Peggy Swings Ch. 01

Saturday 9:15 p.m.

"He's late."

Peggy's husband was in the living room sitting on the couch in front of the television. Channel 25's new roving reporter was giving an update on a barn that had caught on fire from a lightning strike earlier in the day. A siren still was blaring off camera as the owner of the farm described how he barely was able to get all his cows out before the fire spread out of control.

"It was a fire and a rainin' and I ain't seen never nuthin damnedgum quite like it, no ma'am!"

The reporter gently reminded the farmer to be cautious in his choice of words because he was now live and on camera. She then took a step back away from the man and motioned the camera to the smoldering shell of the barn.

The farmer, undeterred, stumbled back into frame and leaning closer into the reporter continued on, "Am I uh on the picture tube right now? Can I say hello to my friend Harold? Hey, Harold?" the grinning farmer said, "It's me, Clarence! I done made the news!"

The female reporter, sensing the potential for losing control of the situation, cut the man off and tried kicking the feed back to the instudio anchor when the farmer yelled in, "Boom! It was a loud boom! And lightnin'!"

The excited man, clearly enjoying the attention, now attempted to recreate the events with his flailing arms. He quickly raised his hands, surprising the reporter and knocking the microphone out of her grasp and into the air and out of view.

The astute cameraman, following the trajectory of the rocket launched mic, caught its splash down squarely in a pile of brown manure, then swiftly panned back to the wide-jawed reporter, and finally, once more, to the farmer in time to get him sheepishly shrugging his shoulders and mouthing the word, "Oops."

The worst of the storm had now passed through most of the surrounding area, but a steady downpour still was drenching the county. The storm, the TV, and the comedy routine that had just unfolded were all white noise to Peggy's husband as he casually turned the pages of his favorite fishing magazine.

The reporter was Donna Greggs and she would be wearing a puffy, slightly oversized blouse that was either pink, white, or a combination of both. Ms. Greggs's best intentions for respect in her craft by displaying modesty in her clothing selection still could not hide her busty figure.

He did not have to look up at the tv to know all of this.

Throughout his life, Peggy's husband had prided himself on his intuition of reading the wants, mannerisms, and behavior of people and, even better, his foresight and planning off of this sixth sense of his. He naturally became a police officer, quickly rose through the ranks to become a detective, and left the police force to then start a successful private investigations business. He parlayed his knowledge of deductive reasoning to the stock markets enough to acquire a modest sum of wealth. So much so, that when circumstances forced him to face an earlier retirement than he had hoped, that he was able to easily choose walking away from the work he enjoyed without much worry of a financial burden.

Relaxing because one could never appealed to him. He struggled with this new shift in his life and depression slowly came over him. He stayed in bed, losing track of hours and days, aimlessly staring at the popcorn patterns on the ceiling of their bedroom. It took him waking up craving breakfast one morning and finding out that it was really three in the afternoon to finally begin to snap him out of his post retirement gloom. He went into the bathroom and showered and shaved and made a promise to himself that keeping his mental senses sharp was going to be his new job.

Now, with this renewed outlook, he began to enjoy life again. He timed how fast he did crossword puzzles. He started to fish the creek that ran along their property. He built wooden models of WWII airplanes and he grew fond of watching the Game Show Network. Correctly guessing the answers himself was always a fun test, but he enjoyed more watching the thought processes people went through before giving an answer that could leave them either a bit wealthier or with nothing at all.

He turned the pages of his fishing magazine to the review of the newly anticipated lure that was supposed to 'change bass fishing forever!' He shook his head and rolled his eyes, "Just like every other ad claims," he thought.

His gaze then went to the scroll of the day's college football scores and he smirked at how Channel 25 ran its programming. He gave them till the end of summer before Ms. Greggs was permanently in studio, in better lighting, and with access to a wardrobe that featured tighter fitting tops.

Lights began flashing inside his head because the former cop in him knew that a statement so bold demanded some sort of accountability.

