Marriage in Flames

We stayed in the honeymoon suite at a small motel off of US 2 right off of Lake Michigan. I could hear the lake making ice at night, groaning and grumbling out side the windows of our room. It wasn't much but it did have a big beautiful heart shaped tub. I filled it, pouring in a little bath gel to make bubbles. When it was full, I stripped, throwing my shirt at Colin who stood watching me with a smile on his face.

When I was naked, I wiggled my finger at him and stepped into the tub, staying on my knees in the hot soapy water.

In the time since he'd resigned from being a cop, Colin had lost about thirty pounds, donut fat I liked to call it. Too much eating and riding around in cars all day long had taken the sexy man I had married and turned him into the Pillsbury Dough Boy. He'd changed that, helping his dad outside the farm they lived on and working with trucks at his new job. He wasn't the same man I'd seen in that bed almost five years ago, but he was close.

I unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it free of his pants and letting him take it off of his arms. I ran my hands over his lightly furred chest and down over his stomach pulling his belt free before undoing his pants. He kicked out of his shoes and tore off the rest of his clothes. Living in the trailer had given us very little privacy and we'd gotten used to being quick and quiet. Tonight was a night for neither.

He climbed into the tub next to me and sat on the edge, spreading his legs so that I could get between them. I ran my soapy, wet fingers up his thighs, tracing little patterns against his skin. When I reached his groin, I looked up at him, making sure he was looking in my eyes before I ran my tongue over my teeth and along my bottom lip, smiling just a little before laving a tiny lick of my tongue across the head of his cock that was standing at attention.

He groaned and tangled his hand in my hair, caressing the back of my head. His eyes watched avidly as I took him in my mouth, suckling down the long length of his cock before coming back up to the head to swirl my tongue around the tip. I wrapped my hand around his shaft, stroking it gently while I played, doing my own thing despite his growls and groans.

I felt him swell in my fingers, his shaft jumping under my hand and I captured his lovely purple tinged head in my mouth. His growl turned into a loud groan as he shot his ropes of creamy come into my mouth, making me smile and almost pull away. It had been so long since we didn't have to be quiet to keep from waking the kids and it felt so good to be together.

He pushed me back into the water and I laughed as he sank down on top of me, kissing me while his hands roamed at will.

"You haven't done that for a while."

"You always get too noisy when I do that," I couldn't help smiling at him even while his hands made their torturously slippery way over my body, driving me nuts.

He pulled me over him and I felt his cock brush against the inside of my thigh. I raised one eyebrow at him, smiling at his quick recovery and then groaned myself when he pushed inside of me in one swift move. His hands on my thighs, he dragged me down on him, laughing as my eyes crossed in pleasure. I quickly leaned forward and nipped him on the nose and he laughed at me again, grabbing my wrists as we played and fucked in the heart shaped tub.

Soon there was more water on the floor then in the tub and we were both exhausted. He got out and dried off and I filled the tub again, my penchant for loving long hot baths well known to him by now. He went in and got in the huge bed, hitting the remote to turn on the TV. I laughed as I heard loud moaning coming from the speakers and he started giving me a play by play of the action on the TV.

The night passed too quickly and soon we had to get up and get on our way to make our nine a.m. appointment. The paperwork went easily and we got our check and then went to the bank to pay a few bills, you could actually pay electric and heating bills at the bank then. We decided to take off for home and stop right before the Mackinaw Bridge to get something to eat.

When we reached the restaurant I called my mom's house to see if Dad had come home or was still at the hospital. My brother, Steve, answered the phone which surprised me.

"Kelly, I don't want you freaking out, okay. Just take it easy and don't freak out on me, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, Steve. What's up?"

"Dad's dead."

I felt a sense of surrealism settle around me, standing as I was in the small alcove where they had a phone. The restaurant was busy with families eating and laughing and I was listening to my brother on the phone telling me that my father was dead.

"Kelly? Damn it. Kelly?"

"I'm here."

"They are taking his body down state, he wanted to be buried in Monroe. We're all going down tonight."

