Race among the Ruins

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StangStar06
StangStar06
5,800 Followers

"I think I've got the perfect song for this place and this crowd," he said. The crowd roared again. Maria was transfixed. As badly as she had to pee, she couldn't leave. Inwardly she hoped that the man couldn't sing. She hoped that he'd be as bad as the previous musicians had been so she could get the fuck out of there and go back to Elena for another tip, tomorrow. The Hanging Dog had been interesting but a dead end. Of course Maria could go and ask for the guest list. Or even knock on some of the doors. She'd try all of that tomorrow as soon as she took care of her bladder and had a good night's sleep to get rid of the alcohol she'd consumed. Aaron Anderson had better be worth the trouble it was taking to find him.

The man started to sing. He had a rich Baritone voice and was actually kind of good in a weird way. He didn't sing like rock stars, or great jazz musicians it was sort of like a cross between folk and country.

"I go in for singing. I do it for my pay." He sang.

The crowd seemed to really get into what he was singing. Maria hadn't ever heard the song before so she didn't know whether he was good or not. She'd missed the lyrics of th next line or two while she looked at him.

"With a few good friends and neighbors in to play the night time tunes," he sang. "So pass the jar and that old guitar in this Hangdog Hotel room."

The crowd was screaming so loud after that line that Maria couldn't hear him anymore. She wondered if he'd ad-libbed it or if the song actually went that way. There was something about the man that just seemed to draw her in and make her feel comfortable. She reluctantly turned away and left the room, though she really wanted to stay. It wasn't just the song, it was the man himself. Though he was older than Maria, she was seriously attracted to him, which shocked her. But she had no time for dalliances; her future depended on the next few days. So, two things forced her to leave. One was the fact that she had to pee really badly, and the other was the fact that she wasn't going to find Aaron Anderson by sitting here listening to some wannabe folk singer, no matter how dreamy she found him.

Stacy Anderson sat at her desk and looked out over the sea. Though the villa wasn't near the water, it sat high enough on the hill that the sea was visible from nearly every room at the back of the house. Looking at the sea was comforting for her right now. She hated the water, but Aaron loved it so much. She was sure that somewhere out there he was looking out at the sea too.

She wondered where everything had gone wrong. Robert was treating her so differently now. He was acting as if there was something going on with them. And he was so arrogant. Why hadn't she ever seen that before? Ever since they'd left the meeting he'd had that smug little smile. He kept trying to find Aaron himself and he told her to keep calling him. It was so funny; he really thought that they'd find Aaron and find some way to get him to forgive both of them. Then business could go on as usual. Only it wouldn't be the way things had always been because he expected her to have sex with him behind Aaron's back.

His exact words had been, "What he doesn't know won't hurt him." He acted like she was some whore. He really thought that she was the kind of woman who would fuck around on her husband. He made it seem like they'd share her. She'd be Aaron's wife in public and Robert's whore in private. The worst thing about it was the way he treated her. During the afternoon after that awful girl had left, he came over. His apartment wasn't big enough for him to keep all of his research material and charts in so Aaron had given him the use of their library on the first floor. He'd started looking up some of the local legends and things like that. He'd made up a list of things he was interested in and their possible locations. He needed to go out and talk to the locals about them.

When she asked him when he intended to do that he'd told her that Aaron usually did that. Aaron had a way with people.

She asked him about getting a crew together and again he told her that Aaron usually did that too. The funniest thing about all of this was that for years Stacy had thought that Robert was the smart one. She'd really believed that he was just helping out his old friend. But now she was beginning to see that her husband had more than pulled his own weight. Maybe she'd chalked it up to the fact that she and Robert had a lot in common since both of them came at things from a purely academic perspective.

But what she noticed this afternoon, that unlike her husband, Robert never listened to any of her theories or ideas. He didn't treat her like a partner; he treated her like a servant. When he'd gotten bored he'd come over and started playing with her breasts like he owned them. At first Stacy was shocked. Her mind told her to tell him to get his fucking hands off of her. But then she realized that if Aaron never came back, as much as she hated Robert now, he might be useful.

