pleasure when I came. But I held on as he pumped in to me until I felt that orgasm ripping through my body. I screamed as I came. I came so hard that we were both wet through and through.

He just kept on stroking my pussy with his cock even after I came. I could actually feel myself getting ready to cum again. I had never been fucked so hard in my life! I was tingling everywhere! My breasts felt alive and even after releasing my juices just moments before, I felt as though they were pouring from me now. Just before I was about to come again he shouted and rammed his cock deep as he pumped me full of hot, wet cum! That pushed me over the edge and I screamed again as I came.

Even as I was still cumming, he pulled out and ripped the crotch of my lingerie to reveal my ass. He didn't say a word as he rubbed the mixture of my cum and his with his still-hard cock over my virgin ass-hole until it was completely lubricated. Then he pressed his hard cock against my tight little ass-hole until he was just slightly penetrating me. He moved slowly, preparing my ass for his entry. Just when I thought he was going to take his time entering me, he rammed his cock home. 

That's when I passed out. I don't know how long he took advantage of my body or how many times he came but I think he took his time with me.

When I awoke the next morning, I was in my own bed. I opened my eyes and looked at the wall as I remembered the details of the night before. I was very sore. I was sticky. I was very regretful. But how did I get back inside? In my own bed?

I felt the bed move as someone next to me turned over. Mortified, I turned over to see the face of the man who had so thoroughly fucked me. Before I even had the chance to look I became aware of an unfamiliar weight on the third finger of my left hand. And then I heard a familiar voice in my ear.

"Babe, I have a question to ask you." 

Too Late!



Jenna drove as fast as she dared. The wreck on the bridge had caused a stand still in traffic for thirty minutes and when it had started to move it was at a snail's pace. She was fifteen minutes late. Jared would be displeased. He'd told her to be home no later than six-thirty. She left the packages in the car and went straight inside. "You are late."

"Yes, Master, I am sorry."

JaredMaster grabbed her wrist and pulled her quickly to the lashing post. Her cuffs still hung there on the chain from two nights previously when he'd whipped her for pleasure, but jennaslave knew that this would be entirely different. Today, she was being punished. 

He secured her quickly without removing her clothes. This one post of the many that she had designed into the architecture of their home was close to the wall to allow less mobility. Her arms were high above her head and she was up on her toes. She was blinded by the black leather mask that he slipped over her eyes and stunned by the next sensation. JaredMaster took her dress by the hem and ripped it up the center of the back. He'd instructed her earlier in the day to wear no panties so she stood helpless and barebacked before him. 

He took the whip from his back pocket and without stopping he lashed her on her ass, thighs, and back for each minute that she was late, making her count each blow out loud. By fifteen she was quietly crying behind the black mask. 

"I'm so sorry, Master."

"You are forgiven," he said as he released her wrists and removed her blindfold. "We will not make our reservations in time now so you may remove what's left of your clothes and put on your collar. I will start supper."

"Sir?"

"Later, my jennaslave..." He knew what she wanted. She always needed to suckle after punishment but first he would start her dinner. He would fix her favorites tonight. She had served him well and without complaint.

He hated punishing her but... he loved the way she gave herself to it completely. He thought perhaps he had been too hard on her... but he worried about her every moment that they were apart. She should have called.

jennaslave arrived in the kitchen wearing only her collar as instructed. With her head down she went straight to her Master. He turned her around and inspected her bottom to make sure that he had not been too carried away, and then he allowed her to kneel before him and suckle. Her suckling stirred the fire in him that had been ignited by her lashing, "Oh, jenna," he whispered. The tuna steaks were done but his cock was raging hard from the whipping that he had given her. "First, I will take my nourishment from you, then the food."

He pulled her to her feet and picked her up. She wrapped her legs and arms around him, holding him tightly and burying her face in his neck as he carried her to the table. He propped her on the edge of the table and jennaslave quickly unbuttoned his pants to free him fully so that he may take her. 

He drove into her fiercely and with nothing held back. Pumping her cunt as he held her tightly to him... kissing her deeply, he was cumming in seconds. "Oh, Jenna! My Jenna!" When his trembling subsided and his cock slipped limply from her cunt, she slid down his body and eagerly licked him clean. 

...

JaredMaster showed no further interest in using her that night which saddened jennaslave. She had not been given permission to cum during the whipping because it was punishment and not for pleasure. Now, as they prepared for bed, she was throbbing and needing release.

"Master, shall I remove my collar now?" She asked tentatively, hoping that the answer would be no.

"Yes, you may sleep now."

jennaslave was dismayed by his answer but would never question it. Never. Master knew her heart and her body and he would provide for them when it was time.

It took a long time for the need in her to subside enough to let her sleep, but finally, in the comfort of her Master's arms, she drifted off.

He wanted her so badly. Every muscle in his body strained from withholding, he could not sleep. When he felt her finally relax and her breathing slow and steady, he was able to move a bit without waking her, so he softly touched her hair. He loved to look at the silhouette of her face in the moonlight. How had it been that fate finally shined on him and brought her into his arms. He loved her so deeply that punishing her was both agony and awe-inspiring. Watching as she submitted to him... fully giving herself over to his demands... trusting him with her body and her soul... was more than he ever dared to hope for. She was his, and in taking her... he was hers.

He needed her again. Leaning down he nuzzled her ear and quietly whispered, "Open for me, Jenna." jennaslave stirred a bit and sighed deeply but without waking so JaredMaster persisted but still only whispering, "Open for me, My jennaslave, Master needs his pussy..."

Her breathing grew slightly thicker and shallower but she did not wake. JaredMaster waited and watched as slowly... oh, so slowly... her body responded and her thighs parted for him. She was truly his.

Watching her submit, even in sleep, was more than he could stand. He had to know more about how deeply imbedded her commitment to him was. Without touching her anywhere, not even the slightest graze along her open thigh, he laid his finger on her sleeping clit and very softly began to massage it. He was careful not to get carried away because he did not want to wake her. He knew her heart when she was awake, now he wanted to know her submissive soul. 

The lazy down pour of rain outside the window made him smile. She loved to sleep when it rained and he had no intention of waking her completely yet. For now he wanted only her subconscious to answer him. He moved close to her ear again and speaking barely above a whisper he told her, "This clit is mine. It does not belong to you. It is simply a tiny part of a willing slave who wishes only to please me." Slowly, oh so slowly, the way a child removes a band-aid, he pulled his finger away. 

Because sleep was sporadic for his Jenna he allowed her to sleep in her mask which provided constant light control. Knowing that, he slipped carefully from the bed to turn on the lamp on the other side of the room. Even in the soft light of a simple lamp he could see the subtle changes in her body. There was a warm glow that had worked its way up and caused a flush in her cheeks, and her clit was engorged. The dark outer lips of her pussy were being pushed apart by the opening of her cunt to her Master, as a new bud to the warmth of the morning sun. He decided at that moment that he would do this as often as he could without conditioning her to wake. He would have to have her. There was no way that he could continue without waking her eventually to serve him and if he did it often she would learn to wake at his slightest touch. Tonight, however this was new, and he intended to learn as much as he could before his need for her took control. 

He went to the bed again, deciding this time; her nipples were to be the subject of his attention. Fearing the abrupt change in temperature would wake her; he decided against using his mouth but chose to roll them delicately under his palm. With a flat rigid hand he touched only the tip of her nipple rolling it in tiny circles with his palm. They hardened at his manipulations and drew up tightly erect. 

Then he leaned in closely to her ear and barely louder than a whisper he told her, "These nipples belong to me." To his amazement, she sighed deeply and gave the slightest of nods in affirmation. Her lovely lips parted a little as her breathing grew slightly heavier and her legs rolled out just a tiny bit more. Seeing this sent a flood of need through him he had to fight down that he may continue with restraint.

He knew he could not manipulate her mouth without waking her so he chose to turn his attention back to her cunt and wait patiently for the day when he would find her sleeping on her stomach. Her lips glistened in the light of the lamp and he thought that he could see an occasional contraction at the opening of her womb, a grasping for want of more. He would give her more. He carefully inserted his middle finger in her pussy seeking that coveted point of pleasure that he had made his own. Tonight he would reinforce that lesson. 

Gently, he massaged the tiny egg-shaped spot that he had grown to love so. He dared not try to insert two fingers for she would surely wake, so he set about the task of manipulating the spot inside her with one. The first stroke found her wet and ready and the spot inside full and eager. He was puzzled at first and then remembered he had allowed her no release earlier. No wonder she hesitated when he told her she could sleep. He smiled again when he realized she had not questioned him on the matter. She'd become so skilled in her submission that she was sure that he would give her what she needed eventually and did not question. This pleased him so that he decided to reward her in some special way the next day. For now, she could have her release.

Jenna's chest had begun to rise and fall more rapidly and he knew that he would have to slow her down or release her quickly or she would wake so he leaned in close to her ear again and whispered softly, "This cunt is mine. The orgasm that builds inside you belongs to me. You may have it, but only because I wish for you to have it. Cum for me jennaslave! Cum for your Master!" And with that her back arched until only her bottom and the back of her head were touching the bed. 

Jenna's orgasm exploded in a release so powerful that she gushed in his hand. He reached up with his other hand to remove her mask when, startled from her sleep, she grabbed his hands which he thought at first she sought to remove but quickly found her holding them in place. "That's My Girl," he spoke gently to her, hoping the softness of his coos would explain it all.

He let her drift slowly back down as the first leaf of fall wanders aimlessly to the ground. "Thank you, Master..." She spoke with the hint of a question in her words but still did not ask his reasons. It mattered not to her why he waited until she was asleep to take his pleasure from her, only that he had. 

Now that she was awake he would use her well. Watching her submission in sleep had made him raging hard and this was looking to be a long night. He retrieved her cuffs and bound her hands together with them before hooking her to the swivel that she installed to the back of the headboard. Blindfold back in place, she was ready. "Open your legs." She obeyed. She always did. "Wider." Again, without hesitation, she obeyed. He stood stroking his long cock at the foot of the bed... looking at her... taking in the sight of her bound and waiting. He watched as her pussy grew wet with excitement... as the urge to close her legs to put pressure on her clit had her nearly jerking.

Her wet pussy pulled at him until he could restrain himself no longer. He crawled between her legs and began to devour her cunt with ferocity. Within seconds she was writhing in orgasm and nearly screaming in ecstasy. He licked and sucked at her clit until she'd cum a half dozen times then he made his way up to her ear and as he slid his engorged cock home he asked her sweetly, "No thank-you's for your JaredMaster?" Her mouth flew open in a gasp and he kissed her deeply. Pulling his long hard cock from her belly, he rolled her over and pulled her ankles wide apart.

"You are not to close your legs. Do you understand?" 

"Yes, Sir."

He reached into the nightstand where he kept his whips and hastily retrieved them, and a long black feather. Had it been white it would adorn a registry pen, but black was for a celebration all its own. He slipped the phallus end of the vibrating whip into her wet slit and turned the switch to high. 

"Do not close your legs. Try to hold on to this as long as you can. I do not want it slipping out."

"Yes, Sir." Her response was always favorable. She had truly come into her place as his slave and nothing made him love her more than her complete submission. She was his in every way and he was delighted with that.

He drug the tails of the second whip along her back and sides as well as the backs of her legs, letting her come to the acceptance that she was to be whipped tonight. She was simply hypnotic in her acceptance once she'd been acclimated to the knowledge that she was to be punished again. Surprising her had satisfaction element all its own, but when she knew it was coming... she was stunning. 

He watched as her body began to respond even before the lashes had begun. Her hands wrapped around the bedpost, her bottom began to relax, and her breathing settled into a rhythmic pattern of lustful need. She was as much a slave to her own needs as to his. She wanted it.

WHACK! The first lash across her bottom was hard and without restraint. JaredMaster cautioned himself against hurting her but the sight before him drove his arm back even further the second time. WHACK! jennaslave cried out but to JaredMaster's ears it was a squeal of delight. WHACK! The third lash had her in tears. "Master, Please! I'm sorry!" He rolled her over and drove the vibrator deeply in her cunt and forced her legs together before delivering the final three lashes, the first two across each of her fleshy tits, WHACK! WHACK! And the last across the front of her thighs, WHACK! 

She was crying now, softly sobbing "I'm sorry," over and over again, but he was not interested in her remorse just yet. Rolling her back over, he slipped a bed roll under her hips which forced her ass up in the air. He grabbed the tails of the vibrating whip and jerked it out to find her cunt dripping wet. In one motion he drove his dick fully home but did not stay. Pulling out he skillfully replaced the vibrator as he positioned himself at the entrance of her tight ass. He grabbed a flaming hot cheek with one hand and forced himself deep into the constricting hole with the other, not stopping to allow her time to adjust. He had lost himself in his need for her. 

With his cock balls deep in her ass and one hand on her to hold her still, JaredMaster grabbed the headboard with the other hand and began to fuck his lovely slave unmercifully. Nothing about this coupling was for her. She had failed to show him the proper respect for his attentions earlier, so her comfort and pleasure were of no concern to him now. He fucked her ass for what seemed to be and eternity, reveling in the vibrations he felt from her cunt. Her ass, gripping him tightly, was hot and silky and he could feel the welts that had formed on her cheek beneath his fingers. He fucked her that way, without stopping, until his balls tightened and his cockhead swelled and when he came in her he screamed aloud incoherent sounds of lust. 

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." The soft chant of gratitude from the sweet lips of his jennaslave was what roused him. He wasn't sure how long he'd lay there atop her but his softened cock had slipped from her ass and the whip vibrated the bed somewhere near his knee. JaredMaster got up and made his way across the room to the tub. 

He drew a hot bath with lavender and vanilla bubbles as the memories of what just happened flooded his brain. With the tub full he turned the knobs off and went back across the room where his jennaslave was bound and waiting. He left the cuffs hanging on the swivel and freed her wrists instead. He removed the blindfold to find it fully dampened from her tears. He turned off the vibrator and tossed it aside then he gently slipped his arms beneath her and carried her to the tub. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and continued to chant her thank you's.

He stepped in with her and cradled her in his lap as they sank together into the warm silky water. He whispered sweet and gentle things in her ear as he bathed her tenderly but thoroughly and despite his quiet resolve to serve her now, he let her bathe him because she took such joy in it. He washed her hair and she stood in the tub to wash his. He closed his eyes but the red stripes on her breasts and thighs were painted on the inside of his lids. 

He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply then he tenderly washed her bottom as to his amazement he grew stiff again in the soft hands of his sweet slave as she washed him thoroughly. He got out first and dried off then left her there to soak as he went about the task of preparing their bed. He put clean dry sheets on the bed and lit the candles on either side of the headboard. He put away the whips and the cuffs and turned on their favorite c.d. of love songs just loud enough that the soft sounds danced around the room to the flicker of the candle light while his jennaslave dozed in the warm water. 

With only the light of the candles, he roused her, dried her, and combed out her hair, and then he led her to the bed where he had her sit on the side while he knelt in front of her. 

"Jenna, I..."

She put a finger to his lips and kissed him softly around it. 

"We ARE Master and slave, and I serve you willingly and freely and without reservation. You did as you should have done and I am happy for it. You have not hurt me nor have you done anything that was beyond your right as my Master. We are One and had you forgotten that, I would have reminded you, as it is my right as your willing servant to do so. I am yours, My Sweet Possessor... but you are Mine as well."

Rising from his knees he picked her up off the bed and wrapped her legs around his waist. He kissed her deeply as he went to the chair and between each kiss it was him chanting this time... "I need my Jenna." 

In the chair she reached between them to guide him home. This was for both of them, Master and slave, husband and wife, Jared and Jenna. Soulmates coupling together in soft glow of candlelight, they whispered I love you and moaned in delight of the pleasure they continued to find in each other anew. Jared cupped her breasts tightly in his hands and sucked hungrily at her nipples as she rocked slowly up and down on his cock. Finally she arched her back in a release that seemed to go on and on. The sight of her cumming and crying out his name sent him crashing over the edge again and he grabbed her and pulled her in close while he filled her deep in her belly with his cum. "Oh, Jenna! My Jenna!"

...

In the early hours of the morning with the candles nearly burned out, Jared lay propped on his pillows as his Jenna lay between his legs suckling. He thought of all that they had done this night and the vast expanse of all that they had become together as he traced every detail of her body with the long soft feather. It was a long time before he slept but when he finally closed his eyes he slept the sleep of a man in love and fully satisfied.



Too Late



Author's Note: This is the first chapter of a longer work, and establishes the world. It gets sticky at about the three thousand word mark. If you don't like non-consensual, forced or Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault, please move on. This starts in a dark place. This world includes telepathy and remote viewing, among other parapsychological abilities. Text within colons (like this -> :As we live, so shall we die: ) indicates telepathic speech. No other magic. Technological level is early Industrial Revolution. It also includes a McGuffin, in the form of a date-rape drug. This story is entirely fantasy, and its author does not condone any form of non-consensual activity. 

********

This is a social occasion to be enjoyed, I remind myself. Some forty people wander through this too large room in a too-large, too-cold building. My brother meets my gaze from across the room, where lovely, hopeful young women and equally hopeful young men bask in the glow of his potential. 

:You can always change you mind, Bells,: his mental voice says in the back of my head. He tries not to plead, to sound neither commanding nor terrified, though he would command me if he thought he could. He helped me construct this insanity, but he likes this scheme no more than I. 

:Too late, Vo. It was too late the moment we thought of it.:

I smile at the cluster of hopeful courtiers clustered around me and remind myself to pay attention. Tomorrow will be formal. Tonight should be light. 

"May I be of any service, ma'am?" my prey says. He stands -- I have not gestured him into a chair and he is not quite certain enough of himself to trust that he may abridge formal protocol. I do not let my eyes look anywhere but at his face. He has a good face, though sun-scorched. Lovely dark eyes, the color of burnt sandalwood under a square brow, topped with almost cropped dark hair of the same color. He has a firm, shaved jaw, a wide, expressive mouth, a strong nose that has been broken once, but also well-set once. It does not detract. He has good teeth, straight and clean. One has been Healed, but it is a front tooth, so probably the result of battle, not weakness.

