I Am Jack's Life Ch. 17

Author's note and acknowledgements

This story has sat on my hard drive for four years now.

I wrote it, all twenty chapters and 95,000 words of it in eight days of a frenzied, near trance-like state, sitting on my couch with my wife's laptop. She would occasionally have to remind me to eat.

When the dust settled, and I looked up, I realized a couple of things: one, I had just written a fucking novel in a week, whoa. Two, it seemed to be pretty damn good, double whoa. And three, what the hell was I going to do with it?

I tried editing it, I even enlisted the help of a Lit-Editor, who was invaluable for early editing, and confirming it was in fact, pretty good, or readable at least. I spent several months then, editing, unashamedly forcing it on writer friends to read, regular friends to read, and total strangers on writer boards. Everyone had different opinions of course, as people do, but all of them seemed to think it was pretty good, and I should probably try to do something with it.

So I spent another year trying to sell it.

Well nothing happened.

And I can't blame them, agents and publishers. It's kind of a niche story, hard to market. It's got too much sex for a coming age story, too much teenage drama for adult fiction, and not a single word about vampires or bondage to make it work as erotic fiction.

So it's sat on my hard drive for four years. I'll occasionally open it up, tinker with a line, or try to figure out how to re-work it into something more marketable. I always end up wasting a weekend trying to figure out how to change it, without losing the essence of the thing which I, and several others, feel is, "pretty good."

So fuck it. Here you go Literotica. I just want people to read it. I want people to get to know Jack the way I did. Writing his life made me feel like I was a part of it. He's a pretty good guy, I wish I knew him in real life.

So NEXT, some disclaimers.

This is a coming of age story. Which means first it starts out when the characters are too young to have sex (on literotica.) So there's no sex for a couple chapters. I hope that's okay. Second, this is a novel length story, including the prologue and epilogue, there are twenty-one chapters in all. Some are longer than others, and there is not a sex scene in every one. (Though some have more than one.) More importantly, sex is a thing that happens, it's not written to be titillating, but rather just as events in Jack's life.

So there you go. It's a story with sex in it, not a story about sex. I think it's pretty good anyway.

If you have not read the first chapter, please click on my profile and pick the story up at the beginning, its better that way, trust me.

*****

I dropped my bag with a thud onto the floor of my mom's condo.

God I was beat. Twenty-six hours of airports, delayed flights, waiting, another flight, another airport, and then two hours of LA traffic. I was ready for a vacation from my trip home from my vacation.

"Why don't you just go get a shower and then lay down in my bed sweetie, I'll sleep on the couch tonight. You look exhausted," my mother said.

Abby's mother had dropped me off just a few minutes ago. She and Abby had gone back to their house. Abby and I hadn't said anything else about our own place on the way home. But it was sounding awfully good about now. I didn't want to sleep on my mother's bed. I wanted my own, but it was in storage.

"Nah, I'm good mom. Believe me, after a couple of the places we stayed in in Eastern Europe, the floor here is looking pretty good," I said. Even I could hear the fatigue in my voice.

My mother chuckled, but it was a concerned mother chuckle, "Nonsense. I only sleep a few hours at a time anyway. Stupid old woman bladder wakes me up every night three or four times."

I sighed. Fine. I didn't have enough left to protest anymore.

"I'm not going to argue. I left all my willpower behind about eight countries ago," I said in defeat.

"And just leave your bag there, I'll get your laundry," she said and pushed me to the bathroom with a little shove.

I almost fell asleep in the shower. I tumbled into my mother's bed and slept for a whole day. All I know is I went to sleep and it was daylight, I woke up and it was still daylight, but slightly earlier in the day.

I crawled and stumbled my way to the bathroom and was overwhelmed with the smell of potpourri as I peed. I wrinkled my nose. Neither I nor my dad could stand the stuff. I found my way out to the living room and made it half way back to my mother's bedroom when I froze in my tracks. There was a man sitting at the kitchen table with my mother. An older gentleman. I didn't recognize him.

I turned slowly and looked at the two of them. There were two cups of coffee and I looked like I had walked into the middle of a quiet - intimate - afternoon chat.

