When The Heartache is Over

"What do you mean?" I asked. "And if you know all of this and you do or did love Lou why are you letting it go on? Why haven't you done anything about it?"

"I already told you," she said. "You haven't let things get out of hand and it's in my best interest to let you continue. You serve a purpose for me. I've already told you that I just don't find sex pleasurable. The few times a month that I have to endure it to keep Lou happy are like torture for me. He uses you like a rented mule. He slams his dick into you like a nuclear jack hammer and you take it. He slaps you around, spits on you, ejaculates on your face and even pisses on you, and you take it. He doesn't even know that you don't like it. We know why you did it in the beginning but now you do it to keep him helping you pay for the PI's don't you? I've seen the bills and there's no way you could afford them without his help."

"What do you mean he lied to me?" I asked. I was becoming more and more upset. Before she could even begin, Lou showed up and sat down. Because of his bulk, he needed the middle seat so she had to move back over to the aisle seat. Since then I'd been wondering what she meant about him lying to me.

Even when we had dinner last night, there hadn't been another chance for us to speak alone. I was angry and frustrated but at least I hadn't had to fuck him last night.

I got into the elevator and went up to our floor to get ready for the conference. I showered slowly and washed my hair. For some reason I was moving in slow motion. If I didn't get the lead out of my ass, I'd never have time to review the packet about WellWen that I had on the table.

I decided that I'd save time by not doing my hair. I would just blow dry it, run a handful of styling gel through it and then brush it all back into one long loose ponytail. I put on my makeup and looked into the mirror. I remembered then why I didn't do my hair that way anymore. Danny loved my hair like that. I was glad that he couldn't see the lines that had formed around the corners of my eyes in only four years.

I didn't know if those lines were from all of the crying I seemed to do or just from how much older and less energetic I felt. My life wasn't really a life. I never went anywhere. I never did anything. I had very few friends left because I just didn't want to be around anyone. It was just strange. At the beginning of our relationship, Danny had been the socially inept one. I would take him to parties and make him move away from the wall and talk to people. He never really got to the point where he was the life of the party, but he did get to the point where he could hold up his end of a conversation if he had to.

It had never been difficult for me. Because of the way I look or looked, I've never had to worry about figuring out what to say or when to say it. Attractive women don't have to work at anything. Attractive women with big boobs have to do even less. I could walk into a party and there'd almost immediately be people for me to talk to. Danny had it much worse.

Now it seems the tables are turned. For a long time being with me gave him the confidence to try things that he wouldn't ordinarily have done. Being without him on the other hand makes me not want to do anything.

I have a mammogram twice a year and so far there hasn't been any sign of cancer, but it terrifies me. If Danny and I were still together, I'd still get them done but it wouldn't be as much of a factor. I've considered having my eggs frozen or something like that. I know that if I don't have a child soon, there may not be much of a chance of it happening.

At thirty eight, if I don't do it in the next two or three years, there won't be much point in it. I guess that I could just go out and find some random guy or go to a sperm bank but I want my children to come from Danny. I know that this sounds stupid but he and I aren't done. I've done terrible things to him, but in each case, every bad, shitty decision that I've made has been because I love him.

One of the reasons I fell so crazily in love with Danny over the years is because of his gentle nature. Danny would never ever hurt me for any reason. Well, he did once, but that was my fault. And the way he hurt me was by leaving me.

I can still remember running through the building naked with nothing but my car keys in my hand. My boobs were flying everywhere as I ran and I had several truck drivers nearly drive into walls or other cars as they looked down at me. I didn't care. My only thought was to get home to Danny before he ended us.

I ran up the stairs and into my house screaming his name. There was no note, he was just fucking gone. Everything got blurry then and I almost collapsed but found myself holding onto the dining room table. I found it then. A piece of paper rolled up very tightly. I wondered why it stayed rolled so tightly then I saw it and started to cry all over again.

