The Last Goodbye

I let that one go and ask, "Anybody have any idea how the pictures got to Case?"

"It's a mystery. They think it had to be somebody who knew Norm and his habits pretty well, could afford a PI or to take the photos himself, and knew exactly the right person to take pictures of and who to send them to. It would have to be somebody that knew his way around the courthouse."

"Hmmmm..."

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It's the next day. She's back. This time in a fairly tight sweater and a tight skirt. She's back on the bed beside me. Nobody from the hospital says anything. Although she still has all her clothes on, and we haven't even kissed, it feels right.

"Have you thought anymore about my idea. Of my moving in with you?"

"Yeah."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know."

"Why? What's the problem?"

"Your damned dick is so big, Normie. Oh my God! I can never get enough of it, no matter how many times we do it."

She looks up at me and her smile fades.

"You remember it word for word. After nearly two years?"

"I'll remember it word for word on the day I die, Mona. I can't get the words out of my head, or the way his dick looked pulling out of your cunt before he rammed it back in. Small minded of me, I know. But I can't get them out of my head."

She gives me an exasperated look.

"You know I was fucking him for a year. Every way you can be fucked. In every hole. I swallowed. We did it in our bed, his bed, his car, elevators, restaurant bathrooms. Shit, one time we did it out on the balcony of the 14th floor of the Bell Tower. And those words are the thing you can't get past?"

"Mona, I know what you did, or I can imagine. I know it intellectually. But it's different to hear the words, to actually see him inside you."

She pulls herself up and slides off the bed to sit beside me.

"Lew, I can only guess how much that hurts you because -- you never hurt me that way. But, try to use your brain for a minute, okay. "

I nod. My brain is not the problem here.

"I could tell you a lot of things to try to remove the sting, but the simplest thing I can think of is this. When you were in bed with that little trailer tramp -- I'm sorry, the Carter girl; I'm still jealous as hell of her - you never told her how wonderfully tight her pussy was? She never told you that you dick was the best in the world, and she couldn't get enough of it?"

"So?"

"Work with me here. You said those things, and she said them to you, right? Well, that's what I was doing with Norm. Any woman learns that if you want your guy to stay hard and fuck you longer, you tell him his dick is the best thing since sliced bread. It's just -- sex talk, pillow talk. I was having a good time, and I wanted him to enjoy it too."

"What's your point?"

"Just that there was nothing special about what you heard. If you can remember that far back, I remember telling you that your dick was made of pure steel. It was so hard you can break rocks with it and that I wanted you to punish me with it. Remember?"

I nod. It had sounded pretty good at the time.

She starts to smile broadly.

"In fact, lover, I can remember on a few occasions shouting at the top of my lungs, 'Oh my Lord, you are a God. Your dick is unbelievable."

I do remember that.

"Now come on, Lew, let's be adults here. Did you really think I was comparing you to the real God? No. I was just trying to keep my man hard and working at it. If it makes you feel any better, makes it easier to deal with your pain, just think about it as my acting for his benefit. I just didn't know I'd have another audience."

She stands up in the chair and leans over. She gives me the first real kiss we've shared since that night.

"If it helps, I want to scream at the top of my lungs that your dick is going to split me in half while you're fucking me. No matter what you heard me tell Norm, or what you see us doing in your head, remember that it was your dick I craved for all those years. Until you threw me away."

She pulls back and stares with a small smile at the growing bulge under my hospital gown.

"Does that help?"

"Yeah. The idea of us moving in together is beginning to sound more attractive."

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She's dressed in her lawyer clothes when she walks into my room the next day. Tastefully cut business suit, power slacks and a matching blouse/jacket combo. She's carrying her briefcase. It's late. Almost 5 p.m. It looks like she was taking care of business at her office or the courthouse before coming by for a visit.

"Are we doing something official?"

"Yes," she says with only a faint smile. Despite myself, I feel myself getting hard. I wonder if I'm getting a fetish for attractive women in business suits.

She opens the briefcase and pulls out a pile of legal papers.

"Seriously, what is this?"

She hands me the top document. It's a binding contract committing me to provide her with samples of my sperm with a penalty for failure to follow through in the six figures.

"Wha - -" My mouth doesn't seem to be working.

