Reconciliation

I was told by someone who knows that I should mention that the characters in this story were originally in 'Enabling' and "Hooking Jörmungandr". While I tried to make this story complete on it's own, there are details there which may flesh things out a bit more. Also, keen readers will notice there maybe be some inconsistencies between the three. Well...they were never meant to be a serial, so I hope you accept artistic license (or mere hackery) as sufficient excuse

If you don't believe people can change, you probably won't like this story.

If you are looking for loads of hot sex, you probably won't like this story.

If you are looking for a lot of humor, sorry, this is one of the dark ones.

If you are big on BTB, you may want to give this one a pass.

If you believe a wronged husband can't act like an asshole, are you catching the trend?

And if you haven't liked any of my stories so far, you probably won't like this one either. (God...nothing like insulting the readers BEFORE they start the story. There is a reason I am not in marketing...)

So...are both of my potential readers still here? Good!

Reconciliation

Jim entered the bar diffidently. He didn't want to be here, but he was caught in a bind of his own making. Principles were a damned thing. They limited your course of action both coming and going. If you could just ignore them, then they weren't principles in the first place. The place was reasonably full, despite the fact it was the midday lull; too early for the after work crowd, but still not early enough for the lunch drinkers. He stopped at the bar before examining the room. Ed had his drink ready before he got there. " 'Lo. What brings you in this early?"

Jim grimaced. "An unpleasant task, I'm afraid. I'm meeting someone."

The barkeep nodded gravely. "Must be the jumpy bastard in booth 8." He tilted his head in that direction. Sandy hair, broad shoulders. Yup. That was his asshole. With a sigh, he drained his glass. "Ed, put a shot of vodka in this one." The barkeep raised his eyebrow. Normally it was a club and lime. "Trust me...I'm going to need it."

Shrugging wordlessly, he refilled the glass and Jim brought it to the booth.

For the first time in more than a year, Jim sat in the same room as Reg. They used to be friends in high school and afterwards, but things had changed. For one, Reg started to screw anything with a pulse and a wedding ring didn't seem to matter to him and second, Jim's brother David had his wife cheat on him and it almost destroyed his brother. David was still trying to crawl out of his bottle and his kids were doing poorly academically and had behavior problems. Since that time, Jim had made it a point of honor to never be in the same room as his former school chum.

Reg eyed him warily. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"I wasn't sure I'd come. What's this all about?" Jim wasn't going to waste a lot of time on this serial adulterer, but Reg had all but begged him on the phone for the meeting. So...ignore a plea for help or hold to his principles to avoid this son of a bitch? It had taken him a couple hours mulling it and talking it over with Sally, but finally he decided to hear him out.

Reg popped a pill in his mouth when he sat down. Had he started doing drugs too? At his look of askance, Reg said shamefacedly. "I was in the hospital. My ribs are still very sore."

"Oh? I hadn't heard."

Reg made a face. "Figures. I called Hank and Phil, my two so called best friends while I was in there. They laughed at me when they heard what happened. They LAUGHED."

Jim sighed. "Okay. Why don't you tell me what happened."

"I was at one of the clubs. Well, there was this real hot blonde there...I mean...she wasn't the prettiest girl there, but she had this weird energy vibe thing. She was dancing with a bunch of guys so I cut in a couple times. So I made a play for her and this dumbass tells me to take a hike. Wait. Excuse me. He told me that he'd punch me in the mouth or he'd let me keep hitting on her. Which seemed pretty fucking dumb to me. He made it sound like he was doing me a favor by just letting him punch me. I mean...he was a real arrogant prick." Jim refrained from the obvious comparison.

"Well, this pissed me off and I decided to get even with him by taking him up on his offer. I mean...if he was so stupid to give me open season on his girl, he had no idea what I could do. So I hit on her some more. You know...rub his nose in it."

"I didn't come here to listen to you brag about how you nailed some guy's wife." Jim said wearily.

"No! This is...it's important to the story. She was sort of stand offish. Not exactly warm. Less fun then she was before when I danced with her the first time. Guarded. She kept trying to brush me off, but she never said no...so that's like a yes, right? So I kissed her on the dance floor, thinking her guy had come in to see it and she just looked at me and then, in this absolutely weird voice asked me if I knew someplace quiet and private. So, you know, I think I'm getting lucky and I take her back to a store room, giving her the full court press."

