Our Love Saga

I checked the time. It was just after two-thirty so Jimmy must have really busted his tail to complete all of his sales calls today in order to get home to have his new printer installed. I sighed and began what should be about a twenty-minute drive at this time of day.

I pulled into their driveway twenty-five minutes later and parked next to Samantha's Honda. They must have heard me pull in and been waiting because, by the time I exited my truck and locked the door, Samantha was standing on the walkway to their front door next to this bean pole of a guy.

Samantha didn't hesitate to place her arms around me for a friendly embrace. I held her with my left hand as I extended my right hand towards the man that I assumed was her husband, Jimmy. He had a warm smile as he shook my hand and introduced himself.

"I'm glad to finally meet you, AJ. Samantha speaks highly of you all the time. Come on in."

Samantha looped her arm through mine as we followed Jimmy up the walkway and through the front door. As soon as the door closed, I glanced down at Samantha with a raised eyebrow and a questioning expression.

"What?" she asked, leading me further into their home.

I glanced around the open concept floorplan and asked, "How did you manage to get the developer to let you live in one of their model homes?"

Jimmy chuckled, but Samantha playfully slapped my chest and said, "Don't be silly. Can I get you anything to drink?"

"No thanks." I turned to Jimmy and asked, "Ready to get your printer installed?"

"Boy, am I ever. I already have a flyer for the community New Years' Eve celebration ready to be printed so I can distribute them today. Follow me."

Samantha squeezed my hand and said, "I'll wait down here unless you need to show me something."

"I think we'll be good," I assured her. "This should only take a few minutes."

I followed Jimmy upstairs and into the room that he used as his home office. His computer was already booted and running, so I inserted the diskette that had the required print drivers on it. I saw that Jimmy had already plugged the parallel printer cable in on both the computer and the printer, so I hit the power switch on the printer to get it warming up. Nothing happened. That's when I heard the huffing and puffing of Samantha as she ran upstairs and into the office carrying the power cord that she had hidden.

"I forgot that you would need this," she said with a sheepish grin.

I laughed, plugged the power cord in, and hit the power switch again. The tell-tale signs of the printer coming to life caused Jimmy to applaud.

As I sat down in front of the computer and opened a DOS prompt, I tried to explain what I was doing; "The next and most difficult tasks are getting the computer and the operating system to first recognize that the printer is connected to it, and then to know how to communicate with it. That's where the print drivers come in. The low-level driver accomplishes the first task while the high-level driver accomplishes the second one. You shouldn't have to worry about them once I get them installed, but if you make any changes to your computer, such as changing the operating system, I'll probably have to come back with new drivers."

While the drivers were being installed, I observed the interactions between Jimmy and Samantha, or I should say, the lack of interaction. They both stood silently watching the process, but there was never any physical contact between them and they barely acknowledge the presence of the other.

I can accept the adage that love is blind, but for someone who looked like Samantha to be married to the likes of Jimmy was hard to fathom for me. Sure, the sun always outshined the moon, but Jimmy had to be at least ten to fifteen years older than her, and unless he had a billion-dollar trust fund waiting in the wings or was endowed like a stallion, there is no way that these two should be together. He was so boney that it looked like a light breeze would blow him away. His eyes were beady and set deep in their dark sockets. His olive-colored skin was pitted from acne and his nose easily took up a third of his face. For some reason, he just seemed smarmy to me, but I wasn't the one married to him.

I'm not going to be featured on the cover of GQ magazine any time in my life, and I'm certainly not a male equivalent to Samantha where looks are concerned, but I have seldom had trouble attracting the attention of women when I needed to, and staved off my share of flirtatious come-ons over the years. I have a runner's physique even though my travels typically limit my exercise to a half hour or less on a stationary bike in a hotel's fitness center. My six-foot-tall body isn't sculpted, but my shoulders are broad and my waist remains at the same thirty-two inches as when I was in college. Most people are surprised to learn that I am thirty-five since I look years younger.