It was held so tightly rolled by Danny's wedding ring. I opened the note, expecting to read a very long, very sorrowful declaration of why he didn't love me anymore and how bad I was. I knew that we'd have a few phone conversations and argue. But what he didn't know was that there weren't going to be any fucking arguments; because I would win. I won every argument or disagreement that we'd ever had.

Of course, I only won them because he loved me so much that he'd do anything for me. I made all of the decisions in our relationship. But it was mostly because things didn't seem to matter much to him as long as we were together.

But this time it would be different. There wouldn't be an argument. I would simply tell him what I'd had to do and why and then I'd throw myself on his mercy and do whatever it would take for us to stay together. I'd quit my job or kill Lou or anything else he wanted no matter how far out it was, I would do it to keep us together.

At first I thought the paper was blank. Then I saw the two small words in the middle of the page. "Press play," it said.

So I did.

"Once in a lifetime you find, someone to show you the way," sang Tina Turner in her trademarked deep vocals.

"Someone to make your decisions, and I let you lead me astray." I lost it after that line because that line alone told me that Danny thought I'd done something to fool him or hurt him on purpose and nothing could be further from the truth.

I cried then. I wailed. He had missed everything. The pain shot through me like someone had just taken a fireplace poker that had been heated until the metal was white hot and just plunge it into my stomach. I curled into a ball on the floor. I hated that fucking song with a passion that I never knew existed.

"When the heartache is over, I won't be missing you," sang Tina, that bitch. I know that from Danny's perspective this was his way of telling me that he would get over this and when it was all over I would no longer be a part of his life or his heart.

"I won't look over my shoulder. Cause I know that I can live without you." And that hurt me the most because I knew deep in my heart that he could. Despite the fact that I seemed to run things in our relationship Danny was the strong one. And his strength wasn't the blatant machismo that a lot of men needed. It wasn't arm strength. It was strength of character and convictions.

That had been one of the things that had drawn me to him. He didn't need to prove how strong he was by trying to dominate me or telling me what to do. He had no need to abuse me to prove he could. All he'd ever done was to love me.

Even before we'd started having sex, I could remember wondering when he'd make his move on me and he never did. When I brought it up, I remember wanting him so badly that I almost cried. When he'd said, "We could never have meaningless sex because I care about you and it would always mean something," I'd been his from that moment forward. From that instant, I knew that we were fated to be together and I would do ANYTHING to protect that.

Before then it had been something I wanted. When he gave me the locket, I wanted him. Shit, I used people and broke him and that girl Belinda up just to speed things along. But from that moment forward, Danny and I were an out of control train. Nothing was going to stop us from being together.

And even now, when it's been five years, one week, three days and...six hours, we will eventually get back together. Even if it's me moving my rocking chair next to his in the old folks home...

The knock on the door pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Elvina, we need to get going," says Lou through the door.

I opened the door and he stepped inside of my room. Even with my back turned, I can feel him staring at my ass. My skirt stops about four inches below my knee. I pull a small waist-length jacket out of the closet and put it on over my blouse and he frowns.

I unbutton three buttons quickly and the smile that forms on his lips doesn't last very long. I put on my locket as I have every day since Danny gave it to me and button the buttons back up. Next I grab my bracelet off of the dresser and put it on my wrist. A man's wedding ring dangles from the bracelet and that makes Lou smile even less. I wear the ring every day as well.

As we walk down the hall towards the elevator, Lou brushes his finger against my ass. "I really missed you last night," he said. I let it slide off of me.

"Elvina, when are you going to stop pining away for that loser anyway?" he asks smiling. I know that this is one of his games to make him more confident before going into battle but the past twenty four hours have been hell on me so I'm not up to it.

Before I even realize what I'm doing, I've bared my teeth like a she wolf and growled, "Never."

The elevator opens and cuts off his response.

We take the elevator down to the main floor and catch a taxi to the building the conference is being held in. WellWen's headquarters is nearly as big as the hotel. The taxi driver tells me that the building had originally been planned as a small casino. It has five floors of business space. The first floor houses two restaurants and about fifteen stores. The second floor is leased to several businesses. The next three floors are all WellWen. And the top floor and even the roof which has a large garden and a pool are supposed to be private living space.

