Her Problem Ch. 02

"She didn't look like she was drunk and it looked and sounded like she was enjoying what those two men were doing to her and as far as listening to her "friends"; all of them thought they were better than me and had taken every opportunity to make me aware that they felt that way. Stephanie only spoke to me when it fit in with whatever scheme she had come up with to try and break me and Marizona up. Her final scheme worked to perfection though, didn't it? I never did like or trust her so why would I have listened to anything she had to say? In my mind, Marizona cheated on me and you know what they say "Once a cheater, always a cheater". Why would I want to get involved with her again only to have her break my heart again by cheating on me?"

"I'm telling you, she didn't knowingly cheat on you, Joe. I would swear on my late mother's grave that Marizona would never knowingly betray you. She honestly does love you and knows that you're her one and only true love. I think you feel the same way. I promise you that I'll do anything you want if you'll only see her and talk to her face to face."

I sat in the back of the limo thinking about everything Mr. Ortiz had told me. Had my anger and pain been so great that I'd over-reacted when I'd seen her with John and Charles? Was I being a hard ass prick because I had been hurt by what I saw?

I couldn't deny that deep down in my heart; I still loved Mare and had been fooling myself thinking I was over her. I couldn't stop myself from voicing the one last desperate straw I had that might keep me from having to see her again.

"My pursuit of a major league baseball career isn't very conducive to a long term relationship, Mr. Ortiz." I said to him.

"Be honest with yourself, Joe. You know your chance of making the major leagues is slim at best. Are you really going to spend three, four, or five more years living mostly in motels and out of suitcases? I know for a fact the Rockies don't plan on re-signing you. Yes, you may get offers from other teams to sign a minor league contract, but do you want to start over at the beginning with another team. You'll be twenty six years old when your current contract runs out. Surely you don't want to be one of those career minor leaguers who can't give up the game for anything or anybody, do you Joe? My daughter loves you and would be anything and everything you need: best friend, faithful wife, and good mother of your children if you give her the chance.

"What do you say, Joe? Are you ready to go see Mare and at least listen to what she has to say?" Mr. Ortiz asked me with a hopeful look on his face.

I continued to sit between the two men that had hustled me into the back of the limo and thought about everything Mr. Ortiz had said. I realized that he was more than a successful businessman after he told me he knew the Rockies weren't going to offer me a contract extension. No one had come right out and told me that the team was going to let me go when my current contract was up, but I had heard all the negative comments about my abilities as an outfielder. Comments like: "He's too slow for the outfield.", "He doesn't have a good enough arm for the outfield.", And the one that really hurt was "He's a little long in the tooth to be playing in the outfield, all of our other prospects are younger and have a better shot than he does."

It was possible another team would offer me a minor league contract and even move me back to my natural position of first base, but Mr. Ortiz was right, I was tired of living out of a suitcase and sleeping in motel rooms. I decided to do what he wanted and go see Mare.

"Yes, I'm ready to go see your daughter, but you need to promise that if we don't get back together, you won't ever try and force us together again." I told him in a stern and I hoped confident tone.

"I promise if you promise to really give Mare a chance to make things right between the two of you." Mr. Ortiz said to me sticking out his hand for a shake.

I took his hand and shook it while nodding my head yes. We sat back away from each other and I relaxed for the first time since I'd been shoved into the car. I hadn't been paying attention to where the limo had been going and was taken by surprise when it pulled into a hotel across the street from the motel the team was staying in not five minutes after our shared handshake.

The hotel was definitely in a higher class than the motel I was staying in. Its lobby would have taken up most of the cheap motel's first floor and had marble everywhere. I followed Mr. Ortiz across that lobby to the row of elevators as his two employees walked over to a group of armchairs and sat down to wait. Mr. Ortiz went to the last elevator and used a key to open its doors. There were two buttons for operating the elevator: an up and a down. My Ortiz pushed the up button as the elevator doors closed and our elevator ride was made in silence.

