Pen 1, Sword 1

I shrugged my innocence to H-Dave as the police led me out of the bank. I knew he would call Templeton for me.

I didn't say a word to the police until Templeton got to the station about 30 minutes later. I really didn't have an alibi because I was sitting at home watching TV in my apartment by myself. Then I remembered I was texting with my son for a while at about the same time Traci was getting hammered. Templeton persuaded the cops to turn me loose, and I called H-Dave immediately and told him I would be back as soon as I visited Traci in the hospital. After all, she was still my wife -- for the time being -- and you just don't turn your back on somebody after 27 years of marriage -- at least I didn't.

Hospital security wasn't sure about letting me in to emergency until they called the local police station. Then I got escorted to Traci's room. Wow. What a fucking mess. Both of her eyes were purple, her nose appeared to be broken, and her mouth was a bloody mess. The few teeth that I could see were broken. This was very personal, and since I knew I didn't do it, I knew who did. But I wasn't saying a thing to anybody.

"Hey, you," I said quietly to see if she was awake.

"Hey ack," she mumbled as she slowly opened her darkened eyes.

"Iv you do is to ee? I?"

I took that to mean, "Did you do this to me? Why?" so I shook my head and answered gently, "You know I would never harm you physically in any way unless you threatened my life. I definitely did not do this to you.

"The police asked me the same question. I was actually texting with Josh when you were being attacked. They let me go, although I can't leave the state."

I held her hand for a few minutes, then I went back to work.

H-Dave greeted me in my office when I got back, and he didn't look happy.

"Allie, this isn't a good thing for the bank, the cops showing up and escorting one of my vice presidents out in handcuffs. Maybe you should take a leave of absence."

"I know where you're coming from, H-Dave, and I can appreciate that," I answered, but I wouldn't do anything to hurt the bank ... or Traci. I swear to you I didn't do this."

"This has to be the last time they come for you, or I'll have to put you on administrative leave," he said. "I've already heard from two board members."

"Then you are going to want to be with me for this next meeting. I'm calling Templeton, and I -- we -- need to see him and his daughter as soon as possible."

I got right through to Templeton at his office, and told him that H-Dave and I were coming over to speak with him and his daughter. He was confused but I told him this was not a request if she wanted to maintain her freedom. He got off the phone with me and called her, then called me back and told me the four of us could meet in 30 minutes at his office. The office would be closed at that time, but if we called him on his cell he would let us in.

H-Dave called his wife and told her that an important meeting with me and my lawyer just came up, and that he was going to be late. She apparently understood, because he quickly ended the call and I drove us over to Templeton's office. H-Dave dialed Templeton's cell, and he quickly came to the door, let us in, and locked it behind us.

Jasmine was already in the conference room when we arrived, looking every bit the demure mother of three in a plain blue dress with flats.

"What's this about, Allie?" Templeton asked, looking as serious as a heart attack.

"Did you really have to beat her that badly?" I quietly asked Jasmine.

Jasmine apparently hadn't told her father yet. Maybe she was hoping that I really didn't know. She fidgeted for a minute, studied the conference table, then finally spoke.

"I suppose I got a little carried away," she said passionately. "I've got three little ones, and that bitch ruined my life!"

Templeton and H-Dave looked at each other in shock and amazement.

"How did you know it was me?" Jasmine asked.

"That beating was all about rage," I answered. "And you and I would be the only two who would have that kind of rage over this. I just never knew you had that kind of training.

"I've been doing Mixed Martial Arts training in the gym for two years. I'm pretty good at it," she said smugly.

"But you also beat a person half to death," I responded. "If it wasn't for the fact that I completely understand where you are coming from, I would have you arrested. You do realize that I still love the stupid bitch somewhat at this point, and that she is the mother of my three children?"

"You punched RJ's lights out when you caught them. Isn't that the same thing?"

"Not even close," I said. "I caught them in the act of cheating and responded, but with just one punch. You didn't catch them in the act, and you threw a hell of a lot more than one punch. Your father can tell you there is a big difference when there's intent to harm."

She looked down at the table like a little kid that's just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"But that said," I added, "That was some nice work. And I guess now I don't have to figure out my revenge on her. You got enough revenge for both of us."

