Best Friends Forever

I sat there stunned. For the life of me I couldn't hate the two of them, even after having heard what they thought of me. I went for it. Maybe I could learn to hate them, but for the moment I was just sad.

"Okay, you wanna save this marriage?" I said.

"Yes!" she didn't quite scream.

"Then give him up, him and his outsized cock," I said.

"No," she said. I sneered.

"I'll be moving out today. Have a bad life you and my used to be best friend who just became my worst enemy," I said. I was kinda surprised; it hadn't taken very long for me to learn to hate them, the both of them.

"Jim, rethink this. We can get by this. It's not the bad thing that you, understandably, think it is at the moment. Really it's not," she said.

"The hell you say," I said. "I will not be your willing cuckold!" I got up and went to our room and started packing. At least the stink of their sex didn't permeate the atmosphere in there. There really is after all an upside to everything.

******

"You are kidding, right," said Rodney Pollard.

"No, I'm not kidding. I had no real choice. I just told him the truth. We are a family, or were," said Claire Clausen.

"And, he reacted how again exactly, I mean tell me again?" he said.

She sighed. "Like I said, he didn't actually react much at all. He just basically restated what he said earlier that he was moving out. He did make an issue of him being my cuckold, but that was pretty much it, and then he did, move out that is. He hardly raised his voice," she said.

"Shit! He and I have been best friends since forever. I'm going to miss the guy. The big news is that he's gonna miss me too. I know that as a great truth," said Rodney.

"Yes, and he and I will miss each other if I can't figure a way to get him to change his mind," she said. "You know, knowing him as I do, I actually thought that I could convince him of the good sense of hearing me out and even agreeing with me, at least on some level. But I guess his feelings were just too raw at that particular moment."

"Yeah, I'm sure they were. You know, I think it was more what he heard than what we did. Know what I mean," he said.

"I think you're right. He sees us as us as having made fun of him. I guess we were kind of laughing at him. But it was all just nonsense nothing was said that carried anything that was actually meaningful," she said.

"Yeah, well trying to convince him of that now is going to be a seriously tough nut," he said.

"For real," she said. "But, that's it isn't it. We have to try and convince him. At some point we have to sit the guy down and pin him good and proper. We have to make him believe us."

"Yes, but he is not going to be having you and me doing each other ever again and that at minimum," he said. She nodded.

"I know, and there won't be any way to hide it now that he knows," she said.

"How long should we wait do you think before we come on to him?" he said.

"I don't know. That's going to be a very delicate issue in itself. Too long and he grows bitter. Too short a time and his anger will still be at a high point. So . . ." she said, shrugging.

"I don't know either, maybe a month?" he said. She nodded, but it was a slow nod.

The two of them went silent. Each knew exactly what the other was thinking, but neither had the courage to voice it, but, then he did.

"And if he doesn't cut us any slack? I mean ever?" he said.

She shook her head slowly. "Then he and I will be at an end. There'll be no choice at that point in time," she said. "But Rod, we have to do our level best to not let things go that way. Are you with me?"

"You know I am," he said. "You absolutely know I am."

******

The Crossroads is, by any definition a dive. I'd been dropping in from time to time over the past couple of years after long days on the road. Sammy Gilchrist, a fellow driver, and I had tilted back quite a few yellow Pepsis there after work. My sometime bud Rod Pollard and I had also not been strangers to the place.

A dive it was, but it did have a couple of talented bartenders. Marie Semple was the thirty year-old bartender in chief at the place. She'd been holding down the fort at the Crossroads for six years. Oddly, or so it seemed to me, Marie was a college graduate. She'd majored in Art History so she'd said, but, ex post facto, she'd discovered to her eternal dismay that jobs in her field were all but non-existent. Still, her talent at mixing virtually any cocktail and her understanding of people as individuals were pretty much nonpareil. I loved Marie and Jackie DelaTorre too. Jackie was a twenty-two year-old neophyte barkeep that Marie was training though in point of fact she'd pretty much taught her everything she, Jackie, needed to know already.

At any rate these two women were of late my sole contact, on any kind of personal level, with the female gender since my breakup with the love of my life two weeks gone.

