Turn Back Time

"I never got another chance to speak to Denton. Since there were no alimony payments either way, I had no contact with him. I did find out that a few weeks after our divorce was final, Denton had thrown himself even further into his work and gotten a big promotion and a huge raise. Meanwhile, I was out of work.

Apparently bad news travels at the speed of light while good news travels like a snail. It had taken years of Den busting his ass for his bosses to realize how good he was and promote him. But within only days of me being fired, no law firm in town would hire me. Most of them weren't coy about it either. They did subtle things like throw my application and resume in the trash can while I was still sitting there. Or they'd ask if the next candidate was someone they might actually hire while still interviewing me. One guy actually asked if he could try me out sexually as part of the interview because his needs were probably similar to my old bosses and he wanted to see if we were a good fit."

"After a few months of that, I packed all of my stuff and moved here. Denton sent my parents a check to give to me when the house sold. What pisses me off to this date is the fact that they still invite him to Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner every year. They find out whether or not he can make it and then invite me if he can't. When my brother in law died in a car crash a few years ago, they tried to hook Denton up with my God damned sister. Fuck them."

"Once I moved here, I tried to get a job in my old field, but every time they looked into my employment history, well let's just say that opportunity wasn't beating a path to my doorway. After almost a year, I'd blown through most of my savings and I knew I had to get a job doing something. Anything was better than running out of money and having to go crawling back to my parents."

"Maybe it wasn't them, I started to realize. Maybe if I'd been honest with them from the start things would have ended better. But more than anything else I wish I never met Bryant. I started out here in the hotel about seven years ago. I guess you know the rest."

Dulce just looked at me. "Why the fuck didn't you just move on and get over the guy?" she asked.

I could tell by her tone that she now understood just how hopeless this all was. "Shit," she said. "Honey you hurt him bad. Men have this pride that just doesn't let them get over shit like that. And the more they love you, the worse it is. It's almost like your pussy becomes theirs. So when you're thinking of it as just you having sex with some guy other than them, they see it as a violation of not only your body but their own and they see it as you breaking your marriage vows. Of course, when they do it they're just getting some strange and it doesn't mean anything."

"Some guys are different though," she said. "Unfortunately, it sounds like you had one of the good ones."

"Why is that bad?" I asked.

"Because Honey, he probably never would have cheated on you, ever. He loved you too much. So when you did it to him, he just couldn't understand it. You doing what you did, under any circumstances simply told him that you didn't love him the way he did you and you never had. That's a rough blow for any guy's ego to absorb."

"So it's hopeless huh?" I asked.

"Yep, sorry," she said. "WE need to just find you a new guy. And YOU need to make sure you don't do that again. Good guys are hard to find. You were lucky to find one like that once. You may have to lower your standards a bit."

"Don't worry about it," I said.

"Oh, so you're so desperate for some dick that you're in a hurry to get back out there, huh?" she said. "Now we're talking. I've got a bunch of guys to set you up w..." She stopped when she saw me shaking my head.

"No, Dulce, that's not what I meant," I said. "What I meant was there's still only one guy I want. And I'm not desperate for dick. I need more than that. I need love, Dulce. I need my Den back. No one else will do."

She sighed and looked at me. "Well alrighty then," she said. "Let's start trying to get him back then."

"I thought you said it was hopeless," I sniffled.

"There's this old Mexican proverb," she began.

"Not another one," I groaned. She nodded and smiled. I took a big gulp of my drink and looked at her. "Okay, let's hear it."

She looked at me sweetly and said, "You're never too old to try something stupid."

The rest of our meal was rushed since we only had forty five minutes for lunch and we'd burned eight of those driving the three blocks in Dulce's death trap car. I felt good, well at least hopeful for the first time in so long I didn't want to think about it.

When we got back to the hotel I was just about to pick another room from the board and start cleaning it when one of the security men told me that someone was waiting in my office. I turned and headed back the other way. All kinds of things were going through my mind. Was the person male or female? Shit, I should have asked. It could be anyone.

