As was my habit I stopped in at the “B” for my breakfast on my way home from my shift at the airport. It had been a hard night for me. I had to do a double brake change on a Boeing 727 and those suckers are heavy. I had to do them without the assistance of the dolly that we usually use because it was broken – both of them! Luckily I was in good shape thanks to daily visits to the gym and a three to five mile run every night so I was able to horse them into place without two much strain.
The tires and wheels weren’t all that light either. Normally I would have had help, but because of one man being on vacation, two calling in sick and no one on swing shift accepting the overtime we were very short handed. As it was I had to work overtime in the morning to get the last of the overnight service checks out on time.
I was a little ‘pooped’ when I sat down in my favorite booth at the B&B Café. Mary brought me my coffee and I flirted with her as she took my order. I ordered the special for the day – two eggs, corned beef hash, hash browns and toast. As I ate I noticed a couple with two kids at a table near the front of the room. I noticed them because the man was being quite loud and was waving his arms and hands around as if he were trying to drive home some point or other. Then he got up from the table and stormed out of the place.
Gwen, who was the hostess that day, came by twice and refilled my coffee cup and I flirted with her even though she was five months pregnant. I told her she should run away with me and that she looked sexier pregnant than a lot of women that I knew who weren’t and that got me a smile. The poor kid needed cheering up. The asshole who got her pregnant was in the wind as soon as she let him know he was about to be a daddy. I wasn’t lying. She was sexy looking and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t take her up on it if she were to say:
“You think I’m sexy? Prove it. I get off at three.”
In fact that were seven girls who worked the various shifts at the “B” and I flirted with and wouldn’t say no to any of them.
I was at the register paying my tab when Mary came up to Shirley, who was the manager and who was in the process of taking my money, and said:
“We have a problem. The party at table seven can’t pay their bill. The woman says that her boyfriend got up, took off and she doesn’t have any money.”
“She can go to the bank on the corner and use their ATM.”
“I told her that and she said that she doesn’t have a card that she can use.”
“We can take her check.”
“She doesn’t have any. Everything is in her purse which is in the car that the boyfriend took off in.”
“Then I guess we have to call the police.”
As Shirley was handing me my change I asked if the woman they were talking about was the woman with the two kids sitting toward the front and Mary said she was the one. I told Shirley that I would take care of it and I handed her the money.
I was outside on the sidewalk heading for my truck when the woman from table seven came running up to me.
“Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Can I ask why you did it?”
“I’ve been in trouble a couple of times and someone stepped up to help. Call it karma. Paying back as it were.”
“You’ve been so nice that I almost hate to ask, but could I get a dollar from you so I can get some quarters for the pay phone so I can call my dad?”
I took my cell phone out of the belt holster and handed it to her and she made her call.
“Hi daddy.”
“Not so good. I should have listened to you. You were right all along.”
“He took off and left me and the kids.”
She explained what had happened and then said, “A small town in Colorado.”
“No. Everything we had was in the car and I’ve no idea where he went.”
“No. My purse was in the car. I don’t know what to do daddy.”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask.”
She looked at me and asked, “Where is the nearest bank?”
I pointed and said, “Next corner. The Castle Rock Bank.”
She relayed the information and then said, “But how will I pick it up? I don’t have any ID; it is all in my purse.”
“I got lucky. A nice man helped me.”
“Yes. I’m using his cell phone to make this call.”
There was a pause and then she handed my phone back to me saying, “He wants to speak to you.”
“Hello?”
“To whom am I speaking?”
“Rob Dalton.”
“Thank you for helping my daughter Mr. Dalton. Can I possibly ask you for a little more of your time?”
“I suppose.”
“I’m going to wire Melissa some money until I can get there to pick her up. She has no identification so she might have trouble getting it from the bank. Could I wire it to you and then you give it to her?”
“I guess we could do that. I’ll take her down to the bank and she can call you from there and you can set things up with the bank.”
“That should work. Is there a motel close by? She will need a place to stay until I can get there. I’m coming from Liberal, Kansas so it will be a while. I can’t leave right away and it might be tomorrow before I can get there.”
“Not a problem. She can stay at my place. It’s just me in a four bedroom house so I have plenty of room. Tell you what. Just skip wiring money. She won’t need any until you get here anyway.”
“Too bad Melissa didn’t meet you before she hooked up with that asshole Ben. She could stand having a nice guy in her life.”
I gave him directions on how to get to my place from I-70 and told him we would see him tomorrow.
I disconnected and then had a thought. “All of your things are in your boyfriend’s car?”
“It isn’t his car’ it is my car.”
“You any idea where he might be?”
“No. We were on our way to Santa Fe. He has a job there.”
“Then we have one more thing to do. We have to report a stolen car. Go get your children. The police station is three blocks from here.”
“I don’t think he stole it.”
