Sorry Forever

Taylor was a big hit with everyone, I'm sure you're so surprised. She looked reserved yet sexy in a white leather skirt that made her little legs look impossibly long in her trademark wedges that gave her a few inches, and my cousins could scarcely believe it.

"Usually I'd say she was good looking for Aaron," I know I was intended to overhear this jibe, "but she's just good looking. Damn."

Well thanks, I guess. Later, after she'd disappeared into the sea of females in the kitchen, all the younger male cousins gathered outside to shoot the shit. How could the subject not turn to her?

"Does she like it soft or hard, boy?" Wayne asked. "'Cause I'd give it to her hard. See that caboose a' hers? She needs it, man."

"Yeah, right up there in the ol' pooper," his brother, Frank, joined in. "Hey, what's up with you? You're looking bored."

"Not really," I replied. "I'm just hanging in there until you're through objectifying my fiancé."

"Jesus, man, we was just talking," said Frank.

"That's right. That's all it was," said Larry. "Can't you be a human being for once?"

"Well, I would dearly love to nail Virginia in the ass," I replied.

We all looked in the window to see his bride of six years, thirty-four and still going strong, carry out a dish of something wearing her own special trademark: Daisy Dukes. Her legs were brown, went all the way down to the ground, and she was barefoot as usual, which was sexy as hell and always had been.

"Join the club," sighed Larry. "Join the FUCKING club."

There was an air of electricity in the air as the sun started setting, and at first, I was foolish enough to believe it concerned Taylor and me, but even with her along, I was still small potatoes. I realized a few minutes later what the fuss was about.

"Daryl's here! Daryl's here!"

Daryl was my older brother by two years. He was everything I was not. He was tall. Not me. He was handsome. No one ever accused me of that. He was a magnet, smooth, the life of the party. I was the wallflower in the corner, or, more likely, not invited to the party at all. All of that might have been tolerable, but he was never remotely decent to me in private. Not once. Vicious is a better word.

"Hello there, little lady," he said, bending down to kiss her hand. He was alarmingly, charmingly smarmy. "You are a deLIGHTful surprise. What are you doing hooking up with this little twerp? You should leave this shindig with me."

"Hmmm, what do YOU do?" Taylor asked.

'I sell cars, baby," he replied, still hot on the charm offensive.

"What kind?'

"Pretty ones. Fast ones. Expensive ones. The kind you'd look great in."

"Aren't you young for that?"

"What can I say?" he smirked. "I'm a self-starter. Of course, we'll have to move your seat all the way up and stick something on the pedals so you can reach."

"I don't knowwww," she simpered. "But that is tempting."

He laughed, and so did she, and that's when I saw it.

As the Bard said "...though she be but little, she is fierce." The chip on Taylor's shoulder about her so-called vertical challenge was bigger than her. That she was laughing - excuse me, flirting - with my brother about her biggest insecurity indicated that she was buying into his blather like everyone else. She was picking up what he was laying down. Right in front of me, no less, and I was furious.

"Really?" I asked coldly. "First thing? Right in front of me?"

"Jesus, Aaron, we were just fooling around." he smirked. "Didn't you learn about that when you were earning your alphabet?"

"Yeah, honey, we were just..." Taylor looked at me and realized she'd stepped in it this time. I had only given her a brief sketch, but she knew enough to know how I felt about Daryl and the rest, how angry and hurt I must be.

"Sorry, everybody, I need to get my hotheaded fiancé some air," she told everyone sweetly, leading me out onto the deck. Knowing her, she would still try to brazen it out by keeping me off balance.

When we were alone, she turned to me, as much up in my face as her little legs would allow. "Listen, you," she scolded. "I don't know what you..."

"Stop it." I brushed her off, crossed the deck and yanked the parasol out of the table, twirling it and fiddling with the latch. That nervous energy had to go somewhere, or I would lose it. "Now you listen and listen well. I let you push me around a lot. Don't give me that look. Did you hear the verb in that sentence? 'Let.' I let you have your fun. I kind've like it, but there are places I emphatically will not tolerate being pushed to."

"But I wasn't..."

"No, you're listening now, not talking." I jammed the parasol back into the table, turning to get into her face for once. "One of those places is your blatant flirting with another man right in front of me while my family looks on like hyenas waiting to pounce. I told you what it's like for me here. How could you do that? And with him. Yech."

Taylor held my gaze for a moment, considering. Then she dropped her eyes.