It was probably Bertie, she'd come to her fucking senses and wanted to beg for her job back or start some shit. If the person was male, he could be Ernie, back for more clarification on his cheating ex. Or it could be that asshole from this morning, coming in to either threaten me or hit on me. Of course it could be Denton, coming back to check on me. That thought both quickened my pace and made me weaker in the knees at the same time. It was strange how even after all this time he brought out the strongest reactions possible in me.

Shit, Denton could always get to me. Shit was also what I smelled as I got closer to my office. In fact the whole hallway smelled like it. It was like some asshole just dropped a shit bomb on the hotel and ground zero was my office. I noticed that at least half of my maids were gathered outside of my office giggling and smiling like a bunch of fucking schoolgirls.

Didn't I have enough problems? I was already faced with having to replace Bertie or expect the other maids to clean her share of the rooms. That wouldn't be as hard as it sounded though because Bertie rarely came close to cleaning her share. The God awful fecal odor only got worse the closer I came to my office. How the hell could those women stand it?

I shooed them out of my way and stepped into my office where the smell was if anything, stronger. Suddenly it no longer mattered. It was like some maternal switch in my brain simply turned off my olfactory receptors. Sitting there in the chair by my desk was another cow, an old friend, the answer to my problem and my heart's desire all rolled into one and a half people.

Anya Smith was a Russian woman who'd worked here at the hotel for a couple of years. She had long limp blonde hair and big innocent eyes. Yep, like Bertie she was another cow. But she was a special kind of cow. She was one of those rare cows who could keep their legs closed. At least until she met the right bull. Anya was a bigger girl and a very hard worker. She had huge...nah I'm understating it...titanic boobs and the rest of her was proportionate. I have never seen a harder worker in my life.

I had to hire two maids to replace her when she left. She met a guest, Jack Smith, who fell head over heels in love with her. He asked her out a few times and we all thought that he was just fucking around with her to get into her giant bra. We all figured that he was just another sleaze ball and eventually he'd get what he wanted and all she'd have left would be some shitty memories and a slime trail in her panties. Boy, were we surprised when she told us they were getting married. About a year after they got married, Anya had to quit because she got pregnant.

But now here she was and she'd brought the baby in with her. He was so tiny and just the absolute cutest baby you'd ever see. For a fleeting moment I considered knocking Anya in the head and taking him. I think my maternal clock had started its final countdown towards desperation mode. Only three things prevented me from doing it. First was the fact that there were too many witnesses present. Second and most importantly, if I did have a baby I'd really want it to be mine and Den's. And lastly Anya is a really big fucking cow. She'd probably hurt me if I tried it.

There she was cooing to the little bundle of joy and handing him to me. Why the hell was she calling me his auntie Blanche? That was it, my heart just melted.

"Blanche, I am ready to come back to work if it is possible," Anya said.

"Perfect," I replied. "I had to let someone go this morning. You can start tomorrow." I spent another half hour or so smiling and cuddling the baby, while breathing in a large enough volume of shit fumes to singe all of the hair out of my nostrils. The afternoon didn't help me come up with a plan but it did give me yet another reason why I needed my husband back.

"What did you used to look like?" asked Dulce as we clocked out. I thought about it as we walked through the hotel and into the lobby.

"Well my hair was shorter and cut differently," I said. "I think that even though I'm older now, I'm in better shape than I was in back then. I guess it's because I don't eat as much and I burn off a lot of my excess energy doing those exercise videos every fucking night."

"Okay, that's the first thing," she said. "We have to go and get your hair cut the way you used to wear it."

"Nuh unh," I said. "I think that would be a mistake. I don't want him to remember me the way I was. I don't want him to think back and see the whore I became. I want him to see me as an older, more mature woman who is really sorry for the mistakes she made back then. I want him to see that I'm different from that woman and that if he gives me another chance I'll cherish every second we have together for the rest of our lives. I don't want to put any pressure on him, but I'd probably start out by being extremely honest with him." Dulce's eyes got bigger. I was sure that it was because she wasn't used to hearing me talk this frankly about my innermost feelings but fuck it. She was my best friend, if I couldn't spill my guts to her, who was there?

