Oceans

"I went to sleep that night without any dreams of any kind. I was sad because I realized that like the art world, my life had changed. The next morning I oversaw the transport of the statue and its peripheral equipment to the bank and let the crew begin placing it."

"I took Dana away to a meeting with my lawyers. She started signing papers because I told her to. I guess she thought that we were signing some kind of contract for her to become my business representative. When she found out that I was basically signing EVERYTHING over to her she freaked out."

"You...You're leaving aren't you?" she cried. I nodded sadly.

"Dana, I'm not leaving you," I told her. "We'll still be in touch. I promise. We'll even see each other. We'll see each other often, but there's no need for me to do this anymore."

"I could...I want to go with you," she whined.

"Dana, I don't even know where I'm going," I said. "And someone has to stay here to take care of my business interests and my legacy. There's too much money involved to just walk away."

"What about Kerri?" asked Dana. "She could do it."

"Kerri is too busy with her own agency," I said. "She'll be fine. I left plenty of money in our joint accounts. She probably won't even know that I'm gone."

"But she's been calling you non-stop for the past few days. She's tried to get into the studio to see you too."

"Too little, too late," I said sadly.

"I need you to do something for me," I told her. She nodded.

"If you do something for me in return," she said. I smirked and nodded.

"You've got it, Dana. As long as it doesn't interfere with my plans, I'll do anything you want," I told her.

"I quickly explained what I needed her to do. She called our security people outside of the studio and had one of her assistants run over to the studio with a pass for the event."

"Then she called you Kerri, while I listened. I guess over the years I hadn't noticed that the sweet girl I'd fallen in love with had developed into a bitch. Was it the money that made you that way or had I just missed it?"

"As soon as you picked up the phone, you were as rude as you could be. You asked her where I was and when you found out that I wasn't available, you flipped out. Dana kept her composure and asked you if you planned on attending the event that evening. You threw another fit and she calmly reminded you that you hadn't come to any of my appearances in over a month so we weren't sure you'd be at this one either."

"You got quiet then because I guess you realized that she was telling the truth. She explained to you that security had been increased because of the status of the event and some of the people who were attending."

"You immediately launched into a tirade over the fact that we'd excluded your freeloading boy toys from not only showing pieces in the event but from attending as well. She told you that it had been my decision and there was nothing she could do about it. You said that as my business rep, you should have been consulted on any changes. Dana let that one slide. I was sure she wanted to tell you that you'd been fired. But she held her tongue and stayed on task."

"She explained to you that with the security measures we'd enacted, you needed to pick up your pass immediately and you had to pick it up in person. Without your pass, you would not get in."

"You got angry again and asked her why your pass couldn't be left at the door. She explained to you that none of our security people knew you. And that both she and I would be far too busy to wait for you."

"You started screaming again but you did what I wanted you to do. You left the house so I could leave you my message. Kerri, it was a tacky thing for me to do. It was childish and beneath me. I regretted it a few years later, but there was no way to take it back by then."

Kerri stopped me then. She was crying and had to wipe her eyes. She couldn't even talk. She was really choked up.

"I have so many questions Legs," she said. "I never knew any of that. I mean, I know what you did and it more than sent a message to me. It nearly destroyed me. It made me realize that it was more than you just being angry with me. It let me know that there was a very real chance that we might be in trouble. But even then..."

"What did he do?" asked Anna.

"Yeah," echoed Don. "I never knew any of this. I'm still trying to get over the fact that Kerri lied to all of us for so long."

"Remember the painting of me that he did way back just before we got engaged?" asked Kerri.

Anna looked at me. "Larry...uhm Legolas, I'll never get used to that name."

"My dad was a Tolkien fan," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "Hey, I came out pretty well, I could have been Aragorn."

"You didn't sell her favorite painting did you?" asked Anna.

"You have to remember, Anna," I began. "I was distraught. I was hurt worse than I'd ever been in my life. She was more than everything to me and losing her just..."

