Ghosts & Shadows Pt. 06

I just stared at her for a few moments. We had always been on the same page, except for the period when she had dumped Robert Sandler for that asshole Cameron, but I hadn't interfered because it had been her life.

"I don't give a damn what you do with Mary - be her friend, but it has nothing to do with me! If she listens to you, tell her I will never forgive or forget what she did to me. We have our kids and grandkids and I can be polite, but it will never go beyond that."

I almost called Brittany the next weekend but something stopped me. We weren't, had never been, serious. A good romp -- hell - a good fuck in her beachfront condo would do us both good! At least it would do me a lot of good, yet I couldn't make myself call her. What had changed?

When I figured it out, I still didn't understand why, and about what, I felt guilty. I wouldn't be using her. If anything, we'd be using each other. I'd never promised Brittany anything and there was nothing I could promise her, so how could I possibly be cheating her of...something!

When I figured that part out, I felt even worse. I had somehow grown fond of this 29-year-old buxom, boring, brilliant young woman who just liked fucking. Yet, because I liked her, I couldn't treat her like a simple fuck-toy.

Well, I told myself, I'll just go through my new and improved Little Black Book, where I'd accumulated names for three years. There were a few hotties and a lot more women closer to my age who were friends or friends-with-benefits. I went on a few dates in December but it was the last one, in the middle of December, that finally showed me the handwriting on the wall.

She was 51, blonde and a little heavier than she had been 20 years before. She was fighting an inferiority complex her asshole husband had implanted within her before leaving for a 25 year-old secretary but, she had really big tits and she could cum just from my sucking on them. She was also losing inhibitions after discovering that she loved sucking cock and anal, after never having tried it before.

After our second night together, when she'd had seven consecutive orgasms and learned she really was multi-orgasmic, she had told me she'd always be available anytime with 30 minutes notice.

I lay in her Orange Park bed one cold December night while she planted those heavy, soft, marshmallow breasts around my cock, rubbing and squeezing as she sucked. I'd been pretty hard to start with but then I started deflating. She looked down on my Incredible Shrinking Dick and I could see the hurt in her eyes.

I ate and fingered her to a couple of pretty hard orgasms, then loved on her while explaining that my failure to launch really didn't have anything to do with her. The problem really was with me, and I knew now what the root of the problem was. Unfortunately, knowing what the problem was and overcoming it were two completely different things.

On Christmas Eve 2009, I was in New York. Since we were a family again, Peter and Nicole had decided they'd try to have alternating Christmas get-togethers and, for at least a couple of years, it would be held in New York because of Nicole's medical problems.

Mary was there when I walked into their condo. I went over to give Nicole a hug. She still couldn't move well but she seemed, mentally, to be the old Nicole and that was all the Christmas present I'd ever want. I hugged everybody and, when it became awkward, went over to Mary to touch her shoulder and give her an air kiss.

We had a Christmas feast that was partially catered and partially cooked by Marlena, who had flown in ahead of Peter to help with the preparations. Then the proud parents let Austin and Calabria open two presents apiece, with the promise of a real Christmas the next morning.

Everybody had said their goodnights by midnight and retired to the main or guest bedroom. There were four bedrooms, including one used by Austin. We had been told that, for the few nights we were there, the children would sleep in their parents' bedrooms, meaning Mary and I would have our own bedrooms.

I was staring out of the window at the New York nightscape. I loved Jacksonville, but there was something magnetic and irresistible about New York City at night. Mary came up to stand beside me.

"Gail told me she told you."

"Yeah."

"I should be embarrassed, but I'm not."

I didn't say anything.

"I know I hurt you. I know you'll probably never forgive me. We'll never be the way we were but...I just want to be back in your life. No rings, no titles - I just want to be back."

I looked at her with real curiosity.

"Why?"

"Because I loved you for a lot of years. Even after I betrayed you I never really stopped loving you. I had hoped I could, I tried. Richard...we were good in bed. I won't lie because you wouldn't believe me, but I never loved him, not like I loved you. I had men after him, hoping I'd find somebody who would free me of you, but I never did. I finally figured out it was never going to happen. So, since there isn't, and won't be, anyone who makes me feel the way you did, I had the choice of living my life alone and miserable, or trying to crawl back into your life."

