Two Ugly Kids

By Likegoodwinecopyrighted April 2011

Your votes and constructive comments are appreciated, as they will help me grow.

Thanks to grogers7 for his very, very patient editing

There are always a few defining moments in a marriage. For some people, it's the day the husband popped the question. For others, it will be the birth of their first kid, or the day the court ruled on their divorce. For me, Alex Johnson, the defining day was a BBQ.

It isn't that my wife, Sonya and I didn't have some wonderful moments in our 9 years of marriage and 11 years in a committed relationship. Up 'til that famous BBQ, the most defining moment for me was when I asked her out on a date, and she accepted. She was, and still is, the most beautiful woman I ever dated or even talked with. From the first moment we met, it was lust at first sight; that wonderful feeling that is behind so many romantic movies. Well, they call it love, but how can it be love at first sight before you even talk to each other? Anyway, back to the story:.

It was a bright sunny afternoon in late June, not too hot, just balmy and perfect. So far, the BBQ was a success. As a senior manager at T-Bolt Inc., it was a long-standing tradition to invite the employees under my supervision to a summer BBQ at my house. There were only eight of us working in the Supplies Division, but with the spouses and kids, as many as 30 guests were there on this sunny and gorgeous afternoon. I had the pool open, and the kids were having a lot of fun.

Around 9 PM, most of the families had left and there were about a dozen singles or couples with no kids in tow. Beer, wine and coolers had been flowing all afternoon, and quite a few of us were a bit tipsy. It was my duty to make sure no one under the influence tried to drive back home. I had gathered all the car keys and was only handing them to a designated driver or a taxi driver.

As I was coming back inside from helping old Herb into a taxi, I overheard Brett Sinclair yapping loudly. Naturally overbearing, Brett becomes real loud when he drinks. In fact, the volume increases in proportion of the amount of alcohol he consumes. I am pretty sure Lavoisier had Brett in mind when he stated that 'nothing is created or destroyed, only transformed'. The energy that comes out of Brett's mouth when he is drunk comes straight from the alcohol burning in his brain.

There was no love lost between us. Never friends when we worked together as senior purchasing officers, our relations hit a low 3 years ago when, as the younger of us, I was promoted despite his seniority. I was now 35 and the youngest senior manager ever at T-Bolts Inc.

I hoped he wasn't making a fool of himself because I would have to use as much diplomacy as I was able to muster, which was never that much where Brett was concerned.

"I've never seen such ugly kids. Oh my God! I'm glad I'm not eating each time I look at them. They are puking ugly."

Oh my! Brett was heading toward trouble. Talking about somebody else kids... Gee! I had to stop it before the parents got mad. As I was walking toward him, the two other guys listening to him saw me coming. The grin they had on their faces suddenly disappeared. They even took a step back away from Brett. I was puzzled until I heard the rest of his tirade.

"I can't understand it. Their mom is gorgeous and their dad, even if he is a dunce, is not bad looking either. I'm no fool! I tell it like I see it. How the heck did they make such ugly kids? Did Sonya fuck with the milkman? If she did, he must be an ugly mother-fucker, that's for sure!"

Brett was a bit surprised when his two listeners just walked away from him, leaving him speechless.

I was boiling. Drunk or not, he had crossed a line that I was not able to forgive. He could have been talking about me as a boss or as a host, and it would have been OK. But to talk about my kids, my little angels, I was unable to let it slide.

As I reached him, I put a firm hand on his shoulder. He turned his head to look at the interloper and recognized me. He paled.

"Get out of here asshole!" I said grinding my teeth. "You're drunk. I'll call a cab. You wait at the curb."

Drunk or not, Brett knew that he was in trouble. As I gripped him and started to pull him toward the front door, he started to apologize.

"Sorry about that mate! I was just trying to get a laugh out of the boys. I didn't mean it!" he said, quietly following my lead.

I threw him out and closed the door. I was tempted to give him back his car keys so he could crash his car somewhere, but a bit of decency and the thought of him killing innocent people stopped me. When the cab finally arrived, I went out and gave Brett's keys to the driver.