When the driver installation was completed, I went into the Windows 3.1 system properties and quickly configured the printer as the default, replacing the previous dot matrix printer, and then generated a test page to verify the setup.

I removed the diskette and handed it to Jimmy as I stood, "Try to find someplace to hold onto this in case we need to re-install the drivers for any reason."

"Is it all set?" Jimmy asked as he sat in front of his computer.

"It sure is," I assured him as I felt Samantha move to stand beside me. "Give it a try."

Jimmy pulled up the flyer that he had created and tried printing it out on the new printer. He had designed it on a free-ware application that had tried to manipulate characters and fonts to print out on dot matrix printers so the resulting output from the laser printer was poor, to say the least.

"I suggest that you start over after closing the application and restarting it," I explained. "Then make sure that you set the design configuration settings for a laser printer instead of the dot matrix."

Jimmy nodded and then glanced over his shoulder at Samantha and said, "I'll probably skip dinner so I can get this done and handed out tonight. If I get hungry later I'll just make a sandwich."

He then turned back to his computer and tuned out the rest of the world. Samantha silently took my hand and led me out of the office, closing the door behind us. It wasn't until we reached the foot of the stairs that she spoke, "I apologize for Jimmy. I know that he really appreciates the printer and everything you have done, but he sometimes gets tunnel vision where the HOA is concerned."

"It's not a problem," I assured her.

"That didn't take as long as I expected," she said, leading me into their living room area. The place really was model-home clean and decorated. She took a seat on the couch and motioned for me to join her. When I sat on the opposite end of the couch, she folded her legs under her and turned to face me.

Samantha had an expression of almost sadness on her face when she said, "Just so you know, I was able to resist the urge to try calling you in your office today, but it wasn't easy."

I nodded and said, "It's just as well. I wasn't there longer than fifteen minutes before I had to leave."

"Did you receive the fax that you were expecting?"

I nodded again but didn't elaborate. She slid closer to me, took my left hand, and held it on her lap in both of hers. "What's wrong, AJ?"

I took the folded fax out of my shirt pocket and handed it to her. She had to release my hands to unfold the slick thermal paper that the fax was printed on.

"This is a credit card statement," Samantha said, "or a facsimile image of a credit card statement. What am I looking for?"

"Check the balance," I told her, "then check the credit limit."

It only took her a second, "It's pretty much maxed out. I assume that you weren't aware of the balance."

"I hardly ever use that card," I told her. "I have one in my name only that I use exclusively for travel expenses. Linda uses the joint card and since she handles the majority of our bills due to my traveling, I never knew that she was running the balance up so high and not paying it off each month like we had agreed when we got it."

"Have you asked her for an explanation?"

"No, and I'm not sure that one is necessary. I received a call from the bank this morning asking if they wanted me to have our credit limit raised. That's what alerted me to the need to look into things. Upon further investigation, I've learned that our checking account has less than five-hundred dollars in it and our joint savings account has less than two-thousand. Take a look at the last two charges on the card."

After a quick glance, Samantha asked, "You don't own a motorcycle, do you? Why would Linda be charging eight-hundred dollars for service and six-hundred dollars for a new leather jacket at a Harley-Davidson dealership?"

"I called the dealership to ask those very same questions. She paid for the motorcycle of one Cosmo Glover to be serviced and then bought him the jacket as a Christmas present. She buys her husband socks and underwear valued at less than twenty dollars for Christmas but buys her lover a six-hundred dollar leather jacket."

"Her lover? She's cheating on you with this guy and buying him expensive gifts? She has to know that you would eventually find out."

"From what our friendly next-door neighbors told me, quite gloatingly, by the way, their dear friend Cosmo Glover has been hanging the horns on me for the past six months. Our neighbors introduced Linda to him and have been letting them use their house to do the deed while my kids were at school or home alone next door."

"Oh, AJ, that sucks. What are you going to do?"

