Guilty Pleasures Ch. 09

An adult stories – Guilty Pleasures Ch. 09 by Publius68,Publius68 Welcome to my latest series, mashing up a few more tropes. This one turned out to be a crazy ride, so get ready for something that ends quite unlike it begins.

One thing you can be sure of, even though this is Literotica, and this story could easy veer off into… THERE, it does not in fact, go THERE. So either don’t fear, or don’t get your hopes up, whichever your preference.

Lastly, as always, I am not going for deep truths or gritty realism. The aim for me is a plausibly ridiculous course of events.

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Guilty Pleasures – Nine

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Normalcy had broken out in my life. As summer’s heat built, my life slid back into its usual easy rhythms.

Becca brought her friends over about once a week. When they came, I kept an eye on things, cooked cheap food for everybody, and guarded my booze fridge. Becca’s Trinity of best friends all largely behaved themselves. This made me happy, and my dick sad.

Work went smoothly. Trevor and Thalia were getting along, our physical production line was spooling up nicely, and none of my urchins in my department made any entitled demands. Well, no excessively entitled demands. Thalia even went back, more often than not, to her boxy-cut suits.

I went to Bridge Night at Wanda and Yancey’s on one Friday, then a cool event the next weekend at Ursula and Janet Talbot-Whitney’s. Those two did not regularly host neighborhood events, but when they did step up, they usually produced extra cool evenings. That week was a fairly low-key, old-fashioned cocktail party where we were expected to get all dressed up, like it was 1957 or something. Walt, Nate, and a few other husbands grumbled about having to pop on a tie and were told repeatedly to shut up by their excitedly dressed up wives.

As promised, I flirted with Wanda outrageously.

I had no agenda, obviously. I was just indulging in humorous appreciation–appreciation that I could now comfortably have fun with. My teasing of her (and of Yancey–I made sure he was always right there to see me do it) was fairly low-key fun when it had been Bridge Night, as that kind of evening is mostly just clusters of people, not close-in crowds. During the Talbot-Whitney’s standing cocktail party, there was a lot more mingling.

The second time I made Wanda snort with outraged laughter, I realized that I was getting a look or two, especially from some of the other wives, wondering what I was up to with her. Especially since Wanda was clearly flirting right back. I didn’t want any dark suspicions running through our neighborhood, so I just expanded my net and flirted with many, if not most of the other wives. People quickly relaxed.

After I had, right in front of him, done the next best thing to hitting on his wife, who is fifty-eight, overweight, and an absolute dear, Walt leaned into my ear and said, “Good to see you starting to get your Game with the ladies in shape again, Howard! It’s about time you started getting over Rebecca.” His wife, who had good-naturedly fled my ‘advances’, laughed almost hysterically at something another spouse said, and Walt chuckled. “You are gonna do fine. Tina is still blushing.”

I even flirted with both our hosts, to surprising effect. Ursula was amused. Janet practically leaned into it. I shook my head as I moved on from her. Janet was wearing one of the smallest cocktail dresses at the party, and her legs were on full display. And it was a damned nice display that I was unable to resist drinking in. But, recent, bizarre and unique circumstances not withstanding, Married was still very much a bright line for me.

The whole lesbian issue might have also presented a barrier… even if the Married thing wasn’t in the way. But maybe it wouldn’t have, considering the streak I was on lately. I sensed rather acutely that neither of these women were innocent of dick in their lifetimes, and Janet in particular did not seem terribly adverse to the concept…

Married. They were married.

There were a few of the women in my circle of friends with whom I intentionally did not flirt. Hannah and Beth Anne were both, well… repressed. I knew flirting would make either of them uncomfortable. Plus, I didn’t have the time or inspiration to tease every woman anyway. I did also have a fair number of guys I wanted to have a conversation or two with. I like talking about sports, and business, and booze, and hunting, and I had a good time talking about all of them with various husbands, and some wives too.

And I carefully didn’t flirt with Monica. She and Stan were mostly back to their old ways. He was a human tool, and she was a sweetie who treated hm inexplicably like a king. But even though there were no more public dustups between them, I could still sense some strain. Best not to roil those waters, much as I would have enjoyed fucking with Stan’s head.

Also… Stan was large. I was not overly eager to go dancing with him.

I did enjoy watching a few other guests doing some humorous flirting as well. I wondered if that was a dynamic I had not noticed because of my own hangups, or if my newly relaxed behavior was rubbing off. We all used to be more flirtatious, back in the day. Maybe I was helping others get back to some youthful fun. We were a bunch of middle-aged farts. We needed some fun.

The only bad thing about all this was Stan apparently took the situation as an excuse to flirt a little himself. I narrowed my eyes as he tried to get a laugh out of one of the more attractive neighbors. I hated to admit that he could turn on the charm, but he indeed could. Too bad for him however, because she knew what a human waste dump he was at heart, and failed to be impressed.

My eyes slid across the room to Monica, who was ignoring her husband’s antics. Or maybe she just didn’t see. Whatever, I shook my head at how a woman as beautiful as she would stay with… My mind filled again with that damned fantasy of leading her into the kitchen, and making love to her on the kitchen counter. I’d kiss her softly, and hungrily, fill my hands with her lovely breasts, lifting them free of the neckline of that wrap-around dress she was wearing… And speaking of wrapping around, she’d lift one of those lovely legs up and around my back as I drove into her like a velvet piston, sending her to loudly appreciative orgasmic heights that would draw Stan in to see what was happening. I’d flip his ass off. She’d tell him to get a good look…

Jesus!

I shook my head, and went to get a refill on my whiskey, which I slugged down far too quickly. My diseased brain was not back to completely normal, obviously. I shivered and slipped off to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror.

In the last couple of months, Clark, you have had more sex than any man should, with way, way more women than he should, I told my reflection sternly. Cut out the dark fantasies.

I washed my hands and returned to the party, where I joined several others in goading Walt and Tina into dancing. A good bit of alcohol had been consumed by all by that point, enough for Tina not to save her husband from our taunts. Walt should never dance in public…

*

Over all, life was good.

Of course, I found that now that my ‘Dry Spell’ had been broken, I was a bit more consciously aware of my need to find some kind of dating life. Hopefully with some lady or ladies who were actually appropriate to apply my game to.

Easier said than done when you are in your mid-forties, and you live in a suburban neighborhood where everyone except Peter is married. I mean, Pete’s a good guy, but I wasn’t asking him to dinner and a movie any time soon.

The only real echo of the sexual chaos my life had become at the beginning of the summer was Becca’s friend Stephanie. Now that she had decided that I was to be flirted with, she took to doing it more and longer each time she came by with Becca.

“Hey, Mister Howard,” the blonde said, draping herself down in the large chair next to where I was working. It was a very hot day, and most of the kids who were there that day were in the pool, staying cool. Stephanie was staying cool by not wearing much in the way of a bikini. It was a new one. Even if I had been able to not keep careful track of Stephanie’s bathing suit choices over the course of the summer, I would have known this one was new.

Her smooth, firm flesh had accumulated an excruciatingly deep, gorgeous tan over the summer so far, and the fact that this was a new and smaller suit was loudly attested to by the presence of pale hints of tan-lines exposed here or there where the bikini covered even less than its predecessors had.

I found my eyes making the evaluation a bit more openly, and more extensively, than was good for me, and I yanked my eyes back to my laptop. “Hello Stephanie,” I replied, as if distracted. “Good to see you again.”

“Mmmm,” she murmured, damned well aware at how closely I had just been checking her out. “I’m thirsty, what flavor are you going to give me today?”

Oh, this was new, I reflected. I had always let her help herself, since she became twenty-one, to a White Claw or two from my beer fridge. It wasn’t a big deal. There were two other kids, boys, who were twenty-one as well. They usually cadged a beer.

But as of today, I was now apparently expected to lean over to the fridge, which was closer to Stephanie than it was to me, given where we were sitting, and get a hard seltzer for her. I needed to nip this new gambit in the bud!

But I didn’t. I popped out of my chair and leaned over to open the fridge. This brought me closer to my new nemesis, who stretched a little in satisfaction (and display) at seeing me cave to her new ploy. I chose a lime-flavored can, knowing by now that she liked lime, but it was scarcely her favorite. There were three cans of black cherry in there, and I had to reach past them to get the lime.

I presented the can to her with widely sarcastic servility. “Shall I open it for you, lest you break an elegant nail?”

“Oh, would you? That would be great! Thank you!” she said, with a wide-eyed, enthusiastic innocence that was not fooling me.

Nip it in the bud, Clark!

I sighed, and cracked open the can, handing it to her as I sank back into my seat.

She took a long, loud pull, and I swear, even the way she held the thin, tall can was slightly suggestive. “Ahh! I love lime. Thanks, Howie! You are the best,” she chirped, slid to her bare feet, and popped off to join her friends in the pool, making very sure that her cute little butt danced for me as she moved away.

Her flirting was definitely escalating. But Becca assured me it was just that, and I guessed that I could live with it. That I could still feel creeped out by enjoying ogling a college cheerleader, after everything that had happened with Carol, Mary, and Anne, who were all talking to boys in the pool at the moment, made me feel at least a little better about myself. I thought.

*

Among the best returns to normalcy was the way Yancey and I were back to regular happy hour after work on Wednesdays, like we had done years before–back before he fucked my wife and felt too guilty about it to hang out with me all the time. He had not felt so guilty that he had confessed. Nor so guilty that he didn’t hang out with me at all. But his guilt had marred things for us. Now that I had a matching amount of, admittedly unregretted, sin on my ledger, it was good to relax with each other again.

“Tar Heels are going to suck this fall,” Yancey grumped into his tall draft Blue Moon.

“It is ACC football,” I said in basic agreement. “Most teams suck all the time. And all the teams suck most of the time. Wait for Winter. Basketball with be back this season, you’ll see.”

We wrangled for a little while over the details of my assertion, but since we both agreed in principal, it was more pro-forma bullshitting than actual debate.

Mostly we talked about work. For once it was Yancey’s company where the feces was hitting the rotary impeller, and he was having great fun telling me about it. He was having fun with the situation because the shit-show was not imperiling the company meaningfully, and because none of it was his responsibility.

Our waitress came by with our second round. We always had two. No more, no less. As the short little girl walked away, we both sipped in silence. And yes, we both took few a moments to appreciate the view. It was a good one, after all.

“So, I hear the cheerleader is torturing you now,” Yancey observed into the silence.

“How the fuck did you hear about that?” I asked, taken mildly aback.