"Okay. Um, I'll tell Colin and we'll be down as soon as we can." I said good-bye, or at least I thought I did.

I was almost to our table when it hit me. It felt like someone took a cartoon balloon fist full of anvils and slammed it into my stomach. Colin looked up and he must have noticed the surprised pained look on my face.

He got out of his chair and headed toward me, wrapping his arm around me. "Kel, what's wrong?"

"My dad's dead," I said. And the whole restaurant went quiet. I could hear the clatter of utensils against plates as people stared at me. Colin grabbed my coat and the check and got me out of there, sitting me in the passenger side of the car while I rocked and held my stomach feeling like I'd never breathe again.

The rest of that week was a blur, funeral preparations, being with the family, helping my middle sister who was a complete basket case. It seemed I finally woke up the day we finally came home after burying my father. I was sitting on the small couch in the tiny living area of the trailer watching a movie on the California earthquake, the big one that had flattened out a bridge on top of a bunch of cars. I remember because there was an older man trapped in one car, his hair was white and his face tanned and lined, looking kind of like my dad. I watched as he died and finally felt the tears stream down my eyes.

My wonderful husband was in bed. I heard him roll over and then heard his voice.

"Aren't you done with that yet?"

It was like being slapped in the face. As a matter of fact, I think I would have preferred the slap. At least with the slap, the pain is gone in a couple of hours. This pain, the hurt of his not caring about my mourning, stayed a lot longer. I still couldn't help but feel it.

It got easier as spring started to arrive, showing in the snow melting and the tiny green shoots of grass that peeped between the mushy white. Colin got a job, a good job and things began looking up. We got a down payment on a house together and we started looking. It was a long process. What we found that we liked, we couldn't afford or it was too far away for it to be practical. What we could afford was horrid. Colin ran into an old friend of his one day and surprise, he had a house for sale. We went and checked it out.

I wasn't thrilled. It was huge, an old farm house that needed a lot of work. The kitchen was small and painted an ugly color, the living room was a nicotine yellow color. The stairs were narrow and the treads small with a turn at the top that was dangerous. There was a hallway with a foot high wall that surrounded the stairwell.

Having two children, both young children, and that stairwell open scared me. But Colin did some talking and after living in that trailer for as long as we had, the idea of having our own things again, of being able to spread out and let the kids run was just too wonderful. So we bought it and moved in on the Fourth of July weekend.

It was the start to the end.

I tried to get along with John and Laurie. They ended up being our next door neighbors. The couple had four kids, all boys, and the kids had a tendency to run through the house at all times of the day and night. They were close in age to my girls and the kids liked to play together so I learned to deal with the excess noise and the exuberant behavior. I stocked up on band-aids because I've never seen a more accident prone group of kids. Someone was always bleeding or bumped or bruised..

Laurie was a little strange. The first few times I tried to talk to her, she seemed either stuck up or shy. I wasn't quite able to make up my mind which. She liked the girls, though, and seemed to be good to them so I kept trying.

Colin was working on the house when he wasn't working at work. He had torn off all the loose shingles from the roof and we'd gone out and bought new, so I was out helping him a lot on the ladder. That's the first time I saw Laurie out in the back yard in her bikini, laying in the sun. She had the type of body that would bounce back from child birth without exercise and diet and I hated her. I still carried an extra ten pounds from Katie's birth. I saw Colin's eyes slide toward her and then back when he noticed me watching him. I tried to make a joke about it, but it bothered me.

We invited them for dinner and cards. I'd gone into the kitchen to get the kids kool-aid and John had gone to pick up something at home. When I walked back into our dining room I found Laurie wrapped in my husband's arms. When I asked what was going on, Colin gave me a look as if I should keep my mouth shut.

Finally he told me, Laurie's mom had passed away earlier in the past year, like my own father had, and it was her birthday. She was upset and he was just comforting her. He was comforting her when he hadn't had the time or patience to comfort his own wife days after her father had died. I couldn't believe the incredible amount of rage I felt.

