In Her Eye's I was Redundant

When I picked her up for the last dance of the school year, her parents were surprised when I brought her a corsage because it was not a special event. They commented it was the prettiest they had ever seen. I explained that I had made it from a selection of plants that were part of a small nursery that my dad and I had started on the farm.

"I did it with neutral colors so it would go with anything," I said. They seemed very impressed by that.

God, she looked so hot dressed in that tight white summer dress that accented her curves so brilliantly. It was so short that it barely covered the bottom of her panties. She was well endowed in the breast department and with the dress being low cut her cleavage stood out to my delight. All night every time I looked at her, I wondered what it would feel like if my stiffness was sliding in her breasts natural formed sleeve.

Every frigging slowly dance she was grinding herself into me. More than once I had to go to the bathroom just to reposition a certain part of my body because she kept making me stiff all night. To anyone in attendance, there was no doubt that we were now a couple.

Yeah to me she was a real cock tease and she knew it. I guess she was frustrating the hell out of me that night as a bit of a payback for the things we had done to each other over the school year.

By the end of the summer spending time in the hayloft was something we did a lot. My mother and I had a long talk after she found my stash of condoms hidden in the back of a drawer. That was when she had decided to have a long talk with the lady, she hoped was going to be her future daughter in law.

I should have realized what was said because shortly afterward Lenna informed me that she was on the pill.

Mother got her two cents in one night over dinner when she said, "The horses seem to like the stalls a lot better these days and have been lot friskier in the pasture. I wonder if it's because the straw has picked up a new scent."

I almost choked on my food and started to cough my dad looked up and said, "Did I miss something."

*******

My father had seen my interest in Horticultural early in my childhood and had encouraged me to develop it. As a result of his guidance, we had turned twenty acres of our two hundred and fifty-acre farm into a Christmas tree farm. We brought the tiny trees cheap by going through a reforestation grant after researching out what type of tree was best for the Christmas market.

Every spring break we spent the whole week planting rows and rows of new seedlings for the product down the rows. For my dad and me, it was a bonding time. About two weeks before planting we would till up the area to start to get it ready. Depending on the weather we would do it three or four times before leveling the area off. It made the planting quick and easy.

As a result, we had already started promoting the first crop ready for sale during the next season. We had about four hundred trees all around eight feet. The only thing left for us to do was to trim them to make them perfect for the retail customer. We had even found a way to brand them so the consumer would know whose farm they had come from.

In grade six my dad realizing my interest in growing things that if I went into it in a big way that we would have to find a way to replenish the topsoil. The town of Jackson and my dad worked out an agreement for them to bring all the yard rubbish they collected to a section that we had set aside for the mass production of topsoil.

Our neighboring city Cape Girardeau not long afterward made the same arrangement because of the ease of convenience and the fact it was saving them major money it was a no brainer for them.

Twice a month at least from an early age I would spend a full day or two just grinding down branches twigs and other stuff to make it into mulch so that we could then filter the ground up mulch through large screens to sort out the non-biodegradable stuff that would have to be burned down in oil drums. The ashes created by those types of items were spread along the property line because we wanted the finished product as pure as possible.

When a pile reached a certain size, we would add chemicals to stimulate the rotting process and keep it as damp as possible. Once or twice a month we would turn the pile over making sure air got mixed in to keep it loose.

Local building contractors soon learned that they were allowed to drop clean excess soil with us with no dumping fees. Most of which was a version of Missouri red clay. Using chemicals in bulk that were designed to speed up rot we would mix that soil with the biodegradable mulch we created. Over time this side of our growing business took quite a few acres. The key was keeping the soil well aired and damp.

What we did not plan on was the fact that some of the soil donated to us would be used to help flatten and level the land on which we built our greenhouses after we had taken some of the topsoil off.

It took us eighteen months to turn worthless dirt only good for making bricks into high-quality topsoil. We used it for bedding for new plants in our greenhouses and sold some directly for the retail market in ten-pound bags.

In the first three years, we had made enough profit to build two large long glass greenhouses heated during the winter season from natural gas furnaces. Both were filled with growing flowers for shipment to local wholesalers when needed. Using lots of PCP pipe and an expandable hose system we had designed an automatic watering system that hung down from above. We had used the same principles when watering our crops.

Excess water was collected with the draining system my dad had built into the concrete floor and fed back in to be used again. That way any fertilizer lost because of daily watering was retained to be used again with fifty percent of new water being added. We found it a very effective way of cutting cost and it saved us from having to have a collection pond because of the excess of fertilizer in the water.

Over the summer we would be building four more greenhouses to grow white and red poinsettias in for the Christmas season bring our total to ten. My dad figured with the amount of extra money we had coming in by working together I should be able to graduate university debt-free.

I can still remember the first time Lenna saw our operation. It helped her understand why I had chosen this field for my career. My father told her it was my inquisitive nature that had helped to bring this business to fruition.

"Jett asked questions," My dad said. "That got me thinking. After discussing it with the wife and with her blessing the family went forward with it. It's now become the primary source of income and it has steady growth."