"There's gotta be a wager, a consequence and a penalty if I'm wrong," he thought to himself. "Wait? Did I just think that?" he paused from again looking at the shiny lure and frowned at second guessing himself. "Wrong? I always get these things right and the current anchorman should probably be polishing up his resume."

"Did you not hear me? I said, he is late!" Peggy said more sternly.

Peggy was now standing in their bedroom doorway and clearly expecting a reply.

Her voice snapped him from his mindwander and into the present. He already knew what time it was but, sensing her increasing agitation, he put down his magazine and made a show of looking at the clock mounted above the TV.

"I know. I know. We've called and texted and..."

"It's over an hour now!" Peggy blurted in.

He placed his magazine under his arm, got up from the couch, and went to look out their front window. He could see any car traveling down the road a mile away from the east and two miles from the west in the light of day. Nothing was coming from either way and he didn't have to get up from where he was sitting to know if a car had turned off from the road to come down their driveway.

"There were thunderstorms earlier. It's possible that he is caught in traffic. The reception is bad or a tower is down. It's easy to confuse the intersections of Mills Crossing and Millers Avenue. Or, maybe, there was a stray, runaway, half burnt cow in the road. It could be any one of those things."

He didn't have to turn back around to know that his rattling list of excuses was not going to satisfy her or that she didn't find his little joke the least bit funny. He could feel her stare burning into his back. 40 plus years of marriage will do that.

"It was actually 41," he reminded himself, "41 years of marriage and 45 years of falling in love with her."

He remembered how her family had moved into town halfway into the school year. There weren't too many things a teen could imagine going through that was worse than being the new kid. Starting over in a different place, being behind in the curriculum, and having to navigate cliques of kids who've known each other from preschool to try and carve out new friends at his one school town was not easy for her.

She stood firm and quiet between the flag and the chalkboard before being introduced into his 9th grade math class. A halo of stars spun around her head and her arms were wrapped tightly around her books as she waited for

Mr. Riley to finish calling out roll. No one else in class noticed the erupting volcano ripping the school and his heart into bits and pieces.

"Young lady, in my class, you'll learn that science and biology are just math covered in flowers."

Mr. Riley repeated his old and tired line that never brought the laugh he expected and as he led her to her new desk, she couldn't have seen her future husband floating behind riding the air on the wake of her scent.

"Lavender! It was lavender and cotton candy! So natural a combination!" he recalled as if he were again now seated in class and he wondered how no one had ever before put the two smells together.

Her hair was a shoulder length blonde and it shimmered gold whenever she was outside. She had a walk that was more of a joyful skip and drew even that much more attention to her firm, bubble of an ass. Other boys noticed it, men too, but she was oblivious to their stares.

Her first few weeks in town he did nothing but slyly watch her every move and observe her daily routines. He learned she always had a handful of Tootsie Rolls in her pockets. She rolled her shoulders and pinched her ear lobes to stay focused when class became boring and whenever she was called upon, or was in conversation with anyone, she would slowly lift her head towards the person talking and then take a deep breath, push out her bottom lip, and blow out a puff of air that would lift any strand of her hair from over her face. Her eyelids would always remain closed, just for a long second, and then they would slowly be drawn open, like a Broadway theater curtain, to dramatically reveal a set of piercing, steel blue, bright eyes. Ta-da! It seemed as if she had perfected and personalized her very own magic trick to be sprung on the always unsuspecting and surprised audience of him.

She was terrible at math. She would raise her hand and be engaged in any other subject, but her struggles in math took her off the unapproachable pedestal he had first placed her on and he came to see her for what she really was - young, confused, and anxious, just like him, trying to figure out this growing into an adult thing. This newfound realization slowly bolstered his courage to approach her and he started forming a gambit on just how many chess moves he would need to seduce this queen.

Mr. Riley would hand all tests to the person sitting in the front of the row to pass back to each subsequent student and he handed back the results the same way and it was always best to be sitting in the front if you valued the privacy of your test scores. And there it was, laid out right before him, a plan so clear and plain that he felt he could physically mold it in his hands like soft putty:

A: He would need to become her friend.

