The Black Hat

"You aren't eating it anyway so let's get out of here."

"Where are we going?"

"To my house."

"Why?"

"Because there is no use in going to the motel. Your heart wouldn't be in it and you don't need to be alone tonight so I'm taking you home with me. We will sit at my kitchen table, get drunk and tell each other sob stories."

I woke up in the morning on Dawn's couch. What woke me was the noise coming from Dawn's kitchen. I sat up and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone hurry out of the room. A minute later a little boy walked into the room and came over to me and said:

"Mommy told me we needed to cheer you up." He handed me a doll and asked, "Would you like to play with my "G.I.Joe?"

I looked at the doll and was trying to think of a way to ask how one went about playing with a "G.I.Joe" when a young girl walked into the room carrying a tray. She brought it to me and held it out. It had a cup of coffee on it along with a spoon, a sugar bowl and a small pitcher of cream. She handed me the tray and said:

"Mommy says breakfast will be ready in ten minutes."

She stood there watching me as I put cream and sugar in the coffee and took a sip. Then she said:

"My name is Darla and I'm almost seven years old. That's Jeffery" she said pointing to the little boy. "He's only five and can't go to school yet."

She watched me sip my coffee and then she said, "I'm going to be in the second grade." Before I could respond to that Dawn came into the room and asked me how I liked my eggs. I got up and followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table. As I sipped my coffee and watched Dawn work I thought back to the night before. How we sat in the kitchen and drank beer and talked about our time in high school and how our lives had gone since. When I got up to leave she said I had had too much beer and she wouldn't let me leave to drive home and besides she said:

"You don't want to be alone tonight anyway."

She made me a bed on her couch and told me that she would see to it that I got up in time for work.

She was frying eggs and she turned to me and asked:

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm just trying to figure out why some guy hasn't snapped you up yet."

"You just met two of the reasons in the living room and the third is still asleep and you know what the fourth one is. To land a man I'd have to move to another city -- one where no one knew my reputation and even then it would be iffy. Not too many guys want to marry a large family."

I couldn't say anything to that because I knew she was right and that was a shame. She was extremely good looking, intelligent, and from what I'd seen so far of her kids she was doing a hell of a good job as a mom. I don't know where it came from -- I really don't -- but I suddenly said:

"Where would you like to go to dinner tonight?"

"What? I'm sorry Bobby, but there is no way I can get a baby sitter on such short notice."

"Who said you would need a baby sitter? I'm talking about all of us going."

She looked at me kind of shocked and I said, "I know. How about Chuckie Cheeses. The kids will love it and I haven't had pizza for a while."

"You are serious?"

"Of course I am."

Candy called me at work around ten that morning and wanted to know what our plans for the night were. I took the coward's way out.

"I don't think I'll be seeing you any more Candy. There is a chance that Mary Alice and I are going put things back together or at least try."

"You're kidding me! You are going to let that slut back into your life?"

"Goodbye Candy."

I took Dawn and the kids out that night and we had a great time. Sunday I took them on a picnic and Sunday night after Dawn had put Darla, Jeffery and little Becky to bed I stuck my nose in Dawn's business.

"How much do you make a week from your gentlemen callers?"

"Whoa Rob, that is none of your business and I'm surprised that you would ask me such a crude question."

"It is my business Dawn. I want to make myself exclusive and I need to know what it is going to cost me."

"Why would you want to do something like that?"

"A couple of reasons. One is that I plan to keep seeing you and second, some day your kids are going to hear things at school if you keep seeing gentlemen callers. You said it yourself; this is still a small town."

"You coming around will still keep the talk going."

"Not if everyone thinks that you have a new steady boyfriend and have given up what you were doing. If I'm the only man they see coming around that is what they will all think -- that you have a man in your life now."

"Are you serious about this?"

"Absolutely."

"I usually have two or three as you call them -- gentlemen callers -- and I make two hundred from each of them. The insurance paid off the house when Hal didn't come back so I only need about sixteen hundred or so a month to meet my bills and pay for what I have to buy. I could see more than two or three, but I don't. All I want is enough to take care of my babies."

"I'll give you two thousand a month for exclusive use."

"I still don't understand why you would do it."

"Simple really. I like sex at least two or three times a week. Now that Mary Alice and Candy are out of my life I need an outlet. I don't want to do the bar scene and strike out more than I score and I don't want to go back to dating and spend three or four weeks trying to get to home plate with some girl without getting there. As far as the money goes I could easily spend that much a month wining and dining whoever I was trying to score with. It is a win/win situation for both of us."

Dawn looked at me for a minute or so while she thought about what I had just proposed and then she said:

"I've got rules. No sleepovers and I never do anything in the house when the kids are here."

"How about sleepovers at my place if I pay the baby sitter?"

"Once in a while maybe, but I don't like to be gone from my babies too much."

For the next six months Dawn and I "dated" two, three or four times a week and maybe once every two weeks she would spend the night at my place. On Friday nights or on the weekends I usually took Dawn and her kids somewhere. By the end of the first month the kids were calling me Uncle Rob.