"Why shouldn't I let you enjoy the feelings I've had for the last three years? Short of killing you, there's no other way I can hurt you the way you need to be hurt."

She looked up at me and there was a calm assurance on her face. She thought she had the answers.

"Because you're still in love with me. I knew it the day I told you about Richard. I knew it at Brandy's wedding. I knew it that night outside O'Brien's. I don't know why, but you are. Gail knows it too. Anyone who knows you, knows it."

I looked at her face and body and I ached for what I could never have again.

"You're right Mary, I am still in love with you, so in love that the other night I couldn't keep a hard-on with a perfectly hot woman - simply because I knew you were back in my town. You may now screw up my sex life the way you did my emotional life for the past three years but, being in love is not enough.

"A man has to have his pride. I can't go around lapping up other men's leftovers simply because you might make me happy. I can't forget and forgive that you lied to me for six months.

"If you'd come to me and told me you'd fallen in love, or lust, with another man - it would have hurt, but I think I could have lived with that. At least you would have been honest! You'd have shown me respect, instead of which you made me a fool!

'I can imagine what you said with him while you were fucking, sucking his dick, and I was calling you or going about my business believing you were still my wife. I see the two of you laughing at me in bed. I can only imagine how amusing it must have been when I was doing my best to fuck you and you were thinking in your head how much better Richard Kelly's dick felt."

I turned away from her to look out the window.

"The bottom line, Mary, is that I trusted you. I was loyal to you in the most important ways. You know how important loyalty is to me, in my personal and business life, yet you betrayed me. There is no room in my life for you anymore."

I left her staring out at the city lights.

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New Year's Eve, Thursday December 31, 2009.

Even though banks were closed, Gail and her top staff had met during the day to get a running start on 2010.

I had called Nicole and Peter during the day. Both of them had pumped me for information about their mother and I, knowing now that we were both back in the same city.

I had given them both the same answer. I hadn't even seen their mother in the month since our meeting at O'Brien's, except for Thanksgiving with them. I didn't tell them what had happened that night in Nicole's condo and I gathered their mother hadn't either. Neither of us had called the other before or after Christmas - we just lived in the same city.

Gail had reserved a large room at Pelicans for a private party.

A chauffeured limo, one of a fleet hired by Gail, picked me up at my condo at 7 p.m. and dropped me at the door. When I walked in to the party room, I had no idea whether Mary would show up, either solo or with a date. I had thought about inviting someone - even, for a little while, Brittany - but something inside me rebelled at that.

I knew she liked me, God only knows why, but she did. How could I play on that and take the chance of it growing into something more when I already knew that Mary had spoiled me for other women. No, there could be no good ending to any relationship between Brittany and myself.

I remembered what Mary had told me about Elaine coming to her. I had never meant for her to fall in love with me. I was only making myself feel better as a man by proving that a woman a little more than half my age could be excited by my flirting and moan when I thrust my fingers into her hot wet pussy -- just the way I had 40 years before with other girls, before Mary came along.

Maybe it was just a mid-life crisis, but who the hell ever knows that when they're going through it. I just knew I felt alive when I was with her, when I saw the look on her face as I walked into her office.

When I was with her, I could forget that Mary existed, that I had been married for more than half my life, that there would never be the excitement of that first time again, that I would never be young again.

As long as I didn't fuck her, as long as I didn't slide my dick between those long lovely legs of hers it wasn't real, it didn't count! I know that is crazy. Maybe that's why they call it middle-aged crazy. It was all just fantasies, that's all it was.

But if Mary was telling the truth, the truth I'd never known for all those years, Elaine hadn't realized it was all just a middle-aged man's fantasy. She had thought it was real. That's why she had never called me again after that phone call to her telling her I couldn't go forward. That was why she hadn't been in her office the next time I'd walked by and she'd accepted a transfer to a branch in Atlanta, but I'd never looked too closely into her disappearance. It was more comfortable after she'd left, I never had to worry about her going to Mary!

