Tell Me No Lies

Welcome to the "Lie to Me" party. Just some friends getting together to post stories about lies. We hope you enjoy them. Thanks to Laurel and Literotica for hosting our stories. I wish to thank the Spirit Initiatives team for all the work. Love you all. This is just a little something that was on my mind. Short, and hopefully, sweet. Back on my bullshit. Randi.

There I stood, barbecue sauce on my tiddies, wondering what I would say once I recovered the power of speech.

My husband of 14 years had just said some of the most shocking things I had ever heard in my life. I had no idea he felt that way. I had no clue. Either this was a new revelation, or he'd suddenly, in some introspective moment, come to an epiphany.

"What do you want me to say?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," he said, looking like he was in a bit of shock, as well.

I thought for a minute. "Lie to me," I said.

"What? What does that mean?"

"According to what you just said, you've been lying to me since the day we met," I said. "Why stop now?"

*****

I was at the gym. It was about 8:30 PM, and all the lights were out except the two over the basket. It was a small college, and I was by myself, just shooting three-pointers. The echo of the basketball bouncing in the empty gym, the squeak of my shoes on the floor, that was soothing to my soul. I had permission to shoot, any time I wanted.

"Pretty good, aren't you," I heard from the shadows. A guy came out of the shadows, carrying a basketball. "Mind if I shoot with you?" he asked.

"Hey, it's a free country and I don't own the gym," I said.

"Thanks." He was also carrying his shoes. They were the dope new Jordans, and I'd been trying to get a pair for a month.

I hit three in a row from the wing and moved down to the baseline corner. He shot for the first time, and it was an airball. He laughed, and I giggled a bit. "That wasn't how I saw this going," he said.

"You envisioned nothing but net?" I asked.

"Yeah, there's this smoking hot girl in here draining three-pointers and I was hoping to be a little more impressive," he said. He retrieved his ball, dribbled over to me and shot. It was money.

"You're dialed in now," I said. I got a closer look at him. He was, well, white, but very good looking, I thought. I guessed he was maybe ten years older than me.

He held out his fist and I bumped it. "Sheldon," he said.

"Peyton," I said. I shot, and missed. He chuckled.

"I've infected you with my bad shot."

I ran off to chase my ball, and we just shot around for a while. "Play horse?" he asked.

"Yeah, okay, but I getta go first," I said.

He agreed, and we both made two three-pointers in a row before he missed and picked up his H. He had HOR before I missed, and he started making the stupidest junk shots I had ever imagined in my life. Bouncing them in off the floor, over the backboard, left-handed. We were tied before he missed, and I finished him.

He laughed. "I was destined to lose."

"Yeah, you were. You pulled some tricks out, Sheldon."

"I grew up playing against two older brothers," he said. "The only way to stay in the game was tricks."

I was ready to leave, so I told him thanks for the game and went on my way. I saw him twice more over the next two weeks, and we played one on one, the second time. He was taller than me and I had to work at it, but I was quicker. I got enough steals and rebounds to win, but it was competitive. I think he went easy on me because I was a girl, and didn't bang me around much.

After we finished the game, he asked me if I'd like to get a drink. "You mean like club get a drink, or grab a Gatorade?" I asked.

"Well, I'd love the club idea," he said. "Didn't figure I stood a chance on that, so I was going to offer to buy you a bottle of something out in the lobby."

I laughed. "Yeah, kinda sweaty for a club, anyway."

"Would you go to a club with me?" he asked. "I mean, when we're not sweaty."

I looked him over. "Is there someone who thinks they are in a relationship with you who would be disappointed in you taking me to a club?"

He grinned. "Good question," he said. "No, there isn't. I'm divorced, Peyton. For about nine months."

"Why?" I asked.

He looked a little shocked. "Why am I divorced?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, my ex decided Wichita was too small a market for her talents," he said. "She may be right. If we see her on the anchor desk of some national news show, I'll agree."

"You decided not to make the move?" I asked.

"She decided," he said. "Her life was changing, and I wasn't part of the change."

"I see. Sorry, but it pays to ask questions," I said.

"Oh, trust me, I understand. I don't have the experience, but I'm glad you do ask questions."

I laughed. "Okay, dude. You got all the right answers."

"Yeah, somewhere in there. I am really out of practice coming up with them, though."

"Is that something recent, or you always struggled with that?" I asked.

