5 comments/ 10418 views/ 18 favorites Half Empty Airport By: Eastmountain This story was inspired by the words of the Suzy Bogguss song, "Taking the Red Eye Home", by Suzy Bogguss and Doug Crider. Thank you for the song, Suzy. ***** Here I am sitting in this damn airport, not a dollar in my jeans, hoping that I'll have money when the credit card bill for my flight shows up. I suppose Dad will cover me for it, but I hate to do that to him. After all, it was my mistake. The airport is all slightly scuffed tile floors, chrome here and there, artificial plants and those arrival/departure boards that only make sense if you can find a clock. The one I found was down by the out of country arrivals, though I imagine there are more, better hidden than that one was. Things have been a bit rough. I'm not all that steady, just now. I was just checking on the flights home. They're all supposed to be full for today, but there are usually no-shows. That's what I'm hoping for. I don't really know what I'm going to do if I don't get out tonight. They won't let you sleep in this airport. It's a long way to walk back home, and my shoes aren't going to be much good after the first thousand miles. Dad doesn't know I'm coming yet, even though I called to tell him I'd left Bert. I'll call again when I'm sure of a seat. I called the last time I left Bert, and the time before that, so he's entitled to think I'll go back to him again and not make it home. Not this time, though. The first time I left Bert Dad offered to come get me. I knew he didn't have the money to fly. "I'll get Jack to drive me," he told me. Good old Jack. Always there when we needed him. I guess he was looking out for Dad now. A real country boy. He still works at the hardware, the way he did all through high school. He'll probably be working there when he dies. "No, I'll catch a flight. There's nothing here I want to take." "If you say so, Cindy." It probably hadn't been smart to turn him down. When Bert came to the door of the motel room I'd moved out to while I worked out the flights and checked for a vacant seat, whining and apologizing and threatening to shoot himself, I caved in and went back to that place I used to call home. I like to think that if Dad and Jack had started their trek across country I'd have held out, but likely not. What did the song say? "Leaving is hard but staying is worse." It took me a while to figure that out. Almost two years, in fact. It all seemed so wonderful when I met Bert. I was flipping pancakes for a living, the type of job America provides for people who have degrees in sociology and no hankering for either the academic life or social work. Both are eminently cutthroat occupations, perhaps because if they were done properly there would be no need for them and everyone's insecure. Bert seemed to be employed, always a plus, reasonably good looking, fit, and smouldering. He was from away, just in town for a week, he said. The first night he picked me up after work we screwed all night. I wasn't much good the next day. We knew what was going to happen the moment he touched my hand to lead me out to his car, a nondescript rental. "I want you, Cindy. Do you want me?" I nodded. Instead of the "Aw shucks Miss Cindy" approach I'd been used to, this directness turned me on. The "Aw shucks" crew wanted the same thing, though, always. It's what men and women are about, I suppose, or at least that's what I supposed then. We stumbled into his room at the local motor hotel, a few miles out of town, a step up from most of the motels around, the same way Bert seemed to be a step up from most of the men around town. He was on some kind of a course related to his job in investment banking. I later found out that investment banking meant selling mutual funds, but Bert made it sound classier. Bert wasn't anything to tell Dad about in the way of lovers, not that I ever told Dad about my lovers. He was too hasty, never let me warm up. He was persistent and had great stamina, so I usually had an orgasm by the time we were into the third or fourth time. I liked the way he paid attention as if I was the most important thing in his life. Eventually I understood that the most important thing in his life was precisely what I was. A thing, not a person. One step up from his car. But I was in too deep by the time I figured that out. Just before Bert was due to fly back to California he invited me to go out there with him and I accepted. There was a little bit of trouble getting me a seat, and it turned out that I had to take the next flight. Bert hadn't thought to turn in his own first class ticket. The flights were a couple of hours apart but he promised to be there waiting for me, and he was. Dad had been unhappy. He hadn't much taken to Bert the time or two they'd met, and he thought I was an idiot for taking up with a man so completely after knowing him less than a week. I, of course, knew better. Amazing how much my dad has learned in the last couple of years. He's a pretty wise man, now. Jack Preston, a big boy, one of the guys who were always there but I never went out with, just told me to call if I had a problem. Jack worked at the hardware to support himself and his mom. I had no idea what he could do for me in California. "Just look after my pappy, Jack," I asked him. For some reason talking to Jack always brought out my back country accent, the one that had caused so much trouble when I started college, so much so that I'd ruthlessly squelched it. Jack looked troubled, but he nodded. "I'll do that, Cindy." It was a romantic running away, and for a while I was happy in California, all the new sights and the different way lives ran out there. Bert was incredibly attentive and the sex was almost continuous when he wasn't working. After two years, I ended up sitting in this half empty airport waiting for a seat on a flight list that kept getting shorter and didn't have my name on it yet. I had no idea what I'd do if there wasn't a seat. They wouldn't let you sleep in the airport and this time I didn't have the money for a motel. The flight ticket had maxed out my card. The first time I'd left Bert, it had been because I