What Didn't Stay in Vegas

What Didn't Stay in Vegas

Part Two (of 2)

Writer's note: I hope you enjoy this. That's all I'm shooting for. Let's have some fun.

What Didn't Stay in Vegas Part 2

Jim opened their front door to a gaggle of nervous young ladies on his front porch. They identified themselves as Loni's co-workers. He told them his wife wasn't home yet. The ladies said they knew and stood there nervously.

They looked back and forth at each other like a group of flighty birds. One of the young women at the front spoke up, "We know, Jim. That's why we came. She's not here, Jim. She's already gone." The young woman looked at Jim with a deeply pained expression. "Loni's left."

Jim's stomach fell towards his knees. "What are you saying? Loni's left me?"

"Oh, not just you Jim, she's left town!"

"What?" Jim didn't like the shrillness of his own voice.

The woman looked back and forth nervously again. The same woman as before responded, "Wait. That didn't sound right at all. Loni's coming back after she's satisfied."

Jim hoped his jaw wasn't hanging as low as it felt it had dropped.

The woman put up her hand in a time out gesture, "Phrased that poorly." The ladies behind her nervously nodded their agreement. "I meant to say Loni would be back after she's gotten what she needs."

"What?" Jim noted a tinge of desperation mixing with the shrill in his voice.

The young woman wore a pained expression, "No, no. That wasn't what I meant either. Well, I meant it but..."

Someone yelled at her from the back of the group. The young lady cringed and hurriedly tried again, "Loni is coming back. She hasn't left you!" The young lady was happy with that. She'd finally delivered the correct message. "She just went to see him again."

This time he didn't have to say "what", the universe screamed it. The women looked horrified but not in a commiserating way. Their expression was more akin to those of villagers before they burned the detested witch. Their eyes bore holes in the back of the skull of their spokeswoman.

Jim's eyes narrowed trying to understand. His question was as much asking how badly they were executing their plan not just their intent, "Are you here to console me? Is that what this is about, Trish?"

The young woman recoiled that he knew her name.

"How about you Mary? Is that why you're here, Betty? Are you here to tell me she's having another fling and it will be okay if I just accept her back when she's... satisfied? Is that your message Crystal, Holly, and Steph?"

The gals looked back and forth for a moment wondering how on earth Jim knew their names. "I-If you need that, uh emotionally, b-but more to explain what's going on. A-And were making a mess of it."

Jim nodded his agreement.

The spokeswoman, looked back to her compatriots for strength before she continued, "I know we've met at company parties, but you have a fantastic memory. You know all of us by name!"

His finger came up and pointed at Trish's chest. Before she could feel either proud or self-conscious Jim explained, "You all must have come straight from work; you're still wearing your name badges."

Trish blushed for thinking he remembered her because of her cleavage, which was what she thought he was pointing to. The others felt silly.

Jim shook his head feeling it was too late to lose patience. "Why don't you all come in, calm down, and slowly explain to me whatever it is you want me to know."

The ladies smiled sheepishly, bobbing their heads happily trying to figure out a pecking order that would let them enter without bunching up at the door.

As soon as they took seats in the living room some of the ladies popped out of those same seats extremely nervous and began to talk over themselves apologizing for getting Loni drunk in Vegas.

Jim sat down deliberately hoping some of the standing women would follow suit. He waited to see if they would realize they were all talking at once and organize themselves, or if he was going to have to take command of the situation. He really wished he'd poured himself a bourbon.

Almost like a conductor as the ladies flamed out on their anxiety, Jim motioned for all to sit and for one to speak. He got pretty good at directing them with the continuing practice foist upon him. Their story rambled and plowed over itself in sections, just as the ladies spoke over each other honestly trying to help. He wondered if this is where his wife got her confusing pattern of speech when she was overwrought. As he'd told his wife, he really did feel he needed a program to keep up with the play.

"She didn't want it, but we double teamed her," one young woman exclaimed loudly enough to be heard over the others. Her statement suddenly silenced the entire group.

Jim's eyes went wide in shock. Another one of the women jumped in to correct the misunderstanding, her eyes scolding the one who caused it.

