Poison

"We were just talking, they told me they could get me some hash." Patty whined.

"I suppose in exchange they planned on getting some of your ass!" Mike yelled.

"Probably, but I wasn't going to do anything, we were just talking."

"Yea, sure." Mike went over and sat down, turned on the TV.

"I suppose we are just going to sit here and do nothing, right?" She said after a few minutes, her lips turning into a pout.

"That's exactly what we are going to do." Mike told her.

Patty was still pouting on the plane home the next day.

+++

Things did not go very well over the next few weeks, Patty mostly wanted to go out, or have friends over. She did have a fairly large social circle, and nearly every evening at least two or three of her friends were over. Her friend Sara was nearly always there.

Mike didn't really like Sara very much, for one thing she was nearly always on some kind of drug, for another she and Patty were always whispering.

Patty also went to the liquor store and stocked in several bottles into his bar, and without fail she puffed on her Marijuana cigarettes regularly.

Mike was thinking she would out grow that but there was no sign that she was going to.

The nightly parties often went on until very late, Mike would go to bed since he had to work.

One day Patty and Sara were in the living room talking, Mike was playing his guitar quietly. He knew that both of them were completely stoned, and they kept giggling about something.

"Hey, honey!" Patty called out.

"What, babe?" Mike asked her, setting down his old Epiphone guitar.

"I was telling Sara about you, why don't you show her?" They both giggled.

"Show her what?"

"Show Sara that pretty dick of yours." They both roared at that. It was rather clear that the two of them were completely stoned, Mike was a bit himself from the contact high.

"You want me to show Sara my cock?" Mike laughed, that sounded funny.

"Yes, I do. Sara has never seen a man jack off before, so I want you to do it for us."

"You have got to be kidding me." Mike protested, but the idea did sound a bit sexy.

Patty persisted, finally Mike undid his jeans and exposed himself. It was all in silly fun, he had already seen Sara nude several times since she thought nothing of changing into a bathing suit or switching blouses right in front of him.

The situation caused him to be hard as a rock, Sara leaned forward grinning. That was erotic, Mike began to stroke himself right in front of the two women.

"God you weren't kidding, it really is perfectly straight." Sara said, staring at what Mike was doing.

"Yea, and he can go twice, sometimes even three times!" Patty bragged. Then they were whispering again, the two of them did that a lot.

"You better lean back, Sara, or you will get some of it on you!" Patty was delirious with laughter now.

Sara didn't lean back. She reached up and wiped a small gob of his sperm off her neck, then stuck it in her mouth.

That nearly floored Mike.

But it was all just some more of Patty's idea of crazy sexy fun.

+++

Mike had to go to work the next day, so he went on in to bed, after asking Patty if she was coming. Even after the kinky thing he had just done, he was in the mood for getting in some lovemaking.

"Sara and I are going to visit for awhile, honey. Then I will be in." Patty told him.

Mike sighed and went on in to bed, he could hear them in there, talking in low tones, giggling.

Mike was almost sound asleep when he felt Patty slide into bed with him. He reached over for her, in the mood. She ducked under the covers and he felt her mouth slide over him, that was odd, it was something she did not like to do very much.

He let out a loud moan, she was really going at it.

Suddenly the light went on.

Mike looked up, still partly in a haze of sleep, there stood Patty. He reached down and jerked the covers back, Sara was naked, her mouth on him.

"What the hell?" He exclaimed, pushing her back. Sara jumped up and ran out of the room.

"What in the fuck are you doing, Mike?" Patty yelled.

"I didn't..what's going on?" Mike was completely dumbfounded, still in a blur of sleep.

There was a flurry of activity, Mike was still struggling to get his pants on when he heard the car start outside.

He came out of the bedroom to find an empty living room.

What in the hell had just happened?

+++

It took Mike three full days to find her, finally he thought of the obvious and went by Sara's apartment and there was the little Honda parked in front.

He went up the steps to the upstairs unit, pounded on the door.

