*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
Disclaimers: This story has been edited by myself, utilizing Microsoft Spell-Check. You have been forewarned; expect to find mistakes.
*.*
Bobby Broussard raised an eyebrow when he entered the apartment. Michelle was in the kitchen, making his favorite dinner. He could smell the chicken frying, could smell the zucchini and squash cooking in a mix of onion and bell pepper and garlic, could smell the dirty rice.
"Hi Sweetheart," Michelle called out.
That was another warning; Michelle never used pet names unless she wanted something. Most of the time, she addressed him as 'Bobby.' On those occasions when she was irritated with him, she called him 'Broussard.'
"Uh huh," Bobby said.
"Momma's got the girls," Michelle said, letting Bobby know something monumental was on the horizon. Dropping Samantha and Nicole off at her mother's meant she wanted Bobby's undivided attention.
"Maybe she's pregnant again?" Bobby wondered as he went to their bedroom.
He changed out of his dirty jeans and pull over shirt and pursed his lips; the hamper was full again. Unless Michelle packed clean uniforms for Samantha and Nicole with her mother, they'd have to run down to the apartment laundry room and hope that the three Latin women in the back had not claimed the entire laundry room for themselves.
Bobby suspected that the three women actually took in laundry for others, washed clothes as a way to supplement their income. He simply did not believe that the three loud, overbearing women had that much laundry to do nearly every day of the week.
"And sure as I'm standing here? They speak perfect English," Bobby muttered, checking that there was a roll of quarters on the low dresser.
Michelle and Bobby ate the meal, chattering lightly about the work day, about their children, about their finances.
"Know when we got married, didn't expect still be in this apartment ten years later, huh?" Michelle commented lightly.
"Mm-mm," Bobby agreed, gnawing the meat of his chicken bone. "But when we had that cancer..."
"We uh, our tenth, Bobby, Sweetheart, we going be celebrating ten years next month," Michelle suddenly declared.
"Uh huh, just said we been here ten years," Bobby agreed.
"One oh. Ten years. Ten years," Michelle said, nervously.
"Uh huh," Bobby said, waiting.
"And you been a good husband," Michelle said.
"'Cause you been a good wife," Bobby said.
She smiled and patted his large, calloused hand. Then she looked at the wall of the kitchen, at a small stain on the wall. The source of the stain wasn't apparent to either Bobby or Michelle. It seemed to have just appeared and no amount of scrubbing would remove it.
"And I been faithful, one hundred and one percent faithful to you whole time," Michelle suddenly blurted.
"Uh huh," Bobby said slowly. "And me too, that what you getting at."
"Know Debbie?" Michelle said.
"Debbie, Debbie, oh, that girl, one works counter with you?" Bobby guessed.
"Uh huh," Michelle said.
"One up and married that, damn what his name was, that black guy?" Bobby clarified.
"Uh huh, that her," Michelle agreed.
"Uh huh, and what 'bout her?" Bobby asked.
"I ain't never had no black guy," Michelle said.
"Makes two of us," Bobby agreed.
"Broussard, huh?" Michelle said, pursing her lips.
"So what you saying?" Bobby asked.
"Saying, been talking to Debbie, you know, just girl talk," Michelle said, again studying the stain.
"Uh huh, and?" Bobby said when she lapsed into silence.
"Since we been married, it been you and me and Samantha and then she ain't even out them diapers and then we got Nicole," Michelle said. "I mean, I ain't complaining, but man! I mean, when I'm going be able have some fun?"
"You was twenty when we married," Bobby said. "Time having fun before we get married.
"Listen, I'm, before we get our tenth? You know, before our tenth anniversary, you let me go out, Debbie's husband, he got him couple of cousins, you know, then we celebrate our tenth, man, maybe even start looking at couple houses," Michelle pleaded.
Bobby now regarded the stain on the wall. He'd been twenty four when Michelle had run into him. Literally. She had not seen the stop sign and had run right into him, t-boning his brand new truck. At the time, he had been too upset to notice the beautiful red hair, the bright green eyes, the adorable sprinkling of freckles. He had been too upset to see the 30D breasts stretching the thin tee shirt, the narrow waist that he could nearly get both hands around. He did not see the cute bubble butt bursting out of her cutoff shorts.
