Her Teddy Bear

What kind of bear was he? Her teddy bear. Appearances can be deceiving

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Author's note - First off, I'd like to thank Bebop3 for prereading and making suggestions. It is a better story as a result. Any story failures or mistakes are the responsibility of MY own fingers.

Since this is another long one, the following paragraph will telegraph a few things, so if it isn't the type of story you like, you won't waste your time. If you prefer not to know those things in advance, just skip past the next set of asterisks.

After some kind comments on 'The Cruise' for being a different kind of LW story, this one falls into the more usual range of LW stories. Frankly these can be fun to write, but it does make me think about some of my upcoming stories and perhaps a need to try to venture outside the mainstream more often.

While justice is definitely served, if you are dying to see the wife destroyed or a RAAC, then you might prefer a different story. If 9 or 10 LW pages is too long, then this one isn't for you, either. I do hope you enjoy it, and even if you don't, please leave a comment.

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Chapter 1

"Dad! It's Mom."

Pete smiled as he took the phone from his daughter. He had a pretty good idea of what this conversation was going to be about, but it was his first conversation with his wife that morning, so he was looking forward to it.

He heard his wife Joan say, "Hey baby. Can my sweet teddy bear oversee a dozen teenagers today?"

"I'd like to think I can handle this. Eva and the girls have been planning this for a couple of weeks, so all I have to do is follow their instructions. She and her friends are nineteen or twenty, so it isn't like I'm trying to shepherd a bunch of toddlers."

She asked, "Did you get the pool all set up the way she wanted it?"

He replied, "Yes, yes. And the lounge chairs. And the bar. And the grill. The food is prepped. I did all that while you've been gone. Next year, you get to play chaperone."

"Ha. Don't tell me you haven't been looking forward to this. There will be a dozen teenagers in bikinis around you all afternoon. I'm willing to bet by the time I get home, you'll be all ready for me."

"Well, don't forget one of those is our daughter, and two more of them are like surrogate daughters. I don't need to be around a dozen bikini-clad teenagers to be ready for you. I'm ready for you all the time, every day."

"I know you are, and I like that."

He asked, "Did you have a good trip?"

She replied, "We did. It was a good learning conference." Joan worked for a mid-sized investment firm in a Nashville, TN suburb. She was a senior investment advisor and had worked there for nearly six years.

"That's great, sweetie. Have a safe trip back from San Jose."

"Thanks. I'll see you later this afternoon."

"Love you, Joan."

"Love you, Pete."

Eva rolled her eyes at her dad, though truthfully, she was happy that her parents still loved each other as much as they did. She hoped she would be as in love with her spouse after twenty-five years of marriage.

Pete was in his own mind for a moment too. "Teddy bear." He had been "Lover" until the kids were born. Then he was "Daddy" until their oldest went to college. He's been her "Teddy Bear" ever since. He didn't mind that too much. She certainly liked snuggling next to him, and she told him that she loved sleeping with and then next to her teddy bear, so who was he to complain?

He and his daughter, and her two best friends, had been busy for a couple of days getting everything ready for the party. It was only two weeks before she and her friends' college classes started; junior year for most of them. Eva wanted a big party before most of them drove off to other parts of the southeast.

She was starting her junior year studying medicine at Vanderbilt University, which is about 20 miles north of her parents' house in Franklin, TN. She lived with her long-time best friends in an on-campus apartment. She was a very cute girl and, like her mother, was about five-foot-six and curvy.

Lily and Carrie, the abovementioned best friends, spent the night and had been helping that morning, also.

Lily was a tall, slender and very attractive African American with very pretty light pecan brown colored skin and wonderfully long, curly hair. At five foot ten, she was a good inch taller than Pete, for which she teased him mercilessly. He didn't mind. He loved her and loved having her around. She was like a sister to Eva and another daughter to him. She and his daughter had been as thick as thieves since third grade.

She was on a track and field scholarship at Vanderbilt, which paid for a portion of her tuition. She ran the 800m, 1500m and the mile. When she was younger, she would run some with Pete, but as she got older, he told her he couldn't run with her anymore because he was holding her back. She missed running with him. She was a very smart young lady and was majoring in math and computer science.