A guy answered, he had no shirt on, just blue jeans.

"Whatcha need, Bud?" He asked.

Mike could smell the cloud of Marijuana smoke, it crossed his mind to reach out for the guy and drag him outside but he knew it wasn't his fault.

"I am looking for Patty." He said.

"Yea, just a minute." He walked down a hallway, said something through the door. Mike looked over and saw Sara sitting on the couch, a frightened look on her face. She was holding her top to her chest.

"Oh, fuck." Mike heard Patty's voice come from inside the bedroom.

"By God I just might dump your cheating ass right in the fucking river!" Mike yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Hey, bud. You better leave." The guy with no shirt on told him, shoving him on the chest.

Mike belted him, the guy went down flat on the floor without a sound.

He turned and walked back down the steps, got into his car and left. This one really was the final straw. Mike tossed and turned that night, finally managing to get to sleep.

He halfway expected cops to arrive but none did.

The next afternoon at work, a man came in and asked for him. Mike looked at the papers the man shoved into his hand in shock.

It was a restraining order, he was not even allowed back inside his own house! The bitch had moved back in and took over, claiming Mike was abusive and she was afraid of him.

+++

The next few days were a whirlwind of activity, Mike met with a lawyer and the situation was explained to him.

He was being charged with having hit Patty, Sara was a witness, along with one of the men that had been there. He did not dare to even try to go home, if he did, he would end up in jail.

Mike found himself living in his car, and at the gas station.

Finally with no other choice, he rented the tiny apartment.

Court did not go all that well, the crabby judge listened to his explanations but he had no proof. Not one shred of proof, Patty had witnesses.

The restraining order was upheld.

Of course they were lying through their teeth but what can a man do about that?

"Getting anywhere with that crap?" Martin asked him one day as Mike worked furiously. He now found that work helped, it kept his mind off the idea of killing people that kept popping into his head.

"Nope, I think I am screwed." Mike told him.

"Yea, well. It will work out eventually." Martin patted his shoulder and headed out to the islands to wait on a customer.

+++

A bit over a month later, Mike opened the mail, looked at his bank statement.

$5,000.00 in overdrafts?

That was when it hit him, he had put her name on the checking account so she could pay the household bills.

Attached to that account was a check guarantee card, each one good for up to $200.00.

Mike's very first act had been to protect his on the small side assets, but he had missed that one simple portion, she had a book of blank checks on their account. Since every check was nearly at the maximum, Patty was obviously running around town cashing checks at every place that would take one.

$5000.00 fucking dollars? No way in hell could he handle that.

He jumped in his car and drove to the bank to close the account, but they refused to do it without her check guarantee card turned in and he could not go near her.

Mike did get them to agree to not issue any more printed checks so at least it would stop when she ran out of them.

The words "completely fucked" now applied.

+++

"You are going to a party." Martin told him after work one evening a couple of days later.

"I don't want to go to any damned party!" Mike growled.

"Shut the fuck up and do what I tell you, you have to be there!" Martin growled. Mike had never seen him quite like this.

"Why?"

"You don't want to know and I am not going to tell you, but trust me, OK? And have fun. Besides, Kathleen will be there."

"Just fucking great." Mike growled.

The party actually was fun, there was at least a dozen people there that Mike knew.

He chatted with Kathleen, she really did look nice and he had liked her, it was just that with his head being into Patty he could not think clearly.

Then some music was playing so Mike danced with her. She felt and smelled good in his arms. Almost to his surprise, he felt himself getting an erection.

With everything that was going on, it had been quite some time since that happened, he had nearly forgotten about sex.

Kathleen noticed, too.

"Do you have a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" She whispered in his ear.

That sounded completely trite, Mike broke up laughing. He led her over to the couch, they sat down. Then he leaned in and kissed her, she met him willingly.

Somehow the room cleared out, everyone else was in the kitchen.

"Let's get out of here." Mike whispered to her.

"OK." Kathleen got a big smile on her face.

