Grieving Time Pt. 07

Please read from part 1 first.

Hope you enjoy the story.

No harm or injury was incurred by any children's toys during the writing of this story.

from Part 6

He was hoping he could be left alone for the rest of the day so he wallow in his self pity. He also knew that would be a forlorn hope. The women in his life would never let him have a bad moment to himself. Somewhere in his mind he knew this was not a bad thing. Some people loved him and wanted the best for him. His last thought was to Jenny just before he pulled into his driveway.

"Dearest Jenny. Life was marvellous with you. Why did you have to leave me?"

~~~~~~

#1

Ashley was at work today, so only Diana was home when Brian entered the house. She was at the kitchen table sorting through the course information from her first week of lectures. It took her all of half a breath to see he was stressed, and she made it to the hallway door in time to intercept him. Having learnt from her mother on how to treat this particular man she held him tightly in her arms, making sure he could not pull away. It was at times like this that being taller and stronger made no difference, and even a tiny woman could stop the biggest of men. Love and concern were a big equaliser. Brian let a sigh escape as he surrendered to her, then held her in return. They stood there for a minute with her head resting on his chest and his against the top of her head. Both had their eyes closed, relishing the close contact of a loved one.

Pulling back a bit to look up into his eyes Diana asked, "No crap from you, tell me straight. I haven't all day to spend forcing it from you. What happened?"

Brian let a breath out slowly and dropped his head forward to rest against her forehead as he considered the best way forward. His decision came easy as she said the one thing his sister liked to use on him, "Spill it."

With a wry grin he stepped back and moved them both to sit on a kitchen chair, Diana ending up on his lap. Her eyes never left his own.

"Okay Di. I'll give you the condensed, you-are-obviously-busy, version. I got a message earlier from Trish to meet for coffee this afternoon. I turned up and before actually entering the coffee shop I saw her with a man, and they were enjoying themselves together. I did ring her and worked out she hadn't sent the message. I can only guess that the man with her had sent the message for whatever reason he thought he had. I said goodbye to her over the phone, as I am not wanting the drama of sharing her with anyone else. And before you say anything they were having a little romantic coffee break, he had his hands all over her and she was happy with it."

"Oh shit Brian, I'm so sorry that happened. Do you know the guy?" then in a sweet gangster voice. "Can we go to his place and rough him up a bit," returning to normal, "Might make you feel better. Perhaps Em, Faith and I can sort out Trish a little for you. just enough to know she can't two time someone without consequences," then with a finger to her chin and a look of concentration, "Perhaps a horse head in bed or something. I think I've still got some My Little Ponies we could use."

He laughed at that, which was her intent, "Thanks Di, just the offer from my godfather-niece makes me feel better. I'd hate to be the cause of injury and harm to your pony dolls, they haven't done anything to deserve that," then he got a thoughtful expression, "But then that dark green one did have a bad attitude," causing more chuckles, "I just want to let it ride and it can all go away. I refuse to let myself dwell on it for longer than she deserves. Just a hit to my pride that I wasn't enough for her."

Diana looked at him closely and could see he was more hurt than he wanted to admit, but she had this inner need to get to the bottom of things, "Could he be an old flame from before you? Perhaps you could have misinterpreted things."

He could tell she would need more information before letting it go so, he tried telling a little bit more, "I know who he is, but don't ask me about him. That part needs to rest. She definitely only began seeing him after she started dating me. She lied to me on the phone today saying she was home as we were talking, even though I could see her at the time. He kissed her neck as she was on the phone, and she allowed him to do it, even responded in a joking way when he stopped. They were actions of romantic involvement, not a relative or a stranger. I even let her know about the message to me about meeting for coffee, but she didn't believe me. After I disconnected, she did check her phone and I saw her get angry at him and storm off. I guess that romance was short lived, like mine."

He looked at his niece as she mulled over this information, and he attempted to nip any further queries before they came out, "That's enough for now please. Just bear with me, I'll get over it soon enough. Just having you here to talk to has helped immensely. Okay Di?"

