Talk of the Town

"Jaime, there's nothing wrong with it if you are," she said. "It would certainly have absolutely no bearing on your work here. We could really care less."

"I'm not Ma'am," I said again.

"Were you raped?" she asked.

"No, not even ever close to it," I said.

"We're you involved in an abusive relationship?" she asked.

"No Ma'am," I said.

"Jaime," she said. Her voice got softer. "Why do you hate men?"

Two hours later, I was still bristling from the conversation. I liked my job. And truthfully I didn't hate men. I just didn't trust them. Men were messy, dirty, sniveling, deceitful beings that stole your heart and your trust and then left you beaten up and broken.

I had promised my boss that I would find something to calm my nerves and help me deal with my anger issues. I'd remembered how much I used to enjoy walking in the woods with my aunt when I was young.

I'd heard that walking was supposed to be great exercise. So I put on my tennis shoes and headed for the park near my house where there was a trail I could walk.

Something about being out in nature was so calming. The sun and the gentle fall breezes did a lot for my mood. By the time I'd gotten back to my car, I was feeling better. I'd even left my cell phone in the car, so I wouldn't be interrupted.

As soon as I got my ass on the seat it started to ring. Looking at the screen all the peace that I'd worked so hard that afternoon to gain, evaporated.

"Hi Mom," I said.

"Wow, it sounds like you're walking to your own execution," she said. "Do you hate talking to your family that much?"

I didn't bother to answer. I knew she'd keep talking.

"Are you coming home for your father's birthday party?" she asked.

From there the conversation went downhill. My mom threw in several statements on how close my Dad, and I used to be. She tried to use the guilt strategy on me when I explained to her that I REALLY did want to be there for Dad's party, but that I REALLY REALLY had to work. I told her how two REALLY's trumped one REALLY, so I wouldn't be attending the party; as much as I wanted to.

With my good mood shattered; I went home or at least back to my house. I'd lived there for six months, and it still didn't seem much like a home.

I'd never met any of the neighbors and to be honest; a lot of my stuff was still in boxes. I have no idea why I haven't unpacked yet. Maybe that's why the place just feels like a box to keep my stuff in, instead of a home.

* * * * * *

Sarah

Two weeks ago, I'd been ... Well I'd felt like I was the luckiest woman on the planet. It had nothing to do with my looks. I'm average at best. I mean I'm pretty but no one with the exception of my husband was going to go crazy over me. I do have juicy boobs and a big butt, but so do a lot of women. When I was younger, guys were into those super skinny model types. Nowadays, men like women with some curves.

I hit the jackpot twice. One way was in timing. I was thinner during my teens and twenties. But after having a couple of babies and looking towards forty, I simply never lost the extra weight from child birth. I'm not a cow. I weight a healthy one hundred and fifty pounds, with Double D boobs and a mouth-watering, jiggly rear end.

The second way that I hit the jackpot was when I picked the guy I married. Dennis is the sweetest man I have ever met. He loves me no matter how I look or what shape I'm in. For most of our marriage, he's always told me that all he wants is for me to be happy.

I guess that a big part of the human condition is that we always want more. I had everything I have ever wanted, but I still reached for more. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis. Maybe it was the onset of the change. Maybe it was simple vanity.

There comes a time in a woman's life when she hits her late teens or her early twenties and realizes that she can pretty much have anything she wants. She realizes that most men will do almost anything to get some of that little hole between her legs.

She realizes that all she has to do is put on some high tight shorts and a low-cut blouse, and every man in any place is going to look at her. It's a gyp though, because it really doesn't mean anything. You don't have to be especially pretty for it to work. You don't have to be well built either. Men are just hard-wired with pussy on the brain. And if there's the smallest chance that they'll get some, they'll make fools out of themselves.

Women get used to having that power and then one day ... It's gone. One day, a woman realizes that she is simply invisible ... Even to men. At first, it didn't matter. But I think I just hadn't realized it was gone. I would visit friends and notice that their sons barely noticed me. I started trying to tease them, but it didn't matter. I was no longer tempting or sexy.