“Of course he did. He went off and left you here. He took your purse, your car and all your things. If he is still here in town just sitting and cooling down after the argument you had in the restaurant maybe it can be said that he didn’t steal it, but if he is outside the city limits when they find him he has stolen your car.”
She went back into the restaurant and got her kids. She introduced me to them as she loaded them into my extended cab pick up. Billy was ten and Mary Lou was eight and other than saying hello when we introduced they were quiet kids.
I drove to the police station on Second and Perry and we went inside. Jack Mansell was behind the desk and I introduced him to Melissa and explained her problem. Melissa gave him her information on the car and trailer it was towing and Jack picked up the phone and made a call and a minute or so later John Coleman, who was a detective, came out, said hi to me and took Melissa back to his office to fill out the report. While that was going on Jack called dispatch and gave them the information along with the information that the suspect and vehicle were likely on I-25 and heading for New Mexico. When Melissa came back from John’s office she told me that she had given them my phone number as a contact number and asked if that was all right and I assured her that it was.
I drove Melissa and her kids over to my house and on the way she asked me what my wife was going to say when I showed up with a strange woman and two kids.
“Don’t have one of those things.”
“Not married and you live in a four bedroom house?”
“Used to be married, but the house was given to me by my parents before I married her so she couldn’t touch it in the divorce.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“I’m over it. Been over it for almost six months now.”
It was true; I was over it, but every once in a while I wished I’d been a little less civilized when I caught Amy screwing a guy she worked with. All I did was take some cell phone pictures and walk away from them. I have always regretted that I didn’t beat the snot out of the asshole and then physically drag Amy to the front door, toss her outside naked and then lock the doors on her. But I didn’t do any of those things so it was water under the bridge.
When we got to the house I showed Melissa where every thing was and told her to make herself at home. I told her I worked mid-nights and slept during the day so she was going to be on her own for a while. I told her to wake me up if anything on her car came up and then I went into my bedroom, set the clock for four and went to bed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I woke up from what I thought was a wet dream only to find out that it was Melissa sucking my cock. She saw that I was awake and took her mouth off of me long enough to say:
“It is the only way I have of thanking you for what you have done for me and the kids.”
She went back to sucking on me and I laid back and enjoyed it. It was going to take her a while. The night before I’d spent two hours with Dawn Marie, a girl I’d gone to school with, and Dawn had given me my weekly allotment of sexual satisfaction. Dawn had lost her husband in Iraq and with three kids to take care of she had gone into the world’s oldest profession and I had a standing weekly appointment with her.
Melissa was damned good at what she was doing and I wondered if I could keep her around for a while. When the time came I told Melissa so she could finish me by hand, but she ignored me and kept on going until I came in her mouth and then she surprised me by swallowing it all. No woman had ever done that for me before. When I started to go soft she surprised me again. She had come prepared. She had a wet wash cloth and she cleaned my cock and then dried it with a towel.
“I’m not a slut Mr. Dalton, but I needed some way to thank you for what you’ve done and I suspect that offering you money would be insulting to you. You told me to wake you up if the police called. They stopped Mark on the Interstate just north of Colorado Springs. They told me that I could pick up my car at the gas station located at I-25 and Woodman Road.”
I felt that I would have made an awkward situation even more awkward if I would have tried to tell her that she didn’t have to thank me in that way so I kept my mouth shut as I sat up and then swung out of bed.
“Give me a couple of minutes to shower and dress and then we can go pick up your car. You might want to see if you can reach your dad and let him know he doesn’t need to come and get you.”
When I was dressed and downstairs Melissa told me she had reached her dad on his cell phone and he was only two hours away from home so he was going to turn around and go back. I called the station and found out that Melissa’s purse was at the station and I also found out that her boyfriend was being held by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department and would be transported back to Castle Rock the next morning. He claimed he hadn’t stolen the car and was just too mad to think straight and he would have turned around and come back in another hour or so.
We drove over to the station and picked up Melissa’s purse and then headed for Colorado Springs. As we drove down to pick up her car and trailer Melissa told me a little about herself. She was twenty-nine and a widow. Her husband’s reserve unit had been called up and he had been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. She was a registered nurse and had quit her job when her boyfriend had taken a job in Santa Fe.
She didn’t tell me what the argument she had with him was about and I didn’t ask. All she said where her boyfriend was concerned was that he could rot in jail for all that she cared.
“You sure that you want that?”
“After the way he walked out on me and the kids? You can bet your butt that I want that.”
“It won’t be that simple. If you want him to stay in jail you will have to press charges and then stay around until the trial or at least come back for it. Maybe it would be best if you just walked away from it. It would save you a lot of grief and wasted time and if you don’t intend to get back together with him it is about the cleanest and easiest break up you could get.”
“There is that I suppose.”
“Where are you going to go now? Still going to Santa Fe?”
