Two Christmases

"I did it for your own good I thought. I helped you as much as I could too. I got Cassie her apartment and gave her a job. But when I got to know Cassie, it all changed. I realized that she wasn't the person that Elizabeth had painted her to be. And there's something wrong with Elizabeth, Alan. Losing you changed her. She is obsessed with you. She kept moving further and further into crazy and dragging me and everyone else who helped her, along with her. She has PI's following you and Cassie and it's just bizarre. I do have to tell you something else that you don't want to know, Alan. Cassie is incredible. I kind of fell for her too."

My sudden intake of air made him jump.

"Look Alan, I don't want to fight you over her. I liked her. She didn't like me. She only has eyes for you. Elizabeth MADE her go to that lunch with me. And Elizabeth kind of hinted that if you and her got back together, I could end up with Cassie. I guess Liz knew that I was wavering. So she offered the lunch with Cassie as a carrot. And Alan, I took it. It, of course, was a terrible blow to my ego. I've always been able to charm the pants off of any woman I met, literally. Cassie wouldn't even look at me. We spent the whole lunch, either not talking or with her asking me questions about you. Elizabeth is, of course, blackmailing her. Her PI's dug up something on Cassie, and she's using it to manipulate her. She can control Cassie's movements but not her heart. Anyone who looks at the poor girl can tell that she's suffering. I kept looking for a way out of it but Liz kept telling me that she'd tell you that I helped her and I didn't want to lose our friendship. Then when you started avoiding me, I realized that I already had."

"Then why are we doing the cloak and dagger routine now?" I asked.

"Because your psychotic ex-wife still has PI's following and watching you and Cassie, It's like she's playing some bizarre game of chess against fate. She plans her next move based on what you do. You told her that you were thinking of leaving town. She puts the kids in front of you. Naturally, you stay to get time with the kids. That bitch is crazy. She found out all of the things you like about Cassie and she's trying to become them. The bitch even bought some padded panties so you'd think her ass was bigger. She's nutty."

I started laughing again because the padded panties really had fooled me. "Okay Josh," I said. "I'm sorry I broke your nose. You telling me all of this, goes a long way towards fixing things between us. But you're not forgiven just yet. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Okay," he said. "What are we doing tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow this chess match gets interesting because now there will be two people playing this fucking game. Tomorrow we go to war," I said.

I went over to watch the kids play their games for a few minutes. Becca, as hawk eyed as ever, noticed the waitress at our table and grabbed my hand in her tiny one and led me towards the table.

"Come on Timmy. Food," she yelled.

As soon as we left the restaurant, I stopped off at a sporting goods store and bought three baseball caps. I bought one for me, one for Becca and one for Timmy. We put them on as we left the store. I had a great day with the kids. A couple of hours before I had to take them home, I called Elizabeth.

"Hey," I said. "How was your weekend?"

"Great now," she said enthusiastically. "In fact, it sucked at first, but the last ten seconds have made up for everything else."

"I've been thinking about what you told me the other day," I said.

"You have?" she gushed. Her voice sounded almost giddy.

"Elizabeth, you hurt me badly," I said, "In all of my life, I had never felt about anyone the way I felt about you. Finding out that you'd done that just made me crazy."

"Alan, I kick myself every day for it," she said. "I already had everything I wanted out of life and I just threw it away for nothing. I didn't feel good about myself at work so I fucked up my life outside of work. The irony is that we have even more creative people around here now. And I'm even lower on the totem pole. The people around here that I used to consider friends don't like me anymore. And the new creative people treat me like I'm a peon even though technically, I'm their superior. And it's all because I was too stupid to tell the man that I love, that I wasn't happy with my job. It sounds stupid even to me. It's like the plot of a reality TV show."

"Well, we all make mistakes," I said.

"Alan does that mean..." she hesitated. "...That maybe we could be friends?"

"Maybe more," I said slowly. "But we're going to have to take things very slowly, Elizabeth. It will probably be even slower than the first time."

"Alan, it can't be," she said. "It took you two months to work yourself into my bed. I was ready to fuck you after the first date. But nice girls from good families don't do that. Honey, I haven't had sex with anyone since we..."