"What was the farm used for," Lenna asked, "before this came into being?"

"Raising beef," my dad explained. "Which you most likely know with the fluctuation in the market can be anything to good or bad depending on the wholesale prices."

By the time I graduated from university we had twenty-two long greenhouses measuring two hundred and forty feet long, forty feet wide, and nine-foot-high. We were shipping high-grade organic products weekly. Our customers were demanding more products, so we were expanding again.

Two of our greenhouses grew leaf lettuce for a grocery chain, another two grew bok choy and two grew English cucumbers. We had a staff of twenty and were still growing. Our products were grown chemical-free, marketed as organic, and demanded a higher purchase price from the wholesalers. As a result, we were doing very well financially.

As expected, I joined the family business and went into it full time. Lenna had become a Family Nurse Practitioner and had joined a group associated with the Southeast Missouri Hospital. It had been a week after she got her license that I proposed. Three months later we were married in a rush because she was carrying our daughter. Our two sons came a year apart later.

From the day we got married Lenna was spoiled rotten by both of my parents. They felt the sun rose and fell on her. Mom was overjoyed at becoming a grandmother and became our babysitter. Our children gave her a new important purpose in her life.

The children to this day reflected the morals and values she helped to implant in them.

*******

We had just celebrated our fourteenth anniversary when my cousin Terry and his wife flat Karen took me aside at a family barbeque. They couldn't help noticing that Lenna seemed to have taken control of our relationship because I came across as being too passive and laid back.

It seems that a lot of our mutual friends had become concerned about our future as a couple.

"The way Lenna treats you at times, Jett," Karen said. "It comes across that she is treating you as a second class citizen and has sat on you until she finds what she's looking for."

"To put it bluntly cousin," Terry said. "Lenna may be saying she still loves you, but we all believe she has lost all respect for you as a man. She shows the attitude of a mother who is tired of being just that, even to you."

I went to defend her as all husband should when being confronted by something like this, but my cousin and his wife shut me down.

"Jett, Lena is constantly complaining about the things you are not doing. It like she's turning every little molehill into a mountain," Karen said. "You don't argue or fight. You have toned down the strength of your voice so much that she does not hear you at all. You see her complaints and resent them because you feel she is nagging. That has resulted in that you're no longer listening to what she is saying. You have done more to update and modernize your business than you have in your marriage."

"Your marriage is not one of equality, because It's Lenna led and you just follow," Terry said. "Lenna is using your gentleness and personality to enhance her dominance over you without you realizing it. You have just been too blind to see it."

"Each of you in your way is driving the other out," Terry said. "You work long hours because you don't want to go home but won't admit it. Lenna in her way is finding excuses to do the same. Some of our mutual friends have reason to believe that she has developed a romantic interest outside of the marriage."

Later I was busy doing something on the flat grill in preparation for supper when Lenna asked me to get something. I had been giving what Terry and Karen had said some serious thought. In looking back at Lenna's and my marriage I had finally concluded that in a lot of ways they were right.

Having heard my cousin and his wife loud and clear I said, "Can't you see that I am busy, why don't you get it yourself or send one of our kids to do it. For too long you have treated me like I was your servant. Frankly, I have had enough of being your doormat."

Looking at the shock on my wife's face said it all. Lenna had finally heard the voice she thought no longer existed. Everyone within hearing distance was silent because I came across to them as being angry. Lenna turned and went into the house to get it herself feeling outmaneuvered for the first time in a long time.

"Dad, what's got into you," Luna my thirteen-year-old daughter asked?

"I reached the point that I can no longer accept the feeling that I am being treated as a servant by your mother," I replied in such a way that all could hear me. "Unless your mother can change her way of thinking about me there is going to be a rocky few months ahead in our home."

Everyone attending had just received an awaking. I realized that for most of our married life I had turned the cheek because to me it was not worth fighting over. I had made it by not fighting easy for my wife to walk all over me like I was a doormat.

That night Lenna and I had a major argument. I freely admit it was long overdue. The result of that meant I slept on the couch that night.

Towards the end of it, Lenna had said, "You just don't know how 'Redundant' you are."

That's when I blew it. We had been arguing outside so the kids did not hear it. I grabbed Lenna in pure anger. Turned her over my knee and spanked her as I would our children when they were misbehaving.

She went to the bedroom in tears with a very red ass and locked the door so I could not get in. To say Lenna tiptoed around me the next morning would be describing it mildly. Lenna had just been shocked into a new reality.

When the wife and kids had left the house the next morning, I came back from the huge office built by the greenhouses just to see what I could find. The reason I was doing that was that while I was laying on the couch trying to figure out when our marriage had started to change it had come to me that it had happened eight years ago, just a couple of months after my mother had died.

After doing a major search of her section of the bedroom I found a wrist band with a bunch of small charms on it. The problem was it was all custom made from eighteen-carat gold and I had not bought it for her.

The charms were of such a sensual nature she could never have worn it in public. I knew they had to been custom made for her by request by her lover because it was very expensive. I quietly slid it into my pocket to take it with me because I wanted to get it estimated. It gave credibility to Karen and Terry's suspicions.