“No. There isn’t any thing for me there. I guess I’ll head back home and see if I can get my old job back. I don’t really want to though. Too many bad memories.”
“Well Colorado is a pretty nice place to live and with all of the hospitals and medical centers being built here you shouldn’t have any trouble finding work as a nurse.”
We got to the gas station and I waited while she went in, showed her ID and got the keys to her car. It was a late model Tahoe and it was hooked to a mid-sized cargo trailer. When she came out we transferred her kids to the Tahoe and I made sure that she knew the way back to my place and then I headed home.
As I drove I thought about the days events and wondered if I should offer to let Melissa stay with me if she should decide to stay in Colorado. I had enjoyed the hell out of the blow job she had given me. I had especially enjoyed the part where she let me cum in her mouth and then swallowed. Amy would never do that. I always had to tell her when I was close and then she would finish me by hand.
Thinking of Amy brought back the bitterness I’d felt when I thought about what she had done to me. When I caught her in bed with the asshole she worked with he was fucking her in her ass which was something she never let me do. I wondered if she had swallowed for him also. Fucking bitch!! And then she had the gall to tell me that she loved me and that Chad was a mistake that she would never make again if only I’d give her another chance. I laughed at her and told her to rot in hell.
She told all our friends and relatives that she hadn’t done anything wrong and that I was being unreasonable. After about the tenth person told me that I was over-reacting and that I should ‘give the poor girl’ another chance I downloaded the pictures from my cell to my computer and then I printed two dozen sets. After handing out those sets to everyone who told me that I should take Amy back I stopped hearing it from people and Amy suddenly left town. A month later I heard she’d been killed when the guy she was living with ran a red light and got hit broadside by a semi. I got the last laugh on that. I hadn’t yet started divorce proceedings so I saved some money on that and I had two life insurance policies on her, one through work and one I’d taken out a year after we were married.
When I got home I decided to fix dinner for us and I gambled that Melissa and her kids would be okay with spaghetti with meat sauce and I set about fixing it. When Melissa didn’t show up by eight I accepted the fact that she wasn’t coming and that I was going to have enough leftovers for several days.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was a fairly easy night at work with only a couple of service checks to work on. When I made my usual stop at the “B” for breakfast in the morning Gwen, who was waitressing that morning, asked me what had happened the day before.
“You paid that woman’s tab, she ran out after you and then she got in your truck with you and you drove off.”
I told her the story and then she asked, “Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know. I guess it was just a case of KISA syndrome.”
“KISA syndrome?”
“Yeah. Knight in Shining Armor syndrome. You know; see a damsel in distress and ride to the rescue.”
“I wish I could find me one of those.”
“Find one of those?”
“Yeah. I could really use a knight in shining armor.”
“Things not good?”
“Not even close. I make barely enough to pay the rent on my apartment and keep gas in my car. It is a good thing that one of my benefits here is free meals or I’d probably starve to death.”
“That bad?”
“It wasn’t bad when Rory and I shared the rent on the apartment, but when he ran off things got really tight. My parents moved to Florida six months ago so they can’t help. I’ve got applications in all over the place to try and find a decent job, but no one wants to hire a pregnant broad because they know I’ll be leaving to have the baby in four months or so.”
I looked at her and the thought came to me that if I could help some one I didn’t even know I could certainly help someone that I knew and liked. The problem was that I wasn’t sure I could keep my hands off of the sexy little thing, but I could at least try.
“You have a lease on your apartment” I asked.
“No. It is month to month. Why?”
“It makes things easier if you don’t have a lease to get out of.”
“Makes what easier?”
“Moving out?”
“Moving out? What am I missing here?”
“You said you could use a knight in shining armor so here I am. I’m living in a four bedroom house so I have plenty of room for you. You won’t need to pay rent so you should be able to start saving some money.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There isn’t any. Like I said, I have a four bedroom house and I live alone. You will have your own bedroom with a lock on the door to keep me from getting my hands on your sexy body.”
She laughed and said, “My sexy body? You need your eyes examined.”
“No I don’t. I’ve already told you that even pregnant you are sexier looking that a lot of the women I know who aren’t pregnant and I meant every word of that.”
I grabbed a napkin out of the napkin holder and wrote my address down on it and handed it to her.
“Think about it. Stop by when you get off work and check out the place. This is a no strings attached offer sweetie. No strings at all.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I finished my breakfast and then headed on home. I set the alarm for three and sacked out. The alarm got me up and I put the coffee on and then started cleaning the house. A four bedroom house doesn’t get all that dirty when you live there alone, but dust doesn’t take a day off just because there is only one warm body in the house.
I was vacuuming and dusting when the doorbell rang and I answered the door and found Gwen standing there.
“You told me to stop by after work and check the place out so here I am.”
I stepped aside and she came in. I took her on a tour of the house and when we got to the bedrooms I said:
“I told you that it was a four bedroom house, but there are actually only three. I’ve turned one of them into a den and library so you only have a choice of two. If you decide to move in pick the one you want and we will turn the other one into a nursery for your baby.”
