Storiesonline.net
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                              Loose Cannons
                            by Lazlo Zalezac

Copyright© 2011 by Lazlo Zalezac


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Description: Four people are drowning their sorrows in a downtown bar. Two robbers choose the wrong place to rob. All hell breaks loose and that's only the beginning.

Codes: MF rom cheat slow violent
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Chapter 1


Selena Summit stormed into the bar with an angry expression on her face. She didn't have the appearance of one of the regular female visitors to the bar in the sense that she wasn't dressed to catch a man. Of course, it was a little early in the day for that kind of bar action. The mid-afternoon crowd tended to be alcoholic businessmen, under-employed contractors, and unemployed layabouts. Her angry appearance might have created a stir, but this particular afternoon the bar was empty except for the bartender.

Selena wasn't a fat woman although some might, if they were in a generous mood, say that she was rather stout. She wasn't a particularly attractive woman. In fact, she was rather plain although her size did produce a pair of substantial breasts. Her lack of make-up and dowdy clothes only emphasized her plainness.

Marching over to the bar, she shouted, "A white wine. Large!"

"What kind of white wine?" the bartender asked pleasantly. "We have..."

"I don't give a damn what kind you have, just make it large," she growled.

"Okay. One large white wine coming up," the bartender said while reaching over for the jug of white wine that served as the house wine.

He reached for a wine glass. Seeing the expression on her face, he pulled a water glass from the rack and filled it to the brim. Sliding it over the bar towards her, he said, "One large glass of white wine."

Growling at him, she picked up the glass, spilling a bit in the process, and took a substantial drink out of it. She stomped over to one of the tables pausing only to take another large swig of the wine on the way. The bartender shrugged his shoulders and returned to the mysterious activities that barkeeps worldwide use to fill the hours when bars are empty.

Guy Gasser shuffled into the bar looking like his dog had died and he was looking for the killer. It was a strange mixture of sadness and anger. Slightly balding, he was middle-aged and carried an extra ten pounds, most of it around his stomach. On most occasions people would have described him as having a friendly appearance, but on this particular occasion he looked like he wanted to rip someone's head off.

Even before reaching the bar, he said, "Scotch on the rocks with a glass of water on the side. Make it a double."

"Okay," the bartender said.

"Keep 'em coming until I can't stand," Guy said.

"You're the customer," the bartender said.

He made the drink and set it on the bar. Guy picked up the drink and drained half of it while the bartender filled a glass with water. He killed off the drink before the bartender even set the water glass on the bar.

"Another."

The bartender said, "You might want to take it easy."

"Don't give me any shit. I'm not in the mood," Guy said.

A minute later, Guy was seated at a table across the room from Selena. She glared at him. He gave her the finger. Both took a drink and then glared at each other from across the room.

The bartender ambled over to the cash register where the phone was located. Storm clouds were gathering and he wasn't the type to wait for the last minute to search for an umbrella. He hadn't even reached the register when another customer entered the bar.

Cody Slonaker stiffly marched to the bar. His face was white. His features were tight. He gave the impression that he was a man on the verge of violence and was just looking for an excuse to unleash his rage at someone or something.

"Whiskey. Beer chaser."

"Coming right up," the bartender said. He glanced at the telephone thinking it was long past time to call in reenforcements.

The bartender poured the beer first and then the whiskey. Cody didn't wait for the whiskey to arrive before taking a long swill out of the glass of beer. When the whiskey appeared in front of him, he drank it back and then finished the beer.

"Another."

The bartender nodded his head and refilled the order. Cody grabbed the drinks and headed over to an empty table. He choose one on the same side of the room as Guy. When Selena glared at him, he muttered, "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."

Cody was barely settled into his seat when Max Boros entered the bar. His hands were clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles had turned white. He marched over to the bar as if hoping someone would get in his way.

"Beer."

"Okay," the bartender said. "What kind?"

"Any kind."

"Right. One generic beer coming up," the bartender said.

Max grabbed his beer and drank it down. He ordered another. Once it had been served, he headed over to a table located near the one occupied by Selena. Selena glared at him. He glared back at her and took a seat.

The bartender looked around the room at his four customers. Positioned in the room like combatants stationed in the four corners of a wrestling ring, they were glaring at each other and mumbling over their respective drinks. All looked about ready to explode. Each was ready for a refill and none of them had been sitting there that long. In his long experience as a barman this did not forebode well. It was past time to call a friend on the local police force and ask him to drop by, preferably in uniform, for a little visit.

He had just reached the phone when two men wearing trench coats entered the bar. He recognized them immediately. The last time they had come into the bar they had left two hundred dollars richer. He had been left with a black eye and swollen lip.

"Oh shit," he muttered just as the shotguns appeared from under the trench coats.

It is a fact that a small spark in a fireworks factory will lead to explosive results of disastrous proportions. The appearance of two aggressive individuals in a bar filled with angry, slightly inebriated customers, has many of the same consequences. The gunmen, thinking that their shotguns would cow everyone into submission, were taken by surprise when that didn't turn out to be the case.

Selena, holding her purse in two hands (it was heavily packed with two cans of cat food, a library book, and an empty thermos), swung said purse at the head of one of the gunmen. She put her entire body into the motion. Max picked up a chair and swung it at the same gunman. Both purse and chair connected with the gunman at the same time. He dropped like a rock.

Cody and Guy both swung at the second gunman at the same time. Guy went for a kidney shot while Cody went for the jaw. The gunman, twisting at the time the punches were thrown, was off balance and fell to the floor. Although both blows had been slightly off target, Cody and Guy were not detered. They immediately started kicking the prostrate man.

Neither gunman had released their hold on their shotguns. In fact, they clung to their guns as if their lives depended upon it. As far as the law was concerned, unarmed people facing armed people had the right of as much force as necessary. For Selena, Max, Cody, and Guy, this was a good thing since it excused their subsequent actions.

Cody kept stomping on the hand holding the gun. He just kept it up until there was nothing left of the hand but a bloody mess. Meanwhile, Guy was busy kicking the downed man not particularly worried about where his foot was connecting. Guy slowly progressed to the point where he was just jumping up and down on the fallen gunman.

Across the room, Selena was busy trying to kick the gunman in the balls. He was curled into a fetal position that made access to that sensitive area difficult. It didn't stop her from trying. With a maniacal grin on his face, Max didn't care where his kicks were landing.

There was shouting involved in the attack although it was difficult to tell who was saying what. The moans, groans, and screams were obviously coming from the two gunmen. Curses, growls, and insults were coming from the four customers. Only a few full sentences reached the bartender with sufficient clarity to understand them.

"That'll teach you to pull a fuckin' shotgun on me!"

"Take that asshole!"

"You're just like every other fucking man!"

"Let go of that shotgun!"

"Fuck you mister bad ass!"

"I've been wanting to do this all day long."

The barman stared at the melee in total disbelief. He picked up the phone and dialed 911. When they finally answered, he said, "I'd like to report an attempted robbery. There's no need to rush. They aren't going anywhere."

Breathing heavily, Max finally stepped back to catch his breath. He said, "I needed that."

Selena, after one very satisfying kick more, stepped back and said, "That felt good."

Cody stopped kicking the man. Looking down at the battered mess, he said, "I wish it had been that bastard."

"I wish it had been her boyfriend," Guy said thinking that he had found someone who would understand his anger.

Just like that, as quickly as it had begun, the action had stopped. The two gunmen weren't moving. They weren't even groaning. They just lay on the floor like sacks of flour.

"I need a drink," Max said.

Selena shouted, "More drinks over here."

"Make 'em doubles. That was thirsty work," Cody shouted.

The bartender yelled back, "I'm on the phone with 911."

The four grabbed their near empty drinks and settled down at a common table. Each took a sip and then looked around the table.

"Well, that was a weird end to the worst day of my life," Max said.

Selena said, "I'm having the worst day ever."

"No way. My day has been the worst day ever in the history of mankind," Cody said.

"It can't beat mine," Max said. Leaning forward, he said, "Yesterday afternoon, I had the biggest sale of my life. I took my wife out to celebrate because the commission check is going to be huge. Guess what happened?"

"It got canceled?" Guy asked.

"No. I got laid off this morning," Max answered.

"That is pretty bad," Selena said. "I went home and found my boyfriend in bed with my former best friend."

"That hurts," Guy said. "I just came back from the doctor's office."

"Are you ill?" Selena asked.

"I've got gonorrhea," Guy answered. "The only one who could've given it to me is my wife."

Selena said, "Oh shit, I didn't even think about getting tested for STDs."

Cody sat back and said, "I'd love to have your problems. Mine has yours beat."

"What can be worse than finding that your wife of twenty years has given you a sexually transmitted disease?" Guy asked.

Cody answered, "Finding out that your precious little girl..."

His chin quivered. He said, "My little princess..."

He choked up and wiped his eyes. He said, "My darling innocent little girl..."

"My God man, did she die?" Max asked.

Selena was wondering if his daughter had been raped. That comment about innocent was pretty suggestive.

Cody answered, "She's a porn star on her own website."

"Fuck," Max said. "Go kick those two bastards over there a couple more times. You need it."

Damn," Selena said.

Guy said, "In my book, that is the definition of a bad day."

All four took a sip of their drinks.

Selena asked, "Does your wife know?"

"I don't think so. She'd be a mess if she knew," Cody said. "If I ever catch that sleazy asshole boyfriend of hers, he'll wish he was dead. I'm gonna do things to that boy's body that will make the Spanish Inquisition look tame."

"Where are our drinks?" Max shouted.

Selena looked over her shoulder and said, "The cops are here."

The police had been there for a while. Most of the time had been spent talking to the barman and watching the surveillance videos of the event. They had wanted to get as many facts as possible before talking to the foursome who had taken care of the situation. Needless to say, even the police were shocked and surprised by the outburst of violence that had been captured on tape.

Still somewhat incredulous at what they had watched on tape, the policemen kept glancing over at the foursome. They were chatting like they were at an afternoon tea. They looked like such normal people. None of them were overly muscular or aggressive looking. They were the kind of people who worked for a living and lived lives of quiet desperation like so many others in the community. Working for a paycheck, keeping a house, raising a family, and paying the bills constituted the majority of their efforts.

The two criminals were already on stretchers for the ride to the hospital. They were going to be there for quite a while. Their injuries were extensive and it was highly unlikely they would ever be able to resume their life of crime.

"Considering how our day has gone, I figure we'll be arrested," Max said in disgust.

Selena shouted, "Where are our drinks?"

Warily one of the policemen approached the table with a backup standing a few paces behind and off to the side.

"I think you four have had enough to drink," the policeman said. "I'd hate to have to arrest you on a public intoxication charge."

The bartender brought over a tray loaded with drinks. He figured after that little scene, they deserved them.

"I told you so. They're going to arrest us," Max said while grabbing his beer.

The officer rolled his eyes and said, "We're just going to ask you some questions about what happened."

"They pulled guns and we beat the shit out of them," Cody replied. "That's the short version."

Selena giggled. "The long version is that they came into the bar, pulled out their guns, and we kicked the holy crap out of them."

All four burst out in laughter giving proof to the folk wisdom that things seem a lot wittier when one is under the influence of alcohol than they are in reality. The foursome were feeling the consequences of their initial intake of drink. They found it hilarious.

"We need contact information and then we'll get you home," the policeman said.

The fact of the matter was that foursome had put an end to a major crime spree. The two suspects had a long history of robberies in the area. The police had not expected to catch the two men in this particular manner, but they were happy to have them in custody.

Guy reacted to the suggestion that he go home. "Home. Fuck home. Fuck all homes. Who needs homes? We can just live under bridges and fuck whoever and whatever we want."

"Oh shit," the officer mumbled. In a louder voice, he said, "Just give us your contact information."

It took a few minutes for everyone to give their contact information to the officer. While doing so, they also exchanged contact information with each other. The fight and the subsequent conversation about their individual problems had bound the four together.

Guy looked over at Selena. "Can I stay at your place? I've got nowhere else to go."

"So long as you keep your diseased cock away from me," Selena answered in brutal honesty.

"No problem," Guy said.

Selena smiled when a plan began to form in her head. She said, "You can help me chase off my asshole boyfriend."

"Do you want me to fuck your ex best friend?" Guy asked with a grin.

Cody said, "I bet she'd appreciate a good dose of the clap."

"Now that is the best suggestion I've heard all day," Selena answered trying hard not to laugh.

Max stood and then quickly sat back down in his chair. He was not used to drinking. His drinks had finally hit him full force. "I'm pissed and I mean that in both senses of the word."

"Same here," Cody said. "I've still got to talk to the wife about what our daughter has been doing. It's going to break her heart."

"I've got a cheating wife to deal with," Guy said. "I better be sober when I see her or I'll end up killing her."

"I've got to explain to my wife that I'm now an unemployed man," Max said. "I've got no idea how I'm going to do that."

"Bartender! Call us a taxi," Selena shouted. "We'll have another round while we're waiting for it."

The policeman said, "We'll take you home."

"Thank you officer!" Max said. He squinted his eyes. There were suddenly two officers who might have been twins standing in front of him. He corrected himself, "Officers."



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Chapter 2


A very inebriated Max Boros rode to his house in the backseat of a patrol car with Cody Slonaker. The last round of drinks had nearly done him in. He wasn't feeling queasy, but the world did occasionally turn into two and spin a little at odd moments. The drink had logical consequences on his mood in the sense that it rapidly fluctuated from one extreme to another. At times he was angry, belligerent, morose, or depressed.

During the first half of the ride, he learned a few more details about Cody's daughter. She was described as being far less mature for her age than Cody felt appropriate. Although she was in her early twenties, he described her as acting more like a fourteen year old than an adult. Cody painted a picture of her through episodes of her life as a teenager and the arguments that he had with his wife concerning how she was being raised.

The man's description of the girl sounded eerily familiar with how he would describe his own daughter. She was a little princess who was too good to do the kinds of things her mother had done. She started many projects, but finished none of them. Everything was plans, but when it came time to do the work nothing happened. Mother and daughter worked together to keep the daughter as childlike as possible for the longest time possible.

Cody described a pattern of rapid mood swings, temper tantrums, and expensive changes in fashion. There were times when she was dressed like a punk that alternated with times dressed in Goth. She listened to weird music about how the whole world sucked. According to Cody, there was only one person in the world that mattered to his daughter and that was his daughter. She was totally self-involved and had no empathy for anyone else.

Max listened with a rising sense of horror.

As the effects of the alcohol caught up with them, both men became lost in thoughts about their own problems. Max felt betrayed by the company that he had spent the last nineteen years. As a salesman, he wasn't the best or the worst. He was a good consistent producer of sales. In many ways, he felt that he was more valuable than the flash in the pans who burst into the company with huge sales and then fled for greener pastures later. He remained behind making sales while others scrambled to deal with unrepresented territories. Often times, replacements were credited with sales that represented little more than catching up on a backlog of orders.

He had followed the company line. He had attended all of the little sales meetings, applauded all of the speeches made by upper management of the company, and given lip service to all of the memos that crossed his desk. In short, he was a good loyal company man.

What good had it done him? The company had rewarded him by laying him off despite having made the sale of his life. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Max was a firm believer in fairness and the company's actions were particularly grating to his sensibilities.

Max's thoughts turned to his home life. He dearly loved his wife and children, but the fact of the matter was that there were things about his family that bothered him. Cody's description of his daughter disturbed him. He could see a possible future in which his own daughter became the star of some porn site. He despaired that his son would ever get his act together and start taking on responsibilities.

Thus it was that when the police car stopped outside his house, a somber, but not sober, Max stepped out. He leaned in the car and said, "Cody. If you decide you need a place to stay ... well ... you're welcome to stay here."

"I'll keep that in mind," Cody replied.

Max turned and headed towards the front door of his house. He paused and waved at the police car expecting it to drive off. Instead, the officer waited to make sure that Max reached the front door of his house.

His wife, having seen the police car pull up in front of the house, opened the door and watched Max stagger towards her. She waited for him to come in the house. It only took a single whiff of him when he staggered past her towards the living room to realize that he had been drinking.

Marylou said, "You're drunk."

"As a skunk," Max replied proudly.

She was worried by his appearance. In the entire time that she had known him, she had never seen him drunk. She couldn't recall ever seeing him have more than a single drink in an entire evening. He often bad mouthed salesmen who drank too much. He claimed that drinking too much was not an occupational hazard, but that sales was an occupation that attracted individuals who drank too much. Alcoholics saw sales as a perfect cover for their alcoholism.

"Why were you in a police car?" Marylou asked.

"They brought me home," Max answered. He mumbled, "I thought that would be obvious."

"Did they pick you up for drunk driving?" Marylou asked.

Max shook his head. "No. They would have taken me to jail for drunk driving."

"So why did they bring you home?" Marylou asked.

Max held up a hand with a finger pointed upwards. "They wanted to reward me for having done my civic duties as a proud citizen of this fine city."

"What did you do?"

By this time, his son and daughter had arrived in the living room to discover why a police car was parked in front of their home. Both stopped and stared at their father who was weaving from side to side. They stared at him not believing what they were seeing.

"I beat up some fucking robbers. I kicked the shit out of them," Max answered proudly.

He mimed taking a kick at something on the floor and nearly fell over in the process. Marylou was shocked by his language, particularly that he had talked like that in front of the kids. Being drunk did not excuse that kind of language.

"Max!"

"What?" Max asked in that belligerent manner that only the truly drunk can achieve.

"Don't talk like that in front of the children," Marylou said sternly.

Marylou was a plain looking woman of small stature. Despite her size, she could turn viscous as a badger when her family was threatened. Max watched her transform from worried wife to angry woman. In his inebriated state, he didn't care and the words that proceeded to flow from his mouth would never have been uttered under any other circumstance.

Turning to his son, he said, "Ah! They lazy bum managed to break away from his games."

"Dad, I'm not..."

Max shouted, "Listen up, little fucker. Your days as a freeloader in this family are over. You're going to start earning your god-damned allowance. You're going to mow the lawn, take out the trash, and ... I don't know ... paint the fucking house."

His son, Robert, stared at his father in shock. "What? Paint the house?"

"You heard me, you little shit. You're going to paint the whole house, inside and out," Max said pleased to have come up with a job that would keep his son busy.

"I don't..."

"Your days of sitting around this house complaining that the crap that I buy for you isn't good enough have come to an end. You want it, you buy it with money you earned with good honest labor. Fuck this shit of me buying you a computer and hearing a week later that it isn't good enough. Fuck that!"

Robert took two steps backwards. He couldn't believe the language his father was using. Unfortunately, that put his sister in front of him.

"Max! Shut up!"

Ignoring his wife, he turned to his daughter. She stood there with red, purple, and green hair. Her outfit made her look like some kind of refugee from an internment camp. She looked like hell. All of the little comments about Cody's daughter rushed back to him.

Max said, "Wash that shit out of your hair and put on some real clothes. You look like a tramp. Next thing you know, you'll start acting like one."

"Daddy!"

Max said, "If you ever turn into a whore, I'll kill you. Do you hear me, missy? I'll fucking kill you."

"Mom!" Barbie said turning to her mother.

Max shouted, "I'm not going to have my daughter turn into a whore. No sir-ee."

Barbie was beginning to cry. No one had ever talked to her like that before. She couldn't believe that her father was calling her a whore.

"Max! I'm warning you!"

"Your days as a prima dona and spoiled little bitch are coming to end. You want piano lessons, well ... you better be a fuckin' virtuoso by the time I'm done paying for them. I'll stand behind you and whip you until you practice. This start something and then dropping it after I've spent a fortune on you is coming to an end," Max shouted while waving an arm around in the air.

"Maxwell, get to your room!"

"On second thought, I'm not paying for shit. You're going to get a job at a burger place and pay for your own lessons," Max said.

"You know she's too good to work in a burger place," Marylou screamed.

By this time, her face had turned red. Her fists had turned white. She was shaking with rage. There was no way that she wasn't going to tolerate that kind of language or behavior in front of the kids.

"Bullshit! You worked at a fucking taco stand when you were her age. If it was good enough for you, then it is good enough for her," Max declared.

He turned to face her. Actually, he turned to face both of her. His vision was going double again.

"That's different," Marylou said suddenly on the defensive.

They had this argument many times in the past. She couldn't convince him that times were different and that kids needed to stay kids for as long as possible. There would come a time when they couldn't avoid responsibilities. It was better for them to relax and take it easy until life forced them to grow up.

"Bull-fucking-shit!"

For the first time in her life, Marylou was prompted to violence. She hauled off and slapped Max as hard as she could.

Max stumbled back feeling his cheek. Drunkenly, he said, "Two hours ago, I kicked the shit out of a man who was pointing a shotgun at me. He's in the fucking hospital. So I'm going to tell you nicely, don't slap me! I'm a bad-assed mother fucker!"

"Get to bed!"

"Not until I'm finished laying down the law..."

"Now!"

"Fuck that. Speaking of fucking... ," Max said distracted by a sudden thought. "Why don't you swallow after giving me a blowjob?"

"Oh my God!" Marylou said horrified by what he had said. Pale faced, she turned to the kids and calmly said, "Go to your rooms."

"No. Let them hear this. It's time they grew up," Max said getting angry that his wife was undermining his authority one more time.

The kids decided that their mother was right and that it was time for them to make themselves scarce. They left the room as if it were on fire. Robert was scared. Although he knew his father was drunk, he had a feeling that the man meant every word that came out of his mouth.

On the other hand, Barbie was devastated. She fled to her room in order to cry. Her father had never talked to her in that manner. She wondered if he loved her. On reaching her room, she threw herself on her bed and started bawling her eyes out.

As soon as the kids had left the room, Marylou shouted, "How dare you?"

"Easily. You drink enough and you'll spit in the eye of Satan," Max answered. He burst out laughing and then added, "I think I just called my wife the devil."

"I know you're drunk, but that doesn't excuse you," Marylou said.

Max replied, "I'm not looking to be excused. I'm not going to have my kids grow up to be bums or whores. Coddling them ain't gonna make them responsible adults. They need to work and learn the value of a dollar. They need to accept a little responsibility for once."

"Who says they're going to grow up to be bums or whores?" Marylou said.

"Cody. His daughter is a whore. Those are his words, not mine. The girl he described could have been Barbie's twin sister. He kept saying that he wished he had stood up to his wife once and paddled his daughter's ass when she started going off the deep end," Max said.

Marylou said, "Barbie is not going to be a whore."

"Did you see her? She looked like a reject from the freak show at the circus," Max said.

"It's just a phase she's going through," Marylou said.

"Bullshit! She's an undisciplined spoiled little brat and you're helping her to be one," Max said.

"Don't talk about your daughter that way," Marylou said.

Max burped. There was the sudden sour taste of vomit in his mouth. He said, "I think I"m going to be sick."

"Oh God! Not here," Marylou said.

Max turned towards the hallway and headed for the bedroom hoping that he could reach the toilet in the master bath before vomiting. He just made it.

Furious, Marylou said, "You're going to be so sorry in the morning mister. I'm going to make sure of that."

While Max knelt in front of the porcelain god, Marylou was in Barbie's room trying to restore peace to the household. The young girl was sobbing. Marylou sat on the bed and stroked Barbie's hair.

Marylou said, "I'm so sorry, honey."

"How could he say those things about me?" Barbie asked.

"I don't know what got into him. I've never seen him like that," Marylou answered.

"He said I was going to be a whore," Barbie said.

"He's drunk and didn't know what he was saying," Marylou said.

Barbie said, "He doesn't love me."

"Yes he does," Marylou said. "I'm going to talk to him in the morning when he sobers up. He'll be in here apologizing to you. Just you wait and see."

"Thanks, Mom," Barbie said.

Marylou left Barbie and headed to Robert's bedroom. He was seated in front of his computer staring at the screen. He was staring at it, but not seeing a thing. He was replaying his father's words. As much as he hated it, there had been an element of truth to what he had said.

Standing at the door, she said, "I'm sorry about that."

"He was serious," Robert said.

"He was drunk," Marylou said. "People say all kinds of stupid things when they're drunk."

"No. He was serious," Robert said.

Marylou said, "I'll talk to him in the morning. He'll be sober then."

"I don't know how to mow the lawn," Robert said.

"You won't have to mow the lawn," Marylou said.

Robert turned his chair so that he was facing his mother. In a calm quiet voice, he said, "Mom. He was serious. He's right about me being a lazy bum and Barbie being a spoiled brat."

"You're not lazy and she's not spoiled," Marylou said.

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt," Robert said before spinning his chair so that he was facing his computer. "I read that somewhere. I thought it was funny at the time."

"It isn't funny," Marylou said.

"Right," Robert said.

Marylou went to see what Max was doing. The bathroom door was locked. There were sounds of retching audible through the closed door. Shaking her head, she asked, "What in the hell got into you Max?"

It was late in the evening when Marylou got around to watching the news. There on the television, in scratchy black and white, was her husband kicking a man lying on the floor. She listened in shock at the reporters comments about the event. Shaking her head, she asked, "What in the hell got into you, Max?"

Max wasn't there to answer the question. He was passed out cold on the bathroom floor behind a locked door.



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Chapter 3


Selena Summit and Guy Gasser rode together in the back of a patrol car to her apartment. For the most part it was a quiet ride. They were both feeling a little woozy from the drink.

"Are you sure about me staying at your place for the night?" Guy asked.

"I'm sure," Selena answered.

She had almost forgotten that she had invited him to stay at her apartment with her. She wasn't looking forward to the scene that was sure to happen when they arrived at the apartment. Mike, if he stayed in character, was going to act like a complete jerk while denying everything. Even when caught, he had denied having sex with Penny even though his cock was still inside the woman.

"It's going to be bad," Selena said.

"What's going to be bad, Ma'am?" the officer riding shotgun asked.

"Getting my cheating ex-boyfriend out of the apartment," Selena answered.

"Whose name is on the lease?"

"Mine," Selena answered.

"We can talk to him," the officer driving the car said.