Lou and I are amazed at how many people there are circulating throughout the building. When we got off on the third floor, there was absolute pandemonium. Lou and I looked at each other and realized that this was far bigger than we'd ever thought.

The sea of people humming and buzzing around while clutching laptops and other props was staggering.

We had nothing to show. What were we going to do, just walk in and say, "We're Lou and Elvina. We're from Dalton Inc. We don't have much to show you but you can look at Elvina's titties for a while or take her for a spin?"

This was going to be a disaster. Before we got back to our office back in Michigan and even sat down, we'd be fired.

If I got fired, how the hell would I pay for the PI's to find Danny? I found myself humming that God damned song again. It was strange how Danny intended for the song to make me feel like shit, but it hadn't worked out that way. I'd reversed it to the way I interpreted it and the song had become a source of strength for me. In my version, when the heartache is over, meant when Danny and I were back together again. I won't be missing you, meant that he'd be back with me where he belonged.

"What the hell are you humming?" asked Lou beside me.

Suddenly the people around us all moved out of the way and the sea of people parted as if Moses was walking through. I craned my neck and saw a tall Asian woman stride through the crowd and walk casually towards a dais at the other end of the room. The woman had to be at least 5'10" and in her 4" heels she easily stood over six feet tall. She oozed confidence from every pore.

I wasn't often intimidated by other women, but this time I was. The sheath dress that she wore had to have cost at least a couple of thousand dollars. Her shoes alone probably cost more than my car was worth. I had her beat in the boobs department. But her ass, legs and waistline made me look tired and old. For once I was glad that I wasn't standing next to her. There was something familiar about her though. She got up onto the dais and started to speak into one of those wireless headsets.

"Hello," she said, smiling brightly. "I'm Grace Wen..." before she could even finish there were people screaming, "Hi Grace," as if she was a rock star. "Where's Cal?" someone else shouted.

"Who the fuck is Cal?" asked Lou. A guy next to us told Lou, while staring at my boobs, that Cal was the CEO and majority stockholder in WellWen. Grace was the COO. Cal had supposedly developed WellWen's proprietary software soon after moving to Hawaii. Cal and Grace had shared a tiny apartment surrounded by computers and living on pineapples and tuna while setting up the company. In the ensuing three and a half years, WellWen had virtually taken over net marketing in North America, Europe and some parts of Asia. If you saw an ad on a tablet, smart phone or computer screen and even the streaming ads on console video games there was a 67 percent chance that the ad came from or was streamed by WellWen.

"Holy fuck," said Lou. "I had no idea this was that fucking big."

"Welcome to WellWen," she said. "Since there are so many of you, we're going to divide this into two sessions. Can we please keep things nice and organized? Trust me we will see each of you over the next couple of days. It won't be like last year when we were seriously over our capacity. We've hired a lot more account reps and have access to substantially more screens worldwide. We're also pushing into South America and the African continent as well. That means that your products will be seen in even more places than ever before."

There was another big round of screaming and if I didn't know that this was all about business, I'd swear that some of these people were drunk. "I love you, Grace," screamed one man from the back. She just rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Okay, here's how we're going to do this. We...we...uhm..." she started stuttering uncharacteristically and was looking at something. I looked at Lou whose mouth was gaping and turned and looked on either side of me before I realized that she was staring at me. Seeing me had made her stutter.

She picked things back up and continued though. But I could tell that though her delivery was again flawless, her mind wasn't on it. She was doing the speech by remote control while she thought up a solution to whatever was bugging her.

"Maybe my tits distracted her," I whispered to Lou.

"It's not your tits," he said. "Besides no one can even see them in that nun suit you're wearing."

I wondered what it was.

"I wonder how the hell she ended up here?" he said.

"You know her?" I asked.

"Not nearly as well as you do, dummy," he said.

"I've never seen that woman before in my life," I said.

