Did You Really Mean It?

"She really left? She hasn't talked to me for a week. I called three days ago, but it went to voice mail. You know how busy she gets with her new job sometimes so I really didn't think much about it. She's really gone?"

She looked genuinely hurt and shocked. Well, she hadn't screwed her over, as far as I know.

"This isn't right. I'm going to call her, right now."

She did, repeatedly, becoming more and more upset. She tried her email, and Facebook. Nothing.

She was crying, real tears.

"Why did she go and not tell me? All our years of friendship, all our love, and she just leaves without goodbye. Why would she do it?"

I had tears in my eyes, for different reasons.

"I don't know hon. When I talked with her at lunch she told me she had seen Ron, and was upset by something by something he told her. Maybe it upset her so bad she forgot everything else."

She was really looking nervous by now.

"Did she tell you what they talked about?"

"No, she just said it didn't end well."

I actually hugged her,even though it gritted my teeth.

"Don't worry. I'm sure she'll call, or come by. We don't actually know if she's even left yet. Why don't you run over to her apartment tomorrow."

She grasped that lifeline.

"I'm sure that's it. I'll go over, first thing. I need to lie down. I'll see you in the morning."

She gave me a halfhearted kiss and went into the bedroom.

I sat up for a few more hours, sipping my rye, thinking.

................................................

I had to know. All day Thursday I worried over it. People noticed, and I told them I didn't feel well, and went home. Janie was surprised to see me.

She was sitting on the couch, hugging a pillow.

At her questioning look, I explained I wasn't feeling well.

"Did you get hold of her?" I asked, knowing the answer by the look on her face.

"No! I don't understand it! I've been her best friend for thirteen years, all the way to our junior year in high school. Why would she do that to me?"

I couldn't help it.

"Usually when someone does something like that it's over some deep emotion, like fury or betrayal. Have you done something to anger her, something she would equate to betrayal?"

She may as well have confessed, it was written all over her face.

"N,n,no, I can't think of a thing."

"Well, I don't know what to say then. I'm sure she'll call, maybe it was just too emotional for her."

She attacked me that night. It was more intense than it had been in years. I was already asleep when I felt her hands slid beneath my boxers. I came half awake and looked at her. Usually when she initiated sex she set the mood. Candles, music, lingerie. Tonight she was just naked, her profile highlighted by the security light shining through the blinds.

"Do you mind?" she said in a timid voice, another first. Usually she would just got me hard and climbed on. My body responded, she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and despite all my doubts and uneasy feelings, I still loved her.

It was the most tender, most passionate love making I could ever remember. She didn't demand anything or suggest anything, just became pliable to every whim and desire I had. I thought about just slamming her until I got off, giving her a true grudge fuck, but once again my stupid emotions got into the way. I put everything I had into pleasing her, bringing her to one peak after another with everything I had. When I finally collapsed, totally spent, she snuggled into me, gasping. I could feel the tears trickle onto my chest.

"Are you all right, baby?"

She tried to talk through her sobs.

"Yes, yes. I love you so much honey, so much."

What kind of fucked up mess had my life become that I lay with my wife after the most intensive lovemaking session in memory, not believing a thing she said?

She was soon sleeping, snoring lightly, as she did when she slept on mu chest. I lay there for an hour, staring into the darkness, before gently untangling us and getting up.

I sat in my den with three fingers of rye until four, letting my tears flow quietly.

I still managed to get up and report to work, looking halfway presentable. Didn't get a lot done, but made my presence known. Grandpa was seventy one, no longer officially on the payroll, but he still walked the plant at least once a week, and his sharp eyes missed nothing. He took one look at me and said "Office, now."

He pulled the blinds and locked the door.

"Business or personal?"

I tried to pretend.

"What?"

"Don't bullshit me boy, I'm too old, I don't have time to do the dance. You look like shit. What's going on?"

He didn't like what I told him. He had been married once before he married grandma, to a woman that cheated before six months had gone by. He really didn't like cheaters. When he was still managing, if he got even a whiff one of his managers or their wives were straying, they found themselves on his carpet. If it was a manager, he was usually gone soon. If it was a wife, he usually gave the husband a week off to deal with it.