Carrie, Eva's other best friend, was the first friend Eva made on her first day of elementary school. Carrie had dropped her sandwich that their housekeeper had made for her, and Eva gave her half of hers because her parents had always taught her to help others. When Lily came along, they became their version of the three musketeers, because they were nearly inseparable. Carrie 'only' made a 1300 on her SATs, but with her parents' money and old-money connections, she still got into Vanderbilt.

They teased her that she could have scored a 600, and she still would have been admitted. As a prank in high school, rather than being voted most likely to succeed, or some other useless 'award,' she was voted most likely to buy an island. She was a little blonde doll, with a cute figure on her tiny five-foot-two frame.

They were a good group, like, well like three sisters, and Pete loved having the three of them there with him.

Under the backyard pavilion and outdoor kitchen, attached to the side of the two-story pool house, all of which was mostly built by Pete over the years, they had the table ready to serve lunch and the rest of their friends should be showing up any minute. It was a gorgeous August day, and the lounge chairs were set up, the pool was clean, and Pete had mowed and manicured the yard.

Eva seemed to have inherited her mother's organizing and event planning abilities, and she had kept her father moving the last two days. She was his little girl, and she bragged on him when she had the chance. He tended to be more bashful than boastful, and was very assured of his capabilities, but not braggadocios about them.

She guessed building and running his small consulting firm would do that for some men. Not that what other men did mattered to her. She knew the fathers of most of the girls coming over, and if there were a vote amongst them as to who had the best dad, hers would likely get a majority of first-place votes.

__________

After helping serve a lavish spread of food and non-alcoholic drinks, Pete said, "Okay ladies, I'm going back inside. Let me know if you need anything."

Lily asked, "Are you sure you don't want to stay out here and eat with us?"

"Thanks, Lily. This is for all of you to enjoy. I'm good." This afternoon was for them - girls only.

He had kept himself busy in his office, out of which he could see the pavilion and a portion of the pool. Once the girls had started taking off their coverups and clothes to reveal their swimsuits, he moved around to the den to watch the Braves lose another game, because he didn't want to appear to be a 'creeper.'

He had been watching for about twenty minutes when he heard a commotion out by the pool. Standing to investigate, he saw a large young man grabbing Carrie's wrist and trying to pull her away from her friends who had surrounded the two of them and were yelling for him to stop.

Pete ran outside, and as he approached the group, he yelled, "Hey, Dickhead. Let her go."

The big guy, probably around six foot three, saw Pete and smirked, not even bothering to slow as he dragged a resisting Carrie towards the exit. Little Carrie didn't even weigh 115 pounds, and he was probably twice her weight. As Pete got closer, Dickhead pushed Lily out of the way, and as she stumbled, Pete tried to catch her but with her tall frame, she bumped into his nose, hard. For a second, he saw stars, but then recovered, and he ran to get between Carrie, the intruder, and the gate leading towards the driveway.

"Let me go, Ricky!" yelled Carrie.

"Girls! Get back." All the other girls moved away from the three people involved in the altercation, but they didn't go far. Some had their phones out, filming. "I said, let her go, Dickhead," yelled Pete.

Pete stepped in close to Ricky, who decided that having six inches and sixty or seventy pounds on Pete meant that he didn't have to worry much about him. Since his right hand was holding Carrie's wrist, he tried to throw a left jab at Pete. That was his first mistake.

Pete dodged low, and with some momentum behind him, put a solid punch into Ricky's solar plexus. A big whoosh of air rushed out of his mouth, and he hunched back, absorbing the blow and releasing Carrie. Not wasting any time, Pete put a hard knee to Ricky's nuts, which took him down to his hands and knees.

"Get the fuck out of my backyard, Dickhead."

Ricky slowly got to his feet and said, "You aren't as big a pussy as my old man said you were. I'm going to enjoy slapping you around."

The big guy prepared to take another swing at Pete, but it was telegraphed so far in advance that Pete had to wait before he could respond. It was clear this guy didn't have any training, thankfully. As Pete ducked under the big roundhouse right hook, he put his right foot behind Dickhead's right leg and shoved as hard as he could. Ricky was already off-balance from the missed swing, and he fell backwards over Pete's leg, landing with a hard 'thud' onto his back.