"None, now, Captain," I say, and startle myself that my voice is soft and steady and does not betray my trembling nerve. He is tall, which is good because I am too tall for a woman. His winter-wool formal uniform coat hangs slightly too large on his shoulders. He was in battle all summer, and lost weight. The coat must have been tailored last winter, before the worst began. "But I would be most attentive if, when the crush has thinned, you would sit by me and speak to me of the Cavalry. I know rather too much of military financial matters and too little of the daily life." 

He is confident enough to take the compliment I have offered -- a mere Captain, with only a double score under his command, asked for his opinions, and by the Prazia Royal, whom everyone knows is both beautiful and clever, and difficult and scathing. I am not beautiful, but I am the first woman in the kingdom, and therefore, I set the standard. Had I bad teeth and thin hair and a growth on my nose, those would be sought after. I will admit to the other qualities ascribed to me. 

"I'm honored, ma'am," he says, and tilts his upper half towards me in a momentary bow. I catch a breath of his scent -- burnt sandalwood in his soap. Not as entirely confident perhaps of being remembered as I thought. To pair his coloring with the echoing scent is both subtle and a useful aid to memory. Or perhaps he likes the scent. I can't know, not now. Tomorrow, though, I will seek that answer from amongst the other things I shall read in his memory.

I watch him walk away, his step firm, his legs straight, his back broad, his hips narrow. He is a lean man, but I do not think that entirely natural -- he would be broader, thicker, heavier if he were not subject to the privations of the battlefield for half the year. He limps very slightly on the right, probably the result of a wound, but it does not stop him from accepting the hand of a young lady from my brother, nor from dancing with her. 

Vo comes to me, offers his hand, and we lead out the rest of this cadre who hope to form marriages and other alliances before the year turns. They must, everyone in this room. The men will return to the war, and half will return here damaged or as ash. We women must marry them and give the Pantheon a quarter-year's chance to kindle life in our bellies so there may be some hope for the future. There is no love in this room, nor can there be. There is lust, and avarice, and passion, but love is a luxury we cannot afford. Every man in the room is the son of a man who holds his lands by my father's will. Every woman's dowry will feed hundreds for years. That land and that money makes us breeding stock, and 'twould be more honest if the stock-breeders paired us off and told us to fuck. 

We will fool ourselves into believing in love, or mistake passion and pleasure for it. And in five or ten years, when we have come to know one another's true natures, we who have paired off will hate those to whom we are bound. The men will seek companionship in the arms of our friends and in expensively hired beds. The other women in the room will flirt with the unhappily married men and sneak and skulk so that we might again mistake the fire of passion and excitement for love. It will be nothing more than a breaking of boredom and fear and grief. 

I will not be afforded the luxury of an affair. Not the Prazia. I must be better, irreproachable. Nor can I afford one now. There is no foreign prince seeking my hand, though there have been. The treaties never worked. My father will get either a good price or a good alliance for me. He is my pimp, and I am his whore.

I am too young to be this bitter, this angry, this cold. There is no love in my future, but I need the warmth of passion and lust to sustain me, and that too, is denied me. A sharp tongue and a sharp wit are all that is left to me, and the lords of this kingdom would take those if they could. I discomfit them because they know that I know that I am a whore and they set it up that way.

I will not tell my brother how much I dislike this notion we have concocted. It is as bad as what is demanded of me, and I consider that slavery and rape dressed in fine clothes. It is worse in some ways -- a slave, a whore knows she is a slave and a whore. 

My young Captain is not so young -- my age exactly. The dance has ended, the musicians play quietly. My servitors bring pitchers and elegant bites of exquisite food to the scattered groups of people. Some have left -- to talk to fathers and lawyers about potential settlements. To sleep. To drink. To numb the pain with hemp and poppy and passion flower. To tumble into rented beds, sometimes with rented women, and sometimes with bodies stolen from their fathers before the marriage settlement is made. 

I pretend surprise that my prey is quartered here in our marble fortress. I tell him I will be pleased to see him at breakfast, when we all gather again. Not all of the guests tonight were invited to luxuriate in the emptiness of the north and east wings, but enough were, and Vohan did the inviting. I can maintain that I knew nothing, and locked in my rooms, my virtue is safe. 

We share a fine, pale wine from nearly perfect blown glass bowls. He does not realize that his is painted with the drug that damns me as a rapist, a thief. He does not taste it, or does, but accepts my comment about the terroir of the winery. After the first glass, he does not realize that I pour the other three glasses in the pitcher into him, and drink but a half-glass myself, and that only half-empty. I must be clear-headed for this. 

He is healthy. He is kind and sympathetic. He will be wise, someday, when he is not a young man with hot blood. He's been at war for too few years to have lost his idealism. His adventures have not yet touched his soul -- when a violist thweets a string like an incoming flight of arrows, he does not flinch. The dull roar of a low drum does not sound like charging horses to him. He is clever. 

I find myself surprised that he has not been proposed to me. The reasons he is my prey are the same reasons he would make a good Prenceps-Consort. His family is recently raised to my father's gift of land, but were the stock breeders given charge of my whoredom, that would make him more eligible. He is new blood, and we share none -- a rarity in this incestuous family we call a court. He is not wealthy, but his father influences the north districts, and they will grow their fortune. He has a younger brother who can rise to take the land once I have claimed the elder son. Perhaps, they planned to place the younger before me instead. 

Should I be caught committing my crime against this acceptable man, we will marry, and with no more haste than the other girls in the room. It won't be unseemly, nobody except us will know of my shameful crime against him. My father won't like it in some of his moods, but he will accept it as better than having my price lowered. This crime will eat into this Captain and me, and more quickly frost whatever passion we might have had, but this Captain understands duty and responsibility. 

Vohan offers his hand, and turns me to my guard to be escorted to my room and locked in for the night. He takes the unsteady captain by the shoulders and offers to show him personally to his small rooms on the far side. I go, as I should. :You can change your mind,: he reminds me as they walk away. The drug has worked, my prey is unsteady and will soon be delighted with his place in the world, in love with all of it, desperate for another body to slide and stroke and sigh with him. If this works, if this vile test I have made for myself works, he will remember... nothing. Not tonight, not this dancing and chatter, perhaps not today's breakfast. A rapist violates the body. I have already violated his mind. 

:Too late,: I tell my brother. 

**********

I am dressed now in a plain, servitor's gown, the mask is in my hand. Tonight, I wear drawers because tonight is a test. The dress, however, is not. I have worn it before, to move about this brilliant white prison. My father's mind is dying, the result of old age and dissipation and the bad character I've inherited. In another man, his degeneration would matter little; in a monarch, it is disaster. 

In the nights, in this gown, I forge his seal, and re-write his worst decisions so that instead of all the men dying in battle, only a quarter die and only a quarter are permanently harmed. I change budgets so that children don't starve and support our innovation and infrastructure so that we might survive until Father returns to ash and Vohan is crowned. I am a thief and a forger and a whore for the good of people who don't think of me often, and when they do, think me cold and harsh. 

I am curt because I lack time to be otherwise. I am cold because I must often be cruel -- money that will improve a soldier's arms could feed a child. If Vohan and I don't make these decisions, no one will and we will all end. The strange people in the west will overrun us, and no country fares well under occupation. 

The dress is deceptively simple. It's long, full skirt is dark cloth -- it blends into shadows, but also stands out against this white marble fortress. The servitors are unnoticed by us, or our guests. They don't even notice themselves, frequently. They're invisible. The skirt is soft enough to not swish when its wearer moves, full enough to allow movement, short enough to not hamper the wearer, long enough for modesty. The bodice is plain and cut close, but not tight, the neckline right to the collarbone. It buttons down the front -- no time-wasting laces up the back. The sleeves are long, but can be rolled. The kerchief is simple -- folds over the crown, ties under the nape of the neck, falls to the shoulders. It keeps the hair clean, neat and invisible. It looks nothing like the elaborate gowns of the women on the block this evening. 

The shoes, too, are deceptive -- as thin as dance slippers, with soft suede soles so the servitors make no noise as they walk. I have laced them on, tied my stockings to the undershift's waist ribbons. I wear no corset -- I don't need one and a servitor binds her breasts.

And the mask. A mute, a woman's mask. It is a blank black circle made of fine silk mesh, with a button sewn to one side where the lips go. It has no ribbons or sticks to keep it before the face. The wearer -- always a woman -- holds the button between her teeth. Concealment and silencing in one. There will be another ball, a masked one, day after tomorrow, after the ceremony. Some of the ladies of the court prefer mutes to more elaborate masks. They better preserve anonymity. If I am stopped by another servitor, the mute mask is my excuse. I will keep my face turned down, my spine drooped, my shoulders slumped. I've been approached and questioned and ignored before. If I am caught... I shall say it was a test of security. I won't be caught because Vohan will help. 

:I need not unlock your door,: my brother says as if I have summoned him, and perhaps I have. We live mind to mind every moment of nearly every day. When we are within three miles of each other, we speak as if we were in the same room, except that no one else may overhear us. I sometimes forget what his voice sounds like in my ears because it is safer to conceal everything from others and nothing from him. 

:Vo, we agree, this is the least of the evils, and since this is such a great evil... :

My door opened, and my brother acquiesced. :I hate this. Just marry him. Quirin is a good man, you'd be proud of him, and I'd be proud of you for -- : He mentally bit that off. I might eventually marry, could I choose, were I not coerced and sold. But I'd rather be a thief and a rapist than a whore and a slave. The thief and rapist have awful autonomy, evil agency, but they have it.

I shrugged. 

:Keep to the secondary, not tertiary passages, and avoid third floor north. I'll watch till you're at the door, and tell you if anyone close is awake. Tell me when you're finished so I can guide you back.: Vohan could see the shapes of the living over several square milliae, if he concentrates the appropriate way. We are both Talented in this way, but I will need my eyes to navigate -- we do not see walls or furniture or anything not alive in those images. 

This mad necessity, this crime is the fault of our brother, the little shit-stain weasel, and our father. Vohan is my father's heir, and my father will soon die. Vohan is not married yet. His intended marriage seals a treaty we desperately need to reinforce our western border and that happy day is a year in the future -- at least. Vohan, too, whores for our kingdom, though his price is fixed and one time only. I am a woman, I cannot be Vohan's heir except in the worst extremity. But the goat-fucking, piss-drinking son of a whore that is our younger brother can be. And Mathes has assured his heir already. 

The baby cries in the nursery between my rooms and Vohan's, and his nurse is there at once. I pass the door and Vohan turns in. He is an excellent father to his nephew, which is good, because Mathes is worse than no father at all. I am doing my best to be a substitute mother -- the baby's mother is sent away because my father dislikes the reminder of his youngest son's manipulation. 

Mathes is just fifteen, to my nineteen and Vo's twenty. Mathes' marriage is legal and must be recognized, so the baby is legitimate, but the marriage, and the circumstances, and Mathes' manipulation of the circumstances means that my father has excluded Mathes from the succession. This is a mercy for the nation -- for selfishness, manipulation and cruelty, Mathes makes me look angelic -- but Vohan fears nothing so much as a long regency with Mathes in control of the child. We're wealthy, powerful, but we can sicken and die, and our ships can sink. Mathes as regent would destroy us. Vohan's first potential child is a least a year and a half away, likely more. Mine is not so far in the future, and Vohan can designate my child, with me as regent, as his heir. We must have more babies, there is no choice. 

I don't want to be sold. I will be a barely adequate mother to a wanted child of a liked husband. I lack that maternal grace that my own mother had. If I'm sold into marriage, every coupling would be rape, and I would hate the child. I have thought this long and hard, and Vo has thought it beside me. 

We have a friend who would share my bed and never my body. He prefers his male companions, and I could live with him as friends for a while. He is acceptable to my father as a husband for me, and if this test works, Vo will ask, and we will lie, and all pretend. 

There is nobody I trust enough to father my child. A lover would eventually gossip, or have his mind read in some other context and we cannot afford scandal. Even my most trusted guards cannot be trusted with this, because their minds are periodically read to ensure security. I like many of our friends, but all are ambitious. I would remain a pawn, utterly powerless save for my body and I cannot bear that. 

I cannot bear the thought of being raped in my marriage bed, and so I will rape. Vo believes he needs my mind to rule, and the job is too large for one person. To preserve my mind, we steal someone else's. 

Vo's directions are perfect, so is my stealth. The door is here, and Vohan drops entirely from my mind. He does not want to know what I will do. I don't want to know it. 

My prey does not notice me open the door. He lies in his bed with his back to me, the blankets drawn to his hips, his sculpted back a triangle of darkness against the firelight. He stares at his fingers between his eyes and the dancing light, and conducts an orchestra only he hears. This is the drug. The mute button is between my teeth. I am an awful figure, one I hope does not terrify him -- a blank, black hole where a face should be, no visible hair or face, a bit of throat, a dark figure, hands. All he may see in the firelight is my hands, if the drug is as strong as I think. 

I cross the room to his bed. From my pocket comes the first sash, to tie his lower hand to the bedpost. He cannot be allowed to touch me. Tomorrow, tomorrow... I won't think about that. Vo and I practiced this, always telling ourselves rehearsal didn't mean commitment. I can yank the loops in a fraction of a second, and the silk is strong and soft, so it will leave neither marks nor alarm my prey. He need not be bound, just secured, and he is deeply enough gone that he only notices for a moment that I have touched his hand. 

I have taken his mind, the thing I like best about him. I am worse than a thief and a rapist -- I believe I can trust this man in time, and he would cooperate with me, in marriage or in a falsely legitimate child. But I lack the time to earn his cooperation and for him to gain my trust. 

I stroke his soft skin between nipple and hip, and he rolls into my caress. His skin is a heavier silk than the one binding him -- slightly pebbled under my fingers and smooth and lush. The fingers that fascinated him are free to be bound, too, and again, he accepts the bond from moment to moment. His memory is gone, he lives in a perpetual now. 

I place my hands on his chest, on the thin dark hair there, and know that I am correct -- he is thinner than he should be. He is all muscle beneath the skin, no fat, and those muscles stand like a miniature, worn mountain range in relief. The fire gilds him and my belly flutters. I have never seen a man unclothed, save my brother, and him only in the interest of practice. This man is beautiful. 




Too Late



"Goddess," he breathes with delight and awe. "Lady Lunaga of the dark. We're not to war, are we?" 

The mute mask. Of course, I looks like the image of the dark phase of the goddess of passion, who is for lovers in her light and for war in darkness. I start to nod, but there are two questions in that. I pinch the side of the mask between two fingers for just a moment, while I smooth his covers away from his body. "I am she, come from the light. Not war, not violence. Serve me with your gift of passion, and accept my blessing of pleasure." 

"Lady, I am yours, blessed beyond all men." It's the drug -- he is not this foolish without it. But he is suggestible and dazed and in love with the world. 

He is also coming erect, large and thick, and he is not like Vohan, who could barely maintain an erection long enough to show me how to manipulate him, and could not pleasure himself with me watching. My prey is already more than half-staffed, and in the glow of the fire, he is red at the tip, pink in the middle and violet at the base. A line of hair trails from his heart to his prong and spreads to his legs. My prey is fascinated now by my hands as they smooth over his belly and his thighs. 

I have pleasured myself, in the only bodily privacy I have, using my hands in my bath and my bed, but the latter only in winter, when my covers are thick and I can burrow deep and not be seen by a waiting woman. I am unpenetrated, and will stay that way until I decide if I may, must do this again. Too many treaties, too many marriage agreements, would depend on the Prazia's blood on the sheet. I have touched the hole at the core of me, but no more. My own erect nub serves well to vent my frustration and salve my solitude. I am no innocent, no virgin in mind.

I have stroked myself awake and asleep, calm and energetic, more times than I can count. I use the same motions on his thighs and his mound. He moans, thrusting towards me with pleasure and need. 

I crawl across his legs, the better to pin them, and take his staff in my hand. It is so warm, so hot and silken and firm. His breath becomes ragged and he pushes his prong towards me, lifting his hips clear of the bed. "Goddess, I'm yours, engulf me and let me serve you."

He would not say this had he his own mind, I remind myself. This power I am exercising is stolen, it is wrong, it is evil, and yet, I stroke and spread my legs so that his thigh rubs against my own nub. My drawers are wet and the silk slides over my skin. I am fully erect in this moment, even though I am sick at myself for doing this. Sparks fly upwards in me, flooding me with heat. I cup his jewels in one hand and begin to slide my hand up and down his soft, warm intimate skin. I am enthralled by his shape and the tiny sounds I evoke. I know that if his memory is blank tomorrow, I will do this again. 

The power intoxicates me, better than wine or my hands in the bath, or even thwarting my father and the old lords of the realm. I want this control, of myself and of another. In all else, they control me, but this is mine and I will have it, even if I must steal it. 

The skin of his jewels is softer than the suede of my shoes, softer than glove leather, and has the same lively quality. His nether hair is sparse there, softer too than on the mound of his pelvis. Each jewel in its bag shifts under my fingers. I know to be gentle with these -- I have, in the past, accidentally hit Vohan's -- but even more enthralling is the finger length of skin between the jewels and his ass. It is strong, and solid, and soft and touching it makes him writhe with pleasure and gasp and pant.

"Lady -- " He contracts, bucks, cannot breathe. This is new to me. Though I know what should happen, the force of his shattering startles me. His seed flies. My mute mask protects my face, but it takes a hit and I smell it. Fresh clover just cut, and musk and man. I want to taste it, because I love those scents, save man, and I like this one. But I can't, not with the mask. 

He is further gone for the moment, lost in lust and passion and the drug. I smooth his skin with gentle touches as his jewels relax back into my palm and his prong begins to soften. He is slick now with his own seed, and I want to see if he and I are the same in this. I can ride waves of pleasure over and over, when I have time and a slightly deaf and sleepy waiting woman. I begin to massage his prong again, softly and gently. 

He gasps in half-pain, half-pleasure, and I want that pain, but I want the pleasure more. Softer touches for now, and the jewels and that dark, secret hole. 

The seed on his belly is slick. I rub my fingers in it and slide one between the half moons of his arse. I want to know what this is like, to penetrate. It will happen to me often enough, by my will or no. I deserve to be dominant once, to know this power. 

My nails are short, broken accidentally on purpose this morning and filed almost to the quick. I have explored this passage on myself a few times, but I don't find the pleasure. I know men must, because the friend we will conscript has told me that his only greater pleasure than having his prong sucked is having one up his ass. He told me once while massively drunk, there's a node inside between the ass and the prong. He had shown me a come here motion with one finger, and giggled that he would follow anyone who made that gesture to him. 