"You are gonna burn the bitch, right?"

"Probably not. It would take too much energy. Before you say it, if it is true, she's gone, but I don't feel like being a ringmaster in my own personal circus. I'll just cut my losses, stick to the prenupt, and move on."

He grunted.

"Not how I'd do it, but it works. Why don't you call your dad, see if he'll fill in for you for a day or two?"

"Already on it. He'll be here Monday. I'll call, let you know how it turns out."

He gave me a hard stare.

"See you do. And Dan, I'm sorry, I still remember how it feels."

..................................................

I had the money. I could have hired a detective agency, gotten pictures and audio. I could have wired the house. But in the end, I knew I had to actually see and hear it in person.

Saturday morning I had a light breakfast with my wife, got a small kiss, loaded my golf clubs into my SUV, and drove away.

I went four blocks and turned into the church parking lot, pulling all the way around the building. The church had a basement, and if you stood at the door your head was just about level with the parking lot and the street. If you didn't know someone was standing there, you would never see them, especially if you were watching the road and doing the speed limit. Twenty minutes later her little sports car went by.

I waited until she was out of sight and walked back home. I went upstairs into the spare bedroom, the one we were going to convert into a nursery, left the door open slightly, sat down and waited.

Forty minutes later I heard the garage opener.

The stairs act like a sound tunnel, and I could hear the conversation.

"I'm not sure we should do this anymore. He's been acting funny since Lori left. I can't believe she didn't tell me goodbye. You don't think she knows, do you?"

I could hear his voice, brash and arrogant.

"She pissed me off during our goodbye, and I might have let something slip. But she wouldn't tell him. She knows how bad he'd be hurt. Everybody in the universe could look at her face when he was around and tell she was in love with him. I saw him look at her a couple of times when we were together years ago, when he thought nobody could see him. If they both weren't such honorable people, they would have started years before us."

Janie was still uneasy.

"Still, it might be better to get together at your place for awhile."

He huffed.

"I've already told you, four people that work in his factory live in my building. How many Saturday mornings do you think we could have before somebody notices? We'd leave a paper trail if we used a motel, even if we paid cash. They'd still write our tag number down. No, I'll just keep on waiting at the corner two blocks from my place, and duck down until we're in the garage. If anybody sees you, they'll think you're doing what everybody else in suburbia does, running errands they can't do during the week. It worked so far, don't try to fix it if it ain't broke."

"Now, we gonna play or talk?"

He heard the sound of her ass being slapped and the giggles.

"Race you to the bedroom, loser has to strip for the winner." she squealed as she headed for the stairs. They sounded like a herd of elephants coming up the stairs.

Janie either had a head start or she was in better shape, because she was three steps ahead when she hit the landing. I would bet everything I've ever owned the last thing she expected to see at the top of the stairs was her loving husband.

I had moved an occasional chair out on the landing. It took about a half a second for her to understand what she was seeing and stop dead.

He caught up with her and was trying to tug her skirt down before he realized something was wrong.

He was one step down from the landing but he looked round her. His expression was even better than hers.

Instinct took over and he turned to run as I stood. Unfortunately for him he had taken his belt loose and unsnapped his pants on the way up the stairs. When he turned to run his pants fell and he got tangled. He tumbled all the way down the stairs.

I went by without acknowledging her and reached him before he got up, dragging him by the long hair he was so vain about to the couch.

"Sit, motherfucker, and don't you move! Janie, get your ass down here, right now!"

I was roaring. She still hadn't moved.

"Janie. if you're not down here in five seconds, I'll come up there and drag you down, your choice."

She stumbled down the stairs and I sat her on the couch beside him. I pulled a chair up and faced them.

"Got anything to say?"

They both started babbling and I held up my hand and yelled "STOP!"

When they quieted down I spoke.