He grinned at me, and it was seriously charming. "No, I think I was once pretty good at it. I haven't practiced much lately."

"Well, you picking it up pretty good," I said. "Now, if you could just shoot a mid-range jumper."

"Hey, that's the best part of my game," he objected.

"Right?" I said.

He laughed. "Okay, you're better than me at basketball. Probably everything. I'm still in there fighting, though."

"Yeah, props for that," I raised my blue POWERADE.

"I gotta get going, Peyton," he said.

"Hot date?" I asked.

"The hottest. I have a four-year-old daughter. I've never missed on reading her a story at night yet."

I was a little stunned. "She doesn't live with her mom? I'm not saying she should, she's just so little... I don't know what I'm saying" I was extremely impressed and touched by how much he obviously loved his daughter.

He chuckled. "Small children and being a star don't go well together."

"Well, your ex sound like a real bitch," I said. "What's her name?"

"My ex?"

"No, silly your daughter."

"Oh. Right. Her name is Blake."

"Ooh, I love that name," I said.

"Well, I need to pick her up from my parent's place," he said. "Say, Peyton, would you like to go to a club sometime?"

"Sure, hit me up. Give me your digits," I said. He gave me his phone and I sent myself a text. "Call me anytime," I said.

He didn't. The bastard. He was just too out of the game, I guess. I did see him at the gym, and roasted him about it. His face flamed and he stammered around.

"Sorry, Peyton. I had my phone out a dozen times and your number selected."

"Just couldn't pull the trigger," I asked.

"Well... I wanted to, trust me. It just felt so awkward and you might not realize this, but you're kinda... intimidating, Peyton?"

"The fuck? How I'm intimidating?"

"Umm... because you're young, gorgeous and you regularly beat me at basketball," he said. "Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

"I have standards," I said.

"Go to dinner with me and explain them to me," he said.

"I will if you'll bring your daughter," I said.

"Really? I... I'd love that. I didn't figure you would."

"I seem like the type who hates kids?" I asked.

He laughed. "No, sorry, I just meant you're obviously an undergraduate, you're the hottest girl on campus, hell, in the state, and I really have no idea why you would want to have dinner with me, much less meet my daughter."

"You got game, dude. Well, not basketball, but other stuff."

He laughed. "You are a riot, Peyton."

I shot him my best smile and we arranged to go to dinner on Friday evening. I never answered him about the boyfriend thing. I dated, but with my current selection consisting of frat boys, jocks and nerds, there was no one I was about to get serious about dating. Well, maybe him.

He picked me up at my dorm on Friday. I was watching, and I saw him get out of a new Subaru BRZ, and I went out to meet him, since he didn't know my room number.

The look on his face when he saw me was exactly what I'd been hoping for when I got dressed. "Wow!" he said. "I've never seen you in anything other than sportswear. God, you are gorgeous, Peyton."

I laughed. "You clean up pretty good, too, Sheldon. Where is Blake?"

"She's waiting for us in the car," he said.

We went out and he opened my door. As I peered into the back seat, there was the cutest little baby doll sitting there in her little car seat. She was swinging her feet, smiling up at me and I wanted to get her out and squeeze her. Her hair was very blonde, almost white, and she had the most amazing looking huge violet eyes. I swear, they were the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen.

"Hi," she said. "Are you Peyton? Daddy told me about you. He said you're really good at basketball."

"Well, I'm good at lots of things," I told her. "Yes, I'm Peyton, and you must be Blake."

She nodded vigorously. "Yes, we're going to Uncle Dale's res... res..."

"Restaurant?" I prompted.

The smile she gave me for helping her melted me into a puddle. "You are so cute!" I told her. Sheldon was listening to the exchange, silently shaking with laughter over there. He knew exactly what he had in that car seat, the bastard. You could tell he was proud of her, like, "yes, this little angel belongs to me."

"Uncle Dale's, huh? Where you taking me, Sheldon?"

He laughed. "It isn't as bad as it seems. The name of it isn't 'Uncle Dale's', by the way, it's Irish/Mexican food, and it happens to be one of three owned by my brother-in-law."

"Ooh, you related to the owner. We get the VIP treatment?"

"What's a VIP?" Blake's little voice piped up from the back seat.

"A very important person," I said. "Do you know what that means?"

"Kinda," she said. "It's like your dad, or something."