"He didn't sell it," offered Kerri. "I wish he had. He left me over a million dollars in the accounts. I probably could have bought it back. I went out to pick up my entry pass for the event and he went home. He took the painting..." Kerri started crying.

"He took it out onto our deck in the back of the house. He took his favorite sword too. The one I'd bought him the first Christmas that we had any money. He carried that fucking sword with him everywhere. He broke the sword and he...burned my painting." Even now, years later Kerri had trouble saying it.

As I looked at her, I guess I should have felt badly but it seemed to me that she was far more upset about losing the painting than she was about losing me.

"I was so angry at you then," said Kerri. "That was the reason that I looked like hell at the opening. I still can't go to that fucking bank without crying. Even driving by it hurts."

"You two are shocked," said Kerri. "But you have no idea what his little overture meant. When a Samurai has his sword broken it is simply a life or career changing event. If he breaks it himself, it means he has just given up. He will no longer fight. Tie that to the fact that he also burned the only actual painting of me he'd ever done. The painting that to me always symbolized his love for me, it was a game changer. His message was clear. He would no longer fight for our relationship. In his mind he needed a change."

"It meant that we wouldn't be going away on any vacation to rekindle our closeness. It meant that if we were going to be together, I was going to have to do all of the fighting for us myself."

"I went to his event angrier than I'd ever been. I was determined to demand to talk to him. I was going to confront him and tell him that we had been together for far too long to let one bit of stupidity separate us. I would admit that I'd been wrong and lost my head but it never meant that I didn't love him. And if he loved me as much as he'd always said he did, if he was willing to do anything for me, like he'd always said, then surely he could forgive me, once."

"I spent the entire afternoon crying over what you'd done and what it meant," said Kerri. "I'd always had that one thought in my mind beyond everything else. It was that no matter what else happened, you would always love me and we'd always be together. I really thought that you'd be upset but in the end you'd understand. Surely someone who'd spent nearly a month painting an expression on a painting of my face over and over again would understand my search." We all looked at her as if she had three heads. She still couldn't see that what she'd thought of as some spiritual search was simply plain and simple cheating.

"But that's what's so God damned tragic about all of this," screamed Kerri. "I was looking for something that I already had. Legs, I was stupid. I kept thinking of us as equals. I thought that we were supposed to be the same. But we were never designed that way. We were designed to complete each other. We were designed to be the missing pieces of each other's souls. You were my artistic part, just as I was your muse."

I laughed and shook my head. She still didn't see it.

"Legs, that's what all of those dreams you talk about were telling you. You didn't need to fight for something you already had. Even I can see that."

"That isn't even close, Kerri," I said. "I'm sorry for burning the painting. Doing it hurt me too. And I've never had a sword that I loved so much that I needed to carry it with me since I broke that one."

"Do you want to continue or should I?" I asked. She was softly crying so I started again."

"Anyway, after I did what I did, I probably would have spent the afternoon crying too, but something else happened. I went to the studio and found Dana there and she was crying too. I picked her up and hugged her and told her that everything was going to be fine."

"Dana kissed me. Not a tentative exploratory first time kiss. She kissed me hard and full on the lips. She put everything she had into that kiss and I hadn't had sex in over a month. I also had never done it with anyone who wasn't you, Kerri."

"For months, you'd been fucking your stable of boy toys whenever they wanted you. You gave them something that I believed we only shared with each other. What happened that afternoon with Dana did a lot to give me the strength to say goodbye to you."

"While I was still shell shocked from that first kiss, Dana went to town. She pulled me over to one of those big comfy couches she'd arranged all over the studio."

"She wrapped her legs around me and started grinding her pussy against me. Her tongue tasted like fresh strawberries. The next thing I remember, I was biting her ears and her neck and rubbing my hands everywhere. The first time we couldn't get our clothes off fast enough. Her body was marvelous. There wasn't an ounce of fat anywhere on her. She was bigger than Kerri is, but she was very proportionate. It was SOOOO different."