“Mary was laughing about it with Wanda on Monday. They didn’t know I was close enough in the house to hear,” Yancey grinned at me, an expression half-leering, half-acerbic. The fact that I had fucked his wife, repeatedly and with gusto, was something he and I were on the same page about. But the fact that I had done the same with his daughter was still something he was just a smidge less comfortable with. Actually, since I was uncomfortable as Hell about it myself, I guess we were on the same page there as well.

So why the heck was Yancey so comfortable teasing me about my being tortured by one of Mary’s friends?

“You should hit that, if she actually gives you half a chance,” Yancey murmured into his beer.

I just stared at him. What the Hell?

“She’s crazy hot,” Yancey shrugged. “And she has the inestimable virtue of not being my daughter.”

Oh. There it was.

*

At 11:45, in the dark of that same night, my phone rang. It was on Do Not Disturb, so whomever it was calling had called and hung up repeatedly until it rang through anyway. I sat up like a bolt. Something must have happened to Becca!

Blearily, I grabbed my phone, yanking the charging cable as I did so and knocking my water glass on the floor.

Shit.

But I stabbed the button. The call was more important.

“Clark? It’s Wanda,” came a breathless voice over the phone.

“Wanda?” I said, confused. At least it wasn’t the police.

“We need you to come over here. Now,” she said urgently.

“Now? What?” I asked intelligently.

“Monica is here. She’s in hysterics,” Wanda said, nearly in hysterics herself. “She’s left Stan… as in run the fuck away from him, just now… in the middle of the night!”

“God!” I exclaimed, both relieved and horrified. “I’m glad she thought to run to you guys,” I added, meaning that. Wanda and Yancey are the best people I know. “But why does she need me? Now?”

“She doesn’t need you. I need you,” Wanda said, almost crossly. “I need you to get over here and stop Yancey before he works himself up to go back over there and beat up Stan!”

I was on my feet before the phone I had tossed had completed its arc down to the mattress. I almost slipped and killed myself on the spilled water, and but I kept my feet and was soon throwing some clothes on. I found myself brushing my hair in the bathroom mirror, and stared at the brush. Now was not the time for primping. I ran the brush over my head once or twice more anyway, and bolted for the door. I judged, based on experience, that I could run the distance to their place faster than I could get the car out of the garage and drive it over, so there I was, running through my suburban neighborhood in a pair of sweatpants, a teeshirt, and leather loafers with no socks, at midnight.

Yancey yanked open their front door in response to my knock. He had a wild look in his eye that I didn’t like. But I possibly had the same look growing on mine, so whatever.

“How is she?” I asked preemptively.

“Not good. I’m not sure I’ve seen a woman be this panicked.”

“How badly did he hit her?” I asked flatly.

Yancey paused. “I’m not sure that he did. If so, it was just a slap or two, which is fucking unacceptable as it is.” He heaved a beep breath. “But she doesn’t seem injured,” he said, “not even bruised,” clearly refusing to think it mattered. Still, he did slow down a hair as he admitted it. Good.

If she wasn’t hurt, it would be easier for him to not do something stupid. But bad, because if she wasn’t hurt, he’d get in a lot bigger trouble if he went ahead with Plan Stupid anyway. The problem was, Plan Stupid was sounding pretty good to me, too.

Taking a calculated risk to leave Yancey alone by the door, I indulged my own concern and dashed on to the kitchen, where I heard the women. Monica sat in their breakfast nook, with Wanda on the bench seat beside her, arms round her tightly. Monica was sobbing when she heard me come in.

“Clark!” she said in surprise. “I… you didn’t need to come. Not in the middle of the night. It’s bad enough I dragged Yancey and Wanda out of bed at midnight.” She gasped painfully for air, then went on in a voice that was suddenly suffused with anger as well as anguish. “But I could not stay in that house with him for another second. He’s so… fucking horrible.” I didn’t think I had ever heard Monica drop an actual f-bomb before. “I can’t. I can’t go back there. Ever!”

“We have you, Monica. You are here with Yancey and me,” Wanda crooned reassuringly. I suspected this was a refrain that she had been repeating, and would continue to repeat until Monica heard it fully. “You can stay with us as long as you like. You are safe here. You are safe with us. Yancey and I will keep you safe. Clark will keep you safe.”

Yancey had not seemed to be certain, so I was by God going to ask for myself. “Did he hit you? Did he hurt you?” I asked flatly.

“He slapped me pretty hard,” Monica said softly. Wanda stiffened, and I felt Yancey behind me bristle.

“Wait!” Monica added hastily. “He can claim self-defense on that one. I slapped him pretty hard first,” she said miserably.

That really didn’t get him off the hook in my book. Stan’s a big guy, and Monica is a delicate little thing, barely above average in height. Slaps from each were not created, or delivered, equal.

“That’s it,” Yancey growled. Wanda looked at me in alarm. Yancey turned, but before he could head back into the living room, I pushed him there myself, taking control without being overt.

“I’m going to kick that motherfucker’s ass,” Yancey growled, but when I stopped, he unconsciously did too.

I thought fast. “You are not, bro. And here’s why,” I growled, theatrically keeping my voice down as if we were keeping a secret, and making him lean in to hear me. “Right now, Monica is set up perfectly for a great divorce settlement. But if you go over there tonight and punch out that colostomy bag, he gets a Golden Victim Card. Further, if she really did hit him first, he might get everything. Calm the fuck down.”

“You didn’t seem so calm when you marched in and outright asked if he hit her,” Yancey complained.

“Because if she’d been injured, courts or no, I’d be going over to the fucker’s house with you. That way I could be sure it was Stan who got his ass kicked, and not you or me!”

“I could take that asshole,” Yancey growled, not ready to stand down.

“You and I stay in shape, Yancey. Stan works out. And he is ten years younger than either of us, at the point in all our lives where that is a huge fucking advantage. If he does eventually need to be chastised, we will do it together.”

Yancey looked at me surlily, but I saw agreement, at least in not heading out instantly, growing in his eyes.

“I need for you agree to take me, if you decide it is go time,” I said. “Just like I will agree to take you.” I held out my hand. With a deep breath, he shook on it. “Good. Now let’s go back and see if we can do anything useful, or else we can just stand around while Wanda takes care of her.”

Fortunately, there seemed for the time being at least to be no Stockholm Syndrome affecting Monica. If she never saw Stan again, it would be too soon for her, she said angrily. But she hadn’t even taken her keys with her when she had fled, and now felt homeless and adrift.

Wanda stepped on that quickly, declaring loudly that Monica was moving in with them. The guest room that never had any guests in it was now hers until she chose to leave. Monica tried to refuse that, but Yancey ganged up with Wanda and they browbeat her into accepting an asylum that she clearly desperately wanted.

I stood around for a while, clearly useless under the circumstances. I had done my job already, and received covert glances of thanks from Wanda. She wasn’t going to have to bail Yancey out of jail that night. After about a half hour, as I was about to excuse myself, but then I had an idea.

“Monica, you need to call in sick tomorrow,” I said firmly. “Or you can explain what’s actually going on. I don’t care. Do what’s best.”

“Absolutely,” Wanda agreed vehemently. “You are in no shape to be going to work tomorrow.”

“More to the point,” I said, breaking back in, “Yancey and I are going to find a way out of work ourselves, at least for the morning. The three of us, and Wanda if she can, are going over to your house once Stain goes to work and take everything of value that is incontestably yours, and bring it back here.”

“Stain?” Monica snorted.

“Oh shit, I mean Stan.”

“No,” the frazzled woman laughed. “From now on, he is Stain to me.” I should have liked to hear her laugh, but there was still an edge of hysteria that I found worrying.

*

The ‘liberation’ went off without a hitch. Turns out, it was an even better idea than I had surmised, as Monica apparently had stashed away a little over nine thousand dollars in cash that Stan… I mean The Stain, knew nothing about, but which had not been that well hidden.

Sure enough, the human dogshit bag had locked their bank account in the middle of the night. Now, with that cash, Monica could live with Wanda and Yancey without being financially dependent upon them. That was, I sensed, an important thing to her.

I finally got into work after lunch, and Thalia actually dropped by my office shortly thereafter.

Shit. She had on that new suit, the one she looked killer in. “When I asked management to be a little showy about work-life balance to get the vacation account down, I didn’t expect you of all people, Clark, to be so… enthusiastic about being out of the office,” she said tartly.

I told her what had happened, and what I had been doing that morning… minus the nine grand.

“Oh shit! I’m sorry, Clark,” exclaimed Thalia, who never swore in any way. “If you… you know that if you need to help her out in any way, just let us know, maybe in advance if possible, and we will cover for you.”

I grimaced and told her I’d try to keep things down to a dull roar.

Thalia just squeezed my shoulder in apology for coming in hot on me, a squeeze that trailed off much slower than I was prepared for, then she wafted out of the room.

Since when did Thalia ‘waft’?

I got home close to on time, and was perusing my delivery Thai food menus, when my daughter burst into the house at full steam. “Dad! How come you didn’t tell me?”

“What?”

“About Mrs. Ashburn! When Mary called her mom to check in and heard, we both hopped in her car and rushed right over!”

“But… you barely know Monica,” I said slowly, confused at the furor.

“We can help! We want to help! It is summer, we have more free time right now than you guys do,” Becca insisted.

She had more free time than me even during exams I briefly and irritably reflected. But worse, she, and apparently Mary, wanted to White Knight the situation. That was supposed to be my job…

I was not sure that Monica really needed two mother hens too young to drink, but I supposed all well-wishers, no matter how transient, would help.

“You and I are going over there right now, and Mary and I are cooking dinner,” Becca announced, as if Wanda wanted or needed a couple of invaders in her kitchen.

“It is already almost seven!” I objected. “Have you even thought about a grocery list?”

“The Franklin’s always have good stuff to cook,” Becca waved airily. “Oh, and I’m raiding your freezer for some good venison.”

Great. Now I was cooking. There was no way I was trusting my good stuff to their inexpert hands.

*

Sunday, the gang arrived at my back yard for the usual pool-centric good times. Lo and behold, Mary and Becca had even dragged poor Monica along for the afternoon. Apparently, she had retrieved some of her swimsuits during our liberation of her stuff. The one she wore was a nice, black one-piece. It even had a little cleavage…

I was happy to see her out and not hiding in my friends’ basement. I expected to have to entertain her for most of the afternoon, however. Except, that didn’t happen. Sure, we chatted a bit about how she was settling in as a boarder, and the extremely strong support she was getting from her boss and co-workers at her job, but she actually spent most of the afternoon hanging out with Becca and the hellions, who seemed determined to keep her laughing and relaxed. Maybe my daughter and her friends were going to be better at this than I had expected.