"How yuh doin' tonight, cowboy?" said Marie coming up to me as I claimed my usual seat at the twenty foot bar.

"Same," I said.

"So you haven't heard from her at all?" said Marie.

"No, and why would I? She's replaced me," I said. Marie just nodded.

"It happens, guy. And the world still turns on its axis and the casinos in Vegas are still not charitable institutions," she said.

"Yeah, well I guess you're right on all counts," I said, "though I'm actually not sure about the world on its axis thing." She laughed.

"Yeah, well that's what Einstein said or somebody," she said.

"Oh well if Einstein said it then it must be true," I said. She stopped rubbing the last nuances of moisture from the glass she was grinding.

"What?" I said.

"Jim, Your wife, and she's with your ex-best friend," said Marie. I didn't want to turn around, but I couldn't help it. I did.

They saw me at the same time that I saw them. Her hand went to her mouth. I threw a ten on the bar and made to leave. He beat me to the door.

"Any chance that I could get you to sit down with us, Jim?" he said. I looked him up and down.

"No," I said.

"Jim, please. Claire and I have been conspiring these past couple of weeks as to how to get you to sit with us and talk and maybe make things right. Please," he said.

"No," I said. I turned and walked out leaving him standing there. I had to wonder what he and my sooner or later to be ex would have said to me, I mean besides the usual meaningless platitudes. But, I guessed that the answer to that question would be never in the coming.

CHAPTER 2:

Dear old Rodney couldn't get me to talk to him, or to her, so she took matters into her own hands. She had no idea where I now resided, the Randall Arms, for sure. And, I'd made sure that the few who did know would not be blabbing it to anyone. But, that didn't mean that she couldn't get hold of me. And get hold of me she did, at my place of work. She was waiting for me when I got back from a run.

I saw her leaning against the loading dock when I came out of the office where I'd turned in my signed off on manifests.

Sammy came up from behind me and nudged me. "You better talk to her, Jim. She'll just keep on coming back if you don't," he said. I looked at him and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess," I said.

I walked over to her. "The Denny's on the corner," I said, coming up to her. She nodded, and began the short walk over there. I followed her, but not too closely. Well I was making a statement: we were not together.

She'd taken a booth at the back of the place. The waitress was there with menus in short order.

"Just coffee," I said. "We won't be long." Claire nodded her agreement as to the order if not the proposed length of the meeting.

"How have you been, Jim?" she said.

"Bad," I said. "How do you think I've been, Claire? I mean betrayed by you and my best friend. Not much to feel good about."

"No, I guess not," she said. "Jim, I've come to ask you to come home. I need you to be my husband and to love me like you always have and me you."

"But you intend to keep on fucking my used to be best friend, right?" I said.

"It's not like that," she said, "and he's still your best friend."

"Oh, I must have missed something then. What is it like then?" I said.

"It's just something I do with him that makes me feel like, well, like he is a member of our family. It isn't even really the sex. It's more like an expression of our closeness, the closeness of all three of us," she said.

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? No, you couldn't. I think you love him. And, I think you maybe like me a little, but not love me, not like him," I said. "So, unless you've got something else to say I really think we should just call it a day. You go your way with him, and I go my way home—alone."

"You're wrong Jimmy. I do love you," she said.

"More than him?" I said.

"I guess the same as him, or him the same as you; take your choice," she said. "That's why I can't give him up any more than I can give you up."

"Well, let's just say that you and I are definitely living in different universes. My wife must, that's must, be a one man woman.

"Claire no man has ever loved a woman as I have loved, and continue to love, you. Not Rodney, not Don Juan, no man: I will never love again. Date? Probably not that either, but as for that I guess it doesn't matter anyway. I will miss what we had, what I thought that we had. But it is what it is. I just cannot accept your idea of a marriage. So mister ex-best friend will have a clear field now: he'll be able to fuck you to his heart's content. So be happy.

"Don't come around anymore, Claire, it's too hard on me," I said. I stood, threw a five down on the table top, and walked out. She didn't try to stop me.