It was there, he had not been spouting horseshit. My prey is relaxed, accepting, almost greedy for my finger. I just reach that soft smooth pearl with my longest finger while cupping his jewels in my palm, and I felt them twitch. My prey's eyes rolled up in his head and his mouth dropped open. "No greater passion... all yours... I'm yours. Never stop..." He panted and sweat stood off of skin. He writhed and thrashed and bucked into me, pushing his prong hard into my fist. His earlier movements had been deep thrusts into the air. Now they became a trembling, straining as fast as a butterfly's wings. 

He had shattered once, and Vohan had said it would take some minutes for a second, if I insisted on a second, and possibly an hour for a third. I could tell his body was shattering, though not his jewels, and this shatter was like mine -- a long, rolling plain of lust. And I owned it -- stolen, but mine. I put more pressure on his node, gripped more firmly his staff, tried to match my massage to his tremble. 

This shatter was harder, longer, more intense. He moaned loud enough that I was glad he was alone up here on the fourth floor. I wanted to drop the button, crawl up his body and stop his mouth with my tongue. I wanted my own hands on my small erection, but his thigh was hard and trembled with the same pulses of his shattering. I wanted to taste his seed, lick his ass, bite tenderly those tender jewels. 

I wanted to impale myself and ride him until we were both sopping and sodden and spent. 

But I had made my test. This was memorable; if he remembered it tomorrow, I could never return and I would have to conceive an alternate plan. Which might include marrying this fellow. It would be my choice and nobody need know why I picked the relatively poor, obscure son of a back-bench, upstart lord. He never need know his goddess was me. 

If he did not remember... I could do it again, be in power, take from him. I could penetrate myself first, so that there would be no tell-tale sign of me on his body. I could drug him again, make my way here, bring him pleasure. I could cover my eyes and nose with a kerchief, leave my mouth free, ravish him with tongue and fingers, engulf him until he begged to be taken to Lunaga's paradise. I could steal his passion for myself... and from other men. Any man. I could own them all in my secret heart and they would never know that the cool, sharp-tongued, not terribly lovely, clever Prazia was their goddess in the night. In this state, they would tell me anything I wanted to know. I was already raping their memory -- I could take the rest. I could manipulate them, own them. Destroy them.

He is spent, shuddering, nearly crying with the intensity of his pleasure. I withdraw my hands and he whimpers as I leave him. I free his wrists, take my sashes and wipe my sticky, wet hands on them. I am shaking with my own need, but that must wait until I am safely in my bath. I am gone before he has enough mind to plead for me to stay.

I'm already a thief. A rapist. A whore. What's a matter of degree?



Too Late for Goodbye



Copyright February/2011

A Short Story 

No sex scenes in the story. If that's what you want you should find another author.

Constructive comments, critiques, and emails are very welcome and much appreciated.

**********

She walked into our living room like she belonged there; like she hadn't been gone for two days. With a tentative smile she sat down on the sofa across from me as I sat in my easy chair.

Jackie was my fiancée or she was before she took off with her friends for two days. She just didn't know she was about to become my ex.

"John we need to talk," Jackie said in a soft voice. 

I guess she thought she would break it to me slowly. But I knew where this talk was headed. I'd heard her conversation with her "special friend" on the answering machine. If you answer our phone after the machine starts to record, it continues to record unless you turn it off. Only then it records both sides of the conversation.

**********

Yesterday as I breezed into my apartment I found Jackie wasn't home. That was unusual because she normally gets home about an hour before me. She hadn't called my cell so I checked the answering machine in the kitchen. The little red light was blinking to tell me someone had left a message. Only it wasn't a message, it was a recording of a phone call she received that morning.

"Hello, I'm here, don't hang up," Jackie said. 

"Hey baby. You ready for tonight?" A male voice asked.

"Hi Tommy. I'm ready," Jackie answered. "I'll meet you in the Regency Hotel lounge at 6."

"I'm really looking forward to spending the night with you," Tommy said. "It's been a long time.

"It's been too long for me."

"Are you sure John doesn't know what's going on?" Tommy sounded worried. "I wouldn't want the big guy coming after me."

"No, he doesn't know and he won't. I'll just leave him a message and tell him that I need some time away from 'us'. I'll tell him I'm going to stay at Stella's for a couple of days."

"Okay, I'll see you tonight then," Tommy said and hung up.

At the end of the recording the machine gave the time, 8:01 AM, of the message. The next message was recorded at 3 PM. 

"Hi baby, it's me," Jackie's voice said. "I need some time for myself to think for a while. So I'm going to stay with Stella for a couple of days. I'll be home soon. Please let me have this time and don't call me. I love you, Bye."

Very interesting, I thought. But I wasn't totally surprised. Jackie had pulled the same "I need some time" bullshit right after college. 

We'd been dating for about three months when she came up with her 'need some time' speech. She said she was concerned because we were getting so serious so fast. I agreed to let her, as she said, have some space. Our time together went from 4 or 5 nights a week to once a week; if she wasn't busy.

I put up with it for a month and gave her an ultimatum. "Either we're a couple together or we're nothing," I told her. "I won't be one of many or even one of a few Jackie. Your decision, but make it quick." I turned and left her in front of her friend Stella's apartment. In less than two days she came back to me and told me she was all mine.

That was over a year ago and now she wants to start this crap all over again, I thought. I don't think so. This time I'll beat her to the punch.

**********

"So what do we need to talk about Jackie?" I asked.

"Well, since we haven't set a date for the wedding yet, I feel like I need some time away," she said. "You know, to clear my head, get some prospective on what we're doing and where we're going." She was smiling like I should be proud of her.

"I see," I replied. I tried to look thoughtful and after a several seconds I asked, "Can I ask some questions? You know just to get some prospective on what you're saying."

Jackie didn't like me using her own words against her. And she didn't like the sarcastic tone in my voice. "Okay, but let's not make this into something bigger than it is. Okay Honey?"

"I guess you'll stay at Stella's for however long it takes for you to clear your head?"

Jackie nodded.

"And you've been at Stella's the last couple of nights, is that right?

She nodded again.

"Tell me, when did Stella move to the Regency Hotel?"

Jackie looked stunned at the question.

"Wasn't it a little crowded with you, Stella, and Tommy in the same room?"

Jackie's mouth dropped open and her eyes bugged out. She looked like a stomped on bullfrog.

"Busted," I said with an evil grin.

She shook her head back and forth muttering, "No...No."

"Oh but yes," I answered. "Now let me tell you how it's going to be. Are you paying attention?"

Jackie finally looked at me. After a few seconds she nodded but didn't say anything.

"It's too late for us. It's all gone," I told her. 

Now she was crying and I guess I should have felt bad. But I didn't. Jackie had put me through hell previously and now she wanted to do it again. So I didn't feel bad about her tears. In fact I had to smile a little.

"My life isn't a game you can play with and then take a break from." 

"Pack your things. You had your chance. You took too long away from 'us' this time. I won't wait for you to 'get some prospective' as you say. I won't wait for you to get done playing with your friend."

I paused for a few seconds. "Oh and by the way, tell Tommy that I'll be coming for him. Not today or even tomorrow but sometime soon."

Jackie looked pale; she looked like she was going to faint. "But John, I..." 

Don't come back, don't say anything more." I looked directly into her eyes. "Jackie, it's too late for us but it's not too late for goodbye.



Too Late for Love



"My god...it's full of stars."

Simon followed Irene's gaze upward to the vast dome of clear sky that hung over their heads, seemingly so close he could reach up and touch it. Then he looked back down at his fiancée and grinned. "I love you when you get geeky," he said.

He knew exactly what she meant, though. The sight was a little more familiar to him than to her, but it always left him just as awestruck as the first time he saw it. This far out from the city, away from the light pollution, you could really see the stars in a way you couldn't at home. Instead of a few faint, twinkling dots, the sky practically teemed with a panoply of gleaming lights. Simon was no astronomer--he could just barely pick out Orion and the Big Dipper--but something like that hit you right down in the gut.

It also reminded you how late it was. "Come on," he said, hefting the cooler out of the trunk. "One more load, and I think we can leave everything else for tomorrow."

Irene grabbed a bag and dashed ahead to get the door for him. "Mmmmm," she purred. "I feel like I'm marrying into royalty. One of the privileged Minnesota aristocracy, those lucky few who have a cabin on 'the lake'. Remind me to thank your uncle yet again for letting us stay here."

"Not a problem," Simon puffed out as he walked the cooler into the cabin. "He...oof...he always says that he doesn't get enough use out of the place." Simon let the cooler fall next to the fridge with a thud. "Whoof! You don't notice just how much two people eat in a week until you have to bring it all up in one load." They didn't technically have to bring all the food along with them; there was a little general store about fifteen miles away. But part of their unspoken agreement was that for the next seven days, they would be leaving the car keys by the door, the cell phones off, and the laptops back in Minneapolis. This was their first real vacation together, and they wanted to make the most of it.

Irene was already unpacking the second cooler, slotting food into the fridge and freezer with an almost military precision. "I'm just glad that your uncle's idea of 'roughing it' doesn't extend to a lack of electricity. Means I'll be able to do some real cooking." Even though they'd eaten on the drive up, Simon's mouth watered a little at the thought; spending a whole week without having to order out because one or both of them was too busy to cook sounded a little like heaven.

It seemed like only a moment before Irene had everything stashed away, but part of that probably came from the fact that Simon kept spacing out. The long drive from the Twin Cities, the excitement and anticipation of the trip, the hot, sticky work of unloading the car...it was all beginning to catch up to him. "Come on," he said to her with a weary smile, "let me show you the bedroom."

Irene smiled flirtatiously at him. "Is that an invitation, Mister Landry?" she asked, brushing her hand along his arm.

Simon chuckled. "It's an invitation to bed, at least," he replied. "It's a little too late for anything else. Like unpacking, that will probably..." He paused to let out a yawn that was only a little bit theatrical. "...have to wait until I've had a good night's sleep." He took Irene's arm and led her into the bedroom. "I should probably have stopped a few more times, but then we'd have gotten in even later. And dealing with traffic on these little two-lane highways always--"

Irene's squeal of delight interrupted him. "Oh my god!" she gasped. "Is this actually our view? I mean, it's not going to go away when we wake up?"

Despite his stiff legs and aching arms, looking at Irene right now made Simon feel better than he had in years. Irene's eyes actually seemed to glow in the moonlight as she took in the calm waters of the lake, perfectly reflecting the starry skies like an endless dome of the heavens all around them. Her face was filled with a serene happiness so profound that he almost didn't want to interrupt it with a kiss.

He kissed her. (It was only 'almost', after all.) "All ours," he said. "Here, let me get the lights so we can see our way to bed."

Irene grabbed his wrist and pulled him close. "Oh, no," she said. "The light is perfect just the way it is. In fact..." She reached around the door frame and switched off the lights in the living room. "There," she said, giving him a kiss of her own. "A beautiful view, a warm bed, and nobody to hear us for miles...and miles...and miles." She punctuated each pause with another kiss. "Do you know what I'm thinking?" she asked.

"I think I do," Simon said with a knowing smile as they headed towards the bed, "but I'm not sure if I can oblige you tonight. The way I'm feeling right now, I think I'm going to fall asleep as soon as I'm horizontal. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is sleeeeepy."

Irene's flirtatious smile turned into a devilish grin. "Oh, I think we both know that's not a problem," she responded, tracing a finger down his chin. "Don't we?"

Simon rolled his eyes. "Oh, no," he said. "Don't you even think about it. We're going to have seven days and seven nights for all the kinky sex you want, love." He sat down on the bed with a thump. "Tonight, we need to rest." He looked at Irene. "Well, I need to rest."

"And you will," Irene said in an innocent voice. She looked upwards at the ceiling as though to insist that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. (Whereas Simon actually knew that her mouth could be quite deliciously warm...but even thinking about that couldn't keep him awake for too much longer.) "You can just relax, honey, and let yourself be as sleepy as you want to be." She smoothed back his hair with a gentle stroking motion.

Simon couldn't help himself; he let out an explosive sigh of exhaustion as he felt Irene's fingers running through his hair. "Oh, this is so unfair," he mumbled, feeling his eyes flutter slightly under Irene's touch. "This is not what I had in mind when I said I wanted to get some sleep."

"Seems like the perfect solution to me," Irene said, looking him straight in the eyes.

That was just about all it took, really. He'd relaxed in trance so many times for her, and he was so used to staring into her eyes and relaxing, and he was very sleepy, and...and he was very sleepy... "This is what I get for dating a hypnotist," he muttered with a tired grin as he sank back onto the pillows.

Irene leaned over him, looking down into his eyes. He felt the weight of her body pressing into his, and it made him feel like he couldn't get up even if he wanted to. He didn't want to, the bed felt too comfortable to imagine moving, but... "This is exactly what you get," she purred out. "You get tired...and your body gets heavy...and you get so very sleepy, don't you, love?"

"Sleepy..." Simon blinked heavily, trying to remember what exactly he was supposed to be fighting here. Irene's words were coaxing him down into a deep, heavy, sleepy trance, just what he wanted and needed when he was so tired from such a long day. He could just relax, and he'd probably be asleep before he knew it.

"Good boy," Irene whispered in his ears. "And you feel so limp...and loose...and lazy...arms and legs like water now, too heavy to move..."

"heavy," Simon sighed out, hearing the soft tones of trance in his voice and remembering, as he always did, that just hearing himself sound like that sent him deeper into hypnosis.

"And you don't need to do anything at all," Irene said. He felt her fingers undoing his buttons, pulling his shirt over his head, running along his bare chest. "It feels so good, and you don't need to do anything but relax...and feel..."

Simon heard the husky tones of arousal in her voice, and he wished he could summon up the energy to respond. He loved her when she was in these moods, when suddenly everything else fell away and the only thing that mattered was satisfying that yearning for each other's sex. But he was so deep already, so sleepy and relaxed and the part of him that could think was receding further and further into the mists of trance with every passing second. He settled for whispering out, "love you," and hoping Irene would understand the rest.

"Love you too, sweetheart," Irene responded. He felt her unzip his pants, and it was only when he felt her nipples brushing against his crotch that Simon realized his eyes had slipped shut somewhere in the past few minutes. When had it happened? He remembered looking into Irene's eyes, he remembered how powerful and magnetic they were, how easily they compelled a deep, sleepy trance... Simon sighed, and let the realization slip away as he fell further into hypnosis.

"Good boy," Irene whispered, and Simon felt his hips buck upwards in dreamy pleasure. Her hands were all over his cock, stroking it to fullness...her hands, and then the soft skin of her tits, whispering like silk against his shaft. "Relax and go deeper for me, love. Deeper and deeper and deeper..." Irene's words dissolved into a moan, and Simon knew he had to be very deeply hypnotized indeed, because every fiber of his being wanted to open his eyes and see the look of lust on Irene's face. But he was so very, very tired...

He didn't have to open his eyes, though. That was what Irene was telling him. That was what was so perfect about the whole thing. He didn't have to move, he didn't have to wake, all he needed to do was just what he was doing now, feeling the pleasure of Irene's touch and letting it build his deep, dreamy arousal. He was so sleepy, but that was just right. That was just perfect.

Simon felt Irene settle onto him, and he let out another sigh of pleasure, but it was drowned out by Irene's moans. She groaned like a starving man at a banquet, grabbing his hands and rocking back and forth on top of him. She was so warm and wet around him, and he knew she needed this so bad; she couldn't wait until tomorrow, she couldn't wait one more second, and he felt like he was sinking into a hot dream of perfect sex with a beautiful woman. He managed to remind himself once that it wasn't a dream; then she clenched around his cock, and he lost the knowledge in a surge of pleasure and never regained it.

It felt so wonderful, Simon knew he'd have to tell Irene about it in the morning. It was so vivid, the way his hips surged upwards in spasms of pleasure, the way her cunt pressed with fiery heat against his crotch as she rode him, the way her uninhibited moans of pleasure sounded like music to his sleepy ears. Even her words, the way she tried to speak, saying "Deeper, deeper, ofuck cumming cumming cumming..." and then dissolved back into more grunts...it was so hot, so sexy that Simon tried to cling to every memory of the dream. He hoped he could do this for real tomorrow, once he wasn't so sleepy. So dreamy. So deep...

"so deep," he heard himself saying, and somehow that was just what he needed. Hearing himself speak in those perfect, vacant tones, imagining himself so deeply hypnotized that he couldn't think at all, just respond...that pushed him over the top so that he felt himself thrust upwards one last time and then cum, his orgasm echoing in his mind with all the more force because there was absolutely nothing to distract him from it. He gasped, moaned, shook, and finally felt himself spurt inside Irene's cunt as she clenched around him again in one last orgasm of her own.

And then Simon felt her cuddle up next to him, and everything after that was lost as he drifted down into sleep again.

THE END



Too Late Joining the Party



This story is about how my wife joining interracial loving and how I engineered the situation to happen... 

*

I have always had a thing for black women, I guess there is no surprise my porn collection leans heavily on it. Through my collection and while internet browsing for interracial porn, I come across a good deal of white women getting fucked by black men. Initially it was of little interest as I was focusing on black women. Gradually I paid it more interest and became more attracted to the contrast of color and of course the obvious size benefits that the women seem to enjoy! I started to imagine what my wife would make of a black man, this thought grew into a desire to make it happen.

My wife is Bi, so I have issue with her being with other people in fact I encourage it. I even hired her an escort for her birthday last year! She has played a number of times in our marriage with girls, but never a man. I wanted this to change and I wanted to see it.

My first attempt was direct, well at least bringing it up in conversation, that if something were ever to happen I would not mind. This fell on deaf ears, she protested that her playing with ladies was somehow different to the thought of her fucking another man. I let it drop, but continued my plotting.

After a while, it became an obsession, such a strong fantasy to imagine her getting fucked senseless by a huge black cock. I knew she would enjoy it as much as me, but just needed to get things to fall in place.

We occasionally watch porn together, naturally our tastes differed, with her wanting the lesbian heavy scenes and me slowly pushing towards my fantasy of interracial. Each time this happened, she would push back on the idea.