The officer riding shotgun said, "It's best to let us deal with this situation."

"Fine."

The officer riding shotgun said, "You guys really did a number on those suspects."

"Kicked the shit out of them," Guy said.

"That might be the case, but you should have just hung back and let us handle it," the officer driving the car said. "We're professionals. You could have been seriously injured ... maybe even killed."

"You weren't there," Guy said pointing out the obvious flaw in letting the professionals handle it.

"Still..."

Guy said, "Besides, I really enjoyed it. I mean ... a legal chance to beat the shit out of someone. You don't get those kinds of opportunities every day."

"I've got to admit, I felt a lot better afterwards," Selena said.

The two officers exchanged glances. They had watched the tape of their attack on the two suspects. A few of the police had remarked that usually it was a tape of police beating a suspect that showed up on the television. They joked how the tables would be turned if this tape showed up on television. A few wondered if there would be the kind of outrage that would show up if police were involved with a situation like that.

"The four of you nearly crossed the line. If they had dropped their weapons, you would have been in serious trouble."

Guy decided that not talking further was probably a pretty good idea. Selena was of a similar mindset and, taking the opportunity to change the subject, said, "I'll take you up on your offer to chase off my ex-boyfriend."

"Not that it is any of my business, but why's he your ex?" the officer riding shotgun asked.

"I caught him fucking my best friend," Selena answered bluntly.

"That's rough," the driver said.

He wasn't going to say that a big woman like her should be happy with any man interested in her, even if the fellow didn't have the best character. Considering her appearance, he felt that beggars couldn't be choosers. It might have been a chauvinistic attitude, but there were a lot of men who thought the same way.

The rest of the trip was made in silence. Guy was thinking about his cheating wife while Selena was thinking about her cheating boyfriend. Their thoughts were depressing them.

When they arrived at the apartment, the officer riding shotgun said, "You two wait here until we get the boyfriend out."

"Okay," Guy said.

"Fine," Selena said.

While the police were dealing with the ex-boyfriend, Guy said, "Are you sure about having me stay the night?"

"I'm sure. Just don't get your diseased dick near me," Selena said.

Guy said, "I'll be good."

"That's the story of my life," Selena said in disgust. "Men seem to find it pretty easy to be good around me."

"Don't say things like that. You know it's not true," Guy said.

"Fat lot you know," Selena said.

The police were at the door of the apartment waiting for Mike to finish packing. He had been a little belligerent and couldn't believe that Selena would call the cops to have him leave. He threw a little tantrum in which he tossed a bunch of the video tapes and CDs on the floor. They made a point of discussing the events at the bar where Mike could overhear their discussion. They figured that the story might make the man reconsider returning to the apartment after they left.

Guy asked, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm pretty wasted," Selena answered. "I'll probably be sick all night."

"Have you got a plastic trashcan?" Guy asked.

"A little one," Selena answered. "Why?"

"I figure I'll use the trashcan so you can have the bathroom," Guy said. "That booze isn't sitting too well in my stomach."

"We shouldn't have had that last round of drinks," Selena said.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Guy said.

One of the cops opened the car door and said, "You can go in now."

"Thanks," Selena said.

"Thank you," Guy said.

Guy followed Selena into the apartment feeling a little guilty about imposing on her like this. He just knew that if he went home that he'd probably end up in jail.

Selena gestured around the place. The video tapes and Cds that were scattered around on the floor were the result of Mike. She said, "This is home sweet home. I apologize for the mess. I guess Mike wasn't too happy about being asked to leave."

"I understand," Guy said.

It was a pretty nice apartment considering the neighborhood. Even though he wasn't in the habit of noticing things like that, he did observe that everything was dust free and the nicknacks were neatly placed. She had quality stuff in it although it was a little messed up as a result of the Mike's final tantrum.

Guy knelt down to pick up the tapes and Cds. He figured that he should give a helping hand. It seemed to him that she had pretty good taste in films and music. Sure there were a few chick flicks in there, but that was to be expected. He noticed a number of sci-fi films.

Selena started to empty her purse. She pulled out the book and set it on the table. It was a little light reading to help pass lunch time.

Guy glanced over at the book and recognized the title. He said, "Science Fiction?"

"I love the stuff," Selena answered.

"I do too," Guy said.

Selena pulled out the thermos from her purse. It rattled. She said, "Damn. I must have broken my thermos when I hit that asshole with my purse."

"We'll get a new one tomorrow," Guy said.

"I've got to work," Selena said.

Guy said, "I won't be going into work tomorrow. I'll call in sick and then head over to the lawyers."

Selena removed the two cans of cat food from her purse.

Guy asked, "You've got a cat?"

"Not really," Selena said, "I leave the window open a bit so that one of the local strays can come and go. It isn't really mine, but I feed it."

"I like cats. My soon to be ex-wife doesn't," Guy said. "We had an orange tabby when I was a kid. We called him Tiger because of the stripes. I really liked that cat. It was independent and all, but it could be really affectionate at times."

"Yeah. You have to take cats on their own terms," Selena said.

"Why don't you keep it?"

"We're not supposed to have pets, but it's a stray so what can the management say."

Guy finished picking up the tapes and Cds. He got up from the floor and watched Selena move around the apartment picking up other things.

"We're quite a pair, aren't we?" Selena said.

"I guess. I keep asking myself why she was screwing around on me. I just can't figure it out. I mean, I thought I was a good husband. I tried to help out around the house," Guy said. He snorted, "I guess I should be thankful that it was gonorrhea and not HIV."

"Don't even joke about that," Selena said.

Guy said, "The doctor wanted me to tell my wife so that she could come in to get treated. I told him that I hadn't had sex with my wife since I picked up the infection. It was the truth, but I made out like she was clean."

"That's nasty," Selena said.

"I figure she can spread it around to all of her boyfriends," Guy said.

"That's one way to look at it," she said.

Guy said, "The doctor gave me a shot and told me not to have sex for at least seven days. He wants me to come in for a checkup next week."

"Just one shot?" Selena asked.

"Yes," Guy answered.

"I didn't realize it was so easily treated," Selena said.

"Me neither," Guy said. "We can cure the disease with one shot, but not the cause. I fear that getting out of this marriage is going to be a real pain in the ass."

"I wouldn't know about that. I've never been married," Selena said. "Getting rid of an asshole boyfriend appears to be as easy as asking a cop to tell him to leave."

"You're lucky," Guy said.

They made their way over to the couch and sat down. Selena sighed and asked, "What do men want from women?"

Although it was a rhetorical question, Guy chose to answer it. "I think most guys want two things."

"Two things?" Selena asked.

"First and most importantly, men want ... I want a companion ... a friend ... a pal. You know, someone you can just hang with and feel comfortable being around. Someone you can talk to, do things with, and just have a little fun around. I want to be able to trust her. To know that she can know my deepest darkest secret and won't betray me by telling it to others and won't lose respect for me because of it. She's got to be a pal," Guy said.

"That sounds easy," Selena said.

Guy shook his head. "It's a whole lot harder to find a good pal then you might think. How many really close friends do you have? I don't have many."

"That's true," Selena said quietly.

She had a best friend, but it was clear that she wasn't as good of a friend as she had thought. There was no way that she could ever trust her again and that was important. Friends don't do things like that.

"I guess that is what hurts the most. I lost my best friend the minute the doctor told me about the gonorrhea," Guy said.

"What's the second thing men want?"

"Promise me that you won't laugh," Guy said.

"I promise."

Guy said, "He wants a woman to worship his cock."

Selena burst out laughing. She said, "You've got to be kidding."

"No. I'm serious," Guy said. "He wants to see her eyes light up when she takes his cock in her hands. There's this look of wonder, amazement, and awe that a woman can get. A guy wants to see that expression every time she sees his cock. It should be a fascination that matches a man's fascination of her breasts and vagina."

"Did your wife ever look at your cock that way?" Selena asked.

"No. She played with it long enough to get it hard and then wanted me to get busy slamming it into her," Guy answered.

"Oh."

Guy said, "When I was in high school, there was this girl I dated. She would have that expression on her face when she played with my cock. She'd make love to it for an hour at a time. The whole time, her eyes would glow. When I came, she would have this look of absolute adoration on her face that just sent shivers down my spine. We never progressed beyond handjobs and heavy petting, but she was amazing."

"Really? You were satisfied with handjobs? All of the men I've ever been with started by pushing my head into their crotch," Selena said.

"Never underestimate the value of a good handjob. It is really a chance for a woman to show a man just how much she adores his cock," Guy said.

"Wow," Selena said.

Guy said, "I wonder how many guys look back fondly on those days of high school when an inexperienced girl gave him a handjob. I think everyone has to miss that sense of experiencing something new and wondrous for the first time with someone just as inexperienced. What do you think?"

"I don't know," Selena said. "It was different for me."

She hadn't dated in high school. It was like she missed a lot of the process of growing into a sexual being. By the time she had finally hooked up with a man, he was expecting blowjobs and jungle sex. She had never really had the chance to explore a man's body like she imagined a lot of teenage girls did.

Guy asked, "What do you mean?"

"Oh ... I don't feel so good..."

Guy looked over at her and noticed that her forehead was starting to sweat and she was beginning to look a little green. She'd had a lot of wine and it was getting ready to come back at her.

"We'd better get you into the bathroom," Guy said while getting up from the sofa.

"Yeah," Selena said.

Feeling the room start to spin, Guy said, "I'm not feeling so good myself."

They managed to make it to the bathroom. When she emptied her stomach in the toilet, he rubbed her back. When he emptied his stomach in the little plastic trashcan that was in the bathroom, she rubbed his back. Between bouts of vomiting, they just sat on the bathroom floor looking and feeling miserable. There wasn't much conversation.

It was still early in the evening when Selena handed Guy a blanket. She was ready for bed, but Guy wouldn't let her go until she drank two glasses of water. Once she had downed the water, she then staggered off to bed.

Guy drank two glasses of water before heading over towards the couch. He stripped down to his boxers and collapsed on make shift bed. He covered himself with the blanket and then stared a moment at the ceiling. Just before passing out, he muttered, "Gonorrhea. Some pal she is."



-------

Chapter 4


After the police dropped Max off at his house, Cody Slonaker sat in the back of the police car wondering how he was going to break the news of his daughter's career to his wife. The only reason he knew about it was because of an unusual email he received at work. It had a subject line of 'Your Daughter.' The message was short, "Cody, Liz has opened a sex site. You should know about it. A friend." There was a link to a website.

His first action after glancing over it was to delete it thinking it was spam that managed to make it through the company's spam filter. Fortunately, his email program didn't really delete the email. It was a little later that one minor detail about that email occured to him. The sender knew both his name and his daughter's name. He went to the email trash folder and searched for the email.

A careful examination of the email didn't give him a clue concerning the sender's identity. The return address was just a user name consisting of a random mix of characters and letters with a widely used internet service. He would have to get a court order to find out the identity of the sender.

Wondering what he would find, he clicked on the link hoping that he'd find a picture or two of his daughter drunk at some college party. A few seconds later a webpage opened in his browser. As the images loaded, his stomach lurched. It was filled with pictures of his daughter, in full naked glory, engaged in a variety of sex acts with men and women. This was a commercial sex website.

The pictures were very explicit. Only a gynecologist could get a closer view of her private parts. There were cocks of all shapes and sizes entering every orifice she had. Not only one orifice at a time, but in few of the pictures it was all of them at once.

His hand shook while he went through the preview pages intended to capture a customer's interests. He wasn't interested in becoming a customer. He wanted to find the individual responsible for it and torture them to death. She had to be on drugs, that was the only explanation he was willing to consider.

With each page, his disappointment in his daughter grew. It was when he reached the picture of a man pissing into his daughter's mouth that he lost it. He closed the browser and marched out of the office for the nearest bar.

Events at the bar had taken a little of the edge off of his anger. Now he had to explain to his wife about his daughter's website. He'd rather go to the dentist for a root canal. The alcohol he had consumed seemed to have no effect on him.

When the police car arrived at his house, he walked up to the front door. Dreading what was to come, he opened the door and stepped into the living room while calling out, "I'm home!"

His wife, Angie, entered the living room from the kitchen. In a cheerful voice, she asked, "How was your day?"

"Not good," Cody answered. "In fact, it was the worst day of my life."

"What's the matter?" Angie asked suddenly concerned by the serious tone in his voice.

He looked at his wife thinking that he was about to crush her comfortable little world. He hoped she didn't faint. Thinking it would be better if she were seated, he pointed to a chair and said, "I think you need to sit down."

She smiled hoping to alleviate some of the seriousness. Things couldn't be so bad. Making light of the situation, she said, "You're so serious."

"I've got some really bad news," he said.

Frowning, she took a seat and looked up at him expectantly. She watched him take a seat in a chair across the room. He moved in a stiff manner reminiscent of a much older man. He looked very tired and upset. It dawned on her that he might have a serious illness and she began to worry. She had no idea what they would do if he got and was unable to work. Well, she did have one idea, but that was a last resort.

"Our daughter has a sex website," Cody said after deciding that coming straight out with the news was probably the best way to break it to her.

"When did you find out about it?" she asked visibly relieved that it wasn't anything really serious.

Puzzled, Cody stared at his wife. She didn't seem to be the least bit surprised. Maybe she was thinking of some other website -- like one from college.

"Today, I got an anonymous email," Cody answered.

"Okay," she said.

Confused by her response, Cody said, "You don't seem surprised."

"I'm not. She opened it about six month ago," Angie replied. "I kind of like it."

"What?"

"I think it is tastefully done," she said.

"What did you say?"

"She is a really pretty girl," Angie said.

"Excuse me?"

Seeing that his face was turning red, she asked, "What's the matter?"

"I don't think we're talking about the same website," Cody said.

He wondered if this was some sort of delirium brought on by excessive alcohol consumption. He had to be hallucinating this entire conversation. Real mothers didn't react like this to the news that their daughter was in the sex business.

"Her sex site, right?" Angie asked.

"Yes," Cody said.

"I've seen it," she said.

Wondering if they were talking about the same website, Cody said, "The website with all kinds of pictures of her engaged in sex with men, women, and masturbating with toys."

"Yes," she said. "That one."

"You knew about it?" Code asked.

"She told me all about it when she opened it. I thought it was rather ambitious of her," Angie said proudly.

"You thought turning into a whore was ambitious?" he asked incredulously.

He wondered if he really knew his wife. He couldn't believe she knew about this and didn't tell him. Even worse, she didn't seem to have a problem with what his daughter was doing. The pictures on that website had turned his stomach in disgust. He had never been so ashamed of his daughter.

"Don't call her a whore," she said. "She's an internet entrepreneur running an entertainment website."

"She's getting paid by people so that they can watch her have sex. That makes her a fucking whore," Cody said getting angry.

"She's a business woman and a very successful one. She'll make over a million dollars this year," she said.

"She's a fucking whore," Cody shouted.

"Calm down," Angie said, "I knew you'd get all bent out of shape over this. Don't worry. She'll make her money and then retire."

"Don't worry? Our daughter has turned into a whore and you tell me not worry? What kind of fucking mother are you?" Cody asked incredulously.

"I'm a good mother who supports her daughter."

Cody said, "I've got to know. Who is the lowlife scum who talked her into this?"

"No one. It was her own idea. Brilliant, wasn't it?"

Cody stared at his wife speechless. He didn't know what was worse, the fact that it was his daughter's idea and that there wasn't a skanky asshole boyfriend behind it all or his wife thinking it was brilliant. He had looked forward to killing the boyfriend.

"Who gave her the money to do this?"

"She used the tuition money you sent her last fall," Angie said.

He would have felt less pain in his stomach if someone had stabbed him with a blunt knife. The idea that she had used her tuition money to become a whore was almost too much to bear. He could feel his blood pressure shooting up a couple more points.

"How is she paying for her tuition?" Cody asked suspecting he knew the answer.

"She dropped out of college. Her business is taking all of her time," Angie answered.

"Kill me now, God. I beg of you, take me now," Cody said staring up at the ceiling.

"It is just a little website," Angie said.

"There's a picture of some bastard stuffing a monster cock into her asshole and you're telling me it is just a little website," Cody said.

"Yes. She isn't doing anything wrong," Angie said.

"You won't even let me touch your ass because you think it is nasty," Cody said incredulous at her attitude.

In point of fact, Angie was very conservative when it came to sex. She was satisfied with a little oral (him on her and not vice versa) and two sexual positions. Anything beyond that was met with a lot of resistance. The quickest and easiest way for him to assure a week without sex was to suggest that she give him a blowjob to completion – a sexual act that she deemed humiliating for women.

"I don't like that, but she doesn't seem to mind it."

"I don't fucking believe it," Cody said.

He sat there staring at the floor speechless. If she had seen the website then she was familiar with the pictures showing her daughter's face splattered with cum. Her calm acceptance of it bordered on the surreal.

Thinking he would shock her, he said, "There's a picture of some guy pissing in her mouth."

"There's a video of it, too."

"What?"

Angie said, "I'll admit that my first reaction was that it was a little extreme, but there are lots of guys out there who get off on water sports. She told me all about it. She picked up two hundred customers on that one video alone."

"Water sports?"

"You know ... urination," Angie said.

"I don't believe it," Cody said.

Angie said, "She's looking at getting into some of the harder fetishes. This week she's coming out with a video of her using a dildo on some guy."

"Get out. I don't know who you are. You turned our daughter into a whore."

This was the first thing he said that had truly shocked her. She had expected him to be a little upset when he found out about the website, but she couldn't believe he was blaming her. She couldn't believe he wanted her to leave.

"She's not a whore. She's a very successful business woman. She's going to earn more than a million dollars this year," Angie said.

"You're even are proud of it. I want you out of this house. Right now," Cody said glaring at his wife.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said.

"Now!"

Trying to calm him down, she said, "You're just a little upset. Everything will be better in the morning after you've had a chance to think about it."

"If you aren't out of this house in five fucking minutes I will kill you."

"You can't be serious," Angie said.

"I never want to see you again. I never want to see Liz again. You are both dead to me," Cody said in a low growl.

She started to argue, but a good look at him made her decide that a strategic retreat would be the best policy. The expression on his face scared Angie. She didn't think she had ever seen him look that angry. They had argued in the past, usually about how she was raising Liz, but she had never feared he would hit her. Looking at him now, she felt like he would really hurt her.

She got out of her chair and headed to the bedroom to pack a travel bag. She figured that an overnight bag would be sufficient. He would calm down after a while and she could return home where they could discuss the matter rationally. He'd see that Liz was doing okay.

Cody needed a release for his rage. He rose from his chair and walked over to the cabinet which held Angie's collection of porcelain collector plates. He picked it up and threw it across the room. Plates fell to the floor shattering into hundreds of little pieces. The cabinet hit the wall on the far end of the room making a substantial hole in it.

He stood there looking down at the mess on the floor.

"Working in a retail store was beneath her, but taking cocks up the ass for a living is just fine and dandy," Cody muttered. He stomped on an Elvis plate breaking it into a dozen pieces.

"That god damned woman is out of her fucking mind."

Angie came out of the bedroom carrying an overnight bag. She looked at the mess on the floor and exclaimed, "My collector plates!"

"Be glad it isn't your blood on the floor. I already put one man in the hospital today. I can put you there just as easily," Cody said through clenched teeth.

His face was red. The vein in his forehead was throbbing. His jaw muscles stood out. His hands were curled into fists. He stood over the shattered plates like a gorilla about to charge. He was breathing so heavy that it sounded like a bull snorting. Terrified, Angie scurried out of the house.

Alone at last, Cody remained in the middle of the living room for five minutes calming down. When his mind started working again, he took a moment to survey the damage he had wrought. He'd throw out the cabinet and plates, so that wasn't a big deal. The wall had to be fixed; that would take some time. There was long scratch on the wood floor. All in all, the damage wasn't that bad.

He went over to the phone and grabbed the yellow pages. It was time to call a locksmith and have the locks on the house changed. He knew he wasn't in shape to drive. Tomorrow he would get some boxes and pack up her stuff. She could collect it when he wasn't around.

Once he had made the call, he returned to the living room. Sitting down on the couch, he cried like a baby. It was the kind of full body crying jag that no man ever wanted another to witness. In one day he had lost everything that had been important to him.

An hour later the locksmith arrived. Wiping the tears from his eyes, Cody gave the man instructions to change all of the locks on the house. He didn't want his wife to ever return to the house. He knew he would kill her if she came back.

The locksmith had seen enough marriages in trouble to recognize the signs of a pending divorce. It wasn't his job to listen to the rants and ravings of an emotionally distraught person on the brink of a divorce. He was a locksmith and good at his trade. Without making a comment, he went to work.

Cody went to bed right after the locksmith finished his work. It had been a long emotion filled day and the drink had finally caught up with him. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

In a hotel room across town, Angie was crying. She couldn't believe her husband had thrown her out of the house over something as trivial as their daughter's career choice. She couldn't understand his insistence that Liz had become a whore. With a little judicious investment, their daughter would be set up for life. She would have the kind of financial security that most women only dreamed about.

It was approaching nine before she finally called her daughter. They talked for nearly an hour. Both women hung up the phones feeling depressed. The conversation had merely confirmed Liz's opinion that she could never do right as far as her father was concerned. Angie was beginning to believe that her marriage to Cody was over. She had a feeling that he wasn't going to get over this.

At ten she turned on the television to watch the local news. Although Cody had hinted that he had put a man in the hospital that day, she had no idea what he had done earlier. Thus it was a shock when they played a tape of the events at the bar. Horrified, she watched the tape of Cody brutally assaulting one of the robbers. The violent man presented in the video didn't bear any resemblance to the man she had married. It dawned on her that she had been lucky to leave the house with her life.

She went to bed, but it was hours before she fell asleep.



-------

Chapter 5


Max woke beside the toilet. It was very early in the morning and he felt horrible. His head was throbbing and there was a sour taste in his mouth. His bowels were boiling. He hadn't felt that bad since the time in high school when he had polished off a bottle of vodka one night. He had never been able to stand the taste of vodka since then. He hoped the same would not be true for beer from now on.

He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked terrible. At the least, small kids and grandmothers would be frightened of him – maybe. He took a little water from the tap and rinsed out his mouth trying to get rid of the horrible taste in it. Then he drank a couple mouthfuls of water trying to rehydrate his body.

"At least I don't have to work today."

Turning to the medicine cabinet, he rummaged through it searching for some pain relievers. He found a small box of children's orange flavored aspirin. For a moment he wondered how old they were, but decided it didn't matter. He took a half dozen and chewed them.

A shit, shower, and shave later he was ready to emerge from the bathroom. He didn't feel great, but he did feel better than when he had awakened. He stepped out of the room. His wife was awake, but still in bed.

"You're up," she said.

He replied, "Yes."

"You said some pretty nasty things last night," she said.

It was time to make a stand. Max replied, "The truth hurts."

"Is that what it was?" she asked.

"Yes," Max answered.

He sat down on the edge of the bed facing away from her.

"Yesterday, I was laid off of work," Max said.

"You're kidding. They laid you off after you made that big sale?"

Max answered, "Yes."

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

News that he was unemployed changed things significantly. The events of the previous night were immediately displaced by worries about the bills. She didn't have to ask about his drinking the night before. Getting laid off explained his drunken state.

"I'm not worried," Max replied. "I'll find another sales position somewhere and life will go on."

"What about the bills?"

"I'm getting a reasonable severance package. The commission check will be pretty good this month. There's unemployment. We've got some savings," Max said.

"It won't go far," Marylou said.

"It will go far enough," Max replied. He scrubbed his face with his hands.

Marylou said, "I saw the video from the bar on the news last night."

"One of my better moments," Max said. He looked over his shoulder at his wife to see her reaction.

"I almost didn't recognize you," Marylou said. "I didn't know you could be like that."

"Like how?"

"Violent. You were grinning the whole time that you were kicking that guy," Marylou said.

The image of her husband grinning madly while beating that man was stuck in her mind. She would never look at Max the same way again. Her mental image of him as a sedate middle-class white collar man had been turned upside down. She saw that a brutal beast dwelt within him – a beast that emerged without warning and was capable of successfully taking on an armed man.

In a strange turn of events, the video had excited her. He had suddenly become an alpha male. For the first time in years, she had gone to bed and masturbated while dreaming of him mounting her.

Max said, "I must admit that I enjoyed it."

"It looked like it," Marylou said.

Max said, "I thought I had a bad day, but after talking to the other three people there I discovered that it wasn't so bad. I saw that it could have been a whole lot worse."

"How?"

"Well, the woman discovered her boyfriend in bed with her best friend. Guy was told by his doctor that his wife had given him a dose of gonorrhea," Max said.

"That's horrible," Marylou said.

"That wasn't the worst," Max said.

Marylou asked, "What was the worst?"

Max answered, "Cody discovered that his daughter had opened a sex website in which she was the star attraction. You don't even want to know what kinds of things she was doing on it."

"That is horrible," Marylou said.

"On the ride over here, he was telling me about his daughter and what she was like when she was growing up. I swear that he was describing Barbie," Max said.

"Barbie wouldn't do anything like that," she said.

"Don't bet on it."

Marylou said, "You can't possibly think that poorly of her."

"She's a spoiled rotten little brat," Max said. He looked over his shoulder at his wife. She looked like she was going to argue the point. He said, "Don't make her breakfast this morning and see what kind of tantrum she throws."

"She's just cranky first thing in the morning," Marylou said.

Max said, "She can be as cranky as she wants. If you aren't in the kitchen, then you won't have to listen to it."

"She doesn't like breakfast foods," Marylou said.

"She can make own breakfast," Max said.

"She'll just skip eating until lunch," Marylou said.

"Don't fix her lunch," Max said.

"She gets irritable when her blood sugar gets low."

"Bullshit. There's a time when you have to face facts. She's spoiled rotten and you're the one doing the spoiling," Max said. "Why does she have to eat something different than all of the rest of us?"

