Same Old Song and Dance Ch. 03: Conclusion

Kira

"Get the fuck away from me," In most cases, my gaze alone would have been enough to scare most people away from me without a single word being necessary. But Jeff's supercilious grin reminded me of both his amusement at my attempts to be hard, and the fact that he wasn't most cases.

"Kira, I need to talk to you," he smiled, shifting his grin to another level. That smile would have melted most girls. But not me, I knew the monster that lurked behind it.

He sat down at a table and picked up a menu. "Hmm," he said. "What looks good to eat in this shit hole?"

"What the fuck do you want, Jeff?" I growled.

"Wow, so much talk about fucking," he said. "Most people would think that you wanted me back."

"Never in life," I said calmly. The bastard was trying to rile me up. He was trying to control my emotions to lure me into doing something that he wanted.

"I'm not THAT big of an idiot," I said. "I know you want something from me. And whatever you want is totally irrelevant to me."

"I want my God damned girlfriend back," he hissed. "It's embarrassing. She's chasing your ex all over town. She has even started making cow eyes at him. From talking to some of her friends, I've learned that she started out just trying to make me jealous. She just wanted to rub it in my fuckin' face that she had dumped me. But the more time she spends with your idiot boyfriend the worse it gets. Do you realize that her parents like him? People all over town think THEY make a good couple. They have a bright future, people claim. He works on machines; she works on people. It's a weird type of symmetry."

"You sound jealous," I laughed. "How does it feel to have someone take one of your toys away? Or did you really love her as much as you claimed? I really hope so. I hope that you can feel just a little bit of what I'm feeling."

"Hardly," he smirked. "But I see another case where the two of us should join together to get what we both want. You want your fucking boyfriend back, and I want Lana back for however short a time that it lasts."

"I see no reason ever to believe you again, asshole," I hissed. "Look what happened last time I listened to you. I lost the only person that made my life bearable. And you did it just for the hell of it. You didn't miss Lana. You just saw me as easy pussy. Lana wasn't giving it to you, so you just went after the dumb old trailer park girl. And I was so weak ... I missed Terry so much that I fell for it. But my eyes are open now. I know that there are snakes in the grass so I have to bear the path in front of me so I don't get bitten again. I'm sure you put something in that drink.

And don't think I don't remember the things you said about me. Terry played that tape for me. Your own words have condemned you. Now get the fuck out of here or order something."

"Fuck you," he spat. "I'll get her back without you. And I'll make sure that asshole boyfriend of yours doesn't even pay you any attention."

"Out of idle curiosity," I said. "You don't really love Lana. I don't think you love anyone except for yourself. So why do you want her back so badly?"

"That's an easy one," he smirked, "The bitch dumped me. No one dumps me. I'm the dumper not the dumpee. I need her back so I can dump HER." Then he walked away. I wanted to laugh, but I was in so much pain.

I never believed in metaphysical concepts. But the one thing that this entire situation told me was that losing Terry was going to kill me. I know my pain was emotional in origin, but it had spread and become physical. I ached all over. My broken heart had metastasized. It spread to my physical body the way cancer spreads. I was sure that if I didn't get Terry back I was going to die. It probably wouldn't happen overnight, but it would happen.

I was also sure that Lana didn't really love Terry. She just wanted him because HE didn't want HER. It was like a magpie going after a shiny rock. Eventually, Terry would forgive me. I just hoped he wouldn't wait until I was dead.

Every time I saw him with Lana draped all over him, it took another piece of my soul.

* * * * * *

Greg

After the after lunch meeting with Donna and her lawyer, I decided to never have another after lunch meeting. If I'd thought that reading the report from the PI had been awful, hearing from Donna's own lips, the things she had done and her stupid reasons for destroying our life together, and our family had been worse.

I don't know what I expected. There really is no good reason for cheating on your spouse. The funny thing about it is that I searched my mind and my heart to try to find one. However, that was before the meeting. That was before hearing how selfish her reasons were.

And that bullshit about how she had done it to save the town was utterly ridiculous. She made it seem as if she was some sort of super heroine. Maybe she ran around in see through booty shorts, masquerading as "Golden Pussy." She uses her magic vagina to solve crimes and right the wrongs of society.

