Love Wasn't Enough For Her

With Danny on my shoulders we walked in. My mom and Becky were in the kitchen talking and my dad like always was in the den watching some sports talk show.

"Hello, Becky," I said in a cautious but cheerful tone. "One son returned to you with just a little extra wear around the edges," I said. Danny meanwhile had started to tell anyone who would listen what we'd done in the greatest of detail.

"Hi Steve, it's been quite a while," she said looking at me with wide eyes. I guess she noticed the changes.

"You're looking fit, single life must be agreeing with you." It was at that point the look of horror covered her face. "I'm sorry, that was callus of me."

"That's all right, it's all in the past now, anyway," I said looking at her. Becky looked tired. She looked like she'd aged ten years. Her long brown hair was again cut short, and it looks like she had gained more than a few pounds. I won't comment on what she was wearing other than to say it wasn't too stylish. She noticed I was sizing her up and tried to push her hair back to make it look a little better.

"I'm sorry I must look awful, I'm just getting over the flu."

"Sorry to hear that. Well, I've got to get going," I said giving Danny a hug and kiss. I also gave my mom a peck on the check and said, "Take care Becky, maybe we'll see each other around." I walked out to my car on rubbery knees.

All right she looked a mess but she was still Becky, the mother of our son. She was nowhere near as hot as Amber or some of the other girls I'd dated but there was still something there.

Monday night my mom called.

"Well, Mom, I'm kind of surprised. I thought for sure you would have called me Sunday night with all the new gossip and with what Becky thought of the new Steve. Okay, let's hear it."

"Can't a mother just call her son to say, 'Hi how's it going'?"

"Okay Mom, we'll play it your way. Becky looked a wreck. She looked like she'd been ridden hard and put away wet. I guess she had no idea I was running late unless you failed to tell her, which wouldn't surprise me in the least. How am I doing so far?"

"Honey, you know I don't like to say anything bad about anyone but let me just say that a certain lady was beyond floored. When her lower jaw hit the floor all I could do was smile, not that I wish her any ill will mind you. She called you a hunk and asked if you were dating anyone. I told her a few but no one seriously. I think someone regrets what she did especially after finding out she hasn't been out on a date in the last four months." My mother would have been a great CIA operative. She could dig out the smallest of details with just a simple smile and a casual question.

"I guess I just wanted to see her reaction to seeing you again. I wanted to see the look on her face after what she put you through. I needed to show her how far you've come without her fat ass."

"Remind me not to get on your bad side, Mom," I chuckled.

"Steve, remember the Rotary auction is next weekend and you promised."

"Come on, Mom," I pleaded.

"Honey, you promised. And you said you had two other guys that would also do it. It's for the kids' summer camp fund."

"All right, all right. Jim and Tim said they'd go along with it because it's for a good cause but they made me promise that you wouldn't get them sold to some sixty year old lady."

"It's an auction, I have no control who wins whom and don't worry, no one is expecting them to sleep with the winner; unless they want to that is."

"Mom, do I have to wash your mouth out with soap? I feel like I'm being pimped out."

"Just for one night and just in case, your dad will be there to make sure you show up."

The three of us worked out extra hard that week. I ate little to nothing so I'd look cut. The kids' summer camp was my dad's pet project and he went all out every year. Last year he sent a hundred kids to camp and this year he was going to try to top that. He and my mother had been to a highbrow charity auction where they had auctioned off three bachelors. They made a ton of money and it got my mom thinking. And when my mom gets something in her head, God help everyone. She had talked me into it, and I had talked two other guys into it.

"Come on, guys, it'll be fun and we get free drinks and food."

"I can just see it," Jim said. "Some old bat is going to win me and expect me to do the big nasty with her." He cringed.

"Maybe it'll be some good looking gay guy," Tim added with a laugh. "Won't you feel crunchy then?"

"Guys, guys, it's the damn Rotary for Christ's sakes and we're not Chip and Dale dancers so let's not worry too much about it. We'll go have a good time and do something good for a bunch of foster kids." Like I said, they were going to do it, but they were doing it more for me because they were my friends and that's what friends do.

