Jimmy and Mabel

Her eyes darted in my direction, but she remained calm. She wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing. "I take it you're not happy with the situation either," she said. She was not smiling, but she was under control. I sensed that she was a strong woman, and totally the superior of her "worser" half.

"You take it right. But, I can't do much until and unless I can get full custody of my babies. I will not let her have them in any possible scenario," I said.

"I see. And if I divorce shithead; then, she'll divorce you and take the kids, and so we have a problem to solve. Is that it?"

I was more than a little surprised at the quick wittedness of the woman. Buttfuck should have been thrilled to be hers instead of fucking other men's wives and risking losing her. "Yes, that's about it," I said.

"Well, we've got time, and I have some other issued to resolve myself before I lower the boom on him. Why don't we talk about how we might be able to kill two birds with one stone," she said. "I'm sure you already know that Lucy is a lawyer and a good one, and she has influence. We can find a way that will satisfy both of us, I'm sure."

We talked for some little time. But, Lucy and I had to get back to the party before the two bad people decided that they had miscalculated.

Back in the yard, we headed for the barbecue to get ourselves a couple of plates. We hadn't been noticed. Lucy and I ate and talked about everything; everything that is, except the problem. She was a mesmerizing woman. At one point, Mabel actually joined us and all was lovey-dovey and pleasantries; it was surreal.

Lucy and I hit it off. Nothing sexual or anything, but we were comfortable with each other. The good news about that was it apparently pissed my wife off. I guess nominally allowing me to find a woman on the side and experiencing the reality of same was not the same. I was actually looking forward to seeing what was going to be what when we got home. I was certain I was in for the third degree.

I was disappointed. She never even mentioned Lucy. I wasn't sure whether that was a bad or a good thing. I didn't push it.

We went to bed. She offered herself; I turned away. A little while later, I felt rather than heard her sniffling. I felt nothing for her.

******

It was two weeks later that I decided to call Lucy for an appointment. The night of the party she had given me her card. It was time to use it.

Her office in town was kinda far from my place of work and even farther from the house, but I figured that that was probably a good thing; otherwise, I might have been finding my way up her way to have lunch with her too often. I didn't need that particular complication in my life right at that moment.

"Go right in, sir," said the twenty-something receptionist. I went in and took the proffered seat.

"So, James, from your call I guess it's time to go for it," she said, setting the tone with that preamble.

"Yes. I have written up what I know about what she, they, have been doing. I also taped phone calls, and I've written down what the children have told me about, how shall I say it, her marginal neglect, if that makes any sense," I said.

"Okay, I'll take all you've got and start building the case. I won't kid you; it could be tough getting full custody for you. But, I have a PI I sometimes use. He can get us stuff that could likely be of benefit. How are you fixed financially? Can you afford him?" Over the next little while she laid it on me about the potential costs, my possible options in terms of the law, and the possible pratfalls that we might encounter if we got the wrong judge.

"Okay then, get your PI on the job muy pronto," I said. "Also, whatever else happens that I find out, I will deliver ASAP after I get it."

"Good. What are you doing this evening?" she said, surprising me.

"Nothing special. Mabel's gonna be home. She let me know she would be. She's planning to go out tomorrow though, but I don't know exactly where. I think she may be meeting a couple of guys, brothers, for sex. I'm pretty sure she's already sampled them once, but I'm not positive. One of them's named Eric, I think. Hey, you might sic the PI on her for that one. I mean..." I said.

"Already ahead of you there. Consider it done," she said, smiling. I was feeling good.

"Anyway, if you're free, how about dinner," she said, "on me."

"Huh? Dinner? On you? Absolutely not," I said. Her face fell.

"I'm sorry, I thought that. I mean I am so sorry..." she started to say.

"Absolutely not; it's going to be on me all the way," I said. The relief on her face was palpable.

"Good," she said. "Wonderful." She took one of her cards and began writing on the back of it. Here's my address and cell. Seven, Okay?"

"Seven it is," I said. "I was thinking how Mabel was going to react to my telling her I had a meeting tonight. It was going to be interesting; hell, it was going to be fun.

******

I was home on time, and the kids ran to me. "Mom is cooking a big dinner for tonight, daddy," said Johnny. "My favorite, spaghetti and meatballs!"