"Um, no. Just no. We planned to give her a lot of drinks. We were, let's say, overly efficient... or would that be efficacious?" She quickly paused thinking, then visibly shook her head and continued, "Either way, we accidently got her hammered! We wanted her relaxed, we did too good of a job. Poor Loni was practically four sheets to wind."

"Why did she drink that much? Why didn't you take care of her?"

"We thought we were taking care of her, but we were too drunk ourselves. So, we were... overly efficient getting her drunk. She never saw it coming. She didn't realize we were constantly topping off her drinks, she thought she was pacing herself and we purposely messed up her pace so she'd let her hair down. In the end we're pretty sure she out-paced our accelerated pace of her slower pace."

Jim considered holding his head. With this revelation he also reasoned that most likely Loni had not been drugged.

"Seeing her condition, we knew we had to dial our involvement back. Wouldn't you know, we were overly efficient at dialing it back too! We had twice the number of folks getting her drinks than we thought, then we had half the number of folks taking care of her than we thought. Which turned out to be zero."

Jim unconsciously blurted, "Half of any real amount can never be zero."

They just looked at him blankly.

After the gals looked at each other to see if any had a response, or understood what he said, one piped in, "Uh, well, we were just too efficient all around," she looked at the gal who had asked the question early and asked, "Or is that efficacious?" The gals looked at each other confused, wondering if they'd gotten their story across.

Jim's head hurt but that didn't stop him, "Some friends! You pushed her into behavior she doesn't want, then left her defenseless."

The gal was excited and put her finger to her nose. So happy she'd painted he correct picture she exuberantly stated, "That's EXACTLY what we did!" She turned around nodding triumphantly to her friends. Their pained expressions gave her pause. She turned back to Jim to continue, "Loni had even warned us about exactly that sort of behavior. We wanted to prove her wrong, of course." She stopped smiling. What she was saying shouldn't make her happy. Joy drained from her quickly. "And now she hates us, and we fear we've caused damage to her inside her own mind."

Jim pondered that specific phrasing. He shook it off.

One of the gals offered to Jim, "Loni's miserable. She's not telling you that part - about her misery, because she doesn't want you to think she's manipulating you."

"My wife has never manipulated me."

Cheerfully hoping she was helping one of the ladies stated, "You mean yet, but she's never strayed before either."

The ladies looked at each other, what had Holly just said?! They all looked at each other again and had the same idea. Their heads turned in unison like those of a flock of birds toward Jim to see if the comment about infidelity had slipped past. They didn't come here to pour gas on Loni's marriage or break her husband's heart.

"Erm...Have you lost confidence and trust in her?" One asked.

"No, but she's completely devoid of confidence in herself now. I fear that's a time bomb."

"Look, it's our mess, but Loni won't let us help her. She doesn't want anything to do with us. She's looking for another job, so she doesn't have to see us."

"What?"

"She's heartbroken, truly terribly heartbroken because she loves you more than life itself."

Jim wasn't sure if that was exactly what she wanted to say or at least how she wanted to say it. He shook that thought off too. He found he was squinting as he listened to them.

"Loni would give her life to make you happy, but she doesn't know how."

Holly, confused by her own words mulled aloud, "Hmm, is Loni confused to take her own life... or to make you happy? I'm guessing the second one is the one I wanted." One of the ladies behind her rolled her eyes as Holly finally got it back in gear, "Still Loni can't figure out how she could do something so against her own nature. She's questioning herself now in ridiculous ways." She looked around at the other women before attempting to clarify her statement. "You know, stuff like: Is she a slut and never knew it? No good can come of that, can it? Although we should be proud of who we really are."

The other's heads turned towards Holly in unison again silently asking, "What did she just say?"

Holly swallowed hard looking at the stares of her girlfriends as she tried again, "I mean Jim..." her face suddenly went white, "It is Jim, right? You ARE the man she talks about all the time, aren't you?"

The women's mouths gaped in unison.

There was no way for Jim to answer the second question. He tried not to the let the group's confusion spread to his own brain. He answered the first question, "I am Jim."

Holly looked back at her friends with a proud see-I-told-you-so expression. "Well, Jimbo, we've all had those awkward days where you wake up and there's someone in your bed. You can't remember where you met him, how you chose him, how you got home, or even if it was good. Or what the hell his name is."