Her mind recoiled at the memory of his touch. His hands didn't caress her skin lovingly, he simply pawed her. It took her a while to figure out was the difference was. When Aaron did the very same things, his touch was meant to stimulate her, to get her aroused so he could make love to her. Though he enjoyed touching her himself, he did it in a way that she enjoyed it too.

Robert on the other hand didn't care whether or not she got anything from the touch. He did it just to arouse himself so eventually when his nuts healed he could fuck her; whether or not she enjoyed it. This wasn't the sharing done by two people in love. It would just be something to do so he got off.

She felt like such a fool. And she wasn't alone in that knowledge. Everyone she ran into looked at her like they were laughing at her out of one side of their faces and spitting on her out of the other.

The worst thing about it was that she'd done it so casually. She'd never had any intention of ending her marriage. She'd only wanted to muscle her way into the boys club and be thought of as an equal. Her husband had always treated her that way, but it had been a sort of segregated equal. He had respected and welcomed her opinions and ideas, but only as an outsider. He and Robert were the company; she'd been at best a concerned colleague.

Coming to Greece and working for the university here gave them all a chance to fulfill their dreams. Instead of a partnership between the two friends, she'd wanted to be included. The quick blowjob she'd offered Robert had only been meant as a "thank you" for allowing her to be a part of things and possibly as a way to get him on her side for future endeavors.

But things had gone terribly wrong and now she had no idea where her husband was and Robert considered her his property. Even worse was the fact that for some reason the girl that Robert had fired was tracking her husband down. "Business," she'd said. What kind of business could that girl have with Aaron?

Even as Stacy considered the possibilities the doorbell rang again. Stacy ran to the door and then remembered that Aaron wouldn't have rung the bell since he had a key.

Robert came in as soon as she opened the door. As she led him into the house he reached out and grabbed her ass. She jumped in surprise and glared at him. "What's wrong baby? Aaron isn't here is he?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "I was just startled by it."

"I think I know where we want to explore and what we're looking for," he said. "Did you get things settled with Aaron yet?"

"He still hasn't come home yet," said Stacy. "I don't know where he is or even where he slept last night. I'm about to go to bed alone for only the second night since we've been married."

"You don't have to go to bed alone," leered Robert.

"What if he came back while you were here?" asked Stacy. "Last time he saw you, he laid you out with one punch and he was in shock then. This time you probably wouldn't be nearly as lucky."

"Yeah, you're right," said Robert. "Well, make some calls. Do whatever it takes just find him."

"But what do I do when I find him?" asked Stacy. "I can't make him come home. I can't make him speak to me or take me back. I can't make him forgive you or speak to you, let alone work with you. Just what are you expecting me to do?"

"He's your husband, figure something out," said Robert.

Stacy watched as Robert left the house. He'd done it again. He'd told her that he'd decided where they needed to start their search. But he hadn't bothered to tell her where that was, or even what they were looking for. It was as if her opinions and ideas simply didn't register. And he'd simply grabbed her ass like it was his to play with whenever he wanted. Instead of getting better, her life was going south quickly.

The next morning Maria called Elena as soon as good manners would allow. She'd been up since just after six and had waited three hours to give the woman time to wake up and have breakfast.

"Mrs. Rinehart, are you sure I'll be able to find him at that hotel?" she asked. "It seems kind of run down. It doesn't seem like the kind of place a professor would hang out in."

"That's because he isn't a professor and he doesn't act like one," said Elena. "All you have to do is go there and ask someone about him. I'm betting by now everyone there is his friend."

Maria got dressed and went back to the Hanging Dog. She sat down at the deserted bar and asked the woman behind it if they served breakfast.

"Of course we do," said the woman.

"I'll have scrambled eggs and toast, with bacon or sausages," said Maria. "And black coffee please."

"We don't have any of that on our breakfast menu," said the woman in a bored voice.

"What do you have?" asked Maria.

"We have beer," said the woman.

"What else do you have?" asked Maria.

"Beer," said the woman. "We also have other types of liquor, but we don't serve them until after noon. This is a classy place after all."

"Do you know Aaron Anderson?" asked Maria in frustration.