We all rented tuxes and looked our best. I skipped on the food but had two drinks just to take the edge off the night. We were the last ones on the program right after the Olive Garden and Long Horn Steak House dinners, like I said, nothing but class. The room was filled to overflowing when Tim took the stage. The bidding started at fifty bucks and went to just over two hundred. Jim's sexy smile drove up the bidding to just over two seventy-five. I was third.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced over the microphone, "remember why we're here, it's for the kids," I told them. "Dig deep until it hurts and then dig a little deeper." I was playing to the crowd. I handed the microphone to the MC and the bidding began.

When the bidding stalled at just over three hundred dollars, I took off my bow tie, opened up my jacket and unbuttoned my shirt and showed everyone my six-pack.

"Now, wouldn't you like to take something like this home with you tonight?" The MC asked the audience. A lot of the older ladies blushed but the younger ones dug a lot deeper.

The bidding came down to two women. I couldn't see who they were because of the dim lighting. When the bidding hit three hundred and fifty dollars, they started going up by five and ten-dollar increments and when it hit four hundred and forty dollars one backed out.

I guess you're probably thinking that it was Becky who won me? Sorry to disappoint you, but no, she didn't. She was there that night but when it went over a hundred dollars she dropped out and just watched from the sidelines. No, it was a foxy blonde about thirty-eight who came up to the stage to claim her price.

She was dressed to the nines and her first and only statement was, "You ready to go?" What was I going to say, 'no'?

She led me out to the parking lot to a Cadillac Escalade.

"You drive," she said throwing me the keys.

"Can I ask where we're going?"

"I thought a quiet dinner, and then we'd play it by ear after that. Oh, by the way, my name is Shelly," she said with a perfect smile.

She wasn't from around here and was wearing enough gold and diamonds that they must have added ten pounds to her dynamite figure. When she told me to take a right and two lefts after driving almost a half hour I was confused. We'd pulled up to a beautiful house but there was no restaurant in sight. She saw my confusion.

"I said a quiet dinner, I didn't say where, did I?" She took my arm and we walked inside. There in the formal dining room a table was all ready set up and it looked like the first course was waiting for us.

"I hope you like salad because I'm a vegan and I don't eat meat."

"It's your night and we're playing by your rules."

A Cesar salad, a tomato bisque soup, and medium well steak rounded out my meal. Shelly had a salad and I'm not too sure what else. It looked like a piece of chicken but I knew it wasn't. I was stuffed and when she asked about dessert I said, "maybe later." We had a glass of wine on the back pool deck and for the first time we started to actually talk.

"I know all about you Steve, and I'm quite impressed by your manner tonight. A little cocky but you knew what you were doing up there. Your dad will be happy because I gave him an extra large tip that should send more than a few needy kids to camp this summer. I especially liked the part where your ex started also bidding for you. She knew she didn't stand a chance in hell but she did it anyway."

"Who are you?"

"Just an out of town business woman spending a couple of hours with the good looking spoils of an auction I never intended to loose." She moved in close and touched me just with her lips and then after licking my lower lip mashed hers against mine.

"Why don't we skip the after dinner drink and go straight on to the dessert?" This was starting to go in a direction that I wasn't too sure about.

"You're married, aren't you?" I asked fully knowing the answer.

"Does that make a difference to you?" Shelly replied taking another sip of her wine.

"To me no, but I'm curious, doesn't it bother you to cheat on your husband?" She paused for a minute and gave me a hard look before answering.

"We don't have an open marriage exactly, but we both are allowed a few indiscretions. No intercourse of any sort is allowed and it can be only a one-time thing with whomever. This way when we're out of town and we need a little release we can get it without exactly calling it cheating. You may not agree with it, but it works for us."

"I don't think I could handle it."

"Steve, we both love each other to death but since we're both on the road often this is a lot easier way to get rid of stress than to get a divorce over a damn blowjob or a little lickity clit. But enough of this talk, we've got more important things we can be doing," she said pulling my lips to hers.