"She's particular about what she eats," Marylou said.

Max shook his head. He shifted his position on the bed so that he was facing his wife. In a very serious tone of voice, he said, "I'm serious. It has to come to an end. Today."

Seeing the unhappy expression on his wife's face, Max added, "She can go hungry until she decides to eat when we eat and eat what the rest of us are served."

Marylou said, "She's not going to be happy."

"Don't worry about that. I'll take care of her," Max said.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Marylou said. "You really hurt her feelings last night."

"Good."

"You're not going to apologize to the kids for what you said to them last night, are you?"

"Nope," Max said.

"Robert said that you were serious," Marylou said.

Max said, "He got it right."

"You expect too much of them," Marylou said.

"You expect nothing of them," Max said. He snorted and then added, "Between the two of us, we'll hit a happy medium."

"You're going to make Barbie get a job," Marylou said.

"Yes I am. They are also going to start earning their allowance. We've been giving them twenty dollars a week for doing nothing around the house," Max said.

"Twenty-five."

"That's even worse," Max said. "They are going to have to earn it from now on. Robert can mow the lawn and Barbie can vacuum the house or do laundry."

"You aren't making this easy for me."

Max laughed. "I'm going to make it real easy for you. You won't have to cook two different menus for every meal. You won't have to vacuum the house from now on. That should help you out a little."

"Maybe you're right."

"You bet I am," Max said.

Marylou asked, "Did you have to bring up oral sex in front of the kids last night?"

"The question just kind of popped into my mind. You never did answer it," Max said.

"I don't like the taste."

Max said, "It seems to me that my cum spends more time in your mouth if you wait until you can spit it out than if you swallow it."

"Maybe," she admitted.

"Try swallowing the next few times. You might discover it ain't so bad," Max said.

"Okay, I'll try it."

She glanced at the clock on the bed stand. It was time to get up and get the kids ready for school. She hated the mornings. "I better get up and start waking the kids."

"I'll get them up," Max said with a grin.

"Yes, dear," she said knowing that it took twenty minutes to get them moving in the morning.

Five minutes later, Max was in the kitchen opening the drawers in search of something. While preparing the coffee maker, Marylou kept glancing over at him wondering what he was doing. She was about to ask, when he opened one drawer and then pulled out a large wooden spoon. Waving it in the air, he said, "Perfect."

"What are you going to do?" Marylou asked as if she didn't know.

"I'm going to wake up the kids," Max answered. He left the kitchen, stopping only to pick up a pot. "This is going to hurt me more than them. I've got a horrible hangover."

Max walked into Robert's bedroom. Taking a position next to the bed, he started hammering on the bottom of the pot with the wooden spoon. It was driving stakes through his brain, but he didn't let that stop him. He shouted, "Drop your cocks and grab your socks! Out of bed, boy!"

Robert nearly wet himself climbing out of bed. Half asleep and confused, he staggered around trying to make sense out of the sudden noise.

"It's time to get ready for school!" Max shouted.

"Jesus!"

"What are you doing standing there?" Max shouted.

"Uh ... Ah ... I don't know," Robert answered with eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Get dressed," Max shouted. He turned and marched out of the room satisfied that dominance had just been reestablished with one of his children. It was time for the other child to learn the new pecking order in the house.

He marched into Barbie's room banging on the pot. Having already wakened as a result of the noise from the room next to hers, she screamed, "Get out of here."

He looked at her and then shouted, "Wash that shit out of your hair. You look like a diseased parrot."

Before she had a chance to respond, he turned and walked out of the room. He wasn't going to give her a chance to argue. She was quickly going to discover that arguing was not a winning proposition.

His wife had heard the commotion coming from the bedrooms. The kids were not going to be happy. She poured a cup of coffee and held it out for her husband. In a way, she appreciated the way he was taking charge. He could be the bad guy.

Max grabbed the cup upon entering the kitchen. He took a swallow of the hot liquid and then breathed a sigh of relief.

"Happy?" Marylou asked.

"Tremendously," Max answered. "It did make my headache worse though."

"I feel for you," Marylou said with a grin.

"Ready for act two?" Max asked.

"Yes," Marylou answered.

Robert was the first to enter the kitchen. Suspicious of what he was going to find, he watched his father out of the corner of his eye. There was no way he was going to directly challenge his father this morning.

"What time do you get home from school?" Max asked.

"Uh ... three-thirty," Robert answered.

"More than enough time for you to mow the law this afternoon," Max said.

"Yes, Sir," Robert said.

Max grinned broadly. Robert sat down at the table and prepared a bowl of cereal. He did his best to look small.

Barbie entered the room and stared defiantly at her father.

Max slammed a hand down on the table. In a low growl, he said, "Wash that shit out of your hair or your ass is going to be repeatedly introduced to my hand."

"I'll call family services on you," Barbie retorted.

Max laughed.

Robert looked shocked.

Marylou looked worried.

Max said, "Fine. Do it. They'll put you in a foster home so fast your head will spin. By this evening, you'll be someone's little fuck bunny. It'll probably be some guy with only half his teeth, with a face that looks like he shaves once a week, a gut that hangs over his belt, and smelling of cheap bourbon. You'll love that. It'll be three years before you ever see us again. Family services will make sure of that."

Suddenly her threat didn't sound so threatening. In fact, it didn't sound like a viable option at all. Everyone had heard stories about what happened to people who got pulled into the system.

Maintaining her defiance, she said, "You won't spank me."

"Yes, he will," Robert said.

"He will," Marylou said. She couldn't believe the feelings that her husband was generating in her body. The alpha dog was home. She licked her lips and said, "I'm not going to stop him."

Barbie looked around the room searching for someone to come to her rescue. Robert was cringing in his chair. Her mother was staring at her father with a strange look on her face. She'd never seen her mother look that interested in her father before. Her father had a strange, almost scary, grin on his face.

"Okay. I'll wash my hair."

"And put on a dress. You look like a bag lady," Max shouted to her retreating back.

Max turned to his wife and asked, "Are you ready for round three?"

"I can't wait," Marylou said.

Ten minutes later, Barbie returned to the kitchen. She had washed the purple, red, and green dye from her hair. Much to his surprise, she was wearing a dress. Max couldn't remember her looking that good in years.

She announced, "I'll have French Toast this morning."

"We're having cereal," Max said before his wife had a chance to respond.

"I want French Toast," Barbie said.

"Fine. Make it yourself," Max said.

"Mom makes it," Barbie said.

"Not today and not tomorrow," Max replied. Turning to his wife, he asked, "Do you feel like making French Toast Saturday morning?"

"Sure," Marylou answered.

"There you go. She'll make it Saturday morning," Max said as if he had just granted Barbie her wish.

"I want it today."

"Make it yourself," Max said.

"I don't know how to make it," Barbie said.

Max said, "You can help your mother Saturday morning. She'll teach you how to make it. Then in the future, you can have it whenever you want."

"I want French Toast now," Barbie whined.

Max said, "The nearest diner is two miles from here. You better start walking."

Realizing that she wasn't going to get her way, Barbie sat down at the table and grabbed one of the boxes of cereal. She poured it while glaring at her father.

Max turned to his wife and said, "How about we spend a couple of hours in the bedroom after the kids leave for school?"

"Any time," Marylou replied. This had been the best morning she'd had in years. She couldn't remember the last time she had been able to actually sit at the table and drink an entire cup of coffee without interruption.

"It's a date," Max said.

Robert cleared his throat and asked, "How will we get to school?"

"You've got a bike. I know because I bought it for you. I suggest you use it," Max answered.

"I haven't been on it in over a year. The tires are probably flat," Robert said.

Max said, "I guess you'll have to walk."

Barbie was staring at her father. She couldn't believe what he was saying. No one walked to school. It just wasn't done.

Barbie said, "Mom always takes us to school."

"Not today."

Afraid of the answer, Barbie asked, "Why not?"

"She's going to be busy in the bedroom."



-------

Chapter 6


There was a heavy pressure on Guy's chest when he woke. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around. It took a moment for him to remember that he was on the couch at Selena's home. He looked down at his chest to find out what was pressing down on him.

There was a black and white cat stretched out on his chest in a pose reminiscent of the Sphinx in Egypt. It was staring him in the eye.

"Hello, cat," Guy said.

The cat gave him one of those looks that only a cat can make. At least it wasn't scared off.

"I hope you're feeling better this morning than I am."

Guy reached up and ran a hand along the back of the cat. The cat started to purr.

"That's it. Time to get that rumble machine going," Guy said.

He started rubbing the cat along the side of its neck. It closed its eyes and leaned its head into his hand. The purring got even deeper.

"You like that," Guy said realizing that he had really missed having a pet.

Selena came out of the bedroom wearing a fluffy yellow bathrobe. She looked over at the sofa on which Guy had slept and took in the scene. She had never seen the cat acting like that with anyone. It was usually pretty skittish around people.

She said, "I see you've met the cat."

"Indeed I have," he answered.

"It never cared for Mike."

Guy said, "This cat has impeccable taste when it comes to people."

"You might be right," Selena said. "I'll start some coffee."

Still petting the cat, Guy asked, "How are you feeling this morning?"

"I expected to feel worse than I do. I'm glad you had me drink all that water," Selena said.

"Dehydration makes a hangover even worse," he said. "We'd feel a lot better if we had a little hair of the dog that bit us."

Selena said, "You seem to know a lot about dealing with hangovers. Have them often?"

"Not really. I don't really approve of drinking all that much. Don't get me wrong – I've tied on a few in my time, but I don't make it a habit," Guy replied.

"Well, discovering that your wife has given you a gift like an STD sounds like a perfect excuse to me," Selena said while entering the kitchen.

"I'm not going to argue with you on that one," Guy said.

Selena said, "I think I've got some whiskey here. I'll add a little to the coffee."

"That would be good," Guy said.

The conversation was disturbing the cat and he could tell that it was getting ready to leave. It had about as much affection as it could stand for the moment.

"Go on. I can tell you're getting antsy," Guy said giving the cat one final stroke along its back.

"What did you say?" Selena asked.

"I was just saying goodbye to the cat," Guy answered.

The cat disappeared through the open window. Guy watched it go with a smile. He kind of liked that independent character of cats. They come to you, get what they want, and then go on their way. If you are ready for them, great, and if not, then no big deal.

He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. With Selena in the little kitchen nook, he realized it was a good time to get dressed. He slipped on his pants. He grabbed his shirt noticing that it was pretty wrinkled. He had just wadded it up and thrown it on floor the previous night.

"How do you take your coffee?" Selena asked.

"Black with a spoonful of sugar," Guy answered.

"Okay," Selena called back.

Selena came out of the kitchen carrying two cups of coffee. She set one down on the coffee table. Guy picked it up and took a drink. He could taste the whiskey in it.

"My mouth tastes like a herd of camels slept in it," Guy said.

"I know what you mean. The first thing I did this morning was brush my teeth," Selena said.

Guy replied, "I'm guess I'm going to have to go home sometime today if only to get my toothbrush."

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

"I don't know. Divorce the bitch, I guess. I haven't thought that far ahead," he answered.

He wondered how he was going to explain his overnight absence. This was the first time that he had ever stayed out overnight without her knowing exactly where he was and what he was doing. Disappearing for a night wasn't exactly the kind of behavior one expected of a good husband.

Selena said, "It sounds reasonable to me."

"Why wasn't I enough for her? She was everything to me," Guy asked slumping down.

Selena said, "Those kinds of questions will drive you crazy. The Lord knows that I've spent more than one evening at home wondering why men aren't attracted to me. I know that I'm not what most men consider to be a pretty woman, but I'm not truly ugly."

"You're a fine looking woman," Guy said.

Selena said, "Bullshit. I'm big boned and hefty looking."

"So? You've got a substantial rack. I know a couple guys who'd suffocate to death while exploring those puppies," Guy replied.

Selena laughed. "At least you're honest."

"Well, the way I figure it is that you've got what God gave you," Guy said. "That's all we all have."

"So what are you going to tell your wife?" Selena asked.

Guy answered, "I'll tell her the truth. I went to a bar, got in a fight, got drunk, crashed at someone's house, and woke up wondering where the hell I was. I'll just leave out a few details."

"Like what?"

"It was your house where I spent the night," Guy answered. "I won't feel too guilty lying to her considering the lies she must be telling me."

"So are you going to stay there?" Selena asked.

Guy said, "I'm going to collect some evidence of her cheating before I divorce her."

"It won't do you any good. This is a community property state with no fault divorces. You'll have a fifty-fifty split no matter what she's done," Selena said.

"I'll be able to walk away with a clean conscience," Guy said.

"You can do that now."

"I suppose," Guy said.

He wasn't willing to say aloud that he wanted a chance to make his wife feel just as bad as he was feeling at the moment. He didn't know how he was going to do it, but she was going to pay.

Selena finished her coffee and then announced, "I better get dressed. I've got to get to work."

"I'll call a cab. He can drop us off at the bar so we can get our cars," Guy said.

An hour later, Guy walked into his house. His wife was waiting for him. She did not look very happy to see him. Guy didn't expect anything less. He definitely wasn't expecting to see her relieved that he was home safe.

She screeched, "Where were you?"

"It's a long story," Guy answered tiredly.

He looked at his wife. She was an attractive woman, but there was a lean hardness to her that he had never noticed before. He remembered her looking a lot softer when they were first married. Now, she looked bitter. She wasn't aging well.

"Start talking. I've got all day," she said. She crossed her arms and glared at him.

'Keep to the truth, ' Guy thought. He said, "Well, I had a bad day yesterday. You know, one of those days where you want to come home, kick the dog, beat the wife, and throw the kids out of the house. I had one of those kinds of days."

"So you didn't come home," she said tightly.

He noticed that she didn't ask why he had a bad day. It was obvious to him that she was convinced he went out and found some woman last night. It was written all over her face what she believed had happened.

"I figured I would stop off at a bar on the way home to have drink and cool off. I'd had a couple of drinks when a couple guys with shotguns came in to rob the place."

Not believing a word he was saying, she said, "Ths is going to be a whopper. You could have used that aliens kidnapped you. That's about as believable as a couple of robbers using you as a hostage in their getaway."

"Me and couple other folks proceeded to take care of the matter. We kicked the shit of those two. They're in the hospital now," Guy said.

"If you are going to make up a story, you might as well try making up one that I would believe," she said.

She suspected that he had picked up some floozy at a bar and spent the night with her. She didn't like the idea of that and he was going to pay.

"There's a police report on it. I'll probably have to testify in court," Guy said.

"So is this when the aliens grabbed you?" she asked sharply.

"Maggie, there weren't any aliens. After taking care of the robbers, I got drunk and passed out," Guy answered.

The doorbell rang. Guy, still standing next to the door, opened it. Old Fred Forester from across the street was standing there with a grin on his face. He grabbed Guy's hand and started shaking it. "I want shake your hand. You're a hero."

"What?" Guy asked confused by Fred's actions.

"I saw you on television last night," Fred said.

"Television?" Guy asked having no idea of what Fred was talking about.

"They had a tape of the robbery on there. You and them other folks did really a number on those two robbers," Fred said.

"I didn't know it was on television," Guy said.

Listening to the conversation, Maggie was beginning to have some doubts about her ideas concerning Guy's activities of the previous evening. Fred was one of the biggest gossips in the neighborhood. She didn't think Guy would get him to back him up in some made up story.

Fred leaned through the door and shouted, "Hi Maggie. What do you think of old Guy here?"

"I'm not sure," Maggie answered.

"Did you see the tape on the news last night?" Fred asked.

Maggie said, "No. Guy was just telling me about it."

"There's a whole story about it in the newspaper. Those guys are suspects in about twenty armed robberies in the area," Fred said.

Surprised that a little bar robbery made it in the newspaper, Guy said, "You're kidding. It was in the newspaper?"

"We need more people like you in this world. There'd be no crime left if folks stood up to the criminals of this world," Fred said.

Maggie said, "So he stopped a robbery?"

"Yes, he did. Most folks would have sat around like sheep when those shotguns came out. Not Guy. No, Sir. Guy gets up and takes a swing at him. Then he kicked the daylights out of the bastard ... pardon my French, Maggie ... while the guy was down. It was beautiful," Fred said.

"Really?" Maggie said.

Fred said, "I noticed that you didn't come home last night."

"After the police got there, I got drunk and passed out," Guy said.

"Completely understandable. I'd have bought you a round of drinks if I had been there," Fred said slapping Guy on the back.

"I'd have appreciated it," Guy said thinking that Fred had no idea how much he was helping him. He was half tempted to take Fred out for a drink.

"So he really did stop a robbery?" Maggie asked seeking final confirmation.

"Yes," Fred said. "You should give this guy a steak breakfast. He deserves it."

"Thanks, Fred," Guy said.

"I better head back to the house. I saw you come in and just wanted to shake your hand. You did good," Fred said.

"Thanks," Guy said.

"Thanks," Maggie said.

Guy closed the door behind Fred. He smiled and then turned to Maggie. He said, "I didn't know it was on television or in the paper."

"I'll go get a copy of the newspaper," Maggie said.

"I better get cleaned up and then head over to work," Guy said thinking that he didn't want to sit around the house with his cheating wife. He had some errands to do.

"Okay," Maggie said. Fred's intervention had derailed her. She wasn't sure what to think now. "You could have called."

"Things were kind of weird," Guy said. "I was kind of caught up in the moment and then the moment kind of caught up to me."

"It is just that I was worried," Maggie said. "I sat here imagining all kinds of things when you didn't come home last night."

"Sorry," Guy said.

He had a pretty good idea of the kinds of things she was imagining. He doubted she was worried about him being lost or injured. More like she was imagining him doing the kinds of things she was doing.

He headed to the bedroom to take a shower and change his clothes. He paused by the unmade bed wondering what kind of action had taken place in it when he wasn't around. He looked around the room thinking thoughts that weren't exactly charitable towards his wife.



-------

Chapter 7


Cody went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. He couldn't remember the last time he had ventured into that particular room with the need to cook. Angie had always ruled over the kitchen. He knew the general layout and where most things were stored, but it was just general knowledge.

It took him a little time to prepare a breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon. The bacon was a little burnt and the eggs were runny, but he had made it so he ate it. He had a feeling that he was going to be eating a lot of less than spectacular meals. He had to admit that Angie had been a good cook.

After eating, he went around the house with the intention of making a quick mental inventory of items. If he was going to pack up his wife's stuff, he had to have some sort of idea how many boxes would be required. He expected it to take a few minutes. What Cody didn't count on was that there was a lifetime of memories scattered around the house waiting to ambush him when he least expected it.

There were little mementoes of past trips. They were mostly stupid things that a visitor would toss out as trash. There was a small hula doll that they had picked up in Chicago at a strange little restaurant with a Hawaiian theme. They had been in a good mood that night – laughing over little jokes and enjoying their meal. Looking at the hula doll brought back the memory so strong that it was just like it had happened yesterday.

There were things that had special meaning because of the effort that was required to get them. After shopping around for an entire Saturday, they found a bedroom set that Angie just had to have. Unfortunately, it was priced for a lot more than they had available. It was still early in their marriage and they didn't have much credit. They had saved money for months to purchase it. Each time they went to get it, the price had gone up and they were short. About the time they had given up on ever getting it, it had gone on sale for less than the original price. They used the extra money to buy a new mattress.

Cody kept it together until he reached Liz's bedroom. Opening the door had been like opening an emotional floodgate. When he looked at a cute little stuffed doll left on her bed, an image of his daughter engaged in a sexual act flashed through his mind. Everywhere he looked in the room, the obscene superimposed itself over the innocent.

He sagged down and cried.

It took him thirty minutes to pull himself together enough to close the door to Liz's room. He came to a decision, he had to get out of that house. It would be easier to pack his stuff and leave everything else behind then to get rid of it. The house itself was a reminder of all that had passed.

Cody went to the bedroom and packed a suitcase with his clothes. It didn't take as long as he thought it would. Most of his valued possessions were in the garage. It was there that a fatal flaw in his plans became apparent. His car was still at the bar. He called a taxi.

It was a little after eleven when Max and Marylou stepped into the bar. They had swung by to pick up his car. There was also a matter of the bar tab. Max couldn't remember if he had paid it or not. Much to his surprise, Cody was seated at a table staring down at his beer.

"Hello, Cody."

Cody looked up. "Hello, Max. Have a seat."

"Thanks Cody. This is my wife, Marylou. Marylou, this is Cody," Max said.

"Nice to meet you," Marylou said.

Cody said, "Pleased to meet you."

Max held out a chair for his wife. She took a seat while thanking him for the courtesy he had shown her. He sat down next to her and took her hand in his.

"I couldn't remember if I paid my bar bill last night," Max said.

"You didn't," Cody said. "None of us did. John over there covered it for us."

"John?" Max asked.

"The bartender," Cody said while gesturing towards the barman.

"I never did get his name," Max said feeling a little guilty.

"Well, it was a little crazy yesterday," Cody said.

"You can say that again," Max said.

Cody asked, "What would you like to drink?"

"Wine," Marylou answered.

"Beer," Max said.

Intending to pick up the tab, Cody shouted, "Hey John. How about a beer and wine over here?"

"Coming right up," John answered.

It was a minute later when he showed with the drinks. Max handed him a fifty dollar bill and said, "I hope this covers today and last night."

"Last night was on the house," John said.

"Keep it," Max said.

"Thanks," John replied.

Max raised his mug of beer and said, "Cheers."

Marylou raised hers as did Cody.

"So how did things go last night?" Max asked.

Cody answered, "Not well."

"What happened?" Max asked.

"It turns out that my wife knew all about the sex site. All she could see was how much money the kid was making," Cody answered. "The damned girl dropped out of college and used the money I sent to pay her tuition to start that damned site. My wife didn't see anything wrong with her doing that."

"What kind of mother is she?" Marylou asked shocked to her core.

"Hell if I know," Cody said. "She just kept talking about the money."

"That's sad," Max said.

Cody started talking about his daughter. Marylou listened wide eyed as Cody described a girl exactly like Barbie. She hadn't really believed Max, but she nearly strangled on her wine when Cody talked about how his wife would cook separate meals for her because she was a picky eater. He ended his little stroll down memory lane with, "Now she's a whore."

"What are you going to do now?" Max asked.

"I'm leaving," Cody said.

Max said, "I don't blame you."

Marylou asked, "What about your wife?"

"She's unemployed and unemployable. I figure she can go to my daughter and get her own fucking website," Cody said. "I don't care what happens to her."

Marylou was quiet. She didn't feel comfortable talking too harshly about Cody's wife. She saw a lot of herself in what Cody had said about the woman.

"So you're drowning your sorrows?" Max asked.

"No. I just wanted to get a drink to take the edge off my headache," Cody answered. "I didn't feel very good this morning. I didn't eat anything last night and the booze hit me hard."

"Same here," Max said.

Guy walked into the bar and went to the table. He took a seat and said, "Hello everyone. I was across the street dropping off a new thermos for Selena and noticed Max coming in here. I thought I'd see how things went."

Max said, "Hello, Guy. Guy, this is my wife, Marylou. Marylou, this is Guy."

"Nice to meet you," Guy said.

"Hello," Marylou said. "I heard about your problem."

"What can I say?" Guy said, "I guess you know he's unemployed."

"Yes."

Guy asked, "Are you worried?"

"We'll manage somehow," Marylou said.

She had a feeling that the new and improved Max wasn't going to have a problem getting a new job. He had an aura of confidence that he had never had before. Others would see that and respond.

Guy looked over at Cody and asked, "How did it go last night?"

"My wife already knew," Cody answered.

"You're kidding?"

"She had no problem with it. All she could talk about was how much money Liz is making," Cody said.

"How much is she making?" Marylou asked.

"Over a million a year," Cody answered.

Marylou couldn't believe the amount of money Cody's daughter was making. She knew that after a year or two, the girl could retire and lead a life of relative security. It might be degrading, but she could see how some women might not object. It wasn't the kind of future that she would accept for Barbie. In a strange way, she could almost understand his wife's acceptance of it. The key word was almost.

Guy said, "That's some serious cash."

Irritated, Cody asked, "Would you let some guy piss in your mouth for a million dollars?"

"Hell no," Guy answered.

"That's what my daughter is doing," Cody said.

"Jesus," Max said in disgust.

Hearing what she was doing for her money dismayed Marylou. There was degrading and then there was degrading. Any mother who wasn't upset to learn her daughter was doing that shouldn't have ever been allowed to have children.

"Yeah," Cody said shaking his head. "So what is going on with you, Guy?"

"I swung by the lawyers office earlier. He told me I have to give her half of everything and probably support her for the next hundred years," Guy answered. "The whole idea of having to pay her alimony makes me sick. It's not right. She could have killed me with AIDs."

"Why don't you make a website with videos of your wife cheating on it?" Marylou asked unable to believe the words coming out of her mouth.

"I don't know," Guy said. "Letting the whole world know that she was cheating on me would be humiliating."

"I bet it would be a whole lot easier to write her a check out of money you earned from her cheating," Marylou said.

"I like your wife," Guy said looking over at a stunned Max. "I like the way she thinks."

"Max could help you," Marylou said.

Wondering how he was getting roped into this, Max said, "What?"

"You don't have a job. Why not run a website? It can't be that hard," Marylou said looking at her husband.

"I could manage that," Max mused thoughtfully. "Definitely."

"There you go," Marylou said finding his confidence thrilling.

There were a number of problems with that plan. Guy said, "I don't have any videos of my wife cheating."

"If she's cheating, then you should be able to get some videos of it," Marylou said. "They don't have to be explicit, just videos of her going into a hotel room with some strange man would be good enough."

"You might have to hire a private detective," Max said. "He'd know how to get videos of your wife cheating."

"I bet they charge a fortune," Guy said.

Cody sat back in his chair and said, "To tell the truth, I'm not all that enthralled with the internet at the moment. I wouldn't blame you if you did it, though."

"I'd like to pass this by Selena," Guy said.

