When We Were Married Ch. 04C

PUBLIC BETA

Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.

You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.

Click here

He got up.

"Goodbye, Debbie. I'll let myself out."

She stood up and almost touched him. She was reaching for him when he drew back and she dropped her hand.

"Bill, thank you. Thank you for talking to me. It's been hard....not being able to talk to you. Even if this was just about Kelly, I'm still glad you were finally willing to talk to me."

He had turned around when she said, "One favor, Bill. Please, call Mom and Dad and talk to Kelly. She won't talk to me. I can understand why. But you're her father. Try to talk some sense into her about Doug."

"I'll call and go by right now. Goodbye."

####################

I sat in my car in the dark for 10 minutes after I left Debbie's house. No matter what she said, it wasn't my house anymore. As long as I stayed away from her, I could remember the house and our life the way it had been. But I had been in there now. I could see him fucking her up against the refrigerator or spread-eagled over the table. Maybe he hadn't, but I saw the pictures in my head.

It was probably a mistake to have talked to her. In some sick way I felt better for it, but I was still sick about it. Talk about a dog going back to its vomit. She was poison. There might be a day when I could look at her and not want to hold her, to kiss her, to bury myself in her. But it wasn't today.

I drove to the Bascombs. I called ahead and got Cathy. I asked if Kelly was there and when she said she was, told her I was coming by to talk to her.

It was 11:15 p.m. when I pulled into their driveway. Roy answered the door.

"She's in her bedroom, Bill. "

It wasn't the first time we had talked since everything fell apart, but they had just been hi and by when I came to pick up the kids.

He stopped me as I walked past him and put his hand on my shoulder.

"I wanted to apologize for what I said...when this all started. I never really believed that she...would throw everything away for a pretty face. That's not the daughter I raised. I know Cathy has talked to you. This thing with pretty boy will end. And she'll come crawling back to you. When she does...just try to remember that she was a good wife for a long time. That's all."

I stood there for a second but there was nothing I could say to that. I went on back to what had been Debbie's younger sister Clarice's room years before. Now Cathy and Roy kept it as a guest bedroom.

I knocked on the door and after a moment pushed it open and went in. She was sitting cross-legged on Clarice's old canopy bed, wearing headphones and doing something on a laptop at the same time.

She wore a light blue pajama set and I didn't have to look too closely to know that Doug had been right. She was a sexually mature, beautiful woman. Except for the hair coloring, she could have been the woman I'd first seen on the University of Florida campus 20 years ago.

"I assume your soon-to-be ex-wife told you a pack of lies about what happened?"

"No, she told me the truth. She told me the same story Doug told me this morning."

She looked up at me and the angry retort she was planning died in her throat as she stared at my face.

"God, daddy, what happened to you? Oh, no, you didn't go after Doug did you? It wasn't his fault."

She tore the headphones off and set the computer on the bed.

"You didn't have him arrested, did you?"

I shook my head and sat down beside her on the bed.

"No, Doug and I just got into a little tussle. He about put my eye out and banged me up and I smashed his nose and broke some ribs, but he's going to be okay."

"Dad, you hurt Doug?"

I shook my head watching the expression on her face.

"Why does everybody seem to find that so hard to believe. Yes, I hurt him, but nothing he won't recover from. And I didn't get him arrested, although I sure as hell could have."

"We didn't do anything."

"Kelly, in the eyes of the law, having oral sex with a 17-year-old would get him sent to state prison and branded a pedophile for life. You've lived with a prosecutor your whole life and you're not stupid. Your mother walking back in was the best thing that ever happened to Doug. Because if he had had sex with you, I'd never rest until he was spending a long time in an all-male barracks at Raiford. Or until he was dead."

"Dad, but I --"

"Do NOT tell me you love him, Kelly. You're 17 and you've got high school and college and a life ahead of you. You're not hooking up with a 28-year-old man who used to be your mother's boyfriend."

She stared at me with an expression of pained innocence.

"You're just mad at him because of mom. But he didn't chase her. She chased him. And she's been flirting with guys for years. I bet you she was fucking them a long time before she put her hooks into Doug. I care for him and I know he cares for me. He hasn't said anything, but I can tell it by the way he looks at me."

I took a deep breath.