She looked up and grinned evilly. Templeton and H-Dave still looked shocked.

"Well, then, can I ask you for one favor?" Jasmine queried.

I nodded.

"Mr. Knight, could you please leave the room for a minute or two?" she asked. "My dad can stay because he's my attorney, and there's that attorney-client privilege."

"Actually, Sweetie, as an officer of the court -- technically -- I am supposed to report any potential wrongdoing, so maybe it's best I go with Dave into my office for a few minutes," Templeton said to his daughter.

When the two had gone and shut the door, Jasmine leaned in closer to me and said that she wasn't done getting her revenge, only this time she would be paying for somebody to even the score with her dickhead husband. She was telling me, she said, so I could have an airtight alibi, because she knew the cops were going to come to me first, seeing as I was the one with the Special Forces experience.

"If I tell you the date, I think you and Mr. Knight and my father should be out somewhere together in public ... and maybe be a little loud so a lot of people can see you," she said in a voice just above a whisper. "And with the police taking a good look at you, that will give my people a better chance to get clear of the situation. You'd be sort of like a decoy."

I had completely underestimated Jasmine. She was not one to piss off when it came to her family.

"You do realize of course that you are completely running roughshod over my revenge plans," I said to her.

She shrugged her shoulders and tried to use that innocent look that she did so well. It wasn't working on me, but I admired her pluck.

"Deal!" I said, sticking out my hand for a firm handshake with Mark Templeton's hellcat.

She got up from the table, opened the door to the conference room and called out, "OK guys, let's finish this up."

As they came back into the conference room, Jasmine looked at the pair and announced that they and their wives were going to take me out to dinner next Friday, and maybe do their best to get me drunk as well. Templeton gave her a look, but she wordlessly help up her hand in a signal of stop.

"I think Mr. Sanford has had enough heartbreak for a while. He needs a good night out with friends."

Templeton looked from his daughter to H-Dave, then just nodded.

"Friday night it is, gentlemen."

Saturday morning I woke up with a pounding headache. I didn't think I had quite that much to drink, but there it was -- an incessant pounding. Wait a minute, that's not my head; that's my front door.

I got out of bed, threw on my robe and staggered to the front door of the apartment I rented after leaving Traci. Two cars, lights flashing, four cops.

"Can somebody turn off those damned flashing lights?" I asked as I held my head. God, I hate hangovers.

The cops came in and asked me where I was Friday night. I told them I was at a restaurant with friends, then we went to a small concert where I wound up on stage doing the Joe Cocker part to the song "Up Where We Belong" with a gorgeous young singer named Gemma Amazing.

"Wait, let me get my phone," I said.

H-Dave's wife had taken my phone and done a video of my performance. The time stamp said 9:54 p.m. as I played it for the cops. And, if I say so myself, I did a pretty good job with the song.

I offered the police officers coffee as I set about brewing a pot.

"So what happened last night that you guys just happened to think about me," I inquired.

A sergeant Pete Bartrom stepped forward, took his phone out of his pocket, put a photo up on the screen and asked me if I knew whom it was.

"Of course I know who that is," I said. "That's the dickbreath who fucked my wife and ruined my life. Wait ... something bad happened to him and you think I got my revenge!"

I was almost smiling at this point. I had to punch it up good so they would chase their own tails for a while wondering how I could have done it and yet have witnesses as to my whereabouts. It was already hardwired into their brains that since I was ex-Special Forces, I would get my own revenge in my own way. Who was I to deny them their thinking?

"So did dickhead fall down and go boom, or did his car conveniently run out of gas on the railroad tracks? Is he still alive?"

The cops looked from one to another as I poured myself a mug of coffee.

"He's very much alive, sir, but when the drugs wear off I'm sure he is going to wish he was dead," said Sgt. Bartrom. "Someone, or maybe more than one someone, beat his genitals with a baseball bat or something similar, and surgeons spent most of last night removing his testicles and stopping the bleeding.

"But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, since you were so busy making your stage debut?"

"Exactly!" I said. "But I'll tell you this. You find out who did this to dickhead and I'll pitch in to their defense fund. Now if you guys don't mind, I've got to get some aspirin and a shower."

