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AUTHOR'S NOTE. I broke the title length for Literotica stories. The correct full title of this is "The High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency", which is just too good of a title to pass up.
It's an Anti-Valentine's Day tale for the Valentine's Day short story competition. Enjoy...
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Everyone knows how the story goes.
Boy meets Girl. Boy makes fun of Girl. Girl calls Boy a jerk.
They get older.
Boy falls in love with Girl. Girl falls in love with Boy. They don't tell each other because they're terrified of the other laughing in their face.
They get older.
Boy asks out other girls. Sometimes they say yes, sometimes no. Mostly he's more relieved when they say no.
Girl dates another boy, discovers he's a giant douchebag.
Boy wonders if his future is going to be a life of watching late-night porn with only cold pizza and a box of tissues for company.
Girl wonders if she might be better off asking out other girls.
Then it happens. God, Cupid, the noodly appendage of the Great Invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster, or even just plain chance intervenes and pushes them together long enough for them to realize the truth: They're high-school sweetheartsโtwo souls destined to come together and be joined for all eternity. It's fated in the stars.
Boy kisses Girl. Girl kisses Boy.
They live happily ever after.
Credits roll.
The end.
Only it never is . . .
* * * *
Eight years later . . .
"I wish she was dead," Court McCann muttered morosely into his beer.
"Come on, you don't really mean that," Jimmy Morrison, his best bud, said.
"Yes I do," McCann grumbled. "I wish the frozen shit from an airplane toilet would fall out of the sky and land right on her head. I wish it would smash her so far into the ground I wouldn't even need to pay for a funeral."
He didn't, not really. He just wished his life had walked down a different path. One less . . . bland.
It was past ten. He was sitting at a corner table with Jimmy down at the Cat's Eye Bar. His wife was over at Lucinda's for one of their social gatherings.
"I never would have believed it," Jimmy said. "Everyone back at high school thought you two were
the
item. Christ, we all thought the pair of you would still be staring lovingly into each other's eyes right into your nineties. True love . . . just like the movies."
"Hollywood is full of shit," McCann said.
"What happened? You caught her playing Hide the Hot Dog with the gardener?" Jimmy, being a best bud, tried to inject some levity.
Jimmy was his best bud, his little buddy. That's what he'd been to McCann all through high schoolโ
little buddy
. Jimmy had always been a little shorter than McCann, a little less athletic, a little less good-luckingโa natural sidekick, McCann's wing man.
"It would have been better if she had fucked the gardener," McCann said. "Then I wouldn't have to feel so guilty about not loving her anymore."
"It sparked out, huh," Jimmy said.
"Yeah, that's about right," McCann said. "You know how it was. Back then me and Sharon sparked so bright it was like we had our own personal sun to keep us warm. Then it fades, until one morning you wake up and realize it's not there anymore. Worse, you can't even remember if it was ever there in the first place."
"I hear ya," Jimmy said. "Only took four years for mine to fizzle out. Although it was none too bright to begin with, if you wanna know the truth."
"I thought having Alvin would help . . . rekindle it, you know. Now it's worse. Now I'm trapped. What kind of asshole runs out on his wife and young son. He's a great kid too. I love him but I'm scared I'll end up blaming him and resenting him for making me feel like I'm caged. I don't want to be one of those asshole dads that knocks their kids around because life didn't turn out the way they hoped."
Both men supped their beer in melancholy silence. McCann lowered his voice and leaned forwards. He didn't want any of the old coots eavesdropping on this little nugget of shit.
"We haven't had sex since last November," he whispered. "I haven't asked for it and she hasn't seemed too bothered about it going away. I feel like Kevin Spacey in
American Beauty
โwhacking off in the shower is the fucking high point of the day."
Jimmy shook his head in sympathetic disgust.
"You can't go on like that. It ain't natural. Tell her how you feel. File for divorce."
"I can't do that," McCann said. "I'll lose everything . . . Alvin, and I'll still have to stump up alimony. You know how it is: It's a man's world . . . until he dumps his wife."
"Too right, bro," Jimmy said. "Unless you know the right people." This was added as an afterthought and Jimmy stared down into his beer as if he hoped McCann hadn't heard it.
McCann had. He thought about his
little buddy
. Except now, eight years later, Jimmy was the one with the fast car, the nice house, the blingy outfits, the better-paid job. Jimmy was the one everyone saw about town with a different hot babe on his arm every night. He wasn't the sidekick anymore; he was the main man.