Looking Back

"Kate, I think you should leave," I said. She looked so hurt that I felt bad.

"Dad, what is she to you?" asked Kate.

"She's...everything!" I said fiercely. "We had planned a very special evening for tonight and nothing is going to stop that from happening. I already know what you want. I already told your husband and your mother in law that I can't help you. It was good seeing you again, but you really need to go."

"Dad, Matt and I are no longer married," she said. "And I don't know what is going on between you and my cousin, or why you won't help your own grandson. Something is really wrong here, so can you put off your special night so we can talk?" She gave me her smile, full blast.

"No," I said. "There is nothing in the world that I would stop or delay tonight for."

"Fine, we'll talk in the morning," she said. "We'll settle all of this shit once and for all."

"There's nothing to settle," I said.

"Dad...please?" she said. "I know I'm not your real daughter, but I always wished I was. And I always felt like I was...so for me, can we just talk and get this all out?"

"He said no!" said Miranda. "And you can't have him. If you don't leave us alone, I'll kick sparks off your skinny ass."

"Miranda, this is none of your business," said Kate. "This is family business."

"Do you know what this is?" asked Miranda. She flashed her hand and her ring caught the light. "I am his family. And he's mine. We're getting married and we're gonna..." she hesitated. "We gonna stay together for always."

"I'll be here early, tomorrow," said Kate. "I'll come alone so maybe I can work out what's going on between my cousin and me. Then we'll all get together to talk abut the rest. I have a feeling that some shit is going to hit some fans. Maybe we'll all smell bad when this is over."

After Kate left, Miranda looked me in the eye. "You don't love me at all," she said with tears in her eyes. "You just like me because I look like her."

"Randa, you're full of shit," I said. "If you don't get your act straight, I won't be asking you anything tonight except to pass the salt."

"Oh no, Dummy," she said. "I have to cut down on the salt. I'm pregnant."

"Yeah but you're not pregnant alone," I said. "Nothing has changed. I still love you more than anything on earth. My daughter in law, my son, my ex wife and my grandson can all go to hell. You two are my family."

"Well I'm inviting my entire family to the wedding," she smirked.

"Okay," I said. "We'll send out the invitations as soon as you get all of their addresses. But I thought you didn't have any family."

"I have you and our NASCAR driving baby," she smiled. "Excuse me, Honey, I have to get dressed."

Our evening was everything that Randa wanted. What it lacked in spontaneity, it made up in emotion. When I finally got down on one knee, every eye in the restaurant was on us. Before I could even get to the question, Miranda screamed, "Yes!" so loudly that some of the cooks came out of the kitchen to see what had happened. I was less than surprised when a special dessert was delivered to our table. I was surprised though when I saw the bill and noticed that it was on the house. I would have sworn that Miranda had ordered it.

When we got home, Miranda insisted on watching the video several times. She posted it to her Facebook page and loaded it onto her phone as well. By the third time through it, I was exhausted and ready to go to bed.

Miranda had other ideas though. We went to bed but not to sleep. I guess our sex was boring. We only ever used two or three positions. That evening it was flat out married sex. Miranda lay down and pulled me on top of her. Our kisses were like flames. They got hotter and hotter. I don't,t remember anything as intense as our coupling that evening.

Although we didn't slam each other, small movements gave big impact. We were so hot for each other that it felt as if Miranda's vagina jacked me off. When I finished it just seemed like the sperm came up from my toes and left the end of my dick like water out of a fire hose.

I thought that Miranda was having a seizure when she joined me in orgasmic bliss. We continued kissing until we fell asleep in each other's arms.

We woke and went out to run. Well...I run, Miranda follows me on her bike. When we got back to the house, with Miranda guiding her bike with one hand and holding my hand with the other, we found Kate sitting on the porch waiting for us.

If she had anything to say about it, she kept her tongue. She sat in the kitchen while Miranda and I showered.

After our shower, the three of us made breakfast together and ate it out on the deck behind the house.

We were just finishing the meal when Miranda began speaking.