"Elvina, get your head out of your ass," he said. "This might just save our asses and our fucking jobs. Why don't you do what you normally do 18 hours of every fucking day anyway? Maybe that's what's up your ass lately; it's the lack of sleep."

"What the hell are you talking about Lou?" I asked.

"You sleep for about 5 hours and some change a night," he said. "You have my dick inside you for the other fifteen minutes. And that's the whole day."

"What about the other..." I started to say.

"The other eighteen fucking hours are spent, mooning over, remembering, or dreaming about your wimpy loser husband," he spat. "Now if you think about him while you look at her it will all become pretty God damned clear who she is."

I took a good look at her face and even from the stage, I could see her staring back at me.

"That can't be her," I said. "If it is we're toast. After the way I spoke to her, she'll never give us shit. We might need to pretend to be from separate companies."

"Will everyone on this side of the room go to the large conference room on the north side of the building? You'll be registered there and placed into groups for your corporate appointments and presentations tomorrow. That was our side of the room.

All of the people who'd been here before looked around in confusion, as did the guards. The people around us started moving towards the room she'd indicated.

"Everyone one this side of the room, go to the auditorium on the south side of the building."

A couple of Grace's assistants went up to her and started telling her that she'd made a mistake. She must've been so flustered that she forgot her wireless microphone was still live.

"Just shut the fuck up and do what I said," she told them. Her delivery was intense. When she said the word "Just," you could hear the "T" sound at the end so clearly that it was as if the word was made of concrete and she'd broken the end of it off with a sledge hammer. The word "Shut," was even more precise. It began with a long "SH" and ended again with that very pronounced, very crisp, "T." When she said "Fuck," that one syllabled word held so much import and impact that it rendered the rest of the sentence impotent. It was as if all Grace really wanted to do to was scream, "FUCK," in frustration. It was like she'd just stumbled into a really bad situation and she needed to find a way out of it quickly.

"Or I'll get someone who God damned CAN," she continued. All of her assistants gathered around the stage stepped back and found other things to do.

Grace quickly headed for one of the exits and found her way blocked by a well-meaning employee. He pointed towards the other door as if letting her know that she was going the wrong way. Grace tilted her head as if seeing him from a different angle and he blanched and knocked his head against the wall trying to get out of her way. It was as if he'd realized that Grace had some kind of superpower that allowed her to picture him on the unemployment line.

I don't know what caused Grace to lose her grace, but something was going on. Even as we registered, there were problems. People kept telling us, "Usually Grace does that." It was also apparent that Lou and I were a problem.

To start out, we didn't know what kind of account we were supposed to sign up for so we didn't know which group to join during registration.

"The parameters for accounts were spelled out both in the E-mail and in the packet," said the woman at the desk. "I wish Grace was here. Didn't you read the packet?"

Lou just looked at me in confusion. I looked back at him angrily. "Elvina, please tell me that you read the fucking packet," he said.

"You got a copy of it too," I said. "You're the boss, Lou. I'm only your assistant. This is your fuck up, not mine."

"You're about to be an unemployed assistant," he hissed.

"I have a solution," said the woman. She called a guard. A big Hawaiian guy and he hurried over to us.

"Take these two to the auditorium," she said. "They can listen to Cal's speech and that will outline the different types of accounts. They can then look over the packet during lunch and register during the other session. Grace would have probably done it differently, but that's all we can do right now."

The guard, who looked like he didn't want to go anywhere grunted towards the exit. The heavenly dominoes of Chaos started to fall into or out of place, depending on your perspective at that moment.

When we stepped out of the conference room, one of the mail boys was delivering messages and documents on that end of the building. The guard who hadn't felt like walking all the way across the huge building spotted the golf cart that was used to deliver the mail. He stole...borrowed it, figuring that he'd be back here long before the mail boy got done with his deliveries. He quickly drove the golf cart across the large building and got us to the auditorium faster than Grace had gotten there because she'd had to walk and was constantly stopped by people who needed to ask questions.