I gave the cops the names of who I was with so they could further verify my story. They seemed impressed that I was with a bank president and a prominent attorney at the time of the attack.

It took almost a year for the divorce to go through. Traci fought it tooth and nail. She just couldn't or wouldn't get it through her head that I wouldn't take her back. She even tried to rope me into counseling in front of the judge. I calmly told the judge that I considered nine months of cheating more than just a bad decision on her part, and that I would prefer to sit in jail rather than be with someone who could throw my love away because she was flattered by the attention of a handsome younger man. The judge considered that for about five seconds, and decided against counseling.

I didn't date for at least a year after the divorce was final. But that didn't stop one of my co-workers, Dick Reed, from coming around to my office every so often to tell me that single guys my age were in the driver's seat because there are a lot more single women than men in this age group.

"It might be a little wrinkled, and you might have to invest in a truckload of lube, but there's 'mucho' fine pussy to be had, my friend," he'd typically say.

He's an ass, but he is right, I found out.

I would occasionally forage out to a decent bar or small restaurant with a band playing just for female companionship other than my co-workers at the bank. Not that there aren't several fine-looking women working at my bank, but I would never hit on a co-worker. That's just not done, and especially now with this Me Too thing.

But I started noticing the tables of women in their 40s and 50s popping up at these places, and I noticed that they weren't wearing wedding rings. You'd get the 20 and 30-somethings in the trendy places and the hot clubs, but the 50s set would show up at places that would probably be considered second-tier. I'm guessing most of them aren't looking for a hot 20 or 30-something for either a one-night stand or for a catch leading to the altar, and they apparently know that people like me aren't looking for them there, either.

I spotted her one night at Giorgio's, a little Italian bistro/bar. At first she was with a table of about four or five women, but she got up, went to the bar a few places down from where I was sitting, and ordered a shot of Don Julio tequila on the rocks. Not the usual drink for a woman, and I was curious to see if she knew what she was doing or was going to waste a good tequila by throwing it down in one shot. She studied the shot, held the glass up toward her face, and then took a sip before reveling in its warming embrace. I was intrigued, so I turned to her and mentioned it.

"You're the first woman I've ever seen actually sip a straight shot of tequila, instead of just slamming it home. And you've chosen wisely, I see," I said.

"Well thank you for the consideration of my choosing skills, kind sir," she responded with mock seriousness. "I take it you are a tequila snob."

"I am probably a snob of all things distilled," I responded. "When I was a child, I drank like a child, but now that I've matured somewhat, I like to critique the handiwork of fine distillers. And you do that by sipping, and by not putting anything else into the glass except maybe some ice."

"So you're really not trying to pick me up then?" she said completely seriously.

"Wasn't planning on it, but if you'd like to be picked up, I'm sure we could work something out," I responded, holding up my ringless left hand with the fingers spread.

"I'm Amy, Amy Umbarger to be exact, and you are ..."

"Allister Sanford. Allie to my friends as you can see why," I answered.

She took the few steps over to me since I had a plate of food that I was working on. I asked if she wanted something to go with her tequila, but she declined. I turned to the bartender and ordered myself a shot of Don Julio, also over ice. We made a small toast to the gods of agave.

Not only didn't Amy Umbarger drink like your average woman, she certainly didn't look like your average woman, especially for the crowd that usually frequents Gorgio's. She had long dark brown hair that fell to her small waist and kind of hid what I was guessing to be 36Cs in her silky blouse. She was about 5-6, with toned-looking legs in her fairly tight jeans, and those legs finished at what might have been the best ass I've ever seen live in person. I'm more of a boob man than anything, but this woman had an ass to die for.

"Do I pass inspection?" she asked, catching me ogling her.

"Oh yeah," I said while blushing over my stupidity.

I again held up my left hand, and said, "I'm sorry, but I'm kind of new at this. Haven't done this for a very long time."

She giggled, and I was totally gone. We talked for about two hours, telling each other about our divorces and our jobs among other things, before one of her friends from the table came over and said her friends were going home. She told me she had to leave since she didn't drive tonight, but she picked my cellphone out of my shirt pocket and put her number in.