I noticed as soon as I exited the elevator that there were only two doors for guest accommodations on the floor the elevator stopped on. Mr. Ortiz went to the one marked "PH-2", motioned for me to stand to the side out of sight of the door, then knocked loud enough to get whoever was on the other side of the door's attention. I couldn't see who answered the door, but the woman's voice who did answer it wasn't Mare's.

"Mr. Ortiz, what an unexpected surprise. Mare didn't say anything about you coming to see us. I hope there's nothing wrong and that this is only a social visit." The unknown to me woman said to Mr. Ortiz.

"Hello Claudia, I have a surprise for Mare and didn't tell her I was coming. How's that knee doing? Will it be ready in time for your next game?"

"My knee is coming along and I'll definitely be ready for Mare's and my next match. I'll go get Mare and you can come in and wait if you'd like."

"No, I'll wait out here until she gets here."

I was getting impatient because the wait seemed to be taking forever, but I finally heard footsteps inside the room and my impatience instantly transformed into nervousness. The woman I'd fallen deeply in love with almost four years earlier and hadn't seen or had any contact with in three was only a short distance away and her reaction to seeing me was an unknown.

"Poppi, what are you doing here and why didn't you tell me you were coming?" The woman of my dreams and nightmares said to her father.

"I wanted to surprise you and hopefully give you something you've been praying for." Mr. Ortiz told Mare before reaching out and grabbing my right arm then pulling me from beside the door to in front of it while he yelled: "Surprise."

"Joe? JOE!" Mare screamed as a look of puzzlement then joy spread across her face before she leapt toward me and I had no choice but to catch her in my arms.

Even in an oversized T-shirt, sweatpants, her now short jet black hair a tangled mess, and no make-up on; she was still beautiful and my heart melted again like it had that first wonderful night we'd shared in that little basement apartment. The first kiss she planted on my lips brought all of those old feelings of contentment, peace, and love flooding back and flowing over me from head to toe. I knew that she was the one and only one for me like she'd known I was that for her. Neither of us responded when Mr. Ortiz told us he would be going so the two of us could do some catching up.

I stood in the corridor holding Mare up as she continued to kiss me with a passion and sense of need I'd never felt with any other woman. Mare's kisses caused my cock to become engorged and harder than I could ever remember it being and all of the memories of that awful night were temporarily banished from my head to be replaced with memories of me pleasuring and receiving pleasure from the body that was hanging onto me for like its owner's life depended on it. When Mare began rubbing her own over heated sex against my member, I knew where and how our reunion was going to end.

"At least let me into your room, Mare, before we go too far and end up molesting each other out here in the hall or do you want to give the guy monitoring the security cameras a free porn show?" I finally managed to say during her oral attack on my mouth.

I managed to untwine her legs from around my waist and pushed them to the floor then bent down so I could get my right arm behind her knees and picked her up in my arms so that I could carry her more easily. The woman I knew as only Claudia stood with a wide open mouth and obvious signs of shock on her face as Mare directed me to her bedroom in the at least two bedroom suite. I kicked the door closed behind me after carrying Mare into the room and laid her down on the king sized bed I'd seen upon entering the room.

Mare didn't let go of my neck when I laid her on the bed and pulled me down on top of her as she again began kissing me with that same passion and sense of need she'd started with standing in the hall. We managed to undress each other despite the frenzy of activities our mouths and hands were engaged in as we kissed and caressed each other. I found myself lying on my back with Mare lying on me as she continued to kiss me and was surprised and enraptured at the same time when she managed to impale herself upon my rock hard cock without breaking our kiss. Her pussy felt hotter, wetter, and tighter than I remembered, but Mare was able to take my above average length and girth entirely as she slid herself slowly down upon my cock.

"So good. It feels so good. It's been so long. I missed you and this beautiful cock you have, Joe. Fuck me, Joe, and make me your woman again." Mare said to me after rising up from kissing me.