"I'd say Den; I fucked up badly our first time together. But I'd never do it again. All of the things that we wanted to do and to have together, I still want. And Denton, I still want them with you. I'd look him straight in the eye and tell him that in order for us to have some of those things though, he needed to step up to the plate and knock me up right away, because neither of us was getting any younger. I'd tell him that we'd probably, or at least I'd probably need some practice because I haven't been with anyone since he left me. Maybe I'd tell him about all of those stupid jokes you and the other girls make about how dry my pussy is, or how I should send it back because it hasn't been used." Dulce was covering her eyes and looking at the floor.

"You're right Dulce," I said. "That would be the worst possible thing to say to him. Maybe I could do it with a song, like that fucking Cher song. I should just walk up to him and say, Denton....If I could turn back time. If I could find a way, I'd take back all those things that hurt you and you'd stay. If I could reach the stars, I'd give them all to you. And you'd love me, like you used to do. If I could turn back time."

"Ah who am I kidding? My ass is too big to be running around on a ship in thong and black stockings."

I noticed that Dulce was positively shaking and making weird motions with her head like something was wrong.

"What the fuck is wrong with you Dulce?" I asked her, before continuing my rant. "I've got it. I have to get him a card. Does Hallmark mark a card that says, "Denton I fucked up once, but I still love you? I've never loved anyone except you and I'd do anything, anything for another chance?" Dulce had slumped down into a chair and was just shaking her head.

"You know what the worst part of all of this is Dulce?" I asked. She shook her head and wouldn't look me in the eye. "It's the fact that I can stand here and say all of this to you, but there's no way I could ever tell him any of this. So the man that I love most will probably live out the rest of his life, he'll probably find some other woman to be with who won't love him half as much as I do. That's the worst part Dulce. I'll never be able to tell him."

"You already did," she said in a very quiet voice.

"What do you mean?" I asked loudly.

"I mean he's been standing behind you the whole fucking time," she said. I very slowly turned around. My neck only moved fractions of an inch per second. I was praying with every fiber of my being that Dulce was pulling my fucking leg.

You know how in moments of great stress or embarrassment we think about the stupidest fucking things? At that moment the thing that was going through my mind was a line from that classic three stooges show. "Niagara Falls, slowly I turned." I was moving that damned slow. My eyes did settle on a pair of men's shoes. Then I followed the shoes upwards until they became legs, then a torso and finally a face. And yep, it was Denton's face, the face that I'd loved for most of my life. The same face that I still wanted to spend the rest of my life waking up next to and kissing.

My own face turned at least forty three different shades of red in under a second. The room got so hot I could barely breathe. My brain refused to activate. It was as if I'd had a stroke. My heart stopped beating. Blood stopped moving through my arteries and veins. If this had been one of those classic cartoons that I grew up with like the Flintstones, I'd have shrank down to only a few inches tall and escaped through one of the cracks in the floor. Unfortunately this was real life and my embarrassment was so total that I wanted to die.

I did what any sane woman would have done in that situation. I booked. In less than the blink of an eye I was out of there. I left both Denton and Dulce standing there awkwardly. I didn't give a fuck what they did or said to each other. My only goal was to end the embarrassment by extricating my ass from the situation ASAP.

I was lucky that God looks out for little kids and stupid people, because Mario Andretti couldn't have caught me driving home. But with the good Lord's protection I didn't die or go to jail, so scant moments later I was in my crappy apartment. I was sitting in the dark, wearing a giant sweatshirt and nothing else. I had my knees up and I was sipping a big ass cup of Lipton's tea and waiting for the tears to start falling.

What is it about that man that won't let me move on from him? I know that I fucked up. I know that despite the circumstances, I was to blame. The responsibility for what happened was all mine. I'd come to terms with it years ago. Bryant might have been a scumbag. He did ply me with liquor and over a period of time he gradually moved me into something that I should have never allowed to happen. But it was still my fault. The first time that I got drunk and ended up in bed with him, I should have quit working for him. I should have told Denton what happened and how and begged his forgiveness. But I was too proud.

