Personal Training Ch. 09

"That's not the first time they've shared a woman."

I jumped. Turning I saw Jim in his wheelchair, towel over his lap, regarding me as if to figure me out.

"It's always a competition between those two. Tad's always wanted what Jack had."

There wasn't anything I could say to his father. I didn't love Jack and I never would precisely for just this sort of thing. Despite Jacks protests, he'd never stay loyal, and that was a deal breaker for me.

"Your pajama's are on the bed."

He winked at me. "Why don't you stay and give me a massage like a good nurse should."

"Sorry, Jim. I've got to go."

"Something I said?"

What a narcissist.

"No, Jim. Just a long day. I'm sure I'll see you soon." I gave him a little peck on the cheek, and made my way out of the house and to my car. I drove down the long street and made several turns before I was on Onondaga Boulevard heading for my hotel.

#

"You sure are an idiot," my father said to me.

"Where's Annie?"

"Left. The one good woman you managed to drag home and you couldn't keep it in your pants long enough to seal the deal."

"What are you talking about?"

"She saw it, idiot. On the monitors."

"Dad, you didn't..."

"Do you think I'm a moron? No, she found it herself. And she watched. The whole thing."

"Shit."

"What were you thinking? With that slut, and your cousin." He slammed the words down hard, demonstrating his disapproval, just like he used to do when I was a kid. I felt like I was ten years old.

"None of your business, old man," I growled. "Annie knows who and what I am. I've hidden nothing from her. Now, do you want help with your pajama's or what?"

I managed to help him dress and get him in bed. From his bed he gave me a sour look. Yet, he was helpless too, his body torn up by his illness and age, an impossible combination.

"Let me check your sugar."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Apparently I already did that. Hold out your hand and stop giving me a hard time."

I took his hand, and this time he didn't struggle. The numbers were high, of course, so I gave him his shot. And a sleeping pill.

"Get some sleep, dad," I've said. "You've had a busy day."

"So have you," he said sleepily. He turned over and shut his eyes.

"Day's not over yet," I said.

#

I stopped at an ice cream shop to drown my sorrows in a rocky road sundae with hot fudge and marshmallow topping. Though it was completely against my diet, I felt I was due. Not that I cared the Jack fucked JuJu in the hot tub. Rather I cared that he kept lying, to me and to himself. As long as he had these delusions that we'd be a couple, he wasn't going to leave me alone.

And I didn't want to be alone. The past year was hell enough, between the emotional pain of losing my husband and the physical pain from the car accident. I was just beginning to feel okay when Jack drove back into my life, turning everything upside down. Jack was my friend, dammit, and I didn't need our friendship messed up with this marriage talk or his roving penis.

Couldn't I just have a friend?

The door to the shop opened and Jack stepped in. Shit. He smiled a shit-eating grin, and went to the side counter and got a spoon and a napkin.

He sat at my booth, and dipped his spoon in my sundae.

"Hey, get your own."

"What? You don't want to share?"

"Oh, you are the sharing and caring type of guy too?"

Jack's eyes went cold for a second."

"I'm sorry you saw that."

"Sorry for doing it, or sorry you got caught?"

"Annie, it wasn't..."

"It wasn't what, Jack? Everything I told you not to do?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "You're right."

"Worse yet, you can't even see what those two are doing to you."

"What? What do you mean?" he said.

#

Somehow Jack convinced me to let him follow me back to my hotel. I don't know why I let him do that to me. Maybe it was like I said before, I was tired of being alone. It wasn't like I wanted him, especially after his performance in the hot tub. Changing into my nightgown I slid in between the sheets. Jack turned off the light, and I heard his zipper, and his pants falling at his feet. He climbed in and put his arms around me.

"Should your father be alone?"

"He isn't alone. The night nurse is with him. She arrived after everyone left. Now tell me, what is it about what happened in the hot tub that turned you off so much?"

"Why would you want to know that?"

"Because a lot of women would be all wet just seeing a scene like that, and you were just plain disgusted."

"It's really none of your business, Jack."

"Ah, so it really wasn't about me and JuJu, was it?"

"So little is about you, Jack. You just don't realize it."

"Fine," he said pulling away. He turned his back. "Good night, Annie."

He started snoring, but I couldn't sleep. He guessed right. My reaction wasn't about him and JuJu. You know how you get these feelings about something, like a flavor you can't quite recall, or a song that you half remember? I was having one of those experiences. It was twined with thoughts of my husband, and the last night we were together.

I was working late. We did that often, especially during budget preparation. Jack was at the home office in Philly, while I was sitting in his office waiting for a call that might not come. I was expected to hang around, computer fired up to answer questions about different parts of the budget, especially the parts I prepared. Eddie called me, and asked when I would be home. I said I didn't know, and the argument started on the phone. The other line lighted up, the phone call I waited for, so I hung up on Eddie. That, of course, pissed off my husband.

When I got home, the house was dark. But then I heard some laughter coming from the back porch. I made my way through the house, not knowing what was going on, but my gut clenched anyway.

I stood at the back curtained sliding door staring out at the hot tub. There was my husband, his back lit by the security light at the corner of the house, clutching on to some woman. Her long dark hair fall past her shoulders, and I could only see the silhouette of her lithe body in the semi-dark. But I knew who she was. Charlotte. My best friend.

My feet were rooted to the floor, my hands frozen against the curtained glass as I watched through the slit in the curtains his seduction play out. The movements of his hands were the same as when he would touch me. He nipped her ears and the side of her neck in moves I knew so well and intimately. As his lover's dance played out, she made noises in all the spots that I would. His hands glided down the side of her body, and cupped her ass, made his way to her pussy, and stroked and fingered it. I didn't need to see every detail. I knew from experience what he was doing. What he did next was no surprise. He went to his knees in the hot, bubbling water, and licked the folds of her twat, his tongue delving deep into its folds. I could hear both their moans, and her excitement. I stood there breathing hard, my anger in my heart and the bile in my stomach rising. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, and I felt my explosion rising, though it was not one of lust.

She cried out her orgasm, and I whipped open the sliding door, standing there in a righteous rage.

"You fucking asshole!"

Eddie and the woman jumped apart, and Eddie gave me a look that was unreadable.

"Oh, you finally got ho..."

"Yeah, right."

And the argument began. Charlotte, her face red with shame now instead of lust, gathered her clothes and mumbled some apologies. But Eddie and I didn't care. The words started flying, accusations and recriminations slapped against each other in the disappointment and failure of our marriage. When he hit me, I fell against the side of the house. Standing quickly I wiped my mouth where blood trickled out. I ran into the house grabbing my purse and hightailed to my car. Sliding into it, I started the car. But then Eddie was at the window pounding on it, enough for neighbors to hear. Lights turned on in the upper story of the house across the street, and I became afraid they would call the cops. Foolishly, I opened the door as he demanded, and he pushed his way in, shoving me across the seat into the passenger side. I smelled then the alcohol on his breath, fierce and hot, as he called me despicable names.

He put the car in gear, screaming at me, "Where do you want to go, Annie! Jack's?" He raced down the street like a madman, the car fishtailing as he took the right turn onto the main road. Eddie's foot bore down on the accelerator until we going eighty on a forty mile an hour residential road. But worse than that, he took his eyes of the road as he shouted his insults and curses at me. I begged him to slow down, but he wasn't listening.

The next curve in the road was sharp. Eddie never made that turn.

And I woke up in the hospital. Alone.