It was the first time in all of our marriage that we slept with out backs to each other. Slept, that was funny, I lay there most of the night, not moving, until finally I just couldn't stand it anymore. I got up and went downstairs and paced. When Colin got up, he kissed me on the forehead, took a shower and went about his day as if nothing had happened. I couldn't believe that he couldn't see how upset I was about this whole thing.

Time passed, and while I might not have forgotten about what happened that night, I'd decided to let it lie. He didn't seem overly interested in what was going on next door though we did manage to walk in on some spectacular fights. And some things that really disturbed me.

Laurie had moments that she seemed almost another person, a mean tempered spiteful person. She would invite us to her home and then start fights with John, on purpose it seemed to me. One night, after a particularly bad fight, with Colin and I being the unwilling witnesses, John went outside to get some air. Laurie got up right after him and locked the back door on him, effectively locking him out of the house. I looked at Colin and then went and sat with the girls, wishing that we could just leave. My children didn't need to see this.

John broke down the door. A part of me was impressed with his forcefulness, another part was having flashbacks to my first marriage and I felt a whimper build and want to come out of my throat. I watched as John stalked Laurie across the room and I held my children against me so they wouldn't see what was going on.

Laurie came at John, her hands curled into claws. John threw up his hands to defend himself and hit Laurie, knocking her down where she scooted across the floor and curled into a ball in the corner.

I sat there with my mouth open and nothing coming out. In my heart, I don't believe that John meant to hit Laurie. I believe he was defending himself. I'd seen scratches on him before, cuts and bruises that he'd laughed off and said were from work. And now I knew the truth, Laurie was crazy.

I got up and picked up Katie, gathering her close to me. Without saying a word to either of them, or my husband who seemed to just be standing there, I walked out of the house and took my girls home to put them to bed. Cassie had all kinds of questions, mostly wondering why Laurie was so mean to Uncle John, as she had taken to calling our neighbor.

If I saw it and an eight year old child saw it, how could no one else see it?

Colin didn't get home for another two hours. When he finally did, he looked white faced and tensed. I didn't ask questions because I knew he really didn't want to talk, instead I took him to bed and we held each other while he stroked my hair. When he told me he loved me that night, I said a prayer of thanks to whatever deity wished to receive it that I had a man like Colin in my life.

Weeks went by, school started and Cassie was in the third grade. Katie stared going to a nursery school twice a week for three hours each. The first few times were traumatic for both of us. Katie cried and begged me not to leave her. But finally, we both over came the trauma and she started liking school. We went to a few parties on the weekends, places that the kids were welcome also and I met a few people. I grew to enjoy the house we had and liked the area. At the time, it wasn't a big town but it was growing and I was learning my way around.

Colin had cousins he was very close to and one of them had been spending a lot of time with him. Her name was Susan and she was younger than both of us, him by five years and me by ten. I liked it and enjoyed the times she would come over and we'd talk or do something together. It had started that Sue came over to see Colin, but before long, she was coming over to spend time with me.

We would sit and talk, and the two of us found out we both liked to take walks at night. So we would leave Colin with the girls and stroll down the road on nights that it was nice enough. She'd usually spend the night, which I didn't mind. I would leave Sue and Colin downstairs to spend some time together and turn in, knowing Colin would be up soon himself.

Deer hunting season was coming. Colin had managed to get a week off, his first time in the years since we'd been together that he could go up with his male family members to hunt. I wanted him to go, for a couple of reasons. I loved venison, growing up with hunters myself, we'd always had deer in the freezer. The second, he deserved some time off. He worked hard and helped his friends and family. I don't know how many times he'd gone next door to try and help John and Laurie since their problems started. And I was grateful for the type of man that he was that would be there for his friends.

So I didn't kick up too much fuss when he said he wanted to leave the weekend before opening day. Yes, it was three days before he could actually hunt, but I knew he would get enjoyment out of that time, going up north to the cabin that his parents owned and he loved, spending time with his cousins. One of them was going up with him.