“You said no strings right?”
“I did, but there are some conditions.”
I saw her face cloud over as she thought, “I knew it was too good to be true. The asshole expects me to pay rent by fucking him.”
Before she could say a word I said, “I don’t think you will find them too onerous. I’ll buy the groceries, but I’ll expect you to take turns with me when it comes to cooking. I’ll expect you to help me keep the place clean. You know, dusting, vacuuming and things like that, but the big one is no boyfriends in the house if I am home. I work grave shift and I’m usually gone from ten-thirty till nine in the morning so if you can get them in and out while I am at work fine, but never when I am here. Can you live with those?”
“No problem. Especially with the last. I don’t have a boyfriend and it isn’t likely that I’ll find one given my condition.”
“Nonsense. I’m not the only guy in the world who thinks pregnant women are sexy.”
“You are the only one I’ve run across so far. Besides, any guy that comes after me in the condition I’m in is only after one thing. He damned sure won’t be looking for a committed relationship.”
“So, do you think you want the room?”
“I’d be an idiot to say no. The money I’ll save on rent will let me finally go and see a doctor.”
“You haven’t seen a doctor about the baby yet?”
“No money. When Rory split things got really tight for me.”
“When do you want to make the move?”
“Tonight. I want to get it done before you come to your senses and change your mind.”
“You need help?”
“No I don’t have much. The place is rented furnished so all I need to move are some clothes and personal things. I should be able to get it all in my car.”
“I’ll go along and help you anyway.”
By eight we had her moved in and I fixed us a light super after which she insisted on doing the dishes. She had to be at the restaurant by four-thirty to get it ready to open at six so she was in bed by nine. I watched some TV until it was time for me to leave for work.
In the morning I stopped at the restaurant for breakfast and when Gwen brought me my biscuits and gravy I asked her what she would like for supper that evening and she told me that she planned on cooking and asked me if there was anything that I didn’t like. I told he no and that since I had some errands to run that morning I would probably sleep until six or so. When I got home I went to the bedroom that I used for a den, rummaged in the desk until I found what I was looking for and then I went to bed.
I awoke to some good smells coming from the kitchen and when I’d dressed and gone down I found Gwen busy setting the table.
“I gambled that you would want coffee when you got up so I put a pot on.”
“You guessed right” I said as I got the cream out of the fridge. Dinner was meatloaf, baked potato, glazed carrots and crunchy sourdough bread. I thought that I made pretty good meatloaf, but Gwen’s put mine to shame.
“Just this supper alone is reward enough for giving you the room.”
“Wait until you’ve had my lasagna.”
“You need to make me a list of what you need for the things you like to make. Most of what is here is for what I usually make.”
“How about I buy the stuff that I use and you just buy what you use.”
“Nope. I said I’d buy the groceries and that we would share the cooking.”
Changing the subject I asked if she had a regular family doctor, someone she usually went to and she said no and asked why.
“You need to start seeing one before you get any farther along and it needs to be one who doesn’t know you.”
I took a card out of my pocket and skid it across the table to her.
“That’s an insurance card. I never got around to taking my ex off my health insurance. Pick a doctor and when you see him give them that card and use Amy’s name. That way it will only cost you the twenty-five dollar co-pay. When I get home in the morning I’ll write up what you need to know to be Amy.”
“I don’t think I should do that. What happens when the insurance company gets bills from two different doctors? One for a pregnant Amy and one for an Amy who isn’t pregnant.”
“Won’t happen. Amy has been dead for almost five months now.”
Then of course I had to explain what happened and Gwen asked:
“You miss her?”
“Sometimes, but not often. She hurt me. Hurt me bad and I don’t know that I will ever get completely over it.”
“I guess I know a little about how you feel. I thought Rory and I had something really, really good and it hurt like hell to find out we didn’t. Enough of the maudlin shit. Got to get the dishes done” and she got up and started clearing the table. I washed, she dried and then we watched some TV until she went off to bed at nine and then I sat and watched until I had to leave for work.
+++++++++++++++++++++
The next three weeks went by as we settled into our relationship. Instead of every other night we decided the cooking chores should be divided by weeks. And she was right. Her lasagna was killer and she seemed to like my five cheese macaroni as much as I liked her lasagna.
She went to a doctor and was told that she was fine and that everything looked good. One night over supper at the end of the three weeks Gwen said:
“You don’t date. Why not? You are a good looking man and a very nice guy so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting a girl.”
“Working grave shift with Wednesday and Thursday as days off doesn’t really give me many options when it comes to meeting girls and asking for dates. How about you? You haven’t been out since you’ve been here.”
“Unfortunately you are the only man who thinks I look good.”
“Be patient sweetie. He’s out there and you’ll find each other.”
