Seven Shots

"I didn't give it to him; he and Dave took it the night I was drugged, and I found out I liked it. The reason you didn't get it was because you never asked me for it after I found out I liked it. I flirted with the idea of suggesting it, but I decided it wouldn't be a good idea given as many times as I've said no in disgust. It might make you curious or suspicious why I was asking after so much refusal. I decided to wait until you asked again, and then reluctantly agree to try it, but you never asked."

She paused for a couple of seconds and then said, "Now that we are on the subject, maybe it could be a great welcome home gift."

"Maybe. If I was coming home, but it isn't likely."

There was a crestfallen look on her face when she asked, "Why not?"

"Why would I stay with a woman I know I can't satisfy? Why would I stay with a woman who would always want or need multiple bed partners?"

"I never said that! You have always satisfied me. Always! I don't NEED more than you can give me. Yes! Okay! I found out I liked more, but I DON'T NEED IT! What I do need is you! Get even with me if you have to. Go find a willing partner and get even, but please, please, please come home to me."

I thought back on my travels and decided to keep my mouth shut. I do have to admit I was feeling tempted to take her up on her welcome home gift idea, and where that would have taken us I'll never know because it never happened.

The front door slammed open and my brother David hobbled into the room on a cane. In his other had he had a gun.

"I've been waiting for you to get back you fucking asshole. I'm going to take out both your knees and let's see how much you like it. I'm blood, for Christ's sake. How could you have done this to me?"

"What? You expected an award for fucking my wife? I should have just killed you."

"Fuck you" he said as he pointed the gun at my knees.

"No!" Sonia screamed as she threw herself between me and David just as he fired. I don't know who was more stunned, David or me, but I recovered first and jumped him, he dropped the gun, I punched him three times in the face and he went down to the floor. I picked up the gun and whacked him in the head with it and then turned to Sonia who was on the floor bleeding. I called 911 and then ran into the kitchen and got a towel. I knelt down beside her and try to staunch the bleeding with the towel. She was looking up at me and rasping:

"Don't leave me. Don't leave me. Please don't leave me."

The EMTs showed up with the police, who called for another ambulance for David. Seems I was a bit excessive. He kept coming out of it while I was trying to help Sonia so I had to hit him again with the gun to keep him down. Six times I think it was.

It was touch and go there for a while. A wife on the floor bleeding and a fucked up brother, and I was the only one standing there unharmed. I spent an hour talking with the police, but they bought my description of the events. Of course, the fact that I had turned on the recording function of the phone as I climbed the front steps helped. They had just left when I got the call.

Sonia had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

I suffered for a while. What Sonia had done had shown me just how much she cared for me, If she had survived I probably, no, almost certainly would have given our marriage another chance.

The whole thing made the papers and about a week later I got home from work and found Jess sitting on the front porch steps. She stood up and greeted me with a hug.

"How you holding up?"

"Just barely. What brings you here?"

"I saw what Mom went through when she lost Dad. She needed something to cling to. I thought you might need someone now, too. We shared something that was extremely nice, so I thought maybe I could step up and help."

It lasted five months and then the day came when she told me it was over. She'd met a guy, sparks flew and she had to move on.

It was almost eight months after it happened before David came to trial. He tried to claim it was an accident and that he never meant to hurt anyone, but he couldn't sell it and he got twenty to life.

The day he was sentenced, Cindy called me and asked me for a favor. She wanted me to take her to bed so she could tell David. She was a sexy lady and I saw no reason not to do her the favor. She fucked me into exhaustion, and the next day she went to see David during visiting hour and told him what she had done. She didn't get the response she expected. Instead of going purple with rage and calling her every rotten name he could think of he just sat there, looked at her and cried.

A week later she came to see me again.

"I could use a friend with benefits. You know anyone who might be interested?"

It was good for another four months and then she got a promotion at work that had her moving to Dallas. Damn, but I was sorry to see her go. I seriously considered going with her, but she talked me out of it.

"I like you Rob; I like you a lot, but I don't love you and I need to find a man to love and who will love me. I will be starting a new life in Dallas, and hopefully I can find what I need there."

My father made several attempts to get me to talk to him, but I wouldn't have anything to do with him. When he died of a stroke I did go to the cemetery when he was buried and made a public spectacle of myself in front of about fifteen people. I pissed into the grave on his coffin as it was lowered into the hole.

In talking with my Mom, I learned the names of three customers my father was very tight with. They may not have been the three that Father took to see Sonia, and while I may never know for sure, in my mind I decided it was them and I made them pay. Not physically, but I did fuck with them. They were still customers and I got at them through the business. They paid two to four cents more a unit than our other customers, and quantity discounts that others received somehow were never offered to then.

Not much in the way of revenge, but mentally I HAD to do something. And yes, I know I was being an asshole doing it to them not knowing with absolute certainty they were the three. It may have just been my imagination, but in dealing with the three at one time or another I thought I detected a smirk on their faces. Whatever! I'm human, and like most humans I have a crying need to get back to get back, to get even. I might have been wrong, but because of what I did, my metal state was better than it would have been if I had done nothing.

Let karma handle it.

There was one surprising outcome to come out of the mess. It was ten months after returning home from my travels. I was sitting at home reading the financial page of the New York Times when my cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Rob? This is Maggie. Remember me?"

"I do."

"My sister saved your number that time you let me use your phone to call her."

"I remember."

"Well my sister insisted that I make this call. Believe me when I say I didn't really want to. The thing is she insists that you have a right to know."

"Know what?"

"You are a daddy. You have twin sons."

"You're shitting me?"

"Not even. You are the only I've ever been with."

There was a short pause and then she said "I'm not asking for anything. I only called because Chris insisted it was the right thing to do."

Thirty-six hours later, I was knocking on the door of a house in Houston, ready to begin another adventure.