was sick and tired of his constant carping, his ready criticism, harping on what was wrong with me, trying to pull me down to match his own inadequacies as a man and as a person. I hadn't fought back hard enough when he came to me and promised to reform, to get counselling, to stop being so disapproving. He even tried tears. "Cindy, you know I love you. I can't live without you." "You can't love someone you are constantly trying to belittle, Bert." "I do. I'll change. I promise." His promise lasted six weeks and two days, and then he was at me again. I don't know why I didn't leave again, but Bert was insidious. It started again very slowly, something that could have been a mistake or unintended or even misheard. By the time two weeks had passed he was up to full speed, maybe even worse, and I was so used to it I just took it. It sounds so stupid now. The next time, when I should have left him and didn't, it was his infidelity. Hackneyed as it seems, it was lipstick on his collar. I kept the shirt out of the wash and faced him with it when he got back from work that evening. In those days I was a playground assistant and supplementary tutor for some of the more difficult students, so I was always home long before Bert was. He was often late home, and had evening appointments a couple of days a week. "What's this on your shirt, Bert?" "Dunno. Is supper ready?" "Not until we get this sorted out. It's lipstick. Who have you been seeing?" "No one. Nobody. You know I only live for you, miserable slut that you are." I suppose it was the insult that made me push on. "Bullshit, Bert. You've been with another woman. Give me one reason why I shouldn't start packing. Doesn't even have to be a good one." "Because I love you. She didn't mean anything to me, Cindy. I just needed to fuck her to set the seal on the deal." Fool that I was, I believed him. After he got away with the first one, Bert was unfaithful to me regularly. I felt I'd lost the opportunity to tell him no. I thought about taking a lover of my own, a stupid revenge fuck or seven. I wasn't so downtrodden that I didn't realize what that would do to me, what that would make me. There were chances, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe I was a fool. I actually left Bert the second time for a completely unrelated reason. He kicked a dog. One of the people on our floor in the apartment building had a dog, a little thing, sort of roly poly, and very young. It peed on the floor in the hall one day when its owner hadn't been fast enough getting the poor thing outside. The owner was carefully cleaning up the mess, but Bert stepped in it because as usual he wasn't looking where he was going. When he realized what he'd stepped in, he kicked the author of his misfortune, enough to lift the poor dog. The dog screamed in pain. There wasn't too much the poor dog's owner could do, since she was only a bit of a thing, but she stared right into his eye and told him "I hope somebody big enough to do the job kicks you just like that you sonofabitch." Bert got nailed for cruelty to animals. I never let him find out I was the necessary independent witness. By that time I'd left him. I called him an unmitigated bastard to his face and he nearly clocked me then. Maybe if he had he'd never have sweet talked me into going back. Bert started hitting me after I went back that time. Often he pretended the blows were accidental. Just one at a time for a while, then two at a time. I was sinking into a kind of apathy from his continual carping. I think I was starting to feel that I was so inadequate I deserved those blows. My dad would have had a heart attack. He was old school. A man never, ever hit a woman. Ever. I knew if I told him he'd come racing out to kill Bert, and Bert would kill him, all one hundred per cent aboveboard self-defence. I needed to get away and I couldn't do it. Nobody was going to help someone as worthless as I was, anyway. Finally the day came when Bert beat me black and blue, a purposeful, thorough beating that did no lasting damage but bruised my body and my soul and had me walking in pain. I never knew what set him off this time. From the bits and pieces I put together after, someone at work had demeaned him in a fashion he couldn't return. I was there to absorb his revenge. That one scared me. I figured the next time he'd kill me, or at least do real damage. So I left. I spent my last dollar on a cab to the airport the next morning just after Bert left for work. Everything flying back east to home, even close to home, was full up. So there I was sitting in the airport all day hoping to hell a seat would open up and I could get out. I'd call Dad again as soon as the seat came up. The day wore on toward evening. A couple of guys noticed the bruises, the few that Bert had let show in his temper, and asked if I was all right. I just nodded. I almost cried at the thought these people wanted to be of help. What was important, though, was getting home. I knew Daddy could make it all right for me once I was home and with friends. Nothing else was enough. The seven p.m. flight was full. I might have bribed a passenger to take a later flight, to vacate a seat, but what with? I sat and fiddled as I waited. I read the whole paper, one somebody had left on the bench that morning. I had my purse, even though there wasn't any money in it. Passport from when we were going to go to Acapulco and Bert cancelled three days before. I never did think he'd bought the tickets. Driver's licence, even though Bert never let me have a car, never even let me drive his car. I wondered whether the kids at school would be all right. I'd never missed a day of work before. What else? Lipstick, powder, a little blush. Maybe I'd make up a little when I got home, or just before, to look better for Dad, cover the bruises. Some of them, anyway. There wasn't enough to cover them all. Dark glasses. I'd worn them in the cab to hide the worst bruises. They'd look worse than the black eye inside under the fluorescents, especially this time of night. I checked at the counter. The eight o'clock flight was filling up. They were starting to board. "Sorry, ma'am, no