She wasn't happy with my reply and after two more excellent kisses, she sent me back to my car in a cab. I was just walking out of the house when she spun me around, gave me a final kiss and said, "Oh, by the way, Amber sends her love." That sent me head reeling and my hand digging for the cell phone in my pocket

I told my mom that we just went out to dinner and talked. She did however, tell me that Becky still wanted to talk to me, but I never seemed to get around to calling her.

Even though my dad said it was cheesy, I attended and walked up to the podium to get my diploma. With a ton of sweat and blood I'd earned every credit in more ways than one and deserved to walk with my class. At the party, at my parents' house, everyone congratulated me on my accomplishment but also gave me the look that seemed to say, was it worth it? Becky brought Danny and instead of just dropping him off stayed the entire evening. She talked to my friends and family and always seemed to be looking my way. When the party was about over, I snuck up behind her. This time when she turned back around to look for me I was right there.

"Jesus Christ, Steve, you trying to give me a damn heart attack?" she said composing herself.

"Becky, do you want to go out sometime and just talk? I mean we never had or took the time, and I think it's long overdue, don't you?"

"Anytime you want. Just give me a little notice to set up baby sitting."

"Okay, set it up for this Saturday, and I'll pick you up at your mom's place about seven o'clock. We can have a nice dinner and go back to my place and talk and maybe put some old issues to rest."

"I'd like that," she said now smiling.

This week was busy. I got a salary bump and although I was tied to this company for six more months, because of them paying for my schooling, they didn't want me to leave.

"Look Steve, I can give you a seven and a half percent increase immediately and another five and a half in nine more months. You're coming along quite well and although I can't promise you anything, you are being looked at for an entry level management position down the line," my boss told me. Hell, in this economy I wasn't planning on going anywhere else.

I still kept my job at the gym but my days there were numbered. The extra money was nice because it was under the table but it was getting old. I was training a kid I'd met there and whenever I was tied up he would take over for me. I was going to miss working out for free, but like I said, I was starting to enjoy my post college freedom a lot more.

Saturday I picked up Becky and headed over to a small Japanese restaurant I knew on my side of town. She was friendly but a lot more quiet and subdued than the Becky of old. The food was good and we passed the hour and a half eating and making small talk like two sixteen year olds on their first date. What I was trying to do was put her and myself at ease in a casual atmosphere before we started taking about the tough issues of days gone by.

The drive to my place was quiet and tense. I had picked up a bottle of Becky's favorite wine and had a six-pack of Corona in the refrigerator. As I said before, my place was nothing to write home to mother about. It was a one-bedroom apartment in one of the older buildings around, but it was clean and spacious, having both a full kitchen and living room.

I didn't even ask her if she wanted a glass, I just opened the bottle of wine, poured her a full glass and got myself a cold one. I told her we'd probably be more comfortable in the living room so she followed me in there. I put her on the couch and I sat in the chair directly across from her. Silence again. It looks like neither one of us had any idea how to start.

"A nice place you've got here," she said looking around the room.

"It suits me for now, but I'll probably move closer to my folks now that I'm out of school."

"I'm sorry!" she blurted out. "I'm sorry Steve, I listened to a bunch of people who I thought were my friends, but in the end didn't know shit about me or my life. You've got to believe that I NEVER cheated on you up until that night no matter what you think. There may have been a little grab ass and stuff like that, but I never did anything. I just need you to know that up front."

"Becky I wanted to believe that, but with what little I saw, you can see how I had doubts. Even with what you call grab ass, I wouldn't have been comfortable with. But I guess you knew that already."

"Steve, I just got angry and I never got over it. We had such a great life, and I had all these big plans but in an instant they were all gone. I blamed you. Hell, I hated you for what happened. I was no more ready for motherhood than the man in the moon. Even at twenty-two I was still a spoiled and immature brat. I wanted to enjoy the whole college experience not spend night after night up with a colicky baby. I don't know how many nights I sat in that rocking chair cursing you and Danny, wishing I could have just one do over in my life, but as you know, do overs don't happen in the real world."