And Becca and the Hellions would make a great name for a band…

I actually managed to get a little work done for a bit, but then Stephanie showed up, almost an hour after the rest of the gang.

“Where have you been?” I heard Becca ask her as the cheerleader slid around the side of the house with an idle wave. “I thought you were blowing us off today.”

“Booster Club Brunch,” Stephanie replied easily. “Hey Mark,” she idly greeted one young guy who had risen at her arrival, as if to speak to her. But she slid on by him politely, not giving him the chance to make her blow him off. “They wanted an Appearance from us,” she went on to Becca.

“Of course,” my daughter sauced back drily. “Booster Club is all about the students, after all.”

“Ha! Yeah. The basketball players all stood around and looked awkward, and the members got to say they met all of them. Meanwhile, we cheerleaders do a routine, and otherwise stand around for show.”

“Sure! Nice of them to invite the players, to cover for the central idea,” Anne said drily.

“Aw, they are just a bunch of horny old geezers,” Stephanie said good-naturedly.

“It’s not fair,” Carol put in. “My team has done two of those brunches, and we never get a cheerleader side-party.”

Stephanie just looked at Carol askance for a moment. The softball player was draped over a chaise, drinking in the sun in one of the same bikinis she had brought on the cruise back in June. It wasn’t quite the border-line inappropriate number that Stephanie was rocking, but it was leaving little to my experience-fueled imagination, either. “Yeah,” said the blonde. “I can’t imagine why we weren’t required.”

There it was again with Stephanie. She was trying to be complimentary, I’m sure. She was being complimentary. But she just somehow sounded catty doing it. It was hard to tell if it was inadvertent or not.

Becca introduced Monica to Stephanie, whose body language upon hearing her name told me that the story of Monica’s midnight Bid For Freedom had reached her before then. Monica appeared to be a UNC legend already. They spoke for a moment or two, before Stephanie decided that the next item of her checklist was… me.

She really upped her game this time. First, she dove into the pool, swimming in a circle beneath the surface, then popped up and walked up the steps right toward me. I swear she did it in slow-motion, and it was like the fucking water dripping off of her body complied with the illusion.

Phoebe Cates had nothing… nothing on what came out of that pool at me.

Her eyes locked onto mine as she made her way toward me, with a definitely enhanced sway in her hips. I sighed and just let myself give her a good looking over. After all, I guessed I was a horny old geezer too, as far as she was concerned. She wore the same suit as the prior week. The bits of exposed tan-line were filling in nicely.

Instead of taking her by now de rigueur White Claw, she draped herself onto a seat near me and settled in on her side. Her arm languidly hung down across her stomach, the upper arm helpfully mashing her really unreasonably good tits together, threatening once more to squeeze them out of the bikini top like toothpaste.

“Do you always work on weekends, Mr. Howard?” she asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity. “Aren’t they for lying out by the pool when the weather is good?”

“I am sitting out by the pool,” I pointed out mildly.

“With your laptop… doing, what is that, spreadsheets?”

“Work has to get done,” I said with a smile. If she was going to make me stare at her body, and do not mistake me, I did kind of have to stare at her body with her laying there like that, at least I could get in a little Clark Howard School of Life instruction. “If they hired someone else to make it so I only worked 40 hours, they’d have to pay me half as much.”

“Still…” Stephanie mused, getting what I said, but not buying it. “How much do you make?”

“Just like a gentleman never asks a lady how old she is, you don’t ask a man, or woman, what they make.”

“You asked me my age,” she pounced. “You even made me provide proof,” she added, her fingers not remotely subconsciously rising to caress the inner curve of her breast where she had tucked her ID on one of her early gambits to torture me.”

“You show me your age if you want alcohol,” I shrugged. “I show the bank my income if I want to buy a bigger house.”

“You want a bigger house than this one?” Stephanie asked in genuine surprise. I shrugged again.

Not really. I liked this house and where it was.

She sat there for a bit, keeping me from working remotely productively, before asking, “Think I might have a black cherry this time?” she asked sweetly. I sighed and leaned over to get a can out. She leaned further over too, you know, to watch. Uh huh.

I handed it to her, unopened this time.

“Oh, could you open it for me,” she said, ready for my tiny attempt at pushback. “Fingernails, remember?” She waggled her long, elegant fingers at me. Her nails were indeed perfect. Of course. But they were not long enough to be a problem opening a can. She had to hold, and help lift and catch teammates, after all. I cracked the can, and handed it to her.

As a ‘reward’, she did the slightly suggestive hold and slurp, before finally having enough. Bouncing to her feet, she ran off toward some other kids, calling over her shoulder, “Thanks a lot, Howie. Don’t work too hard!”

When the Hell did my last name become her nickname for me?

*

I was grocery shopping on a Thursday, and trying not to consider again turning my pineapple upside down in the cart. My quest for ideas on how to improve, well, create a dating life for myself was going pretty much as badly as it had been before things got weird. The fact remained that I was a middle-aged, divorced workaholic, whose friends were all either borderline children, or married people whom I had long ago trained not to try to set me up.

My momentarily sour mood in what was truthfully a great life was not improved when I turned onto the cereal aisle. Who should I find myself bumping into than…

“Stain! Uh… sorry, Stan! How are you?” I said politely, despite the rough start.

“Clark,” he said smarmily. He wasn’t being hostile. He was just always like that. “I’m doing good,” he went on, clearly unfamiliar with the concept that ‘How are you’ is traditionally a rhetorical question… “In fact, life is treating me pretty well,” he went on. “I even have had a date already. Got another one scheduled for this weekend, now that I don’t have shit like Bridge parties to waste my time.”

Or a wife you are supposed to be with, asshole.

“Both girls are young, too,” he said snottily. I raised an eyebrow at that. “Yeah, mid-late-twenties, both of ’em. Guess you missed that train, buddy,” the thirty-seven year-old product of Summer’s Eve smirked superiorly.

Fuck you, Stain. I just had a threesome with two girls whose combined age barely equal yours, let alone mine.

“I’ll live,” I said out loud, in what sounded like good humor. Or was meant to.

“I’m looking at apartments this weekend,” he added thoughtfully, looking like he was straining his brain deciding between Post and Kellogg’s raisin brans. “Going to have to sell the house pretty quick though,” he went on, as if sad.

“Monica doesn’t want to keep it?” I asked carefully.

“Don’t really have a choice, do we?” Stain replied offhandedly. “She apparently wants separate lives now. So be it. But we’ve got an adjustable rate mortgage, and the way things are right now, there’s no way to keep it, now. Better to get out from under it quickly and split what equity we have.”

The worst of it was, I knew he was probably right. But I also knew he really just wanted to make sure that Monica could not stay in her home, in the neighborhood where all her friends were.

It was already pretty clear that our entire subdivision was pretty much Team Monica in the situation.

“She will be scrambling,” I suggested. At least until there was a settlement, his income probably dwarfed hers, or so I assumed.

“Eh, she’s got a pretty sweet deal, holed up with the Franklins. I’ve seen what she is claiming she is paying in rent to them. She’s taking them to the cleaners with her sob stories,” Stain said dismissively. Then he leaned in with a leer, “Unless Yancey is collecting some other form of rent, maybe?”

Fuck you, Stain. I’m going to give you a bloody nose, then pour that entire box of raisin bran down into your lungs.

“Wanda would murder him,” I said out loud. “But I have to run.” I’d hate to kill you right here in the grocery store, on camera. “I have lots of errands to run.”

“Yeah. Sucks to have to do all the domestic stuff on your own when they leave you high and dry, doesn’t it,” he replied, clearly leaning in on the fact that I’d been on my own for five years. The sumbitch was actually looking to establish some camaraderie with me…

It had to have been worth the night of terrified hysterics for Monica to get away from this sack of used cat litter.

*

Since I had not hosted a neighborhood do for a while, I had volunteered to have the crowd over by the pool before the weather started to turn. We are all mostly around my age or older in our neighborhood, so my pool is pretty much only an excuse to spend the evening outside. People wore suits if it was really hot, but only a few ever ventured in the water. Honestly, attendance was usually down when I hosted, so I didn’t do it often. But I was doing it that week.

I really don’t need help setting up for the evenings I host. They are after-dinner, so it is mostly just setting out packaged snacks and desserts, chilling beer and wine, and picking up a few bags of ice. But Wanda apparently decided that I needed help this time around, by which I mean she wanted Monica to get out of the house a little bit more. So an hour or so before things began, I had Monica, Yancey, and Wanda in my kitchen, ‘helping’. Mostly we jawboned, and I took the opportunity to see how Monica was doing.

The long and short of it was, she was calm and moderately happy… or moderately relieved might be a better way of saying it. I could tell she was still fragile, but I knew that she’d get a lot of friendly support this week, since it was the first time most of the neighbors would see her in person since her midnight ride.

“It is too bad Stain won’t be here tonight,” Monica said in an excess of sincerity. “He loves these crackers.”

“I’ve got others, if you’d rather,” I said hastily.

“Ha! He had to love them because I like them so much,” Monica said quickly. “Leave them out here!”

“I ran into The Stain at the grocery store yesterday,” I said, still irritated by the encounter.

“You didn’t punch him out without me,” Yancey asked warily.

“No. I left his features un-rearranged. But you can be sure,” I said firmly, “that I cherished and nurtured the mental image of doing so in my mind at multiple points in the conversation.” Wanda laughed more heartily than Yancey.

Monica gave me a look that was hard to read.

I left the housing-related portion of the discussion for another time when we were not all about to have a nice evening. But I was still steamed about the conversation, and all things Stan in general. “He’s such a tool, Monica. I’m sorry, but why did you put up with him so long?”

I was regretting asking that question while the words were still coming out of my mouth. It was inconsiderate of me to ask it. And I really did not want to hear my darkest suspicion confirmed, which was that he had a nine-inch cock and knew how to use it. How else could he have kept this lovely woman under his thumb? I searched for any way to deflect a direct answer.

“I’ll bet he’s cheated on you, too,” I essayed.

Shit. That was not the best of questions, especially in present company, since the three of us had all lost our stones to throw on that front. Before I could babble any more, Monica illustrated why it was such a bad question.

“No, I really don’t think so,” Monica said, as if she wished that he had. “Stain is manipulative, boorish, and has pushed me around for years, but he’s not a monster.”

Ouch.

Yancey winced at that. Hard. Wanda and I winced a little as well.

“Why do you think he cheated, Clark?” Monica asked idly.

“Oh… I, uh… If he didn’t cheat while you were under the same roof, he’s making up for lost time now,” I said, other irritations still under my saddle. “He told me that he’s already been on a date! And has another scheduled.”