The ladies went red with embarrassment.

Holly cringed at their reaction. The stumbled forward, "The point is when you get that drunk you take away mind and heart, and the body is left to steer for itself. You wonder how you even managed to have sex, when it's appropriate to say that you weren't in the driver's seat and can't even remember if you were a back seat driver! That's when the self-loathing begins." She smiled confident she'd made a point that needed making.

Everyone was staring at her with mouths open, Jim too. He was unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice as he asked, "You are trying to HELP Loni, right?"

Cringing again at the group's reaction, Holly looked at Loni's husband. "Uh, let me guess. You've never had one of those nights... have you?"

Jim shook his head, "Are you saying my wife has?" His voice elevated.

Holly made a nervous humming sound, which might have been her stomach or perhaps lower. Sometimes it's best just to run. Holly put on her track shoes mentally.

"Er, it's no exaggeration saying Loni hates herself because of what she's done to you. You know; broken her vow and got laid by someone when she never ever wanted it. She prided herself in finding a man so good she didn't want others, and here she ends up with an extra anyway. Just remember Jim, while her betrayal IS of you, it's also of herself too. Remember that when you're counting coup against you, the destruction of your trust, and your damaged love for her. though it's all too real, it all happened by accident. At least the two of you are in this mess together!"

Holly stopped and beamed; she'd gotten it all out! She wasn't sure she got the order right, but it was a lot of information to disgorge. Holly became aware of a sound.

Everyone seemed to be hissing, none of them by design. They were sucking in air through their teeth. She hadn't run away from the worst-case scenario; she'd accidentally run right into it in her fear. And apparently, she was still trying to set a track record.

Realizing she'd done it wrong; she snapped the whip over the mush dogs to accelerate her sled, already out of control on thin ice. "Aaand that now instead of an upstanding gal, standing up for you, you are suddenly married to a gal of bad standing, or as she says so often now-a-days "damaged goods". I mean, if not out-right trash."

The room uttered a collective moan. Not only was Holly constantly finding ways to make it worse, she was incredibly good at it too.

"B-But here's the good news! We don't think she's to blame. Nope, she was our victim!" Holly wiped her brow with a large smile plastered across her face.

The other ladies were watching as Jim's face took on the myriad colors of the rainbow. One of the ladies slapped Holly on the back of her head.

Another one of the ladies ventured to speak. She tried to sound more in control of her faculties than Holly. Her job wasn't difficult. "Mr. Jim, sir, how about only one of us stays and tells you what we think happened and what your wife is doing now. Yes, she's broken, but hopefully not as Holly laid out for you. On second thought, how about we all stay but Holly goes?"

Jim countered, "How about we start with Holly going right now, then reconvene and figure out the rest." He didn't phrase it as a question.

"Sold American!" the new spokeswoman enthused as she pushed Holly to the door. The others joined her in moving Holly out, one leaving with Holly to explain to the destressed lass what she'd done wrong. They others came back in slowly to sit around Jim in his family room.

Eerily in control Jim sounded out his expectations, "Now ladies, tell me what the fuck happened in Vegas." His face had the quiet menacing sheen of a committed serial killer.

They collectively gulped. "Okay... uh, sir... we're going to lay it out chronologically. We'll tell you what we know for sure, which isn't much. Then we'll say what we think happened in the gray areas, and we'll tell you how relatively sure we are at each conjecture."

Jim thought they were finally getting somewhere.

* * * * * *

Jim listened to it all. He sat back while they spelled it out. He didn't say a thing. He was in a zone, his own personal world, or perhaps personal hell. The ladies hated seeing the damage of what a loved one behaving this way did to the person that stayed loyal. Even though they knew how much Loni loved Jim, by the time they were done they understood that the cheated upon partner couldn't be sure that they were, in fact, loved. Discussing it later they knew things they'd taken as givens weren't true and that they had to change their behavior. That still didn't get poor Loni and Jim out of the woods though. Things they always figured they could let slide had a terrible impact on Jim, he just weathered each blow unable to defend himself or fight back. He just took it and stewed. They were so intimidated by his reaction they expected a "Muwahahaha" any second.