vacancies on this flight." There were three more that night: nine, ten and midnight. I was down to three chances. At least I didn't have baggage to worry about. I didn't have anything, anyway. Back to the bench. Exploring my purse was at least keeping me from crying again. No more crying. Bert was crying. Not being with Bert meant no more crying. I sniffled a bit. Well, not much more. There was one of those purse packs of tissues and I pulled one out to dab at my eyes and absorb the tears that were just hanging at the edges of my lashes. I looked around for a mirror. I was half afraid to go to the ladies in case they called my name, but a quick check with the attendant told me they'd hold a vacancy for at least ten minutes, seeing as it was me. I made sure they had the spelling right. Cindy (for Cynthia, but I wouldn't likely recognize that if they called it) Norton. Cindy sure as hell wasn't short for Cinderella. I'd made friends with the attendant after shift change earlier that evening. "Norton," she'd said. "Means north of town." "Or north town, or something else I've never looked into." "I'm Weston, west of town. Makes us neighbours. Neighbours got to look out for each other. I'll keep an eye out for you." "Thank you. I have to get out tonight." Did I really have to get out tonight? I couldn't know when Bert would come after me. I knew he would. He usually waited a day or so, hoping I'd crawl back to him. That, I never did. He'd been meaner than ever before, this time. Mean enough to wake me out of my apathy. It was going to hurt when I went back, all those 'I told you so's floating around, but I'd live with that pain. I'd die with Bert's pain. Made the choice easier, somehow. Bert should have known he'd crossed over all the lines there were this time. He should be panicking. I needed to get away. I couldn't risk that he was just giving me rope. I checked out the image in the mirror in the ladies. I was looking not too bad if you discounted the bruising. Dad would be upset, but even if I was a little too thin I was close enough to his little girl who'd left him two years ago, a touch battered, still pretty. When I came back to my corner of the bench I started in on my purse again. A loose tissue I'd used for something. I threw it out. It seemed like housecleaning. Then there were the keys to the house, including one for the garage, totally useless to me. I threw them out, too. Bert could get new ones made for his next woman. There were half a dozen cards with stamps. Get ten stamps and a free whatever. I threw them out. My library card. Gone. No way was I coming back here. There wasn't much more. I decided to leave it. After all, a purse should look lived in. The nine o'clock flight was full again. When it came time for the ten o'clock flight, Ms. Weston waved me over as the passengers started to board. "Be ready to go. We're still a minute away from cut off and one passenger is missing. If he doesn't get here in the next fifty-five seconds, you've got your seat." I started counting seconds. All I needed was my jacket and purse. I had them in hand, ready to go as soon as I got the green light. I was down to twenty-four seconds when there was a tremendous clatter. A man came hurtling towards the check-in desk. "Hold that plane. Hold that plane." He turned out to be the missing passenger. Ms. Weston and I exchanged disappointed glances as she checked him in and sent him down the ramp. Close, but no cigar. "One more flight tonight," she told me. "The red-eye. Here's hoping." She crossed her fingers. I crossed mine. Two more hours to wait. It was getting on for midnight when the PA system said something like "Bzz BHzz woood Ms. Norton pleez roopeerd alla repoot doskud." I looked at the check-in desk in the unlikely event this had something to do with me. My buddy Ms. Weston was waving frantically at me. I ran over. "We've had a cancellation. You've got a seat." She was almost as giddy as I was. "Let's get you checked in." The formalities only took a moment. "Now get on that plane." "I gotta call home!" "You've got to get on that plane now. I'll call for you. Number?" I gave her the slip with Jack's number on it. "It's our friend Jack. If I call Dad in the middle of the night he might have a heart attack. I can't risk that. Jack rolls with the punches. He'll be fine." "Take it as done. Move it." I thanked her for all her help and ran down the ramp. I was flying. She was laughing. Four hours, maybe four and a half, and I'd be home. *** I hadn't slept. There are people who can sleep on the redeye and people, like me, who can't. Tonight - this morning - I was too excited anyway. I'd shucked Bert. I was going home. Daddy would wrap me up in his love and I'd be safe and wanted. No more tears. Well, maybe a few. Happy tears, though. Time to disembark. As I left, the cabin attendant just told me good luck, as if she knew what I'd gone through and what I was going to. I couldn't help myself. I gave her a quick hug and told her thank you. Then I was climbing up the boarding ramp. Four and a half hours on the plane and three hours time difference made it 7:30, almost civilized, and surely not too early for the good ole boys. I'd decided I looked okay, but I stopped at the ladies' anyway. I touched myself up a bit, dried the happy tears and attended to business. Then I stepped out, ready to start life anew. New, now, but on a firm base. I was home again, with family and friends and support, no more lonely, no more abuse. I almost flew down the stairs to arrival. They were there, just as I'd hoped. Daddy and Jack, both looking strong and loving, my bulwarks against the world and the Berts that were in it. I started crying again. I almost think Daddy was crying, too. He never did that. I was hugging him too tightly to be sure. "Oh my Cindy Lou," came a rough voice that sounded like Daddy. "Love you, Daddy," I muttered into his shirt. He heard, though. "Me, too, sweetheart," he muttered back. Jack left us alone for a few minutes but when the baggage carousel started up he interrupted us enough to ask what my bag looked like. I pulled myself away from Daddy for a moment. "No bag, Jack. I'm all there