I grabbed Mare in a hug and rolled us so that I was on top without breaking our physical connection and began slowly pumping my cock into her pussy while kissing her with the same passion and need she'd been kissing me with earlier. When I felt her begin to quiver and quake beneath me, I rose up on my forearms and began hammering her pussy as hard and fast as I could. Her pre-orgasmic squeal did cause me to remember the last time I'd heard it, but it was only a brief flash and was replaced by memories of me being the one who brought it forth during our many love making sessions. Her scream of release and the squeezing her vaginal muscles were giving my cock had me cumming seconds after her. I continued to stroke in and out of her until my cock had begun to soften.

I wrapped Mare up in another hug and pulled her upper body onto my when I lay down beside her after our orgasms. I know people can't purr like cats, but the sounds of contentment and joy that Mare was making at that moment made me think that she was. Neither of us said a word as we lay there in each other's arms. I don't know how long we'd have lain there if our moment of reverie hadn't been interrupted by Mother Nature's call. When I reentered the bedroom after relieving myself, I saw Mare lying on the bed with the sheet pulled up to below her neck and with an anxious look on her face.

"Joe, I want to say..." Mare started before I interrupted her.

"You don't have to say anything, Mare. Your father told me about that night and your history with John and his fraternity. I don't care about what you did in the past and hope you feel the same way about mine. I haven't been celibate the last three years like you have, but we don't need to talk about any of that. I love you with all my heart and have been fooling myself into believing I didn't. If you promise to be true to me from this day forward, I'll never mention what happened that night again. Can you promise me that, Mare?"

"Yes, Joe. A thousand times, yes. I love you so much and thought I'd lost you forever. I'll never do anything to make you leave me again, I promise." Mare exclaimed as she jumped up off the bed and into my arms again where she started planting kisses all over my face and neck. Needless to say, Mr. Ortiz's promise of me being back in my motel room that night didn't come true, but I definitely wasn't going to complain.

The next day while I was at baseball practice, Mare used my room key to move my stuff from the motel to her penthouse suite. Her father owned the hotel's parent company and the two penthouse suites were permanently reserved for him and his family. I was apprehensive the next time I saw Roberto Ortiz, but he erased it immediately when he grabbed me into a bear hug while grinning from ear to ear.

"Thank you, Joe, for bringing my daughter back from the edge of the dark hole she was headed toward. She's not been this happy since she told me and her mother she was moving in with you back at the university. Promise me you'll never abandon her again."

"As long as she keeps her promise to be mine and only mine, I promise to always be there for her and to do everything in my power to take care of her, love her, and make as many of her dreams as possible come true."

Mare came to see me play that night and made quite a stir with not only all the ball players but most of the fans as well. She was the most beautiful woman in the stands that night and everyone knew who her favorite player was within five minutes of her arrival. Miguel Gomez was at first elated when he saw her thinking he might have a shot at her then crestfallen as she hugged me and gave me a very passionate kiss at the bottom of the stands before the game started.

"I thought maybe you'd changed your mind, gringo, and was going to introduce me to her." Miguel lamented beside me in the dugout while our leadoff hitter was batting.

"No, she's here for me and only me. If you even look at her sideways, I'll stomp your ass into a mud puddle then stomp it dry. Do we understand each other compadre?" I said to him angrily and that and my facial expression told him I meant every word. He slid down the bench away from me and we ignored each other for the rest of the game.

Mare was waiting outside of the players' exit when I emerged from the park and her body was plastered to mine as we walked back to the hotel. Our second night wasn't as exciting or frenzied as the previous night had been, but we were both very well pleased and satisfied when we did finally manage to fall asleep. Our relationship was back to the point it was at before and we began talking about all of those plans and dreams we'd talked about in college.

I was going to fulfill my obligations to the Rockies and then go back to school for my Masters in Education so I could become a baseball coach in high school to begin with and hopefully in college later on down the road. Mare was going to finish her current pro beach volleyball season then retire and go back to school for her own Masters in Education so she could coach volleyball. Both of our professional athletic careers would end within weeks of each other, but too late for us to enroll for that fall's classes. We decided to get married during the time we'd have to wait before we could resume our higher education.