"Hello Jack, your mother has been telling me all about your adventures across the pond," he said. He had a very loud voice. The booming kind of voice you would expect a drill sergeant to have.

I scratched my bare chest and vaguely recognized I was standing there in just a pair of Stanford sweat pants, my hair was probably standing straight up, and I wasn't able to fully open one eye yet.

He extended his right hand out. I blinked at it and made a grimace against what was probably some very foul morning breath. I took his hand and he almost crushed mine.

"Jack," my mother said, she had a weird note in her voice, "This is Stan..." she said hesitantly.

"Hi Stan," I grogged at him.

He smiled broadly and gave my poor hand another squeeze and rattle before he released it.

"You look like hell son, must have been a hell of a trip," he boomed at me, he was taller than I was, and I'm six-foot-one. He also was heavier set, the look of a man who was powerfully built in his twenties and thirties, but is now on the wrong side of fifty.

"Yeah..." I managed to say.

What the fuck was going on?

"Go ahead and go back to bed honey," my mom said, "dinner is isn't for another two hours. Stan will be joining us if you don't mind." There was that weird voice again. My mother was nervous.

"Okay." I managed, and then stumbled back into the bedroom and shut the door.

Did... did my mother have a date?

What the hell had I missed while I was gone?

#

It was about the most uncomfortable dinner I had ever participated in. My mother cooked steaks, which she traditionally is not very good at, or fond of. They were my dad's thing. Plus she had no grill in the condo, so she just pan fried them, which made them taste off to me. Stan kept trying to engage me in conversation, but I had no idea how to react to this man. It was obvious from my mother's behavior something was going on between them, but I wasn't sure how I felt about that. On one hand - yes, my dad had been gone for five years, but on the other hand - My Dad. Here was this guy who was about as opposite of my father as you can get and still be the same gender and species; and my mother was, what - dating him? Seeing him? Oh God, I internally gagged - sleeping with him?

Dear God, I had slept in that bed.

My mother uncorked a second bottle of wine for after dinner. I could see her hand shook slightly as she poured mine.

She sat down and they took hands.

I took a large swallow of wine to brace myself.

"So, Jack," my mother started.

"You're seeing each other, yeah mom, I got that," I said, I tried to force humor in my voice. I even smiled I think.

Stan nodded, "I'm a widower myself, my wife passed ten years ago, God rest her. So I understand what Ellen has been going through. You too. My daughter is about eight years older than you, and an only child as well."

Oh joy. The potential of a thirty year old step-sister. Awesome.

"Anyway Jack, I just wanted you to know that Stan makes me happy. It was very hard without your father, and I've been terribly lonely," my mother said.

I felt guilt. It most have shown on my face, because my mother continued, "Oh Jack, it's not your job to keep me company. You're just getting started in your own life and you've had school, and then your trip, and now you'll be looking at getting your own life going. You shouldn't be worried about taking care of your old mother."

I shifted in my seat.

"What your mother is saying, I think, if I may Ellen..." boomed Stan, and my mother nodded, "Is that right now we're just a couple of old fogies, who are tired of feeling alone, and we don't feel alone with each other. I'd never replace your father and I won't ever try. But I hope you and I can at least be friends, or reach an understanding," he said.

Fuck. I didn't want this guy to be reasonable. I wanted to dislike him. Out of loyalty to my father. That was my job right? Wasn't I Hamlet in this scenario? Hell, I'd even just been to Denmark. But this guy sounded reasonable and he was trying to be a nice guy about this. And if he was good to my mother...

Fuck. I didn't want to like this.

But I smiled and looked at my mother and just said, "Mom, if it make you happy, I'm behind it one hundred percent."

My mother relaxed about twelve notches and squeezed my hand.

And that's how Stan came into our lives.

#

Five days later I was ready to move in with Abby. Or Kimmy and Todd, or hell, even Beth and Kurt. A box next to the dumpster I'd been dumped into in ninth grade was looking pretty tempting. Stan was around all the time. He and my mother weren't living together, but it was a near thing. I think the only reason they weren't is that I had no place to go.