The frame was bent, so his insurance had no choice but to declare the truck totaled. Michelle Trahan's insurance covered the replacement cost, minus the deductible; Michelle's father covered the deductible.
Bobby went to the Trahan house to thank Mr. Frank Trahan; a cousin of Bobby's had been in a similar incident. The cousin had to take the other party to court and sue them in order to get them to pay the deductible.
"Hello," Michelle said as she stood behind the screen door. "Oh! You got you a new truck?"
"I uh, yeah, I, your daddy home?" Bobby stammered, looking at the cute young lady.
Frank shook the polite young man's hand, invited him in for coffee. Before he left, Bobby had a date with Michelle Trahan.
"Man, had run into him get a date?" Frank teased his daughter.
Now, staring at the stain, Bobby remembered they had a laundry hamper full of clothes. He abruptly got up from the table.
"Bobby, Sweetheart, what, where you going?" Michelle demanded.
"Got bunch of wash need do," Bobby said.
"But what about..." Michelle demanded.
"Michelle, need let me think 'bout this yeah," Bobby said, grabbing the bottle of laundry detergent from underneath their kitchen sink.
"What there think about?" Michelle demanded.
"Okay, I say 'aw don't worry 'bout it; you just go on 'head there' and you do it," Bobby explained.
"Uh huh?" Michelle asked.
"And you all like 'aw yeah! This good yeah, man, that Bobby, he don't know what he doing, I tell you that,'" Bobby said, grabbing the laundry hamper from the bathroom. "Man! 'Bout forgot them quarters."
"I ain't going be saying that," Michelle denied.
"You going sit there tell me you ain't never going want do that again? You going sit there tell me, you have you all kind of fun one them black guys, you just going be all right with me after that?" Bobby challenged.
"We have our tenth, we go looking at houses," Michelle bartered.
"I'm telling you, like squeezing toothpaste out the tube yeah," Bobby said, lugging the hamper to the door.
"What that mean?" Michelle demanded.
"Mean, once that toothpaste out the tube? It Ain't going back in no," Bobby said, opening the door of the apartment.
He was able to get two washing machines and separated their clothing. While the washing machines hummed, gurgled and rattled, Bobby mulled over this odd development. He did feel a flash of anger at Debbie, then realized, it wasn't Debbie's fault. Michelle surely wasn't the only woman Debbie spoke with. And Debbie wasn't the only woman that spoke with Michelle. No. The blame rested squarely on Michelle's lightly freckled shoulders.
"Wonder how she like it I do that?" Bobby mused aloud.
"Uh huh, not one bit, I bet," Bobby said.
Bobby smiled as he transferred clothes from washing machines to dryers. He fed the quarters into the machines and sat again.
Michelle wasn't in the apartment when Bobby returned with their freshly laundered, dried and folded clothing. Moments after entering the apartment, he heard the hammering of feet.
"Daddy!" Nicole called out.
"What? Who that is?" Bobby pretended the didn't recognize his daughter's voice.
"Daddy, it's me! Nicole!" his daughter insisted.
She told him about her day at school, about Kim, her very best friend, about what Mrs. Abernathy had said about her poem she'd written in class. Samantha also filled her father's ears with details about her day.
Samantha looked like her father. She had the thick brown hair, the slightly ruddy complexion, the deep brown eyes and the strong square face. To Bobby, his baby girl was beautiful.
Nicole looked a great deal like her mother; flaming red hair, bright green eyes and wide smile. Looking at pictures of Michelle and Nicole at seven and a half years of age, it was hard to tell which photograph was of whom.
Reminding them again that they had homework, no, he didn't believe that they did their homework while they were at their grandmother's house, they better get in there and do that homework right now, Bobby's heart was breaking.
Michelle might have herself fooled into thinking that stepping outside of the marriage would not affect them, but Bobby had a sinking feeling it would affect them greatly. He hoped his plan worked.
"Daddy, two point two times nine?" Samantha tried to get her father to give her the answer.
"One million fifty six," Bobby said. "What? That ain't the answer? Then better sit and write it out there."
"Nineteen point eight," Samantha announced a minute later.
"And that what I said," Bobby teased.
That night, in bed, Bobby hugged his wife. She sighed, slightly irritated but stoically allowed him to hug her.
"Okay, got me couple rules 'bout this we doing this," Bobby said.
"What? We doing what?" Michelle asked.