+++

"Slow down. We will get there." Kathleen told him at one point as he leaned heavily on the throttle, the big engine howling.

Inside his tiny apartment with her, Mike suddenly felt shy. The breakup they had was not a good time, he was afraid she might think he was taking advantage.

She sensed that, stepped up and kissed him.

"It's all right, I want to be with you, Mike." She whispered.

One thing led to another, and he found himself naked in bed with Kathleen, who certainly seemed to be very willing. He also found her body delightful, another surprise. Not once did his mind make any comparison. It was one of those situations that Mike needed desperately, blind sex with no reservations at all.

All in all, it was a great evening, he even managed to put all of his troubles out of his mind for awhile.

Mike felt much better as he drove her to her own house the next morning. By the time they got there, he was ready to go again since she had been playing with him the entire way.

Mike had barely parked when someone yanked him out of the car, slapped handcuffs on him. There was nothing gentle about it at all, he could hear Kathleen screaming in the background but there was not a thing he could do with his face jammed into the pavement.

The next thing he knew he was in a jail cell with no idea at all of what was going on.

+++

"So why did you go shoot up your house, you could have killed someone?" A burly detective accused him.

"What are you talking about?" Mike told him.

Finally he got enough information to realize that someone had attacked Patty and her friends, there had been gunfire and a horrible scene out there.

It was nearly 24 hours later before Mike was released. Interviews with the people at the party placed Mike there, and Kathleen even admitted blushingly that they had spent a good portion of the evening in Mike's apartment.

Plus after checking, they found that Mike did not even own a firearm, and certainly not one as large as had been used. From the number of rounds that had been fired, someone had used assault rifles.

The part that really upset the police were the flash grenades, at least a half dozen of those had been set off. Whoever had done that the police wanted, and they wanted them very badly.

A drive by shooting was one thing, that happened quite a bit.

This incident had been completely insane, why no one was killed or even injured, they had no idea.

Mike didn't know, either, he was as confused as the police were.

There were a few windows in his house that were not shattered, but most were.

Patty had arrived home with Sara and two men, and spent nearly 10 minutes pinned down as the car they were driving had been riddled with holes.

Three masked men had terrorized, then stripped both Patty and Sara naked after hog tying the two men and leaving them there on the ground.

The two girls had been released, still totally naked, nearly 30 miles out the freeway headed East, left holding onto the center guardrail, blindfolded.

But completely unharmed. When the police arrived, the two women were still screaming, still blindfolded as car poured by, horns blowing.

Whoever had done that to them had warned them that if they let go of the guardrail or removed the blindfolds, they would instantly be killed.

The police also checked out Mike's brother Martin, who had been at home all evening at the party, backed up by everyone there.

The expression on his face was one of amazement, he appeared to have no idea at all of what had happened, either.

The attack had happened at about midnight, Mike had been sitting on the couch with Kathleen at that moment, more than 20 miles away.

Mike was sitting there miserable with his head in his hands when an older cop came in and got him.

There was his lawyer right behind the cop.

"That wife of yours seems to have pissed off the wrong guys I guess, we have quite a report on her. We found almost a pound of Marijuana and some bags of Coke, she has herself a little problem. She tried to tell them it was yours, but you can't even go out there. It looks like she was messing around with some serious drug dealers and damn near got herself fucked up. Anyway, you are free to go." The lawyer grinned at him.

+++

"What in the fuck was all of that?" Mike asked his brother as soon as he got to the shop.

"Beats the hell out of me, hey, I need that set of cylinder heads done right away, OK?" Martin grinned and patted him on the shoulder.

By the end of the next week Mike found out that Patty had left his house and moved, leaving no forwarding address. The restraining order had been dropped.

In the hospital, they had finally drugged her to get her to stop screaming. The rape test kit came back negative.

A detective came by several times asking Mike if he knew where she was, but he honestly had no clue at all. He told them that he knew she smoked dope but had no idea she was so heavily involved in drug activity.

"Yea, they can get pretty fucking clever at hiding things like that." The detective told him.

