This is the conclusion to, "I Don't Mind, It Don't Matter".
It's tough to reach an emotional high when you've just lost, as happened in chapter one. This one was easier to get fired up over; but if you're looking for a quick jackoff story, this ain't it. And, if you aren't of legal age where you are, this story is off your reading list...find another story.
Several of my editors have, in the past, coached me to minimize details and stick to the required elements of explicit sex and increase the dialogue; and that made sense to me, particularly in this venue. On the other hand, a number of readers have requested more detail, and more emotion, as well as more dialogue. That made even more sense.
But, adding detail is a 'slippery slope'. Although it adds 'color' to the story, it also adds exponentially to the editing process and a delayed finish. It seems I need to find a balance point on this seesaw.
For those of you who commented on the part in Chapter One about my 'ex' poisoning my faithful old dog and his burial in freezing sleet and snow on Christmas, I regret to say it is unfortunately completely true and actually happened. That, as much as anything, fueled what happened next and led to the title of this chapter. I loved Coon as a man loves his best friend ever in life, a kindred spirit bond that survives even death.
This chapter begins a little more than three years after the end of the previous chapter. Here, the seemingly "wimpy" husband comes out of the corner he was pushed into against his will, and the key villains face the full consequences of their actions.
Paul Harvey (1918—2009) - Rest in peace.
"...and now for the rest of the story"
The first chapter of this tale concluded in 1995 with a red-eye flight home at the end of a reluctant but successful business trip back to my old hometown, my first in the three years since my divorce and permanent departure.
I'd had fun that last evening at what was once my favorite watering hole watching football, drinking, and laughing with my few remaining loyal friends from home for the first time in too long. The sole low point of the reunion had been my ex-wife coming on as the night bartender.
Three years ago, she had caused quite a furor when she'd gotten caught up in cocaine, engaged in a long series of one-night stands and affairs with a multitude of other men, gotten pregnant by one of them, and tried to foist it on me.
Sarah had lied to everyone about me refusing responsibility for "my" baby, badmouthing me to the point that people who had known me as an honest upstanding kid all their lives were shunning, berating, and insulting me; even my own step-mother.
Other than for a few close friends who knew the truth; I was figuratively tarred-and-feathered by most of the townspeople and pushed to a decision to move away in order to maintain my livelihood, sanity and freedom; and to regain a sense of self.
My own divorce for "irreconcilable differences" had been relatively quiet and nothing was revealed of the real reasons and circumstances, such as her long-running affair with a 98-pound steroid user. However, Steroid Steve was an over-proud braggart.
When his wife learned he'd been the guy who had knocked up my wife, she divorced him and took everything including their house and car; and got heavy alimony and child support for the one healthy child she'd had with him. Her daddy fired Super'roid Man from his big-dollar salary job. He now cleans bathrooms in nursing homes for the current federal minimum hourly wage.
In trying to defend himself in his divorce, Steroid Stud named several other married guys who'd been with him and my wife for their weekly creampie trains. That nailed his coffin shut and started several other divorces.
To divert blame from themselves, most husbands who'd fucked my wife also named others who had done her, causing a litagatory cascade in family court. Divorces were going off like Roman candles on the 4th of July. The divorces, plus alienation and STD lawsuits, forced the state to send down a traveling judge to help clear the docket.
After two years of a legal free-for-all, the ugly truth had become public knowledge. The only person in town who wasn't carnally guilty or embarrassed by their actions was yours truly; and I'd been driven out by all the busy-bodies who were now red-faced for having 'run me out of town on a rail'.
It might be useful at this point for readers of the first chapter to understand why I didn't "go postal" back then when everything went down. I realized at the time I'd be seen as a wimp for not fighting for my wife, but let's take a look at the situation and my options back then.
Should I have just picked one of the dozens of guys she was fucking to be the sole representative of the whole gang and limited myself to just handing him his ass on a platter? How was I to choose just one of them - the biggest one, the Steroid Shrimp, the first, last, or longest; or just flip a coin - and was I to let the rest of them off scot-free?
Or, should I have taken them all on - one at a time, or all at once; perhaps by inviting all 75 or 100 of them into one building, then blown it to smithereens with a fertilizer bomb and spent the rest of my life on the run as the FBI's No#1 most-wanted? Whoops, I missed one, should I go back and finish the job? Dang, there's another.
And, if I'd killed them all and "gotten my honor back" (whatever that means), what would I have have won? Perhaps you think I would/should have happily taken her back, supported her cocaine habit and remained her unwilling cuckold forever while she popped out other guys' kids like a fuckin' gumball machine on my nickle? Or do you think she would change?