Without a Paddle

I've never subscribed to that theory. I've never wanted to change Mark. I've always loved him exactly the way he is. Mark is not perfect. He leaves the toilet seat up almost every God damned day. And if he doesn't do it, then Mark Jr. does. If I had to count the number of times I've gone into the bathroom in the middle of the night and fallen into the toilet or gotten my ass wet because one of them left the toilet seat up, I'd have run out of numbers. Sometimes I think they do it for fun.

And they both have this terrible habit of leaving all of those little hairs in the sink after they shave. But at least they shave. Neither one of them leaves a scruffy, shitty two or three day beard growth on their faces. If I had to choose between kissing and rubbing my face against a sandpaper like cheek or the hairs in the sink, I'd pick the hairs in the sink every time. And if you think kissing that scraggly, razor-like hair is bad, having it between your legs is the worst.

Then there's the fact that they can't seem to find the clothes hamper with a map. They run around playing GPS games with their phones and their cars but they can't find the God damned clothes hamper and it's been in the same place since before Mark Jr. was born.

And then there's that thing they do whenever I invite people over for a grown up type dinner party. As soon as we sit down, Jr. and Mark look at each other. They wait for a lull in the conversation or for things to become what they'd consider boring and then they're gone. It's usually something stupid. Mark Jr. eats like a vacuum cleaner so he'd suck down his dinner in two point four seconds and then excuse himself. He'd wait for about four minutes and ask his dad for some help with his homework. Mark would excuse himself too and then they would never show up again. Sometimes they'd even leave me there with the guests.

And two years ago, they started going to Mustang shows together. They'd hang out with all the other Mustang nuts in the area and I just felt like a fifth wheel. To their credit, they always asked me to come along, but it just wasn't something I wanted to do. I wish now that I had because I made another mistake then.

I prayed to God that afternoon. I prayed for some kind of forgiveness that would get me out of the mess I'd made. I fell asleep still begging and pleading and promising to build a church, but I didn't receive a message from any burning bush telling me that I'd been forgiven. None of our bushes even smoked let alone caught fire.

I woke up to the sound of someone moving through the house. The door to our bedroom opened and Mark walked in. He walked right past the bed as if I wasn't there and turned on the light in the closet. He grabbed a fresh set of pajama bottoms to sleep in and clothes for him to wear that night. At least he wasn't leaving me. That gave me some degree of hope.

"Mark, why can't you sleep in here with me?" I asked. "We're still married, you know?"

He didn't even bother to answer. "Mark, your son, has gone back to school," he said. "He's pretty upset."

"You mean Mark Jr. OUR son, don't you?" I said angrily. He just looked at me. "Mark, have you eaten? I could make us something."

"Miriam, please just leave me alone," he said. "I don't know if you understand this, but you've pretty much destroyed two lives here. Mark and I will never ever be the same. The rock that our worlds were built on WAS our family and now we really don't know where we stand. He and I are going to stay in touch like always. I insisted on that. But I can't guarantee anything else. I did speak to John today about the possibility of me going back to work and..."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked. "We're going to Barbados in two weeks. How long are you going to be working?"

He just shook his head and walked away. I heard the shower in the guest room go on and I decided that as pissed at me as he was, he was still my husband and we should be sleeping together. I got up and walked silently down the hall and turned the knob of the guest bedroom. It was locked. In all the time that we'd been married, we'd never slept apart except for the few times that he'd had to travel for business and couldn't take me with him. That was another dagger plunged into my heart. But I deserved them, because I'd caused all of this myself.

* * * * * *

Mark Jr.

Who am I? That was the question that was first in my mind. I'm twenty years old. I've been considered an adult in most of the states in the union for over two years, but right now I truly don't know the answer to a question that most kindergarten students know. For most of my life, I've proudly bore the name of the man who raised me and believed that I'm his son. As badly as I feel for myself, I feel worse for my dad. A couple of hours after we both stormed out of our house, we ended up meeting at our favorite restaurant. We met at the Texas Roadhouse on twelve mile and John R in Madison Heights.