******

I got the papers two weeks later. No letter, no phone call, no nothing: just the papers announcing the fact that she was divorcing me. It was a sad time for me, and, I thought, maybe for her too. Well, one could hope. Oh and she wasn't asking for anything except the house; well, she did love our old digs always had. She should've, she was the one who chose where we were going to live.

I was once again occupying my favored seat at the Crossroads thinking back over things. One month since I'd walked out, one month since I'd had my last piece of ass, and one month since I'd begun moping about. Life sucked if one were me. I wondered what the two of them were doing at that moment. I looked at my watch: it was Friday night, 8:00 PM. They were probably getting naked right about now I thought. Was I jealous of my ex-bud? Hell yes I was, oh yeah!

I took stock: I was an emotional ruin, and a bitter and forlorn excuse of whatever it was that I had been. I just hoped against hope that the two of them felt some guilt for what they'd done to me. The bad news of course was that I doubted that they did.

"Another one of those?" said Jackie, nodding toward my almost empty glass.

"Yeah, and make it my last," I said. "I gotta get out of here before I'm too weak in the knees to do so under my own power."

"You got it, sport," she said. She disappeared for a few minutes and returned with my JD and the check. I handed her my card and took a sip of the newly arrived refill.

Five minutes later I was up and heading out into the lonely night, lonely being the operative term.

I should've pulled up stakes sooner. I knew that that was a true thing because the officer that stopped me, cuffed me, and transported me to jail assured me that such was so. Did I say that life sucked if one were me? Well, I should have if I didn't.

The desk sergeant at my temporary home asked me for my phone number. I wasn't thinking too clearly I guess, well, several JD's will have that effect: I gave him my old land line number by mistake. He wrote it down; and I forgot about it.

I did get my one direct call, I made it to my bud, Sammy Gilchrist. He promised to come get me when they let me out; that would be in 72 hours according to the judge who arraigned me. I'd need a ride, as I was informed, because my car was in the impound.

All said and done, I guess the desk sergeant felt sorry for me. It must have been the sad look on my face and the incipient tears that accompanied that look. He called my house, the place where I used to live.

******

"Hey Clausen, you have a visitor," said the screw.

"Huh?" I said. It had to be Sammy; he's the only one who knew I'd been arrested, but I had told him that I would call when they let me go. At any rate the screw led me down the corridor to the public room.

I'd gotten halfway across the concourse of the largish meeting room, where dummies like me got to converse with family and friends, before I saw who it was. I know my face went bright crimson with humiliation when I recognized him. I walked slowly toward him. I really didn't want to talk to him, but then again I did have something to say to him regardless.

"Whaddya here for Rodney? She's divorcing me, so she can fuck you without the inconvenience of having to worry about me being around. You have a clear field. I sure as hell don't need to see either one of you ever again," I said. "I have nothing for you and you have nothing to say that I care at all about."

"Jim, the cops called your house. I'm here to offer you bail if you'll let me," he said. "A DUI is gonna cost you a ton."

"Hell no! I don't want any bail from you!" I said. "You steal my wife and come here offering me some of your dirty money! Get real and get out!" I turned to go having momentarily forgotten what I wanted to say to him.

"Please, Jim, talk to me for a minute," he said. I turned back toward him.

"What!" I said.

"Jim, a couple of things: one, I didn't steal your wife. I did cheat with her on you. Guilty," he said. "And two, yes, she's divorcing you, and I will be marrying her because you wouldn't have it any other way."

"Man, you have brass balls telling me that," I said. "I sincerely hate you, Mister Pollard. I mean with white hot hatred, and her too. Get the fuck away from me. Get the fuck away!"

"Jim, please, you and I have been best friends for a long time. And, as strange as it might sound to you, I don't want to lose your friendship."

"Well, that's just too damn bad because you have anyway. When I saw it was you came to see me just now, I thought to turn around and just walk away. But I did want to tell you something face to face," I said.

"Oh?" he said.

"Yes, and this is for the both of you. I wish you were dead, the both of you! Okay?"

"Jim, I know you don't mean that. And, you'll undoubtedly find yourself a woman who will be your true love. Yes, Claire's lost to you because of your puritanical stance on things. But it doesn't have to be the end of the world for you, and it does not have to end our relationship, yours and mine," he said.