"I've been thinking about this since I got that telephone call, Lew. I'm very serious about this. I want you to sign these papers. Today, really. If you don't, I don't think we'll be able to get back together. In fact, I don't think I'll be coming back here."

"You're giving me an ultimatum? My sperm or we're through?"

"Basically, yes."

"What kind of game are you playing now? You know I'm not going to sign this."

"Look at the other papers. You're committing to provide me with enough samples of your sperm to provide two children by in-vitro fertilization. My sister has already signed documentation agreeing to provide her eggs. When and if they're fertilized, they'll be transplanted into me and I should be able to carry them to full term.

"The problem isn't with my reproductive system, just my eggs. If I can't, she's signed an agreement to carry them full term for us.

"The other documents absolve you of ANY legal responsibility for their care and upkeep, but they also prevent me from doing anything with them that you object.

"I'm a good lawyer. These will withstand any court challenge. What they mean is that I can't force you to ever pay a penny for their upkeep, college education, etc.

"And I can never interfere with your right to see them and be in their lives. In fact, if you raise a legal challenge, I can't take them out of state, move them anywhere away from you, or even marry or bring a man into my household without your permission."

I just look at the documents and try to read her mind.

"I still don't understand why you're doing this?"

She swivels in her chair on that delicious ass and I get harder and I wonder if she's doing that deliberately, knowing how hard it is to concentrate with my big head when all my blood is rushing to my little head.

"My inability to give you children is what wrecked our first marriage. You notice I said 'first' because I intend to marry you again. You can deny it, but I know it's the truth. And what you never thought about when you were feeling sorry for yourself was that it killed me too. I wanted children, our children.

"I don't agree with you about adoption. I would have been happy to adopt. But for whatever reason, you would never agree to that. You wanted them to be your children by blood.

" This way, they will be your children. In every way. And because we're using my sister's eggs, in every way that counts, they'll be mine as well. When they're old enough we'll tell them the truth, but by then it won't matter. They'll be mine -- and yours."

We stare at each other for a few minutes.

"I'd kiss you," she says with a smile, "but I don't want your little head influencing your big head's thinking. I want this to be something you're good with. Because it will affect the rest of our lives, whether we stay together or not."

After I think for a few minutes, I know what I'm going to do. It really doesn't require a lot of thinking, even though she's right. It's going to change both our lives.

"You're so smart, Mona. The trouble is, you're used to being smarter than anybody you deal with. And you keep forgetting although you were number two in our graduating class, I was number one."

"Are you going somewhere with this?" she asks, but I think she gets it.

"When was the last time you got fucked?"

She's going to say something, then she gives it up.

"Two Saturdays ago."

"The weekend before you had that revelation that you still loved me and hated what you had done to me with Norman? Right. Who were you with?"

She hesitates, then: "It was an attorney that works in the office next to mine. We had a date that had already been set a few weeks before that."

"You've fucked him before, or was that a first time?"

"We'd gotten together a few times."

"It's been a year and a half since you were with Norm? You been celibate all that time until this past Saturday?"

Despite herself, she has to laugh.

"Oh, Lew, you smart bastard. Why don't you cut through the crap. Ask me."

"Okay. How many men in all have you fucked in the last year and a half?"

She looks down at the floor, then meets my eyes defiantly.

"I don't know. I really haven't been counting. Thirty or forty probably. Some of them were one-timers. Others I've been seeing on and off the whole time. I'd lie, but you'd find out. You'd dig till you found out everything, or enough."

"Jesus Christ, what a slut." But the smile I give her robs the insult of its sting.

"I know. Like any single guy who was really hot wouldn't go through that many women in a year and a half. And you said it yourself, I am hot. I haven't had to work real hard to get guys in the sack. Besides, you were fucking Cyndi Sweet Tits for nine months. You feel guilty about that?"

"Did I say you should feel guilty, Mona?"

"No, but I know what you're thinking. Even if you're smiling, you're thinking, 'what a cunt. She's fucked 40 guys. While I've been with one woman.' Although I know you had some one-night stands before you met Cindi. But a guy with 40 women is a stud. A woman with 40 guys is a slut."

She reaches over to take the papers out of my hands.

"I guess that answers my question. You had a terrible time living with the knowledge that I fucked one guy. No way you could ever live with me after finding out I've been with 30 or 40 guys. So after all that drama, we're done. Once and for all. And we'll never have those kids; that little boy and little girl."