I also let Bryant convince me with all of his bullshit about how I should handle things. I actually tried all that bullshit about being strong. Yeah I was strong, too strong to say that I was sorry, or so I thought. But what I really WAS was stupid. Denton was the strong one. He was so strong that he just stuck to his guns and left me behind. And in his wake he took down Bryant and even the law firm.

After the investigation into my fling with Bryant, the law firm was found only guilty of misdemeanor negligence in monitoring the conduct of its associates, nothing more. But the whispers and rumors of impropriety dented the firm's reputation and over the next couple of years all of the more talented lawyers moved to other firms. It was like they were standing next to someone who was taking a shit and they didn't want to get splashed. Eventually the firm folded.

The last I heard, Bryant was divorced and living in an even crappier apartment than mine. His wife was beautiful. Far better looking than I am or will ever be. She was one of those high society types. She wasted no time hooking up with another lawyer and marrying him. Bryant's kids call another guy daddy now while he slaves away for minimum wage at a fucking seven eleven. His own father blames him for ruining the firm and cutting way down on his retirement funds.

The bastard deserves everything he got. And I do too. In a way I wish that Denton had found someone else and moved on with his life. He above everyone else in this little drama deserves to be happy. I am glad he didn't take my parents' machinations seriously and end up with my fucking sister though. That would just be too awful. I think I'd have to kill her. I fell asleep on my couch thinking about murdering my own sister and other cheerful thoughts.

The next morning I woke up early and went in to work early too. I thought I'd probably need some extra time to get Anya situated. I needn't have bothered. She fit right back in like she'd never been gone.

I was scrupulously avoiding the public areas of the hotel. I was even taking my cart up and down the back stairs. I'd heard from a few of my girls that Denton was only in town for some kind of convention. He owned his own business now and he usually sent someone else to attend the convention each year, but this year the guy's wife was pregnant so Denton had to come himself.

Okay, I'm sure everyone knows what I was thinking and you're right. I was thinking, God damn it everyone is pregnant except me. Just as I was considering drowning my sorrows in a stiff glass of apple juice, I heard a voice from behind me.

"Come on dummy, we have to go to the cafeteria, now." I turned and looked at Dulce. She was still my best friend despite the embarrassing things I do.

"Hey Dulce," I smiled. "Sorry about yesterday. I just had to get out of there."

She nodded and smiled back. There's that thing about best friends again. Just her smile told me that she understood everything. "Uhm Blanche, I'm gonna have to cut you off from the old Mexican proverbs," she smirked. "You take them too literally."

"Okay," I said. "Kick me while I'm down. I deserve it."

"Nope," she smiled. "What you really deserve is to know what happened after you left yesterday. And you really deserve to get this guy back. He really is a nice guy, Blanche. But we don't have time to talk right now. My private network of spies, who are also known as the rest of the maids, have told me that he usually has breakfast soon."

"Ooh let's go," I said. "Perhaps stalking our quarry in the wild will give us information on tactics we could use to trap the elusive beast." I thought I sounded just like that British guy on those wildlife adventure shows.

"Why the fuck are you talking like that?" she asked. "Jeezus, I can't take you anywhere."

We scurried (yep I used the word scurried. Shit it's what they did) down the back stairs and came out near the cafeteria. Denton was sitting alone near the door. He probably just wanted a light breakfast before heading over to his convention or whatever it was.

Lupe, one of the waitresses, was serving him. She was pulling all of the tricks. She was smiling at him with her incandescent smile. The darkness of her skin against the whiteness of her teeth made the smile even brighter. She was leaning against him and trying to touch him every chance she got. I heard a growling sound and didn't realize it was me until Dulce slapped me on the back my head.

"Sorry Dulce," I said. "That bitch is pissing me off."

"Blanche, she doesn't know that you like him and he is kind of cute for an older guy. It's also understandable for you to be jealous, but just fuck her up, don't fire her. She has three kids and a lazy assed hillbilly boyfriend to support."