Jim's face twisted into distaste. It sounded like another of Reg's brags and he really didn't want to waste his time. But there wasn't any of the usual arrogance in his voice. Instead his voice sounded lost.

"Jim...as soon as that door shut, she pulled out a gun. I swear by everything I hold holy she was going to kill me!"

"What exactly do you find holy? And did she say why?"

"I was sort of focused on the gun! And fuck you! Wait..." his eyes wandered into the past. "She said that I was deliberately trying to hurt her husband and their relationship and she'd kill me before she let that happen. She...her eyes! Jim, her fucking eyes! It was like there was nobody there. I was this tedious little chore she needed to take care of before she left the club." He shuddered at the memory of her expression.

"So, that fucking asshole knew, he just KNEW where she'd be and what she'd be doing, don't ask me how, and he walks in with this CSI kit and starts rolling out plastic tarp and giving her a silencer like it's just another day for them. My whole life meant absolutely nothing! I mean, I thought they were kidding but...They're sitting there like the Addams family trying to figure out where to hide my body."

"You're here. What happened?" Jim's voice had little compassion in it, but there was a twinge of curiosity.

"I think...I think they decided that killing me was more trouble than...than I was worth. She said if I let him beat the shit out of me, they'd call it even." His voice broke. "They made me ASK for it." His eyes took on that lost quality again and his face twitched as it recalled the beating. " I had to...hold my hands behind my back...and he started punching and kicking and..." Reg took a shuddering breath. "Then they told me if I gave them the slightest amount of trouble they'd...well, they'd be back. They took my driver's license and my social security card. They even cut the valve stems off the tires on my Mustang." He said outraged.

"You asshole!" It was all Jim could do to not scream it in his face. Reg was worse, FAR worse than he thought.

"What? I'm the victim here!"

"Victim my ass! You went out of your way to hit on a married chick and when you were told NOT to, you made a play anyway just to try to mess up their marriage. It's just your luck that you picked someone who was able to do something about it. You could be dead. You should be dead. You callously went out of your way to mess up something very important to them and now you want SYMPATHY because you couldn't get away with it?" Jim sat back, wishing he'd ordered a double and feeling he wasted a trip. "What do you want, Reg?"

Reg looked shattered. "I want my friends back. I miss you guys...even you. I was stuck in a hospital for days. I had a punctured lung, two broken ribs, I lost a tooth and I was pissing blood for a couple days. Like I said, I called the guys and they just laughed."

"They're not really happy you slept with Wes' wife. Wes got a divorce and moved you know."

"I know about the divorce."

"What about your...'friends'?"

"The girls?" Reg shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah. After the bunch of you threw me under the bus, I called a few of them...but I don't keep a 'line of girls' around. Generally it's more of a serial thing..." He looked even more forlorn. "My current 'friends' made some sympathetic noises. But visiting me in the hospital? Not discreet and they knew it. One or two told me to give them a call when I got better, but..." he left it hanging.

"We threw you under the bus? After what you...never mind." Jim tried to squelch his sense of outrage.

"Okay. That was a bad way to put it. I meant that you guys left and now...it's like I have no one anymore." Reg sighed deeply. "I had a lot of time thinking of things. What else did I have to do? I sat in my apartment for a week after that. What if they had killed me? I mean, how many suspects would there be? How many people would raise a glass not to me, but to my killers? How many people would be at my funeral?"

"Too many to the first, not many to the later" Jim stated.

"Yeah." Reg's voice was empty, more a sigh of agreement than a word.

Jim's glass was also empty. He pushed himself away from the booth and headed to the bar. "Give me a double, Ed."

"That bad?" Ed waited.

"Reg is...he tries to sleep with everything that moves and if it doesn't move, he nudges it with his foot first. And that includes married women. ESPECIALLY married women. He's right. The pretty ones get married early and Reg has a connoisseur's eye. Suddenly he's had this 'epiphany' and wants to make things right. Or so he says."

"And you don't believe him?"

"Not particularly."

"Why not?"

"Because his reason for wanting forgiveness is because it's making his life uncomfortable and he feels lonely."

"And you don't think he should have a selfish motive for being forgiven?"

"Of course not!"

"Then what's in it for him? What's in it for anyone to seek forgiveness?" Jim was silent, thinking. "He seems to be in a lot of pain."

