When We Were Married Ch. 02B

He helped me to my feet. I realized my face hurt like hell.

"What about my face?"

"Put some ice on it. Don't worry, Ernesto didn't do any damage."

"No damage?"

"Billy, it won't be long you won't even notice crap like that. It's like scratching your arm. It's nothing. That's part of learning to fight. But right now, we need to go somewhere."

I followed him out of the downtown to a gym in Avondale. It was a big two story affair, an older place. There were plenty of cars and lots of men and women inside. They were working on weights, Nautilus machines, stationary bikes and treadmills and there was a pool at the back end. He introduced me to Dan Hurly, the owner and told him he wanted to get me set up with a personal trainer, at least at first until I got to know the ropes.

"I want you to give Mr. Maitland a key, Dan. He works strange hours and I want him to be able to come in here any time he needs to. The cops won't hassle him because he's a prosecutor.

Hurly looked at me funny for a minute, then shrugged and said, "If Carlos vouches for you, okay. I'll get you a key. Wait here and I'll get you a trainer."

Carlos patted me on the shoulder.

"You start exercising and working out here. And come by the gym for the bags and a little sparring. It won't be quick, but you work at it and it won't be too long before you'll be kicking this guy's ass. And maybe getting some of your wife's? Right?"

I just shook my head but said, "Thank you, Carlos."

"De nada, my friend. I can never pay you back. Not in this lifetime. Good luck."

Hurly came back with a short muscular black guy who spent the next hour going over the weights and the Nautilus machines. I tried not to feel too self conscious, because there were 70 year old grannies and guys with pot guts three times bigger than mine on some of the machines.

Or course, there were also some middle aged matrons with spectacular butts and even better chests in outfits that ranged from the nearly obscene to relatively demure. And there were teeny boppers as young as Kelly and watching their hard young bodies really made me feel like a pervert.

After only an hour it was all I could do to drag myself to my Escalade and make it back to the Liberty Street condo. I was able to get to the bed where I intended to catch a few winks. That was at 4 p.m. When I opened my eyes again it was 1 a.m. and I just threw my clothes on the floor, crawled under the covers, and for a little while I was able to forget that I was alone.

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"Aaaaaaaaaaghgghghghghgh."

"ohhhhh....my god...baby....baby, don't move...leave it in there."

She could feel his heart hammering in his chest, that gorgeous hairless, smooth hard chest and it was almost as if they shared the same heartbeat. She gasped and tried to draw oxygen in because it felt like she was going to pass out.

Inside her she could feel the hard rigidity of his maleness softening with each spurt, and each gush made her insides quiver. It was impossible for anything to feel this good. She tried to remember if it had ever been like that in college, even when she was stoned. She didn't think so.

She rubbed the sweat from her face and laughed. It was so crazy, discovering sex when you were about to turn 40. Her pussy was sore from the relentless pounding of his dick over the last 20 minutes, her breasts so heavy and swollen they hurt; he had sucked and pulled on them so roughly. But it was a good hurt!

She thought he had finally stopped cumming inside of her as he rolled to lay beside her.

"My God, Doug, how much cum do you have stored away in there. We're going to have to change the sheets to get some sleep."

She could feel him grinning in the darkness.

"A lot of that is you. You know you cum like a fountain?"

"Damn, that's your fault. I felt like I'd never stop. I couldn't count how many times you made me."

"I never came like that before."

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

He held her head in his hands and bruised her lips with his kiss.

"It's the truth and you know it, Debbie. You're special. We're special together. I thought I knew what great sex was, but now..."

She knew it was the truth. It was like that for her too. Then something started to enter her head, a thought, and she shook it as if to physically throw it out. To stop thinking she pushed herself away from him and rolled to the edge of the bed.

"I've got to go pee and clean myself up, baby. Change the sheets."

She turned the bedroom nightlight on and ate up the sight of his male body lying next to her. As she got up and headed for the bathroom she heard him say behind her, "Hey, where are the sheets."

She found herself starting to say, "You know where they are, dummy, in the closet over the-"

And then she realized who she was talking to. Of course, HE didn't know where the sheets were. He had only been in her bedroom the last few weeks. He didn't know where everything was. How could he? She bent over the bathroom sink and tried not to cry, and if she did, not to let him hear.

"Hey, I'm thirsty. You just absorbed all my bodily fluids. I'm going to get a coke out of the fridge. You want anything?"

She tried to make her voice steady as she said, "No, I'll get the sheets. You go get a coke."

He was gone a few minutes and she had changed the sheets when she heard a faint crash, the shattering sound of glass breaking. She almost ran into the kitchen where she saw the fragments of blue black glass and shards of white and a pool of colorless liquid.