I had all but given up, and was having to just satisfy myself by imagining it happening. I had created all kinds of scenarios, I could probably write a book about her getting screwed left and right by any number of black men.

Months went by since me first bring it up, and there was no mention of it. I am sure she knew it was still there, but we had an unspoken agreement. It was off the table and not to be discussed.

The night it finally happened was mostly by accident, I would love to take credit for it but I could not. My part was just planting the seed and sharing my fantasy, fate took care of the rest.

We had been invited to a friend's house for a party; it was not so much a mutual friend, more one from her previous life before we married. I liked them, but was not really tight with them, we had not got the years of history together, so I took my place in the friendship as a welcome outsider.

I had been looking forward to a night out and was really disappointed when a meeting came up at work that I knew would just run on and on. There was no way I would be done in time to get home and then get to the city. I sent my wife a text, to apologize that I was running late. I was genuinely sorry, but text messages don't always come out right! The response was blunt and put me in my place, basically saying that I was deliberately staying at work to avoid hanging with her friends. After a few messages back and forth, it was clear the evening was doomed and I was told to "fuck off and stay at work!" She was going to go to the party without and instructed me to not wait up...

The meeting finished an hour later and I was unsure of what to do. Perhaps she was right and I was sabotaging the night by working or perhaps she had overreacted. Sometimes things should never be done in texts, so I chose to back down and head to the party. Rushing for the train I called her cell several times, no answer! She was either still pissed at me so was ignoring it, or she could not hear it over the noise at the party. Within the hour I was in the city heading for her friends house. By now it was nearly 10pm so I figured the party would still be going and I could join without making a big scene. I also figured my wife would see my arrival as a nice gesture and she would forgive me being late and forget our earlier disagreement.

I got to the party and started looking around for my wife, who was nowhere to be seen. I eventually found the hostess and was greeted in what felt like a really awkward way. I thought little of it, and just figured she was buzzed and I wasn't. I had just about given up searching for my wife, having been in all the party rooms, the garden and the kitchen, I decided to grab a beer and figure out my next move. I did not want to stay at the party alone, so decided to go to take a pee then head back home.

At the top of the stairs I was figuring out which door was the bathroom, I heard a familiar sound. Smiling to myself I thought someone was getting the fucking of their life. At least someone was getting it I thought. 

The door where the noise was coming from was open ajar. I could not resist getting closer for a look. As I got nearer, the sounds of frantic sex got louder and louder. The next thing floored me! I heard two voices; a man and a very familiar voice, it was my wife! She was moaning and clearly building up for a major orgasm. What the fuck? I could not believe it, my mind was racing and I was so angry. How could she do this? She was cheating, this was not her playing with a girl this was a full on fucking. 

I was about to burst in a break things up when I realized my cock was telling me otherwise. I was so conflicted, I had wanted this to happen, but had not expected it tonight, nor had it been sanctioned as an okay event. Throughout my anger, my cock still throbbed and my curiosity got the better of me. I edged forward toward the opening in the door, there was just enough of a gap to see the bed and my wife's naked ass grinding down on the biggest blackest cock I have ever seen. 

She was riding him for all she was worth, I know this as one of her favorite positions and one that guarantees orgasms and normally ends with her squirting. I was rooted to the spot watching her pussy clinging to this monster cock. As she pulled up it looked like she was being pulled inside out. Her thrusts became increasingly frantic and her lover gripped onto her ass, framing the picture beautifully with his large black fingers. I knew it would not be long before he was in for a lovely but warm surprise. 

Suddenly her back arched and she pulled up all the way off his cock, her orgasm was here in full force as was the squirting. When she comes like this it is incredible, it is wave after wave of warm liquid in a pressured release. Her new friend obviously loved it to. I could now see all of his cock; it must have been 11 inches and thick, truly like something out of a porn magazine. Something else that really surprised be, was that he was not wearing a condom! I could not believe she would take him bareback, what about the risks? Once she had finished cuming she continued to fuck him with even more passion. 

After a few more minutes of this my cock was still straining against my jeans but I was glued to the spot. My wife was wild with lust and just intent in the moment. I noticed the guy was now bucking against her and his big black hands gripping her ass tightly. I realized he was going to come inside her, adding insult to injury, not only had he fucked my wife, he was going to pump her full of his cum making her truly his. With a cry like an animal he thrust deeper into her and held her down on his cock. I could see his balls tighten as he deposited his load in her.

They lay still for a few minutes and I figured the show was over. I turned to leave, confused and unsure what to do. I was at the top of the stairs when a sound drew me back to the door. He stood by the bed and she was sucking him back to hardness. I now could see him fully, he was tall and muscular, his head was shaved and he had a perfectly trimmed goatee. He was model good looking and porn star hung. My wife was still facing away from the door on her hands and knees, I could see her cunt still gaping open and leaking cum down her thighs. She gives the most amazing head, so in no time his enormous cock was back ready for action. 

I figured he was going to fuck her again, and to be honest I did not care the damage was done. Her pussy was stretched beyond belief and the deed was already done, so a repeat was no different.

He climbed on the bed behind her and rubbed his cock along her gaping cunt lips, I was waiting for the fucking to start when the next shock happened. He pulled back and held his cock against her asshole. No way would she take that, we had tried anal sex in the past but she had always stopped me because it hurt. I was nowhere near the size of him, so felt sure he was in for rejection. Again, I was wrong, she reached back and pulled her cheeks apart. I saw her bud stretching open, just before his cock came back into view and rested just at her opening. Gradually he pushed further in slowly feeding his monster cock into her nearly virgin ass. She was going wild, clearly hurting but crying for more. After a few steady minutes he had bottomed out, all 11" was buried in her ass and his balls hung against her pussy. She had obviously got used to the size and was frantically rubbing her clit and begging him to fuck her. 

Taking long deliberate strokes he fucked her ass driving her wild, her orgasms seemed to wash into each other and the bed was soaked with a combination of her squirting and his cum. Every time he pulled back she thrust back at him hungrily taking his cock deeper and deeper. 

He picked up the pace and was clearly close to cumming, her ass must have been so tight around his giant cock. He threw his head back and took one final thrust into her holding her hips tightly and forcing her on to every inch of his cock. As he pulled out of her I could see her bud slowly close but leaking cum as he wiped his cock over her cheeks. 

It had to be over now; there was no way she could take any more. I hurried back downstairs and stopped off to get a whisky. My mind was a mess; I was so turned on by what I had seen, yet still really angry.

After a few minutes my wife came in the kitchen and looked shocked to see me. She looked exactly as you would expect, flushed and like she had just had the shit fucked out of her. We kissed and I apologized for ruining her night while she made some lame attempt at explaining where she had been and why she was flushed! She had been helping out on the BBQ! Really? She seemed giddy and obviously well buzzed. Her nervous chatter to cover her guilt was obvious. She turned to me and kissed me deeply, I could taste his cum and did not complain. She told me she wanted to leave and give me my treat. With a wicked look in her eye we made our excuses and left. Looking around the room it was obvious we were the subject of much talk and laughter. Everyone knew what she had been up to.

The drive home together was mostly in silence, occasionally she would spark up conversation about how dull the party was, and how she hardly knew anyone, how she missed me and did not enjoy herself without me. I knew otherwise, but kept silent.

Back at home she made the first move; grabbing my still aching cock through my jeans she led me to the bedroom. After stripping me naked, she removed her own clothes and pushed me on the bed. I was desperate for release; I had been on the verge of coming since I first saw her impaled on that huge black cock. 

"Now for your treat" she chuckled as she positioned herself over my face. She ground down on my tongue urging me to lick deeper. I could feel her orgasm build and her urgency. She moved forward pressing her asshole over my mouth. I could do nothing but continue to lick and drink the cum her black lover had shot up her not more than an hour earlier. As my tongue flicked over her hot swollen ass her orgasm finally hit. Spurts of hot liquid and cum spilled over my face, sending me over the edge. I came without being touched, just with the images of what had happened and the taste of their juices running over my face.

I knew then she was as hooked on black loving as I was and that tonight would not be a one off. 

As we lay together drifting off to sleep, she announced. "You know next week when you are away, I might go to the city to hang out with my friends again!"



Too Late or Not Too Late



She realized she wanted him when it was too late. Maybe he was the one that got away. There was some tension but she could not and should not let it get to her. She treasures these fleeting moments to this day. In reality, he is off limits. Not only is he the best friend, but he is getting married in a few months' time.

He said to her once in the middle of their usual banter, "You're too late. And now look". She was taken aback, but she did not let it show. But there was more than admiration and affection; she couldn't wrap her mind around it before. She was of age, making it a bit normal for her to have these kinds of thoughts about a man.

She has played with herself a few times while imagining doing it with him and being able to relate to naughty stories that are similar to hers. She doesn't know why she's attracted to him; maybe it's because of the looks? That's too general. Or is it because of the brains? That's too boring. Maybe it's his sense of humor. That's too childish. Or maybe it's a blend of everything, with an added dash of maturity that makes it sexy.

There has been a near miss moment. They went out drinking with friends. She wasn't sure if he was as tipsy as her. She just told a guy friend she has a crush on him, not sure if he was able to notice it. They were joking during the ride home. And then he told her he knew who she was crushing on. She had hoped so too. She could feel herself heating up right then and there. There was a small window of chance. But there was too much at stake, too much to lose.

In the end she didn't budge. They parted just with kisses on each other's cheeks.

In a few months' time, he'll be tied up in a commitment. She thought about of sending him off, since he was kidding that she should be there during his stag party; since she was one of the boys. She's read a story like that once, the girl friend organizes something, and then it happened.

So she set off planning the perfect event. She's off gathering the guys in secret, planning naughty and fun details the poor guy would take to his last night as a bachelor. Then it was set. It would be in a hotel room at a town within two hours' drive. There would be drinks, balloons, party poppers, confetti, lingerie, masks, feathers, fishnet stockings, heels, toys, and of course, the guys and the girls.

She was excited.

The guys didn't know that she would be literally in on the surprise. She has her separate plans. She was in charge of gathering the girls and setting up, while the guys are in charge of letting him drink a bit to get him ready for the night.

She then told the girls her plan. She'll put on a sexy teddy, undies, stocking and heels -- the works. She said that she'd wear a mask and that she'll fulfill her dream before the chance gets away forever. They understood completely.

She took a swig of liquid courage a few minutes before the men came. They put out a sign by the door, "WEAR A BLINDFOLD AND ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK."

As they arrived, he was wondering what was in store. The night had a different air then; it seemed hot and heavy with a sweet scent of pleasure. "What's going on man?" His friend laughed and out a blindfold on him.

When they were ready, they rang the doorbell. The door opened but there was no one to usher them in, or was there? Still, they went in, trying to hold on to something to keep their balance. They were surprised to grasp soft globes of flesh by the walls. The girls kept mum and took the guys' hands and let one out of the other to a couch or seat.

Then, music started playing. Food and drink were brought. The girls fed the men, slowly, sweetly, lovingly and seductively. Everyone seemed to be having fun.

She smiled. She proceeded to pamper him as the night wore on. She fed him and both drank. She pulled him close, and whispered to him, "Would you pop, or rather eat my cherry darling?" As she said this, she pulled his hand and puts it between her breasts, so he can get the cherry. 

She let out a soft moan at the simple action. She then took the cherry from his hand and positioned it by her lips and leaned in. They shared the small, red fruit, the action amplifying the taste of the drinks and the desire.

Their lips met and their tongues embraced one another. He huskily whispered, "Take me now."

She led him to a room. They proceeded to kiss, feel each other. He pinned her to the wall and kissed her on the lips, face, ears and neck. His tongue is making her moan. She hugged him for dear life and she got high and wet with the heat.

They made their way to the bed and she started to undress him, giving him soft kisses for every removed piece of clothing. She then reached down below, feeling him, wanting to take him. He took out his long, hard cock and sucked it like a lollipop, a candy which she didn't want to finish just yet.

She went down on him, rhythmically pulling and moving her head up and down on his organ. He was almost delirious with what she was doing. He held on to her head and savored the moment. He controlled himself and motioned her to stand up.

He then kissed her torridly and laid her on the bed, the stain sheets making her ready with the need for him. They kissed her again, while his hands were busy with her body. He reached her breasts, and he removed the teddy's ribbon, giving him slightly free access if not for the bra. She became even wet as his hard cock brushed her thighs and already wet pussy.

He then removed the clasp of her bra; surprising her a bit and making her realize that it's now or never. She braced herself. She wanted him. She ached for him. She wanted to make love to him even for just a night.

He sucked on her nipples, making them point up. He spent time on each while rubbing her flat tummy and travelling to her mound afterwards. He lovingly felt it, happy and flattered that it made her that wet. He felt her little bead, sending her shivers. He played with it, so that she would want her even more. She moaned into his mouth. She released and pulled his head to her, then she licked his ears making him writhe as well.

He then went south and tasted her for the first time. She mentally thanked herself since shaving herself smooth in preparation for this. He was wonderfully surprised by this. She was sweet. He licked her especially on her clit, his two fingers entering her slowly. She moaned and pulled at her breasts. His fingers pulled in and out of her.

They could not take it any longer. He moved on top her as she pulled him at the same time. She then positioned his cock to her entrance, with even the slight brush of its head giving her mini orgasms. He finally went in, and it felt so right neither any of them didn't want to break their union any time soon. He pumped as she grinded herself into him. First slowly, then adding more intensity.

She shouted and moaned throughout. She became even more brazen as he whispered to her midway, "You like that huh?" "Yeah." She whispered to him throatily. They kissed again.

After for almost forever, they felt they were close and came together. They came as they kissed. Spent, they lay beside each other, him removing his blindfold and she removing her mask. He didn't back away when he saw her, he pulled her to his chest, kissed her forehead and said, "Thank you, Darling."



Too Late to Say Goodbye



Hi Folks, thanks to the great Mikothebaby for her editing wizardry. Thanks also to every who commented last week. I have to warn those of you who like the traditional LW storylines. This will be the last of those for a few weeks. Summer is here and the next three or four stories are going to be kind of wild. SS06

* * * * * *

I've spent most of the night tossing and turning but found sleep elusive. The breeze that comes into the open window carries the scent of the lake outside with it. I smell the freshness of the plants and the murky smell of the lake water with its slight touch of fishiness. I breathe deeply as I sit up in bed. Just as my head begins to clear in the pre-dawn darkness of early fall, the phone rings.

I love my iPhone. It's a miracle of techno-wizardry that allows me to access and do things that only ten years ago would have been unheard of. But in this instance, the jarring ring tone that was meant to be heard over the machines in the manufacturing plant I run, coupled with the vibration setting that lets me know I have a call even when I can't hear it, are unsettling.

I press a button that appears only on the screen and the call is connected. The warbling, sobbing voice, a caricature of its normal, rich resonance, strangely doesn't invoke the feelings it usually does but I recognize it instantly.

"Mark, are you there? I don't actually know where you are. But can you come home, so we can talk? Mark, I can't live without you. I want us back where we were. I love you. I always have, I guess it just didn't seem clear until you left and took up with that awful little bitch. I've ended things with Todd. Actually, you ended things with him for me. But I called him. I told him it was over and I never want to see him again. I told him goodbye and I meant that it was permanent." She said all of that in what seemed like one breath. Then she hesitated, waiting for my response. After what seemed like forever, she began talking again

"Mark, God damn it, I won't let you throw away twenty five years together over nothing. I'm serious. I told him goodbye and I meant it." She was more emphatic this time. Her voice carried desperation and just a hint of mania with it.

I finally answered her. The ice in my voice chilled and surprised even me. "You should call him back," I said, icily. "It's too late to say goodbye."

I heard a bunch of sobs and the phone dropped. I was just about to hang it up when I heard her scrambling to pick it back up. She started talking again. This time there was even more desperation in her voice. It sounded as if the phone was taken away from her and I a calmer person speaking.

"Great job, Dad," she said. "You don't know what she's been through lately. She's lost a lot of weight. She has bags under her eyes. She had to be hospitalized for a while, again. Don't you have any kind of feelings? I don't think he's all there mentally anymore. I know this isn't your fault. You gave her a chance, but you have to do something to make this easier on her."

The woman now reading me the riot act over the phone at this ungodly hour of the morning was my daughter. I felt sorry for her being caught in the middle, especially since shed been part of the reason this whole thing had started. But she'd been smarter than her mother and had learned her lesson quickly. As her mother grabbed the phone back and started ranting again about being forgiven I thought about how this had all started.

Just a few weeks ago, I'd thought that I was one of the most blessed people on earth. Not in a religious sense, since I've never been very religious. But I thought that I had everything a man could really ever need. No, I wasn't, and I'm not Bill Gates, but I'm the best Mark Brown that I can ever be.

I run a family owned manufacturing business that my dad started over fifty years ago. Business is and was good enough that I have a more than comfortable living. I've always drawn just enough money to pay my bills and have chosen over the years to re-invest the rest back into the business. I'll take a lump sum payment when I choose to retire whenever that is. It was actually my dad who started that practice. It was a great move because with the business actually owned by the family, not by himself personally, and with him not drawing a specified salary, he was able to give his second wife next to nothing when they divorced.

I actually never thought about it that way. My father was kind of a womanizer even late in his life. I've always been a family man. My wife and daughter are, or were the things I loved most and was the proudest of. Now I guess it's kind of different.

What I had to flaunt has come back to haunt, like a restless wind. And the best of times that were left behind, they come blowing in. All of the good times I had with Lori and Katey keep running through my mind while I examine each memory like an object. I turn them over, looking for lies in crevices and cracks as if I hadn't really lived through them myself.

And my daughter...She was the one who'd actually brought me into the light that destroyed our family, so her wanting to fix things didn't come from any sense of love or family.

I remember how this all started...it was a Friday night. I'd been cutting the grass in our back yard. Normally I did it on Saturday, but the following day I was going to do a car show. Besides my wife and daughter, the thing I loved most was my 2009 Mustang GT. I'd just gotten done washing and waxing the car and had pulled it into the garage to avoid grass and dust hitting it.

Katey, my twenty four year old daughter, had pulled into our driveway and after giving me a cursory hug, had gone into the house in search of her mother. A short time later, they came out of the kitchen and sat down on our deck, animatedly talking about whatever problem Katey had run into now.

