Separate Vacations

She rolled toward me. She was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. For having had two babies, she was still slim and trim. Her pussy was red and swollen from the beating I had just given it.

"You left me without any warning, you son of a bitch. You walked out on me AND your two young daughters. You have the nerve to talk about me about torturing somebody?

"You will never know how I felt that weekend after you vanished. I couldn't reach you to scream at you...to fuck you....to try to tell you how sorry I was. I felt like tearing my eyes out, but I had to keep it together for our girls..."

She took a deep breath and let it out.

"I fucked Stephen and I told you how big he was and that you'd never match him in bed because I wanted to hurt you as bad as you hurt me."

"Was he that big and good?"

She looked at me and she had the grace to appear a little guilty.

"Yes, Bruce, he was that big. Even a couple of inches makes a difference, and he was good. And I loved the way he fucked me and he did reach places you never did. And he made me cum over and over."

For having just fucked this woman into incoherence, I didn't feel all that hot right now.

She reached out and took my hand in hers.

"In case you forgot, you fucked me into a lot of climaxes when we were together. He was fantastic, but you weren't chopped liver. I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't love fucking him, but....I never loved him. Not the way I loved you. Even if you never believe me, I didn't fuck him in Hawaii. Not that he didn't try. But I didn't."

We lay there for what seemed like a long time. After awhile I rolled to the side of the bed.

'I'll call you a cab. It's late but you'll be home in an hour or so."

She leaned on an elbow and looked up at me.

"Coward. Coward. Coward. You're even afraid to spend the night with me...sleep with me after great sex. Are you so afraid that your iron self control will crack and you'll ask me if you can crawl back and we can try to make a go of our marriage again."

I could have said, "will never happen." But I felt a tenderness and a loss for this woman and what would it hurt to have one last night together. I laid back down beside her and she put her head against my shoulder and I fell asleep that way. Her tears ran down my chest to wet the bed.

The morning light coming through a bedroom window would have roused me if she hadn't nipped at my rampant cock with her small, sharp teeth. Not hard enough to hurt, just to let me know she was down there.

In a moment I had her head in my hands and I fucked her mouth as fast and hard as I could and watched her gulp when I came inside her. She licked me clean as she had so many years ago and I rolled her over and slid down and returned the favor until she screamed.

We took a shower together and dressed, her for work and me to lounge around for a few hours until it was time to go into Blockbuster. She sat across from me at the tiny kitchen table and sipped coffee from my coffee maker.

"Where to from here?"

"I go back to my life, Tiff, and you go back to yours."

She looked at me sadly.

"Last night changed nothing?"

I looked her straight in the eye.

"What could it change, Tiff? Could it make me love you any more? Could it make the sex any hotter? I forgave you for the hurt you did to me a long time ago. And I guess I believe you that you didn't fuck around with Stephen in Hawaii. Even if you did, I could have gotten past that. But..."

"But you still have to own me, don't you Bruce? You have to have this archaic -- you are my property, woman -- marriage that hardly anybody outside of the oil states has anymore."

"Yes, I guess that's the way you see it. I have to have YOU -- all of YOU -- in the marriage. All your money, all your love, all your commitment, all of you, all in. No more running shoes under the bed. You have to once and for all get past your father's betrayal."

She looked into her coffee cup like there were grounds she could read to tell the future.

"Could we -- at least -- see each other sometimes....like this. I guess I could live with not waking up beside you every morning...if I knew that....we weren't through for good."

I wanted to make her smile so badly but I made my heart into a stone.

"I won't see you again, Tiff. I can't. This is tearing my heart out. I want you more than I can stand, and I know I can't have you. Because you're not mine. You never have been. There's a part of you that you hold back. I tried to live with you for nearly ten years, praying that you would change. But you never did. You never will, Tiff. I don't think it's in you."

She stood up.

"So this is goodbye?"

"Once and for all and for real. Yes, it's goodbye."

I didn't watch her as she left. I put my head in my hands and wondered if I was the stupidest fucking man that ever walked the face of the earth, or just one of the unluckiest.

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I had just dropped my latest assignment off and stopped at Candy's desk. It was September 15 and September 17th was my birthday. Vic and Hank had both asked me to make it by Sardelli's, a nice Italian family restaurant, on the 17th for an office party/birthday celebration.

Candy wore a - for her - fairly demure light blue blouse and pants suit. The blouse gaped open with her breathing, exposing cleavage that matched anything Delanna had ever shown me.

I leaned over her desk and looked down at her breasts as she looked up at me and smiled.

"Getting a nice view?"

"The view from up here is heavenly, Candy."

She gave them a little wiggle/jiggle that caused me to stiffen up dangerous. I was afraid I might burst my zipper.

