Roy's Bachelor Party

Then she asked, "What about you? You're not married? You didn't like just remove your ring before coming here?" Her foot kicked him under the table.

"No," he said, "I was married, but it didn't work out."

"Hey, let's dance."

"Don't you get tired of it?"

"Dancing, never."

She dragged him up, and unlike in the dream, his dancing remained crap. All he knew to do was bop up and down. She didn't seem to mind. She moved about him, lovely and tender, many of the guys watching the performer, the red haired girl - he wondered if her name really was Chris, in his bemused state, things bleeding from his dream into life wouldn't surprise him - many of the guys turned to look at them, well at Heather. He flushed feeling all the more oafish and awkward. What was he doing with this girl?

They sat back at their table. She gulped down another ginger ale and he forced himself to sip another beer. He wanted to touch her, to bend to her and speak into her ear and ask her to come home with him. He thought she would. Why else would she sit with him? Put up with his dancing even? That was more than his wife'd done. What a miracle this was, he thought.

Inaction and keeping quiet, those were his only defences.

She looked at his face as if waiting for him to make a move. She looked thoughtful, then she smiled, "You're really not such a bad guy. I'm off to the ladies room."

She seemed to be gone just a moment. The beer was affecting his senses. Then she was back.

Her cell rang, she had just the slightest of purses, slung over a shoulder. She answered it. "I can't hear!" she shouted. She bent and shielded it as best she could. She shouted, "Shit," then, "Thanks for calling Mom. I'll lie low. And Mom! If he gets bad? Call 911!" She shut the phone.

She leaned toward him. "My Dad, he's been drinking. It really bothers him where I work. What I do. Normally he's OK. But when he drinks, he gets real mad. He blames himself and he gets all fucked up. Last time he was like this? when I came home he got violent. He started throwing stuff around. Told me I had to quit. Then he called me a slut and would've slugged me but he started crying first.

"I'll need to find someplace to crash."

"Your mom will be alright?"

"It's me that really sets him off. Shit. I can't stay with Chris. She's just got a hot new boyfriend. I'll try a couple girlfriends." She used her phone but got no pickups, she left messages.

"Shit," she said. "I'll just sleep in my car in the parking lot."

"I have a spare room," he heard himself say, "You can use it."

"You wouldn't mind? Shit that would be super. I promise I won't like molest you in your sleep or anything."

She saw his face and then laughed, "Just trying to joke. I'm really grateful. I'm on now. I'll dance just for you!"

He watched her on the stage in a daze. When the waitress came by he ordered his first shot.

Later he waited for her out in the parking lot. He propped himself up by leaning against the gritty cement wall. The night was quiet compared to the night before, no lunatic was putting on a drunken show. Cars streamed along the highway. The neon lights promised "Exotic dancing". He saw a side door swing open and Heather blossomed out of it. She was dressed as yesterday: hoodie, this time with her head free, jeans and the inevitable flip flops. As she walked down between the line of parked cars and the wall, the night seemed to be cleansed, the fumed air seemed to freshen. She came up to him and calmly said, "This is so nice of you. Where's your car? Mine's over there? I'll like follow you?"

He straightened. He felt tired and light headed and dizzy. He put a hand on her shoulder and would have collapsed stupidly to his knees if she hadn't supported him.

"Whoa. You're in no condition to drive," she paused in thought. "Look, I'll drive you in your car. I'll get Mom or a friend to drive me back here tomorrow." She reached into his pocket to find his keys. Her hand brushed his cock which did not seem to share his collapsed state. It stirred eagerly. "Whoa," she said in a different tone. "Just looking for your keys." She found them in his other pocket. She put an arm around his waist and they tottered in the direction of his car. He was painfully aware of how good she felt against him. He forced himself to straighten and steer for where his Corolla was parked.

She slid the driver's seat way forward. He watched her fiddle with the wheel and get the car started. She stopped the car at the parking lot's exit to the highway.

"It was east last night, so I'm guessing it's still east?"

They turned right onto the highway.

"It's kinda lucky my Dad getting so drunk and mean," she observed with a grin. "I'd hate to think of you trying to drive in your state."