Dawn was much more than a piece of ass -- much, much more -- and one morning after she had stayed the night with me I was sitting up in bed looking down on her sleeping form and I thought again what a shame it was that guys couldn't get past her coming with a ready made family and a slightly shady past. She would make some man a damned good wife. She was intelligent, witty, had a great sense of humor and was a fantastic cook. She was good looking and sexy and she was great in bed. She woke up and saw me looking down at her and she reached up and pulled me down and snuggled in and the two of us fell back to sleep.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was inevitable, given that both Dawn and Candy had told me about it still being a small town, that Candy would eventually learn about all the time I was spending with Dawn. Word of our going out for dinner, drinks and dancing and of my taking Dawn and her kids places on weekends would get back to Candy.

I still ate breakfast and lunch at the restaurant although I did make it an early breakfast knowing that Candy wouldn't come in until nine or so. It had to happen sooner or later and so I wasn't surprised when one morning Candy sat down on the other side of the table from me.

"How have you been Hey You?"

"Fine Candy, and you?"

"I have my good days and my bad ones. How are things working with you and Mary Alice?"

"They aren't."

"I hear you are spending a lot of time with Dawn Metzler."

"I am seeing her a lot."

"Why haven't you called?"

"No point."

"Why not? I thought we had something good going. What happened?"

"What happened was a lunch date with Marv Baxter."

"I don't understand?"

I had lunch with Marv at a TGI Friday's in Colorado Springs. The one right across the street from the Days Inn. In fact, you could see the Days Inn parking lot from our table."

Candy's face paled a touch and then she said, "Nice seeing you Rob" and she got up and left the restaurant.

++++++++++++++

The divorce from Mary Alice should have been quick, but for some reason Mary Alice kept putting up road blocks. I hadn't talked to her since the day I handed her the divorce papers even though she tried calling me several times a week. Finally my attorney said we needed to sit down with Mary Alice and her attorney. I told him to go ahead and set it up. It turned out that what Mary Alice wanted was some time alone with me so we could talk. I told my lawyer okay and he and Mary Alice's lawyer left the room.

"What do you want Mary Alice?"

"I want you back home where you belong. I admit I made a mistake -- a big one -- but Herb meant nothing to me. It was a fling Rob; an ill advised fling, but that is all that it was. It happened at a time when I was down on myself, thinking that I was getting old and wasn't attractive any more. I love you Rob and I'm sorry for the way I behaved there for a while, but I'll make it up to you Rob, I swear I will. I love you and I want you back with me."

"Not a chance Mary Alice. There isn't any way that I will ever forget seeing Herb slamming his cock in your ass while you begged him to do it harder. Maybe if I hadn't seen it, but unfortunately I did. Here is what is going to happen Mary Alice. I filed under Irreconcilable Differences instead of Infidelity. I did that because I like your family and they didn't need to know what kind of a whore you were. If you keep fighting the divorce I'll drop it for a couple of weeks and then file again using Infidelity as grounds and then I'll send a copy of the audio and video that I have of you and Herb to everyone in your family and to everyone that you know. We are done Mary Alice and you are the one who did it to us. Now you have to live with it."

Mary Alice withdrew all objections and the divorce went forward.

+++++++++++++++++++++

The evening of the day the divorce became final I took Dawn out for drinks and dancing and after we had been in the lounge for about an hour Dawn got up to use the ladies room. As she walked away from our table I saw all the male eyes in the room following her and I smiled to myself and thought:

"Eat your hearts out boys, she's mine."

And then suddenly I realized that she was. She was mine! And I also realized as I watched her walk back to the table that sooner or later some guy was going to take a long look at her and decide that she would be worth having, ready made family or not. We went to my place when we left the lounge and made love twice before I took her home. When I dropped her off I said:

"Prep the kids for Chuckie Cheeses tonight okay?"

"Sure. They love that place."

We were sitting in a booth and the kids were playing and I said to Dawn, "I want to change our arrangement."

"Oh? In what way?"

"I don't want to give you two thousand a month any more."

Her face lost its smile and she said, "I see."

"No you don't" I said as I slid the little velvet covered box across the table to her. "Instead of two thousand a month I want you to have everything that I have."

She opened the box, saw the ring and said, "Oh my God" and started crying.

++++++++++++++

I won't pretend that it has been easy. Even though Dawn had been seeing only me for months her 'gentlemen callers' still called and they approached her whenever they ran across her when she was out of the house. She was always polite when she turned them down because at the time she didn't know how long our arrangement would last and she didn't want to alienate her 'fan base.'

The calls stopped when we got married, but the men who had "known" her still approached her when she was out and about. I knew when I married her that it was likely to happen and Dawn did too and she made me promise to let her handle it. There are times it hasn't been all that easy, but then I guess that is the price I have to pay for having Dawn. And I do have to say that she is worth it and more.