is." "And that's plenty, Miss Cindy, enough for us all." I hugged him, too. Big, handsome, reliable Jack. All the comforts of home. "Thank you for coming, Jack." "No thanks necessary, Cindy. Just seeing you back again is enough." Jack shepherded us out to the parking garage where our car was. Daddy hadn't traded since I'd gone. It was still the same old Chevy. Jack got in to drive after offering the honour to Daddy. "I'd rather sit in back with my daughter and be chauffeured," Daddy had replied. "No blame for that choice," Jack answered. "It's good to have her back, good to have you back, Cindy." "It's good to be back," I answered, my arms still full of Daddy. Daddy wasn't all that demonstrative a man, though I'd known for all my life that he loved me, but he wasn't letting go this morning. It felt grand to be loved that much. Once home I was still too excited to rest. I was sure I'd hit 'collapse' sometime soon after all the emotional turmoil and a night with no sleep, but not yet. Daddy and I got coffee and sat in the front room and talked. I told him everything. Perhaps I was too tired to hold anything back and perhaps I thought somebody should know just how stupid I'd been and how damaged I was. Half Empty Airport "Well, Cindy Lou," Daddy said after I'd finished. "You didn't have to tell me all that, but I'm glad you did. Makes me want to kill certain people, though having to live with himself is likely a worse punishment. You seem to think that having put up with all that for so long has made you a worse person. I can't see that, love. You've still got love, and you have strength, more than I thought. It took strength to leave that . . . person." Daddy didn't swear in front of ladies, though you could usually tell what he meant. It felt good to be back to being a lady. For Daddy, every woman was a lady no matter what she'd done or who she was and whether she had money or not and whether she was green or puce. That presumption could be upset, but it took a lot of work to do it. It was restoring to know what I'd done hadn't been enough to upset it. I couldn't have borne it if Daddy no longer thought of me as a lady. By the time we'd worked our way through breakfast (I ate an awful lot for someone who'd told Daddy she wasn't hungry) and lunch and supper, I was ready to come down. The adrenaline had worked its way through my system. The legacy of too many sleepless nights hit hard and Daddy had to walk me up to bed. "Wish you were still small enough to carry, Cindy Lou." "Just give me a kiss goodnight." I dropped off the minute I hit my bed, clothes and all. Daddy must have pulled the covers over me because I was warm and comfortable when I woke up. I knew I had enough clothes still at home to get along with for a while so I bundled up my travelling clothes for the wash. Daddy probably heard the shower running, because when I came out he called up that breakfast was ready. It was just as it had been before I went away, Daddy and me against the world. Well, maybe not just us. The same as it had been a good many mornings, Jack was sitting at the kitchen table, too, taking breakfast before going off to work at the hardware. "You still with the hardware store, Jack?" I asked. "Yeah, that I am." "Good to see you here for breakfast again." "Your daddy and I eat breakfast together most days, at least when he's not otherwise engaged." Daddy blushed a little, something I didn't know he had in him. I decided it wasn't right to pry, though it was a hard decision to make. Did Daddy have a special friend? I hoped so. It had been a long time since Momma had passed on. I spent the next few days catching up on sleep and, according to Daddy, eating everything he could put on the table and then some. It was a week after I arrived, and Daddy, Jack and I were eating breakfast together, when Jack asked if I'd like to do something that evening. I suppose he thought I'd pretty much recovered, and it was true. I was ready to rejoin the world, at least my world with my friends and my family. "Sure. That would be nice." Jack grinned back at me, a big comfortable grin that somehow told me all was right with the world and my place in it. "Pick you up at seven?" "Great." Jack picked me up that night in his truck, of course. When I was home I don't think I'd been on a date in a car more than half a dozen times. Three of those had ended in the back seat, once without my agreement, which had cost one of the boys a lot of pain and me some sore legs from walking all that way home. Daddy had found out about it - it wasn't a big town - and made sure I didn't go out with that boy again, not that I planned to. Turned out I didn't have to refuse him, since he was sporting a shiner the next day at school and tried to pretend I didn't exist. Since I hadn't given him the shiner, though I had provided a lot of other pain, I figured my guardian angel had struck for me. Daddy seemed pretty pleased with himself. As Daddy explained to me, if I wanted to get close to someone he wasn't going to get in the way. After all, that was the way the world worked. If I didn't, and someone was fool enough not to take no for an answer, he needed to explain things to the poor sod. If the boy didn't learn, or wasn't strong enough for the teaching, well, the gene pool of the world would be better off without his contribution. Jack was a pure gentleman. He opened the door on my side for me and handed me up. A little better - a lot better - than the boys who had mostly opened the door from inside and then looked down my shirt as I scrambled in. "Anythin' special you wanna do, Miss Cindy?" Jack asked. "Whatever passes for amusement these days would be fine, Jack. Except maybe the submarine races." "We're a bit far from the ocean for those, ma'am," he told me, deadpan. "Though I hear tell people have been betting on moles." He flashed me that devastating grin and I nearly swooned. Dear heavens, I'd have to watch myself careful tonight. I wondered whether he had a licence for that grin. Probably not. Not too many of the lethal weapons in our part of the world were reported to the authorities. We spent a fun evening getting acquainted, meeting old