She let her body lean against his as her arms held him, resting her head onto his shoulder, "Okay Brian. I'll stop with the questions, for now. Although be warned, mum may not stop till you are bleeding all over the floor, and she knows absolutely everything, down to the exact wording of the phone call, to what type of coffee they were drinking," the last said with a smile.

"Thanks. Just give me a cuddle for a minute longer if you can, I'll be right as rain then."

"Sure thing unc'."

Five minutes later she did hop off him and returned to her study material. Brian left the kitchen to rest in his room, needing to recharge his energy before Ashley arrived home. As soon as he was out of hearing Diana was on the phone, alerting his support crew of the news. Patricia and the unknown man were lucky a lynching party hadn't been formed, and that nobody really wanted to cut the head off a My Little Pony.

Brian didn't get the rest he was needing, as his phone dinged with a series of messages just minutes after he closed his bedroom door. He ignored the ones from Patricia, but couldn't do the same to the others. Martin wasn't above gloating of his success in getting one over on Brian. He read them and, to start with, he was ready to blast the world with wild anger, but then by the fourth message he had simmered. Martin's actions had been a childish tantrum, demonstrating just how weak and gutless the man was. Rather than face him directly he had gone to so much effort to find out that Brian had a girlfriend, then went all out to gain her affections. All this just to force Brian to be embarrassed. It's not as though he had made any commitments towards the woman, they had just started getting to know each other. The last message kept going on how week Brian was to so easily cuckolded. His sexual ability must be pathetic if another man could so easily sway a woman away form him. Brian had to wonder which playground Martin was in, to be displaying this low level of maturity. The messages eventually stopped when it became obvious that Brian wasn't going to respond in the way Martin had wanted. Sometimes silence is the best way to deal with situations.

He had received a few text messages, and even a couple of phone messages, from Patricia that afternoon. Curiosity got the better of him and he brought them up on screen and from message bank. 'She was sorry', 'she wanted to talk to explain', 'it was all a mistake', 'it was all a misunderstanding', 'it wasn't what it looked like', 'she was set up by him', amongst other words. Ending with the last phone call message, 'It's your fault, how could you just walk away from us over something trivial like this'.

At the end Brian had to stop and get some rest. He knew exactly what happened and why. Martin had worked so hard to bring this about, and succeeded. He knew Trish hadn't gone out to cheat on him with another man, but she ended up doing that anyway. Brian was just glad to know now how easy it was for her to be swayed into being with another man. He tried resting but his brain kept going over everything. The hurt would not disappear except with time. He knew this, having suffered worse things than this. He did sleep for a short period, his mind pulling up an image of Jenny which gave him some peace. After waking he realised that maybe he was actually getting on with life, and thinking of Jenny gave him a good feeling instead of loss and depression.

Ashley came home from work to find Diana preparing the meal. She had a wonderful feeling in her heart at the sight of her daughter helping them. A few years ago just suggesting she help with anything around the house would have resulted in a screaming fit.

They had a whispered conversation about the man of the house as Ashley was brought up to date on her brother's afternoon activities. Curiosity got the better of Ashley, she would get all the information from her brother and it needed to be aired before they ate. Now was as good a time as any so she barged into his room expecting him to be asleep. This would be perfect timing as his brain would be dopey if he was woken before he was ready. Instead of seeing him snoring in bed, she had a full view of his naked body as he entered his room. He had just finished drying himself after taking a shower in his ensuite. Brian surprised both of them by nonchalantly continuing to the bed where he had laid out clean clothes. After his briefs were covering his groin Ashley managed to speak.

"Nice one, big bro," getting a smile from him as he continued dressing, "I realise you might be hurting if what Di just told me is true, so I will be gentle with you. Take your time, but you must talk to me."

Sitting on the one and only chair in the room she asked her best polite voice, "What the fuck happened?"

Brian actually laughed aloud at his sister being gentle and considerate towards his feelings. He took a moment to think over his reply as he finished dressing.