"I wanted so badly to be you," she said to Kate. "I tried to act like you. I dressed like you. I did the things that you did. I even tried to talk like you. Your hair hasn't changed much in over twenty years. And I guess I'm still trying to look like you.

You went away to college. You didn't come home very often, Kate. I started to hear things. You had met a really special man and had fallen in love. I wanted to fall in love too. At eighteen, I was a study in contrasts. My mother was a religious zealot, and like yours, my father was an alcoholic.

At eighteen, because of my mother's strict guidelines for what is and is not proper for a young girl, I had never been kissed.

The next thing I heard, you were dropping out of school because you'd gotten married and were expecting a baby. Your life seemed magical to me. My part of the family couldn't send me to college. I had to work and earn money to try to send myself.

I took a job in a restaurant, waiting tables and my inexperience proved to be my undoing. I worked a Super Bowl party at the restaurant and ended up dead on my feet after carrying hundreds of orders of wings and chips and beer and everything else they had .

I accepted a ride home from a couple of guys that I'd gone to school with. They offered me beer. I was tired and thirsty, so I accepted. I had never drank beer before. I had no idea what it was supposed to taste like. So I never noticed what they'd put into it.

To this day, I still don't remember any of what happened. I did get to see the video that they submitted to the court. I woke up by the side of the road near my house the next morning. I was no longer a virgin. I had no panties, no bra and enough dried, crusty semen between my legs to fill a cup.

I told my mother what had happened and we called the police. I only remembered the two guys I had left the restaurant with. But it turned out that there were six men who'd had sex with me while I was drugged and unable to say no.

One of the guys had videotaped it on his cellphone. That video made it seem that I had been a willing participant. The news of the video and what it showed, spread through our small town like wildfire. Over night, I was branded a whore and all of the men got off and were released. None of them did any time.

After that no one wanted to have anything to do with me. At least not around other people. The people I called friends, had deserted me, as had most of my family. My mother tended to punish me for everything then. I couldn't do anything right. She also began to suggest that I find other accommodations. I was fired from the restaurant because my presence was supposedly driving off customers.

I went through job after job and finally ended up as a bar maid. I was alone and lonely and ripe for the picking. I fell for the first guy with a line of shit to come along. I really thought that I, like you had found my Prince Charming. He wined me and dined me and then fucked me until he was drained. I just let him do whatever he wanted because I wanted so much to be loved.

I was a little girl in the body of a woman. I thought I had found my Prince Charming and intended to do anything I had to in order to keep him. Everyone in town except me knew that Prince Charming was married and had kids. My reputation took another downward leap. Over the next few years I went from one bad relationship to the next.

I started drinking just to get away from the pain I felt when people passed me on the street and called me names. I was always alone. The only time I wasn't was when I was with a man. It was like some sort if vicious cycle that I couldn't get out of. I'd get drunk and end up getting fucked. Most of the time I had no idea who'd done it.

I'd feel like shit afterwards, which would lead to more drinking. And the whole thing started over again. I didn't even like sex, I had no good memories of it. I woke up one day and realized that I was thirty years old. No one in town wanted a relationship with me. Well...the temporary relationships they wanted didn't 't count.

And after being called a whore every day for as long as I could remember, I just started to act like one. No...I never took any money for it, but it's what I was, just the same. I was lucky not to ever pick up any diseases. I was also not so lucky. Our family abandoned me. They never even tried. It wouldn't have taken much effort. All I ever wanted was someone who wanted me.

The women in the family wanted nothing to do with me. But the men, my uncles, my cousins...all of them. They came by regularly. As I got older and not so pretty, they began to treat me like shit. I was little more than a plaything or a joke to them. I guess they'd all had me enough times that they were done with me. There were younger and prettier girls and there's nothing worse than a forty year old toothless whore."

"How did you lose your teeth?" asked Kate.

"One of our cousins," said Miranda. "The big one, Aunt Esther's oldest, Horace. The one they call horse. I was really sick and throwing up. I just didn't feel like doing anything. Not that I ever did. I usually just let them do what they wanted so they didn't beat me up. I tried to stay away from our family and friends because it was just too weird.

