What Could Have Been

Hi Folks.Things got a bit heated in the comments last week didn't they?...Well relax this story is another shorter one but it should be a lot less controversial. This one is just a bit longer than last week's story so it's another shorty. That actually happened because we're working on a longer, darker story that there just wasn't enough time to finish this week. So at the last minute, I just wrote this story. This one besides being shorter was written and edited in less than 24 hours due in large part to the extremely great editing under pressure done by the incredible Mikothebaby.Enjoy! SS06

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There are some things you just can't or at least shouldn't take home. I pulled my 2012 Mustang GT into the parking lot behind the bar in search of a few moments of relaxation. I was still so pissed off from the pressures of the day that I'd have felt bad about taking any of that anger, home to my lovely wife. She had enough stress in her own life trying to raise our three terrifying young boys. She didn't need me adding to it. When I get home I should be happy and ready to spend time with her, not vent the frustration that had built up after 8 hours plus of dealing with assholes.

As I walked into the slightly darkened bar, some of the regulars greeted me. This was one of those places where everybody knew your name and you were always glad you came. It was one of those friendly neighborhood bars and to be truthful it was only a couple of blocks away from my house.

My main problem was dealing with the union reps. It was almost like their entire existence revolved around slowing down production. Maybe in their minds, the more they could slow things down the better it was for their people. I wish just one of them was smart enough to realize that the slower they worked, the less money we made, and that trickled down to them. When they asked for things like increases in wages or benefits, it was hard to justify it when profits were down. What a bunch of morons.

And they were all so self-important. There wasn't a single team player among them. If I didn't have a mortgage and two car notes and my three spoiled kids, I'd walk the fuck out the door and never look back at that place. But who was I kidding. I was locked in. My job paid me very well and the actual work I had to do managing the plant wasn't very hard.

The economy was also so bad that if I did walk out of there I'd have trouble getting another job on that level and there were so many guys out there who'd give their left nut to replace me. My mother didn't raise any stupid kids so I'd stay and put up with it. I raised my arm and the pretty barmaid whose name I never could remember brought me a cold Dos Equis amber. Before I'd even taken a sip of the first one, I asked for another. I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I drink a fuck of a lot of it.

As I took the first pull on my bottle and looked around the room I saw a woman going from table to table. Most of the guys were shaking their heads and she'd move on to the next table. I knew she wouldn't last long in here. The owner, Murray, liked to run a clean place. Women could drink and hang out here just like anybody else, but he didn't allow pros to work in his bar.

When she got to the last table, she started to head for the bar. Her body looked like it had been spectacular at one point, but time and hard living had turned things sour. Her breasts were still nice but she walked slumped over as if the weight of the world rested on her thin shoulders. Life had given this woman a beating. I immediately felt sorry for her and I hadn't even seen her face yet.

When she got a couple of stools down from me, I heard her ask the guy sitting there if she could sit down. In bar slang, a woman asking if she can sit down or asking a guy to buy her a drink carries an implication with it. And most of these guys, like me, who were happily married, would never take her up on an invitation like that. It sounds innocent and innocuous, but one thing can quickly lead to another. And soon you find yourself sliding down a slippery slope that ends up in a place that you don't want to be.

As I sat there drinking my beer and letting all of the tension melt away, she drew closer and closer to me. She had to be pretty damned desperate to just go from stool to stool propositioning every man in a bar.

Just before she got to me, Murray's voice rang out. "Hey you, get out of here. And don't come back. I run a clean place. I don't need any pros working out of here. My customers come here to drink and to relax. They don't need or want anything else."

He flipped on the Lions preseason football game and stalked towards his office in the back. That had been pretty harsh. She'd been working steadily but quietly through the bar. She hadn't been overt about it and she didn't have on tons of make-up or a dress that showed off her boobs or her ass. I had to hide a smile, but I was also pretty relieved that she got tagged before she got to me.

To tell you the truth, I'd never actually spoken to a hooker in my entire life. I began to wonder if I was really glad that she hadn't reached me, or if I was a little bit saddened. What would she have asked me? What would I have said in response? Would being near her have filled me with revulsion? Or would I have been just a little turned on?