friends, charming each other. I'm not too sure that I charmed him but he certainly charmed me. I suppose I'd always taken him for granted, but that night I realized that Jack, in addition to being reliable and sensible and helpful was a handsome man with a beautiful dry wit and tremendous charm. Fantastic pheromones, too. *** Jack had let the country boy image slip a time or two in the evening, but he'd done well with it. If I hadn't been watching him so closely and listening to every word he said, I'd probably have missed it. It wasn't a surprise. I'd always thought Jack was the smartest boy in the class despite his efforts to hide the fact. He'd usually succeeded with his teachers, though I thought old Miss Robins, now among the departed, knew the truth. You see an awful lot of life when you teach for forty years. I got into Jack's truck - he always had a truck, even in high school. It was like most of his: a little ugly, no cute touches, no personalized plate, a touch muddy but powerful and functional. The inside was scrupulously clean, too. A little like Jack, come to think. When we got to my house - Dad's, of course - we just sat there for a few minutes. I knew enough to wait for him to get out to open my door. That was a courtesy Jack would never overlook. "Wal, Miss Cindy, I wish this night weren't over, yet." "It's been lovely, Jack." He leaned over to kiss me. I'd been kissed often enough in my life. Still, I shivered a bit at the thought of being kissed by Jack. His strong masculine presence set off little tinglys inside me. It did no good to remind myself that I'd known Jack forever, that he was a good person and utterly sexless. He didn't seem any too sexless just then. My nipples didn't think so. He leaned towards me and I slid to the edge of my seat, the one closest to him. I was curious. He slid a fingernail gently down my arm, following the course of the vein. He might as well have been tracing liquid fire the way I reacted to him. I pulled his head into mine. I was in no mood be coy. His lips brushed mine. Brushed them again. I opened my mouth to complain and he brushed his lips over mine again. Oh my. Jack then pushed in a little closer, pressing more firmly as his lips molded to mine, or maybe mine to his. The blood was pumping through my system at a furious rate. No, that was just my heart thudding so hard. It didn't have anything to do with Jack. It had been a while so any man, any strong, confident sexy male animal, would have had the same effect. If you could find one as thoroughly male as Jack was. He had one of those understated scents, soap and an aftershave, maybe, maybe not, and Jack, essence of Jack. It was a heady mix. Here I was lusting after his touch and he hadn't even tried tongue. His hand ran up and down my arm. Arms aren't erogenous zones I told myself, fleetingly, because with Jack's touch they surely were. He touched my lips with his again and this time pressed gently with his tongue, encouraging me to open to him. I snapped my lips apart and took his questing tongue deep into my mouth. He explored gently while I touched his tongue with mine, then sent my tongue exploring into his mouth. We exchanged our searches, each looking to find El Dorado in the other's mouth. Finding it, too, in my case, and maybe in his to judge from the way his eyes hooded, some kind of fire lurking in the depths of those deep brown eyes of his. I slid my hand behind his head and pulled him closer. I began to feast on his mouth and his tongue. So hot. So hot for me. My bones seem to have dissolved and I melted in that heat, pressing myself shamelessly against him. He pulled back a moment. "I was wondering, Miss Cindy, whether y'all would like to drop over to my place for a bit. The night's still young and your papa won't worry if y'all are with me." Well, he should, I imagined. I thought I'd been kissed before, but apparently not by anyone who knew what he was doing. Little shy Jack had grown up to be a bruiser who knew how to kiss better than any man I'd ever kissed in my life. And I'd grown up to appreciate him, finally. Or if not, I was madly in lust with him. Maybe both. "That sounds like something interesting, Jack." I envisioned some kind of mobile home, or maybe a two-bedroom tract house where he lived with his mother. It didn't matter. I didn't want to let go of the evening any more than he did. I was restless and fluttery. I didn't want anything so much as to kiss Jack again, melt into him, feel those strong arms around me. Kissing in the front seat of a truck with a stickshift has its limitations, sure, but my god. Jack started the truck up, its deep rumble somehow seeming to come from somewhere deep inside him. About five minutes of barely breathing later he pulled up in front of a big four-bedroom home on a major-sized lot with an attached granny flat (I think they called it an suite in the zoning by-law). "Is this yours, or did you just want to show me the best house in town?" "It's mine, Mom's and mine I suppose." "How on Earth can you afford this clerking at the hardware?" "Wal, Miss Cindy, I s'pose I may have misled you a tiny bit. Y'all should know that the hardware store I told you I still worked at is actually mine. The whole chain of thirteen stores. It kind of goes with the territory to have a nice house." "Oh Jack, I'm so pleased for you. Not that I think you're not capable of putting something like that together, but did you marry the boss's daughter or something?" I hadn't thought Jack was married, but maybe someone had forgotten to fill me in. "No, Miss Cindy, I put some money together and bought out the old man and then we had to expand because people were coming from all over and it wasn't fair to them to make them drive so far and eventually we ended up with a bunch more stores." "In two years? I've only been gone for two years." "A little less time than that, say eighteen months. It took a little hammering to get the banks to let loose of the money, but once we had five stores they had to keep lending, they were so far into me, or me into them. We've likely got to the limit of what I can handle personally." His voice was now sharp, incisive. No