Listen, no one likes to be turned down by a slut. All the other men laugh at them. So Horse didn't want to take no for an answer.

He pushed me down onto the floor right in the bar, with me yelling, "No," and "Stop." Everyone in the bar, including some of the women thought it was hilarious that my own cousin was about to rape me. Finally he pulled out his dick. It was more like something you'd find on a cat, a really small cat, so that wasn't why they called him Horse.

As he got close to me I just threw up everything in my stomach all over him and his tiny dick. The guys in the bar were rolling with laughter. Then one of them yelled out, "Hey, Horse, you're so ugly you made a whore vomit!" They laughed even harder after that . So, Horace, our cousin, a member of the family you're so proud of, reared back and punched me in the mouth like I was a man. He hit me so hard I flew across the floor.

My entire face was swollen and bruised and I lost all of my front teeth. There was blood all over the place. The people in the bar just laughed. The man who owned the bar came over and told me to get out of his place because I was causing a scene. He gave Horse a beer on the house and they moved on with their evening.

And that was my life. People in our small Ohio town treated me like shit, but I didn't know anything else. It was common for people to yell at me, or hit me or piss on me and the members of your family, they were no longer mine, were the worst. It was almost as if they needed to distance themselves from me, so they were worse and more brutal than everyone else. That lasted until July 3rd 2010. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was early in the evening. Everyone was getting ready to party the next day. The bar hoppers were getting started early. Half of the men in the bar were already drunk . A couple of guys from th next town over thought it would be a good thing, some sort of bonding experience to run a train on the town whore. And they were in luck, I was waitressing there at that moment. Six of them wanted in on it and a couple more guys were thinking about it.

My boss, the guy who owned the bar, just looked at me and told me to take it outside or I was fired. I tried to tell him that I didn't want to do it. Two of them grabbed me by my arms and started pulling me, kicking and screaming towards the door.

And then I heard a voice from somewhere in the bar. "Leave her alone, guys. She said, "No!"

Two of the guys sat back down and went back to their drinking, but that still left four of them and they were pissed. My savior, didn't look like he had a chance. He was older than all of the other guys by at least twenty years and smaller than them too. But he had the benefit of being sober.

He pushed his way over to me. I don't think he'd have made it through the crowd, but a lot of people, sensing that there was going to be a fight, let him through.

I was lying on the floor where they left me. I was crying my eyes out and half drunk myself. But when I saw him there standing over me looking up at those four guys, I wondered if he was crazy.

"Mister, that's the town whore. She fucks everybody," said one of the guys.

"She still said, "No," Kenny told him. "What's wrong can't you get a woman who's willing?"

He was really pissing them off. The biggest one of them reached towards him. I guess he thought he would just knock Ken out of the way and take me. I was sure it would happen too. But Ken reached down and grabbed one of those wooden chairs they have at the tables in bars. He swung the chair so hard that he broke it on the guy's neck and shoulder. The guy went down like he'd been hit with an axe. The fact that he was drunk out of his mind might've made it easier, but he was the biggest one of them and he was out like a light.

His friends all took a step back and looked at each other. They were even more pissed off then. I was sure they were about to all jump him at the same time. But before they could move, we heard three gunshots. I looked up and saw that the police had arrived. One of the officers had shot his gun up into the ceiling. It was a really stupid thing to do since there were apartments over the bar. I know because I lived in one of them.

But anyway his stupid, theatrical, TV type move shocked everyone and froze them on the spot. "Miranda, that's it. We've been putting up with your shit for longer than I've been alive. I want you out of town. This is a goog God fearing community. There's no place for people like you here," said the cop.

"But she didn't do anything," said Ken. "She was just working and those guys decided to gang rape her."

"What, were they arguing over the price?" asked one of the cops. They all laughed.

"Aren't you going to it them in jail, or at least charge them with something?" asked Ken.

"Mister, you can't rape a whore," said another one of the cops.