"Sorry," she said to Murray's rapidly receding back. "A girl has to make a living." All of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The voice was older and sounded like she'd been through hell and back, but now I recognized it at once.

She looked at me and her mouth dropped open at the same time mine did. Our eyes locked and recognition gave way to remembrances.

I was taken back to the first time I ever saw her. I was in the tenth grade. Boy what a kid I was. It was the middle of the school year when she walked into my class. I can still remember my teacher, Mrs. Ethel Mertz introducing her to the class. "Tell them your name, honey," said Mrs. Mertz

"Felicia Thomas," she said shyly. I went into a swoon. Her voice was so musical that it sounded like she was singing. Her face looked like she was halfway between being an angel and being a pin-up girl. I was in the tenth grade so during our time we were pretty innocent. There was no sex going on, at least none that I was involved in or knew about.

Sure we knew about it, but no one had done it. Nice kids just didn't do things like that in my day. There may have been one or two kisses exchanged occasionally on someone's front porch. But that was it. Up until Felicia showed up, everyone knew who the pretty girls in our class were, but we didn't really investigate the way they were built. Perhaps it was just the fact that we'd all grown up together and gone through school together so most of the girls in the class developed slowly in front of our eyes.

But from the first second that I saw Felicia, I knew why women were built that way. Of course, with me being on the smaller side and the smarter side and also the quieter side, I never really got a chance to speak to her much. I was, however, just as much a member of her fan club as everyone else.

The jocks tried to impress her with their athletic prowess and their aggressiveness. The cool guys and the slick guys tried to impress her with their coolness or their schemes, but she didn't seem to bother with any of it. I observed everything she did through the tenth, eleventh and half of the twelfth grades. The summers were the worst time of the year for me. I hated summer vacation and could hardly wait to get back to school to see her.

I went to school every day. I memorized her entire wardrobe. Just to show you how obsessed I was, there were several girls in the class that took a liking to me and I ignored them all because of my obsession with Felicia. Kathy Sanders made it a point to tell me how stupid I was.

Kathy was a nice enough girl. She wasn't a princess and she wasn't a frog. She was just a nice normal girl. She had a very cute face and a nice body. There was only one thing wrong with her. She wasn't Felicia. If there hadn't been a Felicia, Kathy Sanders would have ruled our school. Not even the cheerleaders could hold a candle to Felicia. Comparing the average eighteen year old girl to Felicia Thomas was like comparing Marilyn Monroe to a Campfire girl. It was almost as if they just weren't the same species.

Kathy asked me to go with her to one of the dances and I looked at her like she was crazy. I didn't mean to be offensive, but the thought of dating anyone except Felicia was foreign to me. I didn't even know what to say to her. There was an embarrassingly pregnant pause and then she turned red in the face. "So you'd rather go to the dance alone and stare at Felicia across the floor, IF she even bothers to show up, instead of going to it with someone who actually knows you're alive and likes you?" she asked.

I think I nodded but I'm not really sure. "What a fucking loser," hissed Kathy as she stomped away, leaving me standing in the hall in front of half of our class.

During our senior year, we went on a lot of trips and activities. One of those trips was to Cedar Point, the famous amusement park in Ohio. We had to sit through a two hour long bus ride to get there. I intended to have fun that day. I had a decent amount of money to spend and a few friends to hang out with. We'd already decided everything we wanted to see and do at the park. Little did I know that real life was about to cancel my plans.

I was one of the first on the bus and grabbed a seat near the middle of the bus to wait for my friends. I knew that the jocks and the popular kids would all want to hang out in the back and I really didn't want to deal with their shit. I also knew that the nerds and the scared kids would be in the front of the bus, hoping for protection and freedom from the attention of the meaner kids. I also didn't want to be a part of that. The middle of the bus was pretty much just ignored, so that's where I sat.

As the bus began to fill up, I saw my friend Mike's mom's mini-van, pull into the parking lot. Mike's mom was a MILF even before they had the term. Her one issue was that she was really disorganized and was always late for everything. But if you took a look at her, you wouldn't care. All she had to do was to smile and everything would be forgiven. She was her generation's Felicia.