more good ole boy when there was money at stake, it seemed. "Let's go inside." "Will we bother your mother?" "Actually, I have the idea that my mama is keeping company with your papa tonight." "Really?" "Truly." "I'm so pleased that Daddy has someone, and your mother is just who I'd like him to have. I always liked her when we were kids." "I'm pleased for them both. One day, maybe one day soon, they'll give up trying to hide their affection and just go for it. I've tried to talk her into it, but she keeps saying that neither of them is prepared to make a commitment until their children are all settled." Well I supposed I was sort of a burden on Dad, though he'd never let on. My sister was happily married up north with two kids and my brother was on his third wife, sure that this time it would take. From the size of her stomach when we met it seemed to be going in that direction. Dad probably thought he had to get the baby settled, too. "I guess I'm a bit of a problem for Dad. You're doing well enough, though, if you have a house like this and a good business." "Ah think Mama means settled personally. She's got a hankering for grandkids, and I don't have any siblings to take care of thet chore fer me the way y'all do." I could hear the accent wandering in and out of his speech. I'm not sure why it did. "Well, heavens, look at you. Girls must be flinging themselves at you." "Happens." "No wonder. You must be the catch of the year. Handsome, articulate when you want to be, rich, reliable. What's not to like?" "Mebbe. Girls do cluster when I let them. It's just that the one woman I ever really wanted hasn't shown any interest. Until recently, p'raps. I'm not sure. Let me show you inside." "Jack, just what do you plan to do once we're in there?" "Wal, Miss Cindy, beggin' your pardon, you bein' a lady and all, once we're inside I intend to fuck your ears off." "Sounds just right, Jack, just right." Jack came around and opened the door for me, but instead of standing back like a true gentleman while I worked out how to get down from the high seat without falling on my head, he reached up and pulled me down into another of his warm and reckless and crazy and heated kisses. I have no idea of the effect on him, though he stumbled a bit when I fell into him because my legs gave out, but it lit me on fire and turned me into mush at the same time. I didn't see much of the house. We were both sprinting for the bedroom. I must have looked lost for a moment, since Jack just picked me up in his arms, those strong, perfect, protecting, warm arms of his, exactly as I'd envisioned them earlier. We got undressed and cuddled together and made passionate love for most of the night. I couldn't get enough of his warm strength and Jack couldn't get enough of me, it seemed. We finally fell asleep, temporarily sated, but I swore to myself it wasn't over between us. It was after ten when I finally woke up in his big bed, Jack's warmth providing the true comfort I couldn't remember from any time after my childhood when momma was still alive. I reached up to check that my ears were still there. Jack had promised to fuck them off, and he'd certainly given it the old college try. Oh well, we'd have to try again. I was sore from all the activity, so I thought I'd better put that thought on hold. I snuggled into my man and dropped off again. Sometime later, I awoke to the scent of coffee. Jack was just coming back into the bedroom, a tray full of breakfast in his hands. "Still got your ears, I see," he laughed. "Just barely." "We'll have to try again." "My thought exactly." "Up for some breakfast?" "Yes. You're going to make someone a wonderful husband, you know." "I'll tell momma. She's been training me up for it for so long, I'm sure she'll be pleased to know all her efforts are appreciated." "That they are." "I called your poppa to let him know you were all right, just fell asleep on me, so I let you rest." "That was thoughtful of you. I doubt he believed you." "He should have. He hadn't figured out that you weren't home yet. Guess he was busy." Jack and I chaffed each other a bit more while we ate, and then he took me home. It had been a lovely evening, all of it. Especially the part about getting home the next morning - well, afternoon. Jack had taken another shot at seeing how well my ears were attached, with my heated cooperation, and that held us up some. A few days later Jack asked me out again. "Is this going to end up like the last time?" "I surely hope so." "Me, too. Maybe we should just skip straight to dessert." "I'd rather show you off, Cindy, for a bit. I'm proud of you. Do you think you can hold your animal lusts in abeyance for a couple of hours?" "It'll be hard, but I'll try." He laughed. What a gorgeous laugh. About as far from a twitter as you'll find. Deep, starting well down in his belly and him shaking with the force of it. I shook a little, too, in sympathy, or maybe lust. This was a grand man. We went out for a few drinks. Because of Bert, and the effect liquor had on him, I didn't drink much. Jack didn't either. He had one early on that he nursed for more than an hour, and another later that I don't think he touched. It was still full when we left. I drank about the same, though there was still some in my first glass when I got my second. Jack probably noticed. Near as I could tell, Jack noticed everything, or maybe just everything about me. It felt good to know that someone was interested in noticing everything about me. Bert had been a little like that in the beginning. The difference was that Jack wasn't possessive about me, the way Bert had been even from the start. Or maybe he was. In a strange way I felt owned when I was with Jack, but with the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I could go out with another guy, it seemed, and he'd wait placidly for me to come back, totally confident that I would. Perhaps he was just confident that I never would go out with another man. There wasn't any reason I could see for that confidence; maybe he just felt right with himself. I would say he was entitled to feel like that. We sat and talked for a couple of hours, catching up. He was easy to talk to. I told him a little about my life with Bert. His mouth tightened when I told him a few of the rough bits. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that, but I thought he had to know about what had shaped me and why I probably wasn't the woman who had left two years before. I even told him about the desperate hope that had kept me going in that half empty airport even while the flights kept leaving without me, cutting pieces out of that hope until the glorious moment when Ms. Weston called my name. I got a hug, then. Jack understood. Of course, Jack had somehow always understood me, mostly. I don't think he understood me going off with Bert two years ago. I didn't much understand that myself, even now. Or especially now, after what I'd been through with him, and the difference with a man who was sure of himself. "I should have left him earlier." "You did leave him, you're here now, that's all that matters, Cindy." "But . . . " "No buts. No 'if only's. You're here. Nothing else is important." I supposed he was right. If I hadn't experienced Bert I likely wouldn't appreciate Jack. I don't know. I'd like to think enough of myself that I would have appreciated Jack even without the contrast. Perhaps I wouldn't. Daddy always said I could be the most contrary woman he'd ever come across. I smiled at the thought. "That smile for me, precious?" Jack asked. "Partly. Partly for you and partly for being here with you and a little bit of looking forward to some further ear testing," I explained. He grinned back at me, a slow-starting smile that eventually split his face, brightening him so much he seemed to shine. "Time to go?" he asked. "Yeah, let's." We walked out so close together we were almost making love on the floor. It was pretty obvious where we were headed. There wasn't any censure from the other patrons. They seemed to be happy for Jack. There were a couple of rueful smiles, almost like reluctant congratulations, for me. There hadn't been much to congratulate me for in my life to this point. It was nice people wished me well. When we got back to Jack's we wandered up to the bedroom again. We weren't in the same hurry we'd been the night before. We knew where we were going this time, knew it was a wonderful space, enjoyed the anticipation. After we shucked our clothes and climbed into bed we just hugged each other for a while. It was a wonderful feeling. Then we proceeded to make love, long, slow and often. I guess it was after midnight along about our third time, or maybe fourth, that I realized that making love was exactly what we'd been doing. We were making it and sharing it and piling it up for a future. A future together, I hoped. Half Empty Airport I woke up the next morning late, but Jack was still in bed with me. He was a glorious sight of a morning. I knew I'd never get tired of waking in his bed. I got up and made some breakfast. He was just waking up when I brought in the tray. "You'll make someone a wonderful wife, Cindy." "Perhaps, one day." Momma would have been pleased at the compliment. Maybe she was, looking down from heaven. I could almost feel her eyes on me. I hadn't felt that close to Momma since the day we buried her, Daddy and I. She'd have been pleased, perhaps was pleased, with Jack. I might have sniffled. "You all right, precious?" Jack asked. "Happy tears, love. Just thinking about Momma, and how happy she'd have been." Heavens. Had I just called Jack "love"? Nothing more designed to scare off the male of the species. Oh well. I couldn't call it back. It took me a couple more minutes to figure out that it was more than words. And that Jack didn't look like being any too scared. He just sort of snuggled into the word as if he was tasting it, and liked the way it tasted. We spent the morning being comfortable with each other more than passionate. "Can't take you home too early, Cindy. My mom and your dad aren't as young as we are. They need their beauty sleep more than we do." I was so comfortable curled up in those loving arms that I didn't protest. No sense in cutting short any of our time together. *** A couple of weeks later I left a shop happily, possessed of something that might please Jack. It was surprising how much I wanted to please Jack, these days. Only weeks since I'd fled that destructive relationship with Bert and I was happy again for almost the first time in nearly two years. Nearly joyful. My eyes were momentarily blinded by the contrast between the artificial light in the shop and the bright sun outside. I stumbled into a man on the sidewalk. His arms immediately grasped me, possessively, hurting, not securing me from a fall, not caring, just grabbing. I looked at his face. It was Bert. I screamed, partly in surprise, partly in terror, partly in horror. Had I just awakened from a dream? That night in the airport, waiting, waiting for the vacant seat that would see me home, had that all been a dream brought on by too much wanting? Was I still with Bert, tensing to be hit yet again? This was a small town in the south, now, and men still hadn't been corrupted enough by the lures of money and power to ignore a woman's scream. "Let me go, Bert." "Let the lady go, sir." That voice came from a smallish man I hadn't met before; no, given the size of the town, the better word was 'yet'. "You gonna make me, pipsqueak?" "No, but my friends will." "This is my woman, she left home without asking, I've come to take her back." "Back north, sir? That's where people like you must come from." "Back to California." "That so, ma'am?" "He lives in California, yes. I left him. I won't go back." "Wal, I guess that settles things, mister. Let the lady go. Now." That last word was a sharp crack. Bert almost loosened his grip. Bert was a mean bastard, as I'd discovered to my sorrow, and pain, and disgust, and humiliation. He pulled a knife. The small man smashed his wrist. The knife dropped. Bert let go of me. I stumbled back, into a pair of warm, open, strong, possessive, loving arms. It was Jack, of course. The world doesn't have so many like him that I could have expected anyone else. I don't know why I anticipated him being there