B: He would have to prove to her that she really needed him in her life.

C: He would need to be ready to fend off other boys.

D: He would need to save money because neither one of their parents would know of Plan E - Eloping!

But what he really needed, more than anything, was an F!

A big, fat, red lettered F is what she got.

And everyone knew it because Kathy Ball held up her test results for all the class to see before passing it back.

Teary-eyed and embarrassed - he already knew what her answer would be when he took the seat across from her during lunch and, out of the kindness of his heart, volunteered to help her pass their math class.

"Yes!" she said.

And so fell the first pawn in his seduction game.

He chuckled to himself reminiscing on the cockiness of his youth, "45 years still seemed like yesterday and she really could have done better in math and have had no use of me had she been a little bit more patient and ignored the bad puns and jokes of Mr. Riley until he eventually got to the lesson at hand.

"It's fine," he remembered once telling her early on into their marriage after she had sat at their kitchen table and struggled adding up their bills for over an hour, "You never have to be good at math because I'll always be here, now and forever, to add things up for you. I promise."

He closed the curtain on the darkness outside their home, turned away from the window, and looked directly at her standing and still awaiting him to respond.

"It's actually been one hour and 17 minutes, he said, "Hon, I don't really know what could be keeping him. I've called and gotten no answer. I was certain that he would be here by now because he came across as reliable during our conversation. All I really know is that looking at you, right now, it's his loss and not yours if he doesn't show, ok?"

Peggy stared blankly at her husband. He was finally saying something honest to her that she could wrap her head around. Her face softened as she let his subtle compliment wash over her and she almost smiled, but her impatience with the evening returned and she abruptly turned to their bedroom, closed the door behind her, and came face to face with the full length mirror hanging on the back of the door.

"What the hell am I doin?" she said to herself. "Look at me. I mean just look at me."

She knew that she could be self conscious and unjustly hard on herself when it came to her looks, despite the praise her husband gave her, but here, standing alone, looking at her reflection, she could not stop being critical of herself.

"What the hell am I doing? I'm approaching 60 and my tits are all flat. What happened to the 30 year old me with the tight ass?"

She turned her side to the mirror and looked down at her red manicured toes and arched up her left ankle as if she had on heels.

"My calves still look great!"

She wanted to give herself something to hang on to and be positive about but as she lowered her ankle she thought, "Who compliments the stem of a flower? And this flower is wilted. I feel like a plump, wilted, dying flower." She cupped her breasts together and then just let them unceremoniously drop. "Really! What the hell am I doin?"

It was her husbands idea. Blame him. She loved him. He made her happy. She was a storm of emotions, true, but he continually calmed her. They had formed an emotional balance over all these years of marriage and she considered herself still very happy. Good times came and she counted on him. Bad times came and he was there to work hard to get themselves back to the good times. He is a great man and she thought she told him this enough. Who cares if they didn't have sex like they did in their 20's, 30's, and 40's? She didn't feel as if her need for sex was any more than his. Their desires were equal. They've grown old together and his kisses satisfied her. She needed nothing more and certainly no one else. Why did he feel that he wasn't fulfilling her needs?

Why did he want her to take a lover?

She looked back at herself in the mirror and wondered, "Was this black see-thru nightie too much?"

__________

It was just this past March when he called her into his study room to show her something. Model airplanes were his new passion since retirement and, even though it still seemed like a child's hobby to her, she had come to tolerate it. She knew he needed to keep his mind occupied and he was always excited to show her what he had built or some online group he had connected with that had members from far away places all talking proper biplane decal placement and coloring schemes.

"Have a seat and look at this," he said.

She impatiently plopped down at his computer desk and almost began saying the usual,

"Uh huh. That's so nice. It's a plane."

But she stopped. Everything just stopped.

"What is this? Is this real? What have you done?!"

"I made us an online profile," he said firmly, "This is for us."

"On a dating site?!"

