Slip of the Tongue

She finished off the Michelob.

"I know it's crazy. But that's the way I felt about...him. He was my vice. It was bad, and it was wrong, but as long as you didn't know about it, it would be like my secret smoking."

I stood up and started to dress. I didn't look at her again.

"You need to get your clothes on and get out of here, Rox."

"You said you'd give me time to talk to you."

"You keep on hurting me, Rox. You want me to give you a butcher knife so you can finish the job?"

"I was trying to explain-"

"Oh, you did," I said, throwing her raincoat to her.

"You did, Rox. You wanted him more than you wanted me. You knew you'd break my heart, and you went ahead anyway. You wanted his cock inside you more than you wanted to grow old with me. I understand you very well."

"No, you don't! I never loved him or dreamed of a life with him. I could be with him and do those things with him, because he was never a threat to you -- to us. And -- and, I was proud. I knew you loved me. I guess that, deep down, I believed that no matter what I did, you would always love me. I really believed that you would forgive me no matter what I did."

"You missed on that one, huh?"

"I was in shock when I left here that night. I went to a friend's apartment -- a female friend - from the Ritz and just sat there and cried all that night. I didn't work for a week. She finally helped me come get my stuff. I told her what I'd done and she said you would never take me back, that I had to start a new life without you."

"I couldn't believe it for a long time. We were forever. You were supposed to forgive me! You were supposed to forgive me."

"Your friend was right."

She took the raincoat out of my hands. and slipped it on. Walking to the dining room table, she took the divorce papers out of her purse and signed them where she was supposed to sign them.

She looked down at them on the table. It was all over bar the shouting now.

"I never knew what real loneliness was, Tommy. I never knew it until that night walking out of here after you'd left. It was like I was the only person left in the world. Everybody else was just shadows. You were the only real thing yet you were gone and I've been alone ever since, at work, with friends. There haven't been any men but, even if I'd been fucking one of them, I'd still have been alone. I never knew it could hurt so bad to be alone."

She walked to the door, opened it and stopped.

"I know I broke your heart, I know I hurt you, but if it makes you feel any better, I broke my own too."

The divorce went through. There was nothing to fight over and I pushed for it to be real as soon as possible. No children or property to split up. It was as if WE had never existed, just a piece of paper.

At the end of July we filmed ceremonies to honor those who fell at the Massacre at the Courthouse six years before. Church bells tolled again and again to honor the cops and attorneys and lawmen and innocent victims of the carnage. There were no tolls for their murderers. The ceremonies were held at the Old Courthouse on Bay Street which had just been closed as the new $300 million-plus courthouse opened up blocks away.

A cross section of the business community, movers and shakers, political leaders black and white, gathered that evening at the Prime Osborne Convention Center, the old railroad hub for the city and now the largest public meeting place in the city. It was a $500 a plate dinner to raise money for the families of the cops who died that day. Every local station was there and all the major networks. It wasn't as big an event as it had been, but it still made the national news on the anniversary.

Somebody had to be there and Nick Carnos had decided he wanted to be with his wife and kids. Since I didn't have a life anymore, he'd asked me to represent the station and I agreed. Normally I'd be involved with directing cameras and doing interviews but, this time all I had to do was eat, maybe dance a little, and stay awake through the speeches before and after the meal.

Christina D'Allessandra was my 'date,' and it was fun watching the expressions of rich businessmen, powerful politicians, and their wives, as Christina walked in on my arm. She was tall, black hair flowing down to her ass as she for once allowed it to flow out of the tight business-like bun she usually kept it in whilst on air. Watching her walk with it flowing around her shoulders, erections were breaking out in all directions.

She didn't look at all like her, but she had that Grace Kelly thing going for her as a brunette. If you've ever seen old pictures of Kelly in her prime, you wanted to get her down on a mattress, mess up that hair and just pound her until she lost that tight little smile.

She knew what she had. She was dressed in a black dress that covered up most of her back and showed a hint of breast, and she was still hotter than some of the half-naked women in the room. She was nearly as tall as me, taller than Rox, had a model's slender build except for those damned tits and she held her back like a Marine, which thrust them out into every man's face.