"Kerri's breasts are barely there, just a slight swelling with a nipple on top. Dana had some tig ole bitties. They were so soft and so juicy. I must have sucked on them for a half hour before I even moved to other body parts."

"She was moaning and writhing against me before I even touched her pussy. For that one afternoon, I didn't think about Kerri. I didn't think about art. All I thought about was Dana. I figured if her lips and her tits tasted that good I couldn't wait to taste her pussy before I messed it up. "

"I started licking my way down her body but she said "No!", that the first time she just wanted me inside of her. You know those guys who say things like, "In the dark, all women are the same," they couldn't be more wrong. Dana was incredible. The way she moved, the things she said, it was incredible. The way she humped her hips at me just urged me onwards while inside, her vagina just seemed to be trying to milk the sperm out of me. That first time was hard and fast and it left us bathed in sweat."

"Can we move on?" snapped Kerri angrily. "I don't want to spend any time listening to you talking about giving Dana a mercy fuck for her years of service. Even if I'd known how it happened, I'd have forgiven you. It was just like my time with my guys. It didn't take anything away from us, Legolas. It was only sex. You didn't even start it, she did. It didn't matter."

"Pissed much, Kerri?" I asked.

"I have a reason to be. It isn't easy listening to your husband describing his sexual tryst with his chunky secretary," she snapped. "And you Blondie, you heard me right. We're still married."

"But...I...we," began Anna.

"Stow it, Blondie," snapped Kerri. "You want him so bad I can smell your pussy from here. Tell me I'm wrong."

Anna just stood there. "You're wrong," I said, while noticing that Anna hadn't spoken again. "In the first place, what happened between Dana and I was far more than just sex. The first time, like I said was wild and crazy, but after that we slowed down and it got even better. Looking into her eyes while we made love gave me something I hadn't had in a long time. It gave me hope. And it did mean something, Kerri. It meant Aria. We gave each other one afternoon. We gave each other a small part of ourselves and the result was that beautiful child in the other room. "

I looked at Kerri, who'd moved closer to me and asked her, "What do we have to show for all of our time together, Kerri? Even now, all I get when I think of you is pain. The sting of how you hurt me, wipes out all of the years of good memories we had."

She looked like I'd slapped her. I guess in her mind all of the time we'd been apart didn't matter. She was still living on those memories of back when things had been good between us. She didn't seem to be able to let them go.

"Kerri, if you don't like what I'm saying, then you can go back to telling your part of this," I said. She nodded and started speaking again. But she was talking slower and she was a lot less confident than she'd been before.

"Anyway, after I stopped crying," began Kerri. "I got dressed and headed over to the bank. There were so many people there. I saw Amanda. I called to her but she wouldn't even look at me. I tried to go over to her but her bodyguards, even though they knew me and called me by name, wouldn't let me near her. And you trained Dana well. The pass she left me only allowed me into the event. I couldn't get back stage. I couldn't get into the VIP area. I kept trying to get some of the people I knew to let me back there but no one would. "

"I saw Chloe. She was talking to people about her paintings. She was so excited and smiling. She looked beautiful cleaned up. She at least waved at me, but she was obviously too busy talking to people who might want to buy or display her work."

"I should be in there, God damn it. I should be showing my stuff," said a voice from behind me. It was Denny and he was pissed. He started whining to me about how every show and every gallery he'd signed with had pulled out. He hadn't sold anything in weeks and he blamed me. I know now that it was you he should have blamed. He kept calling me the whore of Babylon and claiming that he was like Samson and I'd cut his hair off. He couldn't see that he was at least partially responsible for what had happened to him. It was all someone else's fault."

"He told me that your statue would suck and no one would care about it, meanwhile the world was being denied the chance to see his work. It was a tragedy. Then the announcer started to speak. I saw the four of you walk out from backstage. You came out with Amanda and Raphe flanking you. Dana walked behind you. She looked sadder than I've ever seen her."

"Right then I wanted to kill her. But now I feel so badly for her. It was bad enough for me. I'd had you for most of my life and I had no intention of letting you go. I was sure that she knew that after this show we'd be back together. I was sure she was sad because she was about to lose her spot in your life during your greatest career moment."