"Everyone knows double A," smiled the bartender. The smile was a little bit too broad for Maria's taste. She thought that the bartender might have too great a knowledge of the man she was looking for.

"Could you tell me where I might find him?" asked Maria slipping into her most precise and clipped British accent.

"He's upstairs in his room. Its number 207," said the bartender. He probably won't wake up until later though because he got really drunk last night."

Maria took the stairs and went up to the second floor. Once there she walked down the hall and looked at all of the numbers on the rooms. When she got to 207 the door was cracked so she just went in.

She looked around the room and found nothing spectacular. She looked at the form on the bed and was shocked. Aaron Anderson was the singer she'd been so taken with the previous evening.

He lay there half covered, still in the clothes he'd worn the previous day. His shirt was unbuttoned nearly to his waist revealing a muscular and lightly furred chest. Maria felt herself wondering what the rest of him looked like. His face was covered by about three days of accumulated beard growth, but it suited him. It made him look as if his appearance wasn't the most important thing in the world to him. Sure he could clean up if the situation warranted it, but other than that he was more interested in doing whatever he had to do. He'd probably get up, brush his teeth, shower and hit the streets. Maria loved it. She was tired as hell of primping, chest shaving, metro-sexual assholes.

Without even realizing she was doing it, Maria reached out to brush a wild lock of hair away from his face. Before her hand even got within range, his eyes snapped open and he grabbed her hand.

"Why are you in my room?" he asked calmly.

"Th-th-the door was open," she said.

"But that doesn't give you the right to just come in, does it?" he asked. She shook her head no.

"I've been looking for you for a couple of days," she said as if that explained it all. "Mrs. Rinehart thought that I might be able to join your team and help out as your research assistant. I was supposed to work for your partner but he fired me before I even got a chance to start. He picked Dr. Anderson...Uhm your uhm wife as his assistant. Anyway, Elena, uhm Mrs. Rinehart thought that you might want an assistant too. We have to get started right away because we only have about 3 days left before the bids have to be in and the university will only finance five teams. There were fourteen teams at the meeting you missed. Some of them have already submitted their bids and proposals so time is short. We have to get together with the rest of the team and figure out what to put into our proposal and what our bid should be for equipment and such."

Maria watched as he sat up in bed. He was still fully dressed. He even had his boots still on. He'd obviously just staggered into the room last night after drinking or whatever else he did to himself and just fell onto the bed. He could just as easily have simply fallen onto the floor. For some reason that she couldn't explain the thought of him falling onto the floor and hurting himself really bothered her.

During the night he'd probably gotten a chill and just wrapped the blankets around himself and woke up that way. He was shaking his head at her.

"Which part are you shaking your head at?" she asked.

"All of it," he said quietly. "We don't have to do any of that stuff. I quit. I'm going home."

"May I?" asked Maria pointing at the edge of the bed.

"Well, since you're extremely polite for a burglar, please do," smiled Aaron.

"Okay," she said sitting delicately on the edge of his bed. "Mrs. Rinehart herself told me to find you and join your team. There had to be a reason why she told me to do that. She seems to know everything that's happening on this whole fucking island." Aaron's eyes lit up at her use of the American profane term. Her words had been delivered in that precise, clipped, British accent that he found remarkably attractive. The word "fucking" which she enunciated perfectly, even pronouncing the "G" stood out like a sore thumb. It actually cheered him up.

"There has to be a reason why she didn't simply send me to your partner," she continued.

"She thinks he's an asshole," said Anderson. "I can't believe I defended that bastard the other night. Of course that was before I found out that she was right."

"Ooh, I've only met him once, but I quite agree with Elena. He's an arrogant prick. I believe she called him an insufferable asshole," said Maria.

"Well she's only had to deal with him for a few days," said Aaron. "I've known him all of my life. He was my best friend besides being my partner."

"Was?" asked Maria lifting one small eyebrow in surprise. "It isn't often that you hear of a lifelong friendship going tits up in a matter of days."