For some reason, he wasn't all that interested in having Selena lose respect for him. He had enjoyed their discussions the previous night and even that morning over breakfast. He wondered if there might even be a future there.

Max looked at his wristwatch. He said, "It is almost lunch time. What do you say that we break up here and meet somewhere else for lunch?"

"Sounds good to me," Guy said.

"I'm game," Marylou said.

Cody said, "I've got to head back to the house. It's time for me to move on."

"That man is in considerable pain and there's no medicine for it," Marylou said after Cody had left.

Cody returned to his house feeling like there was a large hole where his heart had once been. He got angry every time he thought of what his wife had done by encouraging his daughter. He got sad whenever he thought about a life without his wife in it. There was one thing he knew for sure, there was no way he could live with her.

Packing his tools took most of an hour. When the last power tool had been packed in the trunk of his car, he stepped back and looked at what he had done. The workbench was empty. There was nothing left to keep him there.

He made a last trip through the house. He paused to pick up a picture of his family that had been taken six years earlier. It was taken on one of those few days when his daughter had dressed like a normal girl her age. He stared at it and then dropped it on the floor. The glass cover cracked.

Cody left the house leaving the door wide open. He got into his car and headed off towards the bank. Once there, he withdrew all of the money in the savings account. Flush with a couple thousand dollars, he drove off without a destination in mind.

It was well after lunchtime when Angie returned to the house. She was surprised to see the front door standing wide open. Feeling a little uncertain, she walked up to the house and looked through the door. She listened, but didn't hear anything. With a growing sense of unease, she entered the house.

The cabinet was still leaning against the wall. The porcelain plates were on the floor where they had fallen the previous night. She paused to look at the family picture on the floor and wondered why Cody had tossed it there.

His dirty breakfast dishes were in the kitchen. She made a mental note that she would have to clean up the kitchen. She continued her search of the house. Everything appeared to be in place. She didn't think to check his closets.

She returned to the kitchen to wash the dishes. At least he hadn't made too much of a mess. It felt right to be busy at work in the one room that she felt was her exclusive domain. Her mood improved and she convinced herself that things would be better. She knew they might be a little rough for a while, but Cody would come around to his senses.

Cleaning up the broken collector plates took a little more time. There were little pieces spread throughout the room. Traffic through the room had created a hundred little scratches on the wood floor. A few were pretty deep. She didn't think it would be easy fixing the floor. In fact, she felt it would require a professional company to refinish the whole floor.

She struggled to get the cabinet upright and put back in place. It wasn't all that heavy, but awkward to move. Cody would have just picked it up and put it in place. She wasn't strong enough to do that.

With the house returned to normal, she returned to the kitchen to prepare the evening meal for Cody. She decided that she would make pork chops, apple sauce, and spinach. Cody often joked that pork chops were the poor man's steak. He would be pleased to come home from work to discover that she had his favorite dinner ready for him.

Everything was done by the time she expected him to arrive home from work. She stepped back and admired her work. The table was set with a nice hot dinner. She sat down to await his arrival.



-------

Chapter 8


Max looked around his freshly painted office pleased with the quality of work. He headed to the kitchen and picked up two cans of beer from the refrigerator. His wife eyed the second can and looked up at him with a questioning expression on her face. He winked at her.

He went out to the garage where Robert was putting away the painting supplies. Clearing his throat, he said, "Robert."

His son turned around to face his father. Somewhat defensive, he asked, "What?"

"Catch," Max said tossing a beer to his son using a gentle underhand throw.

Robert caught the beer. Surprised, he looked at it and asked, "What is this?"

"It's a beer," Max said.

"I know, but..."

Max said, "You did a good job. I'm proud of you."

"Thank you," Robert said. He hadn't been expecting that.

Max opened his can of beer. He gestured to the can in Robert's hand. The young man opened his can and took a tentative sip from it. He had expected it to be a little sweet. The bitterness of it surprised him.

"Is that your first?" Max asked.

"Yes," Robert answered.

Max said, "It's right for a boy's first beer to be taken with his father."

"Did you have your first beer with grampa?" Robert asked.

"No," Max answered. "I stole a six pack beer out of the refrigerator and drank it out back of the house with a couple friends of mine."

"Did grampa find out?" Robert asked.

"Yes he did," Max said. He laughed at the memory and then said, "He took a belt to my ass. I couldn't sit down for two days."

"Grampa did that?" Robert asked shocked by that revelation.

"Yes," Max said. "He wasn't mad that I drank the beer, only that I took it without asking."

"Oh," Robert said.

"I never stole anything after that," Max said.

"The whipping?" Robert asked.

Max shook his head no. "I learned a valuable lesson that day. You see, that six pack of beer cost about a buck fifty or so. It wasn't really that much money. I took something that was far more valuable than that."

"What?"

"My Dad didn't drink much, but whenever he finished a particularly tough job he would sit back and drink a beer – just like you're doing now. It was a little reward for having worked hard. I didn't steal a sixpack of beer from him, I stole his reward," Max said. "Sometimes, it's the little things that we do for ourselves that mean the most. You interfere with that and you've damaged something that is really important to someone."

"I see what you mean," Robert said.

Max said, "For a while there, I forgot what my job as father was."

"What is your job?" Robert asked.

"I'm to teach you how to be a man," Max answered.

"I'll grow up," Robert said.

"Do you think I'm having you mow the lawn because I'm lazy? No. You need to know how to do it yourself. You need to get in the habit of looking at things around you and realizing that they need maintaining. It doesn't come natural to a person. You have to get into the habit. Every week the lawn needs mowing. Checking the lawn to make sure it doesn't need to be mowed becomes a habit.

"Painting is another of those things you need to learn. You'll own your own home one day and you won't be able to afford someone to come and do the work for you. You'll have to do it all – painting, plumbing, and other minor repairs. Five, maybe six years from now, you'll be picking up five gallons of paint and painting your own place. You'll know what needs to be done to do the job right. You've learned that today."

"I didn't think about that," Robert said.

"I'm supposed to help mold your character," Max said. "That's probably where I've been the most remiss with you and your sister. I apologize for that."

"No need to apologize," Robert said. "Things were just fine."

Max laughed. "Things were fine because you were getting and doing everything you wanted. Being an adult isn't about doing what you want. Being an adult is doing the things you don't want to do and doing them with a smile. It is making tough choices when there are no right answers."

"I guess so," Robert said.

Max said, "I'm going to be riding your ass a lot more from now on. I've let things slide for too long. There are going to be times when you hate me, but just remember one thing."

"What?"

"I'm doing it out of love," Max said.

He raised his can of beer and said, "You did a real good job on painting the study, Son."

"Thanks, Dad," Robert said.

Max said, "I better see what's going on in the house."

"All right," Robert said.

He couldn't figure out his father. There were times when he was a real hard ass and times when he was a nice guy. That morning, his father had taken him to the hardware store and had him pick out all of the painting supplies. It hadn't been fun. They hadn't gone home with much, but it had taken them almost two hours to get it all.

The first thing his father had done was send him over to the paint section to pick up enough paint to cover six hundred square feet of wall and thirty square feet of trim. He had picked out one gallon of paint. His father then had him read the label concerning coverage. The label said that it would cover four hundred square feet or two hundred square feet if two coats were required. He had gone off and returned with two gallons of paint. His father then pointed out that what he had gotten was paint for trim rather than flat wall paint. Then he had picked out two different colors of paint by accident. His father had been all over his ass about that. He ended up getting two gallons of wall paint and one quart of paint for the trim.

Then it had been paint brushes and rollers. Robert's inclination was to buy the biggest brush he could find. His father pointed out that wouldn't work so well on the narrow parts of the trim that were less then half an inch wide. He came back with a one-half inch wide brush. It was then pointed out that the trim had another side that was almost three inches wide.

Then it had been drop cloths and masking tape. He learned that drop cloths came in different materials, sizes, and thicknesses. Since they were not making a living by painting, his dad had pointed out they could get by with plastic drop cloths. Robert had come back with the cheapest package only to learn that it was too thin and would tear when he walked around on it. Thick was fine, but it was also more expensive. The thin stuff could be used to cover furniture. Robert discovered that they did want to cover the office furniture rather than moving it all out of the room.

The entire process had been humiliating. He had run back and forth looking at one thing and then another before finding the right thing. It was like his father was enjoying his misery. Only now in hindsight did he realize that his father had not only criticized him, but he had also explained what was needed to do the job they wanted done and how what he had gotten was to be used for a different purpose. Each mistake was two lessons in one.

He wondered if half the reason his father had taken so much joy in each mistake was because he was given the chance to teach his son a little more about painting. Having his errors pointed out to him had made an impression that would last longer than a simple lecture would have produced. If his father had just talked about it, he would have tuned him out and learned nothing. Humiliating? Somewhat. However, he was pretty sure that his father could send him to the storesecure in the knowledge that he would bring home the right stuff.

He finished his beer and tossed the can into the rubbish bin. After all that work, he could now say that he'd had his first beer. He also realized that he would be boasting about this to all of his friends in school Monday. The last thing he was able to boast about was making another level in his computer game.

Inside the house, Max walked over to his daughter's room. Her door was open and she was on her bed painting her toenails with black nail polish.

He said, "Barb, you..."

"My name is Barbie," his daughter said.

"Barbie is the name of doll or a little girl. You aren't a little girl any more," Max said.

"I don't like being called Barb."

"You've got your choice. I can call you Barb or 'Hey you.' Which will it be?"

She glared at her father knowing that he would call her 'Hey you' if she told him that was her choice. He would give her choices and if she chose the wrong one, then he made her live with the consequences. He had been doing a lot of things like that lately and it was driving her crazy.

"Call me Barb."

"Go help your mother prepare dinner."

Max felt that his wife had not helped prepare Barb for the future. She would need to know her way around the kitchen. So would Robert for that matter. It was time for both kids to start helping out with preparing meals. Cooking wasn't that complicated, but there were some essential skills one should know. It involved a bit more than boiling water.

"I'm painting my toenails," Barb replied.

"I didn't ask you what you were doing. I told you to go help your mother in the kitchen," Max said.

"I'll be done with this in an hour," Barb said. She knew by that time her mother would have finished cooking dinner.

"Your mother is in the kitchen now," Max said.

"I can't go until my nails are dry," Barb replied. She smiled at him thinking she had just given him an unassailable excuse.

Max looked around the room. His eyes landed on a ripped and torn tee-shirt that had graffiti written upon it. It was one of the outfits that he detested. He had already told her to throw it out twice. Last time she had told him that she had thrown it out. It looked like she had lied to him. He leaned down and picked it up.

"What are you doing with that?" Barb asked.

"Born to be fucked," Max read off the tee-shirt. He looked at his daughter and shook his head.

"It's a protest," she said belligerently.

Reaching down, Max wiped the nail polish off her toes using the tee-shirt. She reacted by scrambling across her bed trying to put as much space between her and her father. She let loose an eerie screech throughout her journey.

"Now go help your mother," Max said.

"Fuck you!" Barb said.

She knew she had blown it the moment the words left her mouth. It wasn't that he looked angry, because he clearly wasn't. It was just that there was that weird look on his face – a kind of disappointed expression with a tinge of purpose to it.

She fought the best she could. She tried scratching him. She kicked out at him. None of her efforts had much effect. She ended up draped over his knee. Three smacks of his hand landed on her butt with her screaming like a banshee the entire time.

He released her. She scrambled away and shouted, "That's child abuse!"

"No. That's called a spanking," Max said noticing that she wasn't even rubbing her butt. It had been more of a symbolic swat on the ass than a real spanking. "The only thing injured is your pride."

"You had no cause to do that," Barb shouted.

"I told you three times to go in the kitchen and help your mother prepare dinner. I'll keep spanking you all night until you go in the kitchen and help your mother," Max said.

Barb believed him. Keeping her distance from him, she ran out of the room. She'd go in the kitchen and tell her mother all about what her father had done. He'd be sorry.

Max sat there trying to decide what to do about her use of foul language. He didn't think it was right for a young lady to go around dropping the f-bomb like it was candy. In the old days, his parents would have put a bar of soap in her mouth. It might come down to that one day, but for now he'd try to address it reasonably.

He got up and walked towards the kitchen to see what was happening.

"Use a potato peeler," Marylou said patiently.

"What's that?" Barb answered.

Marylou went through a drawer and pulled out a potato peeler. Holding it up, she said, "This is a potato peeler."

"What's it for?" Barb asked.

"Peeling potatoes," Marylou answered wondering if Barb was actually that dumb.

"It looks stupid," Barb said.

Marylou said, "I'll show you how to use it. You'll discover that it is perfectly designed for peeling potatoes."

"I don't want to," Barb said. She crossed her arms over her chest and stood there defiantly.

Max stepped into the kitchen and said, "It isn't a matter of whether you want to do it or not. You have to do it."

"Why?" Barb spat back. "I don't have to do anything."

"How are you going to eat when you get a place of your own?" Max asked from the doorway to the kitchen.

"I'll go to restaurants," Barb answered.

"You won't be able to afford it," Max said. "You'll have a choice between sleeping in your car and eating out or sleeping in an apartment and eating in."

"Not with the choices," Barb said rolling her eyes. "This isn't a world where you have to chose A or B. You can have both. I'm going to have both."

"How are you going to afford that?" Max asked.

Barb shouted, "I'll sell my body if I have to."

Marylou stared at Barb in horror. She couldn't believe the words coming out of her daughter's mouth. Everything Cody said about his daughter came rushing back to her. He had remarked that there had been little hints that his daughter thought of sex as a tool to use in order to get what she wanted. He had heard her make statements like that and hadn't reacted to them thinking it was just talk.

Max was about to let loose when Marylou released her inner badger. Putting as much venom in her voice as possible, she asked, "Do you have no shame?"

"It's my body and I can do what I want with it," Barb shouted.

Marylou could see that Barb was being perfectly honest at the moment. She wasn't going to argue this one. "You're grounded."

"What's that mean?" Barb asked sarcastically.

"You aren't leaving the house for a week," Marylou said. Seeing that threat wasn't having much effect, she added, "and I'm taking away your cell phone."

"No way," Barb said horrified by that prospect.

Her whole social world revolved around texting on her cell phone. She didn't talk to people, she texted them. Losing it would be like having her mouth taped shut. Her friends wouldn't know how to contact her. She'd become the laughing stock of the entire school.

"Yes, way," Marylou said happy to have found a threat that really worked.

"I'm not giving it to you," Barb said.

"I'll cancel your service," Max said.

"You wouldn't dare," Barb said knowing that he wasn't making an idle threat.

"Try me," Max said pleasantly. He might have to pay a penalty, but it was worth it.

"I'll pay for my own," Barb said.

"With what money?" Max asked reasonably.

It always came down to money and she never had enough of it. Her parents were too cheap to give her as much as she wanted. Barb stared at her parents in horror. She could see her comfy life evaporating before her eyes. Less than a week ago, life had been so easy. She demanded and then she got what she wanted.

Then one day her father came home drunk and her world changed. Suddenly, her control over the household was gone and she didn't know what to do. She had tried all of her techniques for breaking their will, but none of them worked. The challenges had been met and over come. Didn't they know that she was the child and they had to take care of her wants? They had watched her throw tantrums without reacting. Didn't they know how tiring that was? Tears had no effect. Her father had even spanked her.

Barb ran off to her bedroom. Her wails could be heard throughout the house.

Marylou said, "Your friend Cody was right. I hope we're not too late."



-------

Chapter 9


It was Saturday afternoon and Guy was in his office. He had told his wife that he was behind on a problem as a result of all the excitement earlier in the week. That was actually the truth. He was behind in his work. Maggie hadn't believed him and followed him to the office. She had called him on the office phone every forty-five minutes after he had arrived, just to see if everything was okay. Like he actually believed that excuse.

After spending half of the afternoon trying to figure out why a hydraulic system at a factory kept blowing its seal, he was now watching a video of his wife cheating on him with tears rolling down his cheeks. It had only taken one day to get a video catching her in the act. He wasn't sure if she was just that busy or if his timing had been fortuitous.

He watched the action on the computer monitor with a sick feeling in his stomach. Knowing that she was cheating on him and seeing it were two different things. This hurt; this really hurt. He thanked God that no one was in the office to see him crying like a baby.

He mumbled, "She's going to pay for this."

He thought about the suggestion of opening a website documenting her cheating. He could see how it could make some money. With so much interest in reality shows on television, an uncensored reality show on the internet could really rake in some money. He wouldn't go that far.

In thinking about his problems, he thought about the other three people he had met the day of the robbery. Cody had disappeared. He doubted anyone would ever hear from him again. Cody had looked like a broken man when he had last seen him.

Selena was seriously depressed. Since their offices were in the same part of town, he had gone to lunch with her a couple of times. He enjoyed her company, but it was clear that she wasn't handling the breakup with her boyfriend very well. He wasn't in much of a position to talk. He wasn't dealing with his wife's infidelity very well either.

He hadn't heard from Max in a while and wondered how things were going in terms of finding a job. The last time they had talked, Max and his wife seemed more concerned about their daughter than his lack of employment. Of course, hearing Cody's stories about his daughter had probably made them fear for their daughter.

He could understand that. He had a daughter and two boys. He wasn't worried about them. His daughter was sharp, but well behaved. His sons were doing well in school and helped around the house. It had all seemed like a perfect family. He marveled at how appearances could be very deceiving.

He had come up with the excuse of kidney stones as a reason for not being too interested in sex. He didn't know what effect kidney stones would have on a man's sex drive, but neither did she. It did help explain his discomfort when urinating and his general grumpiness. The net result was that his wife wasn't pressuring him for sex.

His eyes drifted back to the video playing on the computer monitor. He thought about the website. He kept wondering how his kids would react if he were to create one and they learned about it. He couldn't kid himself, they would find out about it. If he didn't have kids, he would have charged ahead with the website and be damned with the consequences.

He removed the CD from the computer and put it in his desk drawer. He headed home with a heavy heart. It dawned on him that he had been dreading going home for months now. He wondered why he hadn't noticed that before now.

He pulled up in front of the house. His oldest son, Sean, was outside shooting hoops. Guy walked over and asked, "How's it going?"

"Not so good. Mom's on the warpath," Sean said.

"What happened?" Guy asked.

"I don't know. She keeps saying that she's tired of being trapped in the house with nothing to do," Sean said.

That had become an increasingly more frequent complaint. The kids were pretty self-sufficient and she was bored. She didn't want to be a housewife and she didn't want to have a job. Life was passing her by and she was tired of it. Guy wondered how he had missed the signs.

"I'll talk to her," Guy said tiredly.

He was trying to keep things low key until he decided what he was going to do and how he was going to proceed with the divorce. He didn't want the kids to have to deal with a lot of drama. Based on the expression on Sean's face, that wasn't likely. There was plenty of drama all ready.

He entered the house. Maggie said, "Take me out tonight."

"Where?" Guy asked.

"I don't care. Just take me somewhere," she replied.

Guy said, "We went out last night."

"So?"

"I'm tired," Guy said.

Maggie said, "I don't care. You aren't stuck in this house all day. You get to go out and do interesting things while I"m stuck here."

"I wouldn't say spending the whole day at work is interesting," Guy said.

To hear her description of what he did for a living, one would think that he was some sort of super spy. She talked about his job like it involved traveling to exotic locations, embassy parties, visits to the casinos of Monte Carlo, and car chases through the hills of San Francisco.

That he was a troubleshooter for a hydraulics's company was an inconvenient counter to her fantasy. It was his job to figure out why some pieces of equipment suffered repeated failures while others lasted forever. When he traveled, it was to some pretty cruddy locations. At times it was a dirty nasty job involving equipment that was filthy with grease and oil.

"How about a movie after dinner?" Guy asked.

"No."

Guy asked, "Well, what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. Something exciting," Maggie answered.

"I'll see if there is someplace where we can go skydiving. Jumping out of an airplane with parachutes would be exciting," Guy said sarcastically.

He was thinking that he'd like to pack her parachute.

"Don't be ridiculous," Maggie growled.

Guy said, "You wanted exciting. That's the most exciting thing I can come up with."

"You're making fun of me," Maggie shouted.

"Give me a clue. What in the hell do you want to do?" Guy asked finding that his patience was coming to an end.

"I don't know! You come up with something," Maggie said.

Guy said, "I'm not the one who is bored."

"If that's the way you're going to be, I'm going out alone," Maggie said.

"Fine," Guy said.

When Maggie left, Sean came into the house. He looked at his father and shook his head.

"What?" Guy asked.

"Something is wrong with Mom," Sean said.

"I know," Guy said.

His daughter, Ellie, and his youngest son, Bill, came into the living room. Ellie said, "Mom has been a total bitch all day."

"I'm sorry about that kids," Guy said.

Bill asked, "Have you been having an affair?"

"No," Guy answered sharply.

"If you are, Mom will take you to the cleaners," Ellie said.

"I'm not having an affair," Guy said.

He was dismayed that he would even be asked that question. His wife was the one cheating and he was having to defend himself? That didn't set well with him at all.

"What about that night you didn't come home?" Sean asked.

"I got drunk after the robbery and passed out," Guy said.

He had basically told the truth about that night. The exception was that he claimed most of the drinking had been done after the robbery rather than before it. He also claimed to have passed out at Cody's house rather than Selena's.

"Mom is convinced that you were shacked up with a bar slut," Sean said.

"Shacked up with a bar slut?" Guy asked.

"You know, staying at her place," Sean said.

"You guys know me better than that," Guy said.

Bill said, "I don't know about that. I never thought I'd read in the newspaper about you taking on an armed gunman."

"I lost my temper," Guy said. "I had a bad day, I stopped at a bar for a drink, stopped the robbery, drank too much, and passed out. I came home after I woke up the next morning. What more can I say about it?"

"It just doesn't sound like you," Ellie said. "You're not the kind of guy who beats up people."

"Mom doesn't believe you," Sean said.

"That's her prerogative. It doesn't change the truth," Guy said knowing that it was her guilty conscience at work. Wanting to change the subject, he asked, "Did your mom make dinner?"

"No," Ellie said.

She crossed her arms and studied her father. She was half convinced that he was hiding something.

"What do you say we all go out for some pizza?" Guy asked.

"That's a winner," Sean said. The other two kids agreed with him.

Guy waited for them to get ready to leave the house. Standing there in the living room, he came to the conclusion that this situation couldn't last much longer. Having his kids accuse him of cheating on his wife was the last straw.

He went over to the telephone and dialed Max's number. When Max answered, he said, "Max, this Guy. I want to go ahead with the website."

"You've got videos?" Max asked.

"Yes," Guy answered.

Max said, "I'm sorry to hear that. I was hoping there might be a different explanation. You know – an encounter with a dirty toilet or something."

"I've got your email address. I'll send you the material Monday."

"Okay," Max said. "I guess my wife and I will go out and buy a computer tonight."

Guy hung up the telephone. He dialed another number. When his boss answered, he said, "Joe, this is Guy."

Joe asked, "Did you solve the problem with the DermaCorp hydraulic system?"

"No. I looked over the logs they sent us. I don't know if they are running the pressure too high or if the cheap parts from China are no good. I'm going to have to go out there and see it in operation," Guy said.

Joe asked, "Will you be leaving tomorrow?"

"I figure I'll go out Monday evening and come back Tuesday night. The flights aren't so crowded Monday nights," Guy answered.

"Sounds good to me," Joe said.

Guy hung up. He turned and saw that Sean was watching him. Guy said, "Don't go into mechanical engineering."

"Why?" Sean asked.

"As a mechanical engineer you get to go to places like Camden, New Jersey," Guy answered. "What a pit."

"Isn't that kind of a dangerous place?" Sean asked.

"Like I said. It's a pit," Guy answered.

"Mom's not going to be happy," Sean said.

"Well, it's trips like this that pay the bills," Guy said. "If you're smart, you'll get into computers. That's where the money is. You'll stay in a nice clean office all of the time."

"I like computers. I think I'd like being a programmer," Sean said shrugging his shoulders.

Guy said, "You want to get into the people side of the computing business. Something like a systems analyst rather than a programmer. The closer you are to the customer the safer your job is. We're outsourcing all of the real work overseas. Manufacturing has all but disappeared in this country. By the time you're my age, there won't be a manufacturing job left in this country."

"Really? I'll have to look that up on the web," Sean said. That was always a good statement to suggest interest without actually commiting to doing anything.

Guy said, "Don't believe all the garbage about how outsourcing really means more jobs here. I've watched the sales of hydraulic systems drop every year as more and more manufacturing places go out of business."

"That's interesting," Sean said even though he wasn't interested in the least little bit. He was looking forward to getting some pizza.

"I'm hoping there's enough business to last me until I retire," Guy said with a sigh.

That seemed to get Sean's attention. Considering that he was going to be heading off to college soon, the last thing he needed was to discover his father was unemployed. He asked, "Are you worried about getting laid off?"

"Not anytime soon. We've got a bunch of legacy customers that will keep us busy for a while. A lot of the products are thirty or forty years old. They'll have to be fixed or replaced. Ten years from now? Who knows," Guy answered.

"So you're serious about me going into computers?" Sean asked.

Guy nodded his head. "Yes, I am. You need to be careful though. Like I said, the closer you are to the customer, the more secure your job will be. You want to be the one who talks to the customers about their needs. They can't send that job overseas when your customer is here."

"Sales?" Sean asked.

"Heavens no! Stay away from sales," Guy said. "I should introduce you to Max. He knows all about sales and salesmen. He's also out of a job."

"You're right about sales. There's no money in sales," Ellie said, "I'm going for law. That's where the real money is."

"Law?" Guy asked. This was the first that he'd heard of his daughter being interested in law.

"Class action lawsuits. There's a ton of money to be made there," Ellie said. "The pharmaceutical companies can't win. They can't know all of the side-effects of their drugs. As soon as one crops up, instant lawsuit. A good lawyer can walk away with two hundred million dollars on one good case."