Katey had been married for the past couple of years to the nicest guy I could imagine. Eric was everything I wanted in a son. He clearly loved Katey but he was a good guy in other ways too. He'd worked his own way through college. He'd gotten his degree and then settled down with Katey to build a life. He wasn't a drinker or a party boy and he shared the work around the house with her. They had a few of the money issues that most young couples had, but nothing insurmountable.

I watched Lori, my wife and Katey talking out of the corner of my eye as I rode my mower around the big yard. I knew that at this stage of the game, I wasn't necessary. Usually, Katey would come over and tell Lori what she thought she needed and get her mom on her side and then together they'd hit me up for the money to buy whatever it was that Katey had to have that was outside of her budget.

I knew that in the end, I'd probably give it to her. I'd never been able to say no to either one of my girls. But they always needed to have that united front.

I started to feel strange though because this conversation didn't seem to fit the normal pattern. As I drove the mower closer to them, they seemed to be so caught up in whatever they were talking about that they forgot about me. As I got even closer to them, the sound of their voices was so loud that I heard it and my world changed.

"Kathryn, how could you be that God damned stupid?" shrieked Lori. I knew that Katey was in trouble then. Her mother only called her Kathryn when she'd done something really bad.

"Jeezus, Mom, it just happened," whined Katey. "It's not the end of the world. There really wasn't much difference physically but there was just something more exciting about it. It's not like I'm even thinking about leaving Eric, but he can be so boring sometimes."

"He's your husband, Kathryn. You have to think about that. The man loves you. He'd do anything for you. If things are boring between the two of you, it's up to you to say something about it and make them more exciting. I can't believe any daughter of mine could be so stupid," said Lori.

Oh shit, I thought. There's trouble in paradise already. They've only been married for two years.

"Mom, it's not a big deal, I just wanted to do it once more. Just so I could be sure...you know," said Katey. I turned off the mower then because I had the feeling that my little girl had done something that she should have her ass whipped for.

As the sound of the mower died out, both angry women looked at me. "Mark, try to talk some sense into your stupid daughter," hissed Lori. "She went to a party last night while Eric was working late. She got drunk and apparently slept with some guy she met there."

"Shit Mom, tell everyone why don't you," screamed my daughter. "You and Dad are still together..." she said and suddenly I felt as if I'd been kicked in the stomach. My wife's mouth dropped open as she saw my reaction.

"And honestly," continued Katey. "It was just once and I was drunk. I just wanted to try it one more time when I wasn't drunk. It's not like I'm trying to have a long time affair like yours was. And anyway, Daddy forgave you about yours so Eric would probably forgive me too, if he found out. Who knows, this might put some spice back in things." Katey suddenly looked up at her mother who'd turned as white as a sheet.

"Mom, are you okay?" she asked stupidly. "You look like you're having a heart attack or a stroke or something."

She turned to look at me and saw the pain and the anger in my eyes. Lori suddenly stepped towards me and I backed away.

"Mark..." she began. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."

"Just shut the fuck up and stay away from me, Lori," I said.

"What's going on here?" asked Katey. Then she looked at me. She saw the pain and the anger on my face. "Daddy, you didn't know did you. So she lied to me about telling you?"

"Kathryn," I said. "Remember the look on my face. Because it's the exact same one, Eric will have when you tell him about what you've done. And you need to go home and tell him now, because the longer it festers, the worse it will be and the harder it will be for you to get him to trust you again."

"Mark, Honey, we need to talk," said Lori.

"But Daddy, if it's going to hurt him as badly as you've been hurt, I'm not going to tell him," she said.

"Then you're going to lose him for sure, because it's always worse when you hear it from someone else. And I swear to you that if you won't tell him, I will. Shit, maybe I'll call him when I get to wherever I'm going. Maybe the two of us can share a lawyer and get a discount."

"Why does Eric need a lawyer?" asked Katey.

"Maybe he wants a divorce too?" I said.

"Mark, you're upset," said Lori. "I know that and..."

"Bitch, upset doesn't begin to say what I am," I hissed. "For most of my fucking life, I treated you like a God damned queen. Name one thing you've ever wanted since we got together that I didn't give you? Name something that I didn't do for you. And now I find out, from my daughter no less, that I'm married to a whore. And in the same fucked up conversation, I find out that my daughter is following in her footsteps."

"Mark, Honey, I know that I screwed up. And I know how you're feeling right now," said Lori tentatively.

"So you know that I feel like a God damned fool, then, right," I screamed. "For more years than I even want to talk about, I've bragged about my family. I've told people all across the country about my beautiful wife and my daughter. You two were my whole life. You were the reason why I worked so fucking hard and busted my ass."

They both stood there looking shocked at me.

"No more," I said, lowering my voice. Years in business during a shitty economy had trained me to roll with economic tides. I'd become a master of sucking up my losses and moving on. That training proved invaluable then.

"It's good that you know what I'm feeling right now, Lori," I said, "So I don't have to spell it out for you. "Who is he?"

"What difference does that make?" she asked, with tears running down her cheeks.

"Because I want to fucking know?" I said.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm going to bust his fucking ass," I said.

"Mark, he has a wife," she said. "And they're not stable like we are. They have all kinds of problems and it just..."

"So you're saying that we don't have any fucking problems right now?" I screamed. Both women shrank away from my rage. I think they both thought that I might hit Lori and they were closer to the truth than even they suspected.

"I'm going to the Mustang Memories show tomorrow," I said suddenly, getting my composure back.

Lori hesitated then nodded. "I know that Honey," she said. "I'm going with you and maybe during the drive up there we can talk ab..."

"No," I said sharply. "You're not going anywhere with me. I'm not my father. I'm nothing like him..."

"What does your father have to do with us, Honey?" she asked.

"Don't call me Honey or anything other than my name," I hissed. "My father thought of himself as some kind of playboy. He hung out with a lot of women that he'd have been better staying away from. I don't associate with whores, so WE won't be going anywhere together. In fact the next time I see us together, will be in court, and..."

"Mark, what are you talking about?" sobbed Lori. "I already told you, I was sorry. We need to talk about..."

"Saying sorry doesn't mean shit. This isn't the fourth grade, Lori," I hissed. "And what we're doing right now is the only talking I intend to do."

"If we don't talk, we're not going to be able to work this out," she whined. "Mark, I'm..."

"If you say you're sorry again, I'll slap the shit out of you," I said. "We all know you're sorry. I'm sure that by now with all of the yelling we're doing even our neighbors know that you're one sorry bitch and they probably know why."

"Lori, we're not going to work this out. We're done," I said. "After the car show, I'm filing for a divorce. You're not going because by the time I'm back from the show, I want you packed and moved out of my house."

"No!" she screamed loudly. "Mark, I love you. I don't want a divorce."

"And I didn't want to be married to a whore," I said. "But that's what I got. I have to deal with what I got and so do you."

"No, we can work this out if you give me a chance," she started crying.

"Lori, I gave you a chance. When I asked you who it was, you wouldn't tell me. That means that protecting that asshole was more to you than our marriage so..."

"But you..." she interrupted.

"But it doesn't matter," I said. "You were so worried about his fucking marriage when you should have been worried about yourself and yours. You were a stupid bitch about this like everything else. I'm going to sue him for fucking up our marriage, so I'll find out who he was anyway. And in the suit for that, I'll have them call his wife to the stand just so they can ask her how she felt when she found out. If they don't have any money, I'll pay for her divorce just to fuck his life up even more."

She looked at me again as if she didn't know me. And truthfully she didn't, in the span of a few moments I'd changed.

"Now, as I said, I'm going to finish cutting my God damned grass, and then, I'm going to a hotel for the evening. I'll be back after my car show tomorrow and I want your ass out of my house."

"Mark, please," she whined as I started the lawn mower again. As soon as the motor started purring, I stopped it.

"Kathryn, remember what I said," I told her. "You'd better say something to Eric, because if you don't, I will."

Then I started the mower and drove off to finish cutting my yard. As I cut the grass, I realized that it didn't make any fucking sense. It seemed like the actions of a lunatic. But in those early hours after the discovery of Lori's cheating, I was going crazy. My mind was spinning at the speed of light. My entire life had been proven false. Nothing that I'd counted on or worked for over the past twenty five years mattered because none of it was real. Cutting the grass and going to a car show, may have seemed like I'd lost touch with sanity, but it was just the opposite.

My mind was scrambling to find a bit of normalcy to hang onto. I needed a big assed chunk of routine to bring some kind of order to my life.

Lori and Katey screamed at each other for a few moments as I made slow circles around the yard on the mower. Katey finally gave up screaming at her mother and left. Then Lori sat there watching me for the longest time. Every time my circuit took me close to the deck, she looked as if she wanted to say something to me, but I never slowed down or even acknowledged her presence.

When I was done, I put the mower in the garage and went upstairs to pack for the night and the next day.

"Mark, can we please talk about this?" she asked to deaf ears. As I turned to walk out of the room, I stopped and looked around hesitating as I looked at her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Taking my last look at my home with you as a part of it and with you as a part of my life," I said slowly.

"We can fix this," she said crying. "I know we can fix it if we try."

"Not when only one of us wants to try," I said.

My home in rural Ohio was only thirty minutes away from the border with Michigan and only about ninety minutes away from the Detroit Area. The car show I was doing was held at the Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. It was a great event. It showcased not only Mustangs but everything Ford had to offer across the board. Showing off my Mustang and checking out both Ford performance and after market performance parts for Fords would take my mind off of my situation and allow me to calm down and think rationally about the whole thing.

Who knows I might even stay over and catch the NASCAR race at MIS on Sunday. As I thought about it, I realized that I'd be able to do a lot more with my time all of a sudden. All of those sacrifices that I'd made for years to keep my family happy hadn't amounted to shit anyway.

As I drove I again melted into my memories. I thought about the early days in college when I'd first met Lori. I'd taken one look across a crowded party and fell for her inky black hair and bright blue eyes. Like most of the people at our small mid-western college, she wasn't from the area. For most of the night she'd been holding onto the arm of a big guy who seemed to barely be paying attention to her.

Then I noticed that he disappeared, leaving her alone. I neither knew, nor cared whether they'd been in any kind of relationship. The first thing I thought of was that I had my shot and I didn't intend to blow it.

I grabbed two beers and stealthily made my way across the room until I was standing right beside her. She looked up as I handed her one and then shook her head.

"I don't drink," she said.

"That's a good thing," I gushed.

"Why?" she asked. "Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water around here. Everyone else is already half drunk."

"It's a good thing because I don't drink either, but I'll probably need both of these," I said. She looked at me as if I'd said something crazy and her smile lit up the room. Her sadness became curiosity.

"If you don't drink, why do you need two beers?" she asked. "That's kind of a lot to drink in a short period of time."

"I'll need at least that many to calm my nerves," I said.

"What has you that nervous?" she asked.

"Standing next to the most beautiful woman on the planet has that effect on me," I said. Her smile went even brighter. I could barely stand to look at her it was so bright.

"Well, that was good to hear," she said. "I wish everyone felt that way. Unfortunately, you're not going to be here for a very long time."

"I'd stay here for as long as you let me," I gushed.

"I wouldn't mind having you around for a while," she smiled. "But I'm not the one you have to worry about. I was thinking about the guy I laughingly call my boyfriend."




Too Late to Say Goodbye



"Well, if you're laughing while you call him your boyfriend, maybe you need someone who'd be more serious about you," I said. She started to smile but the smile quickly faded and her eyes closed and she pursed her mouth.

"He's kind of twice your size," she said.

"So what," I said.

"And he's kind of standing right behind you," she continued. I turned around and looked up at him.

He was pissed. I smiled and handed him a beer. He glared at me and then popped the top off of it by wedging the edge of the cap against a table top and then pounding it with a ham-like hand. He swigged the beer and then burped loudly. He drained the entire beer in two gulps, each with a resounding burp that obviously impressed his friends.

"Why're yuh hanging around my girl?" he asked angrily. "I should..."

"You do know that's rude don't you?" I asked, interrupting him. "Don't you have any manners? This is a party after all."

"Whuh?" he asked.

"I got you a beer," I said. "It's only polite for you to get me one."

"Sorry," he said sullenly, then moved off to get me a beer.

I shook my head as the he wandered off to get me a beer. "I'll be seeing you around," I told her. She smiled at me again. "If he can't find a beer for me, give him this one." I handed her the second bottle and left the party.

In the coming months, I spent a lot of time with her. Lori was sweet, soft spoken, loyal, beautiful, and an all-around nice girl. Why she stayed with Todd was a mystery to me. He didn't appreciate her and he also cheated on her and often. Todd was as big as house and moved about as quickly. He was a lineman on our football team. Like a lot of the athletes in college, he had dreams of making it to the pros.

Women were all over him on the off chance that he did make it. Todd, for some reason simply couldn't say no to pussy. He also had a weakness for blonds. So here he was, in a relationship with one of the most beautiful women on campus, but he'd risk chucking it all for any chick with straw colored hair that happened to stroll by. I once saw him stand Lori up so he could sneak behind a building with a woman that had to weigh about two hundred pounds.

The odd thing about it was that Lori had the weirdest outlook on life that I'd ever seen. She was smart. She was witty. But she was taking the easiest most moronic classes the school offered. She didn't even have a major. One evening, when she'd called me to keep her company while Todd was off cheating on her, we talked.

"I guess you think I'm stupid or something," she said. "I sit here talking to you night after night and you're too polite to say anything about it, but we both know that he's out there cheating on me. I guess I come off like some tragically stupid woman for waiting for him."

"I don't think you're stupid at all," I said. "I do wonder about some of the things you do, but I've never thought you were stupid. And I really don't mind him cheating on you." She looked at me strangely.

"Why not?" she asked. "I thought that we were friends."

"That's the problem," I said. "I want us to be more than friends. And I don't mind him cheating on you because it gives me more time to spend with you and I hope that the more time you and I spend together it will start to become obvious that I'm better for you."

"What things beside me waiting for Todd mystify you?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Well the classes you take," I said. "You're pretty smart, but you're taking mostly remedial classes with no actual direction or degree program targeted." She smiled.

"I'm not a career woman," she said. "I know it's not the nineteenth century but I just want to be the best housewife I can be." I looked at her strangely.

"You think there's something wrong with being a good wife and mother?" she asked.

"No, but I have two questions for you. If all you want to be is a housewife...why are you here at all? And the second is, if you want to be a housewife, why aren't you taking home economics or child rearing classes?"

"Well, we've had a plan ever since we got together," she said. "Todd is going to be a professional football player. They make millions of dollars. The problem is that to do that he has to do well in college football. And to do well in college football he has to be in college. So from the start, I've taken the exact same classes that Todd takes so I can help him with the work. It works the same way it did in high school. He gets great grades on his assignments, but he flunks most of the tests. The professors figure that he simply doesn't test well or has some sort of testing anxiety. They give him extra credit assignments and he squeaks through with a C minus which keeps him on the team. Then he goes to the pros, we buy or build our beautiful mansion and live happily ever after."

"Yeah, with him screwing the maids, the neighbors, your kid's teachers and any other female he sees who has blond hair," I said.

"No," she said. "He's just sowing his wild oats now. Once we get married, he'll stop." Even as she said it, we both knew that she didn't fully believe it. It was just something she was hoping would happen. Maybe it was what he'd told her would happen.

"You deserve so much better," I said. Something passed between us then as we looked into each other's eyes and the next thing I knew, we were kissing. It was the hottest most passionate kiss I'd ever had. And just as I started to really get into it, she pushed me away.

"No!" she said.

"Lori, you need to start trying to find someone who loves you for you. You deserve someone who won't put you second to screw some whale because she has yellow hair and tits that could fill a bucket," I said. "And you don't even have to look very far to find him. He's right here, standing in front of you."

"So you'd rather just screw dark haired women huh?" she asked. There was a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

"Lori, this isn't about sex," I said. "I've never made a single move on you."

"Then what the fuck is it about?" she snapped. "Why is it that I've told you that I have a boyfriend, but every time I turn around, you're there beside me? What is it about?"

"If you don't want me there, all you have to do is say so," I said. "Just say the word and I'll be gone. I'm there because...Lori, I love you. I have from the first second I saw you at that party. I know my situation is as hopeless as yours with Todd, but that's what love does to a person. It makes you hope...for just a chance. Even when the person you love is wrapped up in a person that's all wrong for her and doesn't deserve her. You just go on hoping that..."

"That what?" she asked.

"Forget it," I said. "I've had enough humiliation for one night."

As I left, she called me back. "Mark...I'll see you tomorrow, won't I?" she asked.

"That's the problem with love," I said. "Somehow it just seems to make getting your teeth kicked in feel good. See you tomorrow."

And that was the way my college career went, or at least the last two years of it. I spent the whole time mooning and moping and hoping, over a woman who intended to marry another guy. Along the way, I passed up several sure things. I'm not a troll. Over those two years I had lots of opportunities to hook up or even have relationships with other women. But most of those women suffered from the same deficiency. They just weren't Lori Pitowski.

Strangely enough though, things worked out in my favor. At Christmas time of that year, before Lori went home, she gave me a Christmas present. It was only a bottle of cologne, but she told me to wear it for her. If it had smelled like skunk shit, I'd have worn it proudly. Even stranger was the end of the school year that year. When we met for the last time before going home, I hadn't really considered things. I was excited about all of the things I'd do during the summer. I had already decided to work at my family's manufacturing plant so I could put the things I'd learned so far into practice. But I was going to go camping and do a lot of other things that I liked doing as well. I was just ready for a break.

Lori didn't seem to be as excited about going home for the summer. But the last time I saw her, shocked me. We were only going to be apart for three months, but she didn't want to let go of my hand.

"Don't wear my cologne for any other women over the summer," she told me.

"I won't ," I promised her with my heart bursting.

"I'm going to miss you so much," she said. I thought I saw tears in the corners of her eyes.

"It's only going to be three months," I said. "I want to see what kind of engineer I'm going to be. So I'm going to work hard and bring a lot of money back, so we'll be able to do even more fun things while you wait for Todd in the fall."

"That's just too long," she said.

"It'll go by before you know it," I said.

"Dammit, Mark," she said. "I think I love you too. Why the hell does life have to be so hard?" She started crying and slipped something in my hand and then ran away. I was so floored by her telling me that she loved me too, that my brain had simply stopped working. After she left, when I looked down at my hand I noticed that she'd given me a slip of paper with her phone number on it. "Call me," it read.

