The Crush

Bob seconded her.

=//=

For the next three weeks Sue was content to be a wife to Bob. She worked at the diner and spent time on the house, projects that had been piling up since she had taken on her lovers. She gave little thought to them, her lovers; they were just wistful dreams as she doted on her wifely duties.

Then, as she was just getting home after work one day, Tom was waiting for her, sitting on the porch, agitated.

"Hi Tom." She said with a welcoming smile.

Tom fidgeted nervously then whispered tersely, "Sue, we need to talk." He ushered his sister inside the house hurriedly.

Sue was concerned at his behavior, "What's wrong Tom?"

Tom leveled his gaze at his sister and explained in as pained a voice as Sue had ever heard. "Mom read my journal!"

"Your journal?" Sue responded inquisitively.

"Yes." He looked at her expecting her to deduce meaning from his cryptic inference.

"Well...what was in it?" Sue asked, still stupefied by her brother's antics.

Tom's eyes held steady, but enlarged to add emphasis to that which he couldn't give voice to.

Realization crept into Sue's mind. She turned pale and became faint. She weakened and slumped to the floor.

Tom reached to ensure she didn't harm herself, but then watched as she recoiled from him. That simple act was so hurtful to Tom that it burnt an indelible impression in his mind. He began to sob softly, and sat on the floor next to his sister.

Sue asked him, "How?"

"I left it out, on my desk... she found it and read it..."

"You wrote about us?"

"Well, yes."

"How much?"

"Everything..." Tom admitted submissively.

"Everything." Sue moaned the word as if it needed repeating to properly contemplate its meaning.

Tom arose and began to depart; he had done enough damage, there was no reason to linger in the misery of his sister's company.

Suddenly Sue barked out an order toward her little brother, "Stay Tom. You can't get out of this mess that easily."

"But why?" Tom wondered out loud. His mind didn't grasp the significance of the situation beyond explaining to Sue what had transpired.

"You fucked up Tom, and you are going to have to explain it to Bob..."

Tom's eyes bulged from their sockets. Fear and loathing emanated from his expression as if in neon lights. "Why Bob?"

"You little shit! If I have to explain to Mom why you and I are having an affair, you are going to explain to Bob how she found out!" Sue was yelling now, her anger fuelled by her dread and antipathy.

Tom shook from the emotional onslaught. Tears of fear rolled from his eyes and tracked across his cheeks.

This is the scene Bob encountered as he entered the room.

What's going on?" he asked with some trepidation.

Tom and Sue looked at each other momentarily, and then Sue said sternly, "Ask him." motioning toward Tom.

Bob looked at Tom inquisitively.

The immense pressure on Tom at that moment was unbearable. He was unaware that Bob knew of their affair, and the admission of it coupled with his mother discovering it in his journal was just too much to shoulder. His response was to just apologize and let whatever was to become of him just happen, soon, rather than later.

"I'm sorry Bob, so sorry..." He wept.

A pathetic sight, but also one of grave concern for Bob. "Sorry for what?" Bob looked from Sue to Tom, who just cowered, unable to enter the fray.

When Tom didn't answer, Bob reiterated his query, "Sorry for what Tom?"

As much as Tom wished to deny the illicit affair, Sue felt compelled to divulge the outrage. "My mother knows about Tom and me!"

Bob was thunderstruck. Nothing can prepare you for such an admission, certainly, nothing agreeable. Bob looked at his wife as if he hadn't heard her correctly. He started to ask her to repeat what she said, when Tom began sobbing over and over again, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." The gravity of the situation slowly sank in. Bob just sat on the couch and looked into space, focusing on nothing but the ache he felt in his gut.

=//=

Sue had waited for the call from her mother. The waiting was the hardest part. When it finally came, Sue listened as her mother sternly explained, "Susan, we need to discuss your brother." Saying it like that made it sound so clinical, devoid of the special meaning it once held for her, she cringed, and accepted her mother's request.

That evening, in Sue's livingroom, her mother explained how she had happened upon Tom's journal. She couched the journal entries in terms acceptable to her sensibilities.

Sue squirmed uncomfortably as her mother explained what she knew.

Finally she asked Sue, "Well, what have you to say for yourself?"

Sue deflected her question with one of her own, "Have you told Dad?"

Her mother looked shocked, "Lord no! He would flip if he knew of this."

Sue relaxed somewhat.

Her mother admonished her, "And if Bob finds out there will be hell to pay!"

"I know, mom, it was silly of us, I know." Sue pleaded as if she were a school girl.

"What got into you two? Did you think no one would find out?"

Sue took a gamble that her mother was naive enough that she may perceive this as child's play. "We were just fooling around, and it got out of hand."

"I'd say so..."

Her mother had responded favorably. She really didn't want to think ill of her children, but they must be dealt a firm hand, or trouble would surely follow.

"I'm sorry mom."

Her mother took a strict appraisal of her daughter, she wondered just how much of Tom's journal was factual. Her outrage had now been tempered by the vivid descriptions of lovemaking between the two siblings. She had been titillated by several of the entries, about things she didn't dare do herself, things her husband wouldn't attempt.

"Sue...Tom described things very...precisely, sometimes a little too precisely."

"Oh god, mom!" Sue's embarrassment was palpable.

Her mother was driven to ask, "Did you really...you know, take it from behind?"

Sue almost died of shock; her mother was asking for details of her sordid anal reception of her brother! "Mom!"

"I'm sorry, but I never..." She shook her head, but there was something behind her inquisitiveness, something ominous perhaps, and Sue began to recognize it.