"I know, Liz," I said. "Seeing you in that dress the other day had my salmon swimming upstream too. It looks like the time that we were apart was good for you."

"Why, Alan, Honey what do you mean?" she asked.

"You already know," I said.

"Well, tell me anyway," she said.

"It was all I could do to keep my hands off of your ass," I said.

"Tell me more," she gushed. At that moment I could hear her breathing becoming deeper and more ragged.

"I just wanted to bend you over something and fuck the shit out of you," I said.

"And if you had tried it..." she said. "Right there in that restaurant...With my stupid sister and my parents there...I'd have let you."

"Oh you need to stop now," I said. "...Before this gets too hot."

"It already has for me," she gushed. I was sure that she was doing something to herself.

"Were you going to fuck my pussy or something else," she asked. I didn't say anything.

"Alan, Honey what's wrong?" she asked. "What did I do?"

"Did you do that with John?" I asked. I slammed the phone down. Becca came into the room and hugged me.

"Are you okay Uncle Alan," she asked.

"Yep my little angel, everything is fine. Uncle Alan just dropped the phone by accident. My friend will call me right back and then I'll take you and Timmy home," I said. I hugged her and she went back to watching the movie that she and her brother were engrossed in.

The phone rang a few seconds later and I let it ring. Then I picked it up. I tried to make my voice sound as if I was angry.

"What did I say Alan?" she asked. It sounded like she was in tears. "Alan, I won't do anything that you don't want me to do, ever," she said.

"It's not you Liz, it's me," I said. "When we were married (sorry I couldn't resist) we never had anal sex. And what you asked just made me think that you'd done it with John. And it made me..."

"Alan..." she cooed.

"It made me jealous," I said. "I'm sorry Elizabeth, but you were supposed to be mine. We were supposed to spend the rest of our lives together, dammit."

"And we will," she said. "We just need to get past this. Alan, not John or any other man has ever had me that way. You'll be the first and the only one to ever do it. And I already told you, all John and I ever did were quickies. I have never sucked his dick and we always used condoms. So if you really think about it, all he ever fucked was a condom. He never actually got into your pussy. It's still yours Alan. And if you want to do my ass, I'll come over there right now and you can..."

"Okay stop right now," I said. "Because I swear, I'll let you and we're moving way too fast. Liz, we have to build up our trust first, if this is going to work. Oh shit, I'll call you tomorrow and maybe we can go out to eat. I have to take Cassie's kids back home. I had them for the weekend."

"Why did you have them?" she asked as if she didn't know about it. I knew that the bitch had arranged the whole thing so her acting job was just shitty.

"I guess I just love kids," I said. "Apparently Cassie and Josh needed a whole weekend of fucking and I was convenient."

"WE can have our own whole weekends of fucking, if you want," she said. "And we can make our own babies. We can have as many as you want. I promise."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow," I said.

I got the kids and their stuff ready and we walked outside. Once we got outside, I made a big show of putting on my baseball cap. I wore a pair of jeans and a jean jacket and the hat. I loaded the kids into the Jeep and drove away. I looked for other cars in my mirrors that might be following me. I did see a couple of cars that seemed to go the same directions I did. They'd follow me for a while and then turn off. When one turned off the other car would suddenly be on my same path again. If I hadn't been watching every car around me, I might never have noticed it. I guess I was looking for one car to stay behind me just out of sight like they did it on TV. These guys were organized.

I pulled into a gas station and went into the men's room on the side. Josh was in the men's room. I gave him the hat and he was already dressed like me. He got into the Jeep and turned around to speak to the kids. He pulled around to the front of the station and filled the tank with gas. Then he drove off. We were less than a mile away from Cassie's building. As I watched from a crack in the bathroom door, a gray Honda Accord followed the Jeep. Josh drove part of the way down the road and then made an illegal U turn and went back to the station. He'd pulled out of the station to get the Accord away from it. While he was on the road, I'd dumped my jeans for black sweats and a black sweat shirt. I ran through the woods while Josh and his tail went back into the station. Josh filled all of the tires on the Jeep with air or pretended to. It took him about eight or nine minutes. I'd told him I'd need about seven to get to the building.

