Mom was curled up on the sofa with a blanket, and Heather was there providing assistance. We decided to just go ahead and hold Christmas early, as everyone was here unexpectedly and the timing seemed good. I asked Heather to brew us up a big pot of coffee (hers was nearly as good as Moms) and I filled them both in on my experiences with Madelyne since Thanksgiving, which to say the least provoked enormous amusement, mostly at my expense.
Mom, who is extremely tender hearted and can never bear to speak ill of anyone, just shake her head and muttered, "What a sad life that young lady must have. Are you sure you can't help her?"
I tried but couldn't think of any suitable reply so I just sadly shook my head.
The topic of pie was broached (there always seems to be a fresh pie at her house) and I offered to run to the store at the last minute before it closed early for Christmas Eve to get some ice cream to go with it. I joined all of the other emergency last second shoppers and we all had to wait for one tired and annoyed checkout clerk to pay for our purchases. This took nearly forever, and by the time I got back to Mom's house, I had another surprise. Madelyne's car was there in the driveway!
I was met at the door by Heather who held a finger to her mouth and told me to remain quiet and follow her. She took the ice cream into the kitchen and from there we could eavesdrop onto Madelyne's impassioned conversation with my Mom. Or rather, this was 'Maddie' who had paid us this visit.
She was in utter tears and was sobbing a genuine and heart felt apology for her intolerable rudeness at Thanksgiving. From there the conversation only got stranger for the next fifteen minutes or so that I listened. She apologized for nearly every action she had taken with me, and feared she had at last finally driven away 'the man she loved' because she had been incapable of showing me any genuine affection in any way. Now I was gone and unlikely to ever to return.
Her behavior to me had been 'unforgivable'; if she had 'screwed a hundred men right in front of him' she thought she could hardly have hurt me any more. She seem utterly inconsolable, but fortunately she was taking to the right woman, my Mom could handle 'inconsolable' every day of her life, before breakfast even, and be ready to whistle during her walk in the park afterwards.
I told Heather that I really should be going, and the conversation would be probably much smoother if I wasn't there at all. I snuck back to the front door and make my clean getaway, leaving Heather to present the ice cream and my own 'apologies'.
I went straight home, kept the lights off and the phone unplugged and went just about straight to bed and slept the night in peace.
**********
While having my breakfast Christmas morning, I thought I kept hearing rustling outside the house in front, and looking out the peephole I discovered the source. Madelyne had literally pitched a tent outside on my patio and had a sleeping bag on my doorstep. She also had a small camp stove for boiling water and cooking. She was camped out on my doorstep. Literally!
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I split the difference and bringing the kitchen phone into the bathroom I shut the door and called the only two people that I thought could resolve the situation.
Mom was no help at all. In fact part of the 'camping out' idea was hers. She even loaned Maddie all of the gear from dad's old camping stuff out in her garage.
"You're such a soft mush ball!" She lovingly told me. "I'm sure the two of you can work things out." Ok, so much for that idea. Now there was only Plan B, calling her father, which I then did. This seemed to cause him much amusement and he wasn't a whole lot of help either. The bastard still wanted me for his son-in-law even more now, if it was possible.
"How long are you going to let her camp outside in the cold and wait for you to come out and face her?" He asked, with more curiosity than anything else.
"The short answer is until Hell freezes over, but really I have no idea. At least another day or two, maybe even three or four. Weeks if necessary, until the urge to grab her by the throat and squeeze doesn't occupy my every single waking moment!"
He laughed and said he'd check back with me by mid-week if nothing else had changed.
I was now a prisoner in my own house, trapped by a maniacal stalker who would stop at nothing to get me within her batshit crazy clutches. Lucky me! I decided that I would not let her ruin my time trapped at home and I kept the lights turned on and either the stereo or TV on to cover the minor sounds she was making outside. She for her part refused to get my attention in any way; she didn't ever knock or ring the doorbell, or even call out to me, even once. At night she would sleep in her hopefully warm sleeping bag right on my doorstep. Thus went Sunday.