Without even realizing it, she had told us why she really did it. She'd said it herself, I was away at school, and she was horny. She also needed more than she thought that I could give her. Not that she'd actually tried telling me about it. When she was twenty, I was an eighteen-year old college student. They don't make enough pussy to keep an eighteen-year-old down.

And if she was going to cheat on me, at least she should have upgraded. She should have gone for a guy with something that I couldn't give her. I'd still have been angry, but I could have at least seen the logic of her cheating on me with a guy who had a foot-long dick. Or if I was really old, and she had the chance at some hot young stud. But Donna gave me the impression that it didn't matter who the guy had been or what he had. She was a dick seeking missile, and any dick would do.

My job was to drag my ass home from college in the weekends to service her. During the week, she got someone else to fill in.

The thing I didn't understand was why she married me in the first place. Why take our wedding vows if she had no intention of keeping them? Why put herself in a position where she had to lie over and over again, every day for more than twenty years?

I decided to think about something else. I had abruptly left the meeting before I could even tell Donna and her attorney about my plans. I'd had to get out of there because I wasn't sure how long I was going to be able to hold onto my lunch. Everything she said brought food further and further up my esophagus. One or two more words would have brought about projectile vomiting on a large scale.

But listening to her, brought about something more than the need to vomit. It brought forth the need to retreat and think. Some like to think, while lying on couch or lying on a beach. Others find solace in people watching or while gardening.

I did my best thinking while driving. I took the older car out this time. That car had a manual transmission and a lot more horsepower. I didn't need the modern independent rear suspension, or the silky-smooth automatic transmission. I wanted to shift the gears myself and enjoy the feeling of being a part of the mechanical workings of the car.

As I drove, locked in the interplay of shifting and working the pedals, I let all of my problems slide away. I thought about everything. I tried to examine the problem from all sides. I thought about Debbie. I wondered what made her my daughter, when her two older siblings were someone else's children.

I examined my feelings for her and found them almost identical to my feelings for the other two. My love for Debbie was unique, but no stronger than my love for Sherry or Terry. They were all my children. The only thing different about Debbie was that she, and I shared a love for running. But Terry and I shared an almost religious devotion to Mustangs. And Sherry and I loved very spicy foods while the rest of the family hated them.

Were we still a family? I had no idea. That was one of those things we would have to talk about.

And Terry, I thought about him a lot during this time. I really needed to have a talk with my son. Terry was still my son. He'd never had another father, so I would do the job until he told me that I couldn't.

I saw a lot of anger in Terry. He hated Donna for what she'd done to our family. And finding out that he wasn't my biological child had caused him to hate her even more. Terry had a huge capacity to hate. I really believed that a lot of his hatred was just his reaction to what had happened to him and Kira.

And speaking of Kira, I really needed to talk to that girl. Kira was the only person in town who was as miserable as I was. She walked around town like a fuckin' zombie, crying her eyes out every time she saw Terry with Lana.

The funny thing was that despite having the prettiest girl in town throwing herself at him, Terry still loved Kira. He was angry as hell at her, but the love was still there. I could tell because while everyone, we ran into was cooing about how cute he and Lana looked together, I could tell in the way that only a parent can that he was wishing he was with someone else.

As I rounded a bend and noticed that the border to Ohio was coming up and with it the beginnings of Ohio's toll roads, I quickly exited the freeway and got back on going north towards home.

Driving back, I wondered about the status of my family. How would the kids handle the news? I had two ideas about how to handle things between Donna and I. Neither of them involved forgiving her and remaining married to her.

When I got back into town after driving for almost two hours, I knew exactly what I had to do. I drove straight to Debbie's school and picked her up. She was grinning from ear to ear at all of her friends staring at the Mustang. I guess they were used to Donna's car.

We stopped off for ice cream on the way home, and I broke the news to her. At 13, she was amazingly bright and very mature for her age.

"Debs, your mom and I both love you very much," I said. "But she and I are facing some problems, and it just seems that the problems are bad enough that we can't be together anymore." If I expected tears, I was pleasantly surprised.

"You caught her, huh?" she said between licks of her ice cream cone.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You caught Mom and Mr. Norton," she said matter of factly.

