Why?... 01

I was sixteen feet in the air on a platform scissor lift when I saw my foreman rush into the shell of the building we were working on. He waved for me to come down before he ran toward my location. He was at the back of the lift by the time I reached the ground.

"I'll take care of your tools, Martin! You need to get to the trailer! There's a Tennessee Highway patrolman waiting for you!"

"What does he want? Is it Renee? Has something happened to her?"

"I don't know! All he said was you needed to go with him now!"

I ran to the construction site's office trailer as fast as I could which left my 43 year old, forty pounds overweight body gasping for breath.

"I'm sorry to have to put you in the back, but its regulation, sir." The trooper told me as he held the back door to his cruiser open.

"Has something happened to my wife, Renee, officer?" I managed to squeeze out between the wheezes I was having trying to catch my breath.

"She was the passenger in a vehicle involved in a crash, sir."

"How badly is she hurt, officer?" I knew it had to be serious or they wouldn't have sent him to get me.

"I don't have any information on her condition, sir. I was instructed to get you to Green County Memorial Hospital as quickly as possible."

The conversation above took place as we sped along the city streets of the town the construction site was in with the siren blasting. It was thirty miles to the hospital that Renee was in. With the after lunch traffic it would have taken me a good fifteen minutes to get to the open highway. The trooper did it in five and the twenty five minute drive it would have taken me to do at the speed limit took him fifteen. That was the longest twenty minutes of my life. All I could do was speculate on what had happened and how badly was Renee hurt.

As soon as the trooper opened the back door for me, I was running into the ER of my local hospital. I looked around the waiting room and saw my double sister-in-law Dawn, my mother-in-law Doris, and my stepfather-in-law Roy Lee huddled together in a three person hug in the far corner. Dawn and Doris were crying and I could see the glisten of tears in Roy Lee's eyes as he struggled not to join them. I knew that Renee was gone before I even ran over to them.

"Oh Martin, she's gone! My daughter is gone!" Doris cried out when I got to them with my own tears starting to flow.

"What happened? Was anyone else hurt? Will they let me see her?" Those were the first questions that came to me as the four of us hugged each other there in the corner.

"All we know was that she was a passenger in Dr. Rogers' car when the accident occurred. Both of them are dead, him almost instantly and Renee not five minutes before you got here!" Dawn explained to me. "You'll have to ask the nurses or doctor if you can see her."

I went to the registration desk, told the lady there who and why I was there, and asked if I could see Renee. She stepped away from me as she called someone and had a brief conversation with them. She informed me that someone would come and talk to me shortly. I walked over to the nearest chair and plopped down in it. Renee's family, who had become mine from the marriage vows Renee and I had exchanged, gathered round me. My mind was blank and my body numb as I sat waiting for someone to try and explain to me how the love of my life and soul mate for the last twenty two years had been taken from me.

"Mister Banks, I'm Dr. Rush. I'm sorry for your loss. We did everything we could to save your wife, but her injuries were too severe. After the nurses have finished cleaning her body, one of them will let you see the body for five minutes alone. Only you and immediate family will be allowed to see the body. Again I'm sorry for your loss."

It was another fifteen minute wait before a nurse came and got me. Dawn and Doris wanted to know if I wanted them to go with me, but I declined their offers. I wanted to spend my five minutes alone with Renee's body so I could say my last goodbye in private.

Renee's body was in a small exam room that had the curtains closed on both the window and the door window. As soon as the nurse had left, I bent over and placed a kiss on her cool lips. The hand that I grasped was already cold and I realized that my Renee was truly gone. I rushed out of the room before my five minutes were up. I couldn't spend another moment with the shell that once held the spirit of my beloved wife. When I got to the waiting room, I saw my younger brother and Dawn's husband, Ray, holding Dawn while she went through another bout of crying. The nurse allowed him and Roy Lee to accompany their wives in the viewing of Renee's body. I took the minutes alone to call the funeral home that Doris's nephew owned and began the process that would end in the cremation of Renee's body.