Now, I was in a bad mood and it showed. The two guys who were listening to Brett left soon after him with their wives and the BBQ was officially finished. A few friends helped to clean up a bit and the party was over. Sonya put the kids to bed while I continued to clean up.

When we were finally alone, Sonya asked me what was wrong. I had calmed down quite a bit by then so I simply said that I was pissed that Brett got so drunk that he started to make fun of people at the BBQ and ridiculed their kids. Sonya agreed that it wasn't very nice of him, and she gently pushed me to put his behavior aside and not let it ruin my good mood. Totally exhausted by the BBQ, we went to bed real early.

The next morning, Sonya took our two kids to church. I was raised as a Catholic and still believe in most of what I learned, but I am not much of a churchgoer. While they were gone, I dutifully finished cleaning the back yard. It gave me time to think.

Brett had hit a nerve!

As I said earlier, Sonya is one of the prettiest women I ever met. She is 33 years old, two years younger than I am, and she has the most kissable lips I ever kissed, a nice little upturned nose, deep-searching hazel eyes, and a face to die for.

As for me, it is said that I am a handsome man. Slightly over 6' tall, only 180 lbs., I have a good figure, thanks to the few hours Sonya and I spend each week on our fitness equipment.

We met at a friend's party, and I still believe we might have been set-up on a blind date. Well, it worked just fine as I was speechless for a few seconds when I first saw Sonya. Her figure was a harmony of gentle curves, more pronounced where it counts: her hips and breasts. The host, Helen, was beside me, looking at me and grinning. She took my arm and pulled me toward the beautiful stranger.

"Hi Sonya! Let me introduce you to Alex Johnson, an old friend from High School. Alex, this is Sonya Arnold, she started working in my office last month."

We shook hands, said "Hi!" and Helen left us by ourselves.

We spent the next few minutes getting acquainted. Sonya was easy to get along with, unlike other gorgeous women I had met before who often seemed self-centered. We spent the rest of the evening together, laughing and enjoying ourselves. Our initial shyness melted like snow on a warm spring day, slowly but surely. By the time the party broke down, we had danced a little, but mostly chatted the evening away. I was basking in the pleasure of being with the most beautiful woman ever, with almost no lust but a strange mellow feeling that this woman had to be the one. As the party ended, I asked her if I could have her phone number. She smiled and gave it to me.

We didn't end up at my apartment till the fourth date. First surprise of the evening, she's the one that attacked me, kissing me as soon as she was in my apartment, her hands going all over my body. It didn't take long until we were in my bed. She was a vision from a dream. But she surprised me when I was on top of her and just about to experience the wonderful feeling of the first contact with her pussy:

"Be careful Alex! I'm... I'm a virgin"

Is surprise a strong enough word? I couldn't believe that such a beautiful woman, already in her 20's, was with a man for the first time in her life. In my experience, such women have so many opportunities to be with men that they rarely reach 20 without having sex. But as I learned a few seconds later, she was a virgin, and I was her first lover.

We never looked back. We dated for the next 2 years, then we got married. The last 11 years have been totally awesome. Not that our love for each other got stronger, but our love grew with each passing year, transforming into a complete union of mind and body.

We are well off; Sonya works as a bookkeeper – with the same employer for the last 11 years, having taken a year of maternity leave when each of our kids were born. And as I said earlier, I am part of the senior management team at my company.

We have two children: Tanya, six years old, and Alex Junior, four years old. They are the most beautiful and smartest children that I know. Tanya and I dote on them, hence the many pictures of them that cover almost a whole wall in the hallway, from their birth to their most recent pictures.

I was standing in front of a picture taken last month at Tanya's birthday. I scrutinized the picture closely. Both children had light brown hair, just like Sonya and I. Junior even had his ears a bit off his cranium, just like mine, and also like some of his cousins from my side of the family. But that's where the similarities stopped.

I have no frame of reference on Sonya's side of the family: Both her parents passed before I met her, and she is an only child. I met one of her cousins 9 years ago at our wedding, but she lives out west and we never saw her after that.

In fact, Sonya has absolutely no mementos from her childhood. Two years before we met, while she was away at college, tragedy struck her family. She lost both her parents in a fire that burnt their home down to the ground, erasing her life in one single evening.

