Little Lies

There was a tickling feeling in the back of Joyce's skull. As she looked down at herself, she realized that she was sitting with her legs apart. She saw a glint from inside the house across the street. She remembered that the old pervert over there the one who'd whistled before had a telescope in his living room. He was probably getting his jollies off right now, staring at her private parts.

She slammed her legs together and stood up. She had a thought. Maybe the door to the back of the house was open. She'd have to climb over her six foot privacy fence to get there though. Joyce pulled her robe closer around her. She reached up to grab the top of the fence and pull herself up. Her arms weren't strong enough to lift her weight. She pulled the big plastic trashcan over to the fence and tried to climb on top of it to help her get to the top of the fence.

She was almost tall enough. As soon as she shifted her weight though the top of the plastic can gave way. Joyce took the top off of the can and flipped it over. It was a few inches shorter but still close to giving her the height she needed. She lifted one of her legs up and got it over the top of the fence.

"Good God, look at that fat ass," she heard from behind her. Joyce turned her head and saw the old man sitting on the curb watching her through a video camera. She was too far along to turn back now.

She got her leg completely over the top of the fence and over to the other side. Then she dropped down heavily onto the ground back there. She stepped up onto her deck and grabbed the handle of her sliding patio door. She could see inside the house that the main door was open. As she tried to slide the screen door it wouldn't budge. Joyce tried to kick through the screen but her foot was already cut and she didn't want to damage her own property unless she absolutely had to.

Pissed off and defeated she decided to call a locksmith from one of the neighbors houses. At least she didn't have to climb back over the fence. There was a gate on the other side of the house, but it only opened from the inside of the yard. Joyce went back to the front of the house and looked around wondering which of her neighbors might be up.

The old guy was still sitting on his curb video-taping her.

"Doesn't Bill make you shave that thing?" asked the old pervert.

"I could use your help," said Joyce closing her robe. "Could I possibly use your phone? I would appreciate it and seeing as how you've gotten your cheap thrill looking at my body parts, I think you owe me that much at least."

The old man got up and headed towards his house. Joyce followed him. She was still looking warily around to see who might be watching her.

"The phone is over there," said the old man. Joyce found the phone book under the table that the phone rested on. She picked it up and opened it.

The old man closed the book. Joyce looked at him in surprise. "What..." she began.

"You said that using the phone was in exchange for me getting to look at your body parts outside, right?" he asked.

Joyce nodded her head. Wondering what the old man was thinking.

"Well you can use the phone, but the phone book is extra," he smiled.

"How am I supposed to find a locksmith without the phone book?" asked Joyce.

"Not my problem," said the old man. "A deal's a deal."

"What do you want?" asked Joyce exasperatedly.

"Lose the robe," he smirked.

Joyce started crying and just let her robe fall. The old man removed his grimy hand from the phone book and Joyce started looking through the listings for locksmiths. She found one who was open very early in the morning and started to dial the phone, when the old man disconnected her.

"Why'd you do that?" Joyce yelled through her tears. "You've already laughed at me and made rude comments about my body. You've humiliated me in your home in exchange for what most would consider common courtesy. Just what the fuck do you want now?"

"I'm sorry," said the old man. "You probably wouldn't understand this but having you come over here is probably going to be the highlight of my summer. I don't get to see naked women very often unless it's on TV or porno and that gets old fast.

Believe it or not I used to be married. I had a good marriage too until I lied to her and cheated on her. I fucked my secretary. I loved my wife, but she was kind of plain. I got a new secretary, a hot young thing who couldn't type worth shit and screwed up my filing system. I was going to let her go but she gave me a blow job under my desk. Later that day, I fucked her on my desk too. I was higher than cloud nine but when I looked back on it later, I realized that I was the only one who got anything out of it and it really hadn't been that great.

The girl had really just laid there with her legs spread and let me fuck her. Unlike my wife she didn't participate and she didn't get anything out of it. It wasn't really very good at all. It was only the fantasy that I'd built up in my mind about fucking some hot young chick that made it good.

Anyway she agreed to let me fuck her whenever I wanted as long as she kept her job. It seemed like a good deal to me. I had to pay her for pretty much nothing, and type my own papers, but I got a lot of free pussy from a hot young chick and my wife would never know.

On the surface it seems like a dream come true. The very next day I was inaugurating our new arrangement when my wife walked into my office bringing me lunch. Her heart broke instantly when she saw what I was doing. No matter what I said or tried she wouldn't take me back. I could never find another woman who made me feel the way she had. I kept trying but to no avail. A few years later I found out she'd married someone else and had a baby.

I fucked up what could have been a great life because I thought the grass was greener somewhere else. It wasn't, but that's just one of those sweet little lies that life throws you.

It happens to all of us. Even the secretary I fucked. She had three kids at home and a husband who regularly beat her ass. When my wife filed for divorce she named the secretary in the divorce. When the secretary's husband found out, he beat her unconscious and ended up in jail. Without his income she lost her house and her kids. Nobody won." The old man looked at Joyce and there were tears in his eyes even as he wiped hers gently.

