(This story is inspired by The Luther Vandross song of the same name.)
What you are about to read is odd for me. As a rule I never try to post my stories to more than on site. This is a unique situation in that this is the first of two reprints of stories posted on another site. My thanks to my friend Isaac Newton for his editing and his challenging comments. If you have Luther Vandross's Christmas CD listen to cut number 4. I think it sets the mood for the story just as it did my imagination.
It's Christmas Eve in Albuquerque NM. The evening air is chilly, just like I like it. My visible breath marks time with my step as I briskly walk through the park. The hawk tries to whip open my charcoal grey wool coat, but this is only a baby hawk. It would take Mr. Hawkins from Chicago to even get my attention tonight. I pull my cap down and my scarf tighter around my neck, and just keep steppin. I dropped Jr. and CeCe at their grandparents. They're getting old enough now to know I don't have to work every Christmas Eve, but maybe by next year I'll be over the pain and heartache. Hell, she's only been gone 4 1/2 years.
I quicken my pace. I need to get to the restaurant before it fills up.
My name's Nathan Saunders, and to look at my life you'd think I had it made. I'm a successful up-and-coming entrepreneur. My bank accounts show I have enough money to buy pretty much anything I want, but I've always maintained a lifestyle that looked like I was just making it. Right now the greatest joys of my life are my 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. Concern for their health, growth and well being is all that kept me going those first months after she left. It was hard to make them understand that their loving mother still loved them but had to leave because of her addiction. They are still too young to be told the total truth. I was her husband for 5 years, her man for 2 years prior to that; and I still can't totally grasp the situation. Some people, happy in their alternate lifestyles, may say that I should have stayed and gone with the flow to keep her happy. Most of them never understand that, in a marriage, meeting the other's needs not only comes first, it goes both ways. There are some dreams or desires that are better left unfulfilled for the sake of the relationship.
Like I said, life on the outside is all good. It's inside that I keep falling apart; inside that I keep trying to rebuild my broken heart and synthesize some kind of patch for the chunk that my ex-wife Maime took away when she walked out. By now I almost make it through the year, and then Christmas comes and Luther Vandross's song "Every Year, Every Christmas" plays, and my heart shatters back into the pieces she left it in. In the video Luther waited under a lamppost on a crowded street for the love that left him, as his friends watched from inside a special restaurant. Me, I'm going to go into mine and hopefully get OUR seat -- the seat where we had our first dinner date, the seat where I proposed to her, the seat where I last saw her smile before my world came to a crashing halt.
Let me tell you a little about Maime. Born in Brazil, she stands 5'6 1/2" tall, with a clear honey brown complexion and dark brown eyes that draw you into her sensuality. She has a face that people say favors the actress Raven Simone except darker. After each of our 2 babies, she worked out hard 3 times a week and got down to a 39DD chest, 28-inch waist and 38-inch hips. She sported a booty that made men trip over their dropped jaws when she walked by. Pair all that with her thick almost muscular legs complete with a gap between the thighs (you brothers know what I mean), and you have a true-to-life traffic stopper. She usually kept her thick hair cut right at her shoulders. When she was 8 years old, her parents were one of the few black families allowed to immigrate to the US that year. She was the oldest of 5 kids and the first in the family to go to college. That's where I met her. For me it was love at first sight. She didn't get the picture until her third (and though she didn't know it, her last) opportunity to go out with me. She did, however, and from that point on we were inseparable. She had a sharp mind and common sense that sent most of the players' home with their tails between their legs.
We didn't make love right away. I always assumed it was Maime's way of testing me to see if I was for real. I remember what Maime said to me the night we first made love: "Nathan, baby, you need to understand a couple of things. First, I'm in no way a virgin. I gave up my virginity when I was sixteen and had my first grown man at seventeen. I've discovered I have a very big appetite when it comes to sex. Second, and this is important, I only want to have sex with one man, MY man. As long as you never cheat on me or play me for a bitch, I promise you I'll do everything I can to make our sex life as wild as possible. Now, you think you're ready for some of this?"
I didn't answer her. That night I let my actions answer for me. She was the one that went to sleep first, about 3:30 AM! When she did, I woke her up with my cock deep inside her pussy in a long slow fuck that had her screaming and left her curled up in a fetal position after she pushed me away. I leaned down to her ear and whispered, "I'll expect you to hold up to your end of the bargain on the wild sex, cause what you got so far is just the start. Oh yeah, I don't share either." [wr3] We started on Friday night, and by Sunday morning both of us went to breakfast walking funny.
After we graduated, marriage seemed like the natural thing to do, just like it seemed natural to include her in the fledgling computer networking business that had been my dream. I guess the laws of the universe were in our favor because after 3 years, with her handling the front office and scheduling and me handling the client prospecting and onsite work, we were showing a nice profit. Through all the struggles our relationship just kept growing. Even with the added pressures of the business and the additions of the kids we still had what I thought was a healthy sex life.