"I cannot believe that you think, that you actually think, that there could possibly be anything left for you and me after what you've done to me all of these last three years. Claire told me that she's been doing you ever since we got back from our honeymoon. You have no idea how bad that hurt me. You may in your selfish mindset think that what you did was okay. It wasn't! So fuck off! I don't want to ever see you again, Rodney Pollard, not ever or her either. Just get lost and stay lost." With that I did turn and walk away.

It was going to be a while before I saw either of the two cheaters again, and then it was going to be one weird situation to say the least.

******

He plopped down at the dinette table: the one that used to belong to his best friend, still did in a legal sense, he supposed. She was still staying at the house in the burbs instead of at his condo. She'd said she had too much invested in the place for her to just up and suddenly move. The truth was that she felt funny about the breakup with her husband, and moving out of the house that had been theirs was traumatic, too final. She had to work up to it, the move.

He'd honored her wishes and was spending almost all of his nights with her in spite of the long drive from his office and condo downtown; it was his way of supporting her. She appreciated his forbearance. They'd be getting "their" own new place after the wedding; and, she'd been thinking about keeping this place as well regardless.

"What did he say?" said Claire.

"About what we figured he'd say. He turned down any help from me. He told me never to come around him again. But I have a question for you," said Rodney.

"Huh?" she said.

"Did you have to tell him that we'd been doing it together since the two of you were first married?" he said.

"Yes, I felt that I did. He'd discovered us, and sooner or later he would have figured it out or asked; and hiding it, given what he now knew, lying or keeping secrets would not have been the best of all possible paths to forgiveness," she said. He nodded.

"I guess you're right. But him knowing that sure makes it a tough sell for us to get back on any kind of an even keel with him," he said.

"Did you tell him about our plans?" she said.

"Yes, like you, I figured keeping him in the dark till the last minute would not have been the best idea. So I told him. I'm sure he kind of figured it anyway, I mean that we'd be getting married," he said. She nodded.

"Jesus, I really didn't want for this to go down this way. We, you and I, will always have a cloud over our heads now. But, I guess it was inevitable when one gets right down to it, I mean him discovering us. I guess we'd just been kidding ourselves that it would never happen, or, that happening, he could be made to see the logic in our intentions," she said.

"Yes, but it was what he overheard not so much what we did that made the big difference, at least that's what I think," he said.

"Yes, I'm sure you're right. But it was all just nonsense. Neither of us really had any bad intentions or thoughts in anything that we said that day or on any other of a hundred days," she said.

"All true, and none of that makes any difference because there is no way we are ever going to be able to sell him on the truth of it," he said. "If by some miracle we can get him to soften his stance with us, it'll have to be some other way."

"Still, we have to make another effort, maybe more than one down the line to get him to a place where we can all get along again. I have to believe that that is possible," she said.

"Yeah, well anything's possible; but some things are just less possible than we might like," he said.

He sighed and gave her a look.

"What?" she said.

"I was just thinking . . ." he started.

"You thinking what I think you're thinking?" she said. He shrugged.

"Well, what the hell. We might as well. I already feel guilty; a little more guilty won't make a damned bit of difference," she said.

He came to her and let his hand rest lightly on her arm. She leaned into him and their bodies melded into one and he kissed her and it was at once tinged with love and lust and the promise of their futures.

"Let's take this down the hall," she said.

"Good idea," he said. He took her by the hand and guided her to the guest room. She stopped him just as they entered the room.

"No," she said.

"Huh?" he said, not understanding.

"Not in here. We'll use the master bedroom this time. It's ours now, yours and mine," she said. He relaxed.

"Okay," he said.

She went to the king sized bed and kicked out of her shoes. He watched as they landed on the floor a couple of feet from the headboard.

She began unbuttoning her blouse. She slipped out of it too. She stopped. "You gonna stay dressed the whole time?" she said.

"Uh, no," he said. He kicked off his shoes and made to undress too.

Naked the two of them came together, standing beside the bed. They kissed. His hands explored the back of her and her buttocks; his finger invaded the cleft between the two globes of her.