[NOTE: this chapter contains a scene with forced, male on male, oral. You might want to skip that part. Future chapters will be exclusively heterosexual.]
I fit my other shoe after parking in our double wide driveway. Climbing out, I was more collected but damaged worse than I realized.
"Ridley! Peg!" I shouted entering the house. George must have been in such a hurry, he hadn't locked the front door.
"Hey, Mom, you're back!" My son shouted from his room. Neither child rushed to me.
"I told you she'd be back before midnight." Peg proclaimed as loudly.
"You said before nightfall!" His brother argued.
"You said she had left us for good!" She hammered him.
"Mom! I did not!" My thirteen year-old sounded like he was seven.
"Get out here, right now!" I heard myself screech!
Silence. Mother had never screamed at them before.
"Right now, both of you!" I repeated loudly without going hypersonic.
Two young teens emerged from their rooms and entered the living room. They looked full of disbelief. I remained standing in the entry, door shut behind me. "Listen, you two." My voice calmed only slightly. "Your father and I are dealing with some difficulties-"
"Mom, are you going to divorce?" Peg interrupted.
"Please, Mom, if you do, can I live with you?" Ridley pleaded. "Dad can have mean ol' Peg."
CRACK! My son's head spun from my angry slap! He yipped like a smacked dog. "MOM!"
Peg's jaw hung open. I had never struck them. When Ridley's head turned back, his jaw remained offset. They stared at me as if I were The Terminator.
I abruptly realized what I'd done! My anger sank into the floor, to be replaced by astonishment and sharp guilt! I went to the nearby couch, aghast at my action.
"I-I'm sorry-" I stuttered, but a follow-up flash of contempt swept through my heart. "No." I clenched my lips. "I'm not sorry." A glare erupted in my eyes.
"Mom, what happened?" Peg was the more reasoning child of mine. Mother wasn't in Kansas anymore.
"The gods put me through a wringer today. That's the last I'll discuss it. But if I learned anything from it, I'll go to the hells before I let you two act up again." Passion infused my voice instead of anger.
"Uh - Mom, I can kinda see your-" My son clamped his lips tight. His eyes however were glued to my chest!
I flung an arm around the shadows which my veiled nipples left on the thin blouse, but I didn't back down. "Hush! Go back to your rooms, and I don't want to hear another peep from you!"
"We haven't had supper-" Peg started, but when she saw me raise my hand, she backed away.
Ridley nearly turned and ran. His sister wasn't far behind when he disappeared around the hallway entrance.
I sank my knees into the couch and hugged the plush back, resting my face on the soft top. I wanted to cry, but I was past that. Eventually, I rose up and went George's and my bedroom. I drew a bath in our private room and soaked naked, the day's horror stirring my emotions like a whirlwind.
A long while later, George entered our bedroom. He moved like a zombie. "George?"
"There you are." He shuffled up to the open bathroom door. He was quite pale, obviously wanting to speak but unable.
I curled forward, knees covering my chest. "Now's not the time." I shut him down further. "Perhaps we can talk tomorrow."
We slept on opposite sides of our king sized bed that night. I huddled under a separate blanket, wearing pajamas and a gown over them. I couldn't handle the concept of George seeing me naked.
That he was bewildered enough to sleep away from me, I found odd even for his typical reluctance to enter conflict. That was both our troubles and why our children ran rampant. I'd known this for years but had never mustered the chutzpa to correct the situation. He also understood our mutual weakness and had similar motivation issues. I always thought we made the perfect couple.
One insatiable black man, old and fat, had shattered that foolish notion.
I woke up groggy and squinting from bright sunlight. I was alone in the room. I checked the clock. It was nearly nine. Rising and hauling my legs off the side of the bed, I got up and pressed my feet into a pair of slippers.
Angry shouts from the kitchen filtered through the bedroom door. I clutched the blanket around me like armor over my gown and pajamas and went out into the hall.
"Dad! We're late for school!" Ridley worried!
