Desperate Times

I will lose my job, a middle class manufacturing job, when the plant I work at closes and the work moves to Mexico. Management has offered me a double rate of pay and pay for my expenses if I would go to Mexico and train their workers how to do our jobs. I was too angry to go, telling them to go to hell. My last day of work is fast approaching and the labor market is already flooded with laid off employees from previous rounds of layoffs. I was probably going to be happy to make 40% of what I make now. At least I had certificates in various equipment, first aid and forklift. Those should help but it depends on getting an interview.

I went home and talked to Lisa, trying to reassure her I would find a job. I had already signed up with the state job board and the company had so graciously offered 'job placement' help I say with sarcasm. I went to their office and found a bare bones place where a placement company had been hired to provide services. They were going through the motions. They'd be paid either way, why work hard? There was a list of low-end jobs that would never support a single person nevertheless a family.

"Don't think you're gonna sit in that recliner and collect unemployment as your only pay. It ain't gonna be enough." This from Lisa, who would lose some of her middle class existence. She was already being a bitch about it.

After surveying the local job market, I began to cast a wide job search, looking as far as 200 miles away. Frankly, I was desperate. I got a call for a job interview 125 miles away. If I got the job I'd be renting a room and only coming home for the weekends. Lisa listened to what I said then commented at least I'd be working and out of her hair. I made the trip and was interviewed. My certificates impressed them, with the primary interviewer saying I was a motivated man who prepared for the future. A week later I got a job driving a forklift, they told me I'd get the next manufacturing job available. My pay was 70% of what I had been making, adding the trip cost and/or renting a room made it even worse. Maybe I'd just commute.

Lisa listened to what I had to say, then said, "we're gonna have to make big cuts in our budget." Otherwise she just wailed and then began attacking me for being in such a mess. Maybe living elsewhere would be preferable to this.

I started my job and began the laborious job of stacking pallets of goods on pallet racks up to thirty feet in the air. It required vigilance on the ground for people and obstacles, getting the pallet in the right space assigned by a computer as well as the possibility of smashing a light thirty feet in the air. Trust me, its not a pretty sight as red hot pieces of glass fell everywhere. It's not a job for someone with neck issues either because all I seem to do is crane my neck up. But at least I'm sitting down.

My first paycheck a week later caused Lisa to begin complaining again. I made a list of our expenses. Totaling them showed me how much we would have to cut. We owned our own house and our two well-used cars were close to paid for. I had already sounded out Lisa about moving closer to my new job. That caused her to bitch again as she would lose her friends. I told her what we had to cut given my commuting expense and diminished pay. She bitched and argued about that. She fought me on every cut. Netflix? No, I watch that all the time! Cable TV? God no, how will I watch my soap operas? HBO? No way! I ended up just telling her I'm cutting what I listed and began going down the list cutting our services. Cable TV was saved when they offered a bare bones rate for reduced service. And on and on it went.

I was happy to go back to work on Monday. Lisa and I haven't had sex since the notice of closing was sent out three months ago. She wasn't in the mood she said. At this rate I wouldn't be in the mood either, at least not with her. The griping coming from her was just nonstop.

I started looking for a place to rent. I found a place by accident. I was talking with another employee and he recommended I talk with Sean. He pointed out a small framed person close by. We all look alike in hard hats, jeans, safety boots and safety vests. The hats are of different colors to denote your area of work. Mine is basic white for warehouse. I was looking at a yellow one which signaled a manager. I walked up and said, "Sean, can I talk to you?" I walked in front of him and found that he was a her. She looked up from her phone and waited for me to say something. "Roger said you might have space for one where you live. I'm William, by the way."

She didn't offer a hand to shake. She just stood there without saying anything until I was ready to turn away and get back to work. She shifted her stance. "I'm sorry to make you wait, I was listening to an important phone call." That's when I noticed the ear piece. "Yes, I own a house and am looking to share it with someone to reduce my expenses. I've been looking for a female exclusively but have just begun looking for anyone. I'm Sean but I prefer my middle name, Denise. Sean can be male or female. I prefer the more feminine name. At work, though, it's Sean." She offered a hand and I had to change to offering my left hand to shake hers. I noticed her other hand, the right one most people usually shake with, was heavily bandaged. She noticed my glance but said nothing. I explained my situation of being married and living 125 miles away. "I'm looking for a Sunday through Thursday situation. I'm quiet and clean. I don't cause trouble or drink more than one drink per night."