She unburdened her heart to me, revealing that she had been under medical supervision for over a year, fighting severe clinical depression. But she finally pulled out and regained her will to live. Despite being financially independent – she inherited a sizable sum of money from her parents – she decided that she needed to be active. She completed a bookkeeping course, and went to work. One month later, we met.

Pulling back from my scrutiny of the pictures, I forced myself to stop thinking about Brett's unnerving comments of. Why would I let the crude rant of a drunkard bother me?

Soon, Sonya and the kids came back from Church and any nagging feelings left me. My family is fabulous.

_ _ _ _

Five months later, we attended a Christmas party held by Sonya's employer, Matthew Byrnes. We were sharing a table with our common friends Helen, her husband Bill, and another couple, Jenny – who worked with Sonya and Helen – and her husband Mark.

Always the proud father, I was showing Mark the pictures of my two kids; I always carry a new set in my wallet. Just then, Sonya asked me for a dance. I dropped the pictures on the table and followed her to the dance floor where we danced a few numbers and returned to our table.

I guess every workplace has their drunkards. One of them was sitting on my chair, looking at the pictures of my children, and talking to Helen.

"Are these the boss's kids? I thought they were older than that," He asked.

Helen took the pictures away from him.

"Give me those you Dunce! They are Sonya's kids," retorted Helen.

"I'll be damned," stuttered the guy whose name I totally forget. "I could swear they are the boss' kids with those pudgy noses of theirs."

He got up and left, staggering dangerously between the tables.

Reaching the table, I took my pictures and put them neatly back in my wallet, but not before having another look at my angels. It is true that they have somewhat big noses. But they are young and we know how our physical features change while we grow up. Like a puppy outgrowing its big paws...

However, it was at that moment that Matthew Byrnes decided to stop by our table for a chat. I couldn't help but look closely at his nose. It was big. He wasn't an ugly man, but his nose was hard to miss. And it sure looked awfully like Tanya and Junior's noses.

With that realization, you can understand how quiet and unresponsive I was the rest of the evening. Under the pretext of a headache, Sonya and I soon left and went home. The kids were at my parents' house, and we had planned for a hot evening of sex. To put it mildly, I wasn't in the mood. Soon, we were in bed and Sonya fell asleep in a matter of minutes.

Without making a noise, I got up and went to the living room. There I sat on the couch, in the dark. My head was reeling. Not from the alcohol, but because a somber thought was going around and around in my mind: could it be that Sonya cheated on me? Twice? Or for at least two years? Is she still cheating? With her boss?

That drunken guy and Brett were right. My kids didn't look at all like me. I couldn't hide from these facts anymore, but I had a real hard time even imagining that Sonya could cheat on me. Impossible!

I could go on and on for hours about the massive scale of our mutual love. I could describe all the intimate wonderful moments that we shared together over the last 11 years, nine years as husband and wife. When we say "I love you" to each other, it's not in a polite way or, as with many couples, just going through the motion. Even after 11 years, we say it and show that we mean it.

In the morning, if one us is late for work, and we only have time for a quick peck on the cheek, we make sure to tell the other that it's only an advance on a much bigger payment coming in the evening.

Our proof of love, it's Sonya coming up behind me when I am busy at some chore in the house, holding me tight, kissing me on the neck and telling me "I just found the center of my universe... doing the dishes. The gravity is too strong. I am stuck to you forever".

Our proof of love, it's me seeing how exhausted Sonya is from her work, putting the kids to bed, then filling a pan with warm water and simply washing her feet while she relaxes in the living room.

Our proof of love, it's one of us embracing the other and refusing to let go.

Our proof of love expresses itself in so many different ways, often simple, but always meaningful.

Is that all a sham?

Not from my side! But now, I had doubts about Sonya's sincerity. Coming from two different sources, none of them friends – kind of neutral – I had to face the fact that none of my kids look like me.

Again, I stood in front of the latest pictures of Tanya and Junior that we put on the wall. The hair color and the eyes were all right. As well as the Junior's ears, but the nose and - I now realized – the chin of both kids were wrong. Both had chins a bit sunken, very close to their neck. And that was also wrong when compared to both Sonya and me. Without having prominent chins, we had normal chins, not at all sunken.