I whispered to her as we were directed to our seats, "Why don't you slouch down a little before you start a damned riot."

She gave me a half glance and kept her face straight as she whispered back, "Why, Mr. Hunter, are you making a sexist remark about my bust-line?"

I tried to keep my face straight.

"Just dial down the sex appeal about four notches, okay?"

I wasn't even trying."

I couldn't hide the smile.

"I know. That's what's scary."

As we sat buttering rolls -- well, I sat buttering my roll, I think Christina lived on the scents of the food as I'd never actually seen her take in real food -- a sandy haired guy approached us with a woman trailing behind him.

I rose up to shake his hand.

"Dave."

"Tommy."

He brought a heavy set, but attractive blonde behind him and she shook my hand as Dave reached over to take Christina's hand.

She looked at Christina with what I'm sure was supposed to be a friendly expression but women couldn't -- bless their hearts -- fake it around her. There was an almost clearly readable expression: "Don't you even think about MY man," as she took in Christina's face, body and hair.

"I think you know him, Christina, but this gentleman is State Attorney Dave Brandon and his wife, Darlene."

Brandon turned to his wife and said, "Honey, this is Tommy Hunter, news director over at 12, and this is Christina-"

His wife finished, "Dallas. I'm sure there isn't a wife in Jacksonville who doesn't know who Ms. Dallas is."

"Good to see you here, Tommy. And you, Miss Dallas. I hope you don't mind, but I've got to work the room. Politicking never stops."

He was off and I understood. He'd only been elected in 2010 and had two more years to nail down another four year term. He was filling some big shoes and there had been a lot of turmoil in that office in the last few years. There would be rivals and it really was a four-year campaign.

The politicking and circulating continued and the food was finally served. Then there were speeches, led by Mayor Alvin Brown, who didn't have to stand for re-election for three years so blessedly he just made a brief speech and sat down. I was enjoying the sight of Christina actually putting solid food into her mouth. It was only a few bites of salad and one small piece of lobster, but it was something. Even chewing, she was hot as hell. She could have been married a hundred times over, but she had a will of steel and was focused on hitting the national networks.

Then the speeches were finally over and a huge space was cleared in the center of the cavernous room, an orchestra made up of men and women in their 50s and 60s began to play slower songs from the 80s and 90s and couples began to get up to dance. Christina lasted about seven seconds until the first tall, good looking guy came up and asked her to dance. She cast a glance at me but this was a company date. I nodded and she unfolded to her full height, gliding out onto the dance floor.

They kept her out there for a half dozen dances while I drank an after-dinner coffee, until I looked up and she was standing there in front of me with her hand out.

"You're going to give me a complex, Mr. Hunter."

I just grinned, stood up and we walked onto the floor. She fit very comfortably into my arms except for those damned tits. They kept rubbing back and forth against my chest as we moved. Rox had them bigger, but she was a more solid girl. Christina was all slender bones and waist except those breasts. I'd wondered like every other guy at the station, or in Jacksonville, but she was adamant everything she had came with the original package.

"You insist these are completely real?"

She had given me a sly look when I had asked her at a station party shortly after she came on, and then nodded and told me the story. Not many people had ever heard it. Christina Dallas was a very private person.

"I was a bony little thing until I was 15. Straight up and straight down. And then, boom, over one summer, I had 36Ds. Nobody on my mother or father's side could figure it out until they found a photo of my grandmother on my father's side in an old Bible. The photo was taken back in the 40s and she looked like me. They said my granddad met her on a blind date when he was 20 and she was 17. He married her three months later and they never slept apart another night for 50 years, until she got cancer and died."

We danced to a couple of slow dances until someone came up and tapped her on the shoulder. I was lost in those black eyes of hers until I looked up and saw a familiar face behind her.

"Rox?"

"Could I have this dance?"

Christina looked back at her and then at me.

"Just a dance, Tommy. One dance. I promise not to attack you."

"Go away."

"I'm not trying to cause a scene. I paid $500 to be here tonight. One dance."