"You're right," she said. "Looking at it your way, I can see how what I did could appear disrespectful. I was honestly just trying to play along."

"By letting him call me a little twerp?"

"Again, you're right," she said. "That wasn't one of my finer moments. I think I'll lose myself in the kitchen for a while and let you cool down."

"Sounds good," I said and left her out there.

I hope I didn't give you the impression that all of my relatives are assholes. Some of them are truly the genuine article and have been nothing but kind to me. My Uncle Denny launched into a hilarious story about his botched tattoo and all his failed attempts to repair it. He refused to show it, of course, which led us all to doubt the veracity of his account. Tall tale or not, it was entertaining and extremely well told. Several asked politely about Taylor and our engagement plans without showing the least condescension.

Speaking of Tay, where was she? I poked my head into the kitchen and elsewhere, but she was nowhere to be found. Finally, now a little peeved, I checked out the back deck where I'd last seen her.

His large hands appeared black as night against the white skirt glowing in the moonlight. Her hands rested flat on his stomach as she craned her neck to look up at him.

"What the holy FUCK is going on here?" I shouted, my fury beyond measure.

They instantly separated as she pushed him away.

"Baby, thank god you're here," she panted. "I was just coming in, and then he came out and we were just talking and THEN he just grabbed me."

"Really?' I asked, cold now. "That's not what it looked like."

"I know! I know!" she wailed, turning to Daryl. "You tell him! You tell him right now what really happened."

"Is that what happened?" asked my mother. She was flanked by my Aunt Marjorie. The whole crowd was gathered 'round, most just itching to make sport of me, as usual.

Daryl squinted at Taylor as she hotly returned his gaze. "Yeah, sure," he said. "That's exactly how it happened."

"You're sure?' I asked.

"Yup," he said, the smirk starting.

"Son, maybe you better git on outta here now," suggested Uncle Rollie. It was his house, after all. "Let everyone simmer down."

"Yeah," Daryl turned to go back inside. "I can do that."

"We're leaving too," I replied hotly.

"Air hole, don't even think about it," he said when he turned back and saw my face, "Whatever you think you saw, brother or no brother, come at me, bro, and I will rip you a new one. Everyone here knows I'll do it too, including you."

"Fine," I replied. He was right on that. Great. My mother might yell ineffectually, but nobody would stop him. They could, but they wouldn't. Yet another public humiliation, courtesy of Daryl. And people wondered where my obsessive drive to succeed came from. "I don't think we should be in contact for a while."

"Yeah, how long?"

"A while," I said. "A good long while."

"Fuck off," he said listlessly and then feinted towards me to see if I would flinch. Of course I did, and he sashayed out the door, laughing.

"Let him slink on outta here. Let 'im go," Uncle Rollie said, taking hold of my arm. "'Sides, you got some deciding to do."

Did I ever. I had jumped in before I had a chance to see what happened. Look at me, Mr. Observe and Report transmogrified into a rage monster, and by what? A woman, that's what.

So, I hadn't actually seen anything. One more second would have told the tale one way or another. Did I chance to see them just as she was pushing him away, or was she reaching up, or worse, down? How could I know for sure? It was too dark to see their faces. I didn't hear what they said. Did I trust her or not? While driving home, I gradually realized that I had to take her at her word if I intended to marry her, and I still desperately wanted to do that. She had shown me how lonely lonely could be all alone, the way I was before.

Daryl wasn't invited to the wedding. He was still persona non grata as far as I was concerned. My family was surprised that I refused to patch things up and make him my best man. I don't make friends easily, but he was never in the running, even when we were talking. Instead, I chose Mr. Renault. Everyone, from my mother on down, urged me to forgive Daryl, confounded by my choice of a person I didn't even address by first name, but I held firm. Taylor wisely didn't say a word.

As we drove in stony silence, I mulled over my relationship, what there was of it, with Daryl. It had been fraught with conflict and jealousy on both sides. He compensated for my greater intelligence by intimidating me with his size and physicality for as long as I remember. It rarely occurred, but the knowledge he could and would crush me on a whim was always hanging in the air between us, poisoning it.

There was a period of time when he repeatedly knocked me down in front of his friends, sat on my chest and passed gas in my face. Hilarious. Almost worse was the way he'd ride my chest like a bucking bronco, waving an imaginary 10-gallon cowboy hat. That hurt.