“What?” Wanda asked, turning toward me with a dangerous look in her eye.

But Monica just waved a hand tiredly. “He might be feeling a little emasculated right now, you know.”

“Quit making excuses for the Stain, Monica,” I grumped. “He was even bragging about how young these women are. Like I’m supposed to be belittled by the fact that he’s going out with a couple of late-twenty-somethings.”

Both Wanda and Yancey snorted in restrained laughter at that. Monica didn’t know what the Hell they thought was so funny.

“Well, maybe you are just more mature than he is, Clark,” Monica replied tentatively. I could tell she was eager get a dig in on Stan while seeming to be the bigger person.

Yancey, meanwhile, rolled his eyes. Wanda almost lost it.

“Monica, help me carry out a couple of these twelve-packs to the coolers outside,” I said hastily, before she could ask Wanda what the fuck she was laughing about so hard.

The party was a success. I think a few more folks came, even though it was just a pool hangout, than otherwise might, just to say hi to Monica. That, and to enjoy an un-Stained evening.

I dialed back my flirting, since I was hosting, and since I had made my point the prior couple of get-togethers. I could go back to flirting with Wanda, making her smile, and making Yancey look smug. Meanwhile, our other divorcee, Peter, must have decided in the interim to take up the torch for himself, and he was in fine form. He even managed to draw a scandalized yelp of laughter from stick-in-the-mud Hannah that drew most everyone’s gaze. She was blushing profusely and trying to hide her grin with her hand. Who knew she had it in her… I’d always had her down as Church Lady to the bone.

*

Becca chose to bring round the crew on Saturday that weekend, and even chose to tell me in advance! I loved it, because it meant I barely needed to clean up after everybody left my backyard the night before, and didn’t have to put anything away at all, just reload the coolers.

I did wake up bolt upright at about 7:30 the next morning when I realized that I had left half a case of beer in the soda coolers. Leaving it out there might have given some people the wrong idea.

Speaking of wrong ideas, when things kicked off, Stephanie was there, of course. She bided her time after arrival, as usual, but when she came over for a White Claw, she didn’t spend quite so much time working me over before making me serve her her drink…

Don’t get me wrong, she still flaunted her body at me. Hard. And I looked. I wasn’t really even trying to hide it anymore. The last vestiges of tan-lines from earlier, slightly more modest bikinis were just about gone. I hoped to high heaven that she did not have another, even skimpier bikini to deploy once this tan fully filled in…

The only bad part came when I was looking almost desperately away while Stephanie took a moment to stretch in extravagant fashion, and I spied Anne and Carol looking over at me and the spectacle. Those little disasters were giggling.

Great. Monica was sitting over there with them again this week. I didn’t need them embarrassing me in front of my neighbor!

Otherwise, I was more than glad to see Monica again. The sun is always good for emotional woes, and she seemed to be getting along really well with both my daughter and her closest friends. I sensed that her damaging relationship with Stain had kept her from making a lot of good friends, at least here in town, and if the disaster squad could be that for her for a while, great.

Stephanie left me, ahead of schedule, thankfully. I began to hold out some hope for her losing interest in this game.

Okay, let’s be honest. I’m not sure whether I was holding out hope, or becoming alarmed that she might stop…

Then, about ten minutes after Stephanie had wandered off to be worshipped more openly by several boys in whom she was clearly not interested, Carol hauled herself out of the pool and came over to interrupt my work with a loud, “How ya’ll doing, Mister H?”

She plopped herself down in the chair beside mine, which Stephanie had so recently vacated. I looked at her askance. I might as well have, because I was looking at her regardless. Carol is, of course, her own six kinds of hot. My mind wandered rapidly down a pleasant image of what she and I might do if this were another afternoon and no one else was with us back here…

Note to self, don’t get caught back here alone by Carol! It would probably end up being glorious, but disastrous. I had them all held at bay for now. If I broke down with one, though, the other two would certainly want their own turn.

Yes. I know that sounds arrogant, but I know these kids, okay?

Whatever, it was not a risk I was prepared to take. Maybe, if it was just Carol. Or just Carol and Anne. Certainly if it as both of them at the same time again… But there was Mary to consider. Wanda seemed creepily chill about the idea, and even Becca had made her peace, sort of, about what had happened. But I was enjoying an unstrained friendship with Yancey, and he didn’t need that shit.

And I was still creeped out at myself that it had ever happened to begin with.

“I am doing fine, thank you, Carol. What’s up?”

“Stephanie is hitting on you hard, isn’t she?” Carol asked, shit-eating grin firmly attached to her face.

I rolled my eyes. “She is hardly ‘hitting on’ me. Flirting? I’ll give you that. But please. Her? I’m not in that league,” I muttered defensively.

“Ahem,” Carol grunted, a dangerous look in her eye.

Oops.

“You are a different case,” I said, thinking quickly. “You had a long history of affection for me. Affection that got… dislocated.” Dislocated to some place wonderfully horrible. Or was it horribly wonderful?

“Nice save,” Carol said, forgiving me more easily than I deserved.

After no more than a few moments more of pointless pleasantries, Carol hopped up to leave.

“Wait, you never told me what brought you over,” I said, puzzled. She always had an agenda. All of them did. Almost as much as my daughter, God bless her.

“I just wanted to do you a favor,” Carol said over she shoulder with an overtly flirty wave as she retreated, swishing her ass in its own inimitable way. I watched her go. Of course, I watched her go. Didn’t know what the fuck she had been talking about, but damn she was fine.

As she splashed back into the pool with my daughter, Monica, and the other two, I turned back to my computer… only to be interrupted again in moments by Stephanie reappearing again! I could even tell from the way she held the can, that she had hardly made a dent in the spiked seltzer. She wasn’t here for a second round.

“How’s it going now, Howie?” Stephanie asked chirpily, with a big smile on her face. She sat next to me again, and while she was not so much flaunting those tits at me this time, she was showing off her legs, stretching the one out way to the side, straight, firm, and golden. The other was bent at the knee and tucked down, to provide perhaps the illusion from a distance that she wasn’t sitting there with her legs spread before me. It was not blatant, but I had a view.

No girl who spends that much of her time jumping around, and being lifted up in a skirt that barely covers her ass to begin with, is unaware of who is seeing her crotch at any given time. She knew what she was showing me… in a bikini that showed pretty much everything there was to be seen.

“I… I’m doing fine, Stephanie. Still trying to get that work done so they don’t need two of me for less money,” I said patiently, eyes still trying not to be too goddamned obvious.

Across my backyard, I heard some shared hilarity from the pool. My daughter’s laugh was like a lifeline. I’ve always loved that sound, and I turned to look over. She and her friends had Monica laughing about something.

“Well, I just wanted to be sure you were happy, Howie. We all love coming over,” Stephanie said, distracting me from my distraction. “See you!,” she said pertly, and bounced away again. Her ass was this tiny, peach-shaped bouncing example of bouncing perfection…

Suddenly there were even louder shrieks of hilarity and… shock(?) from my daughter’s cluster in the pool and a full on water fight broke out among all of them, even Monica, who was demonstrating an impressive knowledge of displacing large amounts of pool water. I shook my head in bemusement as things settled down and the five of them huddled up in newfound accord.

I shrugged inwardly and went back to work. Maybe Monica could explain what the heck had had the girls all freaked out about. More importantly, I had a half an hour before it was time to go all Man-Fire-Food, and I was blessedly left alone to figure out this power bleed issue we were fighting.

*

“Clark, what the heck is up with Thalia right now?” Dennis asked me as we left the meeting.

“I don’t know,” I answered irritably.

“Right? I’ve never seen her wear a skirt before,” Dennis went on.

“What? Yeah,” I said, thinking quickly. Come to think of it, she never did wear skirts, did she… Crying shame, because those were some nice calves.

“Georgia says it is because she had a new boyfriend,” Dennis speculated. “But Jeannie says it is because she had just decided that she wants one…”

I shrugged. All I knew was that that had been a damned productive meeting, and I hated those with all my soul. Good meetings gave people the idea that they should have more meetings. Meetings have been bad, since the very beginning. The Last Supper was thirteen guys sitting around a table, eating bland snacks and discussing strategy. How’d that work out?

*

“So I almost pulled the Big One of marriage fuckups this week,” Yancey said, after our first sips of beer on Wednesday. We had chosen to try a new brew pub for our weekly happy hour, and I was not sold on their IPA.

“What?” I asked, alarmed. Yancey couldn’t have…

“Relax, douchebag,” he snorted, but his eyes were momentarily serious and reassuring. He was not going there again. Ever. “I mean the sitcom Big One. Our anniversary is tomorrow, and I did not have it on my calendar.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah, but I remembered all on my own on Tuesday, thank God,” he said. “Wanda and I were sitting in bed, after… well, we were phone scrolling and a Facebook Memory came up that triggered my own. I sat bolt upright and about had a stroke. Wanda looks at me, and I just blurted out something about going to The Understudy on Thursday.”

“Ouch,” I said quietly. “Um, did she never tell you…”

“That it was where you took her that first time? Of course she did. It is why it came to mind when I was panicking. She fucking loved that place.”

“What anniversary is this for you guys?”

“Twenty-Third.”

“Nice! Congratulations. But I had no idea just how expensive that place is. That’s a princely gift for an off-year anniversary…”

Yancey waved it away. “Eh. I was useless half the morning while I shopped online for an actual gift. After all that has happened these last few months with us… with you and us, I really want to celebrate making it another trip round the sun.”

We clinked glasses.

“We did talk for a bit about Monica before we decided to go out,” Yancey said. “It will be the first time that she will be alone in the house for more than a few minutes since she moved in with us.”

“She’s a big girl,” I said easily. “Go have some fun, you two!”

“I think…we think you are right,” Yancey said. “And we are definitely going. But if it was even a couple of weeks ago? No way. She was seriously panicked at first.”

“Really? She seemed to bounce back from that night pretty fast,” I said.

“She’s fine with other people around, has been almost from the start,” Yancey agreed. Then he leaned in. “But if she is sitting by herself in a room? The first week, she’d jump out of her skin when one of us walked in wherever she was. And after she calmed down from that, even up until recently, I’d catch this creepily blank look in her eyes when we hadn’t been in the room with her.”

“What the fuck did that shitwad do to her?” I asked in bewildered anger.

Yancey sighed. “I don’t think there is any long-term trauma, you know, beyond having a marriage fail. But she is still definitely suffering some short-term pain. The good news is, it is fading. The question is, how far will it fade?”

I held up a finger and reached to dial my phone.

“Hey! Monica?”

