Bennie and the Bike Tour

She almost called her daughter to alert her to slow down and wait for Bennie. But she didn't feel right about giving the warning. Her daughter had treated her fiancé shamefully. She needed to learn a marriage wasn't a series of sprints like Lynn's ride. It required a strong steady, omnipresent pace, like Bennie's. It required teamwork and partnership, and a partnership limited to just two people.

He was beautiful powering that bike, even with the extra weight of loaded panniers. She hoped he wold catch Lynne, and for a second fantasized that Bennie would instead live up to his joke, and use his free pass with her. It had been so long since her husband died, she could lose herself in a night of play.

"No!" She snapped out of her reverie. "This one is Lynn's."

Still her eyes sparkled at the what ifs as he summited the hill. She then dreamed of a beautiful scene where he blasted down the other side to a waiting Lynn, who he swept into his arms and carried to a nearby...

"Son of a bitch!" she marveled. He didn't blast down the hill after Lynn. Just before he reached the point where Lynn had dropped from their sight, Bennie turned right on a smaller road. Lynn would be chasing GPS dots all day.

"This" thought Lynn's mom "is not the end."

Author's Epilogue

I've written stories about forgiveness, stories where someone loses it all, and stories where the B gets burned. I've written stories other people challenged me to do, and stories that have a base in fact from my own experiences. Just a base mind you, I pervert every truth as much as possible. I've written believable stories, over the top tales, and gentle "sleep good at night" sagas. But while writing this story, I had very ambiguous feelings.

I guess anytime there is a "somebody done somebody wrong song" (with thanks to the BJ Thomas tune for summing it up so slickly) there are reasons. Cruelty has a background, love is rarely (if ever) perfect. Villains are just a couple actions away from being heroes, while heroes are a bad day away from being a villain. I didn't write explicit sex scenes. I wanted this to be about integrity and even strove to color the cheater with dignity except for "the nasty event."

I took this opportunity to explore the ambiguity of feelings involved on both sides of "some body done somebody wrong." It's a difficult issue on both sides, if you get past the anger and righteous indignation associated with the victim. Humans screw up, even the big important things. No excuse, they just do.

This tale just a sample of their lives, and the story goes on. I've toyed with writing a sequel, or maybe a prequel, but I'm not yet sure if I want to offer more than this snapshot of this part of their lives. So many branches are possible. In a sequel, if he forgives her and they live happily ever after as a faithful loving wife...you'd be bored. Maybe he uses his free pass? Nope, I'd need Bennie's integrity intact, it's who he is. Likewise, if I write Lynne cheating again, I'd lose the edge of her restoring her integrity in Benni's eyes. I could have the sequel be her struggle to regain his trust, but Bennie would never throw his dates with the competition in Lynn's face, and if she dated it would be very discreet. Bennie would have no reason to even try to find out, so there is no tension in that plot line. Somehow a prequel doesn't seem necessary. So unless I come up with an edgy angle, Bennie and Lynn are riding off into the sunset to leave us all wondering.

So to make an unusual partnership of lyricists, I followed BJ Thomas with a little Sondheim "so I made a decision, which is not to decide" and left room for thought at the end. Maybe some day there will be more...