Josh drove the Jeep the rest of the way to Cassie's building. Cassie lived on the third floor. Josh stopped outside of the building for a few minutes. Then he blew the horn and waited. Cassie looked out of the window and came out onto the walkway in front of the building. While she was out of her apartment, I slipped inside of it with the key she'd given me and never took back. While she was out of the apartment, I quickly used the detector I'd picked up at radio shack. I was surprised. Her apartment wasn't bugged. There was, however, a tap on her phone. My plan had been to leave any bugs I found in place, but disable any that were in her bedroom.

It took Cassie and the kids a few minutes to get back inside the apartment. I hadn't told her why but, I'd told Becca to slow them down as much as she could while walking back to the apartment. Becca was a genius. She actually convinced Cassie to take the stairs and had dawdled on every landing.

When they got in, I heard Cassie talking to the kids about their weekend. She constantly pumped them for information about me. When Becca told her that I'd been okay, she seemed to deflate some. "He's getting used to being without me," she said.

The next thing I heard broke my heart. I almost got up and went to her. "Don't cry Aunt Cassie, Uncle Alan loves you," said Becca.

It took another half hour for Cassie to get the kids to sleep. She read them a bedtime story and then came into her own room. I saw the door open and her hand reach for the light switch. I grabbed her hand and yanked her inside the room. I wanted it left dark just in case anyone was watching from a distance. With a good scope they might be able to tell even with the shades drawn that someone was in the room with her.

I put my hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming or yelling and pulled her to me. I walked her over to where the bed was and pushed her down onto it. I guess I should have thought about it more but my head wasn't fully in the game. I yanked down her sweatpants and she reacted crazily. She turned and tried to knee me in the nuts. She missed her target but from the way her knee slammed into my thigh, I'd be running a lot slower on the way back.

"Oh, I thought you loved me," I said. "If you love me so much why the hell are you trying to kill me? That might've hurt."

"Alan?" she whispered. She came over to me and lifted my face. The next thing I knew we were kissing and she was crying at the same time.

"You can't be here," she said. "She..."

"I know all about Elizabeth and the people she has watching us," I said. "They never saw me come inside the building. I got here before they did. They were watching Josh drive here in my Jeep. I slipped in through the service entrance in the back. When Josh drove off, they probably followed him or stayed outside to make sure that no one else showed up. We're safe. So we have plenty of time to talk. Josh will drive my Jeep back to my house..."

"You mean our house don't you?" she asked. "The kids love their rooms. Becca already told me that she likes having her own room. Timmy does too. They have to share a room here and Timmy says he hates having a room with girl stuff in it."

"I have to remind him that before we met you, we all shared the same room. And he didn't even have a room, girl stuff or not," she laughed.

She pulled my shirt up. "I've missed this sooo much," she said.

"Cassie what are you doing?" I asked.

"You said we had a lot of time to talk. How about talk a little less and fool around some?" she said.

"Alan, you know that I never stopped loving you right?" she asked. "You know I'd never do anything with anyone else, right?"

"Elizabeth has something she's using against you doesn't she?" I asked. She nodded and started crying. "Cassie we have the rest of our lives to fool around. But you need to tell me everything that's going on. If we're going to beat her, we have to come up with something or go to plan B."

"What's plan B?" she asked.

"Plan B is where I go to the bank and liquidate everything I have. I cash in all of my investments, I sell the house and then the four of us just take off in the Jeep and never look back," I said. The next thing I knew, she was kissing me again.

"You'd do that for us?" she asked.

"Well, not really," I said. "We'd probably take off in the Mustang, but the rest of it was true."

The next thing I knew, it was my sweatpants that were being pulled down and then my dick was immersed in her velvety tunnel. Cassie was pressing herself against me like there was no tomorrow. She was biting down on her lip and then she started biting mine to keep from making too much noise. She wrapped her arms around me so tightly that I could barely move.

"My Alan," she kept moaning. I pulled her shirt up and starting mauling and sucking her breasts as she rode me. "Oh shit, yes, suck my titties, Alan," she gushed.