Stan was a retired army captain (I wasn't shocked) and now was just living off his pension and disability. He'd injured his knee doing something heroic I'm sure. I hadn't asked, though I'm pretty sure he told me at dinner the next night. He and my mother had met through some support group for windows and widowers. I had no idea my mom had been going to a support group.

He really was nothing like my father - and I think that bothered me more than anything.

My dad had been a tall, lanky man. He'd worn glasses for driving and television, but not to read. He'd been a life long democrat and hippy. He loved hiking and fishing and abhorred guns. He'd always kept his hair just a little bit long, but it always stuck straight out, giving him this sort of half mad scientist thing. He was never crude, had a razor sharp wit, and loved to read. My dad was always reading He was soft spoken, gentle, and compassionate.

Stan reminded me of a heavy set fifty-six year old Al Bundy. He kept his hair high and tight and what little he had was the color of steel. He wore glasses for reading (which he didn't do often) but not to drive or watch television. He was a hardliner republican, and constantly made crude jokes about President Clinton (Who I knew for a fact my mother had voted for, but she never said anything). He liked camping in his RV, which was hardly camping at all my dad had often said. He had this deep booming voice, like he was used to bombs going off around him as he barked orders. He just seemed - not my mother's type, which I guess is why the whole thing confused me.

But she laughed at his jokes and touched his arm a lot. I even caught them pecking on the lips once. There wasn't enough steel wool in the country for my brain to scrub that one away.

"And he farts! Like, all the time! On the couch I have to sleep on!" I ranted to Abby that night when she'd swung by to pick me up for a beer. I'd called her, begging her to rescue me. When she'd shown up at the condo to come up and say hi to my mother, I swear Stan had leered at her in her little black dress. I'll be the first to admit Abby is a damn knock out, especially dressed up to go out, but that was weird.

Abby just smirked at me.

I put my bottle down, because I'd been waving it around like a crazy man.

"So get out of there, get your own place," she said, and sipped her own beer.

I snorted, "I'm broke, remember?"

She looked away and said, very casually, "You could come stay with me at the beach house."

I sighed. I was tempted, so tempted.

"I don't want to change my mind about moving in together just because I'm running away from home and need a place to crash," I said.

She smiled a little, "It doesn't have to be the only reason. Your circumstances have changed. That's life. Besides, it's not your home Jack, it's hers."

That stung. Plus it was true, I'd never felt comfortable in my mother's condo.

"Dance with me lover," she said, and pulled me onto the dance floor.

For the next couple of hours, she made me forget all about Stan and the way he made the couch smell. I elected not to go home with her, because, I don't know, I'm stupid or something. I think I was afraid if I did I'd lose my willpower about not moving in and stay forever. But she didn't drop me off until almost three am. When she came in to use the restroom before she drove home, Stan was still up.

Had he waited up for me?

"Hey," I said quietly.

"Late night," he said and flipped the page of his Guns and Ammo magazine.

"Yeah, we usually close the place down," I said.

He didn't respond.

Abby came out of the restroom and I opened the door back up for her.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and we kissed. It was a pretty intense kiss. I was seriously rethinking not going back to the beach house with her.

"Call me tomorrow?" she whispered, and ran her finger down the bridge of my nose.

"Of course," I smiled at her.

She smiled back and slowly slipped out of my arms and was out the door. Our fingertips lingered together until our arms were outstretched before falling away.

I shut the door with a sigh.

Stan cleared his throat. Oh yeah. Stan.

"Pretty young rich girl like that, why haven't you married her yet?" he said. I think he was trying to make a joke.

"We're still figuring things out," I said, more than a little defensively.

He was silent a moment, "Looks like you two have things pretty well figured out," he said in a tone that my dad would have been proud of; subtle yet stating the obvious. It was voice from him I hadn't heard.

I sighed.

He got up and folded his magazine up. He went into my mother's bedroom, "Good night Jack." he said.

I didn't want to think about the fact he'd gone into my mother's bedroom.

"Night Stan," I said.

I sat down on the couch to go to sleep.

God, had he farted right before he left?