“Hello Clark. What can I do for you? Aren’t you out drinking with Yancey?”

“Yes. The IPA is underwhelming,” I said. “He was just telling me he finally decided what to do with Wanda for their anniversary tomorrow.”

“Wanda has been wondering if he was going to remember,” Monica said in amusement.

“Oh, he’s been dithering about what to do for weeks,” I lied easily. I knew that alleged detail would get back to Wanda, possibly seconds after I hung up. “My point is, since you are going to be left all alone and forlorn, want to come eat and watch the Braves game with me at BW3? I usually just sit at the bar.”

“I… uh…” she hesitated. “Look, I hate eating at the bar. Can we get a table?”

“Sure, I guess. I mean, if you want to be all patient about getting your drinks…”

“What time?” Monica chuckled.

“Game time is about seven. Meet you there?” I asked.

“Deal,” she said, and hung up.

Yancey was looking at me. “One, I caught what you said about my anniversary planning. Thank you, dude. That was a solid. Two, did you just ask Monica out on a date?”

“What? No!” I snorted. “First, she is still married, man!” Yancey barely even flinched. “Second, it’s Monica. Third, and most importantly, it is BW3. I’m a little old to be asking a woman on a date to Buffalo Wild Wings.”

Yancey rolled his eyes. “So, umm… speaking of actual dates, just how expensive is The Understudy?” he asked nervously.

*

The dinner with Monica was fine. I drank decent beer. She drank a glass of mediocre wine, then switched to beer. We tried a bunch of different wing sauces over the course of the game, which turned out to be a compelling one. 3-2, Bravos.

I watched her like a hawk to see if I could detect any sense of the lingering fear or anguish Yancey was concerned about, but I didn’t probe very hard out of caution against digging something up. Honestly she seemed fine… not super happy, but like a normal working adult.

I was surprised and a little thrilled that she knew enough about baseball to discuss the impact of the new rule changes. I was horrified to learn that she actually thought they were a good idea…

*

Sunday was Becca’s ordained day that week for hanging with Dad and a crew of friends. I had buckled down extra hard on Saturday to get the work I really needed to get done, done, in anticipation of Stephanie making it hard to get anything done, in a variety of ways.

I was honest with myself–it was hopeful anticipation. Even though I was still pretty sure she was just torturing me, and was never even considering following through in any way, I could certainly fantasize about it. I was going to fantasize about it whether or not I thought it was appropriate anyway… Stephanie induced very high quality fantasies.

The first group to arrive consisted of my daughter, Carol, and some guy who was apparently Carol’s current hopeful. From the way she held his arm, his hopes might be granted, at least in some form. Right behind them, walking over from Yancey’s house, were Mary, Anne, and Monica again. Another carload arrived as they did and then I was distracted from saying hello by yet another car which pulled into the driveway.

I turned around from letting those kids, about half of whom I recognized, in, and saw the girls ditching their coverups. Monica slid her own baggy black overshirt off as well, and… oh. Apparently she had also rescued a bikini from her house.

Look, it was a fairly modest number, with high-waisted, blue boy shorts for the bottom, and a sturdy, red top. But it was a bikini. I obviously had suffered the odd sexual fantasy about Monica recently, and this afternoon was going to do nothing to tamp any future ones down. Her skin was not as toned as the young women around her, and her tan oddly mottled, but her body could hold its own with them, and then some…

Stain is not only a dick, he’s a total moron…

And then Stephanie rolled in.

She had on another new bikini, and… wow. It actually covered a lot more than the last had, but it was cut so perfectly to frame her curves that I actually grunted quietly when I first saw her. But she also had a new guy beside her as she arrived. A tall, handsome, if not terribly athletic, dude with wire-rimmed glasses. He stuck close to her as they arrived.

Well, I was not to be flirted with today, I thought, with a totally inappropriate amount of regret.

She made a beeline toward me, swain in tow. Funny, he didn’t seem like he’d be Stephanie’s type, really.

“Mr. Howard, I brought friend I’d like you to meet,” the cheerleader said, quite businesslike. “This is John Bain.”

“Nice to meet you, John,” I said. Nice, strong handshake, intent eyes, looking into mine. I hated this kid already. “What do you study?” I asked. Even adults fall back on the whole ‘what’s your major?’ conversational gambit. It is the ‘nice weather, huh?’ of college kids.

“Um, well… electrical engineering, sir,” John said. “I’ll be starting my fifth year of the BS/MS program this coming fall.”

Oh.

Oh!

Stephanie had not brought a date. She had brought me a possible present.

“Thanks for introducing us, Stephanie,” I said blandly. “John, I’m guessing that you are old enough for me to offer you a beer?”

“I’ll see you later, Mr. Howard,” Stephanie said, and wandered off toward my daughter and company.

It was usually Becca who thought to bring along, or agreed to bring along, aspiring new engineers to these afternoons. It was considerate of Stephanie to do so on her own. Whether she was being considerate to me, or to John, or to both of us, didn’t matter.

And it remained to be seen if this kid would be promising or not, but I was always eager to meet new prospects. And being even accepted into the five-year program that provides both degrees at the same time was encouraging in and of itself.

Twenty minutes later, I was in a very good mood, and I tried to convey that to this kid. I only had the barest of ideas about his talent as an engineer, of course, but there were signs it was there. Mostly, I just liked his personality. I was quite certain that this young man would be a joy to manage.

I wrapped up our interview, and make no mistake, this had turned into a full-blown interview, with an email or three, one of which I copied John in on. If his background checked out, we could have him do some contract work on a minor task or two over the next few months. If he showed that he had what it took to do the work, with any luck, we could have him hired before the big corporate recruiters with more money to offer upfront got to him later in the year.

“It’s been good to meet you, John. Now I have work to do, and I assume you’d rather spend this sunny day poolside meeting girls instead of talking shop. Let me know if you want another beer.”

Knowing he was dismissed, and hopefully knowing he had done well, John wandered off to, in fact, meet girls.

And Stephanie descended upon me almost immediately. “Hey Howie! I hope you don’t mind my bringing John over,” she said, folding herself into the chair beside me. The way she wrapped her limbs around herself, they covered virtually all of her gorgeous new suit. This wasn’t modest in any way, however, as it just gave the not-so subconscious impression that she was stark naked beside me.

“You date is a nice kid,” I said easily. “I am glad to have met him.”

Stephanie laughed musically. “Oh, he’s not my date.” She tilted her head forward so her eyes were looking up at me. “I don’t actually date that many guys, you know,” she said softly. Then she perked back up, having made a point. “But he is a friend, and I thought he could use a chance to meet you.”

This was that helping streak in her personality that my daughter liked so much about this girl.

Then she unfurled her long, lean body and relaxed on the chaise. This took away the delicious illusion that she was naked, but replaced it with the delicious reality of how she looked in the new bikini. Like I said, it showed appreciably less skin… but showcased the whole package much better.

“Whatcha got for me today, Howie?” she asked, her voice clearly intending to convey multiple meanings. The tease. She rolled over onto her belly and looked back at me over her shoulder–over her shoulder, down her back, and over her tight little muscular ass. Serious tease.

“Peach,” I replied instantly, keeping as straight a face as I could.

Stephanie didn’t get it. Good. She did accept the can of peach White Claw. I even opened it for her extravagantly and unbidden. She awarded me the sight of her lips on the rim of the tall can, sucking softly. Then she popped up, her torture for the day done. “Thanks, Howie!” she called over her shoulder.

Something made me look over by the pool. Becca, her friends, and even Monica were staring sweetly at me as Stephanie moved away.

Fuck… No good would come from those looks. I could only hope that Monica would keep them in line. But they turned away and went back to their discussion. I relaxed and actually picked up a book. Yes, a hard copy book. I’d forgotten how restful words on physical paper was.

A shadow fell across me, and I looked up to see Anne smiling over me. “You look bored. I’ve come over to keep you company,” she smiled. She bent over me, her own delicate, glorious breasts hanging in her own glorious bikini in front of my eyes. She looked at me with widely faux-innocent eyes.

“You are providing me with a lovely view, Anne,” I said mildly, despite my honestly suddenly racing heart. “But I am rather more intimately familiar with your charms than this, if you can manage to remember.”

“I’ll never forget, Clark,” Anne said. “I just thought your feeble old-man brain might need a refresher!”

“Why, you…!” I growled, and smacked her arm with my paperback. She squealed with laughter and took off. I am lucky that sweet ass of hers had not been in reach, or I might have spanked it with my book. That would have been a bit farther than I wanted to go. Or it might have made me end up going farther than I wanted to go…

I watched Anne dash back to the rest of Becca’s crew, and plop into the water with them again. They tried not to act like it, but I could tell that they were now all keeping an eye on me.

I had barely reopened my book when Stephanie returned again. “Hey, Howie,” she chirped. “Why aren’t you working today?” Her overall body language was hardly a come-on this time, but her one hand, the one you’d have to be close to us to see, was trailing over the upper curve of her tit in that bikini.

“I am caught up for once,” I said with a smile. The least I could do is seem appreciative of what she was up to. “It lets me relax and see what’s what.” But I was not going to look actually eager. Sorry, girl, you don’t get that.

She just got my eyes focused on that tit she was outlining… I couldn’t help but give her that.

“Okay, just checking. You are always so cool to let us all come infest your backyard so much,” Stephanie said, then turned away. She definitely bounced her ass at me this time. “Have fun!”

And she was off once more.

I watched her glide away, and shook my head.

I looked over again to the pool, where general hilarity was going on in the group. Except for Becca, who had gone off somewhere else.

Shit. Where was she? I hoped it was the bathroom, and she’d be back before the gang in the pool got crazy. But Monica was with them, even if she currently wore far too wide a grin. She’d keep them in line. Right?

I got two whole pages further into my book. Two!

Mary.

It was Mary’s turn to come over and fuck with me.

As long as it was just, ‘with’…

She… she sat on the arm of my chair. That sweet ass of hers was nestling down just inches from my arm. I found myself involuntarily remembering not once, but twice being on the verge of coming inside this girl, and getting caught both times.

I looked around, unable to help myself, waiting for my mother to show up. Or maybe the Pope.

Hell, they’d probably show up together. With a camera crew.

“So, are you having a good afternoon?” Mary asked cheerfully, in a voice that tried to be devoid of guile.

All three of these girls were utterly adorable. They knew instinctively how to play The Game. Someone better marry them soon, because they were going to wreck lives, happily, until then. But they still had a kittenish clumsiness about how they played that Game that was adorable but a little transparent. I knew she was there to screw with my mind, for some damned reason. What was it?