"Who-EEEE!" he would yell in a thick Texas accent. "Ain't that somethin'? Ain't that somethin'. Check that out, pardner. That's some grade A, prime farty air right thar. That ain't goin' nowhere's no time soon, bud. Ain't no match MADE gonna clear that out. That one thar's a two-matcher."

~~~~~

If Taylor and Daryl, who I still wasn't speaking to, were seeing each other, I think it would be safe to say

that they weren't swapping recipes. I needed to move quickly. She had refused to sign a prenup, and I had given in. I was close now, so close to my breakthrough. I'd be damned if the slut was getting any of it. I should have listened to Mr. Renault. I called several private investigators and was appalled by their avarice. Fifteen hundred to start? Five thousand? Ten thousand? For mere surveillance? Fuck them. I was a scientist. Observe and report, right?

I was disappointed and disgusted that it took only four days to get the goods on them. For god's sake, they must have thought I was a cretin. Maybe I was, but the times, they were a-changin'.

"Tay, can you come on down here?" I called. "I need to show you something."

"What's that?" she asked brightly, bouncing into the kitchen.

"These," I said, tossing a bunch of photos onto the table.

"Ohhh, gawd," she groaned after glancing down. "Baby, I'm so sorry. It was just this once, and I never meant..."

"Stop it," I growled. "No endearments. You've forfeited that right. And tell me the truth. Tell me everything. Why? And with him. You make me sick."

"Aaron, I swear to you! It was only a couple..."

"Taylor," I interrupted. "Do you know who I work for?"

"Umm...Mr. Renault at RGI? You said it's a French company."

"Correct, but do you even know what they do, why everything is so hush hush?"

"Uhm...no. You'd never tell me."

"It's a quasi-government entity, Taylor. They do quasi-illegal things there."

"Is that what you do for them, then?" She sneered, defiant. "Quasi-illegal science stuff?"

"That was never your business and it'll never be now," I snapped. "but it might interest you to know that if you don't start spilling, and I mean right now, I'll make a call and they'll send a man over with something unpleasant that will open you up right away."

"What, truth serum?" She snorted contemptuously. "That's not real."

"Did I even say that? Of course it's real, and if that doesn't work, or you have a bad reaction, do you remember the guy from 24? The one with the little case full of needles to cause you pain? I can assure you that guys like him are real, too."

I was feeding her half-truths. No, we weren't quasi-government. We were staying as far away from them as possible. They would seize or derail EmCube before you could say boo. We were quasi-illegal, though, and I had no doubt in my mind that Mr. Renault could happily provide whatever support I might require, even this. Especially this.

"But I wasn't talking about those guys." I kept the pressure on. "I was thinking more about a certain man with a scalpel who would open you up. Literally. Or maybe he'll let you choose which eye you keep."

"You would do that?" she squeaked.

"Want to find out?"

She looked up, and she knew she had to tell me everything. I was possessed of a resolve that she had never seen before. Anyone in the lab would have spotted it in a second. I could be a driven man.

So, she spilled, and it was not pretty.

"Really, Taylor?" I asked when she was finally finished. I thought we'd be there all day. Random hookups. Hand jobs. Blowjobs. Her old boyfriend. My own brother. Sheesh. "The entire time?"

"Yes, but it didn't mean anything," she said through her tears. "I only love you.'

"Is that so?' I asked. "You choose to express that in such an exemplary manner. If you love me so much, why, then?"

"Promise you won't get mad?" She begged.

"Could I get angrier with you? I don't think so. Go ahead."

"You..." she began, "You're sweet. You're the most tender lover, you go down on me like no one ever has, but sometimes..."

"Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes a girl just needs to be taken. I need that. Nothing against you, Aaron, but you're just not like that."

Wrong again. I could indeed get angrier. In fact, I was beyond livid with rage. It was all I could do not to throttle her pretty little throat. I could definitely be "like that."

"For your information," I rasped, "I FUCK you the way you TAUGHT me to fuck you, so FUCK YOU!

"And that is such BULLSHIT!" I yelled when I'd had a moment to collect myself. "You were doing this to me before we even screwed. The only reason you went out with me in the first place was because that stupid admin of ours is a sorority alum, clued you in about me, that I could hit it big."

"Only at first, but then I..."

'Oh, and SHE'S fired. Or worse. Jesus, why even bother with an NDA?" I was pacing now. "You can probably say goodbye to that sorority chapter, too, maybe the whole goddamn national organization.

"My people mean business," I said when she looked at me in horror.