“Yeah! Sure!”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was a Wednesday and one of my days off so I stayed up and watched TV until ten-thirty before going to bed. Gwen had gone to bed at her usual nine. I’d been in bed maybe fifteen minutes when the bedroom door opened and Gwen came into the room. In a voice husky with want or need or both she put into words that thought that I’d had on the day I helped out Melissa.
“You think I’m sexy? I guess you are going to have to prove it.”
I sleep naked so her hand had no trouble finding my cock and she could feel it grow as she said:
“I hope you like head and no need to get antsy when you are ready to shoot because I swallow.”
By the time she finished that statement I was as hard as I’ve ever been and you can bet your last dollar on the fact that I didn’t even mildly protest as she took me in her mouth. She did indeed swallow and she kept working on me until she had me up again and then she said:
“Let me do it.”
She mounted me cowgirl. I’d never made love to a pregnant woman before so I let Gwen take the lead. It took a while since I didn’t think I could roll her over, get on top and go fast to get my nut, but she eventually got me off. I know she had a couple of orgasms along the way.
When I started going soft she got off me and I took her in my arms and cuddled with her. After a few minutes silence she said:
“I’m sorry. I guess I’ll have to move out now.”
“Why in the world would you want to do that?”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m only supposed to be rooming here.”
“Nonsense! I’m glad you did what you did. I’ve wanted to do it all along, but I never saw any indication that you were interested. The problem we now have is that now you started it I’m going to want to keep on doing it.”
“You mean that? You weren’t just trying to make me feel good when you told me you thought I was sexy?”
“Now that you have opened the door I am going to prove it to you as often as you will let me.”
That turned out to be once a day for the next three weeks and then it slacked off to four or five times a week until her eighth month and then it was a couple of times a week and very, very carefully. It was two weeks before she was due when I brought up the subject.
“How would you feel about getting married? I mean we might as well since for all practical purposes we already are except for the name change.”
“You are kidding right?”
“Not even. We do everything a married couple does. We shop together, take care of the house together, share the chores and make love every chance we get.”
“Are you serious? You really want to marry me?”
“Yep! And if we hurry we can get it done before the baby is born and he (we knew it was a boy from the ultra-sound) won’t have to carry the stigma of being born illegitimate.”
“But he isn’t yours.”
“Does he need to know that? Besides, even if I’m not his biological father I’ll be his dad if I raise him.”
“Oh wow. I don’t know what to say.”
“Yes would be the preferred answer.”
“But why? Why would you want to do it?”
“Because I’ve fallen in love with you and I’m afraid that if I don’t tie you down now some day you might just decide to move on.”
“You love me? You really love me?”
“I do.”
She jumped up from her chair on the other side of the table and ran over to me. She threw her arms around my neck, hugged me and kissed me.
“Yes you marvelous man I will marry you. I’ve had a crush on you from when I first started at the restaurant and I’ve been in love with you since the week I moved in, but I never let on because I was afraid.”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?”
“I was afraid you would tell me that you didn’t want that kind of relationship and you would tell me to leave.”
“Silly girl. No way on God’s green earth I could chase a way a lady as sexy as you.”
“You need to call in sick tonight lover. I’m going to kill you with sex.”
“You can’t. You have to take it easy this close.”
“Then I’ll fuck you once and then suck your dick until you can’t get it up any more.”
++++++++++++++++++++++
We got everything done and a week before she was due we were married. The honeymoon would have to wait until after the baby was born.
Fortunately Gwen’s water broke on my first day off so there wasn’t any panic on getting in touch with me at work so I could race home. The boy came in at seven pounds and eight ounces and Gwen surprised me by naming the boy Robert Marshall Dalton Junior.
“Why not” Gwen said. “You are going to be the one who raises him. I sure as hell wasn’t going to name him after the low life that ran out on me.”
The next year flew by. JR was a healthy baby and Gwen and I felt comfortable leaving him with my Uncle Ralph and Aunt Mary and going off on our delayed honeymoon. We spent two glorious weeks in Cancun and when we came back Gwen told me that she wanted to go back to work.
“Why? We don’t need the money.”
“I know, but I’m looking ahead. I’ll bank all of my pay and it can be our emergency slush fund and if we never need to draw on it we can use it for JR’s college education. It won’t interfere with our home life because as long as you are on midnights you will be sleeping while I’m working and I’ll be home by the time you get up. Mrs. Davis down the block does day care and she says she has room for JR.”
She got her job back at the “B” and she wasn’t back a month and they had her doing the opening in the morning again. I would stop at the restaurant in the morning and Gwen would have coffee with me while I ate breakfast and we would use the time to plan the day and Gwen would ask me what I wanted for dinner. It was working out for us.