“Why are you three choosing to suddenly torment me? I thought we were all in agreement, that this needs to not…”

“Oh, we aren’t coming over to torment you!” Mary exclaimed quietly. “That part is just a bonus for us. We are tormenting Stephanie.”

“What?”

We’re making her have to keep marking her territory. It’s hilarious.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Language!” Mary laughed, and ruffled my goddamned hair. Casually, but also obviously. Maybe she wasn’t so clumsy. She sure as fuck was sexy. “You mark my words,” she went on, “if I do my job right, your blonde goddess will be back over here two minutes after I’m done playing with you.”

“Oh, my God…”

“She isn’t used to competition, you know.” Mary said softly. “You are welcome…” With that, she rose, pushing herself upright on my shoulder and pranced back to the pool. Oh, God. That ass…

I closed my eyes and hung my head back against the chair. There was no way…

“Howie! I don’t suppose I could get a second round?” Stephanie said, sidling up to me. “It is hot today.”

I surreptitiously checked my watch. One minute, fifty two seconds.

Yes, I had been timing it. Now, I felt like I mentally owed Mary five bucks…

“What can I get you this time?” I sighed, leaning over to get out of my chair.

“Oh, I’ll get it,” Stephanie said smoothly, resting her hand on my bare shoulder as she sank down to her knees and bent to reach into the fridge. Her hand went right past the black cherry right in front, and she leaned deep to grab another lime.

Yes the view was every bit more spectacular than you can imagine.

I knew this girl was just toying with me, playing a power game to boost her own ego. And fair dues, she had to know she was boosting mine. That was all this was going to be.

But if I did get the chance to fuck this girl, it was going to be glorious.

Oh God.

‘If I did get the chance to fuck this girl’?!?!

I was so depraved, I was actually not even feeling bad about thinking about nailing this girl. This twenty one year-old girl. My daughter’s age.

Where was my daughter?

I was horrible.

But I’d fuck this girl in a heartbeat if she went insane and let me…

I… I was even thinking about how to advance that prospect.

Stephanie took the can from the fridge, and still kneeling beside me, she held it up, “Thanks. But could you please still open it for me?”

I did. Slowly. And I handed it back down to her with an almost condescending smile. “There you are,” I said, trying to look away. That was not a task I could accomplish.

Stephanie rose and turned to go. “Thank you, Howie,” she said casually, as she turned to go. She leaned back over her shoulder so I could see her put the can to her lips.

I shuddered. I wanted to panic. I wanted to find a way to banish her. I should not let this go any further. But I just could not find the shame in myself about her that I had with the Hellions.

Or were they The Trinity?

Which were they?

My eyes finally found Becca. She had gone off to sit with… John Bain.

I had told that punk to go talk to girls, hadn’t I? But he chose my daughter as the girl to talk to? My opinion of his intelligence had possibly been overblown. You just do not interview with a guy, an interview you personally engineered, then go and hit on his daughter, right in his full view!

Monica came and settled into the chair next to me.

“That bikini is an upgrade over the other suit,” I observed distractedly. But it was true, and she deserved to know it.

“Thank you,” Monica said drily. “Having an interesting afternoon?”

“I don’t know what is going on,” I said grumpily.

“You don’t?” she snorted.

“Well… I mean…” I sought for a subject to divert from what she clearly meant. I did not want to have to be embarrassed by Monica questioning me on the Stephanie and Company Show. “First of all, there’s that young man over there, the good-looking one, talking with Becca? He came here today to talk to me. About professional opportunities. I was very impressed. Then he goes off and hits on the damned daughter of the guy he was here to meet? Where is the judgment in that?”

Monica looked over covertly. “Does he know she is your daughter?” She kept staring at them for a minute.

“Um… I don’t know,” I admitted. That hadn’t occurred to me.

“And not to put too fine a point in it, but Becca seems to me to be doing the majority of the hitting,” Monica added. “Not all of it, to be sure. But most of it.”

“Shit,” I grumbled. “You know that logic and reassurance are not necessarily what a father wants at times like this?”

“What times? When he is being distracted by a college cheerleader?”

“And the ancillary folderol,” I said before deciding that talking about Stephanie was bad enough, I did not need to start down a discussion about the three who must not be mentioned. Especially not to Monica. “I just… I mean, come on!”

Monica just grinned, and patted my cheek.

“And why have you come over here now?” I asked, still non-plussed, and now feeling like Monica was not actually inclined to be helpful. “Can I get you a drink, or are you just here to be my bodyguard?”

“I’ll take a beer in a minute, thank you,” she said with a slightly evil grin, “but for now…” a flash of insecurity crossed her face. It was quick, but I caught it. Then it flowered back in full. “For now… I decided to come over and see if I still have what it takes to provoke Stephanie into coming back to re-mark her territory again when I leave.”

I looked at Monica. I then deliberately looked down her body in the chair next to mine, and looked back up at her face. “She has eyes,” I said snarkily. “If that is what she is doing, she’ll be back the second you leave.”

“It is absolutely what she is doing,” Monica laughed merrily.

“For fuck’s sake, this is psychotic,” I grumbled. “What the hell does she think she is doing?”

“Hitting on a great prospect?” Monica shrugged, reaching into the fridge for a Mich Ultra.

“Me? I’m twenty five years older than her!”

Monica laughed merrily, took a big sip of beer, and leaned over toward me, hand on my knee. “What? You can sleep with her friends, but you are somehow too old to date Stephanie?”

“What?” I coughed. “What are you talking about?” I said, desperately trying to look bewildered. Had she guessed? Was she fishing? Or, please Lord, was she hopefully just joking?

Monica actually caressed my knee. It was a gesture meant to be seen. “Remember the water fight last week?”

“I do, what was that about?” I said, eager to change the subject. I’d have been eager to talk about the culinary uses of puppies at that particular moment…

“That was Anne accidentally spilling the beans,” Monica chuckled.

“Wait. Anne!?!” I asked in shock. If one of them had actually said something stupid, it wouldn’t have been Anne. Not her. It would have been… None of them were that stupid, were they?

“Oh ho,” Monica said leaning back, the show of hand on my knee accomplished. She grinned and laughed quite a bit louder than we had been talking. “You challenge it was Anne to break her silence, not what her silence was about!”

I looked at her, or tried to. My eyes wouldn’t meet hers. What the Hell did she think of me? “What did she say?” I asked hoarsely. I needed to know what Monica knew, lest I fill her in on any details she did not know about…

“You really want to hear it?” Monica asked, clearly, inexplicably, amused. At least she had not run straight to Wanda, or worse, Yancey. Not that she would have been bringing news of anything they didn’t already know…

I bent over and grabbed myself a winter wheat from my beer fridge. Cracking the can, I sighed and nodded.

“We were discussing Stephanie’s current infatuation with you, and where it came from. None of them offered an explanation, beyond Mary just saying, ‘Duh’. But then Carol says, ‘Regardless, I guess I was right about how to encourage it. Look.’ We all turned and laughed when we saw that girl making a beeline back to you after Carol had left.” Monica shook her head. “I, in my apparently vast ignorance, said to Becca, ‘Isn’t your father a little old for Stephanie? She’d give him a heart attack.'”

I snapped out of my misery for just a second, shooting her an indignant look.

Monica just shrugged in insincere apology. “Then Anne laughed so hard she choked, and said, ‘Stephanie doesn’t actually date, much less sleep with that many guys. I’m more afraid the Full Clark Experience would break her mind.'”

Oh shit.

“That Anne had had The Full Clark Experience was obvious from what she said, but the horrified reactions of the other two was priceless. Becca’s was even better,” Monica went on.

Uh oh.

“‘Nice leak, Anne! And TMI,’ Becca sputtered. ‘You guys know I just do not need to hear about what he did with any of you.’ She stopped, and looked at me in horror. The rest of them stared at Becca. She turned beet red. I am sure that I turned beet red. Then Anne scoffed, ‘Oh, so I am the security problem?’ And then the water fight broke out.”

I looked at her in dismay. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, I am going to say, um, well done, and toodleoo, and then go back to the pool,” Monica said as she rose, making the time to stretch in front of me. “I think I won’t take my beer back into the pool. When I tell them I told you I know their secret, there will probably be another water fight. I’ll be ready this time…”

I watched her go, sourly. Yancey already had a grand old time busting my chops on all subjects, great and skeezy. Now I had a friend who was shaping up to be doing it from a female perspective. I also watched her go because the view doing so afforded meant that Stephanie was most certainly coming back.

Yep. Monica had spent the most time with me, and now Stephanie returned the fastest. I was looking out for it, and saw her uncoil from where she had been sunning herself with two boys who, as far as I was concerned, were both better-looking than me. She paused, and reached down for her tube of sunscreen and catwalked back over toward me. I pretended to read my book.

“So Howie, will Becca still bring kids over here once school starts back in the Fall?” Stephanie asked, sitting down in almost bland fashion. To the extent that any movement this girl made was bland. Then she started to apply sunscreen.

God bless the instructions to re-apply every ninety minutes.

I felt it only polite, since she was talking to me, to put down my book with a neutral expression and give Stephanie my full attention. Well, I did smile a little when I heard a quiet whoop of triumph from Monica back in the pool.

Oh Jesus, did Stephanie have marvelous skin… marvelous skin stretched over marvelous curves. Her tan was perfection, lustrous and even, but gentle. She did not let herself get dark, just glowing. No leathery skin in this girl’s future, I realized approvingly. The 100 SPF sunscreen she was applying now told me that she was quite deliberate and skilled in dialing in exactly how much sun she got.

“I hope she keeps bringing people until it gets too cold, Stephanie,” I said, snapping out of what had been only a second or two of reverie. “The pool’s not heated. But even once the water got too cold last year, she still had a decent crowd over for a few more weekends while it was still warm enough to hang out.” I shrugged. “I guess you will have to put up with coming here for a while before your weekends become totally free this Fall.”

Stephanie snorted, and for a moment, the kitty cat act disappeared entirely. “A totally free school weekend is a foreign concept, Mister Howard.”

Oh yeah. She’s a freaking Pre-Med. And a varsity cheerleader. I was lucky that I’d ever met her at all.

Then she snapped back to her smiling visage. And she began to work lotion into the exposed skin of the upper and inner curves of her breasts where they rested in that bikini. “Maybe I’ll bring my laptop, and we can work together over here.”

I gestured to my large table. “Plenty of room. We can have a whole study group.”

“Nooo,” she said sweetly still rubbing. “Too many cooks spoil the broth. The two of us can work quietly…”

Wait. Has she just flashed me? She had definitely lifted the fabric of her bikini to work the sunscreen down under the edge, but had I just seen a nipple?