She handed me back the fax. I folded it and replaced it in my pocket. "I haven't had time to figure everything out yet. Tonight, I will be staying in a motel. Tomorrow I will hitch up our sixteen-foot travel trailer and take it to a friend's place down near Midway City. His property is in an unincorporated section of the county so I will be able to park the trailer there without violating any city ordinances. He used to park his RV in a fenced area beside his house so I will have all the necessary hook-ups available which will allow me to call the trailer home for the foreseeable future."

"Why not just go to one of the RV campgrounds near Disneyland?" Samantha asked.

"Have you seen the rates those places charge? It would cost me the same as a four-star hotel to park the trailer at one of those places. My financial situation is not good right now and until I get with a lawyer to discuss my options where Linda is concerned, I need to be very frugal with what I have."

"Do you think that you'll be filing for a divorce?"

'Oh, you can count on that," I replied. "I need to know how to accomplish that and protect my relationship with my kids without paying for this biker guy to have sex with my wife at the same time."

"If there is anything that I can do..."

"You know, it's not the fact that Linda is having sex with this guy that bothers me, it's the fact that she is destroying our finances in the process. I would have given her a divorce any time she asked for it and been fair in the distribution of our assets. What she has done jeopardizes our kid's future as well as ours. I don't understand her thinking."

Samantha glanced towards the stairs before once more taking my left hand into hers and softly saying, "AJ, I am twenty-nine years old and in my second loveless marriage. Since there have never been children involved in either marriage, the divorces proceeded without any difficulty..."

"I thought that you had only been divorced once, from your first husband who was in the Army."

Samantha dropped her voice almost to a whisper and said, "Jimmy will be served next week while I am at work. Oh, and there's something else I should tell you, but you need to promise to keep it to yourself."

"What's that?" I asked.

"I wanted to tell you sooner, but I have been sworn to secrecy. Joe Allen has accepted a position as the Regional Service Director with Oculus Filtration Systems. The first week in January will be his last in our office and he doesn't want anyone to know, so please don't mention anything if you see him."

"I'll keep your secret," I assured Samantha.

"There's more. This afternoon Joe called and offered me a position as the region service marketing specialist and I accepted. I will be giving my two weeks' notice when I return to the office on Monday."

"Wow," I said after several seconds contemplating Samantha's news. "It's strange how life works sometimes. While my world is trying its damndest to crumble down around me, yours is blossoming beautifully. Knowing that you will be secure and happy is one of the few bright spots in my day. I hope that we will be able to stay in touch."

Samantha released my hands and said, "Will you excuse me for a minute?"

Without waiting for a reply, she stood and walked down the hallway. I heard a door close, which I assumed was to a bathroom since I soon heard water running. Samantha returned after a few minutes and resumed her position beside me, including taking my hand into hers. When I looked into her eyes, I realized that she was just as beautiful without her makeup as she was with it on.

We both heard the door to Jimmy's office open and glanced towards the stairs. Samantha didn't release my hands or alter her position next to me on the couch as Jimmy came skipping down the stairs.

"The flyers look great off the new printer," he gushed. "I'm going to go hand them out at each of the houses. I'll probably get stopped by several people to chat about the celebration, so I'll be out for at least three hours. If I'm not back by the time you leave, AJ, thanks again."

Neither Samantha nor I had an opportunity to respond before Jimmy rushed out the front door. Samantha just shook her head and returned her attention back to me.

"AJ, I need you to know that my decision to split from Jimmy was made long before you and I got to know each other. That being said, while my feelings for you did not influence my decision on my marriage, they, along with what you just shared with me have influenced my hopes for my future."

I started to speak but Samantha placed a finger against my lips to silence me. "Please let me finish before you say anything."

I nodded and she went on, "What I have felt with you, AJ, is unlike anything I have ever experienced, but I didn't know how to describe it until today when you hugged me. My God, if you could ever bottle the way that you hugged me, you could sell it for millions. I don't know if anyone has ever told you, but your hugs are world-class and I want to have an opportunity to experience them for the rest of my life."

