Babysitter Denouement

When I told Kylie, she said, "Next time, wake me up and I'll take care of your stress."

"It would have been a good idea," I admitted, "but I wasn't thinking that clearly."

"I didn't know thinking was required," she smirked, rubbing her hands along the bulge in my pants.

Tuesday was much like Monday except that it included a visit to the lawyer to write up a new will. As these things go, it was a long visit. Instead of leaving everything to Lori, the new will left everything in trust to Hope and Joy until Joy turned 21, at which time the principal was to be split equally between them. My parents were to be the trustees. Maybe it was a little premature, but I wanted to be certain it was in full effect as soon as the divorce was finalized—and with the information I had, I had no doubt that the divorce proceedings would go my way.

Tuesday night, I sat down at my desk to finish just one more task before heading to bed, where Kylie was waiting for me—and fell asleep. When Kylie came and got me, I was completely disoriented and possibly delirious. Once again I collapsed into bed and fell asleep with her arms wrapped around me. At least that time I slept through until morning.

All of which is to say, Wednesday morning, I was in no shape to drive. Kylie was oddly distracted all morning, but she caught that. She informed me that she would be taking care of Hope and Joy, that she would be back later, and that I should go take a walk to clear my head. I did, and while I was out I called a pastor friend of mine who always seems to be a help in those moments.

If it seems odd to you that I had—and still have—a friend who's a pastor, it seemed odd to me, too, at first. I met him doing research and was quite surprised to find that I thoroughly enjoyed his company—and that I learned a lot from him. He's another one with Edwin Friedman's books on his shelves, and books on the Enneagram, and other things of that sort. We talk about what he believes, but he's a humble man with a sardonic wit, so it never feels presumptuous or demanding. He's more interested in asking questions... and he has a knack for the sort of uncomfortable ones that go right to the heart of things. He hit me with a couple that morning, though, that were actually reassuring. (No, I'm not going to tell you what they were—not in print, anyway. In person, maybe, but not in print.)

I was feeling better when I got home, though still drained. I was operating on autopilot, not really paying attention to my surroundings, until I heard my wife ask, "It's all over, isn't it?"

My head snapped around in utter astonishment to see her sitting on the couch. Her voice sounded grey and desolate as the ash of Mordor, but I didn't fully register it then. "What the fuck are you doing here?!" I asked, stunned.

"I have a key," Lori responded with dry irony. "I do still live here," she added, her voice suddenly plaintive. "Not for much longer, I realize, but you're too good a man to change the locks on me—or the code on the garage door, I expect."

I muttered something at that. Her tone was far too flat for me to believe she was actually mocking me intentionally, but whenever I've actually had to change the code on the garage-door opener, it's always taken me hours. I have no idea why.

"But that's not what matters," Lori continued. "It's all dead, isn't it? Nothing to do but go through the pockets for loose change... "

I surprised myself with a snort of laughter as my eyes filled with tears; I saw the ghost of Lori's smile. Then I said, "Yeah," and grabbed a chair. She closed her eyes and went perfectly still for a few moments.

"I wish I could say all the stereotypical things about how I can make it up to you and I'll never do it again if you just take me back," she said after a moment, her voice thick with pain and loss and grief. "But I can't." I started to speak but she held up her hand; I let her keep the floor.

"For one thing, I know I've ruined us far too thoroughly for that," Lori confessed. Her eyes were closed, so she didn't see my nod of agreement. "My affair wasn't just a brief fling—and it wasn't the whole story by a long shot."

"Oh?" I couldn't help asking.

"There's also the way I treated you when I was home," she continued, though something about her manner made me think that wasn't all she meant. "I hated myself, I hated what I was doing, what I was becoming, but not enough to stop—so I took it out on you. I took it all out on you. You never deserved it, never deserved anything but my love and loyalty—you were the only man who ever treated me like his beloved, and I cheated on you with the worst man I've ever known, and then turned back around and dumped all the poison of that on your head. Screwed-up twisted human psychology at its worst."

I nodded. "This is starting to make sense."

"Rob, it probably makes more sense to you than it does to me," Lori replied, her voice strained. "You understand so much more... But that's not the only reason I couldn't promise you I'd never do it again." She paused and took several deep, slow breaths before saying, her voice hollow with anguish, "I couldn't make that promise because I don't think I could keep it."