Monday morning I called into work to leave a message that I wouldn't be coming into work that day, or probably the next, but was told by my Admin Assistant that "Mr. Edwards had already called the President of my company asking to 'borrow me for a critical project for a week or two' and he had faxed an offer for our company to handle a couple of 'minor subcontracts' that would nearly double our potential revenue for next year. Accordingly, I was very much the 'fair haired boy' and could stay gone 'indefinitely' to 'service Mr. Edwards' needs'.
Actually I'm sure it was his daughter that I was supposed to be 'servicing', but that was a different matter that my Admin-Assistant didn't need to hear about. I was pretty sure now that she was one of the gals interviewed by the investigator who thought I was hunky. She had been recently giving me subtle hints at work that she wouldn't mind being serviced by me also. She was pretty but it's a golden rule of mine to never date co-workers, and my brain was still tied up with thoughts of Madelyne.
I made it through Tuesday ok, and somehow got through Wednesday as well; somehow. I was now very conflicted and really had no idea if I did really want to kiss her or kill her. I had to talk myself out of opening the door at least once an hour, but by that point I was pretty 'buggy' from being inside for four straight days and I was constantly now talking to myself. By Thursday morning I was not only talking to myself but I was answering myself back.
I resolved that when I started to argue with myself and use two different voices while doing so, that I would admit defeat and open the door and face her.
At about 10 a.m. the phone rang and it was Madelyne's dad again.
"Congratulations! You've held out longer against her than anyone else has ever managed. One hundred and one hours - longer than the length of the actual Iraq Gulf War!" He told me. He had won several large bets apparently involving that I had not caved in to her as fast as the other women of the family had expected I would.
"Who is winning, by the way?" He casually asked. I had no idea.
"Tell you what" He suggested. "This afternoon there is an Arctic cold front coming through and it is already starting to snow up here near Brenham, in a few hours it will be also down there in Houston. If she can make it through the night sleeping outside in the snow, go ahead and 'let her win' and tomorrow both of you come back up here for New Years Eve. Besides you still have a few Christmas presents here that definitely need opening."
This was better than any plan I'd thought out so far, and I readily agreed. The Madelyne I knew would certainly not wait over a hundred and thirty hours and sit in the snow in front of any unopened door. I didn't have long to wait.
The snow did come, but it was mostly wet mush down here in Houston's humid bayou air. She adjusted her tent a bit, boiled up a good deal of hot tea water and seemed resolved to tough it out. I started to become obsessed with whether she was actually still out there or not and if so was she 'ok', and at length I grabbed a blanket and pillow and spent the evening and a very night long lying right next to the doorway.
I'm sure we heard each other moving about and even shivering a bit and I thought I heard her beg "Please" ever so quietly a few times during the night.
Morning finally came, she had won and I cheerfully admitted defeat. I put on my tea kettle to boil and opened the front door to invite Maddie inside and asked her if she was ready for a hot shower. Oh very definitely.
She asked if she also had time for another long hot bath, as she had
really
liked my bathtub the previous time, and I laughed and said sure, but that we were expected back at the Ranch by this evening. She soaked in bliss for at least another two hours and somehow once again I spent a fairly delightful morning sitting on my toilet seat talking with Maddie once again nude in my bathtub.
I rejected a friendly (and very polite) request that 'I hop in and join her' by joking that we still hadn't ever had a proper date yet. Actually I was fairly tempted, but didn't really think we could spare the time. I got the feeling once we finally did end up in bed (it now seemed fairly inevitable) that we would be unlikely to stir out of it for a long, long time. That would definitely make us late to the ranch.
She did politely ask me to help dry her off and I got a good feel or two of her butt and tits while I was there. I told her that I would take a quick shower and that she could help herself to anything in the fridge, if she could find anything there. She did rustle up a few eggs for us and some toast and greeted me with a smile and my towel as I opened the shower door.