My husband still couldn't get enough of me. I could tempt HIM if I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. All I had to do was bend forward. It didn't matter if I was facing him or facing away from him. Dennis would go crazy.

But it didn't matter. He was supposed to. After all, he had married me, so he obviously found me attractive.

And then one day, it happened. I was working in the yard, and I heard the doorbell ring. I went to the door and there was a delivery guy there. It was Brad. I remember him because he was a year older than my son and had helped him learn the plays when he played high school football. As we greeted each other and reminisced while I signed for the package, I noticed that his eyes never left my boobs.

As he looked at them, my nipples rose like he was controlling them with his eyeballs.

"Brad, you ... You're staring," I said breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"God ... I wish my girlfriend had ..." he mumbled. I don't think he realized that I could hear him. We were both out of our minds.

"Big titties ..." I finished for him. He nodded.

"I was going to say a body like yours," he said. "When you bent over to put the box down I almost ..."

"Almost what," I giggled.

"Ruined my shorts," he said.

"Well, you can go home tonight and work it all out on that girlfriend," I laughed. I was really happy. And I was kind of excited myself. My pussy was throbbing.

He just laughed at my words. "What's so funny?" I asked.

"What you just suggested," he said. "I'm lucky if I get any once a month. And even when I do, it has to be a fucking special occasion, and she just lies there like she's some precious diamond that I'm privileged to touch. Then I have to kiss her ass for the next month or so."

"But I thought ..." I began.

"That people in their twenties were fucking up a storm ...?" he said. "Everybody I know tells me how lucky I am. But none of them is engaged to a "good girl." Mary wants everyone to think that she went to the altar a virgin. So she gives me just enough to keep me interested. And one of the problems with younger women is that a lot of them haven't really learned to enjoy sex much.

It's funny; most guys think they're blessed if they get a pretty girl. But in a lot of cases, it's more of a curse. Pretty girls can get any guy they want. So they don't have to work for it or give it up. The girls who aren't so pretty will fuck you for a happy meal. And they've usually had sex enough that they enjoy it too.

Mary and I have been together since her eighteenth birthday. It took me almost a year to get her cherry. She was nineteen years old and acted like I had killed her. We were already engaged, and she made it seem like we had committed the crime of the century. We've been together for three years now; we're getting married next year when I graduate, and I have never gotten a blowjob. I hope your husband realizes how lucky he is."

There was another long silence, and then I pulled him into the house. We were all over each other. I didn't even have the sense to close the front door. Anyone could have walked in and saw us fucking on the sofa.

At the time, I lied to myself. I told myself that it was a one-time thing ... A moment of madness brought on by temporary insanity. I told myself that it had simply been my ego's way of finding out if I was still attractive to men other than Dennis, younger men, especially.

I told myself that it would never happen again and that everyone was entitled to a one-time mistake. I told myself that Dennis would have forgiven me since it had only happened once in our more than twenty-year marriage. I told myself that a one-time fling was not worth ending a marriage as strong as ours over. I knew that we would have a very rough patch, but we would undoubtedly make it through. And all of that was if Dennis found out.

When he came home that night, he was just as loving as ever. He was just as happy to see me as ever. I did my best to drain his balls dry. And I noticed that what Dennis and I did was different from what I'd done with Brad.

It was just a different flavor. Neither was actually better they were just different. I concentrated on being a good wife and a good mother, but about a week later, Brad was at the door and from the way my body reacted when I saw the look in his eyes, I knew that we were going to fuck again.

It took about seven weeks for me to quit and unfortunately, the day I quit was the day that Dennis quit me. I was totally wrong about the way that he reacted to finding out. Dennis seemingly turned off his emotions when it came to me.

He treated me like a math problem, and he was very good at math. Dennis would not even listen to any talk of counseling or anything involving us getting back together. When I got a lawyer, Dennis simply looked at him and explained to the man that if he wanted to get paid, he should get on board the divorce train. There would be no chance of a reconciliation, so counseling wouldn't work.