The air flowed over his face from the window. He felt a bit better. He watched the strip malls and car dealerships and bars flow past. He spotted the one with empty derelict box store, its "145,000 sq feet to lease" sign visible in the night. It sent a jolt through him but of course it lay dark and deserted. He looked anywhere but at the hot little girl who drove with such efficiency, timing the lights, changing lanes to avoid cars turning left or right.

As he often did, he made a list in his mind. Since he was drunk, he addressed it to Joan.

"Hey," was her imagined complaint in his head, "I'm asleep."

"And I'm talking to you in your sleep," he imagined, "I'm working on a list of the pros and cons of sleeping with this girl."

"Feel free to bend my ear, as long as it doesn't disturb my rest"

"First, she's very beautiful, that's both a plus and a minus. I'm crazy with desire, but she scares me. She's way out of my league. If I had a lover, I'd be far better off with someone comfortable."

"Like me," said Joan sadly in his head, but he didn't hear.

"Second, she's very young. The thought of what she would be like in bed! But the converse is, she's young enough to be my daughter. I thought earlier maybe she was my daughter."

"You have a daughter?" his head Joan asked. He cursed his mind for its faithfulness to reality. He'd never mentioned his wife and daughter or what'd happened to anyone at work. He kept the knowledge tightly bound in himself. His parents were now dead and he never saw or communicated with his sister.

"Yes, but I'll explain about that later. She couldn't be my daughter, she looks nothing like me or my wife. And realistically I know that my daughter, my Kaitlin, must be dead. Why else has she never been found? She could not turn up the adopted daughter of largely decent middle class parents? There are too many regulations and safeguards and shit around adoption." He stared out the window a moment, they had a couple miles at least yet to go before the first turn. Whenever a news story cropped up about some ghastly pervert who did something like keep his daughter or some girl in his basement, fathering children on her, he'd feel sick and wonder if that had been and worse still was his daughter's fate.

He felt the girl's hand on his thigh, it brought him out of his despair. "You asleep over there? You gotta tell me when to turn."

"Another mile. There'll be a Kroger's and a Walmart's and you turn right. It's Rt 39."

Her hand remained in his lap.

Resolutely he continued his list. It kept him from thinking of responding. "Third? Yes third. I think it might be good for me." He had a sudden memory of the old woman in the dream, telling him to be a man. "I think it might release something in me. I think a night of good, well great, sex might shake me out of my rut. The life I'm living is a circle of self-feeding depression. I think I'm going crazy. The other side of this is: suppose I'm crap? I must be completely different from her usual boyfriends. So old, so laden with baggage. Not a guy with just maybe a carry-on bag like she's used to. Suppose I can't even perform? Given how turned on I feel now, there doesn't seem to be much chance of that, but just suppose?"

"And what about her? Why is she doing this? Maybe she doesn't want sex at all? Just a place to crash? Her hand gives the lie to that. Christ. She must just want a night of uncomplicated sex. She has her life mapped out, that'll be some dance studio she runs! That's what I want too! A night of fucking then a friendly good by. But how will I feel? Will I find myself hanging about at the club? A miserable nuisance of a laughing stock?"

Way ahead he saw the Walmart sign. "What about the honest reason?" his imaginary Joan asked, "You just want to fuck her."

"The other side of that is?" he asked, but they were nearing the turn. "That light up there, turn right" he said aloud. He felt surprised by the sound of his voice, how calm it seemed. Then in his head he said, "Go on with your sleep Joan. You've been no help at all."

He told her the turns and they seemed to fly down the increasingly smaller quieter streets until they came to his little house. It was older and small. Built at a time when they wanted to get as many houses onto an acre as possible because people didn't have so much leverage and much of the land was still used for farming. It had a short drive, its asphalt cracked and rippled with age, and a carport. A tree stood in front, a dogwood, tallish for a dogwood, and in the light of the streetlight you could see its pale blooms. The postage sized front lawn and the one story house itself looked unkempt, like he didn't care. Some of the grass was tall enough to go to seed and the house's paint, colorless in the streetlight, was peeling in places.

She parked in the carport. "You need help?" she asked.

"I'll see," he said. He felt anger at himself for seeming such an invalid. He got out and stood. He swayed a bit then was OK. "No I'm alright," he said.

"Here," she handed the keys back to him and he opened the door.