"Hon, it's not a dating site. It's a site for people wanting to..."

"Take it down!" she yelled, not wanting to hear anymore that he had to say, "Can you take it down? Now!"

He scratched his head and moved closer to her. Reaching over her shoulder, he used the mouse to scroll through the profile and took a deep breath in, "Mmmm... lavender and cotton candy. No perfume. That's just all her!"

He sighed, refocused, and continued trying to explain his reasoning to her.

"I knew you'd feel this way. This site is made up of all kinds of people, with all kinds of desires, and many here are our age and older. I've had this up for over two weeks now with just one picture of you from our last class reunion. I've blurred your face. No one can recognize it's you. And before you object to me posting that as well, just have a look at this, ok?"

_______

"Yes, I do blame him," Peggy now rationalized as she continued staring at her body in the mirror, "No one, other than him, should be be interested in me for sex."

She turned to view her back and focused now on her ample hips and curves and wondered, "Was this black see-thru nightie too little?"

______

It had been four months since he created their profile and she could still recall the anger she felt towards him that day.

"What kind of perverts would even go to a site such as this?" she wondered, "Did her husband think she was some kind of whore? How dare he do something like this without telling her?"

It upset her even more that he brushed off her anger by giving her his best puppy dog eyes and saying nothing. He just reached over her and placed her hand in his and positioned both over his mouse, started scrolling through the profile, clicked on the incoming messages, and then left her alone in his study.

"13 email requests to meet! In just two weeks? Meet them? Meet her? Two weeks? That's crazy and can't be true," she thought, "Who is asking to meet me for sex?"

Her anger turned into natural curiosity and she looked at the incoming mail to their profile.

Some of the emails were short with just the question of, "Would you like to meet?"

Some didn't even ask 'If' they could meet but 'When and where' and all of the profiles had a picture or two of the person and some of them had a few that included nudity.

"Horny old coots," she thought to herself, "You should cover your shriveled asses."

Peggy got up from his computer and avoided her husband the remainder of that day. He stayed in his study and she busied herself with daily chores, ate dinner alone, and tried not to think again on what her husband had done because her answer was still "NO" and would be "NO" again when this subject was talked on again.

She showered, put on her favorite oversized nightgown and settled herself in bed for the night with some Earl Grey and thought back on her younger self.

"I used to turn heads in the past, didn't I?" she asked herself, "I mean, it's not that I was ever bad looking, it's just nothing I should be thinking about anymore, right? I'm past that. We both are past that."

After the last of their kids had gone to college and moved out, he would come behind her, wrap his arms around her hips and put his hands on her pouch, "Mmmmmmmm, pleasingly plump!" he would exclaim, "Ya know, by today's body measurement standards, Marilyn Monroe would be considered..."

"I am no Marilyn Monroe!" she would always shoot back laughing, "I'm more Miss Piggy Peggy!"

"Hey! Don't knock on her or Marilyn! Not when I'm your Kermit horny toad DiMaggio, too!"

She sighed from recalling, "Those were the good old days when a joke and a laugh led to sex. Good times," she thought, "But that doesn't mean that I want or need that now. My answer is still 'No'."

She had finished catching up on the local news and just as she was closing her laptop and about to turn off her lamp he entered their bedroom. He stood at the foot of the bed and just stared.

She propped herself up, her back flush against the headboard, arms folded, and a scowl upon her face in anticipation of his coming appeal.

But none came.

He didn't say anything. He just stared at her with his eyes darting back and forth and sizing up the room as if he were some crazed animal locked away in a small cage.

"Well, if you're gonna just stand there and not say anything then you better take down all our information and delete us from that site! And I want it down by morrr..."

Peggy's husband pounced onto the bed, catching her off guard and surprising her so that her elbow knocked the mug onto the floor, shattering it. He had never raised his hands to her in all their years of marriage, ever, but her human survival instincts caused her to raise her hands to protect her face. This left her lower body unprotected and gave him the opportunity to dive his head in between her legs and place his mouth squarely on her clit.