And I did. Back in those days, state to state calls were expensive. I think that I spent about a quarter of the money I made that summer on long distance calls to Missouri. I later found out that I spent more time talking to her that summer than Todd did and he lived right down the street from her.

When we returned to school in the fall, I got the biggest surprise of my life. I'd just settled into my dorm when there was a heavy knock on my door. I opened it and found Todd standing there. I don't think he tried to block out the sun but he did anyway. Having Todd trying to fit into my doorway was like standing in front of an eclipse.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked.

"Todd, whatever you think I've done, I didn't do," I said. "I just got to the campus today."

"That's what I'm talking about," he said. "I haven't been able to do shit since we got here three days ago. I need you to do what you did last year," he said.

"What did I do last year?" I asked.

"You know, hang out with Lori to cover for me," he said. "That way I can go out and do what I do and not have to worry about some guy hitting on her. I need to have all of the fun I can right now, because once we settle down and get hitched, my only glory will be on the field. I owe ya one buddy. Once I sign my multimillion dollar contract in the NBA, I'll break you off a chunk of change, okay?"

"Sure Todd," I smiled. "I've got your back." He turned to leave. "Uhm Todd," I called. He smiled and turned towards me. "The NBA is basketball. Football is the NFL."

"Oh!" he said. "Which one is the cars...the NHL right?"

"Nope," I said.

"My fucking brother!" he yelled suddenly. "That asshole owes me money he told me it was the NHL and it stood for "Nothing but Hard Lefts."

"That's NASCAR," I said. Todd wandered off grumbling about breaking his brother's ass.

Less than twenty minutes later, Lori arrived. A lot of things changed that last year. Lori and I spent almost every second together that we weren't in class. We spent a lot of that time making out too. Towards the end, things were definitely moving towards sex. Lori felt a lot of guilt about it so I didn't push her. But every time we parted, I had to peel her off of me. "I want you so badly," she told me. "Kissing you is better than the time I had sex with Todd. I think if we had sex it would be really great."

"You've only had sex once?" I asked. And she nodded. I shook my head.

"I keep hoping that summer never gets here," she said. "But it's going to happen. In the next few weeks they'll ramp up and have the NFL draft. Todd will get selected and then he and I will move away and I'll never see you again. I love you so much Mark." My heart is going to break. I felt the same way but in a way I thought there was a bright side. I could find my own woman and get over the nearly terminal case of blue balls she'd given me.

But things have a way of not working out, or of working out for the better.

Todd didn't get taken in the NFL draft at all. He didn't go in the first round, or the second or the third. He didn't get drafted period. His agent started calling teams and no one was interested. No one was interested enough to even fly him out for an interview. He soon lost his agent and started calling on teams himself.

He showed up at the headquarters for some of the worst teams in the NFL and was turned away. He got me to make one call for him. He had me call a team from the CFL. I finally got the president of football operations for the team from Ottawa on line.

"Hi, I'm calling for Todd Williams," I said.

"Who?" asked the guy. He hung up before I could tell him.

I got a copy of Todd's scouting report. Reading it to him was painful. Apparently Todd was big enough for the NFL, but most teams thought he was too slow and too stupid for the fast paced game. He was a college lineman who didn't have the smarts, the speed or the skill for the big league. The packet included a video that showed that for the last three years that he played, the teams that they went up against had already adjusted to Todd. He was big as a house as I've already mentioned, but he was also as slow as a house. They no longer tried to double team him. The opposing players just went around Todd. It was embarrassing. Game after game, the video just showed guys lining up with Todd and quickly running around him and through the line before he could react.

After four years in college, Todd was nowhere near any type of degree. And with his eligibility as a player all used up, he was off of the team. Todd had planned his entire life around one thing and when that one thing failed to materialize his whole life was up in the air.

Todd sank into a depression. The last two weeks of school he didn't even bother going to class. He drank himself into oblivion and did all kinds of stupid things. Lori didn't seem to be fazed by any of it.

"In a way it's a good thing," she told me. I was confused as hell.

"Todd will figure out what our next step is," she said confidently. "But in the meantime, it means I don't have to leave you. If Todd had gotten drafted, we'd already be gone and I'd be missing you badly already. So this just gives me more time with you." I looked at her strangely. From the moment we met, I guess I'd come to see her as some kind of unreachable fantasy. When she told me she loved me, I liked hearing it, but I'd never had any illusions where her heart was.

"Don't look at me like that, Dummy," she said. "I've been telling you for the longest that I love you too. I don't understand it myself. I always believed that in order for love to be true, you can only really love one person, but I swear I love the two of you equally." I was floored.

"I know," she said. "It's confusing as hell. And I'm going to marry Todd. But only because it's the way my life was always supposed to be. My family and everyone I know, expects me to marry Todd. Sometimes it feels like if I don't marry him the world will end." Everything she said was leading me to believe that she really wasn't sure of which one of us she wanted to be with. Over the past two years, she had spent far more time with me. Todd was always running around with his buddies or out screwing some other woman. She'd really expected him to give all of that up and he hadn't. I really believed that if I started to push her, I could have convinced her that I was the better choice for her.

The problem was that as much as I'd told everyone, including myself, that I was ready to lose her when the school year ended, I was lying. I loved her so much it just didn't seem possible. And when you love someone that much, you don't try to force them into doing anything. You don't even try to force them to be with you. You just want the best for them and whatever makes them happy. So I just listened to her but I didn't try to push her either way.

I guess in my mind, I considered myself to be noble. I was, after all, hoping with every fiber of my being that she would pick me. I saw us settling down into the perfect life; with me doing everything I could to make her the happiest woman on earth. But I wasn't going to beg her or try to pressure her in any way.

I left it all up to the fates. I rolled the dice with my life and I got lucky. My number fell. And it didn't happen all at once. It was a couple of steps and bumps. The first came when she and Todd decided that instead of moving back to Missouri in what Todd considered shame, they'd stay in Illinois and he'd get a job. The problem was that Todd couldn't really do anything except play football. And it turned out he wasn't really very good at that. They got a small apartment and Todd went through a series of jobs that he failed miserably at. Todd was also still depressed and kept using what little money they were able to put aside to travel to visit NFL teams, then CFL teams and then finally the Arena Football League.

He didn't get a bite anywhere. And while he was still eating the way he had in college, he didn't have the structured workouts to keep him fit. So over the course of 8 months Todd started to look like the Stay Puff marshmallow man.

The one good thing about them staying in Illinois was that it enabled me to see Lori whenever I wanted. She never told me about their problems but she told me she loved me every day. The first time I realized that they had problems was when she told me that she'd had to take a job waitressing and that it was much harder work then she'd ever expected. She told me that they needed her income though, or they wouldn't make the rent.

The next thing I knew, I had to leave work to go and pick up a hysterical Lori. She'd called me and told me to come and get her. I'd never seen their apartment, but it was only about an hour's drive from my job.

My career was funny. It's always kind of odd working for a small family business. The way I looked at it, I wanted to know what I was worth. So right out of college, I'd taken a job with another company. Everyone in my family was immediately pissed at me. It had been assumed that I would leave college and take over the family business. I was, after all, the only one of three boys who'd actually gone into manufacturing. My oldest brother, Jeff, was a teacher. He'd gone into education because of the three of us, he was the only one who was old enough to remember our mother and the awful arguments our parents had. Michael and I had pretty much been raised by my dad's second wife, who also ended up leaving him. She visited us a lot but didn't speak to Dad unless she absolutely couldn't avoid it.

Michael had become a writer because he didn't want to do manufacturing either. Both of my brothers received a small yearly stipend from the company which pumped up their net income to the point where they didn't need anything. With my dad's health failing, my brothers had expected me to leave college and basically take over the company. I'd worked there every summer and knew all there was to know about the business. Neither of my brothers gave a half a damn about the company. They just wanted their stipend checks to continue. So when I went to work for a different company, everyone's balls were in an uproar.

Finally, it was my dad who came to see me. "What the fuck are you doing?" he asked me.

"What do you mean Dad?" I asked him.

"Look at yourself," he said. "You're one of fifteen or twenty lower level production managers here. No one even knows what you can do. Every decision you make has to be approved by three or four guys who never even see the floor."

"What's your point?" I asked.




Too Late to Say Goodbye



"Why serve in Heaven, when you can rule in Hell?" he asked. "You have your own company that you could be running right now. You would run the company. Hell, you would own the company. I know we don't get along but according to my doctors, I'll be dead in a year. I'll leave everything to you. Your hoidy-toidy brothers don't care what happens as long as they get their fucking allowance. Neither of them has so much as set foot in the place in over ten years. It's all yours Mark."

He lasted far longer than the doctors ever thought. He lasted for three years. He was actually around to see the birth of his granddaughter. I learned a lot from my dad in those three years. I learned that the company had lost a lot of money only once in its entire history. And that was due to my dad having to pay my step mom a lump sum payment for their divorce. After that, my dad never trusted anyone again. That was the reason that the company was part of a family trust. It meant that it couldn't be considered community property for any of us so in the event of a divorce, neither my wife when I got one, or either of my brother's wives, could get so much as a nickel from the company.

He also taught me the value of creative accounting. On the books, my dad made two hundred dollars a week. If you look at dollars and cents, my dad lived a lifestyle more consistent with someone who made over a hundred thousand dollars a year. There were several discretionary accounts in the company budget that he could draw on for anything including mortgage payments or anything he wanted to buy. But after that one divorce he'd gone through, he was never going to give a woman a quarter if he could avoid it. So even if his next wife got half of his income, she'd only get a hundred dollars a week. I later learned the value of that.

But that day, when I pulled up in front of Lori's apartment building, I was shocked. I couldn't believe that she lived in a place that run-down. I'd been running our company for about three months then. I'd only made two large purchases. One was my house. The other was my car. I'd bought the first of a series of Mustangs back then. I was afraid to park my car in front of her building and leave it.

Luckily, I didn't have to. Lori was sitting outside on a bench beside the door to the building, crying her eyes out when I pulled up. She had one small suitcase and she left it beside the bench while she ran over to me crying.

Todd was still in their apartment. He stuck his head out the window and yelled down to me. "You can keep her this time. She's fucking useless any way. Ever since we met, she's done nothing but sit on her ass waiting for me to make it big so she could sponge off of me. Who needs a woman who's only there when she needs you? Fuck her." Then he laughed. "That is if you can fuck her. I've been with her since she was nineteen and we've only had sex two or three times." Then he closed the window and until recently, I have never seen him again since then.

On the drive to my office, I listened to Lori's horror story. She had been working every available shift she could. She'd just come off of two double shifts in a row. Of the previous twenty four hours, she'd worked sixteen of them. She had come into their apartment to find Todd screwing a fat blond woman with no front teeth. During the confrontation, Todd had told her that she was stupid for expecting him to change overnight. He was still doing the same things he'd done in college. He didn't think he had to stop until they got married which was still a few months away.

He was convinced that he'd done nothing wrong and in fact, had saved them money by doing it in their apartment instead of wasting the money on a motel room that they couldn't afford. While all of that was going on, his toothless blond had pulled a robe around herself and was reading one of Lori's bridal magazines. Lori got realty upset when she noticed that it was her own robe. That was when she'd thrown a few things into a suitcase and called me.

I had to go back to work, so I bought us lunch which we ate in my office. I asked Lori what she wanted to do. I told her that I'd be there with her to do anything she needed. She still didn't want to go back to Missouri even though I offered to pay for a flight for her.

She decided that she just wanted to stay away from Todd for a week or so and then she was going to give him an ultimatum. He either cleaned up his act or they were history. History had never been one of my best subjects in school, but I was looking forward to it then.

We ate our lunch in my office and I gave Lori my credit card and my secretary and sent them to the mall to buy her whatever she needed. I moved her into my guest room and she never left. It was as if we'd never been apart. Somehow, she just never got around to going back to Todd. A few weeks later, I introduced her to my brothers and my step mom at a family gathering.

My step mom told me I shouldn't let Lori get away. "She's the one you should marry," she said.

"Mom, " I said, thinking about Todd. "Lori is..."

"Just waiting for you to ask me," she said, shocking the shit out of me. But I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I dropped down on one knee.

"Lori, I don't have a ring yet, but if you say yes, we'll go first thing in the morning and pick out any ring you want. Will you..."

"Yes!" she screamed before I could even finish. Things moved at a pace that was entirely too rapid after that. My step mom and Lori, with help from my brother's wives, started planning the wedding. The next day she called and explained things to her mother. Her mom and dad flew out the next weekend to meet me and find out why their chosen son wasn't marrying Lori.

Her dad went to talk to Todd and when he came back, took me aside and gave me his blessing. No further words were ever spoken about Todd, but I gather he'd done something to really piss Lori's dad off.

For the next twenty something odd years, I'd really thought that I'd succeeded in my pledge to make Lori the happiest woman on earth. But apparently I hadn't.

The drive to Michigan was far shorter than I'd thought. I guess my Mustang ate up the miles as I thought about my life. I did glance at my digital speedometer a couple of times and have to pull back on the speed.

I found a motel close to Dearborn and settled in for a few hours of sleep before I went to the car show.

I'd set my alarm for 8 a.m. and when I heard the ringing coming from my phone I thought it was time for me to wake up. It wasn't. It was only seven and the ringing was my phone.

"Hello," I said, hoarsely. The lack of sleep and the abundance of pain and shock made my voice sound far wearier than I felt.

"I guess you sound like I feel," she said. "Have you calmed down enough that we can talk?"

"Lori, I don't want to talk to you," I said. "For more than twenty five years, I've given you everything I could. There hasn't ever been anything you asked for that I've said no to. I loved you so much, I just wanted us to have a perfect life and..."

"And we have," she said, "And Mark, it's been longer than that. We've been married for twenty-five years, but when you think about it we were together for another two years before that. So if you love me so much why can't we continue to have our perfect life? And Honey, it has been a perfect life. I'm the happiest, luckiest woman on earth, just like you promised. So why can't you just forgive me this once and get back to that."

"Because it was all a fucking lie," I spat. "I heard you and Katey talking yesterday. Whoever you were fucking, it wasn't just some one-time thing. It wasn't idle curiosity or a drunken indiscretion. This was a long time, ongoing, preplanned affair. That means there was some degree of emotional involvement going on, so although I loved you as much as I've always told you, you didn't feel the same way about me. I'm sure to you this all sounds like I'm jealous or whining, but it's hard having your teeth kicked in by the one person you loved and trusted above everyone else."

"But it isn't..." she began.

"But it is," I snapped. "The best thing for you to do Lori, is to do what I told you. Just pack your stuff and get out of my house. Be gone by the time I get home tomorrow. From there we can do all of our talking through the lawyers."

"Mark, what the hell are you talking about?" she snapped. "We've been together for almost thirty years. This isn't worth getting a divorce over. I'll stop and we'll work our way through this. It'll take time. But things will go back to normal."

"That was the stupidest thing you could have said," I told her.

"What?" she asked.

"When you said, "I'll stop," it let me know that this shit is still going on now," I said angrily. "Lori, don't stop. He can have you. Just get the fuck out of my life. In two years I'll be fifty. I don't have any time to waste on lying, cheating whores. I need to find someone to spend the rest of my life with." Before she could say anything else, I hung up the phone.

Since I was up, going back to sleep wasn't an option. I was also angrier than I'd been before she called. When the phone rang again, I was smart enough to look at the screen before I answered it. I let it go to voice mail and then went into the phone's setting and blocked Lori's phone.

I got to the show relatively early. There were already a bunch of cars there and I once I pulled into my assigned spot I started doing the pre-show rituals that everyone else did. I pulled out tire cleaner and tire gel as well as a quick detailer spray and started to wipe down and polish every inch of my car's shiny black and chrome exterior.

After I was done, I walked through the exhibition area and took pictures of a lot of the cars I liked. I smiled at a lot of people but avoided them. Normally, Lori and I would have long conversations with people about our cars and what we were going to do to them. Lori would also talk to some of the wives about girl things. This time I avoided actual conversations because I just wasn't into it.

I did run into a few people that I knew or had met in previous years at that same show. Things were going great until someone asked me where my wife was. I just smiled and said "at home," without elaborating or telling them why.

It was really hard to be polite with casual acquaintances when I was running around with a Lori size hole in my heart. I spent the entire time that I was there walking around and looking at things I might want to do to modify my car. I tried to avoid talking to people as much as I could.

In my mind, I kept thinking that as long as I didn't talk to anyone they'd never know how big a fool I was. I had dinner in my motel room alone and decided to spend another night there. Normally, Lori and I would have driven home immediately after the show. But this time I was in no hurry to get home.

I left early the next morning. I took my time and pulled into my driveway around mid afternoon. To my surprise, Lori's car was still there. My son's car was there as well. There was also a rental car. I thought I understood what was going on. I figured that Lori had assumed that I wanted to keep her Cadillac so she'd rented a car. I figured that my son in law was there because he wanted to talk about my daughter's cheating.

From the second I stepped inside the house I realized that I was wrong. Not only was Katey there with Eric, but Lori's parents, who were in their late seventies were there as well. Everyone she could think of was there to prop Lori up.

She was sitting on the sofa with Katey on one side of her and her mother on the other. It seemed as though they were trying to calm her down. "It's going to be okay, Lori," he mother was saying as I walked in.

She looked towards me even before I shut the door.

"Why are you still here?" I asked. Everyone looked around as if they were shocked by the lack of warmth in my tone.

"Look," I said. "You can keep your car. Unlike you I keep my word. So when I gave you the car, it became yours. I'll keep up the payments, but you're going to need to get your own insurance."

"Mark," said my father. "We all need to sit down and work this out. The two of you are too happy to split up over a misunderstanding. Ever since I met you, you've been the perfect son in law and a very reasonable man. Over the years, I've always been so glad that she married you instead of that God damned football playing loser she..."

"Dad, I wish right now that she had actually married Todd," I said. "That way I'd have found someone else to spend my life with and I wouldn't be going through this."

"Come on Mark," he smiled. "Every married couple goes through problems. Lori's mom and I almost split up several times over stupid things. There was one time that I went to Vegas and lost my whole pay check and we almost lost the house. Your problem is nothing compared to that."