It had to have been my imagination. But my imagination isn’t really that good…

Given the way she practically purred when my whole body stiffened in reaction, yes I had been granted a viewing. I was not granted another, though she tugged on the suit once or twice more in ways that cruelly made me tense in anticipation.

Would I fuck this girl? Oh my God, yes. I no longer even tried to convince myself otherwise. Did she intend to sleep with me? I still doubted it. I was a toy that she really seemed to enjoy playing with for now. She clearly enjoyed my reactions. Would she change her mind about sleeping with me? That reminded to be seen.

Would I actively try to help her change her mind?

That was the only real question.

*

Yancey and I were denied our Wednesday happy hour the next week because Wanda and Monica decided they wanted to have a dinner with Mary that evening. Mary invited Becca, which caused Yancey to invite me out of pure self-defense. I went, not so much to give Yancey backup against the monstrous regiment of women, but because I didn’t want them all talking about me behind my back. God only knew what might have come up.

“How’s she doing?” I asked Yancey as we stood out in his backyard. Just because we couldn’t go to the bar, didn’t mean we couldn’t share beer and bullshit.

“Better. I am amazed how much she is hanging out with the girls.”

“Yeah. She seems to have fun whenever she comes over with them for the pool,”

“It is not just then. I’ve seen more of my daughter and Becca, not to mention Carol and Anne, around here these last few weeks than all last school year. They are good for Monica, and they know it. Makes me happy to see. It also makes me happy to get to see Mary a lot more than I would otherwise.”

I just nodded.

“I almost never catch her just staring off into space anymore, either. And Wanda says she even took Monica to go buy a new bikini for weekends at your pool.”

“Oh, that was a new purchase? I figured it was just a different suit from among what she rescued from the house.”

“How did it look?” Yancey asked me casually.

“Whew.”

“I gotta put in a pool…” he grumbled.

The dinner was amazing, as I fully expected. The fact that Monica and Wanda not only could both cook, but were a force multiplier when they cooked together, might have also had something to do with my willingness to give up happy hour at the bar…

After we ate, Wanda and Yancey retreated to the kitchen together to construct something elaborate for dessert, and they shooed the rest of us out to the back yard. I had dark suspicions about what else the two of them might be doing in there while preparing dessert for us to eat, but…

Becca and Monica got into some intense discussion off by themselves. I was concerned for a moment that Monica might be having a crisis about something, or maybe that they were talking about me. Neither seemed to be the case and I turned back to entertain Mary.

“Why are you lot provoking Stephanie?” I asked peevishly. My optimism about sleeping with the blonde tended to fade with distance, while my embarrassment about that optimism got much, much, worse. “And Becca even seems to be encouraging you.”

“Come on, Mister Howard,” Mary smirked. “Do not even try to pretend that you don’t enjoy every second of it.”

I stared at her.

“Both her attention and our encouragement, right?” Mary bore on.

“You are bad,” I said heavily.

“Oooh. Gonna spank me?”

“Eww,” I said without thinking.

Whoa.

Rebecca had liked a bit of a spanking every now and then when we were married. I certainly enjoyed giving a spanking, but I didn’t seek it out. But spanking one of these girls? I had enjoyed, and did still enjoy the image of fucking this beautiful creature I was talking to, but the idea of spanking her brought back every wave of guilt I’d experienced before.

Mary pounced on the ‘Eww’. “Listen, Mister Howard. Becca has largely chilled about what we all did, but the hangup she can’t quite get past is the whole Father-In-Buddy thing. She thinks of us like sisters sometimes, and she thinks that makes us and you nasty. Maybe you have that hangup a little too?”

A little?

“Just to be clear, the three of us all think it’s bullshit,” Mary said sternly. “But we do love Becca, and it makes her life easier if we back off. So… sorry?”

“And yet, you guys have been back at it recently, and Becca hasn’t freaked out. If anything, she’s encouraged it.”

“We have most definitely not been ‘back at it’ with you,” Mary said huskily. “I wish!” Then she brightened. “We have just been encouraging Stephanie… and enjoying the process.”

“How the hell is she any different?”

“She is Becca’s friend, but she’s not us. Your daughter is 100% on board the Stephanie Train.

“Why are you three so intent on this?” I almost whined. I didn’t want to deal with the Becca issue.

“Because we like you, Mister Howard. We like you a lot, and want you to have fun,” she said seriously. Then she grinned with a lot more knowing stare than a girl her age should be able to muster. “And because we like Stephanie too…”

With that, Mary ran off to corral Becca. Monica left them to whatever plotting against my last shreds of virtue they were up to, and came over to talk to me.

Well, to be honest, rather than talk, we both took a chance to check our phones. I was feeling sluggish after that dinner, and in equal parts dreading and anticipating dessert. We companionably scrolled Facebook. I also checked in on Twitter, while I think Monica preferred Instagram.

We showed each other the occasional meme. It was comfortable just hanging out, especially since at least she was choosing not to bust my chops.

I saw a post about a new installment of an action movie franchise I sort of liked. It had promise. “Have you seen this series?” I asked Monica, showing her the phone.

“Oh, I never a miss his movies,” she snorted. “Is that out already?”

“Looks like it. Want to go Monday night?” I asked, already scrolling on.

“Sure, shoot me the showtime you choose. Nothing before seven, please. I want to be able to change from work,” Monica replied.

“Mmmm,” I said. Setting a reminder to myself to get tickets. I was fine going to movies by myself, and had been since before my ex left me. Becca had used to go sometimes with me, but she had gotten ‘too old’ to go to the movies with her dad since college. It would be nice to have someone to diss on the coming attractions with for once.

*

It rained all the next weekend, and I was denied my weekly dose of Stephanie. I definitely missed it.

On Tuesday, I got a text from Monica.

MONICA: Taking an early day today. Okay if the girls and I use your pool to get a little sun? We will try to stick around until you get home.

ME: Fine by me. You know where the key is, so you can use the bathroom.

ME: And since when does Becca need my permission?

MONICA: Becca has work until nine tonight.

ME: Duh. That’s right. I’ll try to get off early so I can say hi b4 you all leave.

No matter what I’d politely texted, I wasn’t really intending to try to leave work much before my regular time. Instead, I focused on just not getting caught up in something late in the day. But by around three o’clock, I realized that things were as done in the office as I could make them for the day. If I stayed, I’d just be inviting getting called into a meeting, and all I had left was my own design work that I just as easily do in my backyard.

Before I could reconsider the wisdom of going to go hang out by my pool with the three hellions, and without Becca as bodyguard, I popped out of my office, glowered at those of my team who were in sight, and headed out.

I texted both Monica and Anne that I was coming home, and told them not to drink all my beer.

I pulled in to my driveway, went through the house, and stuck my head out back. “I’m home! Want anything from inside?”

The four of them were still sunbathing, though there wasn’t much good sun left. They had conned Monica into the bikini again. I wasn’t complaining.

“Come on out,” Carol called.

“Neckties are dangerous if I go swimming,” I laughed, and ducked inside to ditch my suit and don some trunks.

When I got back out, I headed toward my customary spot where I could watch over the whole backyard.

“What’s with the laptop this afternoon, Mister H?” Carol needled again. “I thought you were going swimming.”

I smirked at her, then shrugged. I knew the water was perfect, and it was still plenty hot out. I set down my computer and veered toward the pool. I dove in cleanly, swam to the other end and back, and hauled myself out. I brushed water off myself, and shook out most of what was in my hair.

I was wolf-whistled. By at least two of them.

“Don’t you have homework, girls?” I growled at them. I seriously don’t see myself as worth being ogled, but at my age, you take what you can get.

“I have no homework,” Monica said with grave superiority, waving around a beer can in her hand haughtily. “Boss sent me home because he thought I was moping.”

“You were? I asked, suddenly alert. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Monica laughed. “I was just bored. The week’s big data dump doesn’t start until tomorrow, and the prior reports have all been run. It is always boring on Tuesday, but today was the worst. When Fred went all White Knight on his girl who’s going through a divorce, I let him send me home. Sweetness should be rewarded,” she smirked, and finished her beer. “Another please?” she said waving the Mich Ultra can at me.

The girls looked at her and giggled.

“Sure,” I said. I opened the fridge and grabbed another beer. There were several White Claw’s missing too. Monica had let her little buddies have a drink… Fine. She had driven over here, since only Monica’s car was in the drive. I just needed to make sure they stuck around a little longer to sober up before they left, while pretending I hadn’t noticed anything.

I handed Monica her refill, and took the empty. When I tossed it in the recycling, I saw six empty White Claw cans! These girls must have quickly finished off their second ones when I said I was coming home.

Stinkers.

I considered taking Official Notice, but decided that it would just make it harder for me to say no the next time. I knew these girls all drank. They were about to start their third year of college.

“Not going to lay out with us?” Mary asked, indicating the last free chaise, pulled over by them.

“Nah, this chair has become custom-imprinted with the curvature of my butt,” I said, relaxing in my chair. I was looking right at them, and not that far away.

“Suit yourself,” Anne said.

I booted up my email and checked to see that my team had mercifully not burnt the place down in the half hour I’d been gone.

“Mary!” I heard Carol gasp. I looked up.

Mary had removed her goddamned top!

“Mary!” I echoed in a strangled voice.

Mary ignored me. To Carol, she shrugged. “What? I want to get a little more sun before it gets too low. It’s not like this is anything he hasn’t seen before,” she added slyly.

Monica shook her head.

Anne looked at Carol, shrugged, said, “There is still a good half-hour of tanning sunlight left,” and slid her top off too.

“Well, okay then,” said Carol, shrugging hers off as well, and shaking her torso a little. “There, it does feel better to take it back off.”

They all looked at Monica. She looked at them like a basket full of snakes.

“Guys…” I said quellingly.

Wait.

Carol had said, ‘Take it back off’?

“That was before, when we were all alone,” Monica replied to their voiceless taunt.

All four of them had been tanning topless in my fucking backyard? Monica. Had been topless. In my backyard?

“Oh come on,” Anne grumbled to Monica. “It’s just Clark. He’s seen everybody’s tits.”

“He hasn’t seen Stephanie’s,” Mary sniggered.

“Who says I haven’t?” I blurted out merrily, before I could strangle myself.

They all stopped negotiating over Monica’s top and stared at me.

Fine. I could put on a shit-eating grin when I wanted to.

“Bull. Shit,” Carol said definitively. “Convince us, or your ass is going back in the pool.”

Hmmm. Being tossed into the pool by three topless college girls sounded… not terrible. But this was better.

“She flashed me right here, the last time, when you lot were goading her so hard.”