"Let me ask you a question," he said. Joyce nodded.

"What is the opposite of good?" he asked.

"Bad," said Joyce.

"Nope," replied the old man. "The opposite of GOOD is BETTER. I had a good life and just like so many other people, I fucked it all up by trying to make it BETTER.

I guess you reminded me so much of my wife that I kind of lost it for a bit. I didn't think about how what I was doing might make you feel, only about how much I enjoyed seeing you. When you started to cry I decided to stop and just give you this," he said. He held out a key to Joyce.

"What's this," she asked.

"It's the key to your house. Your husband gave it to me so I could water your plants and take in your mail when you guys were on vacation."

"Thank you," said Joyce.

"Thank you and I'm sorry for being such an old creep," he said. "But I'm not evil, I'm just lonely."

Joyce quickly went back across the street and opened the door to her house. Once inside she called Bill's cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. She wanted to leave him a message but she didn't know what to say. She knew that she wouldn't have many chances to tell him how sorry she was. She decided to leave the message later after she'd thought about what to say.

Hearing about the old man's situation had really floored her. Her situation was very similar, almost the same. She'd had a great marriage to a guy who really loved her and whom she'd loved in return. But she got bored. Instead of talking to Bill and finding a way to work it out together, she'd done the worst thing possible and had probably lost the love of the father of her kids. She'd also lost the respect of her children as well.

If she did go along with Bill's settlement she'd be okay for a time. Their house was valued at over three hundred thousand dollars. Twenty five percent of that was seventy five thousand dollars, so she'd be fine for a while. But it wasn't enough for her to live on forever. She'd have to get a job and find a new place to live.

When you came down to it, the money was really chicken feed. Just moving into a similar house would cost her all of her money in the first couple of years. Within a year or two all of her savings would be exhausted. Joyce had never really had a job. What could she do for a living? Her entire life was going down the tube for nothing.

She had to find a way to get Bill to forgive her. She just had to.

She heard the doorbell ring and got up to answer it.

"Joyce Williams," asked a young woman with a briefcase.

"Yes," answered Joyce wondering what the girl was selling.

"You've been served," said the girl.

"What?" said Joyce. "No, it's too early. I'm not ready yet. I don't know what I want to do. You were supposed to be a man."

"I'm supposed to return these papers with your signature," said the girl, looking bored.

Joyce thought about everything she'd done. She also thought about all of the people she'd hurt with her thoughtless act. If Bill did drag her name through the mud she'd hurt many more people. She did the only thing she could, she signed the papers.

She closed the door behind the girl and sat down at her table and cried her eyes out.

Two Days and 4,563 miles away, Claudia came out of their hotel's bathroom. She went over to the table and rubbed Bill's shoulder as he cried over what that stupid woman had thrown away.

"It'll get better Honey," she said. "It's just going to take time." She'd said it to help make him feel better, but she knew that in reality most people might move on in their lives but they never quite got over their first marriage. They never got over losing the other parent to their children. There were too many ties that couldn't be broken. In time she and Bill would have a great life and maybe children of their own, but he'd always remember Joyce. So telling him that it would get better was probably a lie. But it was only a Little Lie.

Epilog:

December 24th. Joyce trudges through the snow on her old street. People who she used to consider her neighbors and friends don't wave at her. Her next door neighbors who used to be her and Bill's closet friends ignore her passing and continue to string up their Christmas decorations. Joyce is no longer the woman she used to be. Friendships that took years to build up took only weeks to decay and wither away.

Bill had kept his word and not told anyone about her actions, but Matt's mother had told everyone she knew about the over forty Jezebel who has seduced her son. The story spread like wildfire and Joyce became a pariah. The only people who sought out her company were sleazy, horny unattractive men who were looking for a quick piece of ass.

Joyce knocked on the door of her only remaining friend. The former lonely, creepy, bitter old man opened the door and invited her in.

"Misery loves company, Hunh Joyce?" he asked. "I thought that you were going to invite your kids to spend the Holidays with you?"

"I hoped that they'd want to, Dan," she answered. Her voice was full of bitterness and repressed anger. In barely three months Joyce was hardly recognizable as the woman who'd cheated on Bill.

"My son Brian is an adult. He can do whatever he chooses to do. He and his fiancé elected to spend the Holidays with his father in Hawaii and avoid all of the snow and ice. He said that he loves the idea of spending Christmas on the beach. He has an entire ocean to throw rocks in with his father now.

And Jessica hurt me the worst. During our divorce the court ordered us to alternate holidays by year. That means that this year I got Thanksgiving and Bill got Christmas. She also asked to spend some of the holidays with her brother and Maggie. So she's spending New Year's day with Brian and Maggie."

"Well what's wrong with that?" asked Dan.