"Why didn't you say something? We could have gone to counseling. Hell, you could have gone yourself to someone to address all those anger issues instead of pushing me to the side and trying to run away from something that could have been resolved with a little work."

"Like I said, I listened to the wrong people, the people you told me I couldn't see anymore. They told me that I'd be on easy street. You would give me child support, alimony, and make all the house payments. With my parents help I could finish school and have it all. I know now I was delusional, but it sounded so good back then when all I had was stress and was just so tired all the time. When it all blew up in my face I realized for the first time what I was doing, and I tried to back track. I, not anyone else, put together that plan of us living together. I figured I could still have it all."

"Becky, I knew from the start it wasn't going to work. I was still too much in love with you. It did nothing but hurt me living under the same roof, but apart from you."

"Steve, those last couple of months together were the best we'd had in well over a year. Do you remember how we use to laugh and interact? We were like a family again."

"You forget we still had the divorce hanging over our heads."

"I didn't forget. Whether you believe it or not, I was about to stop it completely until that stupid night. I figured that we, along with Danny, were older and we deserved another shot at happiness. What happened with Kevin wasn't suppose to happen. I wasn't even attracted to him. I guess the combination of alcohol and not being with anyone in such a long time proved to be too strong. All I remember was starting to kiss and the next thing I knew he was between my legs. I can't say I didn't enjoy it because I did or I at least did at that moment. I didn't think about what I'd done until just after he left and then it sunk in. I prayed that you were either still gone or dead asleep. I found out later you were neither."

"You killed any chance we had that night. Do you know what it was like for me to lay down on my bed knowing you were making love to someone two floors above me? It took everything I had not to run upstairs and kill you both in what use to be our bed. I died or what was left of me died that night. If you hated me, I hated you ten times more back after that night. I wanted you to hurt, I wanted you to feel the pain you had put me through. You were no longer my wife, just some stupid slut who didn't have the courtesy to at least wait until our divorce became final before spreading her legs for the first guy who came around." I was now angry all over again. It still hurt like a hot coal in my gut that no amount of alcohol or time could put out.

"It wasn't love making, it was sex. I hadn't made love to anyone since the last time we did it together. I'm human. I had needs. All you ever had to do was ask and I would have shared my bed with you in a heartbeat, but you never did."

"Share your bed? You were divorcing me, for Christ's sakes. And, why in the hell should I have had to ask? You were the one that started this fiasco. How in the hell could I have known that you wanted it? I was trying to rebuild our marriage and you on the other hand were playing a fucking mind game without bothering to tell me. So, if you're saying it was my fault, like everything else in our marriage, you can kiss my ass." This wasn't going well.

"All right, all right I fucked up big time." She screamed at me. "WE fucked up big time. So where do we go from here? Do we hate each other until the day we die?" She asked, looking for my reply.

"Becky, what do you want?"

"You. To try again once more."

"Not going to happen. Too much time and way too much hurt to go back."

"Who said go back? We could start again, maybe slower this time around? Look, I don't have a clue if we'd last even a day or two but I'd like to try. Make a fresh start without any expectations or pressures."

"Like I said before, I don't think we'd have a chance in hell of making it, maybe before but not now."

"Will you at least think about it?"

I told her I would but not to get her hopes up. We talked, or should I say she talked, for the next hour before I took her back to her parents' house. My brain was busting at the seams. I needed time to think so I went for a little drive. Hell, I went for a long drive trying to at least resolve one issue.

It was just after seven o'clock in the morning, and I was knocking on the door with two coffees in my hand. A sleepy girl opened the door.

"Steve, what are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?"

"I know it's early, but I need to talk to you."

"Steve, this is not really a good time she said looking back into her apartment. Are you staying in town? Maybe we can get together a little later this morning?"

"That's okay," I said handing her both of the coffees. "I knew it was a dumb idea but I had a lot on my mind, which I guess included you. Go back to bed and I'll catch up with you later." I turned around and bounded down the stairs. I heard Amber call out my name twice before I was out of earshot.