He stood there looking helplessly at the mess on the kitchen floor.

"I'm sorry, Deb," he said, looking childishly guilty. "I just turned around and my arm hit it. I didn't know it was so close to the edge of the counter. What was it?"

"Just a knick knack. A souvenir. It was a Snow Globe we got up in Alaska years ago. No big deal. Let me get a mop and I'll clean it up. Won't take a second. You go back to bed, in case the kids get up. Okay?"

He came over and kissed her on the cheek, kneading one breast which normally would make butterflies crawl all over her body. Now it just...she casually pushed his hand away and tried to laugh.

"Not now, you horny bastard. Go back to bed. I'll be there in a minute."

When he had left the room, she sank to her knees and sat there on her haunches looking at the glass and white shards and colorless liquid mess. She remembered the way the glaciers had glistened in the sun as she and Bill had walked the deck of the cruise ship. She remembered the feel of his hand as he stroked her face and how it felt as he came inside her in their cabin at night, how hard his cock was.

She remembered his picking out the snow globe in the tourist shop and telling her that this would always remind them of their fifth anniversary.

And now it was just a broken mess on a kitchen floor. The memories were gone, the marriage was gone. The love was gone. How could she be panting under Doug and loving the feel of his hard cock squirting his hot cum deep inside her and still feel this way, about a knick knack?

It was like life. You plan for things to stay solid and be there forever. But they break and they wind up thrown in the trash. Just like her and Bill. But it wasn't her fault. She knew that. It was Bill, the sorry bastard. He had thrown their life away.

She cleaned up the mess, put it in the trash can, and walked back toward her bedroom. Her bedroom now. Not their bedroom anymore. It was just the way it was, now.

Suddenly she found herself wondering what HE was doing at this precise moment. Was he awake, staring up at a ceiling in the darkness, thinking of her? Was he hating her?

She lay down beside Doug and rolled toward him.

"Hold me Doug, just hold me. Don't talk."

And he did.

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The phone on my desk beeped. It had been a busy Monday. The trial of the second of the scumbag drug-dealing, kid-killing Thompson brothers – this one was named Devon – was scheduled to begin. I was going to help but let the younger SAs handle this one.

Carlisle had pissed me off, but he made me realize that I couldn't go around antagonizing all of our young foot soldiers by making them do the crap work and then stealing the glory because I was big enough to do it. You don't build loyalty or a team that way. I wouldn't have stuck around if I'd been treated that way.

As usual there were ten million calls but Cheryl's voice over the intercom warned me, "It's your – wife, sir. You want to take the call?"

"She tell you what it's about?"

"No."

"You ask?"

"No."

We hadn't talked in the nearly a month, since her call that Friday. Lew was still doing a dance with Deb's attorney and I wondered if it was something legal. If it was I'd tell her to go fuck herself, politely. I didn't want to talk to her, but it could be about the kids.

"Hello."

"Hi."

There was a silence.

"You called me."

"I – uh.."

"Is there something wrong with the kids?"

"No."

"Well, Deb, much as I'd love to chat, I am very busy right now. What do you want?"

"I....just wanted to call and talk for a minute."

"The meter is running."

"Shit! You have to be an asshole? We haven't talked in nearly two months and the first time-"

"We haven't talked because I don't want to talk to you. Thought you'd figure that out by now."

"Bill...I know you're angry."

"Duh, you think?"

"Please, can you be a human being for just a few minutes?"

"Define human being. Is that a guy whose wife can screw around on him, fall in love with somebody else, rub his nose in her cheating, and then expect him to be nice and polite? The answer is no. If that's all you got to say, Deb, then-"

"Dammit, Bill. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you the way I did. I'm sorry you found out the way you did. I'm sorry I don't love you anymore. I'm sorry our marriage failed. I'm sorry you're hurting. I'm sorry for all of it. But we were married for nearly 20 years. We have two kids. We'll have to be in each other's lives in some way for the rest of our lives. Can't we be – civilized? People do get divorces and manage to stay civil."

I leaned back in my chair and took a deep breath. I tried to run through in my mind every moment of every endless long lonely night I'd laid in bed watching the hands of the clock creep around and praying morning would eventually come. I tried to remember the emotions I'd felt visualizing her writhing under his big dick while I couldn't even work up an erection with porn. That got me in the right mood.

"I guess you're right, Deb. Why should I be bitter? After all, you got the house and the kids and our friends. You got our life in other words. And a young stud to keep you warm on cold nights. I, on the other hand, got---let me think. Oh, yeah, I got it. I got shit. I got a tiny fucking condo where I can lay awake all night and watch porn trying to imagine a real live woman in my bed. Why would I be angry?"