"It's always nice to be appreciated, Bruce. But I always had the impression that....you wanted to avoid office...entanglements...."

"You were married until six months ago, Candy. No matter how hot you were, I didn't want to get involved with a married woman."

"That's why I always thought you were a nice guy. A lot of men wouldn't be so particular but...I know why you were that way. Are you and your ex-"

"Finally done, Candy. It took me a long time, but I'm ready to move on. You dating anybody in particular right now?"

She shrugged, which also did nice things to those tits.

"Various people. Looking for a nice guy that's interested in more than my boobs."

"Would you consider a nice guy that's interested in your boobs?"

"I didn't think you were ever going to get over that ex of yours."

"It took me awhile. But I think I am ready to move on. Are you over your ex?"

"For the last few years, actually. I know a lot of guys around here think I'm just a slut, but I probably should have split two years ago. It's just that he was a great guy and a great father. We just weren't a good husband and wife."

"Would you consider being my date to my birthday party?"

"You ask a girl for a date two nights ahead of time?"

"I know it's short notice and I'm sure you have a crowded calendar. If you can't do it, at least keep me in mind for the future."

"Don't be so quick. Yeah, I can be your date. Just for fun....right now...right?"

"Nothing heavy, Candy. I just want some -- no pun intended -- eye candy for my arm that night. Then let's see where it goes."

"Okay. Just for laughs, Bruce."

She took a deep breath and let it out and her tits rose and fell. My eyes were about ready to pop out.

She pretended to slap at me.

"Damn, but it's good for a girl's ego to be around a man who really, really appreciates what she has."

"Consider yourself appreciated."

########################

I picked up Candy from her home on the Westside, saying hello to her two little ones who looked like they would become friends with my two girls if anything developed, and we drove toward the downtown where Sardelli's was located only a few blocks from the giant BellSouth tower.

We drove around for awhile until we found parking and then walked three blocks in the humid September air that left me perspiring before we got inside Sardelli's.

Most of the secretaries, the word guys, Vic and his latest wife Honey who was hanging onto him by her fingernails, and Henry and Patricia Clark were all there already started on wine and popping Arancini di Riso rice balls back with red wine.

I got hellos and congrats and jokes that turning 33 was the real official sign of old age. You were no longer a kid when you were nearly halfway to retirement. I joked back and Henry and Patricia came over to pat me on the back and hug me. Henry, make that Hank which everyone called him, looked 10 years younger than he had when I'd started writing for him and Vic.

And there's no wonder. I had come in late, but he'd been going through Hell, married to a woman that he loved and hated in equal measure, a woman who'd tortured him in ways that I couldn't even imagine.

She was almost as tall as me, as gorgeous a woman at nearly 50 as I'd ever seen. Jet black hair, huge tits, a body and face that screamed 'fuck me'. She came over on Hank's arm and hugged me to her and I couldn't stop the erection that started building behind my zipper. And I knew from the glance she gave that she knew exactly what her body and even the smell of her did to me, and every other male in the place.

And yet, she turned from me to give her shorter husband a kiss and you could read in her eyes that his cock was the only one in the room for her. Vic had told me he'd known them since the days when the three of them attended UF and he wouldn't have given a nickel for the chances of his old friend holding onto the only woman he'd ever loved.

We'd gone out drinking one night and he said the only thing he could compare it to was two fish caught on the same hook. No matter how much they thrashed and fought to get away from each other, no matter how much they hurt each other, there was no way they could break free of each other.

Watching them, and knowing something of what they'd gone through, I wondered if I would have changed places with my boss. He had gone through hell, but you could find a way past infidelity. I couldn't find a way to change the past and allow the woman I loved a way to trust and finally give herself to me. Another man, or men, I could maybe have fought. But how do you pay for the sins of an errant father.

I reached out and grabbed a glass of red wine, gulped it, and decided that was the last fucking morbid thought I was going to entertain tonight. I was with friends, it was my birthday, I had a gorgeous, big tittied blonde as my date, and the odds were very good , that if not tonight, then soon I'd be enjoying all the pleasures that body had promised for the past year and a half. This was going to be a good night!

We had finished the appetizers and main courses and were having some Marzipan Lucky Pigs and Almond Torrones for desert when Vic stood up and said, "Alright, alright. If you guys can stop stuffing your faces. It's time for a word from the birthday boy. Bruce, say something witty."

I stood and said, "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking," and despite the fact that it wasn't funny, the place dissolved in gales of laughter. Maybe because most of us were about two sheets to the wind.

I banged my empty wineglass on the table until the laughing stopped.

"All kidding aside....I want to thank all of you for being here and for coming up with the idea of this party. You guys know that I have a family of sorts with my friends from my day job at Blockbuster. I've known those guys for years. But in the last year and a half, I feel like I've acquired a new family. You're my friends."