"Only an idiot would lose that," she whispered to me as she bussed my cheek.

It took every ounce of willpower not to call her until the middle of the next day, and when I finally did, she confessed that she thought I lost the number. Nobody that she had ever given her number to had taken that long to call, she said unashamedly. She also said I passed muster among the four friends of hers at the table.

We must have talked for an hour. I found out she was 45 and was born and raised in this general area. Her parents, in fact, still lived about an hour from her, and that she visited them on a regular basis. My parents, I told her, had both died within the last 10 years. Her lone child, a daughter, was a senior at Purdue University in Indiana.

I let her pick the restaurant and she chose one of the better French places in town. We drank vodka with our meal once I explained to her that both of my favorites were made in France -- Grey Goose and Ciroc -- and were made out of grapes instead of potatoes.

"Leave it to the French to do something else ingenious with grapes in addition to wine," she toasted.

It wasn't until our fourth date that we had sex, and that was done with a condom. She told me she wasn't on the pill since she wasn't very active sexually, but she was smart enough to use condoms, especially since at her age she was still within childbearing age. I didn't mind using a condom although it was the first time since before I was married to Traci. Despite the fact that I hadn't had sex in over a year, I wasn't a lust-crazed Lothario, and managed to hold out for a fair amount of time before cumming, but it wasn't near as satisfying as the sex I had with my ex-wife. I could tell by her face that she wasn't exactly swooning over my performance either. I did bring her off three times with my talented fingers, but I knew I could do better.

"Let's do this again in a couple of weeks after we both get ourselves tested and bring back healthy report cards" I said. "Then you can get 'the full Allie.'" I even used air quotes.

"Cheeky bastard, aren't you?" she replied.

"We'll see," I rejoined.

Two weeks later we presented each other with clean bills of health, and I was like a man let out of prison. I couldn't wait to get at her pussy with my mouth, and my enthusiasm for the night was sky high. She was equally up to the task and incredibly responsive, and it only took about five minutes of hand-play to get her to cum hard for her first orgasm. I got her five more times with my fingers, then I slid down the bed to get my first hot meal in about two years.

I put that gorgeous ass in both hands, then laid the flat of my tongue over the opening of her pussy, causing her to shriek my name. Traci used to just scream unintelligibly, so this was the first time in forever that I heard a woman scream out my name during sex. What a fucking turn-on! I went absolutely nuts after that, and used virtually every mouth and tongue trick that I ever knew on her.

"Jesus Allie!" she screamed. "Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuck!"

She then squeezed her legs together as much as possible with my face buried in her pussy and started to convulse wildly for about 30 seconds. She was yelling for me to stop, I think, but I wasn't sure because for a few seconds there she had cut off my air supply and I was fighting for a breath. She then stopped moving for a few seconds while I took my face out of her cunt and got some precious air back into my lungs.

"Whoa, whoa whoa, you fucking monster!" she suddenly yelled out. "How long have I been out?"

"About 10 seconds," I panted back.

"That was fucking amazing! That's never happened before! But you have to come back up here now and fuck me hard because I'm running out of steam."

So I did what the doctor ordered. I even got her off one more time on my cock before she finally got me, and I came as hard as I ever have in my life. What a fucking woman!

"Amy Um," as I began calling her, and I became exclusive that night, and were for the next six months until I blew it with one simple question.

"Will you marry me?" I asked her one night while she was coming down after about a dozen hard orgasms in my bed.

I could feel her body tense up in a completely different way than she did when she was sexually excited, and I knew that it wasn't going to go well for me. She hesitated, and I answered negatively for her.

"I'm sorry, Allie, I really am, but I'm just not ready to do marriage again this soon," she said as she started to choke up. "And I know that's what you want and really need: a firm commitment. I get it. And I know we're exclusive and everything, but if I can't do marriage then I think I need to let you go find a woman who can. Sooner or later, I might not want to not be exclusive, and it gets really complicated when you're married. And I love you too much to ever cheat on you, but I don't want to make your life miserable by waiting on me to make a commitment. I don't want you to look back on this 15 years from now and blame me for deceiving you."