"You said you were going away and you wouldn't bother me again."

"I lied. You have time for more dances with...your partner. Don't make me beg."

Christina stepped away from me and just looked at me, then walked back to our table. Of course, she never made it. She was stopped within a half dozen steps and was out with someone else.

I held my arms open and Rox moved into them and we began to sway to the music. She put her head against my shoulder and I thought about the conversation I'd had with Robert Anderson.

"You fucking, miserable, cheating bitch."

"I know."

After a silence.

"Why are you here?"

"Because you are."

"Is this the way it's going to be?"

"Forever."

I didn't want it. I fought. I thought about pictures of peoples suffering from terrible flesh-eating bacteria, of starving children in Africa, the worst police shots of homicide scenes where blood and body parts were splashed around. I kept getting harder. She looked up at me and smiled that knowing fucking smile of hers and we were kissing. She couldn't jerk me off, but she did everything else with those lush hips of hers.

Finally she pulled away from me. She was breathing hard too.

"I'm going to the bathrooms. I'll be waiting there. I want to suck you so badly I can't stand it. I want you to fuck me. You can lie all you want but your body tells me you want it too."

She swayed away from me and it was as if she were a shark passing through herds of people wading in shallow water. As she approached, men's eyes fastened on her and stayed on her until she was beyond them. She definitely knew how to make an exit.

I stood there breathing hard, not caring that anybody could see exactly what kind of impact she had had on me. Then I followed her, knowing how insane I was.

The bathrooms were down one long hallway and around closer to the back of the building. When I saw her I took her hand and she followed me out into the night in the back parking lot. As soon as we were outside, she pulled me into a corner. She tried to swallow my tongue as she squeezed and massaged my hardness, making me groan.

Finally, somehow, I pushed her away and as she sank to her knees grabbed her under her arms and lifted her up.

"Tommy...."

I put my hands on her lips and she stopped talking.

"It's not going to happen, Rox - that's why I came out. You've got me crazy insane with wanting you. I am so hard it hurts, but it's not happening. I want you to know that. You have to stop this."

She backed away from me.

"Okay, it's not happening, not tonight. You're with that bony bitch and she's got you revved up so maybe you can get enough willpower to stop it, but I won't stop. There'll be other nights. I'll show up at the condo, be at meetings you're at. You won't be able to say 'no' every time, and someday, sometime, you won't be able to deny that you still love me, still want me."

"I don't, Rox. I don't know how you got it in your head that I'm still in love with you. I divorced you. I threw you out. I've done every last thing I can to stay away from you. What more can I do besides hiring a plane to carry a banner saying, "It's over, Rox."

"Except take an out of town job."

Damn Carole and her mouth.

"You've had four extremely good offers for other stations around the country when you put out feelers, after telling Bobby and the people at the station that you didn't want to stay here. But every time, you find something wrong with the offer. There's some reason you can't take it. But we both know the real reason. You won't leave because I'm here."

"I could stop you. Swear out an injunction to keep you coming anywhere close to me, to prohibit you from stalking me."

"You could, and you could make me a laughing stock, ruin me. Maybe send me to jail, but I'll do it anyway and you have to do what you have to do. Could you send me to jail because I can't stop loving you?"

I looked at her dark beauty, that body that men had been coming after as long as I'd known her, and still found it hard to believe her actions.

"Don't you have any pride, Rox? What kind of person can't let go of someone who doesn't love them anymore?"

"No, where you're concerned, I have no pride."

I reached out and touched her cheek. She held my hand in her own.

"Please, Rox, let it go. Our marriage is over and it can't ever be fixed. I told you I can't trust you. Even if I wanted to, I'd always be watching you, having you followed, taping your calls and coming by without warning. I'd treat you like a prisoner. You couldn't live like that. You think you can, but you can't. It would get to you, you'd grow to hate me for never being able to get past your being with Anderson. No one wants to be punished for the rest of their life for one mistake."

She shook her head.