"Now, we ain't gonna charge YOU with assault, for what you did to that guy, but I think you should get into that hopped up Mustang of yours and get going to wherever you were headed," said the cop who'd done the shooting.

"Yeah, drive safely, sir," said the other one. "You know what will happen if you speed, don't you?"

"Nothing," spat Ken. "This is a small town. You don't have any helicopters. If I decided to speed, there's no way you could catch me." He turned and walked out of the bar.

Everyone in the bar who had heard the exchange, laughed at the cops as Ken left. One of the cops who needed something to do looked at me. He decided to take their humiliation out on me. "I thought we told you to get your ass out of town," he sneered. "You're the cause of all of this, now git."

"But I have to get my stuff," I said. The look he gave me was angry enough to pierce even my drunken haze. I staggered out of the bar into the street. The sudden blast of warm air outside of the bar was enough to make me dizzy. The air conditioning in the bar had helped to keep me on my feet. I lurched from side to side and was pushed by a couple of people Until I felt two strong arms grab me just as blackness descended over my consciousness. The last thing I heard was someone from the bar, saying, "Shit, it's a damned shame to send those titties out of town."

When I awoke it was the next morning. I was wide awake and something smelled really good. I felt better than I had in a long time even with the hangover I had. There was a tray full of bacon, toast and eggs in front of me. That explained the smell.

I looked up into the kindest eyes I had ever seen.

"Are you ready for breakfast?" he asked.

"Uhm hm," I replied trying to keep my mouth closed. "Where are we?"

"We're about fifty miles south of the town I found you in," he said. "There's a greyhound bus terminal just across the street from this motel. I'll give you enough money for a ticket back home. I figure when all of the crap dies down you can go back."

I just nodded. My head was reeling. I loved the way he spoke to me, as if I was an actual person and not just a thing. He looked good too. There was a real sadness in his eyes. And there was pain too. But his eyes were very kind. And underneath the sadness you got the idea that he was a happy person, normally. It just seemed like something had taken that happiness away from him.

As we ate, he didn't say anything and I didn't either. I wanted to find some way to make sure he knew that I appreciated everything he's done for me.

"Did you enjoy it? Was it good?" I asked.

"What?" he asked.

"You know...sex...sleeping with me?" I said.

"Honey, we didn't have sex," he laughed. "You were in the bed. I was on the sofa. I only got one room because you were drunk and I was afraid that something would happen to you during the night. You were what they call, "super drunk." You hear stories of all of those famous rock stars drowning in their own vomit when they're drunk or on drugs. I just didn't want that to happen to you."

I was floored. First because I had never run into a man who'd had a chance to have me and hadn't wanted to. And secondly because the guy was a stranger and he really seemed to care about me. He could've easily just left me back in Ohio. Or he could've just fucked me and left me by the side of the road.

The most confusing thing was that he had put me in the bed, fully clothed, and curled himself up on that tiny sofa to sleep.

"Where are you headed?" I asked him. "Home to your family?"

"I don't have much of a family left," he said. "I'm headed for a new place to start over." It sounded really good to me. I had nothing better going on and something Inside of me seemed to think that it was what I was supposed to do. When I first asked him if I could tag along with him for a while, he sighed and nodded his head. I got the idea that he really didn't want to be alone either.

To make a long story short, we drove through the country looking for a place that felt good. When we got here, we knew that this was the place. It took us a month in a cheap motel before we bought this place.

It didn't look like this at first. Ken and I did most of the work ourselves. I learned to paint and plaster and drive nails. We also did most of the landscaping and believe it or not, we built this deck ourselves. It was just the two of us and a lot of a You tube videos and some help from Home Depot.

Ken and I had a lot of time to get to know each other. He'd been a complete gentleman for the whole time, that we'd been together. The only thing I hated was the fact that he made sure that I understood that it was not his house, but ours, until I found someone closer to my age that I wanted to be with.

I was constantly telling him that I was never going to leave. After we got my teeth fixed, that was a story in itself. These are implants. They don 't come out and putting them in hurt...Bad!