They stepped into his compact little kitchen. He thought that now was the time. His eyes met hers. He should take her and kiss her. He couldn't tell now if she'd welcome it or not, now that the kitchen light lit him plainly. Probably not. He felt old and tired. She was his guest. "I'll show you the guest room," he said, "And get some towels."

She laughed a throaty sort of laugh. "I may need the towels later, but not the guest room."

She leaned against him and though everything in their dance together had been leading to this, he still felt the shock of amazement. He felt her face against his chest. Soon he knew it would turn up and he would kiss her.

She stiffened. He saw that she was staring at the calendar on his wall. The next day, Sunday, today in fact, he thought, was blacked out. He blacked out that day every year when he hung the new calendar. He didn't want to forget. Below the calendar, on a bulletin board, were the baby pictures. They were not old. He'd scanned them, they'd been taken before digital cameras, and he printed them again when they looked frayed. He looked at them now. He didn't have the strength to explain them to her.

He just held her. After a moment, she pushed herself from him. "You'll think me like an awful tease," she said in voice that showed real exhaustion, "But I'm suddenly so tired. Maybe that guest room would be best." She rose on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

"Sure," he said, he tried but failed to keep the regret from his tone.

He showed her the room. He showed her the bathroom. "There's just the one," he said, "I'll let you go first." He gave her his bathrobe. He sat on his bed feeling drained and stupid while he heard the exhaust fine whine, the toilet flush, then the sounds of the shower. He felt how badly he wanted her.

His head was starting to ache. He went back to the kitchen and drank several glasses of water. He thought of taking an aspirin, but didn't because his stomach was so empty. He was going back down the hall when she came out. His bathrobe was so big on her she looked like a child playing dressup in her Dad's things. It could've held 2 or three of her.

She paused at the guest room door. "You are very sweet, I'll see you in the morning." The door closed.

He stood there for a time. If he acted, if he was a man, he could be fucking her in a minute. She might complain and resist a bit, but not much, he thought. He sighed heavily and went into the bathroom and did his bedtime chores. When he stretched on his bed, he thought it would be impossible to sleep, but he was so exhausted he passed out in an instant.

After half an hour of silence, his slow heavy snores seemed to fill the little house. She rose and crossed the hall and slipped into his room. Light from the streetlight outside worked its way through the curtains. She'd turned a light on in the guest room so light also slipped through the door. She could see him where he sprawled on his back. "I could still do it," she whispered to herself. She went to him and lifted the covers gently and looked at his cock, hardly hidden by his pajamas. It had the erection men get in their sleep. "If he wakes, I'll go down on him," her voice was barely more than breath.

He remained oblivious to the world.

With a sigh she let the covers drop back. She went to his dresser and quietly went through the drawers. In the top one she found a single photo. It lay under miscellaneous shoe laces and nameless crap. It was the picture of a family. There was a man, recognizably his younger self, a large soft looking awkward woman, and a dolled up baby. She stared at it for some time.

Silently she poked through his closet, then searched in the living room, then in the connected dining area, in a bottom drawer with unused candlesticks, she found the albums of photos. Each had a neat magic markered label. She paid no attention to: "Our trip to Barbados,", "Our first visit to my parents", "Wedding", "Honeymoon (France!)", "My family photos". She took the one marked "Tom's family photos (he was such a cute little boy!)" and sat cross-legged on the wood floor and leafed through it. There was one of him on a trike. There was one of him at maybe 5, with an older sister, a dad, and a small athletic woman, the mother, wearing a white hat, all dressed up, for Easter?, a church stood in the background across an expanse of grass. Then she came to a picture a bunch of high school girls in gym clothes, behind them was a banner that read, "1976 Girl's Gymnastic Champions". She scanned the faces. She bit her lip. Another picture showed the sister standing by the parallel bars. The girl wasn't as beautiful as she, but there was no doubting the close resemblance, the same taut slim frame, the same blond hair, the same delicate nose, the same small breasts that barely showed against her jersey. She stared at the picture. Then she leafed the rest of the way through. She carefully removed the five pictures with the sister in them where the resemblance was inescapable. Then she put the albums back.

She went back to the guest room. She put the stolen pictures in her purse, then shed the ridiculously large bathrobe. She dressed with economical speed, panties, jeans, knit top, no bra, and hoodie.

She looked dry eyed around at the little guest room. It could've been a nice bedroom for a growing girl. She thought of the past that had never been and the future that never would be.