I didn't have a choice. The more I looked at the pictures of my kids, the more I noted discrepancies between what they should look like and their actual faces. Wasn't Junior also a bit short for his age? Sonya is 5'5", so she's average height, and I am a bit over 6 feet, so I'm above average height. I had to make sure. Monday, I would inquire about DNA testing to see if Tanya and Alex Junior were mine.

I went back to the living room and crashed on the couch. I love these kids. They are smart, loving and I don't know what I would do without them. But the facts were pilling up against me being the father.

Sonya was working for Matthew Byrnes when she first became pregnant. Even if the birth came in March, one of the busiest months for the company with all the tax filings required from their customers, I remember well that Sonya was granted her maternity leave without a fuss – which is normal as our Standard Labor Act gives such an obligation to the employer – and also a promise from the boss himself that her position would be waiting for her when she returned. In a non-unionized workplace!

I was right. There was only one way to solve the problem, and I would do it next Monday. Before going to bed, I searched the Internet and found one laboratory in the area that was able to conduct the tests.

Sunday was a bitch! I didn't feel very much like the loving husband and father. Well, to be honest, it was easier to be the loving father, but real hard to be the loving husband. I had to use my assumed sickness again to explain my distant behavior. But, overall, it went smoothly.

Monday, the first thing I did was to pick up a test kit at the lab. Come on! I could have used some Q-tips and separate Ziploc bags to do the test. What a joke! At work, I read the instructions and in the evening I offered to put the kids to bed – that's when I took a sample of their DNA. The next morning, after taking my own sample, I dropped the kits off at the lab.

Now I had to wait two weeks. I thought it would be the longest two weeks of my life.

First, there was the anxiety about the test results. What would they tell me? Was I the father? The worst of my anxiety was that I thought I already knew the results. I had two weeks to brace myself, to get ready for the terrible truth. I had two weeks to decide what to do with my two angels.

Despite all my doubt and distress, I still loved my two buggers. I still loved the moments when I had to get them up each morning, the hectic hour getting them ready for school and daycare, the joyful moments spent in the evening, playing with them, giving them their baths and putting them to sleep.

"A story Dad! Don't forget the story!"

And I didn't! Normally, Sonya and I alternated the bedtime storytelling. I volunteered for all of them.

Second, how to behave with Sonya?

I felt betrayed even before getting the DNA test results. It shouldn't be like that. I should wait for the results. But deep inside, I knew what they would be. All that time, I felt like I had a dagger stabbed in my heart. My marriage was a hoax, and I was the butt of a cruel joke.

How could I keep up a normal façade when I knew that Sonya was a cheating whore who was laughing for years at my expense?

I felt hurt, a sure object of ridicule between Sonya and her lover. The pain was omnipresent: I felt it at work but mostly at home. How could she cheat on me, betray me? She had to know that I loved her and that my love had no bounds. She had to know how deeply hurt I would be.

The bitch!

Anger was claiming my mind. How could she do that to me? Even if I wanted to stay composed while waiting for the test results, I was on a short fuse. I had a hard time being in the same room with Sonya. Her voice grated on my soul, igniting a boiling rage deep inside me every single time she spoke to me.

She was really upset about my curtness. I explained that something came up – something I didn't feel like talking about – and just to wait as the matter would be resolved within the next week. As you can see, I did not to lie to her. That made one of us. If she assumed that it was work related, so be it!

The next Saturday, after we put the kids to bed, Sonya asked me to join her in the living room. I dreaded this confrontation. I would have preferred to have the test results in hand, but my anger was spilling over.

"Alex, you have been a totally different man this last week," Sonya started. "Your attitude has not only been frosty, but you have often been totally rude to me. I want to be an understanding wife and help you with whatever happened at work, but you have to come out with what is bothering you. To be honest, the last week has been very trying."

I didn't even look at her. I didn't say a word.

"So? What is it all about?" asked Sonya. "What happened at work that has you acting like... a jerk?" insisted Sonya.