"So what are you suggesting, that I just buy into it?" Jim asked.

Ed polished a glass, peering closely at it through the light. "I dunno. What do your personal religious and ethical beliefs say to do when someone asks for forgiveness?"

Jim slammed his glass down. It was a miracle that it stayed intact. "DAMN IT!" He glared hard at the bartender, who seemed very intent on scraping some hard bit off the outside of the glass. Through gritted teeth, Jim said "You...you...Did I mention that Sally says your mojitos are mundane and dull?"

Ed looked at him aggrieved. "That's low, Jim. And considering she's the only one who orders them, I'll take that for what it's worth."

"Does he just think that saying 'sorry' is going to make up for all the crap he's done to people?"

"He might think that. He probably has no idea how hard a road he has to go down. He can't make it all up at once. And it's unfair to expect that. But you CAN make him realize what he did. IF you're interested." Ed finished offhandedly.

"Damn you Ed." Jim started to get worked up again.

Ed grinned. "Relax. If it's any comfort, look at what Henry II had to do to get forgiveness for killing Thomas Becket. Sack cloth and ashes. Walking barefooted to Canturbury. Scourged by monks. Penance is NOT for the faint of heart. It's easier to stay bad."

"Who?"

"Look it up."

Jim took his drink and headed back to the booth. He sighed and thought as Reg wordlessly watched him. "So...you're serious about changing your life?"

Reg nodded. "Sure. I'm really sorry and I'd do anything to make it up."

"You know, people say that very easily. 'I'll do anything.' Well, you get to prove it. We need to get going."

"Where?" Reg was a bit troubled by the look of foreboding that Jim wore. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to my house for dinner." He said ominously.

+

"Honey, I think one of our neighbors is cheating on her husband. There's this garish pimp-mobile of a Mustang parked in front of our..." Sally began as she entered the house from work carrying a grocery bag. She stopped when she saw them, a smile s-l-o-w-l-y ratcheting on her face. "Well! Reginald Perry. Reginald Perry inMY house. Isn't that...special." Her smile never faltered but her eyes tightened slightly when they looked at Jim. "And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" Reg and Jim both inwardly cringed.

Jim quickly slid into the conversation. "I...um...I invited him for dinner."

"DINNER! Isn't today just FULL of surprises. Luckily I just got back from the grocery store otherwise I don't knowwhat I'd make." She glanced at the bottle in Reg's hand. "I see you're making yourself at home. Jim honey? I need for you to follow me to the bathroom to talk about a drip I noticed."

Slowly, Jim trudged off with his wife pushing on his back. Reg sat there extremely uncomfortably. He was a dab hand at reading body language. There was a low buzz of conversation from the bathroom deep in the house. Suddenly he heard a muffled exclamation from Sally "He said WHAT?"

A few minutes later, they reappeared, Jim tired and resolute, arms folded across his chest, Sally with a gimlet cast to her eye. Smiles were NOT in evidence. She sat across the kitchen table from Reg and clasped her hands together in front of her face, elbows on the table. "Well, it's an ill wind which blows no good. At least that's one less Christmas card I have to send out this year." She said phlegmatically.

"Um...you never sent me a Christmas card." Reg said.

"I wasn't talking about you." She looked at her husband. "Did you tell Ed about his mojitos?" He nodded. "Next time we're at his place, remind me to have a word with him about moral blackmail."

"I'm already on it." Jim agreed.

Reg started to get up. "Look...I get it. It was a bad idea. Sorry to have wasted your time and 'invaded' your precious home." He tried to project a sarcastic attitude but it didn't quite reach his face.

"Sit!" Sally barked. Reg sat a bit too fast for his liking. There was this tone in her voice of wooden spoons and folded belts that struck him right in his childhood. "Why did you try to walk out right now?" she asked, her tone curious instead of judgmental

"Because you're giving me attitude. Because you don't want to help me. Because I don't need to fuck up Jim's life too."

Sally slowly nodded. "One out of three. It's a start. A very small start, but a start. Do I want to help you? No. Not particularly. But we don't have much choice. Part of having principles is that sometimes you need to do things you don't want to do. Otherwise they are just vague guidelines. I hope you like lasagna. We'll iron things out while we make dinner."

Reg hated lasagna. "Mmmm." He forced a smile.