In the days after Mary had told me about her meeting with Elaine, I wondered why Mary had never said anything, but really I knew. There are things you can live with, as long as you don't have to admit that you know them. If she was ignorant of my actions, if she didn't know what had happened, she didn't have to do anything about them.

If she had confronted me, what could I have said in my defense?

'I'm afraid of getting old' or 'You're not enough for me anymore'.

Both of those would have gone over like lead balloons.

Would she have had to divorce me, or separate from me to protect her pride? Or would she had come to me and said, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I'm going to fuck other men and you'll never know anything about it."

Would I have been able to accept that or would the suspicions, once planted, have poisoned our marriage beyond any hope of salvage?

It would have been my fault but could I have withstood the torment of wondering, every time she left, whether another man would be between her legs in strange beds?

No, her silence had saved our marriage, had given us a good 10 years after I had destroyed it without even knowing it! Now I couldn't make myself forget what I knew, root out the images of her breasts in another man's mouth, of another hard dick sliding slowly into the center of her while she moaned.

So I knew and she knew - what in the hell was I going to do about -- anything?

So I went to Pelicans alone on New Year's Eve, the one time in the year when you should always be with someone, even if only for the length of one kiss to symbolize the death of the old and the birth of the new.

I stood at the entrance, looking around for someone I knew. I saw people I knew, mostly by face rather than by name. There were clients, customers, bank staff and business people from around the state. Gail walked over to me as I looked around. She was wearing something low cut, translucent and crystalline, embroidered with what looked like real gems. She looked literally like a million bucks, but her breasts, skin and blue eyes put the rubies and diamonds in the shade.

It was ironic. If there was any one woman on the face of the earth who could have had a man to love and be happy with, it should have been the woman in front of me. She had everything, yet she had screwed her life up - some of her lowest level employees probably had happier personal lives. There had to be a moral there somewhere.

"Here by yourself, Hugh? Why no date?"

"Don't really know, to be honest. I just didn't feel like it. I might have a couple of drinks, stay long enough to see the New Year in and then go home. I'm getting a little old for New Year's blowouts."

"That's okay - I'm here without a date myself. I think one might show up.

If not, maybe you can give me a kiss at midnight?"

"I'd be honored, Gail."

So I met, mingled and talked pleasantly with ladies who I could have fucked if I'd shown even a little interest. I exchanged talk about politics and the 'Jaguars' with husbands and boyfriends who wouldn't have been happy with me if they could have read my mind.

I danced several times with Coffee, who was there with the young attorney named Greg I'd met long ago at Pelicans that first night with Brittany. During one dance I noticed the looks she was giving him and said, "You finally getting serious about a man? I get the impression he might have been serious about you for a long time."

She smiled at me, "He's an asshole but he grows on you. Why did you think he was interested in me?"

"Just something he said to me one time."

During a break I'd grabbed a glass of champagne and was walking up to Gail as she stood talking to Hank Clark, the head of a local boutique PR firm who did some good work for us. His tall, dark-haired wife Patricia, who was almost too sexy to be allowed out by herself, stood with them.

As I approached them, Patricia turned and smiled at me. It was a friendly smile. During the time that I had gone a little crazy, she was one of the few women -- and the hottest -- that I had never even tried to play with.

I had stopped myself, even though she was very willing at the time, because I had known instinctively that she was a marriage killer.

Before I reached Gail, a familiar face came between us and I found myself taking his hand.

"Hello, Hugh, you're looking well preserved."

Then the grin took the sting out of his words as he added, "Hell, you're looking better than me. How do you do it? A deal with the Devil?"

"Good clean living, Robert. You're looking good, prosperous. A little birdie told me you'd struck it rich."

Robert Sandler was looking good, a hell of a lot better than he'd looked the last time I'd seen him, in a hospital bed.

As his presence registered with Gail, who had been talking to Hank Clark, she stiffened then slowly turned to stare at her ex.