I arrive at the restaurant. The hostess and manager remember me. They have my/our usual table ready. Jenny the waitress brings me my usual glass of wine and leaves the menu. I pull out my wallet, remove our picture, and prop it up against the napkin holder. She's still beautiful. She told me I was her best lover, the one that met all her needs. To me, she was the freak of my desire. To everyone that knew us, we seemed a perfect pair. I never even came close to wanting another woman. How could I when every time I looked at her I saw freak that I hadn't touched yet. I never once thought that there was anyone else out there who could see it, much less touch it. My bad. Near as I can tell our troubles didn't start until the business's fifth year, when we developed a business relationship with Strem Technologies Inc and it's president/owner Todd Strem.
Todd was a unique man. He had a Mellow Yellow complexion with a 6-foot tall muscular body. A Leon Isaac Kennedy face with a Billie D. Williams's presence and personality that usually had all the ladies drooling when he walked by. He had a dual reputation of being a shrewd businessman who got what he wanted and a player who got who he wanted. I had worked hard to break into his little clique of associates and was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to land some small contract work on a minor job. Maime and I stayed up late most nights making sure everything was perfect on that job. We did so well that Mr. Strem himself came to our offices to congratulate us and to lay out several other projects that he thought he could use us on. We worked hard and got great reviews of our efforts and service. Todd laid out still more projects, and I must admit each time he did, the money got sweeter. We started spending a lot of time with Todd, to the point that he became a regular visitor at our house and we were invited to his parties. We did a lot of networking at those affairs, but always Todd was there in the mix. Some people began to regard the three of us as partners.
Maime, at first, was nervous around him. Her intuition told her he was dangerous. He would always be very polished and professional with the both of us. Maime said he at times seemed overly polite to her, but he seemed to look through her. Maybe that should have started bells to ringing in my head, but I was running so hard to make sure that everything was right that I never focused on him and Maime. As time went on, she grew accustomed to his presence. To hear her account of how things happened, even if I had been looking, I probably wouldn't have seen anything. She claimed she didn't see the trap until she was already in too deep.
The months before our explosion saw our company make a lot of money and impress a lot of people. The work also kept me out of town quite a bit, but we always tried to visit our special restaurant just before I left on any extended trip. Near the end I was literally dead on my feet but again from what Maime said to me later, I could have been at 110% and it wouldn't have made any difference. When Todd made his move it was a slam-dunk. I never knew there was a game, much less that it was lost, till that particular Thursday night when I came home a day early from a business trip set up by him. I was exhausted. All I could think of was climbing into the hot tub with a bottle of champagne and pulling Maime in with me. Hell, I didn't even care if she was on her period; I would have gotten off just holding her in my arms. What I found was a videotape propped up between the front door and the storm door of our house. On the outside of the box were the typed words, "Watch this. Your wife is very photogenic."
I assumed that this was some special video that Maime had made of herself modeling some lingerie or telling me where to meet her for some special fun. The strange part of it was I hadn't told her I was coming home early. I wanted to surprise her and the kids. The house was empty so I assumed she had sent the kids to her cousins' for the night, and further assumed that Todd had told her I was coming in early. I was only half right. Over the next four and a half hours I would see just how wrong things were.
I poured myself a gin and tonic and slid the tape in the VCR. As I sipped on my drink I saw a living room come into view. I knew it well since I'd spent many hours sitting in it hashing out details on various projects - it was Todd's living room. I remember thinking, "Now this is strange. Why would Maime be showing off lingerie in Todd's living room?" I heard voices from outside of the camera's range and was shocked to see Todd walk in and sit on his plush leather sofa, followed by Maime. The first shock came from what he was wearing - a light robe and red silk boxers. Then Maime dropped her coat to reveal the special sweater that I had bought for her some months ago. It was special because it could be worn as a regular sweater or off the shoulders and folded up to reveal her midriff. I was surprised and a little irritated to see her exposed shoulders but also that she had it rolled up, not only showing off her flat belly but also accenting the way her short leather skirt rode her wide hips. About a third of her thighs were showing, something she never did unless she was with me. She had completed the outfit with her black see-through, thigh-highs and black 4-inch pumps, which always made her big legs almost irresistible to me.
Todd seemed to have a concerned look on his face and Maime's face showed equal concern. They sat and talked about the usual conversational topics as if trying to refrain from getting into the main event. Finally Todd started the conversation that sparked the end of my marriage. The hidden microphones picked up every word.
"Maime I'm thankful that you took the time to come over. You really didn't have to. You look gorgeous as always. That outfit is fantastic."
"Thank you, Todd. You sounded so upset, I thought I'd better check up on you. What happened?"
"I broke up with Sherry tonight."
"What? Why?"
"(Sigh). You know why."