“I continue to call bullshit,” Carol said. I sensed I was being treated to a team ritual from softball. “I propose summary judgement.”

“No really,” I said, seeming to relax in my chair, while actually putting myself into a position to make it impossible for them to drag me from it. “When she was putting on her sunscreen, she quite deliberately pulled her bikini top away, giving me a clear nipple viewing. It wasn’t long, I’ll admit, but that’s why I said ‘flashed’.”

I looked in amusement at Monica. “If you were still wondering whether you had what it takes to make a cheerleader jealous, I think she was complimenting you heavily.” Monica said nothing, but just looked at me, scandalized by my effrontery.

“Holy shit, Clark,” Anne said in genuine amazement. “You really might actually sleep with Stephanie…” The other girls looked at her and nodded solemnly.

I snorted in contempt at the idea. But I could not help but ask. “I thought that was your Evil Plan…”

“Our plan, yes. Not our expectation,” Anne said, still shaking her head. “I mean, Stephanie hardly has sex with anybody. She hardly dates anybody.”

“Yeah, but now… who knows,” Mary said slowly, exchanging calculated glances with the other two hellions. “Mister Howard, you have to understand: Stephanie flaunts, but she doesn’t flash. She flashed you. That’s major.”

“Oh, and I suppose you three go around flashing all the time?” I snorted archly.

They looked shifty.

Wait. What?

“We might flash a little, here and there,” Carol said defensively.

“Not often,” Mary said firmly and virtuously.

My mind shied away from the very real knowledge that 99% of the sorts of things these hellions got up to, my daughter got up to, too.

But for once it was not me who was leaping to change the subject.

“Come on, Mon. Top back off,” Anne ordered. “There is still some sun left, and if you don’t, you will waste the time you’ve put in already.”

“Yeah?” Monica said with good-natured mulishness. She idly pointed my way. “Mr. I’ve Seen Everybody’s Boobs over there has not seen mine.”

You go girl. Put them in their place.

I was relieved to see her not letting herself be bullied. How had Stain ever pushed this woman around?

“You!” Monica went on sternly, looking at me. “Get out of your custom-molded butt throne, and sit on the other side of the table… facing away, so I can take this off and get a little more sun!”

“Hey! I have to sit here with my back to everyone and stare at the overgrown viburnum I should have pruned this spring?”

“I’m trying to have a good time here, Clark,” she said seriously.

Bitch. She knew I was not going to be able to trump that card. Improve Monica’s Miserable Life Whenever Possible was the current prime directive in our circle.

I got up and sat down with my back to them. I harrumphed and looked back at my laptop.

Can I help it that this model of MacBook has a screen that is way too glare-prone and thus highly reflective?

I really did have a spreadsheet up, but I was mostly just paying attention to the fuzzy reflection of Monica taking off her top behind me. I wished I knew a way to record from the built-in webcam without it being obvious.

You are a perv, Clark!

But I kept watching… at least until I realized that I could see Monica staring at me in the reflection! I coughed and bumped the screen. Now I could see Anne and Carol, laying back in the sun. It was a nice view too, of course, if fuzzy. But it did not include Monica. While I respected my neighbor, and hated to embarrass her, new pretty titties are new pretty titties. And Monica’s pretty titties were very pretty.

I heard her laugh when I moved the screen.

*

“So my daughter was over at my place last night, after yours,” Yancey said, sipping his first beer at the bar.

“Oh? Tell you what she was up to?” I asked. He clearly knew something and was going to torture me with it, so I might as well ‘enjoy’ the ride…

“Besides sunbathing topless? Not much,” Yancey said, a little acerbically.

Really, Mary? You threw in that detail? And that isn’t Yancey’s headline? And he’s not giving me shit about it?

This was… confusing.

“She does say that you are going to fuck the cheerleader I told you to fuck,” Yancey said, grinning into his beer.

Ah. He’s got an I Told You So moment.

“I have no idea if that is the truth or not,” I grumped.

“Were I in your position…”

“Which you are not,” I interrupted.

“Which I am certainly not. I lead an orgasmically orgasmic life already. But if I were in your position, I’d be a little more enthusiastic.”

“If you were in my position.”

“Which I am not.”

“Well, I don’t know it to be fact that she and I are going to happen. I got treated to a nipple flash, and The Three say this is a Nostradamus-level prediction that she wants me. I am not at all so sure.”

“I’d still be enthusiastic at the prospect.”

“I… I’m not scared, that’s for sure,” I snorted reluctantly. “All I know is the entire planet wants me to try. You want me to fuck her. Your wife wants me to fuck her. The hellions want me to fuck her…”

“The hellions?”

“Your daughter, Anne, and Carol.”

“Oh. Your current set of mistakes.”

“Yancey… Wait… My current set…?” When had he learned about Anne and Carol?

“Wanda and I have gotten very bad with secrets lately.”

“Does everyone know everything about my life right now?”

“Probably,” Yancey shrugged.

I sighed. “Look. Even my goddamned daughter wants me to fuck that girl. What the hell is going on?”

“But the point is, you are going to nail the cheerleader. Unlike certain other recent escapades, I’m going to need extensive details about that,” Yancey said. “I’m a married man, I have to live vicariously through you.”

“Fuck you, Yancey,” I said with good humor. “I just know that I am going to regret whatever happens.”

“Sure about that?”

“Dude, I feel guilty about everything! I feel like a monster for just about every fucking thing that has happened to me since the start of the summer. Look,” I said, turning toward him to emphasize my words. “Here’s how weird my life is. The only thing I’ve done in this whole goddamned freakout that I don’t feel guilty about is fucking your wife.”

The bartender dropped a whole tray of beer glasses. Half of them broke.

Yancey and I realized that he’d been listening in on our conversation. We sniggered.

“You’re Catholic, right?” Yancey shrugged. “Go to confession, or whatever.”

“Dude, I haven’t been in a church in ten years. And I haven’t gone to reconciliation for way longer than that!”

“So? You go in. You fess up. You say a few Hail Marys or some shit, and your conscience is clear.”

“You are such a protestant,” I grumbled.

Father Black is like eighty years old. If I went in there and confessed the prior three months, I’d kill the poor man dead.

The bartender, the one who had dropped the rack of glasses, came over to us with three double shot glasses, filled with what I already knew had to be tequila.

“On me,” Butterfingers said, slapping the glasses down. “I have to be able to say I drank with you guys.”

I grinned. I raised the glass to Yancey. “To Wanda. That’s his wife,” I added parenthetically, and slammed back my shot.

“To Rebecca,” Yancey replied, grinning. “That’s his ex-wife. I fucked her first,” he added to the man behind the bar.

Yancey and I were somehow, against the odds, completely at ease with each other. We shouldn’t have been, but there we were.

“I don’t know about you two guys,” the bartender said, slugging his glass back, “but I’m going to need another shot…”

This time, we slammed them back together, after which I heard a cleared throat behind me. I turned to find Monica standing there with a raised eyebrow and a curled lip. Yancey turned around as well. She slapped his shoulder. “Go home,” she said, with the voice of Wanda clearly on her lips.

Yancey heard it too, and rose, unsteadily. “And take an Uber,” Monica added. “But don’t linger.”

Yancey looked at her, grinned, and headed out, fingers already on his phone as he went.

Monica slid into Yancey’s vacated stool. The bartender looked wide-eyed at Monica.

“Oh, chill out,” I admonished. “This isn’t his wife or mine. This is Monica. She’s going through… a Stain-removal process,” I added a little tipsily myself.

Monica eyed me. “What was in those glasses?” she asked the bartender, who was still standing there.

“Jose?” he said, holding the tequila bottle.

“Ugh,” Monica said, wrinkling her nose. “Pour me two shots of Patron, would you?”

“I better not,” I said quickly.

“They are for me. I need to catch up. I only just left work,” Monica snorted. “Bring the lush here a ginger beer,” she added.

The bartender pissed off swiftly, but I sensed that the guy would never be out of earshot of me ever again when I was in this place.

“Why didn’t you just take his ass home?” I asked.

“Wanda told me to send him home, then keep you company here, thus making myself scarce for an hour at the very least.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh!”

“Yeah,” Monica snorted. “Exactly. I think Wanda is in the mood to make some noise in the bedroom. Also, last Wednesday, while you guys were here drinking beer, she and I got bombed back at the house. I got all weepy, she got all crazy. It was a thing. You, um, should have been there.”

“Whoa! You two okay?”

“Wanda and me? Thick as thieves…” Monica said with a happy smile. “But she and Yancey need some time without a pseudo-daughter in the house.”

“Well, I will stay here and nurse my ginger beer and keep you company until they have exhausted themselves,” I said. “But anytime you want to clear the decks and keep your ears virginal, you can always walk over and hang at my place.”

The bartender heard that, of course, and raised a worshipful eyebrow in my direction.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. As if.

“What’s that look?” Monica asked.

“Nothing,” I laughed.

*

The very next night, my doorbell rang about eight o’clock. The primary elections had just finished, and I figured I was safe from get-out-the-vote efforts, so I went to answer the door.

It was Monica.

“Are they going at it again tonight?” I asked with exaggerated casualness as I ushered her in through the door.

“Most nights,” Monica snorted. She paused a moment, then shook her head. “But that’s not why I’m here. Can we talk?”

“Sure,” I said, walking her back to my living room and telling the TV to turn off. “Drink?”

“Please,” Monica said nervously.

Okay then. Sounded like a brown liquor kind of evening. I poured us each a finger of aged rum, and sat down facing her.

“What’s up, Monica?”

“For the record,” Monica said after a first sip, “I’m betting that since I told them I was going to be out for a while, they probably are doing it… maybe on the kitchen table.” She smirked affectionately. Whatever was up wasn’t that bad, I figured.

I sat back and sipped my own glass patiently.

“Clark… You like this, don’t you?” she blurted suddenly. “I mean, I like that we are friends. We can just hang out. We can go to the movies, have dinner or drinks, or hang out in your backyard while the girls all try to mash you and Stephanie together, right?”

I laughed in spite of myself. I was just glad I hadn’t been sipping right then.

“It’s good to be friends, right?” she asked again, as if needing my agreement. I gave it to her.

“I mean… maybe there might be… something else out there, you know?” Monica went on swiftly. “Something for another day, maybe… in the future, though probably not, right? Something for a better time, when I’m not such a slowly recovering mess?”

I stared at her. I nodded quietly, because she needed me to. And also because, yes, it had occurred to me that I might like, someday, to go to the movies with a Monica, a divorced Monica, who was a lot less fragile than this Monica… in a context other than just two friends who enjoyed the acting stylings of Liam Neeson.