At first we were a bit angry and confused. But then old ties began to re-assert themselves. I think that both of us were nervous and then he just asked me a question. "What should we do?" he asked. I just stared at him. I was confused. Then I realized that this was my dad. And that's what he always asked me. Ever since I was five or six years old, he'd treated me more like his partner or his brother than some kid who followed him around.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him.

"Well, there are a lot of things that we have to think about," he said. "First and most importantly, there's us."

I gulped loudly and tried to take a sip of water to cover it up.

"Mark, I'm sorry," he began. I felt a lump in my throat. Nothing good has ever followed, "I'm sorry."

I imagined all kinds of things. "I'm sorry Mark, but maybe we should change your name," I thought he might say. Or, "I'm going to have to re-evaluate our relationship."

But, of course, he was my dad. "I'm sorry, but none of this shit makes a damned bit of difference to me," he spat. "When I woke up this morning you were MY son, not George Wilson's and that's the way I still see it. It was me who cut the cord when you were born. It was me you peed on while I tried to change your diapers. "

"Who was it that sat at the foot of your bed when you were afraid of monsters under it?" he asked.

"You Dad," I said.

"Who taught you to swing a baseball bat or catch a ball?" he asked.

"You Dad," I said louder.

"Who taught you to catch a God damned football and never missed one of your games?" he asked.

"You Dad," I said louder still.

"Taught you to drive?" he asked.

"You," I said.

"Taught you to change a tire?" he asked.

"The same," I replied.

"So, as far as I'm concerned, nothing has changed between us," he said. "It's everyone else who's going to have to answer some serious questions."

"Dad, I'm sorry," I said. "But I just can't go back there. If I do I might end up murdering Mr. Wilson. And I don't feel too much better about Mom. I feel like my entire life has just been a lie. She knew it all along and just lied to us every day of my God damned life. Did you notice how she kept trying to change the subject and calm Mr. Wilson down when we started to argue? She kept trying to get him to light the grill and pull him away from me. Both of them have known about this from the beginning. I just feel like they were laughing at us all along. I hate both of them. I don't even have any idea of how this feels for you. It's probably at least ten times worse. I just feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. I just feel lost. Everywhere I turn, everywhere I look, and things are just different. Home doesn't feel like home anymore. I'm going to need some time to start trying to process this."

He just smiled and nodded. "Isn't that why I pay all of that money for room and board," he smirked, echoing Mom's words from before.

* * * * * *

George Wilson

I didn't know how to feel. On one hand, I was miserable. But another part of me was relieved. I was finally about to get what I had coming to me. My stomach still hurt badly. I couldn't believe that the man who'd been my best friend for more than twenty years had done this to me with only one punch. He'd been about to hit me again when Miri stopped him. That only proved that she had feelings for me whether or not she was ready to admit to them.

Mark was understandably angry. He was probably feeling betrayed. He was probably also feeling a deep sense of loss. It was a shame really. It never really needed to go this far. Mark was tough and a good looking guy. I'm sure that he'd get over it in time. Maybe we could even be friends again someday. Who knows? Stranger things have happened. After all, we do share a son and we do love the same woman.

I heard the sound of Cora upstairs. She was talking to herself and moving things around. She always cleaned when she was upset. I hoped that she could calm down soon because I would probably need her help to get past this. After all of the anger and raw emotion had been spent and cooler heads prevailed, we would all talk.

For most of my life, I'd been a winner. In sports, I won. In school, I won. In business, I won big. For the past thirty years, I'd lived in this house. For the past twenty-five years I'd been friends with Mark and Miri. Twenty years ago two things had happened. The first was that on a very special occasion Miriam and I got together. It was magical and it was flat out the best sex I've ever had.

We both knew that things had changed forever between us. And the result of that brief linkage was the birth of my son. Miri had to be careful after that. She made sure not to speak to me directly or even look at me because we didn't want our spouses to know that there was something going on between us.

I'd begun to make a hell of a lot more money then, when I became the COO. That was the second thing that had happened. I guess I could have moved away to a bigger house and a nicer neighborhood. But after that first time with Miriam, there was no way I could have moved away from her.