+++++++++++++++
About a year and a half after Gwen went back to work I came into the restaurant after my shift just in time to see Gwen heading for the back room with some guy right behind her. He grabbed her and I headed straight for them. The guys back was to me and he didn’t see me coming. His hair was long and he had it in a ponytail and I grabbed the ponytail and jerked his head back as I said:
“Get your hands off of her asshole!”
He turned to face me and I saw it was Rory. He gave me a nasty look and said:
“Butt out old man. This is between my woman and me.”
“She isn’t your woman Rory. You ran out on her. She’s my woman now and you had best keep your filthy hands off of her.”
“Fuck you old man. You ain’t coming between me, her and my kid.”
“Show him Gwen.”
She held up her left hand and showed him the wedding ring and said, “He came in and sat in my section and I wouldn’t wait on him. I had Mary do it. He kept trying to get my attention and when I wouldn’t have anything to do with him he grabbed me. I was just getting ready to scream for help when you got here and pulled him off me.”
“I’m only going to tell you this once. Stay away from my wife.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do old man? I’ll kick your fucking ass.”
I looked at Gwen and said, “Go open the back door Gwen.”
She looked at me confused. “Just do it Gwen. Open the back door.”
She gave me a long look and then she turned and headed into the back room. I looked at Rory and said, “You are going to kick my ass?” He smiled and I slapped him hard with my open hand and it stunned him long enough for me to grab him, put him in a hammerlock and then frog march him through the back room and out the back door. Once outside I pushed him away from me and he stumbled forward and almost fell. He got his balance and turned to me and said:
“I’ll kill you you son of a bitch!”
“Sure you will. Come on and bring it asswipe and we will just see whose ass gets kicked.”
He gathered himself to come at me, but then he took a good look at my face and looked into my eyes and decided that he didn’t really want to go there. He back off a little and said:
“It ain’t right keeping me from seeing my boy.”
“He isn’t your boy. You gave up all rights to call him your boy when you cowardly abandoned Gwen and ran off leaving her to face things on her own. You want to see him? No problem. I’ll write up a bill for all the money I’ve spent on doctor’s bills, hospital bills and what I’ve spent on him since he was born and give it to you. You pay it like you should have been doing all along and you can see him. You don’t pay it you don’t see him. If you are okay with that I’ll see you here tomorrow at this time and I’ll hand you the bill, but until you pay it in full you stay the fuck away from us. Understand?”
He sneered at me, spit on the ground and said, “I ain’t forgetting this old man. You best watch your back” and he turned and walked away.
“Are you really going to do that?” Gwen asked.
“Sure I will. You think he will pay it? Not likely and I don’t think he wants to see JR anyway. He was thinking that you would be silly enough to get back with him. He was surprised to see your rings. To his way of thinking who would be dumb enough to marry you with you being pregnant with his kid? Now that the baby has been born and he didn’t have to do fuck all money wise he figured that he’d move back in and pick up where he left off.”
“Still, I don’t want him around JR so what do we do if he does pay the bill you give him?”
“Get serious sweetie. You know the kind of guy he is. You really think he would give up his beer and cigarette money just to see a kid he didn’t want anyway? All JR is to him is a way to try and get back in your pants. I’m willing to bet he won’t show up in the morning, but I will make out a bill for him just in case.”
“But what will we do if he does what you don’t expect and pays the bill?”
“I don’t know sweetie; I just don’t know. That’s a bridge we will have to figure out how to cross if we ever get to it.”
++++++++++++++++++++++
I wasn’t at all surprised when Rory never came into the “B” in the morning. I also wasn’t surprised when Gwen came home and told me that he had come into the restaurant after I’d left to come home.
“He said he needed to talk to me and asked me to give him fifteen minutes. I was curious as to what he had to say and so I told him to come back when I went on my lunch break. He said he’d talked to a lawyer and the lawyer told him that he could get visitation rights if he petitioned the courts.
“Then he told me that he wouldn’t do it if I would agree to meet him twice a week. His exact words were, “I won’t derail your gravy train if you are nice to me. It won’t be hard because your old man is gone at night anyway.” To buy time until I could talk to you I told him I’d think about it. He said he would be back tomorrow for an answer and that it better be yes or he was going to go after his kid.
“Can he do that? Can he get the courts to give him access to JR. Would they really let a piece of scum who abandoned us to come into our lives?”
“I don’t know for sure, but as fucked up as our legal system is I guess it is possible. The thing is I don’t see him spending money on an attorney to get access to a kid he doesn’t want anyway. I think he is trying to run a bluff on you.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Give him what he wants.”
“What?!!! Are you fucking insane?! You actually want your wife to fuck that low life son of a bitch?”
“Of course not. What you are going to do is tell him that starting tomorrow I’ll be working swing shift and if he gets here at seven JR will have been put to bed and he can have four hours with you before I get home from work. You get him in the house and I’ll do the rest. Just make absolutely sure that when you tell him no one else is close enough to hear.”