+

They decided to start at the source, Reg's apartment.

"So this is the 'den of iniquity'." Sally said simply.

"No...It's the living room of iniquity. Adding a den costs an extra $200 a month." Reg answered.

Sally looked around, obviously curious at what a Lotharios apartment would look like. It looked very nonthreatening. There was a matched oxblood sofa and love seat with a nice Chippendale style coffee table and side tables with drawers. The carpeting was clean. A sniff showed there were no odors in the place, except for a subtle hint of sandalwood. There was an expensive entertainment system with a plasma T.V. She ran her hand over the loveseat. It was wonderfully soft but cool. She would hate to sit on it for very long in a short skirt, much less naked. Ah...there were throws over the back so you could sit in warmth if that was your preference. Some nice art pieces decorated the walls and the lighting was subdued but warm.

"Nice place." Jim said. There was no way he was letting Sally go alone to Reg's house, not that he doubted Sally, but he didn't want to put her in an uncomfortable situation no matter how Reg was behaving. Sally had no problem with that and would have asked if he hadn't offered. Coming here was her idea.

"So do I pass inspection?" Reg asked a bit sarcastically.

"It isn't the externals we wanted to see. This is the facade you show your 'dates'." Sally wandered to the side table. "This is really well done. This couch must have cost you a fortune and this carpet... I just want to peel off my shoes and run my toes through its pile." Naturally according to their genders, she wandered into the kitchen while Jim took a look at the entertainment system.

Inside the entertainment cubicle, inside a closed cabinet, a large DVD binder was propped on its end, hiding what was behind in the cubicle. Behind that was an X-Box and PlayStation 3. "Why do you have the DVD binder hiding your game systems?" Jim asked.

Reg gave him a charming smile. "Come on man. You know how shallow chicks can be about stuff like that. You play a video game and their respect for you just plummets."

"Mmm."

"What does 'mmm' mean?"

"Reggie, exactly how much do you drink in a week?" Sally interrupted from the kitchen. There was a clinking sound as she appeared with three empty bottles. "I found these in the trash."

He got a pained expression on his face. "It's not what you think. I've been off work a lot and..." he trailed off as she just walked away toward his master bath. After a few minutes she returned and came back to the kitchen table, sitting.

Jim walked up and sat next to Sally at the breakfast table. She instinctively reached out and held his hand, a natural and unaffected gesture.

"Well...let's start with the basics. You're a mess. Your diet is terrible, I saw three different anti-depressants in your bathroom, you drink too much and nothing you do is going to fix it." Sally said primly.

"Oh...is that all?" Reg quirked an eyebrow.

"Did you want help or not? How well are you sleeping?"

His eyes darted leftward and down and his mouth opened and shut. Finally he looked up at her "Not well. Not well at all. That's what the booze is for."

Very delicately, Sally approached the next topic. "Jim said that you were beaten recently?"

"I...yeah. Did he tell you the details?"

"He tells me everything." She said simply.

"So...how do you 'fix' me?"

She sighed. "If you are going to put 'quotes' around your words, this isn't going to work. I don't like your tone. If you think you have all the answers, find them yourself. We're offering help you asked for. If you turn us down, it's on you."

There was silence in the kitchen. Finally, "What do I have to do?"

"Simple. You need to put yourself into my hands totally." Her smile did not reassure. "Can you trust a woman with that power over your life?" Her eyes probed his. "Or...you can continue your drinking, the nightmares and the sleepless nights."

"How did you know about the nightmares?"

Gravely, Jim said "It shows on your face."

After a long pause, Reg nodded his head curtly. "What was that?" Sally pressed.

"OKAY! Whatever you need. I want...I want my life back!"

She tenderly put her hand to the side of his face. "Do you really? I wouldn't. I'd want something better."

She suddenly stood briskly. "Well, enough of this. I don't even want to look in the bedroom. The kids are okay for a while, but it's getting late. Tomorrow, I'll have the name of an A.A. group for you. I'll also have the name of a counselor who deals with post traumatic stress disorder. If possible, we'll find someone with a traditional outlook." Jim lead her to the door.

"Wait! You didn't tell me what was wrong with me!" Reg shouted after her.

She turned. "It's an ailment as old as humanity." She shut the door.

+

Jim slid into the car next to his wife. "He hides his video games."