I went back to my office and was very quiet. When I got asked about it, I just said I had a lot on my mind because it was the truth. About three o'clock in the afternoon when one of the office staff was in my office, I asked her to call the group my wife worked with and find out if she was accepting new clients.

"Jett I'll gladly do that, but can I ask why," Fiona asked?

"For personal reasons I need to verify what my wife's actual working schedule is," I said. "I got told some rumors that I need to prove untrue."

"So, someone finally found the guts to tell you, what we have been hearing for months," Fiona said as she walked out the door.

Fiona, flat Karen's sister was a military widow, who had joined our company while her husband was in service. Now she was raising her daughter on her own. I had often wondered why she had not been able to find another man. Fiona was completely her sister's opposite. She was a looker.

My wife in all the years we had been married was the only woman who had caught my eye but seeing what Fiona in her femininity had to offer made me realize I was still young enough to start over. The freedom in knowing I had other choices seemed to bring a calm to my state of mind.

Although I had known her for years thanks to Terry and Karen, I hadn't paid attention. For some reason, I experienced the excitement of the unknown again. To me, it was an eye-opening sensation.

When she returned the information, she provided me was quite revealing. Her scheduled hours were not at all in line with what I had been led to believe. Instead of working Thursday and Friday nights till ten pm. every week she was only doing it once a month the same as all other doctors in their office.

Fiona and I chatted for quite a few minutes. She tried to ask questions without making it clear that she was inquiring. I don't know if she realized it, but she had planted a few thoughts that kind of gave me hope about my future.

That gave her lots of time that were not accounted for. It was shocking to learn that she only worked half a day on Wednesdays. The question now was what she was doing with all that free time.

Eight years ago, when the big c took my mother down both my dad and I were surprised to learn that she had left her shares in the family business to me in trust for her three grandchildren. When I was young, they had sold most of the farm with an inflated price to the corporation leaving ten acres around the house in their name and had left ten in my name.

The corporation had paid off the mortgage in ten years with interest. They had presented the land to me as Lenna's and my wedding present. Lenna and I had used that land to build our home on.

Dad had taken the loss of his wife hard and for a few months afterward had gone into a shell. It was at that time I became the president of the company and dad semi-retired becoming our first CEO. He still came in three mornings a week to keep in touch with things and acted as an advisor.

I knew that I had a big business trip coming up in a couple of weeks which required me to be in eight different corporate offices for renewal of contracts which required my signature. All of them were multi-year deals with the built-in price of product ranges that gave us room for cost growth. Because it was a three-country trip, I would be gone for at least three weeks.

Both my father and I were still the heads of our company which now employed over a hundred people. We now had over forty-eight greenhouses all producing to the max.

Thankfully the first year I worked full time I had the property checked out for possible underground water veins and we had found one that would supply all we needed for years to come. When we cut off the county water at that time, we cut our overall expenses by ten grand a month.

An added plus was that we found a huge cavity of natural gas and since the land had been in the family for generations, we found that we still owned the mineral rights. After negotiations with the big boys, we were loaded. Even after paying for what we used for the heat, we were getting a nice size royalty check from them every month.

My cousin Terry, who was our chief financial officer, came into my office to update me with our latest cash flow statement which showed us being in line to have the biggest year of growth ever. It was during this closed-door I revealed to him what I had found. He was as shocked as I had been when he took a close look at it.

"It appears the man she is involved with is loaded with money. What do you plan to do Jett," Terry asked? "Are you going to send someone else to sign the contracts?"

"No, I'm going to go pretending I have no clue as to what is going on," I said. "That will give the private investigators I'm going to hire plenty of time to find out who my wife's lover is."

"Why it won't make a difference in divorce court this is a fifty-fifty state," Terry said."

"Lenna's father Leonard LeBlanc was and still is a conniving son of a bitch," I said. "Before Lenna and I got married he forced us to negotiate a marriage agreement. I believe that Lenna has forgotten all about it."

"Why did he do that," Terry said. "He's worth millions thanks to fracking?"

"To protect his daughter from me ever getting part of her inheritance," I said. "If we divorce because of adultery the guilty party walks out with their clothing and that's about it."

There was a definite change in attitude when I got home that night. My wife seemed to develop a respect for me that I hadn't seen in years. I think we both realized that our relationship had changed drastically. Lenna no doubt was trying to figure out what I believed I knew.

It was also interesting because my dad had decided that morning to take a two-week fishing trip with some of his childhood friends. They had been trying to get him to do that for years, but he had always come up with an excuse. He would be gone until the day before I got back.

The whole time he was away Lenna was at home a lot more. That seemed suspicious and left me with the feeling that something was going on in his life that he did not want me to know about.

A few days later my daughter called me on the phone saying mother was franticly looking for something that was lost and had questioned all three of my kids about it.

"Dad mom accused us all of going into your bedroom and going through her dresser drawers," Luna said. "Whatever she can't find must be of big importance to her because I thought she was going to cry."