I sat back in my chair feeling like I'd just taken a baseball bat to the face. What?! "I'm not the woman I was—not the woman you married—not the woman I wanted to be—want to be," Lori said. "Partly I've done it to myself—all the things I did changed me—but I started changing first... it's why I did all those things. I don't know why. The way Dick treated me sexually should have repulsed and disgusted me—and it still did, but it also made me incredibly horny and made me cum incredibly hard, it made me crave more, and it shouldn't have done that. You know that."

I did. Lori had had two boyfriends before me who tried to dominate and abuse her; they had damaged her self-image and self-confidence, but she'd kicked free of both of them. #2 was the reason she had always adamantly refused anal sex. Apparently she was also thinking about him, because she went on, "There was a part of me that heard me begging Dick to plow my ass and could not believe it. After Jeff? That's why I always denied you that. But there I was, and I didn't know why, and I still don't.

"The only thing I can think of is that there was a balance I needed to find and didn't—that the reason I got into those relationships before you is that at some level I craved being dominated, being taken; not being abused or degraded or manipulated, but having a man who truly loved me and wanted my best take control of me sexually, at least from time to time. Maybe I needed that, and couldn't face it because of the way Jeff and Todd had treated me? I never let you really take control—if I needed to, if that need built and festered until Dick could take advantage of it to take hold of me—if I was that un-self-aware... well, that's one more reason for me to hate myself.

"I don't know, Rob. However it happened, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't recognize the woman in the mirror, and I really don't want to. The only thing I want is to turn the clock back to before... well... everything and be your devoted wife again, and I could just as well jump out our window and fly to the moon. But if this is who I am, whether I like it or not, then this is who I am. I don't have enough of myself left to promise to be different and keep that promise. I only have enough left to refuse to make it in the first place."

I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again. Words are my thing—my tool, my weapon, my shield—I do words... but I didn't have any. Lori looked at me with eyes like graves and continued, "Well, given that I can't have what I really want, there is one little piece I'd like—but I do have enough left to refuse myself that, too. You would anyway, but—I want, more than words can say, to make love to you one last time, to feel what that's like for the first time in years." A spike of rage hammered through me; she obviously saw it, because she nodded. "Yeah, I know, I took it away from myself. I feel all of that. You know where this pussy has been and you don't want any part of it, and I feel that, too. And I know where this pussy has been, and I couldn't muster up the gall to offer it to you. It's unclean—emotionally speaking, it's leprous. I can't offer it to anyone, not in good conscience.

"And you've moved on, and I wouldn't want to get in the way even if I thought I could."

"No, no, I haven't," I protested, some part of my emotional roil giving tongue.

"Yes, you have," Lori said quietly. "I saw how she looks at you. And I saw how you look at her. When I'm—gone—love her well, and let her love you well. I think she will. I think she knows how worthy you are, and with your love and support, I think she'll be a really special woman."

"She already is," I answered equally quietly.

"I know—but you know what I mean," Lori told me. Then she stood up. "That's all I wanted to say, Rob. Well, that and one other thing: I won't fight you on anything. Now I need to get going. Your new love will be home soon. I maneuvered her out of the house so I could talk to you alone, but it won't hold for long. I can let myself out—I still know the way." And with that, she was gone.

* * * * *

A couple minutes later, Kylie and Megan arrived. "Hey, baby," Kylie called out as soon as she got in the door, sounding concerned. "How are you doing? What did Lori want?"

"Well, she—" I began automatically, before my brain caught up with the question. "Wait, how did you know?"

Kylie came and sat beside me; Megan pulled up a footstool and made it a triangle. "She called and told me a fairy story to get me out of the house," Kylie said gravely. "I don't think she realized I'd recognize her voice. I'm sure she's not thinking clearly, but that's no surprise. I thought briefly about calling her on it, then realized that the only safe thing to do was play along with her. I didn't really trust her, but I didn't see anything I could do that would make things better.

"It's a good thing I recognized her voice, though, because I was able to call Megan and make sure she didn't show up right in the middle of things, which could also have made matters worse." I nodded. "So we went for coffee for half an hour or so, then parked down the block and waited for her to leave." I blinked. "We were afraid she'd come to hurt you somehow, but it doesn't look like it."