This time though, they weren't actually late. They were among the last to arrive, but there were still several open seats on the bus. There were two near me and a few in the front and in the rear.

I saw my friends Mike and Steve get out of the car and make a beeline for the bus. Just as they got onto the bus, my plans changed. It was as if a hush settled over the bus as Felicia got on. She smiled slightly and several people waved at her. Some of the jocks in the back of the bus made room for her and almost every guy there had his mouth drop open.

Okay, I looked too. I couldn't help it. And I'm sure that my mouth had dropped open as far as every other guy's had. But for the past couple of weeks, I'd been paying more attention to things other than Felicia. I was going away to college and I had a job lined up for the summer. I had my whole life ahead of me and it was time to start concentrating on my future and not my fantasy girl.

Basically, adulthood had started to beckon me. It was time to put away childish things. Seeing Felicia dressed for a summer outing wasn't exactly a childish thing though. There was just no way to explain it. There were a lot of girls who were dressed almost slutty, but they couldn't hold a candle to her.

Felicia had on a halter top, they were the style back then. Most of the girls had on some kind of crop top or halter top. But in Felicia's case, the way her large boobs just rocketed away from her rib cage was dizzying. We aren't talking about the average high school girl's boobs here. They were full and round and just incredible. Her boobs belonged on a thirty year old woman. Her waist narrowed and then veered outwards creating that hourglass shape that never, ever goes out of style.

Her shorts were modest, but the legs that extended from them were incredible. Every detail of her body was feminine perfection. Even the male teachers on the bus were drooling. And the female teachers were looking at her just as angrily as the female students were.

She walked down the aisle of the bus and then sat down daintily in the empty seat right next to me. I was flabbergasted and so were my friends, who walked up right behind her and were startled when she sat next to me, breaking up our plans for the bus ride at least.

Mike smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders, before he and Steve headed for empty seats. As the bus pulled out, I found things to look at out of the window. It took less than five minutes of driving for her to start.

"You're going to be kicking yourself tomorrow," she laughed. I had no idea what or who she was talking to so I continued to stare out the window. Hearing her voice, that close to me was intoxicating. "Boy, talk about missed opportunities," she continued.

I turned around to see who she was talking to and found her looking at me. I'd spent months and years staring at her from afar. But to see her, this close, was just over whelming. Up close, I could see every tiny line and wrinkle on her face. I could see tiny freckles and imperfections. Her brown eyes had tiny flecks of green in them and they were amazing. All of the myriad differences from one side of her symmetrical face to the other, made her more real. And unbelievably the imperfections only made her more perfect.

The strangest thing about it was that she knew. "Girls talk to each other all the time," she said. "I've been told more than once that you spend a lot of time staring at me." Oh yeah, she knew. And unbelievably, she was okay with it.

"Why?" she asked. There was really no need for words. The look in my eyes said it all. We just looked at each other for a very long moment that seemed to last forever. "Oh," she said. I felt like Icarus. I was simply too close to the sun. I had to avert my eyes and look away from the flame or melt from its fury. As I tried to look away she grabbed my chin and held my gaze. "No," she smiled. "I need you to get used to seeing me. We're not going to have much fun today if you can't get comfortable with me."

What the hell was she talking about? We? Did she actually mean her and me? How the hell would that work? She was this goddess and I was just a regular Joe. It simply would not occur. The heavens would not allow it to be so.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked.

"Of course, anything," I said.

"Why haven't you ever spoken to me?" she asked. I turned red all over again. I started to look away again to cover my embarrassment and she pulled my face back in line with hers again.

"I guess I could have tried to say something to you too," she said. "But you're so damned smart, you glow. You know the answers to all of the questions all the time. How does anyone do that? Did you know that most of the girls in our class think you're cute and everyone knows you're going to be successful some day? You're going to have the big house and the long car and all of that stuff."

"Uh unh," I stopped her. "I'm definitely always going to drive Mustangs."

"Like all of the pictures in your locker?" she asked. I blushed again, "Yeah I do some watching of my own," she smiled.