She also didn't tell me that Mark was mine. Not that I'd have minded her naming him after my best friend. It just would have been nice to know that he was my son from the beginning. I later found out that she didn't even know about it herself until he was five and probably wouldn't have ever told me. Actually, it was very accidental, the way I found out. I'd come home for lunch one day because Cora had done something stupid as usual. I don't even remember what it was now. But I'm glad it happened.

I remember hearing the sound of screaming from the yard next door and since we were all the best of friends, I ran outside to see what was wrong. I expected that Miriam had probably cut down the wrong plant or had possibly suffered a minor injury. Neither of those ideas was even close.

I hopped the fence because in those days we didn't yet have the gate that now allows us access between the yards. I found Miriam kneeling on the grass in her yard crying her eyes out.

"No!" She kept sobbing over and over again. "This isn't possible. It isn't fair."

I went over to her and she stared at me. "Get out of my yard," she screamed. "Stay away from me."

I could tell that she, like me was having trouble containing the emotions we felt for each other. She had a few sheets of paper clutched tightly on her hands and I thought that it was something simple or financial that I could help her with and use to leverage another session between us. It had been more than five years since we'd had sex but not a day went by that I didn't think about it.

"Miriam, whatever the problem is I'll fix it," I said. "Do you need money?" I gently took the sheets from her and looked at them. They weren't financial papers or any kind of bill. It was some kind of lab report.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Mark starts school next month," she said tearfully. "They wanted a DNA sample as part of his medical records."

"Okay, how much does it cost?" I asked.

"We've already had the test done asshole," she said. "That's what this report is."

"Then what's the problem?" I asked.

"The problem..." she said. "...Not that it's any of your business; is that this report is wrong. They had to be mistaken. It says that Mark is not our son's father."

"Those tests are supposed to be very accurate," I said. "Miriam, have you had sex with anyone other than Mark?"

"Only once you bastard," she cried and then she ran into the house.

For the rest of that day I walked around alternating between elation and shame with a bit of confusion thrown in. I'd been confused for a while. Like I said before, I'm a winner. I've always had it all. I have the best job. I make more money than I need. I have a pretty wife with big tits who's about half my age. And I have the best friend in the world. Yet for the past five years, I've been jealous of Mark.

Cora is younger and prettier than Miriam. She has much bigger tits and longer legs. On paper, most people would say that I'd won that battle hands down. The problem is that real life isn't just about battle and measurements. There are all kinds of intangible factors to consider. Cora is as vapid as she is beautiful. I have no doubt by that time that Cora loved me, but she couldn't help what she was.

I was often jealous of Mark because of the interplay and the conversations that he and Miriam shared. They loved each other in a way that was clearly far beyond what Cora and I had. My tryst with Miriam had shown me that I was a loser in another way as well. I've been with a lot of women during my life, but I have never felt anything like what I felt when my dick sank into Miriam.

Mark and I were the closest of friends and he'd told me some things over the years. I'd written them off as just him talking trash. But when I felt the heat of Miriam's vagina, it drove me crazy. I realized then that much of what he'd told me might be true. He'd also claimed that Miriam was very wild during sex and that she had a way of fluttering her inner muscles and caressing your member that simply couldn't be believed. Or of using those same muscles to squeeze your dick as if she was trying to milk every last drop of sperm into her thirsty vagina.

He went on to talk about the animalistic grunts and yelps she made during sex. I guess I'd wanted to experience all of that just to see if Mark was being truthful. I'd only intended for it to be a one-time thing and as I've said, I had never once been alone with her since that first time. But I wanted her more than anything else in the world.

Sex with Cora was about as exciting as a conversation with her. When I thought about her lying there in bed with me, I almost fell asleep. Her long, thin legs flopped uselessly as we coupled while her huge, just beginning to sag, breasts rolled off to the side. I don't know why but there was simply a different feeling being inside of Cora's vagina. The heat was missing and most of the sensation. Don't get me wrong, Cora was probably at least as tight as Miriam was, but it's just different. Actually, I'd have to say that after Miriam gave birth, Cora is definitely tighter, but still not as good.