"How the Hell did you get in here?"

"You're slipping in your old age, Gail. You forgot to put my name on the 'Keep Out At All Costs' list."

"Only because I thought that, finally, you would get it through your head that I never wanted to see you again!"

"Still holding a grudge?"

"Why are you here, Robert? Speak quickly, before security gets here to toss your ass out onto the street."

He stood there, dressed a lot more stylishly than I remembered him in his school teacher outfits. His eyes ran up and down her gem-encrusted dress and the body it contained, then smiled. I could see her temperature rising.

"It's been six years, Gail. I thought we could...have one dance for old-time's sake."

"I don't want a last dance or a last anything else with you, Robert. You've already rubbed in your new-found wealth with your little big-boobed playmate on the Bonne Chance. I know you really enjoyed that! We have nothing to say to each other."

He grinned, "Maybe I rubbed it in a little too nastily Gail but, honestly, you deserved it. You remember the last time you left me, in that hospital bed, unable to move because your asshole boyfriend, and his friends, broke my neck? Some guys would hold a grudge over something like that, but I don't."

He stretched his hand out to her.

"One last dance, Gail. I'm re-locating to Los Angeles in a few days, for business -- and personal - reasons."

"With your little -- or not so little -- Bimbo?"

"Yes, Sydni is coming with me. She's not a Bimbo. She's a sweet, very intelligent woman. The funny thing is, I think you two would have been friends - under other circumstances."

"No, we're done!"

He kept his hand extended.

"I loved you Gail, and I know you loved me once upon a time. Come on, one last dance, for two people who almost made it. If for no other reason, for your grandfather! You know he always liked me, even though he never thought we'd make it."

She looked at him and her eyes glistened.

"You know this is such a bad idea."

"We were always a bad idea but it never stopped us before."

She took his hand and they stepped onto the dance floor.

Hank Clark, who knew their story, looked at them as they danced, then glanced back at Patricia and reached for her hand. She took it and gave him the kind of smile she had never given me, even when she was trying to work her wiles on me.

"You know those are two people who should, but probably never will, be together."

Patricia looked at her husband, "You never can tell, Hank. Look at us - what were the odds?"

"Sometimes people beat the odds," came from behind me.

I turned to look at Mary. Despite the chilly weather, she wore the light, summery creation of sheer fabric and embroidered flowers she had worn to Brandy's New York wedding, under a jacket.

'Hello Mary."

"Hello Hugh. Where's your date?"

"Flying solo tonight - probably make an early night of it. You?"

"The same. I really came to see if there was any way you'd put your arms around me and forget the past for one night."

"You can never forget the past, Mary. You might be able to live with it, maybe even get beyond it, but you can't ever really forget it."

"Then why don't you see if you can get beyond it for one night, just a few hours and then I won't bother you again."

"You keep making that promise, but you keep coming back. You don't keep your promises, not even the really big ones."

She stared at me.

"I seem to remember you had a little trouble with that too."

"Okay, so neither one of us is -- was -- perfect. What good will it do for us to share a night. It won't ever happen again."

"Do you have to have a reason to want to hold someone?"

She held her arms out to me and we melded as if we were one.

It seemed that time went away. We were still dancing when Robert Sandler walked up to us and we stopped. Both Mary and I had known him well from the good old days.

He said hello to her and then shook my hand.

"I'm going now, Hugh. I had thought about staying for a few days, but there's no reason to stay any longer. I think I'll scrounge a last minute ticket and fly out tonight or tomorrow morning. Sydni has already gone."

"Good luck, Robert. I wish you well."

He looked backward and I could see Gail watching us.

"I don't need to ask but, take good care of her, okay?"

"As always."

When he walked away, Gail turned her back on us and walked in the opposite direction.

We danced every dance throughout the night. We never sat one out, although we broke twice for drinks and bathroom breaks. No one came up to ask her to dance, but I wouldn't have let her go if they had done. If this was the only night I'd ever have, I would use it to store up memories that would have to hold me for the rest of my life.