I stopped and looked around at the now familiar faces in the room.

"I....don't have to tell most of you that this has been a pretty....rough two years for me. My marriage ended. I lost my wife. I...got another 50 rejection slips on the Great American novel."

At that the room broke into hysterical laughter again. Everybody knew and joked about my pursuit of the GAN, as everyone dubbed it.

"Thanks one hell of a lot," I said, pretending anger. "Some friends you are! But, the fact is, it would have been a hell of a lot lonelier, and colder, and more painful two years for me if I hadn't run into Vic Fleming one Fall night. Thank you Vic."

Then I sat down. Vic stood up again and said, "In the spirit of the night, I'd like anyone who'd like to make any comments about our friend to stand and do so."

"I'd like to say a few words."

Everyone there, including me, turned their gaze to the entrance to the private dining room, to look at the woman standing there dressed in a stylish black dress with an oversized handbag hanging on her arm. A few of them knew who she was because I'd shown them her picture, but most just stared in curiousity.

I couldn't believe my eyes. She walked forward into the room until she was standing directly in front of the table where Candy and I sat.

"Why are you doing this, Tiffany? I thought....thought we'd settled things...ended things..."

"I didn't come here to embarrass you Bruce, or cause you any trouble. Can I have a minute to talk to you."

"Couldn't you have done this some other time, Tiff? This was a party for me. I was having a good time. Jesus, do you live to make me miserable?"

"After we finish this time, I promise you, I will never contact you or bother you in any way again. Word of honor."

Candy put her hand on my arm.

"Give her a few minutes, Bruce. You need to."

"Okay. What do you want to say, Tiff?"

She reached into the oversized handbag and pulled out a snub-nosed .38 revolver. I felt, rather than heard, the abrupt intake of breath around the room. She held it loosely in her right hand while I froze. Then she reached out and laid it down on the table in front of me.

She reached back into the handbag and came out with a small purple box and laid it on the table beside the revolver.

I think you really could have heard a pin drop.

"Open the box, Bruce."

I reached out with two hands, which only trembled slightly, and lifted the lid on the jewelry box, to reveal matched diamond wedding rings. There were two sets, each set consisting of two identical gold bands woven into a kind of Moebius strip topped with diamonds.

I was trying to make sense of it all when she dropped to one knee, holding onto the table with one hand.

"In front of God and your friends, Bruce, I want to ask you to marry me. Will you marry me?"

I couldn't think of a word to say.

"It's a simple question, Bruce. Will you marry me. Be my husband again. Be my life again."

"Tiff..."

"You were right and I was wrong, Bruce. I see that now. I'm not holding back. No separate accounts. No pre-nups. No hesitation. I want to be your wife for the rest of my life. I want to go to bed with you and wake up with you. I want to belong to you forever. Every part of me. My ass, my pussy, my breasts, my heart, my body...it's yours. If you'll have me."

I could only stare at her. Was I dreaming at home. I had wanted this for so long. And now that I had it, I couldn't believe it.

"Tiff, are you sure? I know how hard this has got to be, but if we get back together again and I find out you aren't serious....you'll kill me, baby. Or you might as well."

She had gotten back to her feet and picked up the .38 again. Once again I heard people gasping.

"I won't change my mind, Bruce. But, you better not change your mind."

She held the .38 with the snub nose pointing to the ceiling.

"I know that I'm screwed up, Bruce. I've always known it. And I've seen how what Dad did screwed up mom's life. She's the way she is -- because of him. But, after I said goodbye to you the other morning I decided I wasn't going to let him ruin the rest of my life. I love you and I want you in my life. I'm taking a chance on you being different from dad.

"But-" she said looking at me without a hint of a smile, "I am not being completely naïve. If I ever -- I mean ever -- catch you screwing around on me, I am going to take this .38 and blow your balls off. It probably won't kill you, but your screwing days will be over."

She put the .38 back in her handbag.

"That's the deal, Bruce. If you haven't been lying to me for two years, and you do still love me, this is what you wanted. I've done all I can do. Now the ball is in your court."

She left the diamond rings on the table in front of me.

"I'll leave you to party with your friends. Think about it, Bruce, and make up your mind."

She turned and started walking out of the private room.

Candy swatted me on the back of my head.

"Don't be an idiot."

Before Tiffany had reached the entrance to the room I had her by the shoulders. She was crying.

"You know this has nothing to do with your becoming successful, don't you? I love it. I'll admit that. But I'd have taken you if you were a beach bum and worth 10 cents. I learned my lesson, Bruce. I'm never letting you go again."

I held her and whispered into her ear, "I'm never letting you or the girls go again either. You're stuck with me for the rest of your life."

Then I turned her around and began introducing her to my friends. And, as a very good writer often says, life goes on.