The next day when Gwen got home from work I told Gwen what I wanted her to do.
“Just open the door and let him in. As he comes in back away from him and keep four or five feet away from him.”
I went to the door and hooked up the safety chain and then went out the back door, walked around to the front, opened the door and pushed it until the safety chain kept it from opening any father and then I kicked the door hard. The chain base ripped out of the door frame and swung loose and I went inside and closed the door.
“What did you do that for?” Gwen asked.
“Just setting the stage sweetie. Don’t forget what I told you to do” and I went upstairs to wait for Rory’s visit.
When the door bell rang I moved to the top of the stairs and waited for Gwen to open the door and let Rory in. He walked in bold as brass and said:
“What the fuck bitch? I told you to be naked and waiting.”
“Why would she do that asswipe? Even if she was naked and waiting it wouldn’t do you any good what with you being dead an all.”
He looked up at me and his eyes got big as he saw me standing there with the gun and then I shot him in the head. Gwen hadn’t known it was coming and she screamed. I ran down the stairs and got her settled down and then I called 911. While I waited for the cops I put on a pair of rubber gloves and took an opened switch blade knife out of a plastic bag. I put the knife in Rory’s right hand and clutched his fingers around it, touched his fingers to the blade and then I dropped it on the floor so it would look like he dropped it when I shot him.
Then I prepped Gwen on what to say when the police talked to her.
“The doorbell rang, you saw it was Rory so you put the chain on the door and opened it. You asked what he wanted and he told you to open the fucking door and let him and you told him to go away. He kicked the door in, you screamed and kept screaming as he came in with a knife in his hand. You heard a shot and you fainted. That’s all you know. Can you do that?”
Gwen said she could and I told her to stick to the story and don’t change it even a little bit.
“They will want to know if you have any idea of why he would come here so you will have to tell them the truth about your relationship with him up to and including what happened at the restaurant. My running him out the back door and what he threatened and his stop at the restaurant yesterday and today. All you tell them about yesterday and today is that both times he threatened you if you wouldn’t let him see JR and you came home and told me. That’s all. Don’t embellish it. Keep it simple. He threatened you. Said he would fuck you up if you tried to stop him from seeing his kid.
If the cops keep pushing you and trying to get you to change your story just tell them you don’t like the way things are going and you aren’t saying anything else until you talk to an attorney. Okay?”
“I guess. But did you have to kill him?”
“Did you want to spend the next ten or fifteen years with him trying to get back in your pants and using JR as a club to get you to do it? And what if he did see a lawyer and try to get JR? No baby, he had to go. I wasn’t going to spend every night at work worrying about what the asshole might do while you were here alone.”
I didn’t tell her that there was a thought in the back of my mind that she might give in to his threats to keep him away from JR. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but I knew her well enough to know she would be like a momma bear and do what she had to do to protect her cub and might even give in to Rory if that is what it took to do it.
The police came and it went the way that I hoped it would. They separated Gwen and me and interviewed us. Gwen told me later that it never got to the point where she needed to ask for an attorney.
The main question for me was how did I just happen to have my Colt so handy that I was able to get to things before Rory was even ten feet inside the house. I explained that Rory had threatened me a couple of days earlier. I told them what happened at the restaurant when I caught him grabbing Gwen.
“I have been expecting him to do something, but I never thought I’d have to shoot him. I thought that just pointing the gun at him would scare him off, but when I saw him going after Gwen with a knife in his hand I didn’t hesitate.”
It didn’t hurt that I knew half of the police force and had gone out to the range and shot with them. They all knew that I was pretty level headed. What the hell, I’d even been civilized and hadn’t gone off when I walked in on Amy cheating on me.
It also didn’t hurt that Rory had gone to jail seven or eight times for being drunk and disorderly, fighting in bars and pulling his knife on people. He actually cut one man when they got in a fight over a parking place. There were also a half dozen people who had heard him threaten me the day I ran him out of the restaurant.
The outcome was that I got away with it.
++++++++++++++++++++++
And then the Law of Unintended Consequences kicked in.
Gwen became nervous when she got close to me. She became withdrawn and one morning when I got home from work I found that she had moved her things into one of the spare bedrooms. I tried to get her to talk to me and tell me what was wrong, but she said things like, “Not now; I’m too upset” or “Later when I’m in a better mood.” This went on for two weeks and finally I’d had enough. I brought it up again and when she said, “Not now” I said:
“Yes Gwen, now! I want to know what in the hell is going on and I want to know right now!”
“You want to know? Okay then. You killed Rory in cold blood. You had me bring him here so you could kill him. You used me to lure him into the house so you could deliberately kill him. He was never a threat to us. He wouldn’t have hurt me. In the three years we were together he never once lifted a finger against me. He was an asshole when it came to me getting pregnant and his running out on me killed any feelings I ever had for him, but even then I didn’t hate him enough to want to see him die.