Renee and I had both discussed what we wanted done when we died and agreed on cremation. Part of the reason we came to that conclusion was the expense we had struggled to pay when our only child had drowned while on a Boy Scouting canoe trip. Martin Junior was fourteen and our only offspring due to the complications Renee went through during his gestation period and birth and died when the canoe he was in capsized and he drowned after being knocked unconscious when his head hit a rock under the water of the Class One rapids the troop had been canoeing through. His funeral, even with a family discount, had taken Renee and me three years to pay off. We decided that the insurance money that the survivor would receive would be better spent on other things besides putting a body in a box in the ground. I had always assumed I would go first.

I had met Renee in the same ER as the one I was in now. I was a third year electrician's apprentice and had twisted my ankle when I stepped on a piece of conduit that I didn't see because of the box of material I was carrying and it rolled from under my foot. Renee was the LPN who took my vitals before they put me in an exam room. We were both twenty one and a mutual spark had passed between us. She didn't hesitate when I asked for her phone number. We were together in spirit from that moment on. We talked on the phone every day and our first date culminated back at my apartment where we made love to each other for the first time. Renee wasn't a virgin, but was very inexperienced, which combined with my own inexperience led to a less than satisfactory first attempt for both of us. I didn't last long enough and Renee didn't even get close to an orgasm. I was determined to please her and replaced my cock with my fingers and mouth on and in her wet sex. I had used a condom so only her juices and the lubricant from the condom were on her pussy's lips and inside her. I managed to give her an orgasm after I begged her to tell me what to do and how to do it to bring her to orgasm. I had regained my hard on and was able to give Renee an orgasm with my dick the second time I fucked her that night. Renee remained with me in my bed the rest of the night and we would eventually get another apartment together. The apartment I was renting was in my grandmother's basement and she made it very clear we weren't going to live in sin in her house.

Renee and I lived together for a year before we married. We helped each other learn the joys of sex. I was not a selfish lover and begged her to teach me in pleasing her. I coached her in how to give me a pleasurable blowjob. Renee was a little prudish when we first got together, but she overcame that part of her upbringing again with my help and encouragement. After our marriage, our sex life was great with each of us doing all we could to please the other. Even after Martin Jr. was born we continued to have the best sex we could ever imagine. Even after twenty two years we still were having sex three or four nights a week.

It was a couple of weeks after the stress of Renee's death, the argument of having her cremated that Doris and I had, the memorial service, and the slight easing of my grief before the question of why Renee was in Dr. Rogers' sports car entered my head. I knew there was one person who would know the answer, if I could get her to tell me, so I called Lori Whiting, Renee's best friend besides me and a fellow RN at the hospital.

"Lori, I know you know why Renee was with Dr. Rogers that day. Please, I need you to tell me even though I might not like what you tell me. I can only think of one reason she'd be with him after lunch and on her day off. I need to know the truth. Please, Lori?" I said to my dead wife's friend the day we finally managed to have lunch together.

"You think they were having an affair don't you, Martin?"

"Yes, and I can't imagine why? Renee was at least ten years his senior and to be honest between thirty to forty pounds overweight. He had that beautiful younger wife that we both know was at least four numbers above Renee on the men's one to ten scale. Why would he want to have an affair with her and why would she need to have one with him? Except for the first time we had intercourse, I've always done whatever I needed to make sure she enjoyed sex as much as I did!"

"Martin, I'm asking you as a friend to let this go. They are both dead and you're only inviting more pain into your life if you push for the truth."

"So I'm right; they were having an affair!" Lori sat back away from me as I yelled at her even though I hadn't meant to. "Please tell me. I don't think it can hurt any worse knowing the truth."

"Yes, they had been having an affair, but that day was the last time she was going to be with him. That might have contributed to him driving so fast and the cause of the accident. Unlike you, he didn't care if Renee enjoyed the sex or not. She told me he never made her feel the way you did when you made love to her. She told me he only gave her a couple of orgasms the entire two months they were seeing each other."

"TWO MONTHS!" I yelled again causing Lori to shrink back away from me again. "She was fucking him for two months and I didn't even suspect a thing." I sank down into my seat and began to cry harder than I had at any time during the ordeal caused by Renee's death.