If there were any attempts to do anything to delay the process, Dennis would simply leave. In leaving he would scorch the Earth, not only would he leave me penniless; he would leave my reputation in tatters. We worked very quickly, and the whole thing was settled in less than two weeks after Dennis confronted me. My head was still spinning as I tried to figure a way out of it.

Of course, things didn't go the way either of us planned them. Dennis finally agreed to pay me alimony, but only for twelve months. After that I was literally on my own. I would also receive child support for Chelsea, but only until she left for college.

That was where things went to hell for Dennis. We had each campaigned really hard for custody of Chelsea, and she made no bones about telling the judge that she wanted to be with her dad. The problem was that Dennis hadn't settled on a house yet. It was actually taking him longer to close on a new house than it took for our divorce.

Since Chelsea lived with me, I got child support in addition to my alimony. In a year and a half when Chelsea left for college, I had to move out of the house. The house had belonged to Dennis' family, and he would not only not sell it to me; he wouldn't allow me to stay there a day longer than Chelsea did.

Dennis had finally found a house to his liking, and he was renting it. According to Chelsea, it was a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Dennis had very liberal visitation rights, and Chelsea had started setting up her room there as soon as Dennis had begun to furnish the place.

Dennis would also pay me child support for the new child, when the DNA proved it was his. I already set up an appointment to determine paternity as early in the pregnancy as possible. I was betting my future on the baby. If it was proven not to be Dennis' child, life as I knew it would be over.

As quickly as Denis had given me the broom, Brad had distanced himself from me even quicker. For the nearly two months of the affair, I had fooled myself into believing that although on my part the fling was a purely physical thing, that it meant something more to Brad.

I found out just how stupid I was when I went to tell Brad that I was pregnant, and there was a very small chance that he might be the father.

I tried to go up to him after he got off work. He pretended that he didn't know me. He'd been with some of his coworkers, and I thought that maybe he wasn't allowed to have personal visitors on company property.

I decided to wait until his friends were gone to tell him.

"Who was the old chick you were just talking to," asked one of his coworkers.

"She's just a friend of my mom's," said Brad. "It's kind of creepy the way she always comes over to say hi to me."

"Well she's got a big ass and some nice boobs," said his friend. "But she's so old they're probably rusted shut." I guess I expected Brad to defend me or at least to change the subject. But he joined in.

"Her tits probably drop to her knees," he said. "And her ass is probably covered in fat. I wouldn't fuck her with your dick. She has to be at least fifty. That's just nasty."

It didn't take long before tears filled my eyes, and I realized that I had just been stupid. I reminded myself that my affair with Brad had been just a quick fling and that there were supposedly no emotions involved, but it hurt me badly to hear him talk about me like I was just some toothless old whore. What was worse was that he was too embarrassed to let anyone know that we'd been together.

I also realized from listening to him talking that Brad was cheating on his fiancé with at least two other women. The other two were in his age group, and he had no trouble talking about them in favorable terms.

What had been temporary insanity on my part had been skilled maneuvering on his. Brad had liked my body and wanted to fuck me and he had. Maybe it was my mental state or feeling unattractive, but I had given it up to him as easily as any whore would have. And I had ruined a perfect marriage to a man who had truly loved me in the process.

Brad didn't care about me in the least. He had just wanted to fuck me. I finally got in touch with him, to tell him about the baby. It wasn't just his words; it was the venom in his tone that hurt me.

"It's not mine," he said quickly. "Get an abortion. I'll pay half, just don't tell anyone that it might be my kid. I thought you old women were supposed to be smart about stuff like that."

I went home and cried my eyes out. Neither Dennis nor Chelsea was much help. Chelsea looked at me furiously, before going over to a friend's house for dinner. And Dennis took one look at me and headed to the garage and his car, but not before I had noticed the tears in the corners of his eyes.

I simply could not believe how badly I had hurt him and for nothing. That evening Dennis went out and drove around until he found Brad. Brad was in a bar with some of his friends.

Dennis approached them; bought himself a beer, took a long swig of it, and spit it all right in Brad's face. Brad was no dummy; he made his excuses and tried to leave the bar with his friends laughing at him, and calling him names.