"Never mind, I'm not the least bit interested in hearing it. Janie, it doesn't matter why, it just matters that you did. At least you can quit hiding your birth control now and go back on the pill. And you, asshole, there is no excuse. You were just being true to your nature. But here's some free advice. Move. Leave this town. I won't hurt you myself, but I've got enough money to make your life here hell. Every time you say as much as good morning to a married woman, her husband will have the pictures and your address within the hour."

"If you speed, or drink too much, or just generally fuck up, the cops will know it. I'll give you a week before the games begin."

I turned back to Janie, pulling a copy of our prenupt out of my back pocket.

"I'm leaving now, taking a short vacation. Should be gone three days. Here is a copy of out prenupt, in case you lost yours. Take exactly what it says you can have and be gone before I get back. My lawyers' name and address is on it, call him when you get your lawyer, or just do us all a favor and sign the divorce decree when you get it and send it back. Don't try to contact me, I won't be the least bit interested in anything you say. Nod if you understand."

She did slowly, holding the paper like it was a snake.

I turned back to Ron.

"Time for you to leave. Get out of this house, right now. If I see you before you leave town, don't try to speak. Have a miserable, shitty, minimum wage life. Go on now."

He had gotten a little of his bluster back after the initial shock had worn off. He was a little bigger than me and I could see in his eyes he thought he could take me. He probably could in a fair fight, but what he did to me wasn't fair, so I returned the courtesy.

He was reaching down to pull up his pants and started talking.

"I'm gonna......." was all he got out before I slammed my fist into his cheek as hard as I could.

He fell on the floor stunned. I stood over him.

"That was for what you did to me."

I kicked him, not in the nuts, but in the kidneys. The breath went out of him.

"And that one was for what you put Lori through for all those years."

I looked at Janie.

"Don't even think about taking the car, you lost it per the prenupt. Might want to check asshole here and call a cab. Three days, not a minute more."

I walked out the front door and into the rest of my life.

.................................................

The trouble with dealing with stupid people is, well, that they're stupid.

Asshole Ron decided to ignore my advice. It took him three weeks of pissing blood and walking bent over like an eighty year old man before he could move freely. That Saturday night he got into a bar brawl and got hit in the kidney with a pair of brass knuckles. The guy who punched him knelt down beside him.

"Dan said hello, and said he was gonna keep saying hello until you say goodby."

When he got out of the hospital he left town.

Janie got a lawyer and tried to break the prenupt. My lawyer laughed and asked her if she was going to enjoy paying lawyer fees for the next five years. Then he offered her five thousand a year for every good year she had given me, thirty thousand total, if she signed before the end of the day. I gave her her car, I never liked it and didn't need it. I also gave her the last two years of payments. She signed, took the money, and moved away. I saw her once at a funeral, and again at a wedding. She tried to start a conversation both times, but I just smiled, said hello, and walked on.

A year went by. I dated some, but no one of any real promise. One day on a whim I found Lori's new email address at her job, and sent her a simple hello and my new email address. I didn't hear anything for a few days, but there it was, a short note giving me her personal email.

My first email was about ten pages long, basically an update of everything that had happened to me since we had last spoke. I glossed over the pain of my divorce, but she read between the lines.

The last part was the most sincere, heart felt thing I had ever written.

"Lori, I need to thank you for telling me. I know it was hard, and caused you a lot of pain, but I need to tell you something."

"I don't hate you. In fact, you have my sincere thanks and admiration. Only a person as morally courageous as you would have done it. Knowing it might ruin a friendship I think you held dear, you did something unpleasant, because you deemed it necessary for my well being. I can never repay you. I must tell you of all the things that came of it, losing you was probably the hardest."

"Janie was my heart mate, and I did love her dearly, and I would have remained faithful to her forever, but you were becoming my soul mate. In times of trouble, or when I needed level headed advice, you were the one I wanted to turn to first, because I trusted your judgement more than anyone I ever knew. I know you felt the same way. Remember all those get togethers we used to have, where Janie would dance, drink, and flirt, and Ron would work the crowd looking for a willing playmate? Where would we be found? Sitting on a bench somewhere in plain sight, just talking. About anything and everything. They say the most erotic part of a person is their brain. That being said, you are the sexiest woman alive. You don't know how good it feels to get to say that to you.