"It's $400, does that work for you?" Given what it costs to commute, it's a bargain. She told me to meet her at 5:30 at an address she gave me.

"I've not seen you before. Are you new?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am. I'm a refugee from the plant closing there."

"It's Denise, not ma'am. I heard about the closing. That just irks me no end. It shouldn't be allowed in my opinion, not that anybody cares what I think." She smiled for the first time and I saw a beautiful smile. The eyes were blue but were clouded for some reason. "See you soon."

After work, a night I turned down overtime so I could meet Denise, I drove to the address she gave me. It was an OK house though the neighborhood was a little rundown. There was a SUV in the driveway. I parked and walked up the steps and knocked on the door. She opened it and I faced a mass of reddish brown hair surrounding an elfin face. She noticed my glance and said, "it's a fight everyday to get it so I can wear my hard hat. Come in." I walked into the living room and looked around. This definitely wasn't a rental. This was somebody's home. "I need peace, no parties, no drinking to excess and absolutely no drugs. If I see it or smell it, you're gone. I've got friends who will eject you in a heartbeat."

"Then I'm who you need. I'm married, work hard and need my downtime to be quiet after working in that noisy warehouse all day. I'm commuting daily and four hours a day is just wearing me down. Winter will happen and driving that road in the dark with slippery roads is a nightmare I repeat over and over."

She looked at me for a moment, then said, "the room is yours. Rent plus an equal amount of deposit is required. Rent is due on the first. I just get a positive feel from you. I'm going on instinct" I again looked at her bandaged hand and she caught the look. "We'll talk about that later. Let's look at the rest of the house." It was mid-1900s or earlier, arranged in a traditional look of living room, dining room and kitchen in a row. A hallway led to three bedrooms and one bath. I glanced in an open door to see what must be the master bedroom, then she guided me into another room. "This is your room. It's furnished. If you need something else talk to me. Bed linens are included."

I looked around, opened the closet door and looked inside, went to the window and looked outside. This was very comfortable. "I'm looking forward to living here."

"Sit in the living room, I'll get us a drink." She brought two beers, handed me one and sat down on the couch. I had taken the only chair. A look passed over her face as she glanced at me. She looked down and said, "you're sitting in the chair that my soon-to-be ex-husband sat in."

I waited for her to say more.

"I'm a victim of assault. My husband and I were verbally fighting in this very room when he attacked me. He slammed me against a doorframe hard enough to break bones in my wrist. He then threw me to the floor and began to choke me. My husband was six foot three, well over two hundred pounds and was strongly muscled. I'm five foot two and one hundred pounds. I think he would have choked me to death if I hadn't gone limp as if he had succeeded. He eventually lessened the pressure, then got up and walked away. Afterward, he went outside and I called the police after I was able to get up and stumble to my phone.. He was arrested and charged, his trial is months away. I have a restraining order against him being within two hundred feet of here. It's been four months and I'm just beginning to function in other than autopilot mode. I filed for divorce with the help of a victim's counselor provided by the state. He's been served so it's just a matter of time now. I put some furniture on the driveway and his friends carted it away. The police allowed him in the house to get his clothes. I was required to leave but left a list of what he could take. I need help with the expenses. Thus, here we sit."

"I am so profoundly sorry to hear your story. That was as one sided as an assault can be. It's just almost beyond belief." All of the time she spoke, she had looked down, never meeting my eyes. She finally looked up with my words, smiled and I saw a momentary flash of blue in her eyes. She was captivating. No one should ever have to live through that. I reached in my wallet and gave her $800 in cash, eight crisp one hundred dollar bills. I had withdrawn a thousand dollars from our savings without telling Lisa so we wouldn't fight over that as well. Denise took the money with almost a look of wonder.

"Thank you. Do you need a receipt?"