"What if they pass tort reform?" Guy asked.

"There's always divorces. You know what they say, the only ones who get rich in a divorce are the lawyers," Ellie said.

"You're a depressing kid. You know that, don't you?" Guy said.

"Hey. I read the blogs. I know which side my bread is buttered on," Ellie said with a shark-like smile.

"Scary," Guy said. He wondered if she'd represent him in his upcoming divorce. He was half tempted to ask.

Ellie said, "If you're cheating on Mom, I'll make sure you pay through the nose."

"What if she's cheating on me?" Guy asked.

"Are you crazy? We're talking about Mom," Ellie said.

Bill said, "Let's go get pizza. I'm hungry."

"Good idea," Guy said.

He watched the kids leave the house. He could see that they were all convinced that he was guilty of adultery. Not one of them accepted his explanation of what happened the other night. He followed them thinking that she was definitely going to pay for her actions.



-------

Chapter 10


Acting like it owned the place, the cat came through the open window and jumped down to the floor. It padded across the room taking a moment to pause beside the couch. Looking disappointed, it ignored the other occupant in the room. The cat went over to the bowl with food and started eating.

"I bet you were hoping to find Guy, weren't you cat?" Selena said.

The cat glanced back at her and then resumed eating.

Selena said, "He's a married man. At least he is for the moment. I don't think he's interested in the likes of me."

Although none of them had thought about it at the time, the reason they had all chosen the same bar was because it was close to where each of them worked. She had been surprised when Guy had walked into the local sandwich shop two days after the robbery. They repeated lunch together the next day. She enjoyed the lunches spent with Guy. She talked about the men in her life and he talked about his family. He really cared about his family.

The poor man was depressed about his wife's infidelity. He told her that he had been tempted to stray many times, but hadn't. She believed him. He hadn't tried to make any moves on her. He had been a complete gentleman the night he spent on the couch. It seemed to her that he was just a nice decent man.

Of course, she knew about the gonorrhea. It tainted his image despite the fact that it wasn't his fault. She knew that she could have suffered the same fate or worse. At least her tests for STDs had come back negative.

When they weren't talking about the people in their lives, they talked about science fiction. He mentioned that the early science fiction books had fed his interest in engineering. She asserted that the modern science fiction with emphasis on the human condition was more intrigueing in terms of the possibilities they raised. She agreed with him that all of the books concerning nanotechnologies and computers were kind of boring. They just didn't have the level of excitement and adventure that blasting off for the far reaches of space had.

The cat finished eating. It stopped by the couch and then jumped onto it. It gave Selena a dirty look and then went out the window.

"It's not my fault," Selena called after the cat.

She felt that she should be laughing. The alternative was to cry and she had been crying way too much lately. The entire weekend had been spent crying. "God damn you, Mike!"

She fought back the tears for a bit, but lost the battle. She started sobbing. Here she was, thirty years old and getting older without a single chance of catching a good man. She wanted a husband. She wanted to settle down and have kids.

She really thought Mike had been the one. In hind sight, she knew she had been played a fool. He had talked a nice game about settling down and raising a family. He had told her everything she had wanted to hear. He had told her that he was between jobs, but was diligently looking for one. They would marry as soon as he was employed. Until then, they would just live together.

Six months had passed and he still hadn't found a job. She knew that the economy was bad, but it wasn't that bad. Then she had come home to tell him about a job she had heard about. Instead of delivering good news, she had found him in bed with Penny. The woman had remarked that she was sorry, but she liked Mike more than her. She hadn't talked to Penny since that day.

She and Penny had been friends for more than ten years. They had met in college and hit it off. She was the quiet one of the pair. Penny had a wild streak in her that would occasionally emerge. Before Selene would know it, Penny would have dragged her off on some adventure. They never really got into trouble, but for a few hours Selena would feel alive.

There had been one time when they had driven Penny's convertible out into the country and then ridden around for an hour topless. Even at the time she couldn't believe she was doing it. There had been another time where they had picked up a guy and taken turns giving him a blowjob. Caught up in the moment, it had been fun. Only later did she worry about the consequences.

Being around Penny was fun. Occasionally she would come over to the house with a bottle of wine. They would eat, drink, tell stories, and laugh. They told each other their most fondest wishes and greatest fears. Penny was envious of Selena's breasts while Selena was envious that Penny was perfectly proportioned. They each joked about trading bodies. Actually, Penny talked about getting a boob job so she would have breasts like Selena.

In short, they were friends and did what all friends did together. They helped fill lonely evenings commiserate the little setbacks of life, and celebrate the good times. Penny's absence had left a hole in Selena's life that wouldn't be easy to fill. She missed the friendship, but there was no way she could forgive Penny.

Breaking out of her depressing thought, she glanced at the clock. It was later than she realized. She left the apartment for work. It was Monday and the beginning of another long lonely week. Maybe she would run into Guy at lunch. That would be nice.

Her boss was waiting for her when she arrived at work. "You're late."

"It was just five minutes," she replied.

Her boss owned a calendar business. He contracted pictures from various photographers and arranged them for calendars. It was a good business. The company sold several million calendars a year. The biggest problem was keeping track of the photographers and their artwork. Her job consisted of doing everything including getting copyright releases signed, contracts forwarded to all of the right people, and keeping up with deadlines. Every piece of paper that entered or left that office went through her hands. Her boss signed the papers when he bothered to come into the office.

It was a strange business that could be very stressful at times. Everything had to be finished by September for distribution to retailers around the country. At the present, there was a distributor who was trying to renegotiate distribution rights. She had handled all of the negotiations and he was here to sign the contracts after looking them over.

"I don't pay you to be late. I expect you to be here on time," he barked.

Her depression switched over to irritation. She replied, "Get over it. It was just five minutes."

"I was here early. I needed the files for the Sanders contract," he said.

"They are on your desk," Selena said.

"They are?"

"Yes, they are," Selena said. "I knew you would want to see them first thing upon getting here. I put them there after the lawyer finished examining the contract."

"You should have told me," he grumbled.

"You haven't been in since last Monday," she said feeling even more irritated at him. The papers had been sitting on his desk since Tuesday. She had put them there right before discovering Mike and Penny in bed together.

"I'll look at them," he said. "You shouldn't have been late. I'll remember this when it's time for your annual review."

"You should pay me more," she replied unable to believe the words coming out of her mouth.

Her boss made a lot of money off those calendars and she saw very little of it. She resented the low pay, but had put up with it to keep her job. After the past few days, she was sick and tired of being used. Mike had used her. Penny had taken advantage of her friendship. Her boss was using her.

"I pay you well," he said.

"No you don't. I should be making twice as much money as you're paying me," she said.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said.

Before the attempted robbery she would have backed down and swallowed her pride. She stood up and said, "See you later."

"Where are you going?" he asked shocked by her behavior.

"I'm going to take today off," she said.

"You can't do that," he said.

"Why not?" she asked.

"I've got that Sanders contract to deal with and I'll need you if there are any questions about it," he said with a stutter. He'd never seen her act this way. He knew that his business would fail without her keeping it afloat.

"Good luck finding answers," she said.

"Wait a minute," he said.

She turned to face him. She said, "No. You wait a minute. I'm in here dealing with your customers, your photographers, and your lawyers every business day. I take care of everything that goes on in this place. You come in here for a couple hours every few days and sign papers. I'm making twenty-eight thousand a year. You're pulling in over a million. I can walk across the hall, rent an office, and put you out of business in a minute."

"I do more than that," he said stunned by her sudden aggression.

"No you don't," she said. "You were in the office three hours last week. You haven't been in the office more more than ten hours in the past month. Don't tell me you are networking. I was the one who found the photographer in Philadelphia to replace the guy who died last month."

"We lost one of the photographers?" he asked surprised to learn that little piece of information.

"Yes."

"We need to get another one under contract. We'll lose sales in Philadelphia if we don't get cityscape pictures for calendars there," he said.

"You signed the damned contract for the new photographer two weeks ago," she said.

He said, "It must have slipped my mind."

Her initial thoughts had been to ask for a couple thousand more a year. This last exchange made her up the amount significantly. He was totally clueless. She said, "I want sixty thousand a year or I'm walking."

"Sixty thousand? Are you out of your mind?" he asked.

"No."

"I'm not going to do it," he said.

"Good bye. It's been nice working for you," she said. She walked out of the office and found an elevator just waiting for her. She stepped in and hit the button for the ground floor.

She got to the ground floor and exited the elevator. Once she reached the lobby, she started shaking as the enormity of what she had just done hit her. She stood there. "What the fuck did I just do?"

She looked across the street at the bar. She wasn't going to go in there this time. Besides, it was only a few minutes after nine in the morning. She turned around and looked at the building directory that was hanging on the wall next to the elevator. "There's a lawyer on the second floor. I guess I'll see what is required to start a business."

The lawyer wasn't in yet. She spent an hour talking to the secretary in the lawyer's office. She walked out a lot wiser without having spent any money other than a promise to buy the secretary lunch some day. She learned that she could start the business online with minimal charges. She had also gotten the name of a young lawyer who was just starting his practice and would be willing to work a whole lot cheaper than any of the established lawyers.

She walked out of the office building ready to accept the challenge of starting her own calendar business. There were quite a few people who owed her favors and she wasn't above collecting on them. Almost the entire contact list for the business was on her cellphone since she regularly forwarded the office phone to it during lunchtime and after normal business hours.

She didn't even have to worry about a non-compete clause since she had been hired as a receptionist back in the day when they had four people working in the office. Her job responsibilities had grown with each departure of an employee, but she hadn't been promoted or seen much of an increase in pay. For the last two years she had been running the place single-handedly.

She next headed to the bank. There was a woman there that she did a lot of business with. She'd use that connection to find out what would be required to get a business loan. An hour at the bank and she knew exactly what had to be done. She wasn't going to be able to borrow much money until she had some contracts in hand, but it would be enough to get started. The woman at the bank also suggested that she talk to the suppliers about extending her a little credit. She could also work out of her apartment and save on office rent.

It was now after eleven and she was starting to get hungry. She headed over to the sandwich shop, hoping that Guy might show up. She wanted to talk to a friendly ear so bad that she could taste it. A week ago, she would have been on the phone with Penny.

She ordered a sandwich and a large diet drink. She was so excited that she could barely sit still. Her mind was running a thousand miles an hour with ideas for calendars. There would be the typical selection of flowers, kittens, puppies, and urban cityscapes. She could probably contact one of the outdoor photographers for some animal life photographs. They often had a bunch of shots that had never been sold for one reason or another. A couple of pinup calendars featuring a dozen attractive models would be pretty simple to arrange. She could have partial nudes, lingerie, and swimsuits.

She figured thirty layouts would get her started for the year. Next year she could probably double that number easily. She hoped that she could get some discounts on the printing costs and arrange some good deals with the distributors. She knew all of them on a first name basis.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Guy said, "I was hoping you'd be here."

"Hi Guy. Have I got some news to tell you," Selena said.

"That's funny. I have some news to tell you," Guy said.

"I'm starting my own business. I got pissed at my boss and quit," Selena said.

"Wow. That's amazing. What are you going to do in your new business?" Guy asked.

"My old job was putting together calendars. I was doing everything. I figure that if I could do it for my old boss, I can do it for myself," Selena said.

"Good for you," Guy said. "I think you'll do well."

"I've never felt so good about anything in my life," Selena said.

"That's great," Guy said. "Do you want to know something?"

"What?"

"You look happy," Guy said.

"I feel happy," Selena said. "What's your news?"

"My news isn't quite that good," Guy said. "Maybe I ought to wait a day or two to tell you about it."

"Tell me now," Selena said.

"I decided to go with that website idea," Guy said.

"You got videos of her cheating?" Selena asked.

"Yes," Guy said.

"Is that what decided you?" Selena asked. She was surprised that he had gotten evidence that quickly.

Guy answered, "No. She's convinced the kids that I'm cheating on her."

"That bitch," Selena said. Considering how he had taken the news of her infidelity, that had to hurt.

Guy said, "I'm divorcing her no matter what. I wasn't going to do the website, but being accused of cheating by the kids was the last straw. I just kept thinking about what Max's wife said about paying her alimony from money that I made off of her cheating."

"You ought to make her a partner in the website. That way you can claim she has an independent income," Selena said. She laughed and then added, "If she's a partner, she can't sue you over her videos being used."

"That's cold," Guy said with a laugh.

"Think about it. She'd have to sue her own company," Selena said.

"You don't seem offended by my decision," Guy said.

Selena said, "I had a rough weekend. I realized that I've been used by a lot of people. It made me angry.

"Cody's wife is bad news, but she wasn't using her daughter or Cody. Don't get me wrong, she's a despicable person for not trying to stop her daughter from opening a sex website. Still, she wasn't using anyone.

"Your wife – she's using you. The way I see it is – she has figured out that she can do anything she wants and not really suffer because of it. You're paying the bills while she's out playing the field. If you put up a fuss, she turns the kids against you, she gets you to pay her some support, she'll probably get to stay in the house, and she can screw anyone she wants. She will take a slight hit in terms of standard of living, but that is way off in the future. She probably figures she can trade up.

"I find that very offensive."

"I didn't think about it that way," Guy said.

"From what you've said about Marylou, I like her. It sounds to me like she is working with Max to get through this difficult period of time. I like that. I think I would like to meet her," Selena said.

Guy said, "I'm meeting them this afternoon. You should come along. You never know. Maybe Max or Marylou might be interested in helping you out with your business."

"That's a good idea," Selena said. "Why are you meeting them this afternoon rather than in the evening? Won't you miss work?"

Guy said, "I've got a business trip tonight and won't be back until late tomorrow."

"That makes sense," Selena said. "I'll miss having lunch with you tomorrow."

"No you won't. You'll be busy starting your business," Guy said. "Me, I'll be up to my ass in hydraulic fluid wishing I was here."

"That's nice of you to say," Selena said with a smile.

"I think we should stop meeting for lunch. I don't want to imply anything, but it isn't really right for a married man to be spending time with a single woman. I'd hate to think someone would get the wrong impression of you," Guy said.

Having expected him to say something like that, Selena said, "I understand."



-------

Chapter 11


Guy sat down at the dinner table. The kids and his wife had been waiting for him. His wife had a sour expression on her face. The kids were subdued. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he figured that he'd find out soon enough. All he had to do was watch the videos of what his wife was telling the kids and he'd know everything.

They ate dinner with very little conversation around the table. It was the kind of tense meal that Guy had gotten used to having with the family. It did seem to him that the kids were a little more distant than usual. The fact that he was out late last night might have had something to do with it.

When they finally finished eating, Guy said, "I have an announcement."

"What?" Maggie asked.

"As you know, I've been a little busy lately," Guy said.

With an edge to her voice, Maggie said, "I have a pretty good idea of what you've been busy doing."

"Max, one of the guys that was there when the attempted robbery took place, had lost his job that day. He's starting up his own business. I've been meeting with him about it," Guy said.

"That's interesting," Maggie said in a tone of voice that suggested she didn't believe a word he was saying.

"What kind of business?" Ellie asked.

"An internet business," Guy answered.

Sean asked, "What kind of internet business?"

Guy said, "Max discovered that there are all kinds of special interest websites out there that cater to a handful of people. The way he explained it to me is that you set up website addressing some particular interest, say knitting, and you charge members a small monthly fee. It doesn't need to be a very big fee. You also post advertisements to other websites and get paid a fee each time someone clicks on the link. You can also get corporate sponsors who will provide content."

Ellie said, "Smart. You get multiple revenue streams out of one website. That small fee gets charged every month. Even if someone loses interest, they are liable to continue getting charged until they realize they are wasting money. You could end up with years of revenue from someone who was interested for a month or two."

Bill said, "There's a lot of money in those advertising links."

"You bet," Guy said.

Maggie was suddenly very interested in this particular topic of conversation. Her suspicions about his cheating were put on the back burner for the moment. This sounded like the real thing. She asked, "So can you get in on this business?"

"He offered me forty percent of the company if I put up four thousand dollars," Guy said.

He wasn't going to mention that the four thousand dollars was a paltry amount compared to what Max was putting into it. His real contribution were the videos of his wife cheating, but that was a separate transaction.

"Take it," Maggie said.

Ellie said, "You better have an iron clad contract."

Guy handed a copy of his contract for part interest in the specialty websites over to her and said, "Read it."

Surprised to actually have a contract handed her, Ellie said, "Give me a few minutes."

"I figured if we decide to go with it, we ought to do it in both of our names individually. You'll own twenty percent and I'll own twenty percent," Guy said.

"You'd give me twenty percent of their company," Maggie asked surprised by the offer.

"Sure. The money would be coming out of our joint savings account. It would give you a little mad money of your own," Guy said.

"I like that," Maggie said.

Guy held out a small presentation folder and said, "Here's a prospectus they made for me. They figure they can open a specialty website every other month. They'll slowly grow the business to where they have ten or twelve of them."

"How much do they expect to make?" Maggie asked.

"They are hoping to make five thousand or so a month off of each specialty website. With ten specialty websites, that's well over a half a million dollars a year after expenses. A twenty percent share would be around a hundred thousand," Guy answered.

"That much?" Maggie asked incredulously.

"Well, it would take some time to get to the point where it's making that much money," Guy said.

Ellie said, "There's a risk that it won't work."

"That's true. It's still better odds than winning the lottery," Guy said.

"It could do better than that," Sean said. "I've read about people who are making a million dollars a year off their blogs."

"Max said the same thing, but he's going conservative," Guy said. "You've got to remember, Max is a salesman. You don't talk about a big sale until it is closed."

"That makes sense," Maggie said just to have something to add to the conversation.

"However, the way I figure it is that at ten dollars a month it only takes five hundred members to get a revenue of five thousand dollars a month. That doesn't include the advertising revenue. There have to be five hundred people in the world interested enough in any topic you chose to sign up as members," Guy said.

"World wide?" Maggie asked.

Sean said, "The internet is everywhere."

"I forgot about that," Maggie said.

"Who will be providing content?" Sean asked.

Guy said, "They've got an independent outfit that will be providing some content for one of the websites already lined up, but Max is being very closed mouthed about it. He doesn't want to blow the deal with wild rumors getting back to them."

"What kind of outfit?" Sean asked.

"I can't really say," Guy said.

"Can you give me an example?" Sean asked suspiciously.

"Let's say you're doing a knitting site. You get a distributor of knitting supplies to provide articles about knitting. They already have them, so it is no big deal. You go to a yarn company and get articles from them about yarn. Before you know it, you've got a website that is pretty informative and useful to some granny somewhere," Guy answered.

Guy was not lying about that. Max and Marylou had given the matter a lot of thought. Their plan was to use the website of his cheating wife to fund expansion into other websites. Marylou had come up with the idea for the knitting website. She was thinking about a canning website as well.

Although there was a lot of legalize in the contract, Ellie had a pretty good idea of what it contained. Nothing looked weird as far as she could tell. She said, "This appears to be a straight forward contract for two thousand shares of a corporate stock. You would be a member of the board."

"Right," Guy said. "I have another contract in your mother's name."

"That's very thoughtful of you," Maggie said giving him a smile.

Ellie said, "I know I want to be a lawyer, but I don't understand all of the legal ramifications in this contract. You should have your lawyer check this out."

"I already did," Guy said.

Already visualizing a hundred thousand dollars a year income, Maggie said, "Let's sign it."

"We have to get the money out of the bank. We'll need two checks; one in my name and one in your name," Guy said.

"I can take care of that first thing in the morning," Maggie said.

Guy said, "We'll have to get the contracts signed in front of a notary."

"I guess it all has to be done legally," Maggie said.

"That right," Guy said.

"When will we start seeing money?" Maggie asked.

"It takes time for these things to take off. It could be six months before the first specialty site gets five hundred members," Guy said. "It just depends."

"That long?" Maggie asked.

Sean said, "Dad's right. These things can take some time to get established. I mean, people have to find out about it."

Bill said, "It could go viral if you manage to hit the right topic."

"That's true," Sean said.

Guy said, "The great thing about this is that we don't have to do anything. We can just sit back and collect our money."

"Maybe I want to do something," Maggie said.

"Like what?" Guy asked.

"I could run a specialty website," Maggie said.

Guy asked, "What topic?"

"I don't know," Maggie answered.

"It should keep you busy. You'll have to research the topic, identify sources of information, design the layout, and update it daily," Guy said. "It would be a real job and you'd basically be doing it all yourself."

Maggie frowned at that idea. She had envisioned being a boss and telling someone what to do. She said, "That sounds like too much work."

Sean said, "So you really were in business meetings."

"Yes," Guy said. "What did you think I was doing?"

Sean looked a little flustered and glanced over at his mother. She had been quite vocal in what she thought he was doing. He said, "I didn't know. It was just kind of weird for you to be gone most evenings like that."

"Between the robbery, traveling, business meetings, and my kidney stones, I guess I haven't been adhering to my normal schedule," Guy said with a grimace. He didn't like lying about the kidney stones, but it did make a good excuse for his visits to the doctor. He was officially cleared of gonorrhea.

He was getting very angry about the accusations coming from his children. His wife wouldn't come straight out and accuse him of doing something wrong. She was using the kids for that purpose.

"I looked up kidney stones on the internet. Those are pretty painful," Bill said.

"You wouldn't believe how painful it is," Guy said looking across the table at Maggie. He was going to add that it was less painful than having your heart ripped out by a cheating spouse, but he held his tongue. He added, "So on top of being busy, I've been a little grouchy."

"You can say that again," Maggie said.

He was saying all the right things, but she didn't believe him. His lack of interest in having sex was telling her that he was getting it somewhere else. There was an edge to the way he looked at her that she didn't like. She knew the signs of a cheating spouse.

"You're acting like I was having an affair or something," Guy said looking at his wife.

He was only going to keep up this pretense for a little longer. All he wanted were a few more videos to kick off the website and then the truth could come out. It would be a surprise to a lot of people to learn what was really going on. He felt bad for the kids. Learning that their mother was a cheating slut would hurt them.

"It is just that you've been acting different," she said.

"Like I said, there's a lot going on in my life right now," Guy said. "You've seen what I've been doing tonight."

"That was quite unexpected," Maggie admitted.

Guy said, "I need to call Max and arrange to drop off the contracts tomorrow night."

"Can I go?" Maggie asked.

"Sure," Guy said. "I'll let him know to expect both of us tomorrow."

He pulled out his cell phone and called Max. When Max answered, he said, "Hello, Max. This is Guy."

Max asked, "Did you present the contract?"

"Yes. We're going to go for it. My wife and I would like to drop off the signed contracts tomorrow," Guy said.

"Excellent. We've already got the website up and running," Max said.

"Really?" Guy said glancing around the room. Everyone was watching him.

"Yes. I put a little blurb on a site dedicated to cheating wives stories. We've already got two hundred members and we're getting about three more an hour," Max said.

"That's good news," Guy said. "So things are progressing well."

Max said, "Marylou has the knitting site put together. She's really gotten into this."

"I bet my wife would love to see that knitting site. Will you be able to show it to her tomorrow?" Guy asked knowing that he was speaking to a broader audience. His entire family was listening to each and every word he said. At least they couldn't hear the other side of the conversation.

"Yes," Max answered.

"Great. I'm sure she'll like seeing it. She suggested that she might be able to come up with a site of her own," Guy said. He noticed Maggie preening a bit upon hearing that.

Max said, "No problem. I'll give Marylou the head's up on that. She probably won't be there. You know how she feels about your wife. Watching the videos really pissed her off."

"So what would be a good time to stop by?" Guy asked.

"How about eight?" Max said.

"We'll see you at eight," Guy said.

They exchanged goodbyes and then Guy hung up. He looked over at his wife and said, "We'll go over there at eight tomorrow. We'll need the checks as well as the signed and notarized contracts."

"Okay," Maggie said.

"We'll have to meet over lunch at the bank near where I work," Guy said.

"That's fine," Maggie said smiling at him. If this business deal made a profit, then all of her worries were over. She started thinking about going shopping for a business suit and briefcase now that she was going to be a business woman.

Thinking this might put Maggie in an amorous mood, Guy said, "I'm going head into the living room and sit down for a bit. My kidney stones are acting up a bit."

"Sorry to hear that," Bill said.

Maggie frowned and said, "Yeah. I hope you feel better soon."

Guy went into the living room and sat down in his chair. He was trying to calculate in his head how much money the website was bringing in. They had two more videos of her cheating to add to the website. At twenty dollars a member, two hundred members was four thousand dollars. Considering that their startup costs were a computer, a web address and a contract on a high volume web server, they were already making a profit.

Sean came into the living room and sat down on the couch. He said, "That's a pretty sweet deal that you've put together."

"Thanks," Guy said. "I'm not giving up my day job yet."

"I was doing some quick calculations. I think your friend was being way too conservative. A lot of these blog sites get thousands of members. With ten sites with a thousand members each and ten dollars a member, you should be bringing in over a hundred thousand dollars a month. You guys will be making a lot of money," Sean said.

"Haven't you ever heard of the phrase 'don't count your chickens before they hatch'?" Guy asked.

"Yeah," Sean said.

Guy said, "That's one of the things you have to learn how to do in business. It's real easy to over estimate how many customers you'll have. If you spend like you already have them, you'll be bankrupt before you know it."

"I guess you're the one with business experience," Sean said.

"Not really. I'm just an engineer who troubleshoots problems in the field," Guy said.

He wasn't going to mention that Max had coached him on how to sell the business to his wife. Guy was to talk about the website he was becoming a partner in without mentioning that she was becoming a partner in a different website. He was already a partner in Maggie's website. It was a bait and switch sale. It was wrong and he knew it, but he was doing it anyway.

Marylou had gone after the idea of making Maggie a partner in the website like a fox goes after a chicken in the henhouse. She had disliked Maggie after watching the first video and each successive video had feed her anger. Max hadn't wanted to use that approach until watching the last video of Maggie cheating. Guy had run into the bathroom to cry leaving Max and Marylou feeling like hell. Guy's resolve not to do it that way crumbled after watching his wife trash talk him in front of the children for twenty minutes.