"No," I replied wearily. "Actually, the simplest way to say it is, she came to plead guilty and tell me she won't fight anything." The girls' eyes went wide at that, and I nodded again. "So it looks like all should be well; and Megan, I would guess you can move in any time now."

Megan nodded, smiling softly. "How are you feeling, Rob?" she asked gently. "You never did answer that."

"I'm tired," I told them. "Physically, emotionally—I'm drained. But I feel like I'm drained of the poison, if that makes any sense? Like I've been emptied out, but most of what's been emptied out was the bad stuff, and maybe I can be refilled with good things."

"I think I understand," Kylie said.

"I think so, too," Megan agreed. "And you know, Rob, we thought you might need a pick-me-up after this, so we got you a surprise."

"What, coffee?" I asked.

Megan giggled and fiddled with her phone. "No, but I can see where you got that. Remember when you told me about the surprise Carolina got you? Well—we got you a surprise, too." I heard the door open and close and looked up to see Michele walk into the room.

Kylie said, her voice soft and tender, "I know how much you mean to her, and just because you didn't hire her, I didn't think that should keep her from having sex with you. So Megan and I talked about it, and I called her Monday to tell her that we'd be happy to share you with her so long as, you know, we were actually sharing you—and her. We hadn't had a chance to tell you, and then this situation developed, and we figured it was perfect."

I looked up at Michele and extended my arms. "Come here, kitten." Her face lit with a smile, and in a twinkling she was straddling my leg and kissing me, with Kylie and Megan wrapped around us both.

The rest of that day turned into an orgy, or at least as close to one as I'm ever likely to come. I filled each of their pussies multiple times. Sometimes I would be fucking one of them while the other two 69ed. Other times, I was on my back with one riding my dick, another riding my face, and the third playing with both of them, and each of the three of them enjoyed the same position more than once. When my dick was recovering from one climax or another, I spent my time enjoying the feast of tits and pussies spread before me. For some reason, my dick consistently took rather less time to recover than usual.

We broke, of course, when it was time for Hope and Joy to come home; Kylie made dinner, and otherwise my kids were the focus of all of our attention. By the time we put them to bed, they were exhausted. Then, Megan, Kylie, and Michele devoted themselves to making sure that by the time they put me to bed, I was exhausted. I made sure to return the favor. We all showered together in my bathroom, using a fair amount of hot water making sure everyone was thoroughly washed, and then discovered that it's possible for four people to sleep together in a king-size bed (at least if they're naked). Kylie assured us it was fine, because she would get up with her alarm, get dressed, and intercept my daughters. I fell asleep feeling better than I had felt in a long time.

The next morning I was awakened, alone in the bed, by a call informing me that my wife had been found dead in her hotel room.

* * * * *

I should have seen it coming. The thought tolled in my brain like Big Ben tolling midnight. I was absolutely morally certain it was suicide, though I couldn't work out how. The insurance company was equally certain it was suicide, though their certitude was financial rather than moral. There was a syringe on the nightstand which had held a fast-acting sedative, but the autopsy showed only enough in Lori's bloodstream to put her to sleep. Why she had chosen to inject herself rather than taking a pill was a mystery, and the question of where she had gotten the sedative was perhaps an even greater one, but given that the dose she had given herself was far less than lethal, those questions seemed minor. The ME ultimately decided she had died of cardiac arrest and declined to speculate further.

That's not to say the autopsy found nothing: the examination of Lori's brain revealed a small tumor in her frontal lobe. Apparently it was a rare kind of tumor, and a slow-growing one. The ME couldn't give me any sort of precise estimate as to how long the tumor had been there—she estimated at least two years but possibly much longer. I thought I had an idea, though. It felt like a weight had lifted off my chest, untwisting my emotions. It wasn't fully rational, but there was no doubt in my mind: it wasn't Lori, it was the tumor. If somehow we had caught it before everything started with her boss, it could have been treated, Lori would have remained Lori, and my wife and marriage would still be alive.