As much as he was trying not to, Aaron found himself liking the lumpy little woman. Woman, he thought, she was barely more than a girl. She couldn't have been a day older than 24 or 25. Her glasses were the ugliest thing he'd ever seen. And she was shorter than he liked his women but still, there was something about her. He found himself wanting to talk.

"It wasn't a matter of days," he began. "It was a matter of minutes." He continued talking until he'd told her the entire story about the night 3 days past, when he'd found Stacy and Robert together.

He poured out his heart to her and told her how much he'd loved Stacy and how awful it was to lose both her and his best friend at the same time. The only thing that would have been worse would have been to have lost his Mustang.

"That's awful," said Maria. "What did she say when you spoke to her? How did she defend her actions? Did she say that it was just a one off thing? Was she drunk? Was she forced into it? Does she love him? What did she say?"

"I haven't spoken to her since I caught them," he said.

"Well, what did he say?" she asked

"He wasn't capable of speech, when I left them," smirked Anderson. Maria noticed that his eyes glinted dangerously.

"So you just slunk off into the bushes to die after that bastard took your toys away huh?" asked Maria. "Somehow after meeting you for only a few minutes, that doesn't seem like something you'd do. And you're just going to quit your career and go crying home with your tail between your legs?"

"What do you think I should do?" he asked. "Not that I'm going to do it, but just out of curiosity. This isn't a reality TV series, you know. This is my life. I've been married to Stacy for 9 years. So catching her doing that, hurt me badly. I'm not exactly on my "A" game right now."

"Well you have 2 choices," said Maria. "You can go back, talk to them and figure out what you're going to do. You have two choices there as well. One, you can take her back and forgive either one or both of them. Or you can just chuck the whole thing and get on with your life. Just go ahead and do what you really want to do."

"I guess deep down inside, I love Stacy and I'd kind of like to see things work out for us," said Aaron. Thanks uhm...."

"Maria," she supplied.

"I'm going to go over to the villa and try to talk to Stacy now. She has a lot of explaining to do if we're going to stay married," said Aaron.

An hour later, Aaron was dressed and clean. He and Maria got into his Mustang and drove over to the villa. She was surprised by the reaction the car got as they drove through the early afternoon. When they got to the villa, Aaron got out. Maria told him she'd wait in the car to give him some privacy.

Aaron walked up to the front door but as he passed by the living room windows he stopped short. There on the sofa in the living room was Stacy. She was lying on her back staring at the ceiling as Robert Thompson fucked her. Rage colored Aaron's face as he watched Robert stroking in and out of Stacy. He kissed her on the cheek and it looked as if she smiled when he did it.

"Robert, I'm cumming," said Stacy, listlessly. That seemed strange to Aaron because his wife usually just screamed when she exploded. And she usually wrapped herself all over him because she just lost control of her limbs. Her hips movements weren't spasms as they usually were either. This was probably what she wanted anyway. Seeing her fucking his best friend was enlightening. It was calmer and more dignified than the sex that he had with Stacy. She probably liked that. She and Robert were much more classy people than Aaron would ever be. It was time to face the facts. They had a lot more in common than Stacy and Aaron would ever have. It wasn't just the degrees and education, this clinched it. They were simply more suited to each other than Aaron was to either of them. He wondered if she'd ever really loved him.

"Sorry," said a quiet voice beside him.

Aaron looked down and saw Maria standing next to him. He turned away a bit too late for her to miss seeing the tears running down his cheeks.

"Okay Maria, what do you do?" asked Aaron looking at her seriously. He wiped his face and turned back towards his car. She ran to catch up with him.

"What do you mean what do I do?" she asked. She was shocked by his abrupt change in demeanor. "Uhm, I don't do what we were just looking at, if that's what you mean. Well I do, uhm do it. I mean...I don't do it with someone else's...Oh crap...."

"Maria, what I want to know is what you specialize in?" he said. She was still puzzled and her confused look made him rephrase his question.

"Work-wise," he said. "In terms of your career what are your interests?"

"Oh!" she said. "I want to be a professor of history."

"Great," he smirked. "We just left two of those back in the villa. Are you sure you don't want to go back there and make history with them?"

StangStar06
StangStar06
5,800 Followers
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