Oh, my God. She was beyond adorable. "Yes, exactly, sweetheart."

He was plainly finding all this vastly entertaining. To be honest, I was, too. He thought I was being played, but I had this in mind from the minute he told me he had her. I loved kids, and this was no ordinary kid. Sheldon was like ten times as attractive because of Blake, and he was already pretty attractive.

We rode along, Blake chattering to me about making a house out of popsicle sticks at day care, and I felt a tug on my hair. When I looked, I saw that she had leaned forward until she could reach me, and her little chubby fingers were playing with one of my curls. She looked up at me and the look in her gorgeous eyes was mind altering. "I like you hair," she said.

Oh, my God. I have hair; lots and lots of hair. It was kinda my trademark. If a black girl takes care of her hair, it can be on fleek. I took care of mine. Blake had her hair in a cute little braid, and I tugged on it. "I like your braid, too, Blake. Maybe sometime we can do each other's hair."

"I would like that, but I'm not very good at it," she explained. "Daddy fixes my hair, mostly."

I gave him a side-eye look. "Sheldon got hidden talents," I said.

He laughed. "Sheldon is a slave and does whatever his daughter wants," he said. "Someday she'll be looking at old pictures and ask me why I did her hair like that."

"I can imagine," I said. "What do you think you'll tell her?"

"She wanted it like that." He chuckled.

We got to the restaurant and I helped Blake out of her car seat. She was so tiny and adorable, and the first thing she did was fasten onto my hand and lead me inside. I lost my heart to her that day, and I never got it back.

Her father was pretty charming, too. "Uncle Dale" was at the restaurant and took care of us personally. I think he was under instructions to impress me, and he did. The food was delicious and the service was impeccable, but it was the company that made my evening.

Blake insisted on going to my room and checking it out when we got back, so we never really got a chance to be alone, although Sheldon did kiss my cheek as he was leaving. Blake wanted me to hold her for "her kiss" and clutching that tiny little warm thing, kissing her on both cheeks, was good enough for the highlight reel.

It wasn't until Sheldon met me to play racquetball on Tuesday evening that we spent any time together alone. He asked me out again, and Blake informed me that this was "a grownup date" when I arrived at their house.

It was impressive, one of those Cape Cod homes, built on the lake shore, and I loved it right away. "Does that mean you aren't coming?" I asked her.

"Yes, Gram is coming to stay with me. We're gonna make cookies," she confided.

"Ooh, that does sound like fun," I said. "Do I get one of the cookies?"

"Oh, yes. We making them for you," she said. "Daddy and me thought you might like cookies."

"Oh, I do, love-bug."

Sheldon finally took me to that club for the drink, and he turned out to be a competent dancer. He was white and stiff, but he relaxed fairly quickly and I was good enough to make him look even better.

"I feel old," he said when we took our first break.

I laughed. "Why would you say that?"

"Well, because it's been so long since I did this, and you're so young," he said.

"Dude, I'm 24," I said. "You're what, 30? Trust me, you aren't old."

He chuckled. "I'm 34, Peyton. Probably the oldest guy who ever asked you out."

"You'd be surprised, Sheldon. I get hit on by men from 70 to 18."

"What's your oldest date?" he asked.

"I don't ask people's age, so I'm not sure," I told him. "Maybe 60?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, he was hella fit and good looking," I said. "Not as hot as you, though. He wanted to be my sugar daddy."

"Can I be your sugar daddy?" he asked.

I had to laugh. "We'll see. You doing good, so far. Let's dance."

Our pace was glacial. Every time we were together, I liked him better. By the time I graduated, we were a firm item, we were lovers and having him and Blake attend my graduation was the highlight of the night. I got to introduce him to my father.

Mack, my father, thought he was sus, at first. "You dating a white man, baby? You sure about that?"

"You didn't have any issue with dating a white woman when you married Mom," I said. "You some sort of racist all of a sudden?"

He laughed. "No, you're just my baby and I don't want you to make mistakes."

"The fuck, Dad? You making some real nasty assumptions here. I love him. You met Blake. How is it possible that this man has a daughter like her and you think he's a 'mistake'?"

"Woah, there, tiger. I didn't say he was a mistake. I don't know him. I just love you and want you to be happy. Your mother would want that for you, too."

I was still a little pissed. "I think she would, but she would have found a hell of a lot better way to say it than you."