The bouncers tried to hold Dennis so Brad could get away. They held onto his arms until Brad had gotten into his car and drove away. But in a town as small as ours it did them no good. Dennis drove to Brad's parent's house and caught him sitting out on the porch.

Dennis hit Brad so hard that Brad broke the banister on the porch and fell off of it into his mother's rose bushes. He jumped off the porch, and landed on Brad and started pummeling him.

Brad's parents came to his rescue, but he was beaten so badly that he had to go to the hospital. Brad's mom took him to the urgent care facility in the next town while his father spoke to Dennis.

Dennis called the police himself and actually drove to the station and turned himself in. Brad's parents didn't press charges, and the Sheriff sent Dennis home. He bought a new banister for Brad's parents and a six-pack of beer. Dennis and Brad's father fixed the porch together.

The interesting thing was that reporters from our small-town newspaper dug into the story and put two and two together. Dennis kept his word. He never told anyone about anything, but somehow small bits and pieces of the story got out. My divorce, my pregnancy, my DNA test and Dennis leaving me, coupled with Dennis beating the shit out of Brad, made me the talk of the town. Every day it got worse.

Tomorrow, Dennis is moving out of the house and into his rental home. Chelsea is going to help him along with a lot of our friends. I decided to make a nice dinner for us, so I went to the supermarket. I got a lot of stares and frowns from several of the people shopping there.

I got into the checkout lane with the shortest line and once again fate was against me. When I was third in line I noticed that my cashier was Mary, Brad's girlfriend.

As I got closer to her, I was struck by just how pretty she is. There were all kinds of whispers in the store, and every eye was on us as I stood in front of her. As she noticed me standing there, a solitary tear rolled down her cheek. And with a dignity that women twice her age could not have mustered, she began sorting and scanning my items.

Everyone in the store was staring at the courageous young woman as she rang up my groceries. One tear after another became a flood as she worked.

I looked around and saw everyone staring at me. I felt like shit.

"Mary, I'm so sorry," I managed to croak out.

"No you're not," she said in a tiny voice. "You're sorry that you got caught is all. But I am ... I'm sorry for your husband. He's a really nice man. He didn't deserve this. He loved you so much. And you just pulled his guts out. I'm sorry for your daughter. She has a little bit more than a year left in the school here where she'll be compared to her mother, the town whore, until she leaves there. No matter how good she is, she'll always be compared to you.

I'm sorry that I was stupid enough to think I could trust Brad. But I got off lucky. I was going to marry him. I wanted to be like you, Sarah. I wanted a husband who loved me like there was no tomorrow. I wanted someone who would protect and provide for me and our kids. I wanted to be you, Sarah.

But now I'm glad I'm not. I could never hurt someone who loves me, the way that you hurt Dennis. And you know; I hope that baby that you're carrying is Brad's. Dennis deserves a shot at happiness with someone else. And he deserves to have it without being chained to you for the next eighteen years.

If that baby has to ruin someone's life, I hope it's Brad. I hope the two of you are tied together forever, locked in hatred for what you did to us. Was it worth it Sarah?" As she finished talking, every customer in the store started clapping for her.

Earnest Truth, the owner of the store came over just as I pulled out my credit card to pay.

"Sarah," he said as I pulled out my wallet. "Your groceries are on the house." I had the vague idea that he was trying to make up for the way that Mary had spoken to me.

"It's okay, Earnest," I said. "She has a right to her opinion."

"She's also right," he said. "I've had so many customers who've complained about you shopping here that I have no choice. Sarah, this isn't a big fancy chain store. This store is privately owned, and I'm the owner. Because of all the complaints I got, I'm asking you to take your groceries and walk out the door. You are no longer welcome in my store."

"But I've always shopped here," I said. "It's the only grocery store in town!"

"The next town is only ten miles away," he said. "And thanks to your husband busting his ass, you have a pretty nice car." He too walked away from me, to the cheering of the other customers."

I wanted to cry, but as I looked out over all the angry, yet familiar faces, I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing my tears.