She looks into my eyes, and she's biting her lip. Her voice is cold as ice, but her eyes tell a different story.

"Well, after you get out of here, you'll have tons of women to romance. Fuck actually. I know you're being touted as God's Romantic Gift to Lonely Women. You'll be able to find one you can love, one who can give you children. You'll be happy. And I'll have a thriving legal practice and all the dicks I can handle. We'll both be alright."

She looks down at the papers in my hand. I'm not letting them go.

I pull the papers out of her hand and hold my right, which I can pretty much use for most things now.

"Give me a pen."

Now, she's the one who can only stare. Finally she reaches into her inside breast pocket and pulls out an expensive, silver pen. She hands it to me never taking her eyes off my eyes. She's trying to read my mind, and I'm enjoying keeping her in the dark.

"Do you need anyone to notarize or witness these?"

She nods but doesn't get up to go get anyone.

"Why?"

I don't have the heart to torment her any longer.

"You were always a hotpants bitch. You love sex. That's why I know intellectually that I can't hate you too much for what happened with Norman. I should have been satisfying you, and I did turn my back on you for three years. And then you were on your own for over a year and a half. I knew you'd be with somebody. You weren't going to be celibate. I don't know exactly how I'm going to deal with that, but we'll find a way.

"As to us having babies. I want them too. And I never thought about having them with anybody but you.

" Of course, in addition to giving us what we both want, you figure this gives you a get-out-of-jail free card.

"You'd only been with two men -- I believe -- in the last ten years: Norm and me. And over the last year and a half, you've been with 40.

"All those cocks. Big ones, little ones. Different types and styles. You've had a sexual smorgasbord after ten years of plain meat and potatoes sex with me and maybe a little spicier fare with Norm."

She's trying to read my mind again. She's still not sure exactly where this is going, but I think she's getting a clue.

"I think you do love me, Mona. I really do. And I think you want to get back with me and start a new relationship and raise our children. But I also think you've gotten to like the bachelor girl lifestyle and fucking different guys.

"And I know that in the back of your mind, you're thinking that if we have those kids, I'll fall in love with them and if you make a mistake or two, fuck around a little bit and get caught again, I won't be willing to walk away from you, because the kids will be in both our lives, and I'll be attached to you by chains I won't be willing to break."

She's shaking her head.

"You son of a bitch. Why do you have to be so smart."

"Blame my mom and dad."

"If you figured all that out, then why? Why go along with this? You love me that much? You could have children with almost any woman.'

I reach out with my left hand and pull her onto me on the bed. With my right I grab her head and bring her down for a long, long kiss.

I let her go, and she sits back in her chair. Her lipstick is smeared, her blouse and jacket rumpled. She's still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

"Yeah, I guess I do. And I want children. And you haven't thought your plan out far enough. You see, the chains will bind me to you. But they'll also bind you to me.

"You're going to fall in love with our kids. I know you that well. And you might cheat on me, but you'll be cheating on those children that you fought so hard to bring into the world. You're going to love me more, not less, when you're a mother and we're a family.

"I'm willing to bet that you'll love me and them and us enough to give up the casual sex. I think you might fuck me unconscious thinking about other guys you've had the past year and a half, but I think you'll eventually settle down with me and our kids.

That's the gamble I'm prepared to make for us -- and for them."

She reaches out and takes my left hand in hers.

"You remember I said I don't deserve you. I don't deserve to be loved the way you love me. It's still true."

"You just got lucky."

She swats me lightly on the side of my face.

"But you are egotistical as hell."

I pull her to me and stop the conversation.

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(This is a work of fiction. But there was a pilot who faced this moment of truth on a sunlit day high in the air over North Florida. And knowing there was almost no chance that he would live to tell them himself, he asked an aircraft controller to tell his wife and young son that he loved them, because "I knew I wouldn't be able to tell them myself."

There was a newspaper reporter who interviewed the pilot when he beat the odds and survived. And when he heard those words, the hairs on the back of the reporter's neck stood up because he knew this was the kind of story every reporter lives for, and he wrote a front page story that was picked up by the wires and ran nationally.

That's the nugget of truth in this fictional tale. It's true that when people are facing death and know they won't walk away, they are able to see the truth about their lives, no matter how unpalatable it might be. It's not something people go looking for, but if you live through it, it does concentrate your mind.)

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