"I'll always love you for who you are, and I hope you found someone who appreciates you physical beauty, as well as the mental beauty that eclipses it. It would please me if we could correspond, but that is up to you."

"Goodbye for now, Dan."

.................................................

LORI'S SIDE

It was hard to describe the feeling I got when I saw Dans' short message, asking for my new email address. One of the main reasons I left was because I knew I would never find anyone as long as he was around, because they would never measure up. I had divorced a man I don't think ever actually loved me until the very end, and the man I wanted most in the world was married to my best friend.

When I got the promotion I thought long and hard before I accepted it, but in the end it was best for me. If I wasn't in close proximity to Dan maybe I could actually find someone else.

After finding out Janie was cheating on him, I knew, regardless of how he felt about me afterwards, I had to tell him. I knew it would destroy any chance I would ever have of being with him.

I can shut my eyes and see in vivid detail his face when I told him. We were at a park, on a bench by a playground, the joyous cries of children mocking us as I told him he would be childless if he stayed with his wife, and feeling an almost intolerable ache for the child I never came to term with.

When I left him, I had already had everything packed and moved except what was in my car. I'm surprised I didn't kill anyone that day, especially for the first fifty miles I drove. It took me that far to stop crying. I never spoke to my best friend again after I learned of her betrayal, I sometimes think that was a mistake.

The days turned into weeks, the weeks months, until a year had gone by. My boss loved me,maybe because the only thing I did was work. I made a few friends, went to a few nights out with my coworkers, but didn't date at all for almost nine months.

The few dates I had were nice for the most part, but they quickly figured out I wasn't interested either in a long term relationship or a one night stand. I rarely had a date with the same man twice.

It was a mistake to open that email at work. I did it during my lunch hour, and stumbled out of my office on the way to the ladies room, crying like a baby. All my old emotions surged to the surface, and it was just too much to handle.

Seventy per cent of my office were women, and when one woman sees another woman cry, instinct kicks in and they go into protective mode.

Three followed me.

"Lori honey, what's wrong?"

It took me a few seconds to get my voice.

"Nothing's wrong. I just got an email from an old friend and it brought a lot of old memories back, both good and bad. Really, I'll be fine. Just give me a minute.

I heard whispering and Julie left. The other two stayed with me until I could calm down and fix my makeup. Julie came back with my purse and an odd expression.

"I'm sorry, Lori. When I got your purse I saw your email. I couldn't help it, I read it. Please, let Carol and Cindy read it, it's one of the most beautiful things I ever read. Then I want you to tell us all about it."

I should have been offended, but I wasn't. They went back with me, and read the email. We all had tears in our eyes when I finished my story.

"That's him in your wallet, isn't it?"

Julie had seen the picture of Dan I carried in my wallet. I just couldn't take it out. It was the only photo I had of him. We were at a party somewhere. Someone had just told a funny story, and we were holding each other, laughing.

"Yes."

Carol hugged me, and surprised me by slapping the back of my head.

"He wants you, dummy. Can't you tell by what he told you? He made it clear he was unattached and not looking, why do you suppose he did that? He's trying to find a way back to you. We all know about your exciting and glamorous love life, and now we know why."

Cindy chimed in.

"She's right and you know it. Don't let the bad memories you have make you miss the chance to make new ones."

I had to wonder. Were they right? Dan had always been a gentleman, but I remember slow dancing with him at those parties. He almost always got an erection. I used to tease him to keep both our emotions in check. I would grind into him and say, "It feels like Janie is gonna get some tonight."

He would tease back, feeling my hard nipples on his chest.

"Ron is one of the luckiest men alive to get you in bed with him every night. I'd be sleep deprived constantly."

I emailed him that night, updating him on my life. Other than another promotion, my life was like his, lonely and alone.

We talked back and forth for a month, getting more personal and longer each time. I didn't trust myself to talk to him directly, so I discouraged him when he wanted to exchange numbers. I was afraid I'd break down at his voice.