I laughed. "Well, good, I'm glad you're happy." Clara looked at me funny. I wondered if I was that transparent. I could swear the kid was clairvoyant.

Mabel came out of the kitchen. "Oh good," she said. "You're a little early. You can help set the table." I shrugged.

"Uh—not tonight," I said. "I have an impromptu meeting I gotta go to. Don't save a plate for me; it's a dinner meeting." The look on her face almost made up for all of the pain she'd caused me over the past few weeks. Almost.

"Meeting? You never have meetings on your job. What kind of meeting?" she said. She was obviously miffed. I think had I stayed that I would have been subjected to a full court press—sexually speaking. She was dressed awfully nicely.

"The same kind of meeting you have. I mean like your meeting last Saturday," I said. I could swear Clara was trying to stifle a giggle.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" she said, heading out toward the backyard patio. I followed her out.

"What's this about a meeting?" she said. "You got somethin' going on that I should know about?" Her arrogance was almost more than I could stand let alone believe. But, it was funny too, the hypocrisy of it.

"It's a 'my' business meeting, not a 'your' business meeting," I said. You got 'em; I'm gonna have 'em too. Anything else?"

"No, I suppose not.

"Jim, I was hoping that well—I was going to try and make things right with us. I know you know I've been trying; you have to admit that. But, maybe I haven't been trying hard enough. Anyway, I was going to talk to you tonight. You know, try and maybe get you to understand what's in my head. How about it? Will you talk to me?" she said.

"Sure," I said. "But, not now. I have to get ready to go out. Tomorrow's Saturday, hold your thought. We can talk then if you want." I turned and headed back in. I could feel her eyes boring holes in my back as I went back inside.

I collected Lucy at seven on the dot. She was gorgeous. She sure didn't look five years older than me, as my wife had guessed, maybe five years younger. Well, a gentleman never asks a woman her age, not those who don't want to be introduced to mister frying pan at any rate.

Tall, maybe five-eight, thin, kinda like me. Her hair was the wildest red I'd ever seen and her freckles were actually beauty marks in her case. But it was the green of her eyes that anyone who met her would have had to notice first. She wore a billowing lavender dress and absolutely no jewelry of any kind. I learned later that not wearing jewelry was her trademark. It was her view that decorations belonged on Christmas trees, not people. I found that interesting, no, intriguing.

Seated, she wasted no time. "So, how did she react?" said Lucy.

"Huh?" Who?" I said.

"Your wife. I mean to you having a date tonight," she said.

"Oh, well, I told her I had a meeting," I said. "She didn't buy it of course, but that was just too bad. It doesn't even begin to make up for what all she's done to me."

Lucy smiled. "I see.

"Jim, you're not out with me just to get a little revenge on her, are you?" she said.

"Heavens no. I am out with you, apart from your obvious beauty of course, to have a nice, long, leisurely evening with a very interesting lady.

"But, Lucy, I have to ask, why are you out with me? I'm not all that great looking, my dazzling personality notwithstanding," I said. She actually snickered.

"Men! As a group you guys really aren't very bright, I have to say.

"Jim, I am out with you because you appear to me to be excellent husband material." That I was stunned by the sheer forwardness of her words would be somewhat analogous to observing that the German army had had a little problem at Stalingrad!

"Huh?" I brilliantly retorted.

"I say what I think, Jim. Always have. Your marriage is on the rocks and you're hurting. I will not be taking advantage of you; and I won't let you take advantage of me. But, if you're interested, I am too.

"And Jim, I'm forty-five years old. And while I'm not exactly in a hurry, I'm not in a position to be wasting valuable time either," she said. Interesting, Mabel had pretty well pegged her age, but she was only three years older than me, not five.

"Jesus," I said.

She continued. "You know, when I first saw you that night at the party, I kinda figured you wrong. You seemed like a guy who was lonely. That's initially why I came on to you. Of course after we talked, I realized you weren't lonely; you were hurting. There's a difference, not a big one but a difference nonetheless."

"Lucy, that is the most unbelievable spiel I have ever heard in my life. But, since you put it out there like that. I was figuring on coming on to you at the party too, I mean as soon as I saw you.