"Okay, well, you're out," I said. "Pack your bags. I'll send the rest of your belongings to your parents."

"I don't want to go. Please don't leave me," she begged.

"Leave you?" It was my turn to sneer. "How can I leave you? You were never here."

"That's not true. It's not TRUE," she sobbed. "I love you so MUCH. I'm sorry I've been such a brat."

"BRAT?" I screamed. "A brat? Is that what you equate this with? You're not a brat! For fuck's sake, you're a gold-digging whore, that's what you are!

"Brat, Jesus Christ," I muttered, calming down.

"I...um, misspoke." She was afraid of me now. She'd never heard me swear, let alone come unglued and use our Lord's name in vain like that. "I didn't mean to minimize..."

"You can settle down, Taylor. I'm not going to hurt you." She visibility relaxed. "I do want you gone,

though. We'll sell this place and split it, but we'll take a bath on that. Too bad. You'll get your half of what I've earned the last two and a half years while you sat on your ass and fucked all your boyfriends. That would be roughly...one hundred fourteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty dollars. That's after tax. You can pay your lawyer's fees yourself, if you decide to get one. Not a bad haul for you. God knows I won't be getting anything from you except an STD."

I left out the additional thirty-three cents. I learned a long time ago that most people aren't as exacting as I am, Taylor included.

"I don't need a lawyer," she said.

"Why not?"

"I'll sign whatever you put in front of me. I don't care," she declared. "I'll do anything, anything you want. Anything. Just don't send me away."

"No."

"I'm begging you...I swear." She laid on the floor and hugged my legs to her, the supplicant. "I'll be sorry forever."

I was unmoved. "Get up. Let go of me. Are you trying to make me kick you so you can claim spousal battery? Well, think again. This whole house is being surveilled. There's a camera right there. And there."

"No, no," she scrambled to her feet, and I turned my back. "I'm not doing that. Isn't there anything I can do?"

"You know what you can do?" I rounded on her. "Can you go back in time and unFUCK all those assholes? Can you build a time machine and go back to before you cheated on me?"

"No, but you could," she said meekly.

"What?"

"See, I don't know exactly what you're building, but Jolene said it has something to do with moving molecules through space-time or something. Isn't time travel, like, right next door?"

Jolene was so dead, the big mouth, and no, it couldn't be further away from next door. Sheesh. I was just about to blurt out "time travel is bullshit" because, you know, it is. Can't happen. I'd explain it to you, but there aren't any movies that got it right yet, so I suppose you're out of luck on that one.

"Would you really do that?" I asked. "You'd take that risk for me, for us? I wasn't going to pursue it, but..."

"I said I'd do anything," she stuck out her chin bravely. "I meant it."

"But you'd have to be so careful."

"I can be careful."

"You could only change that one thing, nothing else."

"I promise," she whined. "I'll do it however you need it done. I'll be perfect."

"Okay," I said. I looked at her askance. "Hey, you're not planning on going back and screwing up this project, are you?"

"No way," she said, but that glint in her eye told me that the thought had at least crossed her mind.

"Well, don't do it," I warned. "Think about it. You foul it up and you won't be coming back."

"I know. Don't worry. I love you." That she would still say that after so many...

"Okay." My wheels were spinning. "You can stay until I send you back, but you have to sign a post-nup or whatever it's called. You'll understand that I don't trust you much."

"I'll sign it."

"Last thing." She looked like she dared to hope. "You've had it all your own way this whole time. Things are going to be more equal from now on."

"Will you ever let me call you baby again?"

"Maybe when I'm ready."

~~~~~

It's a funny thing about those breakthroughs. Almost anyone can start the "break" part if they've got some brains and a little moxie, money too, but the "through," the getting to the finish line, that can take a while. In this case, a while was seven more years, but here Taylor and I stood, ready for her maiden voyage.

Things had finally come together. The advent of EmCube was bringing about drastic societal change much more rapidly than either Mr. Renault or I could have anticipated. The delay was caused by two unforeseen problems.

First was the targeting/coordinate system control and its regulation. I couldn't allow free rein, or some dark-minded individual would send his boss to the heart of the sun, things like that. We went 'round and 'round, Mr. Renault and I, in a fruitless attempt to determine who could possibly possess the moral fortitude to bear the immense burden of stewardship of this new technology. He finally bowed to the inevitable and assigned the duty to the one person on this planet capable of wielding such a momentous weapon of change.