Her response was calculated to deflect the opprobrium directed at her, "Have you ever noticed that Tom has grown up?"

"Well-"

Sue cut her off, "He has grown into a fine young man, and he's quite the catch for some girl out there."

"Yes, of course..."

Sue had her mother on the defensive for the moment, even if she didn't have the upper hand, "Haven't you ever had a lustful thought about another man?"

Her mother sat stunned. But from the look on her face, Sue surmised that she had. Of course she had, every one does at some time or another, but impulse control determines what you do about it. Give in and you're fucked, resist and live with the haunting images of love lost for the rest of your life.

Lost in thought, her mother wasn't searching for an answer to Sue's interrogative -- no -- she was recalling an episode in her past, one that meant a great deal to her.

"Mom?"

Her mother's eyes swelled from the tears of sadness, of a yearning long suppressed. "His wife had passed away..." She sniffled, grabbed a tissue and pressed it against her face, drying her eyes, and then her nose.

Sue sat silently, she had touched a nerve, a sympathetic nerve.

"You probably guessed it already, but Tom was a surprise to everyone. Your father, god bless him, never asked who Tom's father was..."

Sue's eyes grew large and glassy, she new Tom was a surprise pregnancy, but this! This was a revelation.

Her mother grabbed another tissue, "Burton Jensen's wife had just died..."

Sue stopped breathing, her heart pounded in her chest, but she managed to maintain control for the moment. She couldn't let on that she was having an affair with Burton Jensen's other son, Clark, too!

"...I was working for him then, at his bank; anyway, we were together alone one evening and well..." She paused, and looked to gage the reaction from her daughter.

Sue smiled and placed a comforting hand on her mother's hand. Then she reached for her and hugged her tightly.

Both women were sobbing and sniffling as they clung to one another in a moment of exquisite despondency.

=//=

Bob and Sue returned to their pedestrian lifestyle. Missing were the lovers and the phone games. No more clandestine meetings late at night, just a warm, loving couple making a life for themselves.

Clark and Cynthia had become a sometime thing, between Clark's forays with other women -- it worked out well for them.

Tom had become scarce. Apparently he and Candace had been spending time together. And, of course, their mother was on the lookout for any shenanigans.

Sue was working a double shift to help cover for a friend's day off when she looked up to see Charlie sitting at one of her tables. Charlie was on leave, and had exciting news to share -- his term of service was up soon and he was coming home!

The old feelings welled up inside her, she didn't consciously try to suppress them, but her first reaction was one of dismissiveness. "I'm sorry," she said, "but things have changed."

That hurt Charlie deeply. He managed to maintain his dignity, but the biting pain was vicious and lingering. He left the café without eating; he didn't feel like eating any longer.

Sue finished her shift and went home. Her thoughts were haunted by Charlie. The love they had shared, the long evenings talking, laughing, and loving...

When Bob came home dinner was just being pulled from the oven. Bob ate the meal, but noticed Sue was distracted -- preoccupied by something.

"Is everything okay?" He asked with a note of concern in his voice.

"Oh, sure. Well..." She stuttered, "Charlie's back. He stopped in to see me today."

Bob and Sue had become used to the new normal, but their abstinence from taking lovers was predicated on expediency, not by any firm commitment by them to avoid the situation. They had just stopped seeing anyone else after the outing by her mother.

"What's he up to?"

"He's coming home soon; he's on leave right now."

"Coming home for good?"

"Yes."

Bob felt a reluctance in her demeanor, but couldn't determine why she wasn't expressing it openly; she had always come clean before. He waited for her to tell what it was that was bothering her.

Finally, she opened up, "He wanted to see me..."

Bob thought that an odd thing to say, after all they had been through together, Charlie was like family, he was her first lover, and as far as he could surmise, her only viable lover.

When she didn't continue Bob prodded her, "Is he coming over tonight?"

Sue shot a fearful look at Bob, "I thought we weren't getting involved anymore?"

Bob realized that the wound from being found out was still an open one. He had to choose his words carefully.

"None of this was a mistake. Tom was dangerous, and he proved dangerous when he accidentally tipped off your mom.

"Clark was dangerous too, but in a different way; he was just too large a personality -- a rambunctious character. Better we moved on before something bad happened.

"But Charlie...Charlie's different, isn't he?"

Sue softened visibly, she dearly loved her husband, but she loved Charlie too. It was a different kind of love, a shared love. It meant nothing when they were apart, everything when they were together.

"Yes, he is different."

"Call him Sue."

Sue tensed, "I can't start sneaking around again. The late nights, the worry..."

Bob nodded in agreement, that was the part that really got old quick. In the beginning, it was that sneaky aspect that was erotically inciting. But now the emphasis was on loving, the surging hormones were fun, but all fun things fade with overexposure.

"Would you want me to speak with him?"

Sue bolted up straight, her eyes flew wide open, "What do you mean Bob?"

There was a wall between Charlie and Bob, placed there by Sue. She did not want Charlie to know what Bob knew; that Charlie was her lover. That part was for them alone, a secret, her leverage between reality and fantasy; even if that fantasy was real.

"What if we asked him to stay here and help with the addition on the back of the house?"

"Are we actually going to start building the new bedroom?"

"It seems like a good time to start, and I imagine Charlie will be looking for work."

"But..." Sue began to imagine other aspects of Charlie's proximity to the house, "...you want him to stay here?"

"It solves several problems."

"So you mean...Charlie...and me?" She blushed a bright red as the blood rushed to her face; she demurred, and raised an eyebrow, inquisitively.

"Call Charlie, Sue."

Sue picked up the phone, and dialed Charlie's number.