"And as for being husband material. I could hope to be nothing more. As for actually getting married to you; well, there are the little matters of a divorce that needs to wend its way through the legal system, and also the little matter of us working to see if we really could make it together.

"However, if first impressions mean anything, I figure to be yours, if you do indeed decide you want me, in six to twelve months that is if there is a god," I said. I swear her smile lighted up the room. I felt good. Mabel was far from my mind. In fact, if someone had mentioned her name to me at that moment, I think I would have asked, "Mabel who?"

I got home at around ten o'clock. The kids had only been down for a little while. Mabel was waiting for me. She seemed glad that I wasn't getting in late. But she was walking on eggs.

"How was your meeting?" she asked.

"Not bad, mostly talking," I said.

"Care to talk about it?" she said.

"No," I said. That obviously did not sit well with her.

"Do I know her?" she said.

"Told yuh, I don't want to talk about the meeting," I said. She just stared at me and let it drop.

"I'm going to bed," she said. "Care to join me?" Her final four words were said very softly.

"I'll be up in a little bit," I said. I was wondering if I was going to get the full court press tonight. If there was one thing I could say about Mabel in these troubled days, she was nothing if not unpredictable.

******

I did not get the full court press, but she did surprise we with a kiss on the lips. I think if I had wanted it, she would have spread her legs for me; in fact, I was sure she would have. But, she wasn't pushing it.

The kids were playing in the yard with a couple of neighborhood kids. It was warm out there, but they had evidently found a spot under our big 'ole elm tree that seemed to do for them. They each had a soft drink that they had scarfed from the frig in the garage.

"Jim, can we talk now?" she said, as I sipped my third cup of coffee of the day.

"Yeah, I guess," I said. "But, I'm telling you up front, Mabel, you've got me by the balls, but I will not willingly accept another man's cum being in your pussy while I'm alive. Not ever."

"Jim, you've got it all messed up in your head. It's nothing but a kind of emotional release for me with him. I don't love him. He gets his rocks off; I get mine off; he's says goodbye; I say goodbye, and we forget about each other until the next time. That'd all it is. His wife doesn't do it for him..."

"And as you've informed me I don't do it for you," I said. "Do you have any idea how humiliating it was for me to hear that!"

"Jim, I fucking blew it when I said that to you. Isn't true. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now. I had my head a yard up my ass that day, and I..." she paused and then resumed. "Also, we, he and I, don't fuck all of the time; it's actually kinda rare, and you never get sloppy seconds or anything like that if you were wondering..." I butted in.

"How often?" I said. "How often does buttfuck stick his penis inside of you?" I said, my tone was cold.

"Jim, what does it matter how often? I..."

"I want to know," I said, interrupting her. "How often? You said we were going to talk. I'm not here to listen to a prepared speech; if we're going to talk, you are going to answer my questions—hopefully honestly."

"Maybe twice a week. It varies. Jim, I need more than you can give me. I'm not putting you down. And, I would love for you to take me, and take me often. Take me now. I was wrong before. I have discovered just how much I really do need you inside of me. Jim, I'm begging you. Fuck I wish I hadn't said all of those stupid things to you!

"Jim, I'm hoping that when we are done talking here that you will take me upstairs and fuck me raw. I need you. And it's not about any mercy fuck either, please believe that," she said. She's said it so sincerely, that not only did I believe her, but I think she had just discovered the truth of it herself.

I was silent for a full minute. To her credit, she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut and wait for me to form my response.

"You call twice a week rare? That used to be us; of course it's zero now, I mean for us. Did you consider our loving making a rare event?" I didn't wait for her to answer.

"Mabel, for sixteen years and more you have been the love of my life. But, now, after all of the things you have done to me, and continue to do to me, like telling me to deal with your adultery or leave; well, I just don't know if there is any love for you left in me.

"I have told you more than once now, that the only way for me and you to try and rebuild our almost totally destroyed relationship is for you to excoriate and dump buttfuck; But no, you are 'still' not only letting him fuck you; you are still trying to get me to accept it as being okay. Like you were playing bridge with the girls or something. It's not a card game, Mabel; it's the most intimate thing that a married couple can do. You're living in a stinking dream world; make that a nightmare world, and it's killing us.