"We have been touching bases with her Mother, but that one is a piece of work. She claims to have no idea where her daughter went, but we will find her."

"It's OK with me if you don't." Mike told the detective.

The man just laughed and left.

When he and Martin arrived at what was left of his house, the front door was standing open, half the windows in the house had been shattered by bullets.

If the grass on his lawn was any higher, he would need to bale it.

The house had been completely searched from the signs of things strewn everywhere, it really was a fucking mess.

The little Honda car sat there, every window blown out, every tire flat, bullet holes everywhere.

It looked like the entire US Army had hit the place. Four people had spent quite some time pinned down by very heavy gunfire, and the cops had no real clue as to who had done it.

Very likely they had a few clues, but no proof.

Mike found over $11,000.00 in cash in the safe he kept under the bed. Now that was a nice surprise, Patty had apparently been a busy girl with whatever she had been doing.

That would cover the stack of bad checks nicely, he thought.

It was a floor safe, covered by a piece of carpet. It had been left unlocked, nothing in it when he found himself evicted from his own house.

He had found it locked. Obviously the police had looked, but they somehow didn't notice the flap in the carpet that lifted up.

They also hadn't touched the big wooden backed clock in the kitchen, the one that was hollowed out behind it. He found two little baggies of white powder in there, took those outside and dumped them.

It appeared that his wife actually was involved in a lot more than he knew about.

Mike realized she must have put some of the money from cashing checks and whatever else she had been doing into the safe and locked it, forgetting that the key was on Mike's key ring.

Mike wished he had been there when she realized that.

Nothing else in the house was touched, except for the bullet holes, and he saw he was going to need some new bean bag chairs, and one of his lighted signs was shattered by a bullet.

A brand new TV set sat there untouched. Inside his fridge, he found a half case of Bud, popped a couple of them and handed one to Martin.

"Looks like we need to go buy you some windows." Martin grinned at him. They wandered outside to look at the remains of the Honda.

Just then Kathleen drove up. She climbed out, pulled out a broom and dust pan.

She looked wonderful.

"Martin said you needed some help." She smiled at Mike. Then she went inside, began cleaning up.

"Where is Trina?" Mike asked, since her little girl was not with her.

"Tina is baby sitting, we all figured you two might need to talk." Martin said.

Mike nodded.

"That's the one." Martin said flatly.

"What?"

"Grab that one, get your head out of your ass! Hell, she loves you." Martin said.

"Yea, maybe. Just maybe." Mike grinned.

"There is no maybe about it, the way you treated her and she is still here for you?"

"What in the hell happened here, Martin?" Mike asked him, changing the subject. Looking around at the remains of his property, it must have been like a war zone.

"Beats the hell out of me." Martin grinned. He headed for his car to leave, then he turned back.

"You weren't doing very well for yourself with that tramp, so I figured you needed a hand when I saw how she was screwing you over. Anyway, you do remember I was in the Marines?"

He grinned at Mike, Mike grinned back.

"Good bunch, they can hit what they want to and miss what they want to."

There was no need to say anything more.

Martin got in his car and left. Mike shook his head.

That part he now had figured out.

He thought of Patty for a moment, then shrugged. He knew what she was, the insanity was over. There were still some loose ends, to hell with it. He would deal with that later.

Inside the remains of his house was Kathleen, there to help out. He knew he liked her, but did he love her?

He didn't know for sure, but what the hell.

It was time, maybe he now had his head out of his ass?

Kathleen came out on the porch, dumped a dustpan of broken glass into a trash can. Mike looked up at her from across his overgrown lawn. She was beautiful, mature, a real woman.

"She loves you." Martin had told him.

Blue jeans and a white T-shirt, her clearly bra less breasts pressing the cloth outward.

Kathleen saw his look, a slow smile crossed her lips. She turned and went inside, looking over her shoulder.

Beautiful. Mike knew an invitation when he saw one.

Did he love her? There was only one way to find out, Mike thought as he trotted towards the house.