“So he threatened to go to court to get rights to see JR, but so what? Even if he really did it do you think the courts would give him any rights given what he did and given the kind of man he was?
“And the worst part? You did it while he was right in front of me. I got to see the hole suddenly appear in his head. I got to see the blood and brain matter splashed against the wall behind him. I got to see him fall to the floor like a puppet whose strings were dropped. I got to see the blood puddle spread on the floor as he looked up at me with sightless eyes. I got to stand there and look at him knowing that I was the Judas goat that led him to his death. That’s what is wrong with me Frank. That and the recurring nightmares I’m having as I get to remember every bit of it over and over and over again.
“Every time I look at you it all comes back to me. Every time I look at you I remember how you used me to lure Rory here so you could kill him in cold blood. That is what is wrong with me Frank and I do not know that I will ever get over it.”
I looked at her for a bit and then nodded my head that I understood. Then I got up and went out and busied myself in the garage.
++++++++++++++++++++
The next two months went by and we basically just co-existed. We shared the cooking and housekeeping and not much else.
I stopped going into the “B” in the mornings except on Gwen’s days off. I kept waiting for a change in Gwen’s attitude, but it never came. I finally accepted the situation and did what I had to do.
It was Gwen’s week to cook and when it was ready she called me to supper. We ate in silence and after we had eaten I handed Gwen an envelope.
“What is it?”
“Divorce papers. All you have to do is sign where the sticky notes are and I’ll give them back to the attorney to file. There will be a hearing to set alimony and child support and in ninety days you will be free of me. Nothing has to change. We will simply go back to the agreement we had on the day you moved in. The only change will be that once the court has set alimony and child support I’ll hold back half as payment for your room and board.”
“I don’t understand. If everything is going to stay the same why are you getting a divorce?”
“Because I am still a healthy young man and I have certain urges, wants and needs. I took my vows seriously and I will not break them so in order for me to fill those needs and satisfy those urges I need to be legally released from those vows. I am not willing to spend the rest of my life celibate because of something I did to protect my marriage.
“I know that you say Rory was no threat to us, but in my mind he was. One of the strongest forces in the universe is a mother’s determination to protect her child and in the back of my mind there was the thought that you might eventually give in to Rory to protect JR. It might never have happened, but if by some set of circumstances it did happen and I found out about it our marriage would have been dead. I was not willing to take the chance.
“It is ironic that what I did to protect my marriage is what ended up killing it. Just sign the papers and put an end to it.”
I got up and went out to the garage to do some work on my truck. About twenty minutes later Gwen came out into the garage. She stood there watching me work for a couple of minutes and then she said:
“You actually think so little of me that you think I’d cheat on you?”
“On the contrary. I think very highly of you. You read it in the papers or see it in the news all the time. Women who go off and leave their kids at home while they go party. Women who let their husbands and boyfriends abuse their kids and do nothing about it. Women who have their babies and then leave them on the doorstep of a church, fire house or police station or even worse, toss them in a dumpster while they are still alive.
“That isn’t you. We both know that you would kill if that is what you had to do to protect JR. If you gave into Rory in your mind it wouldn’t be cheating. It would be you doing what you thought you had to do to protect your baby. You would have done it and it would have killed us.
“We both know that Rory was never going to go away and we both know he was never going to stop trying to get his dick back into you. He didn’t give a shit about his son, but to him you were his and he couldn’t stand the fact that I had you and he didn’t. He was determined to fuck you just to show me that you were really his. He would have used JR to try and make it happen. I wouldn’t have put it past him to threaten JR with physical harm to get you to give in.
“I took steps to make sure that it would never happen. I regret that what I did put an end to us, but I don’t regret killing Rory; not the least little bit. In my own way I was doing what I knew that someday you might have to do. I protected my home and family.”
I climbed into the truck, pushed the button on the garage door opener and then backed out of the garage. It was too early to go to work, but I went in anyway. When I got to the hanger I caught the employee shuttle over to the terminal and browsed the book stores until it was time for me to go back to the hanger and punch in.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
It was an easy night with nothing but service checks and some components that needed to be changed for time. I stopped at the Village Inn for breakfast and I had some house work to do when I got home so it wasn’t until one that I went up to bed.
The divorce papers were on my pillow and I picked them up and saw that Gwen hadn’t signed them and I wondered what that meant. I tossed them on the floor and went to be and fell asleep almost immediately.
Something woke me up and I glanced over at the clock and saw that it was seven-twenty. There was enough light in the room from the street light outside by the sidewalk that I could see Gwen standing by the bedroom door. I sat up and looked at her and then she walked toward me. She got on the bed, pushed me down on my back and pulled down the sheet exposing me and her right hand reached for my cock. As she took it in her hand she said:
“I hate what you did and it will take me a while to get over it, but you are too good a man to lose. There will be no divorce” and then she bent and took me in her mouth.