There was a silence and if could have made myself believe it, I almost thought I heard crying. But that had to be my imagination.

"Someday, Bill, we're going to talk. We've both been too angry and hurt to talk to each other. Our emotions are too raw. But someday, we have to talk and end this hurt. I loved you for a long time, and I know you loved me. I know you wouldn't be like this if you didn't still love me."

"Never going to happen, Debbie. We already said everything we needed to say to each other. You said it all, actually. Remember. I just don't love you anymore."

"Bill-"

"Listen to me carefully. Unless one of the kids is hurt, don't call me again. I won't take your calls anymore. Anything we have to say goes through our attorneys. Goodbye."

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That day I managed to leave by 7 p.m. Assistants Sandy Bell and Bruce Saku were handling the case well and I tried to make myself fairly invisible so they wouldn't feel like I was looking over their shoulders.

As I was getting ready to walk out, Cheryl said, "He wants to see you."

I didn't need to ask. It had been a long time since I'd talked to him. But as long as the office ran like a smoothly functioning motor, he spent his days meeting and greeting and pressing the flesh and wooing reporters and business types. The kind of things the top guy does instead of actually working at what the voters elected him to do.

I took an elevator to the top floor and just smiled at the golden vision behind the desk. She was the only woman I'd ever seen that made Debbie look plain. Movie star looks and at least a 44dd cup atop a wasp waist. She smiled at me and I smiled back.

There was a hint of a speculative glint in her eyes as I walked past her, probably because I was almost certainly the only guy in the world who didn't strip her with his eyes whenever I saw her. I could make myself look better and say it was because I was THAT married, but actually it was because I could never even in my erotic dreams make myself believe I'd ever touch that body.

And naturally, because I didn't visibly lust after her, Myra, the Big Man's main squeeze, always gave me the eye when I came up.

I walked into the office of the man who signed my checks. Austin Edwards.

He smiled up at me, only because he was sitting down. Standing he was 6 foot eight and solidly built. He'd been a University of Florida basketball star center a generation before and still moved like an athlete. He'd also been Mayor of the City before becoming State Attorney and before he died he was determined that he was going to sit in the Governor's Chair in Tallahassee and maybe even make a run at the Presidency.

"Hi, guy," he said with that easy grin that voters loved. "How are things?"

"Just peachy, boss. Everybody should have their wife take a lover and throw them out of their house and their life."

We had been friends and co-conspirators enough years that he just smiled at that.

"I know, Bill. I've gotten the lowdown. I never would have believed Debbie would do that. I heard you got Walters handling the divorce. Everything going smoothly?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I'm still married but I expect to get that remedied in a few months."

He sat up straight in his chair and said seriously, "Are you alright? I can give you some time off if you need it."

"No. What I need is more time in the office. I just need to keep my mind occupied."

"Okay. I won't ever fight your spending more time working here. Just don't burn yourself out."

The deal we had made a long time before was that I'd get him enough favorable publicity to fuel his run for Governor when the time was right, and in return I could basically do anything I wanted in terms of how I ran the office. It worked for me.

As I walked past Myra I could feel her eyes giving me the once over and I couldn't help looking at her and saying, "God, you make me feel like such a piece of meat. I want to be respected for my mind."

She snickered.

When I left work, at Carlos' suggestion, I grabbed a small salad and small broiled chicken breast at a downtown health store/restaurant called FreshNGood. It wasn't the best thing I'd ever put down my throat, but it wasn't bad. Whether it was psychological or not, I hadn't had a roaring appetite for anything since – actually since the trouble had begun with Debbie.

I drove to the Liberty Street condo, but it was just an address. I had to go somewhere so it was a tossup between a bar and Hurley's gym. I wound up at the gym. I used the same black personal trainer and an hour and a half later felt like someone had ripped all the muscles out of my arms and legs so that I hobbled around like a broken doll.

I had a late night coffee at a Starbucks and went back to Liberty Street. I was there 30 minutes and realized I couldn't stand it there. I drove back to Hurley's and this time there were only a couple of dozen people there. I couldn't really move my arms anymore so I slid onto one of the stationary bikes and very, very slowly cycled to nowhere.

By the time I virtually collapsed and almost fell off the bike, I realized there were only three people left in the gym, Hurly and the black trainer and a pretty blonde.

"Are you alright?" she asked with a worried expression.

"Just let me catch my breath."

Despite worried expressions on their faces, I got to my feet and walked out with them to my Escalade. I managed to get to the Liberty Street condo and again collapsed onto the bed. I woke up at 3 a.m., stripped and got under the covers. And once again I managed to escape dreams of Debbie. This gym thing wasn't going to be bad.

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