Then she did it. She flipped the arm rest between us up and pushed it between the seats and turned our seats from two separate seats into one longer one. Then she took my arm and wrapped her own around it. She dropped her head onto my shoulder and closed her eyes. I felt so many different things at that moment. On one hand, I felt strong and confident for once. I felt as if I had to protect the most precious thing in the world from all comers. On the other hand, I felt like I was going to explode with happiness.

At the same time, her big soft breasts were being pushed into my arm and I had the biggest, most embarrassing erection of my life. I felt like everyone on the bus was looking at it. In actuality though, it was only one person. Kathy Sanders was staring at us and she had murder in her eyes.

Once we got to the park, I gently shook Felicia awake. Her smile as her eyes opened gave my heart wings. "Are we there yet?" she asked. The slight huskiness in her voice endeared her to me even more.

As we got off the bus and entered the park, she refused to let go of my arm. I watched everything and everyone around me. For some reason, my curiosity over how all of my classmates viewed seeing Felicia and me together overwhelmed my desire to look over the park.

I saw and heard several different reactions. From curiosity on the faces of many, to a thumbs-up reaction from my two best friends who were clearly happy for me, and bore me no ill will for standing them up. Perhaps the strangest reaction at the time came from Kathy Sanders. I actually heard her utter, "Fucking bitch."

I was too happy to try to figure out what her problem was though, and Felicia and I settled down to the business of having fun. We rode the rides, starting out with some of the really fun rides and working our way up to the big scary coasters that Cedar Point is famous for. Of course, we sometimes had to stand in long lines to get on the coasters like the Blue Streak or the Demon Drop, but even that was special. If anyone had told me that I would like standing in line for almost an hour for a two minute ride, I'd have thought they were crazy. But standing in line with Felicia was more special than the ride.

We talked the whole time and I never tired of listening to her talk. We ate, we played games, we walked around and did everything there was to do. We bought souvenirs and T-shirts alike and changed into them. We walked around, holding hands like we'd been a couple for a long time. It was a perfect morning and afternoon. Unfortunately, by mid afternoon I was running short on cash. I'd spent a lot of the previous fall and winter saving money earned by mowing lawns and other odd jobs. Felicia and I had blown through almost one hundred and fifty dollars in just under four hours.

We sat around for a few awkward moments and then ran into a group of kids from our school who decided that they were going to get something to eat. Felicia decided to join them. One of the guys had offered to pay for her food. As they walked away, I felt like an egg dropped from the top of the Empire State building. I started out nearly as high as the clouds only to be dropped from those lofty heights to shatter on the cold, hard ground below.

I felt awful. In fact, awful wasn't really a good enough word to describe how I felt. I did run into the unlikely quintet of Mike, Steve, Holly, Sarah and Kathy Sanders as a fifth wheel. They all came over to me as I made my death march back towards the bus to spend our last two hours in depression and solitude.

"Where's your girlfriend?" asked Kathy snarkily.

"She's hanging out with some other people," I said quietly.

"When did she decide to this?" she asked. "Let me guess...about the same time that YOU ran out of money, right?"

"Don't sweat it Jerry. Just hang out with us," said Steve.

"Yeah," they all echoed.

"Thanks guys," I said sadly. "But I'm just not up to it. I'll see you on the bus.

"Wait, Jerry," said Kathy. I didn't wait to hear what she had to say. I had to get out of there before my friends caught me crying like a baby. As I left them standing there, I could hear them talking.

"That's rough," said Mike.

"Poor guy," said Steve.

"Just watch, I'm going to beat her fucking ass," said Kathy. "Let's go find that bitch."

As much as I thought I would, I didn't cry as I sat there on the bus thinking. I did run through a lot of different feelings though. I felt betrayed. I felt hurt too. I guessed that was what it felt like to have a broken heart. But at the same time, as I thought back on it, I asked myself if it had been worth it. Was the pain I'd felt at the end of the day a fair price to pay for the elation with which I'd started? I guess looking back on it I have to say yes; hell yes in fact. Four or five hours with my dream girl on my arm were worth two hours of heart break any day.