OK, so the happy ending wouldn't really have been guaranteed—if I had been honest with myself at the time, I didn't really know the tumor was the cause of anything at all—but right then, I was absolutely sure of it. I suppose I believed it because it's what I needed to believe. That conviction meant I could grieve Lori's death cleanly; it cleansed the sick taint from my wrath toward her boss. He hadn't known he was taking advantage of a sick woman's illness, but he was. I would give her the funeral the real Lori deserved, and then I would do whatever it took to destroy Dick Wood.

That night, I dreamed about her.

* * * * *

"Ooooh, yeah, lover, you like that sweet pussy in your face?" Lori moans as my tongue plays up and down her drenched little slit. "Fuck, if I ever meet Thayla, I'm sending her a thank-you card for teaching you to eat pussy." I plump my tongue up round and plunge it into her wet pink hole as I start rubbing her pearl with my thumb; she yowls. I give her several thrusts of my tongue, then lick my way back up to her clit and suck hard. My hand drops down to corkscrew her cunt with two fingers. "Yeah, baby, eat that wet little fucking pussy," she gasps. "Make me cum all over your fucking face. I'm close, lover—so close—"

I look up, having forgotten for a moment that I won't be able to see Lori's eyes through her baby bump. She's quite large for six months along, but she doesn't complain much. For some reason she would never explain to me, she had been worried that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant. As it turned out, it took next to no time at all, but she still feels like she got lucky. She'd been especially pleased when we learned we would be having a girl, because she'd had two girl names picked out since she was twelve: Hope and Joy. If it had been a boy... well, he might have been a few days old before he got named.

Lori always goes dead silent and still when she actually comes, and this time is no exception. Once her climax passes, though, she immediately rolls herself over and gets up on all fours. Before getting pregnant, she wasn't a big fan of doggystyle, but her swollen belly has given her a different perspective on it. "Come on, big boy," she preens, "give me some action with that beautiful beast."

I line up and grab her hips, then thrust into her. Lori groans her approval. "I love feeling you so deep," she says. I start fucking her steadily with long strokes. I'm tempted to tell her that she would feel me deeper if she'd let me pull her hair—Thayla taught me that, too; she loved having her hair pulled—but I tried that with Lori years ago, and she told me she didn't like it. So I do the next best thing: I lean forward and cup my hands around her perky tits, caressing them and rubbing her nipples against my palms. "So good on my girls," she moans. "You treat them so well... "

Then Lori changes the script on me. "Pull my hair," she commands.

"What?" I ask in disbelief. "You don't like that."

"It felt good, but it made me afraid," Lori breathes. "I need to trust you. Pull my hair."

"OK," I say uncertainly. I let go of her tits, grab a handful near her scalp, and pull back as I thrust. I feel her depths open up to me, and my knob finds her posterior fornix, socketing firmly into her cul-de-sac.

"So good—so deep," Lori gasps. "I've never been fucked there before—it feels wonderful. Now, lover, give it to me." I speed up, fucking her harder. "I should have let you do this years ago," she groans. "This is the best ever... so fucking hot... so fucking good... "

"Your wet little pussy feels incredible wrapped around my cock," I say huskily.

"There's one thing that will make it better," Lori moans. "Lover?"

"Yes, baby?"

"Put your thumb in my ass?" she requests.

"What?!" I cry out. "You told me never—"

"I need to trust you," Lori repeats. "I need to trust that you love me and you want to give me pleasure. Please, lover, put your thumb in my ass."

"The world turned upside-down... " I breathe, but I take my hand off her hip and put my thumb in my mouth, getting it as wet as I can; then I put it on her puckered brown hole and push.

"Do it, baby," Lori growls.

I feel that tight little ring of muscle trying to refuse me, but I push harder, and I'm in. She squeals loudly at the intrusion. Her asshole feels tight and hot. I'm not sure what to do, so I wiggle my thumb around; I notice that when I press down, I can feel the pressure in my thundering cock, so I do that again. "Fuck... " Lori groans, her voice deep and guttural. "Oh, fuck... I'm... going... to... ROB!" She screams my name at the top of her lungs and cums violently on my dick. I keep thrusting and push my thumb deeper—her scream finds a new octave. I'm close to cumming myself, but I hang on tight, because she's decided she's not comfortable with me cumming inside her when she's this pregnant.