"I don't blame you for not trusting me, maybe forever. I know I convinced myself that I could be with Robert and it wouldn't destroy our marriage, but it did - I lost you. I found out there is nothing in the world -- no guy -- worth losing you again. Now, you may have to put up with me showing up at the station and banging you in your office if I meet some guy and get fired up, but I won't ever let another man have me. I've been burned and you don't have to be burned twice."

She stopped as if searching for the words.

"I know our marriage is over. I know it's shattered but...you can tape together a broken vase. You can put the pieces together. It will never be the vase it was. But it can still be a vase. Even if I win you back, I know we'll never have the marriage we had. I know you'll never trust me the way you did, you'll never love me exactly the way you did."

She stepped forward and kissed me so hard my lips hurt.

"It may be a piss-poor marriage, it may be a shattered marriage but it's better than no marriage. It's better than living the rest of my life without you. Maybe it won't work, maybe we can't get past it but all I want is a chance. One last chance!"

She turned and walked away and left me with the hardest decision of my life.

I stood behind Christina as she opened the door of her Atlantic Beach condo. It was past midnight there were lights on and music drifting our way from nearby units and a Raw Bar a half block away. It was a nest for young, high income singles.

She flicked the lights in the den as we came in.

"Grab a beer in the kitchen," she said as she walked toward her bedroom. "I bought Michelob."

"Thanks."

Over her shoulder she said, "I've got to get out of these things. I'm just not an evening gown kind of girl."

Despite her looks, she was a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl, as I'd learned in the last year. On the few occasions I'd seen her socially away from the station and fans, she'd tie that long flowing hair into a thick pony tail and just forgot she had it. She wasn't high maintenance.

I stepped into the kitchen. When she said kitchen, she meant in the refrigerator. I opened it and took out a Michelob Light. I'd started drinking them five years ago when Rox started teasing me about getting a bit of a tummy. I'd started hitting the gym and shifting from Michelob to Light. I knew the Lights were for me. Christina was a White Wine girl. I took down a snifter and poured her a healthy portion. She said it took the edge off.

"That's better."

I looked behind me at the kitchen entrance. She stood in all her naked glory, hair flowing around her, gorgeous legs enhanced by the four-inch 'fuck my brains out' heels she now wore.

"Much better."

"You like?" she said, swaying into the room, those incredible breasts moving with her steps.

"I always like."

Then she was in my arms and it was like the first time. It was always like the first time. Maybe it was because it didn't happen very often, or maybe it was just that she was almost like a dream made flesh. Real women didn't look like this, didn't feel like this.

After a little while she stepped away from me, picked up the snifter and took a healthy swallow. Then she unbuckled my belt and, taking a mouthful of chilled wine, she followed my pants down and a moment later my constant erection was chilled and warm at the same time.

I leaned back against the counter and thought this must be like it was when I was 18. I was just as ready to explode but she knew me now and backed off after a half minute or so.

She led me on the familiar path to her bedroom by my rampant erection.

When I was on my back she squatted above me before lowering herself onto me, then did a great imitation of a washing machine on spin cycle gone into hyperdrive as she did her best to pound me through the waterbed mattress.

"What?"

She gasped as I sat up and swung over the edge of the bed, never losing the contact between us. I stood up with her holding on by those strong slim legs wrapped around my back and putting her back against the wall, proceeded to pound her as hard as I could so that a picture nearby fell off with a crash. I wanted to shatter plaster, to be heard four units over, to do my best King Kong imitation and pound my chest.

She was as light as a baby bird, all those long legs and torso seeming to take no effort to hold up. Part of it was the gym that Rox had insisted I make a regular routine and the other part of it was that I sometimes thought Christina had those light, aery bones that allowed birds to soar on the wind. Rox was an earth mother, solid and substantial, while Christina was a sprite, a creature of air.

I finally threw her back on the bed, spent, leaning over her. Her lips were bruised, a flush spread over those delicate features, running down over her chest to those almost cartoon-like breasts.

"That was new," she finally gasped.

I kissed those lips that thousands of men fantasized about every morning as they watched the television newscast, and wondered again how in the hell I'd wound up in this bed.