for me, but I did. Another layer to my feelings that I had just discovered. More feelings erupted inside me. My anticipation had been entirely correct. Jack was there for me when I needed him. "You can't keep me from her." "Looks like she's with Cousin Jack. Looks like she wants to stay there. Can't say as I blame her. He's a good man." His look said derisively, 'not like you, asshole.' "Come on, then, I can take you all." "You drunk, mister?" "No, I've just come for my woman." "This is Ernie Norton's youngest, cousin," Jack added to the mix. "Seems like she ran off with this guy once upon a time and has regretted it most of the time since. Doesn't seem to me that she'd want to go back. Guess he hit her." I don't know how many of the half dozen or so men who were gathered round knew men who hit their wives or significant others. There were a lot of those bastards around. Everywhere. Yet the men who surrounded us seemed to be appalled at the thought. This was perhaps to be a time when they could actually do something about it. What happened in the privacy of the home could not be cured unless the abused partner was prepared to seek help, though it was help they were prepared to give. There's a lot more help available than people who are abused recognize. I wasn't proud of having let myself be abused, but I was not so stupid as to permit that false pride, or, even worse, the conviction Bert had tried to beat into me that I deserved to be abused, to make me turn down the help before me. "I hate the son of a bitch," I growled. So much for the ladylike demeanour I'd tried to project for Jack's benefit. "I'd rather be dead than go back to him." "That can be arranged," Bert sneered. One of the men backhanded Bert sharply. "That's no way to speak to a lady," he said, low, in a penetrating and threatening manner, his hand obviously itching to hit Bert again. Bert didn't see the look or heed the tone. It was all about him, now, his need to stand up for what he needed - no, wanted - and that wasn't me. It was such of his self respect as was left, I suppose, or a shred of pride, or something that kept him pushing against the odds. He reached for me again. "She's coming back." "You're out of your mind, man," the small guy, Jack's Cousin Somebody, said. "There are charges here. Uttering threats. Domestic violence. Weapons charges. Looks like we'll have to take you in." "I'll see you in hell, first. Where's a cop? I've got rights." "Wal, as to that, I'm not so sure," the little guy said. "But if you want the law, you got it, right here. I'm Sheriff Masters." "Sheriff?" I whispered to Jack. "Yeah, Cousin Ben's the meanest bastard in this part of the state. Made sense to make him sheriff, and he does a good job of it." "Bert's got a record." "I'll make sure Ben knows." When I returned my attention to the confrontation, Cousin Ben was reading Bert his rights. He didn't need any help getting Bert into the cuffs, though any help he might need was there. "Looks like you're good for at least twelve months, mister. Then I think you better skedaddle off to California before somebody gets you mixed up with a venomous snake and blows your head off. Might even be me." Bert, wisely, not an attribute I'd found in him, chose not to reply. "I'm glad Cousin Ben was here, sweetheart," Jack confided. "I don't know that I'd have done as well. I'm so big, no one ever challenged me, so I never learned how to fight." Cousin Ben caught the last of that remark. "So, you still say it wasn't you who beat George Shaeffer to a pulp after he mauled Betty Horton?" "Couldn't have been," Jack said shortly. "Likely not. Likely it was some other big bruiser with a penchant for protecting womenfolk." Jack took me away, then, back to the hardware, back into his office. "You all right?" he asked. "I'm all right. Just upset that he could find me." "It's not exactly a secret where you live. He picked you up here. Why shouldn't it be here that you ran to? I'm just surprised that he waited so long to come after you." "I don't know. I think he was waiting for me to come back. Then he'd feel justified in punishing me for my defiance, since I'd come back, knowing he would beat me, maybe more, I don't know. My coming back would be a kind of acceptance of whatever he chose to dish out. I'm finished being a doormat, Jack." "Dear God, what manner of man did you hook up with?" "A charming one, at first. Someone who plied me with attention, little gifts, courtesies, care. They all came from his need to dominate, and my acceptance of him and his little kindnesses justified his being kind in some fashion. His actions changed the first time I contradicted him. It was innocent. He'd made some kind of small mistake. I don't even remember what, now. I think if I'd shown no spirit at all it might have been a lovely life, me supporting his fragile ego with what might even have been genuine love, so long as I accepted his perfection, I suppose. He couldn't accept that he was a man with flaws like everyone else. Once I showed that I knew he was less than perfect, I became trash. He couldn't be cured of it, even when I went back. It was the longest time before I realized that he couldn't be cured, at least not by me. There are a lot like him out there." "Slow acting, insidious poison, is he?" "I think if I went back, he'd kill me. Not right away. That wouldn't be punishment enough. But one day, when his need to punish got out of hand." Jack just shook his head. "Do you need medical attention? I can get you into the doctor if you do." "No, those hurts are all cured. I didn't stay long enough for him to do any lasting damage. "Oh Jack, it's over now, and you really were magnificent, being there for me." "Wal, Miss Cindy, a man's gotta do . . ." and that's when I hit him, a good one, even if he was grinning to beat all. It was a beautiful grin, like all Jack's grins, and he held onto it even when he oofed from the force of my blow. "Wal now, Miss Cindy, you jest lemme ast y'all a wee question." "Go ahead." "Will you, Cynthia Louise Norton, honour me above all other men and agree to marry me?" "Yes." *** Like the song says, "She's all through crying, she's flying."