"Renee loved you very much, Martin. I don't know everything, but I do know she loved you and admitted to me that she had made a mistake. Martin, you need to let this go. You're only going to cause yourself more pain unless you do. Please Martin, remember the great years you had with Renee, not the last two months of her indiscretion. She did love you with all her heart and soul. She told me of that first day you all met and the way she felt when she touched your arm. She knew you felt it, too. Martin, she was and remained your soul mate. Remember that and nothing else."

"Why? Can you at least answer me that?"

"It was mostly vanity on her part, Martin. She was an overweight woman nearing middle age and here was a younger, extremely attractive, charismatic man showing an interest in her. He kept complimenting her and telling her how much he would like to fuck her and it went to her head. She couldn't resist, but realized that it was a mistake the first time."

"Then why did she continue for two months?"

"He continued to pursue her and it continued to be exciting is all I know, Martin."

"Was he the first or had she been cheating on me all these years, Lori?"

"I swear he was the first and was going to be the last. Renee realized what she had with you was special and wasn't going to jeopardize that again. That was the last time they were going to be together and Dr. Rogers was going to accept it or lose a whole lot more than Renee would have if it came out."

"Why did he want her?"

"She told me he was always complaining about his wife not being good in bed. He overheard me and Renee talking one day at lunch. Renee and I told each other everything and she had blurted out how much she enjoyed sex with you. Dr. Rogers began coming onto her after that."

I had been wrong about knowing the truth about that day not hurting any worse than Renee's death had hurt. Instead of a big empty hole in my heart where Renee had been, I now had a heart that was torn in two. I stumbled away from Lori as the tears ran anew down my cheeks. My love, my life's purpose, and the one person I had trusted completely had cheated on me and I couldn't even do anything about it because she was gone.

For the next three months I was like a zombie. I went to work, went home, sat in my recliner with the TV on and didn't feel anything, not even pain. I didn't think about the past or the future; I merely existed. On the weekends I didn't leave the house and only left my recliner to go to the bathroom. I was clinically depressed and if my family hadn't stepped up and helped me I would have been sharing the double sized urn Renee and I had picked out so that our ashes would be together forever just as our spirits had been until my learning of her affair.

My brother Ray as my next of kin had me committed to the mental health facility that was located in our county. It was fourteen days before the doctor and nurses could get me to say anything more than yes or no. It was another fourteen days before I was speaking coherently and another ten before the doctor felt it was safe to let me go home. While I had been in the mental health facility, my in-laws had gone through the double wide trailer that Renee and I had been paying for and removed all of her clothes, toiletries, and all but one of the pictures that I had of Renee. The only one they left was our wedding picture. My family began forcing me to go out with them to get me out of the house.

It was six months after Renee's death before I awoke with the first erection I'd had since the night before the accident. (Renee had been extremely affection that evening when I got home from work and had given me the most pleasurable blowjob minutes after my entering our home. I had given her an orgasm with my mouth and then two more with my second hard on of the evening.) It was a Friday so I decided at that moment that after work I was going to try and get laid.

I went to a local nightclub that was geared to people in my age group. I drank club soda because I had almost drunk myself to death after Martin Jr.'s death; but Renee had kicked my ass, literally, and made me promise not to drink again. I danced with some of the women that none of the other men went near. Most of them were overweight, but that didn't bother me. Renee had never been thin and I wasn't an Adonis myself. Wanda was the one woman who seemed to warm up to me while we were dancing so I invited her to my table. I bought her several drinks and we danced a couple of more times. She knew I was aroused when she felt my erection against her during one of the slow dances we danced together. When she had finished the last drink I had bought her before that last dance, I invited her to go home with me. The pain and embarrassment she gave me when she laughed in my face was almost enough to drive me back into my former depressed state.