She worked her hips in my lap faster and faster and then suddenly clamped her legs around my waist and breathed out a huge gust of air inside of my mouth as she came. "That was so good," she said. "It's always so good with you, Honey. But that was the best ever."

"Cassie, Honey, I didn't get to do anything to warm you up. That was..."I began.

"Alan, I know that you think I'm special and that you need to make love to me and we need a lot of foreplay. And I love all of that, every woman does. But in this case, what we just did and what you said was much more important. For the past few weeks, I've been lost. When that bitch made me break off our engagement, it tore my heart out. But now I know that you know the truth and you still love me. I'm still yours. I'll do whatever I have to do to make this up to you, but I really worried that I'd lost you."

Cassie filled me in on what was going on and what Elizabeth was doing to black mail her. I was shocked that Elizabeth could do anything that cruel. At just after one in the morning, I slipped back out the service entrance in the rear of the building. I didn't see any cars or anything else out there. I slipped into the woods and ran back to the gas station. I took Josh's Charger and drove it to my house and then I made a big show of knocking on the door and waiting for it to be opened.

Josh came to the door and I could tell he'd been asleep. He let me inside of my house. If anyone had been watching they'd probably have been fooled by the act, but I didn't see anyone.

"Holy shit, you should have at least taken a shower," he said. "You smell like pussy and sweat. I might be able to get into this whole domestic thing."

"What are you babbling about Josh?" I asked.

"I like your house dude," he said. "I love the idea of having some woman, but she'd have to be the right one, of course, so into me that she goes crazy like Cassie does for you. God damn it Alan, you've got everything. I've been with hundreds of women and you've had what...three?"

"Uhm your point exactly is what?" I laughed.

"Dude, all three of those women, would give up a kidney for you. Christine didn't even want to leave. Elizabeth has turned into a fucking super villain trying to get you back. And Cassie is walking around going crazy over you. I want some of that. I don't think a single one of the women I've been with ever even says my name without adding asshole after it."

"And those kids, they love you, Alan. There's just something special about that. And this house is...It's a home, Alan. My place is just a big box for me to keep my shit in. I'm ready for this. I've grown up."

I laughed. "Are you sure?" I asked.

"Hell yeah," he said. "I'm domesticated as of right now."

"What about cutting the grass?" I asked. He looked at me and his face dropped.

"Doesn't the woman do that?" he asked. "I'm getting one of those grass cutting women. Or better still, I'll get a house like this one but without grass. You know I can't deal with shit like that. I hate futile gestures. You cut the grass and then it grows again and then you cut it again. It's the definition of insanity. It's a government plot. You keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Okay fuck it, I'm not really ready for a house yet."

A few days later, I went to visit the kids at their school. I handed the woman who ran the place an envelope and asked her to give it to Cassie. She smiled at me and told me that she was praying that everything would work out.

In the note, I'd told Cassie that I'd be out of town for a few days. I flew to Georgia and rented a car. I rented a Mustang but all they had was a convertible. The weather down there was warm enough that I could let the top down and I had to admit that the wind blowing through the car added a new dimension. It added to what I was doing made me feel adventurous.

As I drove from the airport towards my destination, I called Elizabeth.

"Hi Honey," she said when she answered the phone.

"Hi," said back. I listened to every syllable she put out. I was looking for nuances in her tone that would alert me to what she was thinking or doing.

"You don't sound happy," she said. "Do I need to beat someone up for you?"

"Yes Liz," I said sarcastically. "I need you to kick my boss square up his ass. Break your foot off in his ass and spend the rest of OUR life hopping around on one foot." I was getting good at this. She'd actually started breathing deeper when I said our life. It implied that in my mind, we'd be together."

"But you know WE can't afford for you to do that," I said.

"Why can't we?" she asked. "Why did you want me to?"

"Because he sent me to fucking Alabama," I said. "I didn't even know they had investments in Alabama." I was sure that Elizabeth already knew that I'd been sent out of town. I got one of the assistants in my office who knew one of Elizabeth's stenos to accidentally let Liz know that I was being sent out of town to handle a difficult client. She thought I was going to Alabama but I actually went to Georgia. It was time to cut myself some breathing room.