"No, Denise, you're offering to share your home. Thank you for that. I trust you as I hope you'll trust me, though given your circumstances I can understand that will be slow coming."

I left and started the two hour drive home. It was approaching seven, I was running late. It was going to be a long night if Lisa wailed about my having taken a room. I'd be on the couch for sure. My prophecy came true as I spent a restless night on the living room sofa after yet another excruciating fight with Lisa. The next morning I took a pile of my clothes and toiletries to the car while Lisa slept and started the drive back to work. It was Tuesday morning. I'd have three nights of peace.

Through Thursday night, it was almost smooth sailing other than the frantic phone calls from Lisa. I was changing from my work clothes into something nicer when Denise came home. I grabbed a beer from my shelf of the fridge and went to sit down in the living room.

"You'll be going home on Friday night, is that right? Denise moved to sit on the couch. The heavy cast had come off and a much lighter one was now there.

"Yes, gone for the weekend. I'll be back Sunday night."

"It's none of my business but from the sound of your phone calls this was not well received."

"No, it's been one continuous battle. She wanted me to go but when I did leave she got upset with me. The money I withdrew from savings to pay for this drove her up the wall as well. I may be back earlier if that's OK with you. If not, I'll find a hotel somewhere."

"You're always welcome here. I priced this based on full time occupancy. It's here for you. It's not like I'm entertaining or having a party. I'm certainly not entertaining a man." She had also changed and put on jeans that fit her figure better. She also was wearing casual shoes, not work boots, which makes a big difference in how she looked. Dressed like this, she was very feminine except her face had a figurative shroud over it. Her hair nicely framed her face and her mass of hundreds of curls just fit her. I occasionally saw her at work and she managed to always stuff that hair under the hard hat. How she did it I'll never know.

Later Thursday night it was another phone battle, or rather a one sided phone battle as Lisa hurled twisted words at me in a continuous barrage ending in "why don't you just stay there this weekend." I wrote Denise a note to that effect and left it in the kitchen. I retreated to my room and was sitting in the chair there reading on my tablet when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

"From your note it doesn't sound like tonight's discussion went well."

"It was closer to World War Three than a discussion but you're right it wasn't fun."

"I'm sorry for your pain."

"The gulf between us just gets wider and wider. I'm not sure how to ever bridge it."

"Maybe you won't or can't. Think about what's next."

"First, it was over twelve years of my work that ended suddenly and now it's five years of marriage going down the drain."

She sat on the bed and we talked into the night. She told me of her life. I in turn did the same. "We're two of a kind," she said. "I'm still mourning the death of my marriage as are you. Nine years of fireworks and great times after we made up. Until we didn't make up."

"Won't you lose part of the house in the divorce? Think of the question as enlightened self interest."

She smiled at that. "One good thing I did was have us sign and notarize an agreement that in the event of divorce it would be mine outside of the divorce. It was my grandmother's and passed to me at her death. I know it will be an issue in our divorce. He'll fight it just for spite. My counselor's recommended an attorney in that event. Now I wait."

"How'd you meet him?"

"We belonged to the same athletic club and I saw him there in the weight room. He started taking the same yoga class I took. When we were toweling off our sweat after class we struck up a conversation and it ended up in a date. We had dinner, then a little dancing and then he took me home and fucked me for twenty four hours. Not continuously, mind you, but often enough. I'd suck his cock until he was hard and then we'd try a different position. It was a fuckathon. And every weekend would be like that. He fucked all three of my holes in one weekend. I was just in thrall of him. The he took me to the Baja coast and we parked his trailer on the beach. Fishermen would bring us fresh fish and crab to eat. I ran around topless. I put on a teeny tiny suit bottom and lost it and got sand in my pussy from being bounced by the surf. After that I wore three lower layers and played some more. It was just magical. We went back home, he proposed and we had a civil ceremony as our marriage. It was great until we began fighting. It was intense but when we made up it was heaven. Then it wasn't as we began the cycle again."

She left the room and I heard the shower running. I went to get a glass of water and she came out of the bathroom wearing a short robe as she toweled her hair. Her legs were very pretty and shapely. We stopped for a moment, looking at each other then she walked into her room and closed the door. I finished the walk into my room. What I had seen of Denise was very pretty but she was been right when she said she was still in mourning.