"So you're telling me that Lori having an affair that has apparently lasted for years is nothing?" I said.

"What?" he asked. "I thought that..."

"Yep," I said. "Your daughter, the one that I've loved and supported for the past twenty five years or so has been having sex with another guy for a long time. I found out yesterday, when she was counseling Katey about how stupid it was for her to do it." Katey's face went white as a sheet.

"Katey, he's lying isn't he?" asked Eric. Katey looked away.

My mother and father were both speechless. Lori started crying even louder. It seemed as if she hadn't told her parents. Eric and Katey were loudly arguing. I went upstairs to put my things away.

Lori came up the stairs then. "Are you happy now?" she asked. "You've told my parents your warped view of what's going on. So now my own parents think I'm a whore, too. And you've also ruined your own daughter's marriage as well."

"Look," I said. "The only view I could give your parents is the one I have. You refused to give me any other information on your affair. Not that I want any. I just want you out of my life. And as far as Katey is concerned, I told her that if she didn't tell Eric, I would. I guess she thought I was joking, because it sure looked to me like she hadn't told him."

I walked back down the stairs and out of the house. I calmly opened the garage and pulled my cart of car wash supplies out. I started getting ready to wash my car.

"Son, are you sure this is the time to wash your car?" asked my father.

"No matter what else happens, I'm going to work tomorrow," I said. "I have road dust and dirt all over my car. It's too nice a car to leave it dirty."

"But you have to work things out with Lori," he said.

"Nope, things are worked out," I said. "We're done!"

"Just like that?" he asked.

"Just like that," I said. "I tried talking to her. I asked her who the guy was and she wouldn't even tell me that. It seems like protecting him is more important than protecting what I thought was a good marriage. Besides that you have to look at it from my standpoint. Lori was my dream woman. I really thought that I'd hit the jackpot with her. I put everything I had into our marriage only to discover that she's apparently been cheating on me for a long assed time. This wasn't a one-time thing. And when she called me yesterday, I found out that apparently she hasn't stopped. There's nothing here to save. Take her with you when you leave. I'm done wasting my time on her."

"Look, Mark, I'm a lawyer," he said. "I'm really pissed at Lori too. But I do know one thing. I know that my daughter loves you very much. There has to be some way that we can work this out. I've advised her not to leave until she's ordered to by the court. For over twenty years this has been her home. I know you owned it before the two of you got together so the courts will probably let you keep it, but until she's ordered to by the courts, it's not in her best interest to leave. There's also the fact that if the two of you are here together it give you a better chance to work things out."

"I'm also going to try to block the divorce. I'm going to ask the court for counseling. They'll order you to appear in the counseling sessions so that will force the two of you to talk and to work things out."

"There's no way they can make me accept a woman who cheated on me," I said.

"No but she's already agreed to stop, so maybe we can begin trying to work this out," he said.

"Give it your best shot," I said. Then I turned on the hose and started washing my car. Eric left in a huff a few moments after that. Katey came out of the house with tears in her eyes and stood glaring at me.

"How could you?" she asked. I didn't answer, I just continued washing my car. Then I waxed it and cleaned the tires and polished my chrome rims. It seemed like everyone was there in the driveway watching me wash my car.

Then I went back inside the house and packed another suitcase. Lori came over to me. "I'm not leaving," she said. "My dad told me that a good lawyer would advise me to stay in the house. So you're stuck with me, unless you're going to try to physically throw me out. When can we talk?"

"We can't," I said. "And I'm not stupid enough to get physical with you. I'll let the courts remove you from my house. But until then, I'm living somewhere else."

"But, Honey you can't do that," she cried. "We have to fix this."

"It can't be fixed," I said.

"You mean you don't want to fix it," she retorted.

"I'm also not the one who fucked up," I said. "This will eventually all come out. I'll have my lawyer contact your dad as soon as I get one. It will probably be tomorrow. I'll have him call your dad."

"I don't want a..." she began.

"We've been through that," I said.

I actually wasn't nearly as cold or as calm as I seemed. I was really a ball of conflicting emotions and pain. I just didn't want to let any of them know exactly how badly she'd hurt me.

As I drove away from the house, fate intervened. I got a phone call that made me reconsider some of my choices. The call was from a neighbor. He didn't live in the same neighborhood as my home, but he lived down the road from a cabin on the nearby lake that my family had owned for more than thirty years.

He was just calling to remind me that the grass at the cabin was so tall that it was a fire hazard. He wondered if I wanted to pay him to cut it. I told him to go ahead and do it and I'd come up and pay him for doing it the next day.

He told me it was no bother and I could just drop a check in the mail, but I assured him that I was on my way up there at that moment. I couldn't cut the grass myself because I hadn't brought my mower since I was driving my car and it wouldn't fit.

I actually had intended to check into a motel until the whole thing settled and I got Lori out of my house but this seemed like a better idea, especially if she intended to stay in my house until I could legally force her out.

The cabin, though smaller, had all of the amenities of a normal house including cable TV. I just had to call the company to start the service back up. There was even internet service which I could start using as soon as the cable was turned back on. It was the perfect solution.

Of course, there was the problem of the distance. The cabin was forty five minutes away from my house. That meant an hour long commute to and from work every day, but shit, I liked driving my car anyway.

The next morning, after checking the shop floor and making sure that everyone was doing their jobs, I called my lawyer. He only handled business law, but I figured he could refer me to a divorce specialist. The guy he referred me to, was willing to take my case. He suggested drawing up two different sets of papers. The first he'd write up the way I wanted them. I'd file for infidelity and offer Lori nothing. She could keep her car and her personal items and just get the fuck out of my life. I would also sue her paramour for everything we could get. Both of those options were legal in our state.




Too Late to Say Goodbye



The other set of papers would be more moderate. I'd file under no-fault and even give Lori a few thousand dollars so she could get herself settled. I wouldn't ask her who she'd been screwing because as the lawyer said, it didn't really matter to me and I was better off not knowing. What I really needed to do was to just get over her and get a new start.

He told me that he'd done literally hundreds of divorces over the years and in most cases, people just grew apart over time. He told me that as bad as this seemed, neither one of us was a villain. We'd just made choices that seemed good for us individually. The best thing to do was to forget about all of the bitterness and concentrate on being happy. If I wasn't going to be happy with Lori, I just needed to find something or someone that did make me happy.

The one thing he'd seen over and over again was that the people who were able to put these situations behind them and move on, were the ones who ended up happiest. The people who dwelled on it and held onto the bitterness, were the ones who always died early or lived long miserable lives.

I didn't get it at first, but I agreed to do things his way. I wrote him a check and he told me that he'd have the papers ready in a couple of days and we could meet with Lori and her dad. I gave him my fathers number.

For the rest of the day, I tried to concentrate on running my business. I figured that trying to keep the rest of my life as normal as possible would minimize the stress I was feeling from my marriage going to hell.

It wasn't to be though. Before lunchtime, my secretary called me up to the office for a phone call. Sylvia had been with me since I took over the company and she always put Lori's calls through. I guess I should have let her know what was going on with us.

I picked up the phone thinking that it was a customer or a supplier. I was in full business mode.

"Mark Brown speaking" I said, answering the phone.

"Lori Brown, trying to talk some sense into her husband," she said right back. "Mark I can't believe that you're taking this situation this far. You actually got a lawyer?"

"Yes Lori," I said. "That's what people do when they're getting a divorce. Besides didn't you get your father to tell me everything you would and wouldn't do? Isn't your dad acting as your lawyer? Remember all of that bullshit about how it wasn't in your best interest to leave the house. Remember him even telling me your strategy and how you were going to put us into counseling?"

"Honey, that..." she began.

"I've already told you to use my name when we speak," I said. "I'm not your Honey or any of that shit. You can save that name for whoever it is that you're fucking."

"Mark, that was just to get you to talk to me about this. I never expected this to go this far. Dad and I just figured that if we started talking about counseling and especially if I stayed in the house that you and I would sit down and talk about this like two reasonable adults," she said.

"Lori, when I first heard about this, I asked you about it. You wouldn't talk about it. I asked you who the guy was. You wouldn't tell me shit. You won, you protected whoever he is. I hope that you're as important to him as he is to you though because when this is over you won't have a home and I'm not going to give you a nickel more than I have to."

"Mark, you can't be serious," she said. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know about..."

"Look Lori," I said. "I don't want to know anymore. I don't care anymore. I just want this over with. My lawyer is pretty smart. He told me that the best thing for me to do is to just move on. I just want a new start."

"That's what I want too," she said. "That's why we need to just sit down and talk this out so we can just start all over again. I know that it's going to take us some time but we'll get past this and..."

"Lori, you just don't understand," I said. "When I said I wanted a new start, I didn't mean for us to start again in the aftermath of you fucking up our marriage. I mean me starting over without you in my life. I need someone that I can love who'll love me back the same way."

"Mark, we aren't done," she said. "It may take you a while to see it, but we're going to be fine. We have too much history together to throw it away over something this stupid. We have a child together and..."

"Goodbye Lori," I said. "Please don't bother me at work anymore. I'll see you in court."

After that I just hung up on her and went back to work. Three hours later I got another phone call.

"Dad, why are you doing this?" she asked. "After all of the years that the two of you have been together, doesn't she deserve better than the way you're treating her?"

"Katey, a woman who's cheated on her husband for a long period of time deserves what she gets. If it was a case where I abused her or treated her badly, I could see it. But I loved your mother from the first time we met. I have never even raised my voice to her. I've also never neglected her or put anyone else in front of her. If anyone deserves to be treated better it's me." She was silent after that.

"Let me ask you a question. If you found out that I'd been cheating on your mom for years, if I'd been screwing my clients or my secretary or just picking up hookers whose side would you be on? You'd be defending your mom right?" I asked.

"I guess," she said. "But I think I'd still want the two of you to stay together, I'd just want for you to stop what you were doing. I'd want you to fix whatever was wrong. I don't think any kid wants their parents to split up, ever."

"So why aren't you on my side in all of this? I'm not the one who did wrong," I said.

"I guess it's because this is my fault in some ways Dad," she said. "If I hadn't gotten angry and opened my big mouth the two of you would still be happy."

"You mean I'd still be stupid and in the dark," I said. "Somehow that just doesn't seem right to me. Another thing that I can't figure out is why if you knew she'd done this, you never told me. Was I ever a bad father to you Katey? Did I ever treat you badly or even unfairly? Why don't I get the same degree of loyalty that you showed her?"

"I don't know Dad," she said, beginning to cry. "I'm sorry. I should have told you. But she told me that it was over and you'd worked it out. And you didn't have to tell Eric. He's so upset at me right now that it hurts. He used to look at me the way you look at Mom. That's a big part of the reason I fell in love with him. But now when he looks at me, it's just not the same. Even if we can work this out, things may never be the same between us."

"Katey, you're really lucky that you never had a chance to do it again. Your mistake ends up being a one-time drunken thing. Eric is going to give you shit for it Katey, and you deserve it. You cheated on your husband."

"But I was drunk," she cried.

"Shut up, Kathryn," I said. "You're a grown woman and you have common sense. You have above common sense. You know that if you went to a party without your husband, you shouldn't have been drinking in the first God damned place. Men are going to go after anything they think they can get. A married woman should not put herself in that situation. If the guy had raped you, I'd have been on your side. But like you told your mother, you weren't that drunk. You knew what was going on and you chose to allow it because you thought Eric was boring. You were even asking her if she thought you should try it again. You're really lucky, because like I said, Eric is pissed at you but he loves you. He's probably going to give you shit for a while, but since it only happened once and he doesn't know that you were thinking about doing it again, he's going to forgive you. But what you did was bad and I hope you've learned your lesson."

"I have Daddy," she said. "I really have. It won't ever happen again. I realized over these past few days exactly what my life is like with Eric angry at me. I don't ever want to see what would happen if he left me. I thought that I was a grown woman, Daddy. And I thought that I loved Eric before. But sitting there in that house with him refusing to talk to me, made me realize just how much I really do care for him. I also realized that part of the reason that he isn't exciting is because he's so God damned tired from working all of those hours to pay our bills."

"Well I'm glad for you, Honey," I said.

"But Daddy, what about Mom?" she asked. "She wants to fix things between you two too."

"It's a different situation," I said. "Your mom wasn't drunk. She cheated on me and apparently did it for years. She made a conscious effort to do it and I just don't think I could ever trust her again. It would be better for us to go our separate ways." 

"Daddy, she doesn't want that. She loves you. And truthfully I don't think she will do well on her own."

"Katey, that isn't my concern. Her boyfriend can take care of her from now on. I have nothing against her or them. I just don't want to be the short leg in this lover's triangle anymore. Now I have to get back to work. I hope things work out for you sweetheart."

Three days later was the next time I got to see my wife. I looked at her across a long table in my lawyer's office. She'd dressed up for the meeting. Her hair was freshly styled and she looked good. The years hadn't changed her much. There were some lines in her face that I hadn't noticed before but she was still just as beautiful as ever.

"What are you looking at?" she asked me.

"I was just wondering if you had any idea of how beautiful you are," I said. "And I was just wondering how the hell I'm ever going to get over you."

"You really don't have to," she smiled.

"Yeah, I really do," I said. "And it's going to take some time, but I'll be fine in the end."

Her face dropped. "Mark, we need to stop this before it goes too far and..."

"Mrs. Brown, the reason we're here is to discuss the divorce and figure out what form it will take," said my lawyer. "We're here because your husband, instead of simply having you served with papers, wanted to discuss the case and allow you to decided how we proceed. He's being very open and honest about everything and I hope that you can proceed in the same sense of cooperation."

"Why should I?" she snapped. "I don't want a God damned divorce. I love my husband and we belong together. This whole thing is stupid. So I'm going to do everything I possibly can to prevent it from happening."

My father told Lori to calm down.

My lawyer presented her with the two sets of papers.

"What is this?" asked Lori's dad.

"There are two possible ways for us to proceed," said my lawyer. "Personally, I like the uncontested, no fault route. It will move far more quickly through the courts and involve less stress on all parties. On the other hand, if she isn't willing to settle, we'll just play hard ball and go the other way. My client might be willing to negotiate on the settlement amount but that's the only concession he's willing to make."

"But this is pure bullshit," said my father. "He'd be basically kicking her out the door with nothing but the clothes on her back and her car..."

"She cheated on me for years," I said. "She isn't willing to even say how many years or who with. Let him take care of her. Our marriage is over. I acted in good faith the whole time. I loved her and I never once cheated on her..."

"I loved you and I didn't cheat on you either," she snapped suddenly.

"What the fuck do you call it," I snapped. "You went out and fucked another guy for years and now you expect me to just..." My lawyer elbowed me and I stopped talking abruptly.

"I'm going to petition the court to order counseling," said my father. "They obviously still have feelings for each other. This marriage can be saved and..."

"There's no need to petition the court," said my lawyer. "My client agrees to counseling. He will also agree to pay for it. You can select the counselor we use."

"No I..." I began. He silenced me with a look.

"But in the event that the counseling fails, you need to decided which course we're taking for the divorce," he said. "Young lady, you do realize that the court records are public, right?"

She looked at him as if she didn't understand what that meant. "It means that all of your neighbors and everyone in town will have access to the records and know why the two of you divorced. Now on the other hand, an uncontested, no fault divorce doesn't have to include a reason. You can tell your friends and neighbors anything you please."

Her face never changed.

"Half of the town will think you're a whore," he said.

"Fuck the town," she said. "I'm not giving my husband up without a fight."

"This is all wrong," said my father. "Where did these records come from? He has to make more money than this. That car he bought her...How the hell can he even afford the maintenance on the car if he only makes two hundred dollars a week? They have no children in the home. Most judges are only going to give her alimony for a set period of time. Let's assume that it's four years."

"Three," said my lawyer.

"That means that even with a fifty/fifty split, he had the house before they married so that's his most likely. He's probably only going to end up paying a total of about fifteen thousand dollars and that is spread out over three years. How the hell is this fair?"

"How was it fair for me to support her and buy her everything she wanted for twenty five years when she was fucking some other guy?" I asked. "I wanted someone I could love and who loved me back for the rest of my life. I wasted my best years on a cheater. I think she's getting off way better than I did. I wanted someone to love and grow old with. Someone I could spoil my God damned grandkids with. I got sloppy seconds from a part time wife and full time whore. Don't you see it Dad, I went into this thing with the best intentions. We took vows in front of our families and friend but only one of us was willing to live up to them. If this was business, I could sue her for non-compliance of the terms of a contract or fraud even."

The air in the room was becoming heated and Lori had tears running down her eyes. "Don't you see that you got what you wanted," she cried. "I love you Mark. I always have. We would have grown old together. Just like you want and we..."

"No I wanted that for the two of us," I said. "Not for three."

"We're not making any progress here," said my lawyer. "I have come up with an alternate strategy. I have to warn you about that but I don't have to tell you what it is. In the absence of a decision by Mrs. Brown, at the end of the counseling period I will be filing under infidelity. Please let me know before then if you've changed your mind."

Lori shook her head. "Please contact me once you've found a therapist to do the counseling," he said. "That shouldn't take more than three days. I'll alert my client to assure that he attends the sessions."

"Why can't I just tell him who the therapist is," said Lori.

"We're only going to see each other at the sessions," I said. "We're not going to be speaking to each other."

"Why not?" she asked. "My father said that you'd have to move back home after we started this. It doesn't make sense for you to stay in a hotel for the whole month while we're in counseling. We can sleep in different rooms if you insist, but it is your house."

"It makes a lot of sense," I said. "We've begun divorce proceedings. We're in a legal battle. I don't want to do or say anything that you could use against me in court. I've made other living arrangements."

"Why would you do that?" she asked tearfully. "Don't you even want to try to put us back together? Do you want to throw away twenty five years?"

"Lori, you're the one who did this to us," I said. "You threw the years away. I'm just trying to pull the pieces of my life back out of the trash."

Lori and her dad had probably already arranged a therapist. My lawyer called me less than an hour after I left his office to tell me when and where. He'd checked the woman out and said that she seemed professional and she had the right credentials. Our first session was arranged for the next evening. Apparently, Lori really believed that the counseling would work magic.

The therapist was a big boned woman with giant glasses who appeared to be a very kind person. She smiled a lot and radiated good feelings.