"Still, you seem to know a bit about it," Sean said.

"You pick up things," Guy said. "One of the hardest things to learn is knowing when to keep your mouth shut."

"So that's why you've been so secretive lately?" Sean asked.

"Yes. I don't really like talking about things until they are a little more concrete. I was hoping to get a bit more of the action, but that didn't pan out. If I had set your mother's expectations a little higher, then I doubt we'd be going into business now. She'd be upset that we didn't get a better deal. As it is, I think we got a very good deal," Guy said.

"I didn't think about that."



-------

Chapter 12


Barb and Robert were sitting up straight at the table rather than slouched over their food like had been past practice. Each time they slouched, Max would point out that they should sit up straight. Barb was ready to kill. This had been the most humiliating week of her life. All of her friends acted sympathetic about having her cell phone taken away from her, but she knew she was a hot topic of texting.

That was just the beginning. Every night that week, she and Robert had helped their mother prepare dinner. Her father just wouldn't accept that it was the mother's job to cook. She wished that he would get a job so that things would return to normal. Having him around the house had really upset the status quo.

Marylou said, "After Barb washes the dishes, we're going to the movies so that your father can have a business meeting."

"What business meeting?" Barb asked.

"I'm looking at setting up a small business until I find a regular job," Max said.

"So you'll be out of the house more?" Barb asked.

"No. I'll be running it out of my office here at the house," Max said.

Barb said, "You should really get an office away from the house."

"No. I'm perfectly happy here," Max said with a smile.

"I'm not," Barb muttered.

"You don't like having your dear old dad around the house?" Max asked knowing the real answer to that question.

"It just isn't natural," Barb said. She knew better than to insult him. He was pretty good at twisting things around until she felt like pond scum. Her father smiled at her from across the table.

Robert asked, "What movie will we see?"

"I thought I'd let you choose," Marylou said.

She didn't care what they saw. She just didn't want to be around the house when that woman showed up. Listening to Maggie trash talk her husband with that other man had infuriated her.

"Action," Robert said.

"Romance," Barb countered.

Marylou said, "I kind of feel like a romance film."

"Yes," Barb said feeling like she'd finally won a small victory.

"You're always taking her side," Robert muttered.

Max said, "Robert!"

"What?" Robert asked.

"Think about it. Your mother is a woman. Of course she'd prefer a romantic movie over an action film," Max said. "She's not taking a side."

"Maybe so," Robert admitted grudgingly. It did make a certain amount of sense.

"You might want to keep that in mind when you're dating. Taking a girl to a romantic movie impresses her more than taking her to an action film," Max said.

"I didn't think about it like that," Robert said looking at his father with a little more respect.

It seemed to him that his father was always dropping little pieces of advice like that. Every time something like this came up, he would make a point of making a lesson out of it. He realized that his father worked things from a whole lot of angles.

"Barb," Max said.

"What?"

"Keep that in mind. When some guy gives you a choice, pick the action film. You'll be sending the message that his desires are important too," Max said.

"Like that matters," Barb said dismissively.

"It matters a lot. Guys talk. Girls can get reputations of being high maintenance real quick," Max said with a smile.

"So. I like it when a guy spends money on me," Barb said.

"High maintenance women attract assholes. You wouldn't want to date an asshole who treats you like dirt, would you?" Max asked.

"How is he treating me like dirt when he's spending money on me?" Barb answered. She had him there.

"He's probably dating another girl, too. Assholes tend to do that," Max said. "You'll just be one cow in his herd. Does that make you feel special?"

It infuriated her how he always turned things around like that. She answered, "No."

"So if you want a nice guy, then you have to pay attention to the guy's feelings and pocket book," Max said. "When your mother and I were dating, she used to order the cheapest item on the menu because she knew that I didn't have much money."

"You noticed," Marylou said with a smile.

"Of course I noticed," Max said. "That was one of the things I liked about you. I could tell that I was important to you."

"Gross," Barb said. "No sweet talk at the dinner table. I'm going to lose my appetite."

"You might want to listen to them. They're telling you something important," Robert said.

"Like what?" Barb asked.

"Like how to make the people around you feel special. God, you are a real bitch at times," Robert said.

"It isn't nice to call your sister a bitch," Max said.

Riding herd on those two was a full time job. If deciding which movie to see created so much discord, it was no wonder Marylou had given up fighting them on everything. Max felt that he owed her an apology.

"I'm sorry," Robert said sullenly.

Barb was giving Robert a look suggesting that he was dirt.

"That doesn't change the fact that your sister's attitude lacks empathy," Max said.

"What does that mean?" Barb asked indigently.

"It means that you don't give a damn about other people's feelings," Marylou answered.

"Dad's the one who lacks empathy!" Barb said.

"I don't know about that. I've found that your father is very considerate of other people's feelings," Marylou said.

"He just loves to stomp on my feelings," Barb said.

"No. He's just pointing out some areas where you need a little improvement in your social skills. If you find it hurts your feelings, it may be that you know you aren't being very nice and feel guilty about it," Marylou said.

"Why are you always turning things around so that it's my fault?" Barb asked.

Max said, "We're not assigning blame. We're just making observations about your behavior so that you can improve yourself. Consider it ... oh ... constructive criticism."

"I don't need improvement," Barb spat out.

"Sure you do. None of us are perfect," Max said. "I sometimes have a tendency to be a little heavy handed, as you've so rightly pointed out to me on numerous occasions. I've tried to temper my natural enthusiasm."

"You're not doing a very good job of it," Barb said.

"I would say that I'm doing a remarkable job. Instead of calling you a bitch, I merely point out that your behavior isn't very nice," Max said.

"You just called me a bitch," Barb said.

Max said, "I most definitely did not call you a bitch. You interpreted it that way."

"You implied it," Barb said.

"It was an example of what I could say and what I actually do say," Max said. "Sometimes people hear things that aren't said because they want to take offense. Is that the case here?"

Robert was watching the exchange with a smile.

Max asked, "Whats so funny, Robert?"

"I was just thinking that you're a lot smarter than I ever gave you credit for," Robert answered.

"Why do you say that?" Max asked.

"You're doing to her what you did to me at the hardware store," Robert said.

"What did I do at the hardware store?" Max asked.

"You turned everything that I did wrong into a lesson on how things should be done and why they should be done that way," Robert said. "You are doing the same thing to her. You're teaching her a lot of lessons, but I don't think she's listening."

Max glanced at Barb and then said, "She's listening. The next time some asshole treats her like dirt and gives her some little trinket, she'll look around and see that there are three other girls with similar trinkets. She won't feel so special and she'll remember this conversation. There will be an occasion or two when she'll draw upon her empathy to treat someone nice for a change because she's interested in him. She's learning."

"Okay," Robert said doubtfully.

"But it was a very good observation on your part," Max said.

"Thank you," Robert said.

Max said, "On that note, let me say that dinner tonight was much better than last night. You kids managed to get the salt right and the meat was cooked very to near perfection. It was very good."

"Thank you," Robert said.

"We're learning," Barb said.

"Who did the mashed potatoes?" Max asked.

"I did," Barb answered.

Max said, "They were great. Usually I put too much milk in them and not enough salt and pepper. Mine are usually too runny and bland. You got these right. Very good."

"Thank you," Barb said feeling proud.

At eight o'clock, Guy and Maggie arrived at the house. Maggie was dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase. Guy was dressed casually. Max let them in and took them to the dining room table to work. There was a computer set up on the table with the prototype of the knitting website running on it.

Maggie looked at the website and said, "Hey, that looks nice."

"Thanks. It's still a prototype."

"Prototype?" Maggie asked.

"It isn't the final product, but shows what the final product will be. We're waiting for the professional photographs and artwork to arrive," Max explained.

"So that is what you're doing," Maggie said looking at it.

"Yes," Max answered. "Try it out."

Maggie started clicking on various parts of the windows. She oohed and aahed when pages with articles and pictures showed up. There were blocks with little pictures indicating that was where the advertising would be. She was pretty impressed.

Max said, "When we are ready to go live, we'll have real advertising."

"This is great," Maggie said.

She was looking over a page that was showing different kinds of knitting needles. She had assumed that all knitting needles were the same. She was surprised to discover otherwise. There were straight needles, hoop needles, and cable needles. There were needles in all different lengths and diameters.

She clicked on the members only link. The first thing to catch her eye were videos showing how to do various knitting tasks. She watched one of the videos illustrating how to start knitting by doing something that was called casting on. She'd never heard the term before and was amazed by what she saw.

Maggie said, "I didn't know any of this stuff. I really like video selections in the members only section."

"Thank you," Max said. "My wife is putting that together a number of instructional videos with an elderly neighbor down the street."

"Where is your wife?" Maggie asked.

"She took the kids out. It's hard to have a business meeting with kids running around," Max answered.

"You're so right," Maggie said.

Ready to get to business, Guy said, "We have two copies of the contracts. One for you to keep and one for us."

"Excellent," Max said. "You did bring the checks?"

"Yes," Maggie said. She opened the briefcase and took out her check. She held it up for him to see.

"Excellent," Max said. "Let me look over the contracts and then we'll be done."

Guy leaned over and asked, "What do you think of the website?"

"I can see where you could get a couple hundred people signed up for this site. It is fascinating," Maggie said.

"I'm glad you think so," Guy said with a smile. He knew that she wouldn't like the website she was actually investing in.

Max said, "When we get that one rolled out, we're going to start on a woodworking site."

"That sounds real interesting," Guy said.

Max said, "There's a lot of potential there. I mean, you've got wood, tools, and projects that can be the subject matter of articles. There's a lot of material there. The hard thing is going to be organizing the site."

"I can see that," Guy said.

There were a lot of hobbies that people pursued and each of those hobbies could be the subject of a website. Guy felt that Max was pursuing a potential goldmine with this idea. The one thing that he liked the most about this opportunity was that Max and Marylou were working together to make it a reality. They were a team.

He glanced over at his wife thinking about how she had jumped on this opportunity without considering going after it as a partner with him. Of course, he was guilty of the same thing, but for good reason. He imagined she had her reasons that justified her behavior. He didn't know why she was doing what she was doing. The fact of the matter was that he didn't care to learn why at this point in time. It was a sad commentary on the state of his marriage.



-------

Chapter 13


Selena was walking up to her apartment when she encountered the manager of the complex. In an attempt to be friendly, she asked, "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. I finally got rid of that damned cat," the manager said.

"What did you do with it?" Selena asked.

"I dropped it off at the SPCA. They don't take strays down at the pound anymore," the manager said.

"I think a lot of people liked that cat," Selena said. She wasn't the only one feeding it. She knew several residents put out bowls of milk or water for it. During the summer months it wore a flea collar.

"You know the policy about pets. The damned thing was shitting in the flowerbeds," the manager said.

"It was just a nice cat," Selena said worried about the cat.

"It's gone now," the manager said.

Selena went into her apartment and returned to work. She was making good progress on putting together a line of thirty calendars. The photographers had responded well to her calls. Several of them, knowing she was starting out on her own, gave her pretty nice price breaks. Several of the smaller distributors had agreed to take enough units to make it a profitable year. She was still negotiating with the printers to get a good price, but she was pleased with how the talks were going.

One other little piece of good news was that Max was using her to contact artists for his specialty websites. She was getting a small commission for getting photographers to take pictures appropriate for the website. She had negotiated a two thousand dollar contract with a woman to take pictures for the knitting site. Her take was two hundred dollars. It wasn't much, but she could use it towards the rent.

Money was an issue. She was carrying a business loan and had to be careful with the money. For the next six months her cash flow would be outwards. Only when September arrived would she start seeing any income. Not only did she have business expenses, but she had rent and personal bills. She was paying herself a small salary, but it wasn't enough. She was eating into her savings at an alarming rate.

Her former boss had called her a dozen times trying to talk her into returning to work for him. Initially he had offered her position back at a cut in pay, but now he was offering a fifty thousand dollar a year salary. It was too little and too late. By her calculations, her handful of calendars would net her nearly twice that. Of course, some of that money would have to be put back into the business for expansion.

Her apartment no longer looked like a place to live. She had papers and markups scattered over every flat surface. Handmade timelines on the wall showed deadlines and critical paths in getting everything done on time. She carefully updated them when tasks were started and completed.

She was a little scared that something bad would happen, but with each minor success her confidence grew. She no longer had to wait for her boss to show up to sign critical papers. She signed them when they arrived and then took the necessary follow up actions. The fact that she was only doing thirty calendars rather then a hundred and fifty meant she wasn't working as hard as when she had worked for her boss. Of course, she was putting in twice the effort on each calendar.

Intending to see what the photographers had sent her of their stock photographs, she opened her email. She was pleased to see that there were a dozen emails. It was a good sign that people were communicating with her. Nothing could be worse than silence.

Upon reading the most recent email, she nearly jumped for joy. A major bookstore chain with over seven hundred locations had ordered twenty copies of each calendar line for all of its outlets. That was over four hundred thousand calendars. She hadn't expected to make that sale.

She got up from her chair and did a little victory dance around the apartment. With that one order, along with her other orders, her business was established. She could relax now and focus on getting the calendars put together in time to ship them. This was an important step on the path to success.

She sat down and composed a response that acknowledged receipt of the order. She gave a mailing address for sending the contract. She was so excited that it was hard to type. Her fingers kept missing the keys.

She had just hit the send key when the telephone rang. Surprised, she stared at the screen and said, "That was fast. I just sent it."

She dug out her cell phone and saw that it was Max's number. She answered, "Hello."

"Hello, Selena. This is Marylou."

"Hi Marylou. How goes the website?" Selena asked.

She was pleased that Marylou had called. Now she would have someone to tell her about the order. It wasn't Guy, but Marylou had become a good friend. They both shared a rather foul opinion of Guy's wife.

"We just hit four thousand subscribers," Marylou answered excitedly. The website featuring Guy's cheating wife was getting so much traffic that they were having to increase the service contract. It was generating so much email that they were having a hard time keeping up with it.

"That's great," Selena said.

"We're going to double it with the most recent video," Marylou said.

It took them a couple of days to prepare each video for posting. They had to put a black bar over the eyes of Maggie's lovers. Their lawyer had advised them to do that to avoid a potential lawsuit since they didn't have the lover's permission to post the video. They didn't have the best video editing equipment that would make it easy to put the little black bar across the eyes so it took some time.

"Is it that good?" Selena asked.

Marylou said, "If you hate that bitch half as much as I do, you'll be rolling on the floor with tears in your eyes from laughing. It is great."

"Don't leave me in suspense," Selena said.

"The bitch was just informed by one of her lovers that she has gonorrhea. You have to see it," Marylou said.

"Which one told her?" Selena asked. So far, Maggie had brought three different men into the bedroom. There had probably been more than that before Guy had caught onto her. There had been occasional references to other men.

"The old fart from across the street told her," Marylou said. "It was hilarious. He's wondering how he's going to tell his wife. She's wondering if she gave it to Guy. They are both about to have a nervous breakdown."

"That is funny," Selena said. She could just imagine it.

"Max worked on it all night. He just put it on the website," Marylou said.

"How is Guy taking it?" Selena said.

Marylou said, "As you can imagine, he's depressed. I think he's about ready to file the divorce papers. I think living a lie is taking its toll on him. It must be horribly stressful pretending to be a loving husband when he knows what she is doing."

"Poor guy," Selena said feeling her heart breaking for him.

"So how come you aren't out there cheering him up?" Marylou said.

"It's complicated," Selena answered. It had taken Marylou exactly two minutes to figure out that Selena had a thing for Guy. By mutual agreement, she and Guy had been avoiding being together.

"It might be, but you've got to let him know that you'll be there when he's out of that situation," Marylou said.

"Marylou, you're a wonderful lady. I know you think well of me, but have you looked at me? I'm not particularly desirable," Selena said.

Marylou said, "Don't give me that. He asks about you every time I see him. He's interested."

"Can you tell him that the cat was taken to the SPCA?" Selena said.

"Cat? SPCA?"

Selena said, "He'll know what I'm talking about. Just let him know that the manager of the apartment took the cat to the SPCA."

"Okay. I'll tell him that," Marylou said mystified by the message.

Selena said, "I've got some good news, too."

"What?" Marylou asked.

"I got an order for four hundred thousand calendars," Selena said.

"Wow! This is good news," Marylou said.

Selena said, "I'll be able to take that order to the bank to get a loan sufficient to cover the printing costs."

"That's wonderful," Marylou said.

"Now I just have to finish the calendars," Selena said.

Marylou said, "Let the fun begin."

"Thanks," Selena said.

"I'll talk to you later," Marylou said.

Selena sat back thinking about the website featuring Guy's wife. She had visited it once and had been totally disgusted. Maggie, she had a hard time even thinking that name, had said mean and horrible things about a man she knew had a good soul. She had seen him near tears on many occasions when talking about what Maggie was doing. She hoped that the website was providing some release for his grief and his anger.

She returned to work trying to put him out of her mind. The telephone rang. It was the buyer from the bookstore chain. She picked up the phone and said, "Hello, Elena. This is Selena."

"Hello, Selena," the woman said with a laugh.

"How's my rhyming sister?" Selena asked. They always chuckled over how their names rhymed.

"I've got to let you in on a little secret," Elena said.

"What?"

Elena said, "I approved your order before I realized that you had struck out on your own."

Selena wondered if she was about to get some bad news. She asked, "Are you having second thoughts?"

"No. I was just wondering how I can help you. I knew you were doing all the work there at your old place. I'm glad to see you move out on your own. You've always been a good person to work with unlike that ass you used to work for," Elena said.

Selena had been hearing that a lot. She would lay the groundwork for a good deal according to what he initially requested. Once there was an agreement of sorts, he would try to get more with disastrous results. Then she would have to work hard to get things smoothed out. It didn't happen often, but people remembered those kinds of things.

She answered, "The best help you can give me is to pay me on time."

"Don't worry about that. Is the order too big for your resources?" Elena asked.

"No. I can use the contract to arrange a loan to cover the printing costs. The business loan that I have will cover everything else," Selena answered.

Elena said, "How about a staggered delivery schedule?"

Selena said, "I don't think staggering the delivery time will help. The printing costs will be less if they just do a full run."

"I just thought I would ask," Elena said.

"Thank you so much for thinking of me," Selena said.

"Us 'enas have to stick together," Elena said with a laugh.

Selena said, "You bet."

Elena hung up after a bit more small talk. Selena felt good. She had worked hard to develop good working relations with everyone associated with the business. All that hard work was paying off. All she had to do now was to get a good deal with the printers.

She returned to the computer and opened the the most recent batch of pictures from the wildlife photographer. It was some unsold stock that he had taken the previous year. She stared at the first picture that popped up. It was of a grizzly bear standing on its hind legs with forepaws raised and claws extended. It was a magnificent animal – strong and powerful.

"That's a cover," she said.

The next picture was of two rams charging. It was taken at the moment of contact. She could almost hear the impact. She said, "No. That's the cover."

She went through the rest of the pictures. It seemed to her that each picture was better than the previous. She couldn't believe he had never sold these pictures before.

She picked up the telephone and called him. When he answered, she said, "Hello Bobby. This is Selena."

"How's my favorite calendar babe?" Bobby asked.

"Great. I just saw the pictures you sent me," Selena said.

"Did you like them?" Bobby asked.

Selena said, "They're beautiful, but I think you meant them for someone else."

"Nope. I took them for last year's calendar, but your boss tried to screw me. I sent him my second best pictures hoping I'd find a buyer who appreciated quality. You can imagine my pleasure when you told me you were going out on your own," Bobby said.

Selena said, "I looked at all thirteen of them. Which one should I use for the cover?"

"Use the one of the wolf howling at the moon. That's my favorite," Bobby said.

"Your wish is my command," Selena said. "The wolf will be the cover."

"Thanks," Bobby said. "Send my payment when you get paid."

"Really?" Selena asked.

"You bet. I remember what it was like starting out," Bobby said.

Selena said, "I tell you what. Why don't you consider two calendars next year? Standard royalties on both. I know you've been wanting to do a study series."

"I'd love it," Bobby said. "I've got a cougar that I've been following. She's going to have cubs. I'd love to do a calendar of her rasing them."

"Consider it purchased," Selena said.

"Excellent. I really like doing business with you, Selena," Bobby said.

"Same here," Selena said.

Unable to forgo a chance to tease her, Bobby said, "Too bad I don't nudes. I'd be begging you to model for me."

"You'd break your camera taking my picture," Selena said with a laugh. She was used to photographers, even the female ones, making those kinds of comments.

"I seriously doubt it," Bobby said.

"Thanks for the compliment," Selena said.

"Take it easy Selena," Bobby said. "Good luck on the business."

As soon as she hung up, Selena brought up a standard contract and started filling it out for photographs for two calendars, one a study and one a collection of different animals. She knew Bobby would appreciate having the contracts in hand as soon as possible.



-------

Chapter 14


Feeling like she was on the verge of being a millionaire, Maggie walked into the house with a check for over ten thousand dollars in her purse. The first payment from the website company had arrived and she was feeling ten feet tall. She had even gone out to show it to one of her boyfriends.

She happened to glance over at Guy reclining on the couch. She hadn't expected to find him at home. He was supposed to be at work. Puzzled, she looked at him again. He didn't normally use the couch. It took a moment and then she spotted it.

"What's that?" Maggie asked.

"That is Patches," Guy answered. "He's my cat. Maybe I should say that I'm his person."

"I don't like cats," Maggie said while glaring at the beast.

Disinterested in her opinion, the cat looked at her and yawned. Guy scratched it behind the ear and it turned its head into his hand.

"I do," Guy said.

"You're getting rid of it," Maggie said.

Flippantly, Guy said, "I'd rather get rid of you."

"You can't mean that," Maggie said.

She'd never seen Guy act like this. He seemed completely unmoved by her demand that he get rid of the cat. He knew how much she disliked cats.

The kids entered the house having returned from school. Hardly a second passed before Bill said, "Hey. Dad has a cat."

"A cat?" Sean said while doing a double take at the cat.

"Mom doesn't like cats," Ellie said. Everyone in the family knew that Maggie didn't like cats.

"Get that cat out of here," Maggie said.

"No," Guy replied.

"You know I don't like cats," Maggie said. "I demand that you get rid of it now."

Guy said, "Kids. I have a question for you."

"What?" Sean asked afraid that he and his siblings were going to get dragged into a war over the cat. All three of them edged away from their parents.

Ellie said, "We don't want to be involved in an argument between you two over a cat."

"There's no argument. Besides, you really want to answer my question," Guy said.

"All right, ask it," Ellie said resigned that she was going to have to tell her father to get rid of the cat if he wanted any peace in the house.

"Who would you rather live with? You cat loving father or your disease ridden skanky mother?" Guy asked in a conversational tone of voice.

What followed his question was the kind of silence that can only exist in a vacuum. To say that everyone was stunned would be an understatement. No one had ever heard him say a negative word about his wife. The kids backed even further out of the room to put as much distance between them and their parents while still being able to watch what was going to happen next.

The silence was broken by a loud screech, "How dare you say that!"

Guy picked up the remote control and pushed a button. Everyone turned to stare at the television with the exception of Guy and the cat. Guy was busy petting the cat and the cat was enjoying the attention.

A video recording of a conversation between Fred and Maggie started playing on the television. The setting was the middle of the living room. Fred was telling Maggie about his visit to the doctor and that she had given him gonorrhea.

Maggie fainted. Her drop to the floor was unnoticed by anyone except Guy. The three kids were staring open mouthed at the television.

Ellie said, "Fred?"

Guy let it play until it reached the part where Maggie was speculating about whether he had been infected and if she could blame him for her infection. The absence of sex over the past month was brought up. Fred was explaining that it wouldn't explain why his wife had it too.

Guy turned off the DVD. He said, "Kids, I've been faithful to your mother since the day I met her. I can't say the same about her."

"Fred? She was fucking Fred. I can't believe it," Ellie said in disgust. "He's like a hundred years old."

"He wasn't the only one. She was doing a couple of other men. I found out when I was diagnosed with gonorrhea. You can imagine my shock. I went to a bar to drown my sorrow in drink. I'm sure you know what happened there," Guy said.

"I can't believe she was screwing around on you," Sean said.

"I had just as hard of a time coming to grips with it as you," Guy said.

"That bitch," Sean said.

"Right now, you're mad at her. Tomorrow, you'll be mad at me. I'll understand your anger," Guy said.

"That's thoughtful of you," Bill said.

"Fred?" Ellie said. "What was she thinking?"

Guy said, "I'll repeat my question. Who would you like to live with?"

The cat turned its head to look at the kids.

"I like cats," Sean said deciding that choosing the cat was a little easier than coming out and choosing one of his parents.

"Me too," Bill said.

"Cats are fine," Ellie said. "We've never had a pet before."

"You don't have cats as pets. You cohabitate with a cat. Our job is to feed and water them. They occasionally let us pet them," Guy said.

The cat chose that moment to climb onto the back of the couch. It curled up and settled down to sleep. Guy smiled at the cat. "See what I mean?"

"Yes," Sean said.

"Spooky," Bill said. "It's like it understands you."

Now that the cat was off his chest, Guy sat up and faced the kids. He said, "I apologize for the language I used to describe your mother. I have listened to hours and hours of video in which she badmouthed me to you and to her lovers. I fear that I let my anger overrule my manners."

"That's okay," Sean said.

Bill said, "We understand."

"Fred?"

"Thank you," Guy said.

He looked at his wife who was still on the floor. He said, "I think when she regains consciousness, I will send her over to Fred's house. I think they deserve each other."

Ellie still couldn't get over her mother's choice in lover. She said, "I can't believe it. Her and Fred?"

Maggie groaned. Sean looked down at her with anger. Ellie stared at her with disbelief. Bill wouldn't look at her.