"The reality was far worse. After all those years of loving you in secret while you never noticed her, she finally got you for one brief afternoon and would never get over you."

"There was also the fact that while I had no idea what was about to happen, she knew. And even worse you'd made her help you plan to leave her. That was too cold, Legs. That's like making someone dig their own grave."

"You started speaking and I'd heard the speech before. Well, I hadn't actually heard it, but I'd read it. I did notice that you'd taken the parts where you mentioned me out. And I got really pissed when you called Dana your agent instead of me. But mostly, I was concentrating on the differences in you. There was something off about you. It took me a moment to come up with it. Your clothes weren't black and you didn't have a sword with you. Not only was your favorite sword broken on our deck, you didn't have one at all."

"Then you unveiled the statue. The crowd was awed. It was huge and it was beautiful. It was a statue of that pirate that the Commerce Bank uses as their figurehead. He was captured in that classic pose of the thinking man. There were hundreds of flashbulbs going off. People all around me were talking about how lifelike the statue was. No one could believe it. Even Denny was shocked into silence."

"Then you did it, Legs. You stepped back to the microphone. And you changed the world of art forever. At the same time, you called Denny out without even giving him the dignity of acknowledging him. "Recently, a very stupid and inconsequential man spoke about blending technology with art to modernize and change both," you said. The crowd sensed that something big was about to happen, but they simply weren't prepared for it. Even I wasn't ready for it Legs."

"You nodded your head and music started to play. The music seemed to lull the crowd into a false sense of security. It was dance music. It wasn't some onerous classical piece with evil overtones. It scared the shit out of the crowd when that 18 foot tall figure straightened up and began to dance. When it stomped it's foot and pointed towards the crowd, several people in the front thought it was attacking and started the crowd running back. Once they realized that it wasn't some remake of a Godzilla movie and that the statue was simply a large robot that couldn't move off of its platform, they began screaming and cheering."

"Then the robot raised and lowered its giant metal hand and you sat down on its fingers and it lifted you above the crowd. It was incredible. You were like a rock star. People were running over to me asking how they could get you to do statues for their businesses. Others wanted paintings and still others were begging me to book you for TV shows. I felt great. Again I was flushed with power until I remembered that not only was I no longer in control of your career, I wasn't even a part of it. That depressed me even more. Obviously the news that I'd been replaced wasn't public knowledge yet."

"I noticed that Denny was simply standing there with his mouth open. He was just beside himself. He'd spoken several times stupidly, both about you and about Amanda. He'd also pretty much challenged you with his crap about how he was the next step in the future of art. He felt like a fool. It was written all over his face. It was like that old saying if you mess with the bull, you get the horns."

"Even Amanda and Raphe were surprised. I don't think they had any idea of what you'd planned. You basically just turned the art world on its ear and you did it almost casually. The only person I saw on that stage that wasn't screaming and cheering and happy was Dana. It just didn't add up. As your new agent, I'd have expected her to be beside herself with joy. She'd be able to demand whatever she wanted for your works in the future and your fees for appearances would sky rocket. I couldn't figure out why she wasn't happy. Then I began to get scared. "

"Right there in the midst of all of that chaos, I called Dana on my phone. I told her that I knew something was going on. I don't know why, maybe it was because the two of us had something in common. We both loved you, but she told me to come over by the entrance to the VIP area. I met her over there and she just nodded at the guards and they let me through. She was already crying when I got to her."

"Why the hell are you unhappy?" I asked her. "You should be happy." She just shook her head."

"Where's Legs?" I asked her. "I need to talk to him, Dana."

"He and Chloe left, so they could talk about her career away from all of this madness." said Dana sadly. "I'm going to be her new agent too."

"Oh, shit I forgot about that," I said. "Don't be so upset, Dana, it's only sex. I can't believe he'd leave the building with the crowd cheering so loudly for him though. There's going to be a riot if he doesn't come back. He could have waited a little while to screw her."