I left the club and went home. When I got there, I opened up the closet that had the full length mirror that Renee had me install when we first moved in and that my in-laws had missed. I removed my clothes and looked at myself. 5'8" tall, barrel chested and broad shouldered like my father had been, big belly from forty extra pounds overhanging my flaccid dick, a full head of brown hair with a touch of gray starting to show even though I was only 44, unlike my dad who was bald except for a strip that started above the ears and went all the way around the back of his head when he was my age, muscular arms from physical labor, small butt compared to the rest of my body, muscular thighs but thin calves, permanently swollen ankles from numerous sprains over the years; no wonder an overweight, half-drunk woman had laughed at me. If I'd been a woman, I wouldn't have wanted to fuck me either. I decided I was going to get into shape starting the next day.

I went to the local 24-hour fitness center the next day. When Ashley, the pert twenty something receptionist, informed me that a nutritional consultation and a personal trainer would cost seventy five dollars a month; I almost choked. I was struggling with the bills now and couldn't afford that. I also knew I wouldn't succeed on my own. Renee and I had both tried to lose weight many times on our own and together and had failed. I was determined to lose the weight this time so I asked to speak to the manager.

"Hello sir, I'm Martin and I would like to talk to you about maybe trading some services for a membership. I have to lose some weight and need help doing it. I've tried in the past and failed. I'm an electrician by trade and could help fix and maintain some of your equipment. I'll sweep up, mop, clean the pool, and every other menial job no one else wants. I'll do almost anything, sir."

"My name is Dennis and I'm not just the manager but part owner. What did you want in a membership and why can't you pay the monthly rate?"

"I need nutritional guidance and a personal trainer. I know myself and without someone pushing me, I'll quit. My wife was killed in a car wreck six months ago and I'm barely paying my existing bills without adding to them."

"I have an idea for a promotional for the gym, but haven't found anyone to agree to do it. The idea is for the gym to take a before picture and then an after of someone obese who loses weight and keeps it off for five years. The picture would be of the whole body with the person wearing a pair of trunks or gym shorts only. Would you be willing to do that?"

"For a full membership with the other things I mentioned, yes I would."

"Okay, let's get started then."

I followed Dennis into the men's locker room where he gave me a pair of gym shorts with the fitness center's name on them. I posed in the poses Dennis directed me to take as he took pictures of my flabby body. We then went into his office and I signed the special membership papers he had gotten made for his promotion. I didn't have to pay anything unless I quit working out in the center. I had to pay two months fees plus a $500.00 penalty if I did quit. The before picture would be life sized and hang over the reception area starting the next week. Dennis took me out to the center and began working me out. He could tell how bad out of shape I was in after only five minutes. Strength wise I was above average for a man of my age, but cardio wise I was equal to a man twice my age. Dennis had mercy on me that first day and let me stop after only twenty minutes. He gave me a meal plan and ordered me to start it that day. I stopped at the supermarket and got a fresh salmon steak and the vegetables the meal plan called for to go with it plus the food I'd need for breakfast and lunch. I went home and threw all the junk food and sweets away like Dennis had told me to do.

I had a new trainer the next day and we began after I had met with the nutritionist and gotten a more detailed and varied meal plan than the one Dennis had given me. Mike, my new trainer, didn't show me any mercy and I ended up vomiting in a plastic bucket after only thirty minutes doing the exercises Mike put me through. He allowed me to rest and re-hydrate before starting me out again. I managed not to puke again and dragged myself to the showers thirty five minutes later. I worked out with Mike every day except for Sunday when I was on my own. It took me two weeks before the soreness left me and another three months before I could do the full routine without a break. One year after starting, I had lost thirty of the forty extra pounds I had been carrying. I did take some ribbing from the other members when my before picture was first posted, but ignored them.

I had gotten the pay out from the two life insurance policies that were on Renee. I paid off her car, then sold it, and paid off the loan on the double wide; putting the rest in the bank. I had hired my friend, McDonald Hood, a Harvard law school grad, old scouting buddy who had told me his wife, who he dated all through high school and college, was the reason he had came back to our hometown; to sue Dr. Rogers' estate and auto insurance company for his causing Renee's death. He asked for $5 million at my insistence and he was in final negotiations with $3 million or a little less appearing to be the final number. Besides Lori I had Janet Blankenship, another of Renee's fellow nurses, who would testify to the doctor's affair with Renee. Mac was using that information as leverage to get the settlement we wanted.