Everything seemed to be falling into place for the two of us until our first major disagreement nearly drove us back apart and a certain person who was partially responsible for our first break-up was the reason for the argument between us. Mare was still friends with Stephanie be it long distance or not and wanted to include her in our wedding as a bride's maid. I didn't even want to invite her to the wedding and definitely wasn't going to have her image in half of our wedding album's photos. We came to a compromise that allowed Mare to invite Stephanie but not include her in our wedding party if Stephanie promised to not act like the bitch I thought she was and not ridicule me or try and embarrass me in any way. Mare swore she'd physically throw Stephanie's ass out into the street if she did either of those things. Mr. Ortiz might have given her a pass for her involvement the night of the frat party, but I wasn't and secretly vowed to get revenge on her even if it took the rest of my life time.

The only other glitch that sprang up that almost derailed our nuptials to each other was her father's initial insistence that we sign a pre-nuptial agreement that limited me in receiving half of Mare's share of the family fortune in the event of a divorce. It was a lot old fashioned, but I believed when two people got married everything they owned separately became the property of both parties. If Mare trusted me enough to give me her heart, she should be able to trust me with her worldly possessions and vice versa. I knew that it wasn't Mare but her father that wanted me to sign the pre-nup, but if she wouldn't stand with me against her family about that issue, could I rely on her to stand with me against her family when other disagreements arose between them and me? I explained all of that and more to her before we talked to her father again.

"Mr. Ortiz, I know you're worried that if, God forbid, something happened to cause Mare or me to fall out of love with each other and end up divorced; you want to protect her wealth in that event, but I can't sign a pre-nup. I know it's not the norm for today's society, but I believe that when two people get married they share everything they have equally including any and all possessions and worldly goods they had before the marriage. I also believe that a man's word and his handshake is his bond and should be better than any piece of paper. I promised both you and Mare I'd always love her and do my best to take care of her and if that's not good enough I guess we'll have to live in sin and all of our children will be looked upon as bastards." I told him at the table in their home during the short break between winter ball and spring training.

"Please Poppi; don't spoil my happiness by trying to force Joe into signing those papers. He loves me and I trust him with all my heart. I will live with him like he said and we will have children together, God willing. Please, don't make me chose between him and my family. I will always chose Joe over anybody, friend or family. Please Poppi, forget about the pre-nup so we can get married and make you proud to be the grandfather of our children." Mare begged of her father.

"Okay. Okay. Forget about the pre-nup." Mr. Ortiz said with a sigh before picking it up and tearing it up into little pieces. "Besides, it wasn't me who insisted that I get you to sign it anyway; it was my damn lawyers. If they're not happy about me not making you sign it, I'll fire their asses and hire new ones. I realized that those fuckers work for me and not the other way around so no pre-nup and my blessings on the both of you."

Mare and I enjoyed the rest of our short stay with her family and when we left I felt like I was a part of it and that they were overjoyed to have me as a part of their family. I hadn't had a cell phone ever in my life, but gladly accepted the one Roberto gave me so I could stay in contact with not only Mare but the rest of the family as well.

I went to spring training and as I expected was sent to the Colorado Springs "AAA" team after it ended. Mare continued traveling around the world on the pro-beach volleyball circuit which made it difficult for us to talk to each other as much as we would have liked. For the next eight months, we had to rely on our phone conversations and occasional phone sex sessions to keep the connection that we'd reestablished after being reunited. Until someone is in one, they'll never understand how hard it is to maintain a long distance relationship. I had only my faith and trust in Mare to keep me from returning to those dark nightmares I'd had of her with other men while we were apart until I was able to vanquish them with an "I don't care what she doing or how she is" attitude during my second season of winter ball.

I did have my stint in "The Show" as ball players refer to the big leagues when the major league roster was expanded in September. My final big league stats were: 30 innings played, .500 batting average from 10 base hits in 20 official at bats with all of them singles except for one double and one meaningless (to the game I was in, not to me) home run, and two errors. I wasn't offered another contract by the Rockies and the desire to play in the majors wasn't strong enough to overpower my desire to be with Marizona so I refused the two minor league contract offers I did receive. I was done as a professional ball player at the age of twenty six.