"I'll recap it, but I kept some things from Di that I felt she didn't need to know. You're a big girl so I'll tell you more. I got a message to meet Trish for coffee this afternoon. I happened to find a park a little down the street. I then saw her out in the front seating of the cafe. Before I got out of the car I noticed she wasn't alone. There was no mention of her introducing me to anyone, so I looked a bit closer and I knew the guy with her. To put things simply, I stayed in the car and watched for a while trying to work out what was going on. They were acting like a couple, like they were going out together with their hands and eyes all over­ each other etc."

He could see Ashley getting quite angry, "Damn Bri, never thought she'd do that to you. Not the type to setting things up like that so you would find out about it. That's really cold. It takes a total bitch to do that. Shit, what a cow. So sorry Brian, you didn't deserve that from her."

"Okay, thanks Ash, but hear me out a bit longer because it gets weirder than that," and he waited for her to look back to him and nod, "I watched them and something felt even more off, mostly because of who else was involved, but I'll get to that in a bit. She had her whole body language centered on him and he was only partly attentive to her. It seemed to me that he was more interested in what was around him as he was always looking elsewhere. My guess, he was really looking at anyone arriving at the cafe. His actions were odd for someone on a date. If she had sent me the message to set me up to catch them, it was weird that it was him and not her on the alert.

"I wanted to leave not wanting to walk into all that crap, especially with him, but needed to at least confirm that she had made the contact to meet with me. I rang her and when I asked where she was, she said she was at home cooking tonight's dinner. She actually looked confused, at least she did from the distance I was watching, when I mentioned I was unable to meet her for coffee at that time. I even told her that she had messaged me earlier to invite me out. I made some last comments then hung up. She went to her phone message app and looked really surprised to find the messages with me. In the end she got angry at the bloke and left looking really pissed off. He actually laughed at her."

"That's strange. Why would a bloke do that? Assuming it was him who sent you the message."

"This is the part I didn't tell Di. The man was Martin. I can only guess he got hold of her phone earlier that day and sent the message."

"Oh shit. The sneaky gutless turd. How the hell could I have ever married him. I'm so sorry Brian, I'll go and shove a broom up their arses, bristles first, for this."

"Wait a mo' Ash, there's more," and he grabbed his phone and called up the recent messages, handing it to her to read.

Ashley gave her brother a curious look as she took the phone, then quietly read through each message on the screen. With each one her eyes got bigger, then she teared up feeling sick in her gut.

"Bugger," was all she got out at the end, remaining quiet for a minute as she mulled everything over, before she said any more.

"Crap, this is really sick isn't it. It seems like he has gone into a second teenage-hood. It was everything except calling out 'Nyah-nyah, my thing's bigger than your thing'."

Brian smiled at the last bit she had sung out in a school yard voice, before telling her to listen to the phone messages from today as well. Which she did with her head shaking at the words she was hearing. By the last one, she was very sad and heartbroken at what her life had done to her brother, that he should suffer because she had married a total loser.

"You didn't respond to either of them?"

"No I couldn't be bothered at the time. Had I said or done anything then I probably would have done the wrong thing and regretted it. I even justified it by saying to myself that they were not worth my time anymore. I was plain tired at the drama and wanted nothing more than for it to all go away. I still can't be bothered."

"I'm really really and truly sorry Brian. I never thought anything like this would happen because of my troubles," as she said this she grabbed his arm an pulled him to stand in front of her.

Her arms went around his hips and she buried her head into his abdomen, hugging him tightly as his hands rested on her shoulders. They shared a minute silently together, then he went on talking.

"Needless to say it's over with Trish. Shame because I really liked her and we had some fun together."

"Even though it was all Martin's doing?"

"Well, being caught together today was his doing, and I guess them meeting and obviously going out was all on him as well. But she never had to agree to be with him. I assume he isn't some devious hypnotist with crazy mind control powers, or she had some big secret he could force her to do what he wanted. I also have to say we hadn't gotten to any real close intimacy either, and technically we were not at the stage of being exclusive or anything. Not as though I'm exactly innocent either. What really hits me is that she lied. I suppose her seeing another man was her prerogative, we were not exclusive. She lied to me on the phone saying that she was home. Surely she could have even been half truthful that she was out with a friend," he let out a breath as he tried to work out in his mind what his real problem with it all was, "I don't know sis, it's all just so fucked up."