"Okay," she said. "Let's start by arranging our chairs. You can sit wherever you'd like but try to do it so we can all communicate easily."

I sat down in a chair and when Lori moved her chair over next to it, I just looked at her.

"Interesting," said the counselor.

"What's so interesting?" I asked.

"Usually I can tell a lot by where the couple sits," she said. "Like in your case, I can see that Mrs. Brown was the one who cheated. But strangely after seeing that, I expected you to move your chair away from hers. But you didn't. I haven't figured out why yet." I shrugged my shoulders.

"The first thing we need to figure out is why we're here and what we hope to accomplish. My hope is that the two of you will leave here in a better state of mind regardless of any other result. Mrs. Brown, why don't we start with you? Why are you here and what do you want?"

"I want to call off my husband's divorce and save my marriage," said Lori quickly.

"And you Mr. Brown?" asked the therapist.

"I'm here to speed things up," I said. She looked at me with a confused look on her face.

"My lawyer knew that they were going for counseling," I said. "If we waited for them to find a judge and get a hearing and have the judge order counseling, I'd still probably have to do it. The judge would have probably wanted a longer period of sessions and it would have taken five or six weeks for him to even make the order. So I got the term of therapy cut down to one month and started it immediately. That means I'll save at least six weeks and probably another month of therapy. So just by agreeing to do it instead of fighting it, I've knocked almost three months off of the amount of time I have to put up with this shit. I'll get my divorce even faster."

"So you've automatically assumed that there's no chance your marriage can be saved?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, but it can't be," I said.

"So let's start with you this time Mr. Brown. What is the reason your marriage failed?"

"My wife has been cheating on me, so I don't want to be married to her anymore," I said.

"Do you agree with that Mrs. Brown?" she asked.

"No, I don't," said Lori. "He just doesn't understand the situation. I want to be married to him. I love him."

"The reason I don't understand the situation is because she won't say shit about it," I snapped. "I'm just not putting up with it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when it started. I don't know who the guy is or even what I did or didn't do to start her cheating on me. I've done the best I could to be a good husband and..."

"And you've been the best husband any woman could ever ask for Honey...Mark," she cried suddenly.

"It...It didn't start. It just never ended. You didn't so anything wrong. You did everything right. I just owed him and he just..."

"What do you mean it just never ended..." I exploded. I got up so fast that the chair I was sitting in fell over. I looked at her. "It's Todd isn't it?" She broke down and started crying. The therapist tried to calm her down. I just shook my head. 

I turned and headed for the door. "Mr. Brown, where are you going?" asked the therapist.

"I don't need to be here anymore," I said calmly. "I'm not upset or anything. I'll make sure you get paid for the entire term but this case should be over. I don't even need a divorce."




Too Late to Say Goodbye



"What do you mean?" asked the therapist.

"When I first met Lori, she was in a relationship with a guy who constantly cheated on her," I said. "I just found out that she married me while still holding onto that relationship. I never started having sex with her until shortly before we got married. Apparently, she never stopped screwing him. I'm fine with it. They knew each other and were a couple for a long time when I met her. The only thing I regret is supporting her for all of these years. There are so many things I need to get."

"Like what?" asked the therapist.

"Like I'm pretty sure now that I need a DNA test for my daughter," I said. "Certain aspects of her personality don't seem like they come from someone with my genes. But I also have get my lawyer to handle things completely differently. I'm suing Todd for his part in ruining my marriage, but if Katey turns out to be his child, I'll also sue him for all of the expenses of raising her and everything else. But at least now I can just ask a judge to give me an annulment or throw the whole marriage out based on fraud. Lori married me and took all of those vows under false pretenses. It should pretty much be an open and shut case. Lori and Todd probably owe me a few hundred thousand dollars at least."

I didn't even look at Lori as I left the room, perhaps I should have.

I went to my lawyer's office and filled him in on everything that happened at therapy. He got right on it and that was when the shit hit the fan.

Within two days I became both really popular and really hated with a lot of people. My father was livid. My mother in law was also upset. My daughter was upset. Todd called threatening me and some woman that I'd never met wanted to set up a meeting with me as well.

My father showed up at my office. "God damn it Mark," he screamed. "What's happened to you?"

"Uhm I fell in love and got cheated on," I said.

"Forget about that for right now," he said. "Lori is in the hospital. Don't you care?"

"Lori cheated on me for twenty-five years," I said. "She was never mine, from the beginning. I loved her with everything I had. My fucking heart is shattered. Don't you care? I'm the victim here so don't start whining to me because Lori is upset. Lori is the one who did this shit. I'm probably not even Katey's father. Don't you care?"

"Trust me," he said. "Katey is your daughter."

He sat down in the chair opposite me. "Do you have anything around here to drink?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Oh yeah, you don't drink," he said. "That's another thing I liked about you from the beginning.

"I didn't think you liked me at all from the beginning," I said.

"Mark, don't be stupid," he said. "When I first met you, I was just shocked because everyone in our town expected Lori to marry Todd. I'd heard that fairy tale for so long that I went along with it too. They built their entire existence around that whole scenario. But when I met you, I had to at least figure out why the fairytale had gone off of the rails. When I saw what Todd had become, I was glad that she was marrying you instead of him. All I've ever wanted was for my little girl to be happy. It took me less than an hour to see that she was much happier with you than she'd ever been with him."

"Mark, if I had known for even a second that she was still carrying on with him, I'd have made her stop," he said. "But despite your differences, I do know two things. I know that my daughter really does love you. And I'd be willing to bet that Katey is your daughter." I just looked at him.

"Shit, you don't need a DNA test to figure that out," he said. "Todd is way too stupid to be her father." I smiled a bit and nodded.

"It really doesn't matter who her biological father is," I said. "I raised her. I thought that she had my values. No matter what I do, I can't take back the memories and all of the happiness that little girl has brought me. But I'm finding that I can't trust emotions, so I have to rely on what I do know. I'm a business man. I deal in dollars and sense. So if Katey does turn out to be Todd's kid, Todd is going to have to pay me. Todd is already going to have to pay me for ruining my marriage."

"You just don't understand this son," he said. "Todd didn't ruin shit. You love Lori, whether you want to admit it or not. Lori loves you. All of the memories the two of you built over the past twenty-five years were real. Todd just ran a con game on Lori and manipulated her using guilt. The two of you have that beautiful house, a daughter you love and a great life together. You also have each other. All Todd got out of her was a few dollars and he'd call her once or twice a month and they'd have guilt sex."

"It doesn't matter if it was once or twice a decade," I said. "It was still wrong."

"I agree," he said. "But there are degrees or right and wrong. Reasonable people understand that life isn't always black and white. There's a lot of gray involved. Shit there's red and yellow and a whole spectrum of colors in life. Just give it some thought. Meanwhile your wife is in the hospital. After twenty-five years, doesn't she rate a visit?"

When I got ready to leave that evening, Katey was waiting for me. She was sitting on my car with tears running down her cheeks.

"So, I'm not your daughter huh?" she asked. "I'll take your fucking test. But I've never even met that bastard. How could you think I was his?"

The next thing I knew she had run over and threw herself into my arms, crying her eyes out.

"Katey, you'll always be my baby no matter what," I said. "This has nothing to do with you and me. This is just another way to make that asshole pay."

"Daddy, what exactly is he going to pay?" she asked. "I got so angry that I went and saw mom and spoke to her about all of this. He's a fat old bum with a shitty attitude. He's married to a fat old woman with no teeth and bleached blond hair. He hasn't ever had a steady job in his life. He cheats on his wife and not just with Mom. He doesn't have any children and never has had with any of the women he's been with. According to Mom she always made him wear a condom. There's no way I'm his." She looked at me then.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "What did I say?"

"Katey, it's not you," I said. "Your mom and I have never used condoms. Once we decided that all we needed was you, she went on the pill. So her running around buying condoms to use with him just proves that she made a conscious effort to cheat on me. The more I hear, the more it hurts."

Against my better judgment, I went to see Lori in the hospital. They had her hooked up to all kinds of machines but she seemed alert. As I walked into the room, she looked over at me. Her face lit up and then fell and darkness and anger colored her expression.

"I guess you've come to kick me while I'm down huh?" she asked.

"I can leave," I said. "Your dad thought I should stop by."

I sat down on the edge of her bed and looked at her. "Why do they have you all hooked up to all of these things?" I asked.

"When you left, I nearly had a heart attack," she said quietly. "It turned out to be a really huge panic attack, but my blood pressure went so high that they were really worried I might have a stroke."

"I've only loved two men in my entire life," she said. "Despite the fact that you keep calling me a whore, I've only ever had sex with the same two men. So if I'm a whore, I'm probably not very good at it...I didn't defraud you Mark. This wasn't some grand scheme designed to hurt you or fool. It's just a really weird situation."

"When I met you, you knew that I was with Todd," she said. "You knew it and you still came after me. I didn't lie to you ever. Every God damned time that you asked me why I was with him when he treated me like shit, I was truthful. I told you that I was with him because I loved him. I told you that every God damned time."

"But you kept coming back anyway. And every time you looked at me...The way your eyes lit up when you saw me, it was magic, Mark. It made me feel so good. And you treated me like some kind of princess. You made me feel so special. After a while, I realized that I loved you too. I also realized that I liked you. And there is a difference. Just because I loved you too, it didn't mean that I stopped loving Todd. But between the two of you, I liked you more. I hated the way Todd treated me, but I'd loved him for so long that it just wouldn't go away. I wished that he'd stop cheating on me and spend more time with me, but I couldn't stop loving him. We had our whole lives planned out before you ever showed up."

"And the next thing I knew, I was cheating on him with you. Sure we didn't have sex, we just kissed a lot. But if you had ever pushed me, just a little bit, we would have and you know it. You were just too nice a guy to push me. Then the wheels fell off of the dream. I guess I panicked. My life wasn't going the way I wanted it to. I hated my life with Todd. I hated that shitty little apartment and he never stopped cheating on me. Mark, it hurt me so bad. When I'd been in college, if he cheated on me, like he always did, I had you to make me feel better. So Mark I called you."

"And Mark, you came. You came and you rescued me and you treated me like a God damned princess all over again. And I wasn't lying, Mark. I never lied to you. I did love you. And I still do. I will love you until my last breath is expelled from my lungs. When I heard your step-mother say that you should marry me. I wanted you to ask me. And when you did, I accepted. Not because I was trying to defraud you, but because I loved you. And I wanted to live out the rest of my life with you. I wanted to have sex with you and make babies with you and grow old with you and all of the things that you want too. And Mark, I still fucking do. With every fiber of my being I want you, Honey."

"Don't look at me like that, I can call you whatever the fuck I want. We're still married so you're still mine," she snapped. "I was truly happy Mark. I planned out our wedding and it was going to be the biggest and best wedding ever. Then he called me. He apologized and he told me that he was going to get help. He told me that he'd fallen into a depression and he just couldn't handle the way his life had turned out. He was so disappointed that he hadn't made the pros that it made him feel like he wasn't a man. He'd had one goal in life, one dream and he had failed. All of the other women were just him acting out. But he was going to get help and we'd be fine."

My eyes hardened then as she spoke.

"He wanted me to leave you and come back to him," she said. "Mark, my heart broke for him. He was so apologetic and so contrite. He was fighting so hard to put the pieces of his life back together. All of the love I had for him came back. It didn't mean that I loved you any less. It just meant that I was back to square one. I was still torn between the two of you. I told him about you and he got upset and hung up the phone on me. But a few days later he called me back and told me that he understood. He also told me that since I'd been falling in love with you while I was engaged to him, the least I could do would be to allow him to try to fight for me, the way I'd let you take me away from him. He kept calling me and then we were seeing each other. And the next thing I knew we had sex. I didn't really like it. And I need to tell you that I don't have sex with him because I like it. I do it out of guilt. I beg you for sex, Mark. He begs me and guilt trips me into it."

"I guess I should have realized that I was wrong, when he didn't seem to care that I was still going to marry you. He seemed to get a kick out of it. He even told me that if it was fair for you to steal me away from him while you were supposed to be looking out for me for him, then it was fair for us to be in contact while I was married to you. I know it sounds stupid but, I really couldn't give either of you up, Mark and that was the easiest way to keep you. And you have to understand that although deep down inside I always loved you more and I liked you, I felt sorry for him. You have a great life and you have a lot going for you. Todd just seemed to get knocked down again and again."

"There were times when you'd give me hundreds of dollars to go shopping and never even ask what I bought. A lot of the time I'd buy one dress and model it for you before we had sex and give the rest of the money to Todd so he could eat or make his rent. I felt so guilty about it but he had a way of laying even worse guilt on me. He said such awful things. Like he often told me that I was a user. I'd stayed with him while I thought that he was going to be a rich pro athlete, but as soon as he crashed, I'd left him. I started to break things off with him several times but every time he managed to guilt trip me back. "

"I know that you think that I was constantly having sex with him, but I swear to you it was only once and rarely twice a month, never any more. And I always made him wear a condom. There was never a time that he didn't. So you thinking that your daughter could possibly be his is ridiculous. But please, go get the results of your test. I want you to get them and then apologize to her."

"There's something else you need to know. After Katey was born, I did stop with Todd. It was around that time that I found out what he really thought about me..." She wiped her eyes.

"Mark, Todd never loved me. Not from the very first day that we met. He loves blond women, regardless of what they look like. He'd only picked me out because I was smart enough to get him through high school and then through college. After that he got back with me because I gave him your money. I felt like a damned fool. I'd gone to see him in that same shithole apartment of his and I got there early. I'd taken him some money and I was hoping to just leave it under the door and get away. Like I said, I'd had Katey a few months before and hadn't had any kind of sex or anything with him while I was pregnant because he thought I looked like a whale. I heard him talking about me."

"Look I'm only dealing with the bitch because she's bringing us money," he said. "She's never been my type."

"He went on to describe me as stupid, overly emotional and a dead fuck. But he needed the money I brought him to pay for their apartment. He reminded the person that he had, in fact, married her and not me. A few moments later, the door opened and that same fat, toothless woman came out of the apartment. I was so shocked that I just stood there. She recognized me instantly and just smiled at me while she went past. I was still standing there feeling really stupid when he came out."

"For a few weeks after that I didn't take his calls or anything, but then he started to get nasty. He started telling me that he'd tell you about what was going on if I didn't show up. And after that I had to go because I couldn't risk losing you, Mark. I loved my life and our family too much to ever risk it. Years went by and I guess having sex with him once a month just didn't seem like anything terrible. It was just sex. It wasn't like what you and I do. I guess I started thinking about it like it was a tax. For every ten or twelve times that you make love to me, I have to give Todd some pussy. Most of the time, I just lie there and think about my grocery list. I usually go while you're at work. Then I leave him and do the shopping. By the time you get home, I'm cleaned inside and out and ready to fuck your brains out. I give you much more and much better than I have ever given him. I guess that though I love you with all of my heart and soul, there's still just a tiny piece of me that wasn't ready to give him up either."

"So now you know all of it," she said. I walked out of her room and left her screaming for me to come back and talk.

Twenty five years is a long time. But I remembered vaguely where that shitty old apartment building was. I wandered around and wasn't sure until I saw Todd or what was left of him sitting on the step in front of the building.

The years hadn't been kind to Todd. He was still a big as a house, but it was all fat now. I wondered how a guy without a job could get fat, but he'd managed. I noticed something else. He walked with a limp and he had spots all over his arms and his fat belly. He was also dirty and unshaven and holy shit, he had one of those little oxygen tanks that he rolled around behind him.

As I got out of my car, I called him. He turned to look at me and I saw recognition flare on his face.

The woman beside him looked confused.

"So how's OUR girl?" Todd asked smiling. I noticed a bunch of missing and graying teeth in his mouth and I just launched myself at him. I punched him as hard as I could in his oversized belly. His breath all escaped in one huge gasp and he started to fall. As he fell, the tube from his oxygen tank disconnected and he started sniffing and gasping. I didn't give a fuck. I just started kicking the shit out of him. He gasped with every kick. I think he was trying to scream but he was too short of breath for anything other than gasps. Then everything went black. When I woke up a paramedic was holding smelling salts under my nose. I was handcuffed.

Todd's wife had knocked me out by hitting me in the back of my head with a two by four from the rotting porch. The cops pulled me to my feet. I told them that I didn't need to go to the hospital but one of them had to drive my Mustang to the police station. I told them that if my car was stolen or damaged, they'd be responsible for it. They ended up handcuffing me to the steering wheel and letting me drive it while one of the cops rode with me.

On the way to the station, the cop looked at me like I was a piece of shit. "What kind of guy attacks a fucking diabetic invalid?" he asked. While I drove, I told him the entire story including Todd's blackmailing and guilt tripping Lori.

"Tell them that story and you'll probably get off," he said.

I called my lawyer and was out in two hours with no charges pending. The only thing I had to agree to was a talk with Lori. Once I told the DA the story he agreed to a plea bargain. I could go for simple assault instead of aggravated assault. I got my lawyer to charge Todd with blackmailing Lori and extorting money from me through her. The DA said that I'd need proof for the charges. My lawyer got Lori to admit to it.

Todd agreed to drop all of the charges if I dropped mine. That meant that I couldn't sue him for fucking up my marriage but I realized then that suing Todd would be a waste of my time and money. Todd didn't have anything. And in his condition he wasn't going to last for more than another year or so at best.

Lori had agreed to help me against Todd in exchange for a chance for us to talk again when she got out of the hospital. They wanted to hold her for another week or so. I agreed and went back to the cabin. Her dad kept calling me to talk about dropping the divorce. He told me that Lori was feeling better every day and looking forward to our chance to talk. He'd seen Todd and reminded me that Todd was no threat to either me or my marriage.

Lori actually called me from the hospital and asked me if I could come back to the hospital instead of waiting a week.

As I walked into her room again, she looked almost as good as she had at the lawyer's office.

"Hi Honey," she said. She was smiling from ear to ear.

"What are you so happy about?" I asked.

"Well, I was able to help you," she said. "And two, you've seen Todd. He's no threat to us. I also have some interesting news for you about YOUR daughter," she smiled. "She IS your daughter. Or in the words of Maury Povitch; "In the case of twenty four year old Katey Brown, YOU ARE the father." So you see things are going to work out for us."