When Pete said, "Just leave. I don't want to have to hurt you." Several of the young ladies giggled at the shorter man threatening the outmatched giant. Those giggles weren't helping.

As Ricky climbed to his feet he said, "You move pretty good for a teddy bear, but my dad calls you a little pussy bear."

Pete was wondering where he got his information. How would he know about...

Ricky came for him again, but now Pete was getting pissed. He knew he needed to end this before he lost his temper and his self-control. Ricky tried to fake a right jab but did it poorly. When he threw a left jab, Pete dodged it. What Pete was waiting for was what came next. Another right hook that seemed to start down in Birmingham and slowly whizzed by Pete's head.

As Ricky's arm went past Pete's head, he stepped in and delivered a devastating combination to Dickhead's right side where his kidney and liver are located. Pete thought that was probably the hardest he had ever hit anyone with his hands.

Ricky dropped like a stone. It took a solid 45 seconds just to get to his hands and knees. Nobody was giggling anymore.

As he pushed himself onto his knees and prepared to stand, Pete grabbed one of Dickhead's hands, bent it behind his back, and put enough pressure on his fingers to almost break them. Once on his feet, Pete marched Ricky through the still open gate and pushed him out onto the driveway. After Pete let him go, Ricky was moving like an old crippled man holding his side.

Ricky had enough fighting, but he wasn't done talking. "You may call your wife your Sweetie, but my dad calls her his sweet pussy. Surprised? Oh, just because she tells you she's traveling doesn't mean she is. Sometimes they stay in town so she can enjoy his big dick uninterrupted for a couple of days close to home."

Pete said, "Yeah right. If you want to keep talking smack about my wife, we can step back into the backyard. Keep yapping, asshole. Anyway, I wouldn't believe you even if you said you had proof. Now that you're embarrassed, all you have is lies."

"Oh? We'll see about that."

"I'll believe it when I see it in my hand." and Pete pointed to his hand. "Even then, you'll probably have someone fake it," Ricky just smirked at Pete.

Looking around, Ricky found Carrie's Mercedes and banged the hood of her SUV hard enough with his fists to dent it. It was then that Pete finally noticed the sounds from all the other girls yelling and gesturing at the young man. He had been so focused a few moments ago that he didn't hear them.

Ricky slumped into his BMW and left.

When Pete turned around, he saw several young ladies making very un-lady-like gestures towards Ricky and several cell phones filming the activities. Pete said, "Come on ladies; the show is over; back inside. Also, please do NOT share that video with anyone, yet. Let's talk about it for a few minutes first, okay?"

He heard Eva say, "Daddy, your nose is bleeding."

In the next instant, Lily was barking orders to everyone to make room for Pete on a chaise lounge chair under one of the umbrellas. "Eva, go get him a clean shirt. Carrie, go get him a bag of ice." She got him sitting down and began pulling his shirt off to hold against his nose.

The remaining ten girls all got a really good look at this very fit and lean man in his late forties. They never would have expected what they just witnessed. At that moment Pete had nearly a dozen bikini-clad nurses ever so willing to help him, though with Lily running things, that was unlikely to happen. One of them ran to the pavilion to get him something to drink. Another was trying to ease him back so that he could lie down. The rest were chattering away about what happened and staring at Pete.

When Carrie and Eva returned. He put the ice on his nose and asked, "Who the hell was that asshole? Who raises a piece of shit like that? Carrie, what did he want with you?"

Eva stepped in to answer the first two. "That dickhead, as you liked to call him is Ricky Farmington. The son of Andrew Farmington, mom's boss."

"Oh, shit." Those earlier accusations just went from some stupid kid talking smack to maybe a stupid kid that knows something. Shit, shit, shit. He didn't want to let his concern be known to Eva nor the others.

Carrie said, "The reason he was after me was because we went out one time, a couple of weeks ago, and when he asked me out again, I declined. I tried to do it nicely, but he wasn't very nice about it. I'm sorry he came here. I'm not sure how he found me, but I'm guessing one of the crew here put today's party on social media." She looked at her friends and pleaded, "Please stop doing that."

Then looking back at Pete, she asked, "Mister Clark, how did your nose start bleeding? He never touched you."

Pete said, "I think that was from when I tried to catch my other 'daughter,' Lily. She fell into me and the side of her head hit my nose." He smiled at Lily.