"I'm sorry, Kitten. I apologize for my tone. Do you forgive me?"

Being swept up into his huge arms and squeezed until I couldn't breathe helped.

"Yeah, just give him a chance, Dad. Okay?"

"I promise. Are we still volunteering at the Child Advocacy Center Saturday?"

"Always," I said. "I'll pick you up."

Sheldon's parents were a little nervous with me the first time I met them, but they were wonderful people and his mother, Anne, was one of the sweetest people I'd ever met. His father, Mike, set it up for me to meet him for breakfast once a week, and I got to know him. He was very like Sheldon, or maybe the other way around. In any case, I got a speech from him the first time we were together.

"Do you love Sheldon?" he asked.

It was after we had been dating three months, but I hadn't really thought about it too much at that point. I considered for a minute.

"I'm still developing what I feel about him," I said. "I do have romantic feelings for him."

"Well, I know he has them about you," he said.

I winked at him. "Good to know. You invite me here for an interrogation, Mike?"

He laughed. "I know it must seem like that. No, not really. After Blake's mom left, he was very... depressed. I don't want to see him like that again. Getting dumped is never a confidence building thing, and he seems to have just gotten his back. I mean, asking someone out who is as beautiful as you are..."

"Thanks, Mike, but you don't need to worry about me breaking anyone's heart. I don't have that in me. He may figure out that I'm too weird to tolerate and be glad to get away from me, but I promise it won't be because of me."

"Tell me something weird," he said.

"Hmm... well, I have these social media personas. They're me, but none of them have anything real in them. I just play around with them as a hobby. Some people think that's weird."

He laughed. "Yeah, that's kind of weird, Peyton, but it doesn't surprise me; even the little bit I know about you. Why do you do that?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. It's fun. You make up some outrageous shit about the person you're presenting, and watch how people react to them. It's not really you, but people act like it is, even though everyone knows it's not. It's like playing a role, except everyone pretends to take it seriously."

"Sounds fake, to me," he said.

"It is, but do you like watching movies, even though you know they're fake?"

"Yes. I never really thought about any of this, Peyton. I can see why Sheldon is fascinated with you."

I patted his hand. "And I see where he got his charm. I'm really cute, too."

He snorted. "Yeah, I noticed."

Parents won over; mission accomplished. The roadblocks were cleared to see if we really had something. It turned out, we did. The man was hugely romantic, and he had me worshipping him in a year. The sex was life-changing.

It was better than I even wanted it to be. There is something life-changing about sex that makes you lose your mind. The ecstasy that just keeps on going and makes you morn, a little, first that you never knew this before, and second for what you used to be before this. That girl is gone, and you're never going back. This is what you deserve, and the chemical paths are changed in your brain so that your expectations will always be this.

That was what our first time was like, and it never changed. This was my man, and no one else would ever do. He wasn't my first, but this was beyond things. It wasn't even that he was bigger or better, it was that it was him, in a way I had never felt or even imagined before. I was utterly and totally in love with the man.

It wasn't that everything he did pleased me; we had fights, fierce ones. It was what happened during and after the fights that made the difference. I always felt crushing guilt if it was my fault, as it often was, and he obviously felt the same. I couldn't stay mad at him, because he would always do or say something that reminded me this was my man.

My life was what I'd dreamed, and when I got my masters degree, we got married. It wasn't a big change, because we'd been living together for two years.

The only person it made a big difference to was Blake. We'd been a mutual admiration society ever since we met, but after our simple ceremony, just Blake and our parents there, she came and pulled me to my knees, wrapped her arms around me, and said, "I love you, Mom. All my dreams came true."

That drove me to become a blubbering wreck. I was "Mom" after that, and I tried to be the best one on the planet.

I think I succeeded. Eleven years later, a little clone of me just starting school, shit got a little ragged.

I could tell Sheldon had been worried about something. I was waiting on him. He'd tell me what it was, eventually, he always did.

We were having Dad and Sheldon's parents over for a barbecue. I had my ribs sitting on the foil, slow cooked and ready for the barbecue sauce. I made my own, and put it in quart jars. I was getting one out of the cabinet, he was standing beside me and he hit me with it.

I was dressed in panties and nothing else, well, because that's what I always wore around the house. When he said it, I dropped the jar, it broke, and yeah, barbecue sauce on the tiddies.