"You'll drive us today, right?" Peg accused. "It's your fault for not making breakfast sooner." Cowing their father into giving a ride to school was one of the few times the children joined forces for mutual gain.
"George. You're driving straight to work." I entered looking haggard but feeling more alive than usual. The kids' attitudes fell away at my surprise presence. "Peg! Ridley!" I called sharply. "School will have to wait for you to walk there." I glared at them. "Each of you are perfectly capable of making a simple meal, hopefully without burning down the place. Now fetch your things and go."
"But I'm not finish-"
I stabbed arm, hand, and finger at the hallway. "Go."
Our two teens slipped out of their chairs and stepped far around me to reach their rooms. Ridley unconsciously touched his left cheek.
George looked up from the table. "How did you do that?"
"Anger, George." I sat in Ridley's chair and began to eat was was left on his plate.
"I can't imagine what you're going through." He tried sounding sincere, but he could never lie convincingly, let alone his wife of nearly twenty years. Something was troubling him.
"Why were you so late getting home?"
"Oh." Panic flared in his eyes. "I decided to stop-"
"Don't lie to me, George. I'm not going to divorce you even if you stabbed a salesclerk on the way home."
"That." He tried to endrun the issue. "I was at my wit's end, yesterday. I never should have said that."
I hissed my nose at him and finished the food on the plate in front of me. Without taking my accusing eyes off of my reluctant husband, I reached over the table and grabbed Peg's plate.
He picked at his food. Peg and Ridley came from the hall and cautiously shuffled out the front door.
George's head tilted at their reserved obedience. He next hung his head and mumbled. "That man - at the hotel. He- He-" George's body shook. His voice wheezed. "...explained."
"Who, the hotel manager?"
"No." He unexpectedly squeaked. "The m-man who... attacked you."
Gods! My strength drained. The stranger had done more than talked to George. That much was obvious from the whimpers George emitted while trying to hide his tears.
"George!" I blurted with the last of my bluster. "What happened? You have to tell me."
"It's too shameful." He shook his head.
"What did you do? I promise, I can handle it." After yesterday's gauntlet of humiliation, I was ready for anything.
"I went back to the room." He wheezed.
"No." My head shook. "What were you thinking?"
"I found my phone. The glass was cracked but still worked. I blamed him. I went up the stairs..."
***
George was pumped up to investigate. Curiosity, great concern for my wellbeing, and just enough remorse for his phone, gave him stupid courage to knock on door 23. "I'm her husband. I demand to talk with you, or I'm calling the police." He thought he had all the power.
The door opened, the stranger stood sneering, a unamused, naked titan assessing my five foot, eight inch husband. "Yeah? What's your name?" His question had more force than George's demand.
"Uh, George."
"Hmph." The old black sneered. "Yeah, that's right." He had heard me call my husband's name into my phone. Sneer notwithstanding, the stranger held out his hand to be shaken. My name's Leland. Tell the cops it's Leland Jones. They have a file for me. There's not much in it, but you can verify my mug shots when they want your testimony."
Leland Jones held his hand steady before him. It wasn't an offer to refuse. "But first you're gonna have to get your wife to press charges."
George was foolish to grasp the hand, still confident he had the edge.
Leland didn't crush my husband's hand, but he made it clear that physically messing with him was going to be very painful for George. "One thing I guarantee, George, is the hotel manager will swear that she hired the room on her own accord. I wasn't even in the office when she handed her card to him."
"Colleen was under a lot of stress. I'm sure good lawyer will find just means to charge a man who took advantage of a severely depressed woman." George was doing his best to sustain his foolish notion of having the advantage.
"That's her name? Colleen?" Leland Jones picked his nose and flicked the snot at my husband. "Get in here." He reached out, grabbed George by the elbow and dragged him into the room. "I was getting a draft." The naked old, heavy man shut the door and locked the additional bolt.
"That's assault." George accused.
"No, it's not." Leland scoffed. "Touching is battery." He guarded the door. "Now sit down, and let's talk real good." He used poor grammar as a threat.