Jim finally broke his silence, "What you're telling me is that my wife was probably intimate with another man."

Crystal spoke up. She was slow and deliberate and tried to sound the good council as long as she could. "I am not trying to be a sophist here. The word "intimate" indicates a degree of closeness that was completely absent from anything that did or did not occur. I, ah, we believe - your wife too - that she had sex with a man, not two or more just one. And that he was drunk too. The fact that the light going on in their room the next morning so disoriented them hopefully indicates that maybe he couldn't get the job done." Crystal sighed, "But Loni having a dried secretion in her, um, crotchical region seems to indicate that something happened."

"Crotchical?" Jim heard himself say.

Hearing her ridiculous word repeated back to her threw Crystal's confidence considerably. She had to pay much more attention to how she said things. Talking to Jim wasn't as easy as speaking to her gal pals who seemed to understand regardless of the words used.

Crystal restarted much more hesitantly, "I know degrees matter here, and inches count." She slapped her hands at her thighs and rolled her eyes in disgust at her choice of words. "Damn, I went Holly all of a sudden. Forgive me. There's some reason to be hopeful: having that amount of man pudding in the panty trap perhaps there wasn't full penetration. T-That is i-if they did... do something." Crystal sighed shaking her head while looking at her shoes. "What I suggest concentrating on Jim, is that Loni doesn't remember anything that happened and certainly didn't enjoy it."

That made a certain amount of sense to Jim, though he wasn't sure why.

Then Crystal kept talking.

"Because the other possibility is having that much leak all the way out, the guy must cum like a racehorse. We just think Loni would remember an organ with an impressive performance like that."

Crystal smiled at everyone with her summation. She lost her smile as no one else had one.

Rubbing his forehead, Jim asked quietly, "How do we know Loni didn't enjoy it if she doesn't remember?" He was immediately sorry he'd asked. This conversation had easily cost him ten IQ points.

The women looked at each other. The most recent spokesperson thought aloud, "I may have undersold Holly on this confession thing."

All the girls cringed, including Crystal as she spoke, "Look, um sir, Loni was, and is, horrified. She remembers waking up in a guy's room. That's horrifying enough, yet she was in less than a complete state of dress, if not naked."

Jim was about to blow a gasket at that revelation, when the gal added an important nugget, "What she doesn't know is how much she participated, and it's KILLING her. She doesn't know if she passed out and the guy carried her there, she doesn't know if he undressed her, she doesn't even know if she was drugged. She doesn't know if she agreed to go, she doesn't know if she was passed out the whole time, or even if something really did happen. God forbid, she doesn't even know if under the influence she rode him like a rodeo clown."

The flock of birds all turned towards her. She'd been doing so well before riding right off the rails. Crystal stood up straight, dismayed and wringing her hands she scolded herself, "WTF. This is a lot tougher than it looks. Damn nerves mess with your narration!"

Crystal felt someone hit the back of her head. Hurriedly she responded, "Wait, before you send me to sit in the car with Holly, here's what Loni knows: that she has no recollection of actual sex! She knows she sure didn't want to have sex, and that she didn't want the guy. Also, that she got drunk because we did everything but pour the booze down her throat. She knows she danced, but only because we carried her out on the dance floor. WE carried her out there more than once because she kept leaving it as long as she could still think. She knows the only reason she accepted the booze, or the dancing, was because she trusted us. She knows we let her down. You need to know that too: Loni was only in a situation to fail because WE put her there.

Crystal opened her palms and looked at Jim with a furrowed brow, "Jim, Loni trusted us. Until this whole mess we thought we WERE trustworthy. Yes, we like to have a good time, maybe a bit more than most find socially acceptable. But we're all single. We don't admit it, but if we found a guy we could settle down with, we'd jump at the chance and not carouse anymore. Until we find him, we have each other. We like that we don't sit home waiting for Prince Charming to ring our doorbell. We don't live in our parent's basements, and we put ourselves out there. I think those are positives. You have to understand the dynamic: we don't have guys, but we do have each other. The glue that holds us together is having each other's backs. We can trust each other.