"Fred? You had sex with Fred?" Ellie asked when it was clear her mother had revived.

"Get off the floor, Maggie," Guy said.

"How? I don't understand. How did you know?" Maggie asked.

Guy said, "Pack a bag and head across the street. I think Fred is expecting you."

"His wife will kill me," Maggie said.

"When she and I talked earlier, she decided that a sudden visit to her sister was in order. He's over there alone. By the way, he has no clue his wife knows that she's got gonorrhea," Guy said.

"How will I get by? What will I live on?" Maggie asked looking at the kids like he was kicking her out of the dead broke. She was fishing for some sympathy.

Guy gave forth a sharp bitter laugh. He said, "Don't pull that shit. I happen to know for a fact that you got a check for over ten thousand dollars today. That should cover your living expenses until the next check arrives. The next one should be even bigger."

"You're a real sucker giving me twenty percent of that company," Maggie said with a sneer.

Guy said, "True. I gave you twenty percent of www.maggiethecheatingwife.com. Of course, you were the main attraction so it was only fair. It's bringing in a whole lot of money."

"What?" Maggie asked. The world started to spin on her and she staggered a step or two. "What about the knitting thing?"

"No. I got twenty percent of that and twenty percent of your website. They were two separate companies," Guy said.

"I'm on the website?" Maggie asked.

"Yes. Everything from the day I found out about your extra-marital activities is on the web. People have been paying good money to watch this drama unfold," Guy said.

"You son of a bitch," Maggie said. She didn't know what was on the website, but she was pretty sure that it wasn't good.

Guy said, "You can do better than that. I've listened to how you describe me to your lovers. I sound like real mean asshole bastard."

"You mother fucker..."

"That's more like it," Guy said.

Guy went over to the television. He removed the DVD from the player and put in another one. He pushed the button. Turning to her, he said, "You've never seen this. I thought you might like to see it at least once. Let me remind you that it occured thirty minutes after I discovered that you were cheating on me."

Maggie watched the video of the attempted robbery wide-eyed. She had read the newspaper account, but that didn't prepare her for this. She couldn't believe what she was watching. Guy was a beast.

Sean whistled and said, "You kicked the shit out of that guy."

"He's still in the hospital," Guy said watching the video. One of his co-workers had taped it and brought it in for him. He had been rather surprised by the sheer brutality of it when he saw it the first time.

"I can imagine," Bill said.

Looking at Maggie, Guy said, "If I were you, I'd get packed and out of the house before I lose my temper. You wouldn't like me when I lose my temper."

Maggie recognized a threat when she heard one. She disappeared into the bedroom to pack a suitcase. She dumped clothes into the suitcase without even looking to see what she was throwing in it. As far as she was concerned, the quicker she was out of the house the better. If she had to buy new clothes, then so be it.

Guy said, "Once your mother is gone, we should probably decide what to do about dinner."

Sean said, "Ah ... sure."

"I know you're probably in a state of shock. I just figure we could order in. We could go out in case you want to get out of the house for a bit," Guy said. "Either choice is fine with me."

"I don't know which I prefer," Ellie said.

Bill said, "I want out of here."

Ellie said, "Her and Fred. It's got to be a brain tumor."

"We'll go out if that's what you want to do," Guy said.

Sean asked, "What about the cat?"

The cat looked at him like he was crazy.

"Never mind."

"That is one freaky cat," Bill said.

Guy said, "I like him."

"It's a him?" Bill asked.

"He's an it," Guy said.

"I get it," Bill said.

Ellie asked, "Aren't you supposed to have mother served with divorce papers before throwing her out of the house?"

"That'll happen tomorrow. I was in a bit of a rush," Guy answered.

"Why were you in a rush?" Sean asked.

"It was because of Patches," Guy answered.

"The cat?" Sean asked.

Guy nodded his head. He sat down on the couch and rubbed the cat behind its ear. He said, "I learned today that Patches had been taken down to the SPCA the other day. It was either the cat or your mother. I really like this cat."

"I think the cat likes you," Bill said.

"Maybe," Guy said. "You can never tell with cats."

Maggie came out of the bedroom carrying two suitcases. She stood there looking forlorn. She said, "I'm leaving."

"You and Fred? What were you thinking?" Ellie asked.

"You wouldn't understand," Maggie said.

"You can say that again," Ellie said harshly.

"Bye Mom," Bill said.

"You'll be across the street, right?" Sean asked.

"For now," Maggie said.

"We'll see you around then," Sean said.

"I guess," Maggie said. She was finding all this hard to believe. Never in her wildest dreams did this end up with her leaving the house with the kids staying with Guy. She was supposed to be kicking him out of the house.

Guy and the three kids were watching her. She slowly turned and, walking woodenly, left the house. It was a long way to the house across the street.

"I'm sorry, kids."

"What are you sorry about?" Bill asked.

"For all of this," Guy said.

Ellie said, "You didn't do anything wrong."

They stood around without saying anything for a moment. Finally, Sean said, "How about Italian?"

"Italian sounds good to me," Bill said.

"I would like some Spaghetti," Ellie said.

"Italian it is," Guy said. "Let me feed the cat and we'll go."

The cat was off the back of the couch like a shot. It headed straight for the kitchen.

"Weird cat," Bill said.



-------

Chapter 15


The kids came home from school to find a note on the kitchen table. Barb read it with a growing sense fear. It was even worse than she imagined.

"What's the note say?" Robert asked.

"They're going to be home late and want us to make some stew," Barb answered.

"Stew?" Robert asked.

"Yeah," Barb said.

"I don't know how to make stew," Robert said.

Holding up the note, Barb said, "She left a recipe."

The two kids studied the recipe. It didn't look all that difficult.

Barb said, "I think we know how to do this stuff."

"Dredge the meat in flour – that means just to roll it around in some flour. I've done that. I know how to brown the meat in a skillet. The rest is just peeling potatoes and carrots and measuring out stuff," Robert said. "I think we can do it."

"Tbs is a tablespoon," Barb said, "right?"

"Yes." Robert asked, "Do we have all the ingredients?"

"Let me check," Barb said while turning to the refrigerator.

Across town, Max and Marylou were meeting with Guy in the bar where the robbery had taken place. The men were calmly drinking beers and Marylou was having a wine.

"How are you doing?" Max asked.

"Okay. I'm glad it's over," Guy answered. "The kids are having a rough time with it. Ellie wants to sue everyone and their dog. She sounds like a real lawyer."

"Your daughter sounds like a piece of work," Marylou said with a grin.

"She is," Guy said.

Max asked, "How about the boys?"

"Sean is pissed at his mother. She'd had him convinced that I was cheating on her and she was little Miss Innocent. Bill is ashamed over the whole mess. He's the youngest and is closest to his mother," Guy said.

"That's rough," Marylou said.

Guy said, "He's halfway convinced the cat is possessed by the devil."

"You're kidding," Marylou said.

"He never takes his eyes off of it,"Guy said. He chuckled. "I really like that cat."

"I can tell," Max said.

"So what's up with you two?" Guy asked. "Why did you want to see me?"

Max answered, "We got the whole confrontation on video. With just a little editing, you and the kids will not be seen at all."

He still couldn't get over the entire scene. That bit about choosing the cat over his wife was going to be a big hit with the subscribers. The email they were receiving was mostly of the form 'torch the bitch.' They were going to love the idea that he was trading her in for a cat.

"That's good. I don't want the kids involved at all," Guy said. "I didn't plan on them being there."

"I know you didn't," Marylou said.

The plan had been to spring it on her the next day while the kids were at school. He still tried to time it for when they were at school, but his wife had stayed out later than planned. It was bad luck that they all arrived together.

"No matter how much we edit the tape, you'll hear their voices. I don't think we can disguise them," Max said.

"That's okay," Guy said after thinking about it for a minute. "Edit it and let me see it before you put it on the website."

"Of course," Marylou said.

"All right," Max said. "That brings up another little problem."

"What?" Guy asked.

Marylou said, "We've got over six thousand subscribers now. The videos of her calling her past lovers to tell them they have gonorrhea were a big hit. We've got folks from Europe and even Australia signing up for it. More people are signing up for it every day."

"What will we do now that there won't be any more videos?" Guy asked.

Max said, "That's the problem and why we wanted to meet with you."

"Will we have to close the website down?" Guy asked.

"We've got two requests from guys who've just caught their wives cheating. One is in Seattle and the other is in Houston. They want to post their videos on our site."

"Really?" Guy asked.

"Yes," Marylou said. "The one from Houston sent us the video where he discovered his wife cheating. He came home early and there was a strange car in the driveway. He looked through the window of his bedroom and caught her. He started filming her with his cellphone."

"What a cliche," Guy said.

Max said, "It's good video. You can even hear him tossing his cookies in the bushes."

"It reaches right out and grabs you," Marylou said.

"Poor bastard," Guy said. He knew exactly how the man must be feeling.

Marylou said, "We asked the lawyer and with just a little paper work we can add that to the site."

"I guess we should do it," Guy said. "I guess it is going to transform into a cheating wives website."

"That's what we were thinking. It's just that it is a bit more work than we imagined," Marylou said.

Max said, "It takes a lot of time to go through a couple hours of video to make sure that the appropriate faces are blacked out. Your wife's sessions usually lasted more than an hour."

"Don't remind me," Guy said.

"It is really going to be a lot of work. Particularly if we start posting more than one cheating wife at a time," Max said.

"Don't forget cheating husbands," Marylou said.

"Husbands?" Guy asked.

"Wives aren't the only ones who cheat," Marylou said.

"She's right, you know," Max said.

Guy asked, "How many subscribers do we have?"

"Six thousand and still growing," Marylou answered.

She had been worried about money when she first learned that Max was unemployed. Those fears had quickly been dismissed with the website. Now she was looking at a tremendous increase in standard of living. The first check had cleared all of their credit card debts and more. She had plans on paying off the mortgage before the end of the year.

"We can afford to hire someone to run it," Guy said. "There are enough unemployed folks around that it shouldn't be too difficult to find someone to do it."

"We probably need to pass it by your wife. She does own twenty percent of the website," Max said earning a dirty look from his wife.

Marylou didn't want anything to do with Maggie. She had watched Guy break down and cry while watching one of the videos of her cheating. That had hurt. For her, the discovery that the elderly neighbor across the street was one of his wife's lovers had been the straw that broke the camel's back. She felt it was one thing to go out to a bar and pick up men; that made Maggie a tramp. To collect lovers from around the neighborhood was something different. Not only was a family destroyed, but so was a community. Guy didn't even have neighbors to turn to for support.

"Remind her about the money. Six thousand subscribers is more than a hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue. Even after paying someone to maintain it, she'll be getting over two hundred thousand a year. I seriously doubt she'll turn it down," Guy said.

Marylou said, "I would. I'd want the website shutdown for good."

"You aren't her. You've got some pride," Guy said.

His opinion of his wife had dropped considerably over the past month. He still didn't know what had driven her to cheat on him. Maybe Ellie was right and it was a brain tumor. He didn't care to know. The kinds of things she had said about him had destroyed all empathy he might have for her.

Guy said, "I won't be paying her alimony, that's for damned sure. Even if I keep my job, the difference in income is going to be miniscule."

"Don't forget about the other websites. We'll be starting them up soon," Max said.

"I really expect to make more off of them in the long run. Even though we'll be charging half the amount for subscriptions, I expect we'll have ten times the members and the ad revenue is going to be great," Marylou said.

"That'll be after the divorce is final," Guy said.

"I guess you know best," Max said.

"How's Selena?" Guy asked wanting to change the subject to something a little more pleasant.

"She's doing great. It seems like she has a lot of friends in her industry. Everyone is helping her get her business started," Marylou said.

"That's good," Guy said. "I'm glad to hear that she's doing alright."

"She was pleased that you picked up the cat from the SPCA," Marylou said.

"I'm glad she thought to ask you to tell me about it," Guy said.

"Why don't you call her?" Marylou said.

She was feeling a little weird about being their go-between. They each kept giving her messages for the other. They always asked about how the other one was doing.

"It's complicated," Guy answered.

"She'd like it if you called," Marylou said.

"She doesn't need a depressed jerk dragging her down when she's so busy," Guy replied.

Guy made an unconscious slashing gesture with his hand letting everyone know to drop the subject. Marylou was about to say something, but a shake of the head by Max let her know to be quiet.

"So how are things going with your kids?" Guy asked.

"Robert is coming along. I only have to tell him three times to mow the lawn. Barb is fighting us on just about everything," Max said.

Marylou said, "You're being too hard on her. She hasn't been quite so bad lately. She's wearing nicer clothes to school. She's quit demanding so much and her language has cleaned up a bit."

"Well, one little threat to take away the cell phone and she turns into an angel for a day," Max said.

Impressed, Guy said, "I wouldn't dare do that to one of my kids."

"Do you need to?" Max asked.

"Not really. They're pretty good kids," Guy said. "Of course, that may change after this week. You never know how kids are going to react to a divorce."

"Yeah," Marylou said.

"I think Barb would throw a party if she thought it meant getting away from me," Max said.

"I don't think so. She actually respects you. You don't take any garbage from her," Marylou said with a hint of a smile on her face.

"Maybe," Max said grudgingly.

Marylou said, "Just let your kids know that you love them, Guy. No matter what, don't change the way you treat them. They'll need the stability that will provide."

Max looked at her.

"I know. Do as I say and not as I do," Marylou said.

Guy looked at his watch. He said, "I better get to the house. They'll be expecting me to get there soon."

"Okay," Max said. "We'll call you if anything happens on the website."

"That would be good," Guy said. He rose and looked away for a second. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a check. Handing it to Marylou, he said, "Give this to Selena. Tell her it is a personal loan until she gets her company going. I'm sure she's worried about bills and all."

Marylou glanced at the check. It was made out for the same amount that she had sent him from the website. She asked, "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Guy said. "I still have a regular paycheck."

"I'll give it to her," Marylou said.

After a little more small talk, Guy left the bar.

Max shook his head and said, "One of these days those two are going to meet up and fireworks are going fly."

"I don't know about that," Marylou said. "They're liable to screw around until there's no chance for either of them."

"You might be right," Max said, "I wonder how the kids are doing with the stew?"

Marylou laughed. "I hope there's a house left."

"Let's head home," Max said.

"Can we stop by Selena's on the way there?" Marylou asked while staring at the check. It was a lot of money. Maybe Max was right.

"Sure," Max said.

At the house, Robert and Barb stared at the pot in which the stew was simmering. There were chunks of beef surrounded by potatoes, carrots, celery, peas, corn, and onions in a thin broth.

"Does that look like a stew to you?" Robert asked doubtfully.

Barb said, "Not really. Stews are supposed to be a little thicker than that."

"The recipe says that we're supposed to add the thickener of flour before serving," Robert said.

"That's true," Barb said. She stared at the pot hoping the stew would turn out all right. "It's got all of the right ingredients, I think."

"We followed the recipe," Robert said.

"I know," Barb said.

"What will we do now?" Robert asked.

"I don't know. I've never had to do this before," Barb said. "The recipe says to simmer it for an hour."

"So I guess I can play Alien Butt Buster for an hour," Robert said.

"I guess so," Barb said with a frown. "Why do you think they did this?"

"What?" Robert asked.

"Left us here to cook dinner," Barb answered. "If we mess up, we could go hungry."

"We'll just go out to eat," Robert said.

"Okay. You're right. It's just that they've never done this before," Barb said.

Robert said, "Maybe they just want to see how we do on our own."

"Do you think so?" Barb asked.

"One of these days we're going to be leaving home. We're going to have to cook our own meals since Mom won't be there. Maybe they want us to see that we can do it if we have to," Robert said.

Barb sighed. "You're starting to sound like Dad."

At dinner that night, both kids were very proud when their parents praised the stew.



-------

Chapter 16


Bill looked up from his math homework wondering what kind of twisted minds could come up with geometry. The people clearly had a high threshold for boredom because geometry had to be the most boring topic in the world. His eyes settled on the cat. It was curled into a ball beside his math book. It was just out of reach and watching him.

"Can't you find something more interesting to do?" Bill asked the cat.

The cat raised its head and licked a paw. It put its head back down and continued to watch him.

"Strange cat," Bill muttered.

The cat suddenly sat up and stared at the door.

"Is someone at the door?" Bill asked. The words were barely out of his mouth when the doorbell rang. "I guess so."

The cat jumped down from the table and headed towards the door. Bill called out, "Hey cat! You need opposable thumbs to turn the doorknob."

Bill got up from his chair and followed the cat to the door. He opened it and stared at the woman standing there. The cat stepped out and rubbed its head against the woman's ankle. Bill looked down at the cat and said, "Traitor."

"He's a cat," Selena said.

"I know who you are. You're the woman from the bar," Bill said.

Selena smiled at him. "That's right. Is Guy home?"

"He'll be home in an hour," Bill said.

"Can I wait for him?" Selena asked.

"Sure. Come on in," Bill said stepping back from the door to make room for her.

Selena entered the house and looked around. "This is a nice home."

"It's a broken home. I guess you knew that," Bill said.

"I feel bad for you kids. My parents divorced when I was about your age. It's rough," Selena said.

"It is," Bill said.

Selena said, "I was convinced that I was the reason my parents split up. It was only years later that I realized that I wasn't the problem. My Dad's drinking was the problem."

"My Mom said she was tired of being stuck in the house all of the time," Bill said.

Selena asked, "Did you ever tell a teacher that your dog ate your homework when you hadn't done it?"

"I've done something like that," Bill said.

"That's what your mother is doing. She's making up an excuse for her behavior when there really isn't an excuse. She's blaming you just like you blamed the dog. You didn't do anything wrong," Selena said.

"She was stuck here because of us," Bill said.

"Nonsense. Lots of mothers stay at home to watch their kids and love every minute of it. Other mothers go to work and the kids are just fine. The problem here isn't the kids, it is the woman," Selena said.

"Maybe you're right," Bill said. "There are times when I hate her."

"No. There are times when you think you should hate her. I've been there and done that. When all is said and done, I still love my father even though he is a miserable drunk," Selena said.

"Thanks," Bill said. He gestured to one of the chairs and asked, "Would you like a seat?"

"I'd love one," Selena said.

While she sat down on one of the chairs, Bill took a seat on the couch. The cat sat down next to him. Bill looked at the cat. It looked up at him and then back at Selena.

"The cat likes you. The only one I've ever seen the cat take to like that is your father," Selena said.

"I know the cat likes him, but I'm not too sure it likes me," Bill said.

"Cats are like that. If they like you they'll follow you from room to room, but they'll keep their distance," Selena said.

"If you say so," Bill said. He eyed the cat and it looked back up at him.

"Did you know the cat was a sacred animal in ancient Egypt?" Selena asked.

"No," Bill answered.

"It was," Selena said.

After an uneasy moment of silence, Bill asked, "Are you my father's girlfriend?"

"No, I'm not," Selena said. "He's just a friend."

Bill said, "I saw the video of the robbery."

"Not one of my most lady-like days," Selena said. She gave him an embarrassed little smile with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Before the robbers came, you were glaring at my Dad like he had pissed you off," Bill said.

Selena said, "I was mad at men in general that day. I had just caught my boyfriend in bed with a woman who was my best friend. I really wanted to hurt a man that day. We were lucky the robbers showed up or I might have gotten in a fight with your Dad."

"So he hadn't done anything to make you mad?" Bill said.

"I had never met him until that day. I didn't even say a word to him until after we quit kicking the robber," Selena said. "We all became friends after that. You know – a shared experience binding us together."

"I had wondered about that," Bill said. It was strange, but this single conversation was putting a lot of his fears to rest.

Ellie came into the room and noticed Selena. She said, "You're the woman from the bar."

"Yes. You must be Ellie," Selena said. "My name is Selena."

Ellie looked Selena over in the manner that women have when assessing the competition. She said, "I don't think you're my Dad's type."

"Put your mind at ease. Your father and I are just friends," Selena said.

"She was just telling me about how they had met that day in the bar. It's a neat story," Bill said.

Curious about the strange voice coming from the living room, Sean came in and looked at Selena. More accurately, he looked at her breasts. His eyes never wavered.

Ellie glanced at her brother and said, "I might be mistaken about that. You do have one asset that men like."

"They have to take the whole package and that tends to put them off," Selena said.

"I didn't mean to be critical," Ellie said.

Selena said, "You're going to have to practice a little harder at that if you're going to be a lawyer."

"Practice what?" Ellie asked.

"Lying," Selena answered.

Ellie could have been angry or amused by that comment. She chose to be amused. She laughed. "Okay, you caught me."

"You have a very pretty laugh," Selena said.

"No one has ever complimented me on my laugh before," Ellie said.

"That's a shame. You have a very lovely one," Selena said. "You should laugh more."

"Things haven't been very funny around here," Ellie said.

Selena said, "I know."

"Her parent's divorced when she was my age," Bill said. "She knows about what we're going through."

Ellie looked at Bill. The cat was nudging him in the side with its head. "I think the cat wants your attention."

"Oh," Bill said looking down at the cat.

Ellie hit Sean in the ribs with her elbow. In a sharp voice, she said, "Quit staring at her breasts."

Flustered, Sean said, "Sorry. I better get back to my homework."

"Good idea," Ellie said.

Sean headed back to his bedroom.

"Sorry about that," Ellie said.

Selena said, "At my age I've learned a woman with my appearance has to accept the attention she gets."

"It is still rude," Ellie said glaring in the direction of Sean's bedroom. She was going to give him hell later.

"You're an attractive young lady. I'm sure you've had a boy or two stare at you like that," Selena said.

"I have and I hate it," Ellie said.

Selena said, "Most of the time, they are just too shy to say anything."

"It's even worse when they do say something," Ellie said.

Selena said, "As much as I hate your mother for what she's done to Guy, I think you need to talk to her about men."

"Are you kidding? She fucked Fred!" Ellie said.

"I'm not talking about her taste in men. I'm talking about dealing with unwanted interest from men. I'm sure that she has a lot more experience than me in that area," Selena said.

"I don't want to talk to her," Ellie said.

"I understand completely. Still, she's your mother," Selena said.

"Why are you so interested in me talking to my mother?" Ellie asked suspiciously.

Selena said, "Because if you don't, you'll be placing your father in an impossible situation. He's not a woman. He doesn't understand the problems that women face. He won't be able to help you through some of the issues you'll be facing. It will kill him to see you struggle all alone.

"Your mother is a woman. If you cut her out of your life, who will you have to help you with those problems? She'll understand your fear of rape when a boyfriend suddenly gets a little too aggressive. Maybe her advice won't be the best. You don't have to take it, but you do need to hear another woman's perspective."

"What about coming to you?" Ellie asked rather surprised by Selena's advice.

"I never had a date in high school. I didn't go to the Prom. My parents divorced and no one noticed when I moved away. I really don't have advice concerning any of the issues most girls face in high school."

"I'm sorry," Ellie said. "I didn't mean to get so personal."

Selena laughed. "Now if you need advice on how to eat a quart of ice cream when everyone else is at the prom, I'm your person."

"You'll be the first one I turn to," Ellie said appreciating the lighter tone.

"I doubt you'll need that kind of advice," Selena said.

Ellie asked, "Won't I hurt my Dad's feelings by going to her? She hurt him real bad."

"He won't be comfortable with it, but he'll accept it if you tell him that you need a woman's perspective about a female problem. Men aren't very comfortable talking about female problems," Selena answered.

"I'll think about it," Ellie said.

Selena said, "Marylou said that you want to be a lawyer."

"Who is Marylou?"

"Max's wife," Selena answered unsurprised that she picked out that part of her statement to focus upon. Lawyers did the same kind of thing.

"I've never met her. How does she know that I want to be a lawyer?" Ellie asked.

"You father talks about you kids all of the time. He's quite proud of you," Selena said.

"Did he say anything to you about that?" Ellie asked.

"We don't talk that often. I haven't talked to your father in almost a month," Selena said.

"Why is that?" Ellie asked.

"It's complicated," Selena answered.

"I knew it! There is something going on between you and him," Ellie said triumphantly.

"No there isn't. As you so ably pointed out, I'm not your father's type. Your father is still married even though he's going through the process of divorce. He doesn't think it is proper for a married man to socialize with a single woman. He's an honest and honorable man. He won't do anything he thinks isn't moral," Selena said although he had surprised her with the website. She could understand his anger, though.

Ellie watched Selena for a moment. She said, "You want to be more than friends, don't you?"

"Yes," Selena answered bluntly.

"Oh my. I wasn't expecting that," Ellie said.

Selena smiled and said, "The first rule of being a lawyer is not to ask a question you don't already know the answer to."

Ellie laughed. "You got me."

"I heard that on Perry Masonary," Selena said.

"Does Dad know?" Ellie asked.

"God no and don't tell him," Selena said.

"Why not?"

Selena said, "He doesn't need the complications that knowing that would bring. Let him be."

"Okay," Ellie said.

"So you like my Dad," Bill said.

"Yes. He's a very nice man," Selena said.

Bill said, "I guess I'll make the same promise she did. I won't say a word."

"Thank you," Selena said.

"You're welcome," Bill said.

"I probably shouldn't have come here," Selena said.

"Why did you come here?" Ellie asked.

Selena said, "I stopped by to thank your father for a tremendous favor he did for me. Would you tell him thank you for me?"

"Sure," Ellie said.

Selena beat a hasty retreat from the house. Ellie turned to Bill and asked, "What do you think of her?"

"I like her," Bill said.

"I do too," Ellie said thoughtfully. She wasn't exactly her father's type, but he could do a lot worse than Selena.

"I hope she comes back," Bill said.

"I think that can be arranged," Ellie said. A small smile gathered on her face. "She says I have a nice laugh. What do you think?"

"I think you sound like a hyena," Bill said with a grin.

"I'm going to steal your cat," Ellie said.

"No you won't," Bill said. Turning to the cat, he said, "You won't let her steal you away."

The cat yawned.