"I'm so sorry, Dad." Lily had called him 'Dad' for several years. "When he pushed me, you were so close and when you tried to catch me, we got tangled up. I didn't mean to bump your nose."

Pete squeezed her hand. "Don't worry; it wasn't your fault. It doesn't feel broken, just sore." Lily was pleased to hear that.

Worried about the videos, Pete said, "I know this is asking a lot of all of you, but please don't share a video of what happened with anyone outside of this group. No posting to social media, no emails, no texting to your friends. Nothing. Please."

"Why, Daddy? You didn't do anything wrong. From the looks of things, you could have really hurt him if you wanted to," said a curious Eva.

He replied, "In the first place, I don't want any of those smears regarding your mother being posted out there. We know they aren't true, but they still wouldn't sound good.

"Also, someone with that kind of temper could try to retaliate against Carrie or me or any of us if that video were posted online or started getting around. Don't you see? He would be embarrassed and want some payback. He still might. But I'd hate for one of you to be leaving a movie theater or college class at night and have him sneak up behind you and hurt you because he was angry and stupid or drunk. Sure, he would be arrested later, but with a temper like that, he could be dangerous and do some permanent damage."

Eva asked, "Are you going to call the police?"

"I'm afraid so. We don't have to decide about pressing charges right now, but he assaulted Carrie and Lily and tried to assault me." A couple of girls giggled at Ricky's attempt to assault the smaller man. "He also damaged the hood of Carrie's SUV; not to mention trespassing and I'm sure other things. I'll get someone to come out and take our statements. It shouldn't take long. I'm sorry but we need to do this. You can still layout by the pool and have your party."

He asked, "Carrie, is your wrist alright?"

"Yeah. I think so. He grabbed it pretty hard, so it might bruise, but nothing else."

Pete nodded. Carrie asked, "Mister C., where did you learn how to do that? Ricky is a big guy and in good shape. I know he's won several fights."

"It's kind of boring. You sure you want to hear this?"

A dozen bikini-clad ladies were nodding their heads up and down. Not a bad sight to watch. Pete shrugged, "When I was in high school, I was teased occasionally about my height. Both of my parents are short, too, so I knew that wasn't likely to change.

"I was always in good shape because I ran track in junior high and later cross country in high school. I was pretty good too, competing in the state finals. But one night when I was a junior, I had a date with a nice girl and as we were leaving the movie theater, a couple of big assholes, like Ricky, wanted to harass us. They did for a minute, and I tried to ignore them and push my way through. Being on a date, I didn't want to start anything, so I let them push me a little. Fortunately, I had a couple of friends that were there, too. They saw what was going on, joined us, and the two assholes left. We finished our date, and I went home. I was more than a little angry.

"I told my dad about it, and the next day he found a martial arts studio for me near their home in Knoxville. He told me, 'be the best you can be, but if you ever get good, don't go lookin' for trouble. Defense of you and others, only.' I promised, and I took two lessons every week until I went to college at Georgia Tech. While in college in Atlanta, I found a studio that taught several other disciplines including Silat, a close combat style, as well as Judo and Jiu-jitsu. They didn't ascribe to any single style, and their focus was on self-defense.

"I trained there my four years in college. The instructor was a really old guy about my height and his daughter was about Eva's size in her late thirties. He led the school, along with his daughter, and she was the most amazing fighter I've ever seen; fast, fearless and deadly. I watched her spar against big, fast guys with black belts and it was rare they ever laid a hand on her, and when they did, they usually wished they hadn't. I knew I wanted to learn from her.

"So, for four years, I took two to four lessons per week. I was pretty good for a while." He was being modest. "When I married Joan, we still lived in Atlanta, but I cut back to one lesson per week. The entire time we've been married, she's never seen me in a match. She knows I practice in our basement gym, but that's it. Eva, when you started college a couple of years ago, I found a local studio and began studying again. I'm not as good as I was, but I do okay."

Eva said, "Daddy, I never knew."

"You didn't need to, Sweet Pea. Do you remember when we took you and Donnie to Paris when he was in 9th and you were in 7th grade?" She nodded. "Do you remember that night we drove out to that Moroccan restaurant in the shady-looking section of the city?" She nodded again.