"She got permission to fly back home for Thanksgiving even though they don't celebrate it in France. She got here that Wednesday night and stayed with me. She went to bed as soon as she got here so we didn't get to talk much. She woke up late Thursday morning and told me that she needed to go back to sleep because she was jet lagged. She ate Thanksgiving dinner with me and took a Taxi back to the airport."

"She goes to school in France, Joyce. You're lucky she cared enough to come home at all," said Dan.

"That's just it," said Joyce. "That girl doesn't give a damn about me. She was here because the court ordered her to spend Thanksgiving with me. The school had given her a week off. She didn't fly back to Paris. She flew to Hawaii and spent the rest of the week there. She has 10 days off for Christmas. Her classes start January 3rd. She's been here for 2 days already and she hasn't even bothered to pick up the phone and call me.

The only way I know about where she is and what she's doing is because I called Brian and spoke to Maggie. Brian wouldn't tell me what was going on, but apparently he forgot to tell Maggie not to let me know. I was really hurt when she said that they'll have the whole family together again for the first time since Thanksgiving. They all waited and had Thanksgiving dinner on Friday when Jess got there after leaving me. They even put all of the stupid Football games on the DVR and watched them together.

I've tried but they don't include me in anything. I even tried to invite Bill to Thanksgiving dinner. I pictured him sitting in some lonely bachelor apartment by himself, remembering the good times we all spent together on the Holidays. Instead Maggie told me about how good Claudia looks in a bikini. They had their turkey out on a deck behind the house that Bill bought for them to live in. Apparently Claudia, besides being built like a fucking model is a great cook too.

I must be psychic. I always knew that bitch was after Bill. That's why I had the investigators follow them, but they never got together and never would have if I hadn't just given him to her.

I sent Bill a Christmas present; just to let him know that I'm still here and still thinking about him. It was returned un-opened. There was a big nasty green sticker on top of it. It read, "Packages from this address not accepted."

I called Bill on his cell phone. He has to give me the number so we can discuss matters that pertain to Jessica since we have joint custody. I don't know why they call it joint custody. She got to choose where to live. She decided to live with him. He chose not to accept child support from me since I'm not working, which at first I thought was nice of him. But he really did it so he wouldn't have to talk to me about it. Everything he does is geared towards never having to speak to me again.

The only thing I get is my court ordered visits with Jessica. When she's here, we don't talk, we don't do anything. She just goes up to her room, goes to sleep and wakes up just in time to head for the fucking airport.

Anyway I called Bill's cell phone and it rung like 8 times before it was picked up. It was Claudia, naturally. I was sure that Bill was there and had just handed her the phone. I could hear Christmas music in the background and people talking. They sounded like they were having a good assed time. I asked Claudia if she was still working for Bill as his assistant. She told me she'd never work for anyone else. I asked her what else she was doing for him and she just said, "Anything and everything he wants."

I almost cried. I decided to be the bigger woman. I asked her if they'd gotten the present I sent Bill. She said that it must have gotten lost in the mail. I guess she told me a little lie, to avoid having to hurt my feelings.

I figured then that I was on the speaker phone, because I asked her if I could speak to Jessica. I heard Jessica whispering, "No."

"Since they could all hear me anyway, I swallowed my fucking pride and asked that bitch if I could fly there and join them for Christmas and drop off their presents. She never even answered me. She just said, "Oh wait, here's Jessica."

"My daughter got on the phone. I told her that I hadn't heard from her in almost a month. She hadn't called or emailed me since Thanksgiving. She said that she'd been really busy with school and stuff. I asked her what she wanted for Christmas. She said, "Nothing." Can you believe that? I must have the only teenager on the planet who doesn't want anything. She told me that all she needed from me was to keep being the best mom I could. Then the little bitch twisted the knife. She told me that her dad and her stepmom would do everything else.

Bill hasn't married Claudia yet. They do live together, but she's already more of a mother to my daughter than Jessica will allow me to be. Even my mom blames me. She was always against what I did. She told me that I must have been crazy for a while. Maybe it was a midlife crisis, my hormones were out of whack; temporary insanity. "Bill loves you," she said. "Give him time."

But time is running out and my husband has moved on with his life without me. Now my mom blames me because she doesn't get to see the Grandkids. Then Claudia did the worst fucking thing you can imagine. She arranged to fly my mom down to Hawaii for Christmas since Bill's parents were there for Thanksgiving. So when Maggie said that the entire family would be there, she meant it."

"Deep down, I'm sure that my husband still loves me. That's why he hasn't married Claudia and so far has no plans to. He still isn't over me, yet. Imagine it, he has a younger woman, who's prettier than I am, built better than I am, but he's still trying to get over me? He must've really loved me as much as he always told me. How the fuck could I ever have gotten bored with that kind of love? Now I sit here on my gradually spreading ass getting fatter and more bitter, every day. But in my heart I know, everyone knows that it's only a matter of time before Bill forgets ma an marries Claudia. Bill told me that he could've gotten past the sex, but not the deception. I lost the perfect life because of a few little lies.