"It's you that has to make up your mind, Mabel, and make it up fast. There is no alternative. Think about it, Mabel, the clock is ticking."

I got up and walked out. The gauntlet had been thrown down. At that moment, I had made up my mind, that if she did as I asked, that I would take her back and we would go to counseling and work our problems out. Later I would come to know, to realize, just how far from any such thing happening we actually were.

I turned to look at her as I left the kitchen. She looked frustrated and argued out.

******

I had to think about the kids. They came first, at all events, they had to come first. Both Mabel and Lucy had to understand that about me. I was their daddy, and I loved them fiercely and unconditionally.

On Monday work was slow. Good thing because I got a call at 11:13AM that chilled me.

"Mister Layton?" said the voice.

"Yes?"

"I'm calling from Mercy General, on ninth street. Mister Layton, your daughter is here; there's been an accident..."

"What!" The terror that instantly consumed me shattered my reserve. "How? When?..."

"Mister Layton, we need you to come down immediately, please," said the voice.

"I'm on my way." I yelled to my secretary that I would be a Mercy General and then I was out the door.

On my way, I called my wife at the dealership. The office aid said she'd stepped out at 11:00; she took my message. I was pissed. Where was she when our baby was in the fucking hospital! Angry didn't begin to cover it. But, I would deal with Mabel later. I left a message on her cell and another on the home phone just in case she was there fucking him. But, right now it was Clara that mattered; she needed me.

My wife called me back at 1:45 from her workplace.

"Jim? You called? I got your message from the boss' secretary," she said.

"Yeah, well there's one on your cell too, and another one on the home phone. Where the hell have you been?' I wasn't being nice; I didn't feel nice.

"What's the matter with you? I called you as soon as I was free..." she started.

"Shut the fuck up and get over here to Mercy Hospital now! Clara's hurt, bad hurt," I hung up. At that moment I didn't give a fuck if I ever saw that woman again; I was certain she'd been with her lover. If so, she would be lucky to look the same by nightfall as she had when she left for work that morning.

Clara had been hit by a car when running after a ball that had somehow gone over the fence. She'd run out onto the street to fetch it when the car had come, witnesses said, seemingly out of nowhere, and she'd been hit.

She had a broken leg and had lost a deal of blood. I donated on the spot and then been forced to wait. Mabel joined me a half hour after I'd hung up on her.

"How is she?" she said coming up to me and looking concerned. "And where's Johnny?" Well how fucking appropriate, I thought, she's genuinely concerned.

"I don't know, she's still being operated on. The hospital tried to call you first, I mean before me, but they didn't have any more luck than I did. "Where the fuck were you!" I said. "And Rose is taking care of Johnny. Rose was our next door neighbor: sixty, living alone, and great at baking pastries and sharing them with us and other neighbors.

"I—I—I was working on a project with Dutch. It's not what you think—really. I do have a job..."

"Yeah, and so do I but they got hold of me in an emergency? Why was your cell turned off?" I said. I was not being nice, not at all. She started to cry. Well fuck her.

Finally, the double doors swung open and a doctor in green scrubs came out and up to us. "She'll be okay," he said. "You can see her in a few minutes. They're wheeling her in from the operating room now. She will need to be here for a few days, but I expect a full recovery."

I sagged down onto the waiting room couch. Mabel joined me. "Thank you doctor. How soon..."

"Maybe five minutes. Not long. The nurse will come get you both," he said.

The nurse did come get us. The meeting with my only half conscious baby was tearful and happy and relieved. Mabel especially bawled like I had never seen her bawl. I knew then that she'd been fucking her boyfriend; there was no doubt whatsoever about it, and the guilt was killing her.

******

I stayed in Clara's hospital room the whole day. Except for a brief trip to the cafeteria for some coffee and a couple of packages of saltines I never left it. Mabel left for about an hour. She said she had something to do, and it couldn't wait, but that she would be back shortly. I didn't even really notice her leaving. I didn't care.

The following morning, I called in to work and Mabel didn't, but she didn't go in either. We had barely spoken to each other since our meeting in the waiting room the day before. I, we, had been sent home after 8:00PM the previous night with Clara resting comfortably.