He left me some money and told me to take the girls shopping. And then he was gone. John called about an hour after Colin left. Him and Laurie had had another fight and she wanted to go away for a weekend to get some perspective. He'd made the arrangements, helped her carry her suitcase to the car. He'd even arranged for a beautiful bouquet of roses to be left in her room before she got there.

We sat and talked for a while and I got an earful of Laurie's problems. Probably more than I'd actually wanted to know. She was bi polar and refused to take her medicine. Surprise, surprise. The woman changed moods more than the most fickle woman changed her mind. She was hard to get along with, which I knew. And he wanted to thank me for letting my husband spend so much time with Laurie recently.

Whoa. Laurie was spending time with Colin? I thought he was over there with the both of them.

No. John said that they would take off and go for a drive, that Laurie was so happy she'd found someone she could actually talk to.

Yeah, my husband was a great guy. I started to get this bad feeling. And I couldn't shake it off. I got off the phone with John and sat in my chair, looking at the dark outside while I heard my children playing above me in their bedroom.

Colin wouldn't... No, that was too impossible to think of, he loved me. I tried to get my mind off of it, but thoughts of the two of them together kept popping in my head even after Laurie got back from her weekend away. Why didn't Colin tell me that he and Laurie were taking drives together?

But did I want to play the overly suspicious wife and ask him, maybe cause a fight if there wasn't anything to fight over?

Colin came home from deer hunting, bringing with him a nice sized buck which we sent out for processing. Things settled down some and he went back to work. My sister called and asked if I'd like to go shopping with her on Black Friday, the day that all businesses look forward to and all employees dread.

Laurie cooked Thanksgiving dinner for all of us at her house and, after helping clean up, I packed up my car, leaving the girls with Colin for overnight, drove the two hour drive to my sister's home. We had a fantastic time, and I came home much poorer but with most of the Christmas shopping done, if you included all the things I had in layaway. We decorated the house when I got home and dragged out the old fake Christmas tree. I started baking and things seemed wonderful. Colin got a small doe that his father hadn't wanted and we set aside a Saturday to spend cutting it up ourselves.

Colin got up and I heard him talking to the kids while I spent a lazy few moments still in bed. I got up finally, went downstairs to find out the he had gone next door, so I went and spent a few minutes cleaning up the kitchen so that we would have lots of room to spread out.

I heard the door open finally and he came back inside. He came into he kitchen where I was working. I turned to smile at him and saw his face. He looked grave.

"What's wrong, honey?"

"Laurie and John," he said.

"Are they getting divorced?" I knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time. Anyone would have to be a saint to put up with the stuff that I had heard she did. Especially her kids. She liked to take belts to them, and being a small woman among big boys, I used to think she had a reason, until I saw her use it on one of her kids once when her husband wasn't home. I told John about it and he said he'd deal with it. I hadn't seen her do it again.

"Yeah, they are."

"Oh, God. I'm sorry," I said, squeezing his hand. He'd known John a long time.

"We need to talk, Kelly," he finally said after being quiet for a few seconds.

"About?" I asked, feeling this empty, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.

He looked me in the eyes and I knew right then. "You've been sleeping with Laurie, haven't you? You are the reason they're getting divorced?" I pulled my hands away from him.

"Yes, I'm sorry Kelly. I didn't want to hurt you but, I love her."

"You love her? What about me?"

"I love you, too. I just can't live with you. I've changed, Kel, we've changed."

I looked up at the man that I had spent the last six years with and felt my world drop out. A strange fuzziness came over me, making me feel like I was moving in a fog.

"So," he said, after I hadn't said anything for a while, "I think it's best for you to leave. You can take the girls or leave them here. But you have to go."

"What?" My mind didn't want to focus on the thought that he was kicking me out.

"You need to leave, Kelly."

I turned and walked away, not sure what I was doing and went to the stairway. I could hear the kids playing in their toy room, hear Colin pick up the phone and make a phone call. I walked halfway up the steps and stumbled, landing face first against the risers. Cassie came to the top of the stairs and started down, sitting next to me and trying to help me up. I let her and then followed her up the stairs to pack.