-------

Chapter 17


Guy ran a hand along the cat's back. The low rumble of the cat's purr filled the air. "It's you and me against the world, cat."

The cat got up, shook its tail, and walked off. Guy said, "Okay, wise guy. It's me against the world."

His wife, soon to be ex-wife, had not contested the divorce. It had taken less than fifteen minutes to come to an agreement about the terms of the divorce. She hadn't even tried to get custody of the kids once they said that they wanted to live with him. Money was not an issue. She was living off the substantial income from the cheating spouses website. She had grabbed the money he gave her for half the value of the house and paid cash for a one bedroom townhouse located in a gated community.

According to the kids, Maggie was a happy woman. She took a trip for one week each month to some location that would catch her fancy. It wasn't that she was living a decadent lifestyle. She flew coach, stayed at reasonably priced hotels and took bus tours to see the sights. She was keeping busy, but didn't appear to be overspending or entertaining too many men. According to Ellie, Maggie had two boyfriends that she saw with some regularity. Fortunately for Ellie's peace of mind, Fred was not one of Maggie's boyfriends.

He often wondered what her true feelings about the website were. As far as he knew, she was embarrassed by the videos of her entertaining her boyfriends, but she liked the money. She really liked the money. His thoughts often turned to Cody and his reaction to his daughter's website. It seemed to him that there was a type of woman who saw the money more than the degradation.

The fact was that Guy didn't need to work. His involvement in the two internet companies was bringing in more money than he knew what to do with. He was plowing some of it back into the company, giving some to charities, and setting up a college fund for the kids.

The cheating spouses website had gone viral. They now had over seventy-five thousand subscribers. Apparently, it filled some desire by people to watch a real life drama featuring poor saps whose lives were spiraling out of control. They had so many subscribers that they actually reduced the subscription fee. There were five cheating spouses being featured at the moment. It even made the cable news when a new cheating spouse was added. He hated the website.

The other websites featuring specialized topics had grown substantially over the past few months. He felt they would never earn the same kind of money as the cheating spouses website, but he was proud of them. The fact of the matter was that the income from them was more than sufficient to support him and his family.

Guy worked because he didn't know what else to do. His life had settled into a simple routine of work and watching the kids. He didn't go out on dates. As far as he was concerned, he was still married. There were still a couple of months to go before the mandatory six month waiting period for the divorce to be official passed.

If asked, he would say that he was happy, but he wasn't. He had enjoyed being married until he had discovered his wife's infidelity. Sure, he missed the sex, but what he really missed was the companionship that a wife provided. He missed being seen off to work and welcomed home. He missed discussing adult kinds of topics that were beyond the understanding of the kids. He missed having dinner out and going dancing.

"Hello, gloomy Dad," Ellie said cheerfully.

"Hello, altogether too cheerful Daughter," Guy said.

For some reason, he didn't trust her cheerful good mood. It didn't bode well for him. She was planning something. He would have sat up to talk to her, but the cat climbed back onto his chest.

Ellie said, "It's Friday night."

"I know."

Ellie said, "It's date night."

"I know. I've got a date with the sci-fi movie at nine o'clock," Guy said. "It's a disaster film. A huge asteroid is headed towards earth and will kill everyone unless they can stop it."

"You've seen it," Ellie said.

"So?"

"It's date night. You are supposed to be out on a date with a woman," Ellie said stretching out the word woman so that was more like 'wooooommmmmaaaan.'

"My divorce isn't final," Guy answered curtly.

"Like that has stopped mother," Ellie said.

"Don't compare me to her," Guy said sharply.

"I'm sorry. I just meant that no one cares that your divorce isn't final. No one would think twice if you were to hook up with some sci-fi lovin' babe," Ellie said.

"I care," Guy said.

Ellie said, "You're a fool."

"Why?" Guy said.

"Do you think she's going to wait around forever?" Ellie asked.

"Who?"

"Selena, that's who," Ellie said.

"We're just friends," Guy said.

Ellie laughed. "You're just friends who never talk to each other. You talk to Marylou and Marylou talks to her. Then Marylou talks to you and the cycle repeats."

"It's complicated," Guy said.

Ellie asked, "Is Max your friend?"

"Yes," Guy answered.

"Do you and Max go out and have a beer occasionally?"

"Yes."

"So why don't you and Selena go out and have a beer or three?" Ellie asked.

"She's not married," Guy answered.

"Do you mean you wouldn't go have a drink with Max if he wasn't married?" Ellie asked.

"It's different," Guy said.

"It's different because you don't want to kiss Max," Ellie said.

"Hey!"

Ellie held up a package of DVDs. She said, "Here are fifty classic sci-fi movies. Take them over to Selena's apartment and don't come home until you've watched them all."

"That could take the whole weekend," Guy said pointing out the flaw in her argument.

"Duh!"

"No," Guy said realizing that she knew how long it would take to watch that many movies.

"Do it, Dad," Bill said.

"Please," Sean said.

Guy said, "I've got to stay here."

Ellie said, "Mom has agreed to watch us this weekend."

"What?" Guy asked while starting to sit up from the couch. The cat dug its claws in. He settled back down. "You talked about this with your mother?"

"She said you needed to get laid. For once, I agree with her," Ellie said.

"I'm not going," Guy said.

Ellie crossed her arms and looked down at her father. She asked, "Is that your last word on the matter?"

"Yes," Guy said.

"I guess we have to go with plan B," Ellie said with a nasty smile.

"Plan B?" Guy asked when she pulled out her cell phone.

She hit a button and then held it to her ear. She waited a bit and then said, "Hi. This is Ellie."

"What are you doing?" Guy asked. He couldn't hear the other side of the conversation.

"I'm so sorry to call you at this time. I'm so worried about my Dad," Ellie said.

"Who are you talking to?" Guy asked afraid that she had called Selena.

"He's so depressed and has nobody to talk to. I know that you and Max are at Rat World with your kids. I didn't know who else to call. I'm just so worried about him," Ellie said. She dramatically emphasized the word 'worried.'

"Are you talking to Marylou?" Guy asked guessing that she was talking to Marylou. He started to relax confident that Marylou would talk some sense into her.

Ellie said, "I gave him a bunch of sci-fi movies to watch and he's just sitting here staring off into space. Even my brothers are worried about him. You know how clueless they are."

It dawned on him that Marylou was likely a conspirator in this plot. This conversation was just a little too scripted. He shifted to get up, the cat dug its claws in, and he relaxed back on the couch.

Ellie said, "He really needs a friendly shoulder to cry upon."

"You planned this, didn't you?" Guy said. "Give me that phone."

"Could you call her and ask her to come over here," Ellie said.

"Ellie! Give me that phone," Guy shouted.

"Yes. He's here and wants the phone. I'll talk to you later," Ellie said. She closed the phone and quite deliberately handed it to her father. "Here you go."

He hit redial, but Marylou's phone was already busy. Looking up at his daughter, he said, "I'm going to kill you."

"Can I have my phone back?" Ellie asked sweetly.

Guy handed the phone back to her. She smiled back at him while heading towards the door.

She said, "I'll see you Sunday night."

"What?"

"Mom's waiting for us out in the driveway. See you, Sunday night," Sean said heading towards the door.

"What about clothes?" Guy asked.

"We already loaded our suitcases in the car," Bill said.

"Have fun," Ellie said.

"Have a good time," Sean said.

"Enjoy the movies," Bill said. He snickered and then said, "Like they're gonna watch movies."

Guy sat there staring at the door. The cat climbed onto the back of the couch and curled into a ball.

"I wonder what Plan C was," Guy said to the cat.

The telephone rang. He answered it.

Marylou said, "Hello, Guy."

"Hello, Marylou."

"Selena is on her way over to your house. She mentioned that she had a set of fifty classic sci-fi films on DVD. Apparently there was a sale on them at one of the video stores. She's bringing them with her."

Guy said, "I hope you're happy."

"Be nice to her," Marylou said.

"I will be," Guy said. "I guess I better get in the kitchen."

"Why the kitchen?" Marylou asked.

"Popcorn. You can't watch those old sci-fi films without lots of popcorn," Guy said.

Marylou laughed. "I'd buy tickets to watch what happens when she gets there."

"Nothing's going to happen," Guy said.

He hung up since she was laughing too hard to continue talking.

Later there was a knock on the door. He answered it knowing it would be Selena. She had lost a little weight since he had last seen her, but she was still a stout woman. There was an uncertain smile on her face. She held up a package of DVDs. "I heard you a rumor that you were feeling a little depressed. I thought some classic sci-fi films would cheer you up."

"Come in," Guy said. "I've been expecting you."

Selena entered the house. She looked at Guy for a second and shook her head. She said, "Why is it that I think I've been set up by Marylou and Ellie?"

"Because you're a smart woman. They've been plotting," Guy said.

Amused, Selena said, "Marylou said that Ellie was in tears when describing how depressed you were."

"I think they were tears of laughter," Guy said. "They find this rather humorous."

"She said that you haven't shaved in a week and were just staring off into space." There was a twinkle in her eye.

"I shaved this morning," Guy said while rubbing his cheek.

"She said you haven't been to work all week," Selena said.

"I went every day this week," Guy said.

"So you aren't on the verge of suicide?" Selena asked.

"Only on the verge of murder," Guy said. "Is it still against the law to kill your own kid?"

"I don't know. You'll need to ask Ellie. She's the lawyer," Selena said with a smile.

Guy laughed, "They mean well."

"Now that I'm over here, do you want to watch a sci-fi film? This collection has some of those old classics – you know the really bad ones with monster costumes that have the eyes cutout so much that you can see the actor's face inside the costume," Selena said.

"I love those films," Guy said.

"Me too," Selena said. "I smell popcorn."

"I knew you were coming over with some films. I made some popcorn," Guy said.

"You can't watch these old films without popcorn," Selena said. She liked to throw popcorn at the screen when the film got really bad.

"Have to have something to throw at the screen when the acting gets too bad," Guy said.

Selena grinned thinking this was going to be fun. "A man after my own heart."

Guy said, "I pulled the love seat in front of the television. It'll be just like at the movie theater."

"Excellent. Let's watch a movie or two," Selena said.

"Or fifty," Guy said with a grin. "I made a lot of popcorn."

"Or fifty," Selena agreed with a laugh. Definitely, this was going to be fun.

The kids returned home Sunday evening to find Guy and Selena asleep on the love seat. The floor in front of the television was littered with popcorn. The coffee table was piled with pizza boxes and empty containers of delivery chinese food. There were a dozen empty soda bottles, the large ones, standing like sad soldiers along one end of the coffee table.

Bill said, "I can't believe it. It looks like they watched all fifty films."



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Chapter 18


Finished with checking the daily updates for the websites, Max sat back in his office chair waiting to be called to dinner. His thoughts turned to the events of the past eight months. It had been a wild ride. It was hard to believe that it had all started with the best day of his life followed by the worst day of his life. Things had changed a lot since that time.

He was a millionaire and well on his way to being a multimillionaire. The websites were doing so well that he had six people working for him. His skills as a salesman had paid off. Most of the specialty websites had three revenue streams. In addition to membership fees and advertising revenue, he had lined up corporate sponsors who paid him to put their content on his website. It was hard to believe that there was so much money in knitting, scrap book making, carving, fishing, and canning.

He never would have attempted it without being laid off. His anger at his old company had led him to be a little more reckless than was his nature. The cheating spouses website was so far from anything he would have considered that he was still amazed that he had actually done it.

Some people wondered if he didn't resent having partners who did nearly nothing in the day to day operation of the websites. The fact was that he didn't mind all. Without Guy and Maggie as partners in the cheating spouse website it would never have existed. Personally he was disgusted by Maggie's extra-marital affairs, but it was the video clips of her cheating that had started everything.

Without Guy's help, the special topics websites wouldn't have existed. After the first check, most of the money they sent to Guy was returned to be put back in the website. It had really helped knowing that there was a cash reserve to call upon during those early days when he was calling upon potential corporate sponsors. He would never mind a dime that went to Guy.

It wasn't only his economic future that had improved tremendously, so did his family life. His kids had really straightened up over the past eight months. It was like they had matured overnight. His son was serious about his future and took a lot more interest in his school work. He had gone from being a B student to being an A student. Everyone had been proud the day he came home with a report card saying that he had made the honor list.

His daughter had shown the greatest improvement. It was like she was a changed person. Gone were the freaky hair colors and ratty clothes. She had let her hair return to its natural color and had grown it a little longer. It was brushed to the point where it shined. She wore dresses almost all of the time – something that was rare among teenagers where blue jeans and tee shirts were the norm.

Her attitude had shown the greatest change. She pitched in around the house without having to be threatened. She vacuumed the carpet, dusted, and even did the laundry on occasions when Marylou was busy with the business. She accepted failures as learning lessons rather than insults against her dignity. There had been a few burned meals with subsequent trips to restaurants while she was learning the fine art of cooking, but that was to be expected.

She had acquired pride in herself. It was a subtle difference from the high self-esteem she had once possessed. Now she pointed to things and said, "I did that." Now she talked about skills and said, "I know how to do that." She had even taken up knitting as a hobby. She was a far different woman from the vacuous girl who boasted about how great she was without anything to back it up. She had depth.

Both kids had taken parttime jobs over the summer. They were surprised to learn that bosses could be even more critical than their father. Seeing a coworker get fired for screwing around had been a real eye opener. They had spent their wages on things important to them. It was amazing to see the difference in how they treated things they had purchased with their own money from the things that had once been given them.

His marriage had gotten deeper and better. In a way, it was a reaction to the cheating spouses website. Repeatedly, they had watched one partner in a marriage destroy something that was precious to the other. Seeing and hearing one spouse badmouth the other had brought home how special their marriage was and that it was worth working on in order to improve it. Intimate discussions had increased in frequency and the subject matter of their talks had gotten deeper.

It was strange how even trivial conversations had changed. In the old days, she would ask him how his trip had gone when he returned home from a sales call. Now, she greeted him by telling him how much she missed him and how she had thought about him the whole time he was gone. In the old days, he would have grunted that the trip went well and dropped the matter. Now, he would tell her of some incident and how he had wished she had been there to see it. It was a minor shift in emphasis, but now they each felt a little more special after the conversation.

Their sex life was better than ever. Maybe it was the improvement in communication between the two of them that accounted for it. He suspected it was watching a cheating spouse do things for his or her lover that they wouldn't do for his or her spouse. It had opened their eyes to what their reluctance to explore such matters was doing to their marriage. Regardless of the cause, they were now doing things in bed that had been unimagined eight months ago. They were both happy with the expanded repertoire.

There had been a rather embarrassing moment when Robert had caught him and Marylou testing an update to the cheating spouses website. He had been dismayed to learn that his parents were visiting porn websites. He had been floored to learn that they actually owned one. It had taken some fancy footwork to explain that one. He occasionally called them the King and Queen of Porn in a teasing manner.

It was September when Selena's business finally turned a profit. It was a considerable profit when all was said and done. All of the calendars were printed, shipped to the distributors, and payment received. She had paid the business loans, the printer's bills and all of the photographers were sent royalties with more than enough left over to fund the next year and cover her personal bills. She was busy working on the calendars for next year. He was happy for her.

Thinking back on it, he had come to the conclusion that she had been the saddest case of the four of them. Sure, Cody's problem was the ugliest and Guy's problem had really hurt. That didn't change the fact that Selena had never really known what it was like to be loved. The one lasting relationship was with a girlfriend who apparently didn't value the friendship all that much. Her only relationship with a man had been with a guy who was using her for a place to live while he lounged around unemployed. He felt that was a sad commentary on the life of a woman in her early thirties.

Even her job had been awful. She had worked for an overbearing man who used her without paying her a tenth of what she deserved. She was making him a millionaire while she was earning poverty wages. It hadn't been fair. Working alone in the office had just reenforced how lonely her life was.

According to Marylou, Selena had blamed a lot of her unhappiness on her appearance. She was just one of those women who was naturally big. She'd never grace the cover of a fashion magazine. Despite her substantial breasts, she didn't have the body type that would get her into a men's magazine. She wasn't fat, just stout and that didn't seem to attract men. Her features weren't really that plain, she had just never discovered the knack of presenting them well. Her choice of dowdy clothes had given her the appearance of an old maid.

Things were changing for Selena. The day Guy's divorce became final, he and Selena had their first official date although there had been a few weekend long sci-fi film marathons before then. One weekend wasn't long enough to watch fifty sci-fi movies. They had gone out for dinner and dancing. According to his kids, it was quite late when Guy finally returned home with a smile on his face. They were thrilled with the prospect that the relationship would continue.

According to Marylou, Guy learned during the date that women could still look at men in a certain irresistible way. He wasn't sure what that meant, but that night his wife had given the best handjob of his life. She had this look of fascination on her face when he came that was etched forever in his memory. Guy could only be so lucky if some woman ever looked at him like that.

Guy's kids were handling the divorce quite well. Ellie had gotten a parttime job as a filing clerk at the office of the lawyer who had handled Guy's divorce. She loved it and would come home from work talking about all she had learned that day. She was even more interested in becoming a lawyer. He didn't doubt for a moment that he'd be invited to watch her cross the stage with law degree in hand.

Sean was taking advanced programming courses in high school and making good grades. After researching the job market, he was seriously considering a degree in software engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology. He had heard good things about their program.

The divorce had been hardest on Bill. He had been of the age where parents were still pretty much infallible. The initial hints that his father was cheating on his mother had shaken him. Learning for a fact that his mother was having an affair and had a sexually transmitted disease had turned his world upside down.

Max thought it funny that Guy credited the cat with saving Bill. Without even being asked, the boy had taken on the responsibility for feeding the cat and taking care of the litter box. It had to be the most pampered cat in the country. It wasn't always a perfect relationship. Bill discovered the hard way that you don't give a cat a bath. That was a story that provided a lot of laughs around the dinner table.

About a month back, he and his wife had found a website that they suspected belonged to Cody's daughter. If so, then Cody had understated the degradation his daughter was going through. He had mentioned that she was thinking of going into fetish material. He didn't know about that. Some of the images looked more like rape than anything else.

The other day, he had gotten an email from Cody that he had sent of everyone. It was the first he had heard from the man since the day he had driven off for parts unknown. He opened it to read it again.



"Hello everyone,

I know that I kind of disappeared off the face of the earth. I thought I would let you know what happened to me after I left home.

Discovering that my daughter was a whore and that my wife was proud of her was indescribably awful. That was the blackest day of my life. I was numb and I know my brain was barely working. My leaving was an instinctual fight or flight reaction in which I chose flight. I just wanted to get out of there.

I drove around the country for a month living on cheap burgers, sleeping in my car, and checking out the sights. I visited Yellowstone, Mount Saint Helens, the Grand Tetons, and the Grand Canyon. I can't even tell you what I saw at all of those places. My eyes were open, but I wasn't seeing anything.

It wasn't until I hit the Grand Canyon that I started to pull myself together. I sat there on a bench looking at that gouge in the earth. I kept thinking that it was small compared to the jagged hole that my wife and daughter had created in my soul.

My soul -- I hadn't thought about that since I was a kid. Naturally, that got me to thinking about spiritual matters. I kept asking myself how God could have allowed this to happen to me. What had I done to deserve this? There for a while, I wanted to have a nice long discussion with God and let him know what I thought of him.

I left there and drove around for another week or so thinking about God. One day, I noticed a sign to a monastery. I passed it and then turned around a couple miles up the road. I guess I had always pictured monasteries as dark foreboding places. It was not that way at all. It was a nice, clean looking place with a peaceful atmosphere.

I went up to the head guy, Father John, and asked if I could stay there for a while. I guess he could see that I was a truly troubled soul. He invited me in for a chat. We started talking and the time passed like magic.

I told him about what my daughter had done and my wife's reaction to it. I asked him how God could allow that. He talked about how God gave us freewill. We were free to chose our own paths through life and that not everyone chose wisely.

At first, that didn't help. Then he explained about redemption and how it was always available to those who had strayed from a righteous path. He said that redemption was God's greatest gift to us. It was a gift that was sweetest to those who had strayed the most.

I don't know if his words helped all that much. It did help to think that there was a chance that my daughter could turn away from the lifestyle she had chosen and that God would welcome her back into the fold. Maybe things weren't quite as black as I thought they were.

I know you're wondering if I got all religious and everything. I didn't. I needed a place that was quiet and where I could think about things in relative solitude. The monastery filled that need very well. I think the world would be a better place if more folks with problems weighing heavily on their soul would spent a little time at a monastery. It seems to me that the world doesn't value places like that anymore. It's a shame.

I slowly got over my anger and bitterness. There were even a few times when I laughed at Father John's jokes. Believe me, religious jokes aren't all that funny. It was good to know that I could find things humorous again. I hadn't realized how much I had missed laughing. You don't normally think about things like that.

One day I woke up and realized I had been living at the monastery for three months. It was time for me to move on. I went back the Grand Canyon. This time I actually saw the grandeur of it. If you ever get the chance, go visit it.

Looking at that view made me wonder what I had missed of the other places I had been. It made me realize that all too often we get caught up in our little problems and fail to appreciate the beauty around us. I've made it a point since then to stop and look around at least once every day. Let me tell you something, God made a wonderful world. It's a shame us people had to screw it up so bad.

Any way, back to the Grand Canyon. I sat there on that same bench I had sat upon during my first trip there thinking about my situation. It was time for me to settle down and get on with my life. Of course, there wasn't anything for me to do locally so I got in my car and drove off looking for a future.

Let me tell you something, starting over is not as easy as it sounds. It doesn't take much effort to say that you're searching for your future. It's an entirely different thing to seek it. There are opportunities out there, but not many good ones.

It was a month after leaving the Grand Canyon that I found a job working on a corn farm in Iowa for a widow. I met up with her in a feed store that had a help wanted sign on the door. It took me a whole minute to realized that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life working at a feed store. Any way, this woman told me that she was looking for someone to help out at her farm, but that all she could pay was room and board until the crop came in. Well, I didn't need much more than that. I still had a little money left from my savings to tide me over until I was paid. I figured that the physical work would do me some good. I figured right. I've lost some fat and gained some muscle. I feel better than I've felt in years.

I guess she noticed my improved physique. Now I'm a farmhand who is romantically involved with the farmer's widow. I sometimes think that there has to be a joke in there somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. To tell the truth, I'm happy to have her in my life. She's an honest down-to-earth woman who has good morals and knows how to put in an honest day's hard work. Don't kid yourself, it is hard work out here.

About the time Nancy and I started making cow eyes at each other, I figured it was time to put an end to the past. I contacted a lawyer and started divorce proceedings. According to him, my wife went to work with my daughter shortly after I left. I guess my daughter was too selfish to give her any money. She did help my wife in starting a website of her own. So now my soon to be ex is a whore banging college aged boys on her own website.

I wasn't really surprised by how things ended up for my ex. She had really been impressed by the money my daughter was making. Looking back on that last day, I could see thoughts of doing that were running through her mind. I'm convinced that she was envious of how much money my daughter was making.

I've often replayed that day, and the months proceeding it, over and over in my mind. I should have known something was off. It was like my wife was losing respect for me. I guess in her mind I was a poor schmuck making an honest living while my daughter was raking in the big bucks. Maybe I was a schmuck, but that's how I was raised. I make no apology.

My attorney told me that as a result of her website and the fact that I hadn't worked, that my ex had more assets that I did. He said that I was entitled to a portion of them. She wasn't happy to hear that and threatened to contest the divorce. I told my lawyer that I wasn't a pimp and wasn't going to accept one red cent of the money she made as a whore. I wanted half the value of the house and nothing more. She agreed and the divorce is progressing. It will be official in a couple of months.

Maybe I'm a sap, I don't know. Since the house has lost value, I'm effectively getting nothing. All of those years of work and nothing to show for it. It hurts, but at least I have my pride. I can't say the same for my daughter and my ex.

Okay, maybe I'm still a little bitter. Can you blame me?

Anyway, life is good out here. Nancy is a wonderful woman. The place where I'm living is beautiful. There are times when I'm out on the tractor that I just stop and look around in awe. The sky out here is huge. I think that if I were to meet up with God today, we'd have a very different conversation than what would have occurred seven months ago.

Enough about me.

I don't know what has happened with any of you since I left town. Did Max get a job? Did Guy divorce his wife? What about Selena? Did she reunite with her boyfriend or is there a new man in her life? I hope that things have turned out as well for all of you as they have for me. Write me back and let me know what's happened there. I'd like to hear from each and every one of you. I think of you often.

From under the blue skies of Iowa, 
Cody"



Max smiled when he finished reading the email just like he did every time he read it. It seemed to him that Cody was doing okay. He would like to swing by the farm and say hello one of these days. He wanted to meet the woman that Cody had fallen for. He imagined she was something special for Cody to ever trust another woman.

It seemed to him that it was only in fairy tales that stories ended with 'They lived happily ever after.' Real life wasn't like that, although in this case he wondered. The foursome who had taken matters into their own hands during the robbery attempt were definitely on the path for a happy ending.

It seemed to him that just about everyone got what they wanted; even the so-called villains of this drama. The cheating wife had her boyfriends, evenings out, and trips to distant places. The wayward daughter and the clueless wife had money. Perhaps they were really chasing the security that money could provide. He hoped they were getting what they wanted. If so, then maybe everyone was on the path for a happy ending.

"Supper is ready," Barb said while knocking on the frame of the door.

Startled by the sudden interruption to his thoughts, Max said, "You startled me."

"What were you thinking about?" Barb asked.

Max said, "I was thinking someone needs to say – they lived happily ever after."

"They lived happily ever after," Barb said while rolling her eyes. "Are you happy?"

"Yes," Max said. "Thank you very much."

"Anyway, supper is ready."

Max asked, "What are we having?"

Barb said, "You'll like it. I made lasagna with Italian sausage."

"I can't wait to try it," Max said.


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The End
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Posted:  2011-01-08
Last Modified: 2011-01-24 / 09:59:46 am
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