"He is not my favorite person on this planet because of your mother's involvement with him. That's true. But that's not the reason why you're not going to get involved with him. He's too old for you. He's had more women than you'll probably ever know about. And you could never trust him. He moved in on your mother when we still had a marriage. What makes you think he would be true to you?"

"He wouldn't cheat on me. I'd keep him happy."

"No one woman is going to keep him happy, baby. It doesn't work like that with guys like Doug. And you say you can tell that he care for you because of the way he looks at you. You're not a little girl anymore, Kelly. He's looking at you the way a man looks at a beautiful woman, and that's what you've turned into. When a man looks at you that way, he doesn't love you. He just wants to have sex with you."

She turned her back on me.

"It doesn't matter what you say. We'll get together. You can't stop us. I'll be 18 in a little while and then you and Mom can't stop me."

I didn't tell her that Doug was going to be 1500 miles away very shortly and if he had any sense would avoid her like the plague until that time. And after that...well, I knew prosecutors all over the country and the ones I didn't the Big Man did. Doug would be watched.

She turned back to face me and she looked so much like Debbie that it hurt.

"Besides, it's too late to protect my virtue, Daddy. Doug wouldn't be the first."

"I know that."

"No, I've had two boyfriends since then. I've been -- with both of them. I stopped seeing Jamie and started going with Charles, but Jamie moved back into town three months ago. We hook up sometimes."

She acted like she hoped I'd be shocked.

"I know this will shock and dismay you, Kelly, but I realize that once you start having sex, most people don't stop. I wasn't aware of your boyfriends, but I can't say I'm surprised. I know that I can't lock you in your room, and put a chastity belt on you, and short of that, if you want to have sex you're going to have sex."

"I -- " She looked really surprised. "I didn't expect you to-"

"To treat you like an adult? It comes hard, Kelly, because you're always going to be my little girl, even when you turn 60. But this is something you'll find out when you have your own kids. You treat your children like children...until you can't anymore. And I can't treat you that way anymore."

I reached out and grabbed her hand and held it in mine.

"I'm not going to tell you not to have sex because I know I can't enforce that, and I don't expect you to respect my opinions because I've made a pretty bad mess of my marriage. But I just want you to remember one thing...and remember it for the rest of your life."

I took my hand and ran it along the side of her face. And beneath those woman's features and her mother's beauty, I saw the little girl I had known years ago.

"I love you Kelly. You're my daughter and you always will be. I know I haven't shown it, but I love you and your brother more than anything on earth. You are the most precious things on earth to me. Nobody except your mother and I, and maybe your brother, will ever love you exactly that way.

"But, if you're lucky, you'll find some man that will love you just as much, in a different way. He'll love you for more than your body and your face. He'll love you if you lose your looks, or that body grows old. It's what every parent wants for their child. I want someone to love you as much as I do.

"I want someone to love you as much as I loved your mother. I want someone who will walk through fire for you, because I would have for your mother. That's gone now, but we had it. And I just want the same thing for you."

I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead and walked out. Cathy would have said something but I waved her off. I could barely see for the tears blinding me, but it was okay. I had said what I wanted to say. Now it was up to Kelly. She could make her own mistakes, but I hoped she'd be smarter than her mother had been at her age.

I had stopped at a late night espresso shop for a cup of very strong American coffee that was as close to real French coffee as you could find in the River City. It was 12:30 a.m. before I finally sprawled on the bed in my condo and clicked on the late news. As I'd expected, all the buzzing was about the dramatic murder inside the Jacksonville Jail. A lot of the details were held back, but enough had been released that it would go national the next day.

I punched up a pillow, lay back and sipped at the coffee between swallowing two pain pills with water. My left eye had begun throbbing like crazy again. I hadn't taken the rest that I'd been ordered to. I let the sound of the news wash around me as I thought about the day gone by. It had been the longest day of my life.

