Before venturing further, I need to state for the record that this is a work of fiction and that any resemblance by any character or situation to any actual person, living or deceased, is purely coincidental. All characters presented in this narrative are over the age of 18. --Royce Houton
Chapter Three
I awoke to the sound of Kim Rainey's Lexus SUV starting in her semicircular driveway nextdoor. It was 7 o'clock on Sunday morning and she was heading to the hospital to start another 12-hour weekend shift delivering babies in the most popular and heavily used obstetrics unit in a metropolitan region where the corners of Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee met, bisected by the twisting, muddy Mississippi River.
I had slept nearly a dozen hours.
After spending myself sexually in our voyeuristic, socially distanced self-pleasuring session Saturday afternoon, I had gone for a brisk walk, returned home and showered and sprawled on my sofa in my bathrobe and a beer to watch the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Washington Nationals. I was able to stay awake for two innings. I awoke at 1 o'clock, stumbled upstairs to my bed, stripped off my robe and fell, fully naked, into a deep sleep.
I was due to meet my two daughters for brunch at a trendy little bistro in suburban Olive Branch, Mississippi, in a few hours. Elizabeth and her husband had just moved to West Memphis, Arkansas and were expecting their first child -- my first grandchild -- in November. Susan, the oldest, had graduated from the University of Memphis and was finishing her second year in law school at Ole Miss, about a 70-minute drive to the southeast except on football game days when a drive to Oxford could take as long as three hours. She and her fiancΓ©, a third-year Ole Miss law student, were sharing an apartment and were planning a wedding the following spring, after she got her law degree.
"Have you seen mom?" Susan asked me.
I shook my head. "Not a good idea right now. Best to let the lawyers get us through the next few weeks or months or however long it is."
The truth is I had no intention of seeing Candace, not even after
however long
. But I didn't say it. Once Beth and Susan became aware of the gravity of the adultery evidence against Candace, they stopped trying to persuade me to call off the separation and work things out. They still talked to their mom, but there was a clear chill in their relationship. Not something beyond repair, I hoped, but definitely something that would take time to heal.
"Well you look fit and chipper, Dad. What's up with you? You're not
out there
yet are you ... or aren't you?" Beth said..
"Oh no. One because I'm not in any shape for a relationship and I don't see me being ready any time soon. For another, it's not a good idea from a legal standpoint, and that's all I can say about that," I said.
It wasn't a total lie. I mean, a joint jacking-and-jilling session between two middle-age, empty-nested neighbors in their own homes separated by a distance of two car lengths isn't really a
relationship
, right? Yes, we saw each other's most intimate parts, and yes, we engaged in explicit masturbatory play, and yes, we got off at the same moment. But it wasn't really sex, at least not as it has come to be known since the presidency of Bill Clinton.