On Friday she flagged me down as I was on the forklift and said, "let's go to dinner tonight. I'm celebrating my quarterly performance bonus."

"I'll meet you at home. What time?"

"Seven will do. I know you've been putting in some overtime. I know it's approved for night as well if you want it. We're just behind and getting more behind. The warehouse has done a good job. We're just trying to push more out the door."

We went to a restaurant I had heard of but never had gone to. We talked over a dinner that was delicious. Coffee came and I sat back and said, "this a good idea. We have to do this again."

"Glad to be here, not there?"

"Absolutely. I'm just sick of it. Sitting here with you reminds me life can be good, actually very good. This is the most fun I've had in a lot of months."

"Same here. I've gone out with friends but it's been grim, really grim."

"Let's do this once a week to celebrate making it through another week. With overtime, I can afford it!" I ended up never going home to stay the weekend again. I spent the next two weekends in Denise's house after non-stop fighting with Lisa. Life with Lisa reached a breaking point after those two weeks. After yet another diatribe from her, I said I'm done. I arranged to go home for my clothes. Denise recommended her attorney and I began a divorce. It was going to be ugly when we had to sell the house and split the proceeds. Her attorney had launched a furious assault about my casting her out of her home. I reminded her I didn't have a home either, just a room I rented. I will owe alimony but once it is calculated it will only decrease in time as inflation eats away at it and hopefully I get raises. Lisa howled at the amount that was calculated. I countered that I make far less than I once had and felt lucky to have that. She will have to get a job. I rented a truck and some friends and I moved my belongings and part of our meager furniture to my new home. Denise had told me I could use the one car garage at the back of the house, she found it far too narrow to feel comfortable driving her SUV in there. I filled a portion of it with my belongings, covered them with a tarp and locked it up.

We kept Friday nights as eat-out night, alternating weeks for paying. It was the most comfortable I've been in a long time. I woke up one night, having to go to the bathroom. I was in my underwear. After I finished and flushed, Denise came out in a nightie and robe. She looked at me, taking in my looks. I in turn took in the swell of her breasts and her long legs for her size. The moment passed and I went into my room.

The next morning, she came out dressed.

"Sorry about that. I heard a noise and went to investigate."

"Denise, we're adults living in close proximity. We're going to see each other in various states of undress or when we're in the sun or working in the yard. It happens. No worries."

She smiled that great smile again. Was it me or was she smiling more? There were days, even weeks where she stayed in her room, though. Sometimes I heard her crying. One night I awoke to the sound of her just drowning in grief. I went to knock on her door.

"Come in," she said faintly.

"Can I help in any way?"

"Yes. Come here and hold me."

It was dark in the room. Carefully I edged forward until I touched the edge of her bed, then moved forward until I could sense her beside me. I sat down, leaned over and wrapped her in my arms. That's when I realized that from her waist up she was naked. I carefully held her, staying away from sensitive areas. I continued my embrace as she used it to cry onto my shoulder. I could feel her tears there. I just held her until she calmed.

"Lay down next to me," she said as she moved over. I lay on top of the covers, rolled on my side and put my arm across her body as she lay there quietly. She rolled away from me, then backed toward me until we were only separated by the covers, took my arm and pulled it over her, her hand guiding my hand to hold her breast. I held her as her breathing slowly settled in a deep sleep rhythm. In time, I fell asleep, too. The next day was Saturday. We weren't working today so I continued to hold her after I was awake. She slept an additional two hours past our usual waking time making up for some of those hours she had cried and cried. She stirred and turned to face me. "That's the best I've slept in months. Thank you." She gently kissed me on the lips. "I mean it, thank you so much. It's been months since I've slept well. Usually I just lay here awake remembering. I slept, really slept that deep sleep you need." Her blanket was below her breasts and she noticed for the first time. "I've always slept naked because it's so freeing." She left herself uncovered. "You've seen almost everything else so now is no time to be shy." I gazed at her breasts. They weren't huge but were well suited to her body. Her nipples were erect as they were exposed to the cool of the room.