It had begun with me in bed with Aline having to break off a budding relationship that I didn't want to break off. In the space of only 17 hours, I had been told by my son that my 17-year-old daughter was having sex with my wife's boyfriend; a vicious killer had made a very real threat against my family;

I'd nearly got my head knocked off extracting a measure of revenge against the asshole who had stolen my wife; I'd received a not-so-polite threat to come down the right way on a racial violence case; had one of the most overt sexual overtures I'd ever received; realized I was lying through my teeth when I told myself I didn't want to see Aline again; met a man who should have hated me but did me a favor I could never repay proving the value of 'Friends In Low Places;'

met with my soon-to-be ex-wife and found that despite whatever feelings I might have for Aline, I wasn't yet over Debbie; and dealt with my 17-year-old daughter as an adult for the first time.

I'd crammed a week worth of living into less than a day. No wonder I was exhausted.

I was about to click off the television, strip and hit the bed when a familiar face flashed on the screen. I ran it back and turned the sound up.

"....official government sources in Rwanda have confirmed the initial reports that Father Eagan Dunleavy, a special emissary from the Vatican, has died in a crash near Kigali International Airport, the primary airport serving Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

"Sources said that Dunleavy and four others in a small jet, had flown directly from Paris to the Rwandan capital in what was said to be a private diplomatic initiative to ease tensions and fears of a resumption of Hutu-Tutsi violence.

"Unconfirmed reports say that the plane was brought down by one to two surface to air missiles, possibly American-made Stingers stolen or sold to rebel Rwandan military units."

They flashed Dunleavy's smiling face on the screen, a stock shot taken after he'd won the Nobel for his work in Rwanda.

"....Vatican sources expressed the sadness of the Pope and high church officials in the loss of a man who had saved so many lives during his career."

A man dressed in the colors of the Vatican, not a cardinal or bishop but probably a lower level functionary, appeared on the screen.

"The world has lost a good man," the Vatican spokesman said. "Father Dunleavy was one of those special souls who sacrificed much for the good of others. He lived a truly selfless life and his award is waiting in Heaven."

"They must have been really frightened of you, Father," I told the picture they flashed on the screen again. "The bastards shot you out of the air before you had a chance to put your feet on the ground. That's a compliment in a way."

I wondered if he had even had the time to realize that he was about to die. And if he did, I wondered if he had had the time to take the photos of Brianne O'Collins and his son out for a last time

"I hope you see her again, Father," I said, thinking of the pretty Irish colleen he had sacrificed for the greater good of God and man.

And then, remembering the last promise I'd made to him, I leaned forward and although I'd forgotten the prayers of my childhood, I managed to say, "I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, I confess all my sins, and I ask you in Jesus' name to guide the soul of Eagen Dunleavy home...."

Please rate this story
The author would appreciate your feedback.
  • COMMENTS
Anonymous
Our Comments Policy is available in the Lit FAQ
Post as:
Anonymous
183 Comments
AnonymousAnonymous17 days ago

The phrase, "the 'N' word" killed it for me.

IMHO, you can keep your writing to yourself.

My only complaint about this site is, and why I stay anonymous, is the lack of functionality to IGNORE a specific writer.

DoctorAlanDoctorAlanabout 1 month ago

Seeing both halves of a couple separately is such a violation of professional ethics it makes my head spin. No therapist should do that. Ever.

AnonymousAnonymousabout 2 months ago

I guess the author has forgotten some small things. Yeah. Things like a RESTRAINING ORDER???? But hey....they talked. That counts, right?

Debbie is so messed up in the head right now.

Bill is denying reality at this point.

Yet, we have 9 more chapters left. At the rate things are going, at about 3 days per chapter, that means we might actually see them actually get divorced.

Any chance of RAAC or BTB? I read the last chapter comments. I can tell ya....but.....

Let's say it like this. I am finding it HARD to finish this story line at all. It started good, but quickly jumped the shark, and too many plot holes are abounding.

tsgtcapttsgtcapt5 months ago

Reading on... thank you.

AnonymousAnonymous7 months ago

Dunleavy's death was heavy. Btw whats the deal with the clarice debs sister? Where is she?

Show More
Share this Story

READ MORE OF THIS SERIES

Similar Stories

An Unexpected Reaction To an unacceptable situation.in Loving Wives
Trying to Reclaim My Marriage Pushed too far and taken advantage of no more.in Loving Wives
Requital He caught her cheating; she thinks he's overreacting.in Loving Wives
Separate Vacations Keeping running shoes under the bed.in Loving Wives
The Honey Trap You have to use the right bait.in Loving Wives
More Stories