She picked up her flip flops and returned to the kitchen. There she sat, still and composed, waiting for morning.

------------------------------------

He woke to the smell of pancakes and bacon. He had difficulty for a moment sorting out how that could be. Then he hurriedly dressed, used the bathroom and went to the kitchen.

Heather stood by the kitchen door, a mug of coffee in her hand. "Hey," she said with a smile. "Glad you're up. I was just about to write a thankyou note and tell you to look in the oven for your breakfast. Chris's coming by in a minute to take me to my car."

"Sit down and eat please! I really wanted to see you enjoy my little thankyou. I'll pour you some juice and coffee."

He watched her as she moved confidently about his kitchen. She was so fresh and trim and beautiful.

"Sit!" she ordered and he did. He gulped some juice and took a bite of the pancakes. They were excellent. Where had she found the chocolate chips? They'd have to be 20 years old he thought! He felt a wave of hunger.

She watched as he ate ravenously. Then there came the toot of a horn. "See you," she said. She opened the door and paused, "You are the sweetest guy. I'm so glad I met you." Then she was gone.

He jumped up and watched her flip flop down the drive. On the street was a red sporty little car. The little redhead leaned against it impatiently. She wore black sunglasses.

He heard Heather's clear voice say, "Take 'em off, let's have a look."

Chris did. Her round face sported a huge black eye. She wouldn't be dancing for a while.

Heather laughed and said, "Just look at you!"

They climbed into the car. He watched as Heather took her own sunglasses from her purse. They made her look untouchable and remote. She looked straight ahead and did not turn his way as the car's tires squealed and it shot down the street far faster than was safe for such a little residential street on which children played.

He sat back down and finished his breakfast and drank his first mug of coffee. He felt better than he had in years. Dissipation agreed with him, he thought.

He took out his cell and called Joan. "Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself. You calling from jail this time?"

"Nope. They couldn't catch me. I was too fast for them. What I want to know is whether you and your son", he couldn't remember the boy's name, "Would like to go for a hike today. The weather's beautiful. I thought we could go to Cold River State Park."

Her end was silent.

"There's a river there," he said, suddenly feeling stupid and presumptuos.

"I imagine there is," she said.

"I haven't been there in years," he said, "But it was real pretty."

There was more considering silence, then, "Jason's got soccer this morning. His Dad's coming by in a minute to pick him up. Kiddy soccer is man's work in my opinion. He's going to hang onto him for the rest of the day so sure, I'd love to."

He got her address, he knew she lived two towns away, but hadn't known the street. He agreed to be by in an hour.

"Hey," she said, "You hear that the wedding is back on?"

"Is it? That's great."

"Linda credits you. You feature largely in her tweets."

"All I did was email Roy. I said he ought to do anything to straighten things out, even..." he paused. "He didn't."

"Yep," said Joan with enjoyment, "He did. He got 2 chain type bicycle locks, he left their keys in his apartment and he got one of the few members of the bachelor party crew who was not grounded or behind bars to go to her parents' house. He knew she was there because he was following her tweets. Half were like: 'I'm crying my eyes out in my mom's kitchen.' The others: 'I hate Roy's guts.'

"He got his friend to chain him to a tree in her front yard. That was on the lines of your suggestion right? You said, 'get her back even if you have to handcuff yourself to her ankles.' He went further. He ordered singing telegrams to come on the half hour to express his sorrow and remorse. They were all: "I'm so sorry, Linda darling" to the tune of the old Paul McCartney thing. Linda says in her tweets that she forgave her bad boy right away, but didn't go out for 2 hours in order to teach him a lesson. Then because she didn't trust her father with a hack saw around him, she called the fire department to cut him loose."

"Wow," he said.

"Just a second," she said, "Jason's on his way out." After a moment she was back. "That wasn't all the excitement either. I really ought to wait to tell you in person, but it's really too good. They made up and went back to his place. Then who should show up there at 2 in the morning? None other than the little redhaired thing? Linda tweets that she really lost it. She slugged the slut and kicked her and then pushed her down the apartment stairs. Then she was going to take the bicycle chains to Roy, but he managed to convince her that he'd had no contact with the girl and wanted none ever again. That he didn't even have her number. Linda tweets that she kinda believes him, but says she's hanging onto the chains just in case."