She sat there for a moment before suggesting, "I think you should at least talk to her and air out everything. There may be something else that you can't see," she shrugged when he gave her a curious, eyebrows up look, "I can't even guess at that. But you both looked so good together and, above most things, she made you happy. She looked really happy with you as well."

He nodded at her words in understanding the intent of what she was saying, while moving back to sit on the end of the bad facing her as she continued talking, "And, if you recall, not so long ago you got got your knickers all in a twist because the two of you didn't talk to each other. Just assuming things and walking away in a huff."

He looked down at the floor when she said this, feeling embarrassed at the way the pair of them had acted. When he lifted his head, Ashley had a look of concentration as she was thinking about something.

"Brian, going back a bit to something you said," O-Oh, never a good thing to hear those words from his sister, "You said you were not exactly innocent of cheating. What did you mean?"

"Err, nothing really sis, just words," as he gave a telltale sheepish look at being caught out doing something wrong.

"No, there's more to it than that. You have that guilty look that you always got when caught out. Come on, spill it. Or do I have to tickle it out of you, you know I have ways of making you talk that were outlawed in Geneva."

He sighed as he knew that, if history can be believed, she would hold this by the tail until he admitted everything, "Well Ash, I didn't want to upset you, so kept quiet about it. I still don't want to get you cross or upset. Can we just leave it go, let me have some little secrets."

"Nope. No way. Tell me, or I'll get Di in here and between us we will get you to talk."

She thought it all a joke that he must have been with someone and was all shy about it. "Silly," she thought, "that he'd think I get cross if he had sex with someone."

"Ash, I have been having hookups with some women for a while. Like a friends-with-benefit kind of thing. I won't say they mean nothing, because they mean a heck of a lot to me, just not the romantic marriage type of thing."

As soon as he said this, he felt that he had just told a lie making him feel horrible inside. He tried to squash this until he could sort it out later.

"Oh," and she felt relieved that he had been having sex, as she wanted him to move on after losing Jenny, "Oh, did you say women, as in more than one. Gosh, you sly dog. Where the heck did you meet these women and how long have you been having benefits with them? Do I know them, and exactly how many are there. When and where did you get these benefits. I've been living here and you never had anyone over."

Then it came to her, "The phone calls then suddenly going out to meet friends. Then the odd nights you had to go out for whatever reason. This has been for long time then."

"Yes Ash, since before Christmas. Can we just leave it at that?"

She was deep in thought with lines of concentration marking her brow, "I can't work out how you could've met one single woman last year with enough time to become that friendly before Christmas, let alone two. You were so deep in the mud until we took you out for the dinner and dance. Then Tina and Ronnie took you out for a night each, then ..." she paused in thought.

With eyebrows raised high, mouth opening wide she stared at her brother as the only solution popped into her mind, "No! Tell me no! You didn't, you couldn't. They didn't, couldn't, wouldn't. But how, and nobody said anything. I didn't know. They are my best friends, and they never."

With a sound of disgust Ashley quickly stood and stared at her brother, then she stormed off. Pausing briefly after leaving his room to turn and loudly say "How could you!" before she stomped to her own room with a disgruntled cry.

Seconds later Diana stood in the hall outside his room and looked at Brian with a curious expression. He shook his head at her silent query, hoping she would leave it alone.

"Gee Brian, I guess that from the shouting she just found out about your little harem buddies. Perhaps you should warn your group of girlfriends that the gig is up."

He looked at her with astonishment, "You knew about it?"

"Well, der. Can't keep things from nosy daughters, especially when their mothers suddenly start singing happy songs and prancing around the house like love sick teens. It didn't take any brainpower to work out who was giving them the happy juice. By the way, we three are happy for you and them. The lot of you deserved whatever happiness you could find. Why do you think we have been flirting and teasing you so much. Well it was that, and how you are so cute when embarrassed, and the great way you fill out your shirts and the crotch of your pants. That part was a real bonus to us horny chicks."