I think the thing that irks me the most is that I now know that Miriam can do all of those things that Mark told me about. She just doesn't do them with me. As I said, ever since before that first time with Miriam, I'd been obsessed with her and jealous of Mark. I know that it makes absolutely no sense for a man with a beautiful young wife to be jealous of a man whose wife is plainer, or at least more average, but I was. Every time we got together, I simply couldn't stop staring at her. She refused to meet my eyes and never spoke to me, but I wanted her so badly it hurt.

Once I found out that she was pregnant, I became even more jealous. I pounded the shit out of Cora every night trying to even up the situation. I figured our kids would be the best of friends too and if they were of different genders, maybe they're even marry and unite the families. But nothing happened.

I got Viagra and fucked Cora twice a day for months. And nothing happened. We both got check -ups, we tried different positions. And nothing happened. We saw specialists and got Cora put on fertility drugs. Yet still nothing happened. It simply wasn't in the cards.

But that day, after seeing Miriam run into the house crying, I knew that once again, I was a winner. There was nothing wrong with me. It was simply another defect in Cora. I wish I'd known earlier so I could have watched the changes in Miriam's body as our son grew, but at the time I was so obsessed with trying to match the miracle that I missed it.

I did feel bad for my best friend when the pregnancy turned difficult and Miriam had to be hospitalized. In the end, the birth was so difficult, in fact that both mother and child barely survived. The doctors told Mark and Miriam that having another child might kill her. Though they both wanted more children, Mark didn't hesitate. He volunteered to get a vasectomy. The doctor told him that as nice as that was, it would be smarter for Miriam to have her tubes tied because even after a vasectomy, occasionally live and viable sperm cells are still contained in the ejaculate so he might accidentally get her pregnant and kill her.

I wonder if he'd have been as willing to go under the knife if he'd learned earlier that our son wasn't his. Whenever we talked about having kids, Mark always said that they didn't need to have any other children because they gotten the first one right so there were no needs for any repeats.

Everyone knew by the sadness he tried to hide then that he didn't mean any of that. I once heard Miriam tell Cora that they'd always planned for a house full of kids, but if Mark had to make the choice between having more children and not having Miriam, he'd pick Miriam every time. I'd heard Mark say that Miriam was his soul more times than once. He actually said that out loud and around people and when he said it you could tell that he meant it.

"Why don't you ever say things like that about me?" Cora asked once. I just shrugged my shoulders.

"Some of us just show it by our actions," I said. But in my mind I thought, "Because, I just don't feel that way about you."

After the big discovery, I gave Miriam a few days to calm down. After that, I called her so we could talk.

"Miriam, what are we going to do?" I asked her.

"What are we going to do about what?" she asked.

"Our son," I said.

"WE don't have a son," she hissed. "You have nothing to do with him. You have nothing to do with me; NOTHING."

I have to admit that it hurt hearing her words. I'd always thought of us as an extended family with Mark and I as close as brothers and the wives as sisters. I had to admit that a lot of the time that Mark and I used to spend together had been taken up by him spending time with Mark Jr. but I wasn't jealous until then. In fact, during the boy's life I'd been allowed to attend quite a few of his events too. Miriam did everything she could to keep us apart though. If I asked to go to one of his football games, Miriam would always give me the wrong day or the wrong place or the wrong time.

I was also never invited to any of his birthday gatherings and Miriam never allowed me to even give the child a single birthday or Christmas present. The strangest thing about it is that Cora could do anything she wanted with Mark Jr. any time she wanted. Cora was his Godmother and Mark's boss was his Godfather which pissed me off royally.

Mark Jr. called my wife, "Aunt Cora," but I was Mr. Wilson. It was almost as if I was that angry old man from the Dennis the menace TV show.

Miriam decided that we shouldn't have that discussion over the phone. I went to their house the next day; supposedly to help Miriam move some boxes while Mark was at work.