I gently removed my hand from hers and opened my arms. Samantha recognized the invitation and moved in closer so that I could hold her as she continued. "What your embraces give me is what I think every person wants to feel, and that is not to feel simply secure and loved, but truly feel appreciated and wanted. Your embraces are almost spiritual in nature in the way that they make me feel. You make me feel like I matter to you, and that is something that I have never felt with anyone else, even my parents."

"Both of our lives are going to be complicated for the foreseeable future; yours with your marriage and financial issues and mine with my marriage and a new career. All I can promise you, AJ, is that I will do everything that I can to be there for you at any time. Now you can speak."

I chuckled at her granting me permission and almost said, "Mother may I?" Instead, I positioned myself so that Samantha would be able to lean against my chest as she rested her head under my chin. Her arms were crossed in front of her breasts with my arms over hers while holding her against me, with her long shapely legs stretched across the couch. She felt wonderful in my arms, but the benefit to this position was that it made kissing her lips nearly impossible, and kissing her lips is something that I really wanted to do right then.

"Samantha, you are the most intelligent, insightful, considerate, and stimulating woman I have ever known. Simply thinking of you is the greatest entertainment I have ever experienced. You bring me laughter and joy without even trying, and have more inner strength and wisdom than someone three times your age. Appreciate you? Hell yes, I appreciate you. Given time and under the right circumstances, I could end up worshipping you."

"All that being said, we need to be wary of becoming a burden to one another while the events of our lives play out over the next several months. I'm glad that I wasn't an influence in your decision about your marriage, and I want things to remain that way during the legal process to ensure that our relationship doesn't present you with any challenges should Jimmy choose to raise them. I'm not sure what direction mine and Linda's divorce will take, but we need to have the same consideration there."

"Next, there's your new job. You are going to be trying to establish yourself in a new role with a new company. I don't want to become a distraction for you there either. We may have to limit our visits with each other to the weekends for a while."

"Finally, there is my precarious financial situation. I'm not concerned about food and housing because I will have the trailer for when I'm not traveling. Over the years I have accumulated a reserve from unused per diem payments of more than ten thousand dollars, which is an account that Linda won't be able to touch, even in the divorce. I'll probably have to tap into that reserve to pay a retainer to an attorney, but I'll still have more than enough to get by until things are settled with the house, support payments, and so on."

I felt her tears as they fell onto my arms. Her anticipation of them is why she had removed her makeup.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Samantha sniffled and said, "Hell no, I'm not okay. I want so badly to take you upstairs to my bed and make love to you that I can barely stand it. I have such a need to be with you and it's a struggle to avoid acting on it, right here and now. Do you know that when we were together today and you hugged me in that parking lot, I would have stripped naked and made love to you on the hood of my car if you would have only asked? I understand that we need to be discrete, responsible, and supportive of one another, but I'm really going to need your help, AJ. Where you are concerned, my flesh is too weak when I am with you. You have to have noticed that since you hugged me that I haven't been able to keep my hands off of you."

I kissed the top of her head and said, "Well, I would hate to have to avoid you until our situations are more stable, so I guess we should limit our encounters to places that will provide the needed restriction to our mutual desires."

Samantha tilted her head back to look up at me and smiled, "Mutual desires, huh? That's encouraging, but I want to hear more about these needed restrictions."

I laughed and pulled her onto my lap. I said, "Since you would consider stripping naked and making love to me in a parking lot, I'm going to have to think about places where we could be together where the environment would limit our ability to pursue our desire for each other. Do you have any suggestions?"

Samantha put her arms around my neck and whispered in my ear, "The way that I feel right now, I can promise you that when I say 'any place and any time', I mean it. However, the reality is that once I have a chance to cool off and regain my composure, most public places would keep my carnal desires for you at bay. That's not to say that I wouldn't want some degree of intimacy to be possible between us. I think I've made my new found addiction to your hugs clear. I also like the way that my hand feels in yours, and I suspect that once my lips meet yours, I'll want to be able to kiss you on a regular basis. Let's see..."