"You knew!" I said in surprise. "Honey, why didn't you say something?"

"Because I love you, Daddy," she said timidly. "Mommy told me that if I ever told anyone, it would break our family apart, and it would hurt you badly and it would be all my fault."

"Well Mommy was wrong," I said. "It's not going to break up our family, at least not all of us. And it's not your fault at all. You did nothing wrong. It's just the way things are sometimes. Sometimes we need different things. Sometimes we all see things differently. And right now Mommy and Daddy are seeing things very differently."

"I know how this works, Daddy," she said. "I have some friends whose parents are divorced. They hardly ever see their fathers, and their fathers and mothers argue a lot. And they all hate their mother's new boyfriends. Whenever they do see their fathers, they great presents. But after a while, the visits get farther apart, and the presents don't matter."

My eyes were beginning to fill up with tears.

"Their mothers become angrier and some of them go through a lot of boyfriends. I have a couple of friends whose mother's boyfriends look at them funny," she continued.

"Well none of that is going to happen to you," I said. "Just watch. I have a plan. I've got two plans as a matter of fact."

I called the house to see if Terry was there. I spoke to him for a few moments and then called Sherry to ask her to come over to the house. I toId Mark to bring her because she was still really upset.

A few moments after we got to the house, Sherry and Mark arrived. Sherry was so broken up that she couldn't even look me in the eyes. Her eyes were red from crying, and Mark didn't look happy either.

"I'm sorry guys, but things are going to have to change around here," I said. As soon as I said it, Sherry started wailing. The doorbell rang at exactly that moment. Terry looked outside.

"Oh Shit," he said. "It's Lana, Sir." I looked at him strangely.

"Okay, I'll get rid of her," he said.

"Terry, let her in. And you can do me a favor. Take her out for a drive, and take Debs with you. It'll give me a chance to talk to Sherry for a while, okay?" I said. "She seems to be handling this worse than you are."

"Well ... Honestly, sir, I've had longer to process most of it," he said. I looked at him strangely again. "I'm sorry sir," he said. "I should have told you when I first found out, but ..."

"Your mom told you that it would destroy our family and hurt me badly, right?" I said. He just nodded. I nodded back. "We'll have our own talk, later Terry. I have more to talk about with you than with your sisters. Actually, I don't really have to talk to Debs any more at all."

Terry nodded and opened the door for Lana. Her bright, movie star-like smile lit up the room. "Lana, we're going for a drive," gushed Debbie to her role model.

"Terry," I called out as I threw him the keys. "Keep it under a hundred."

"You're letting me drive the beast?" he grinned. I shook my head.

"Of course not," I said. "You're driving the new Mustang." I thought he would fall over where he stood.

"Sir, I won't get a scratch on it," he said.

"Lana what kind of ice cream do you like," asked Debbie quietly.

"Terry just have fun with it," I said. "And your sister has already had ice cream."

"Daaaayaaaaaad," whined Debbie. "You know I'm depressed." I laughed as they went out the door.

"Okay," I said as the door closed.

"I already know," said Sherry. "You want us to stop coming around here for a while. You need time to get over things so you want us to give you some space, especially if Mom doesn't get the house in the divorce. I hate her for what she did to us. I didn't know anything about it so why do I have to be punished. This sucks! She sluts around and I suffer for it. I'm not going to just take it in the teeth like Terry is. What's my going-away present? Do I get to drive the other Mustang? Well, you screwed up, because I can't drive a stick. And the same way that you're throwing me away, I'm throwing her away. That woman is no longer welcome in my house and ..."

"Are you finished?" I yelled at her. She stopped ranting for a second and stuck her lip out.

"Hell NO," she yelled even louder. "I'm just getting started." Mark looked embarrassed. I reached into my pocket and got my other set of keys.

"Mark, take the other Mustang for a drive," I said, throwing him the keys.

"Sherry, we need to talk so you're ..." I began.

"I am going to get this off of my chest," she said. "When you look at me, you look at me differently now. You've always said that I was just like mom. You've always said that I was her spittin' image just twenty-two years younger. So you think I'm a slut too ... Don't you? Well ..."

"Sherry, shut up!" I said. "You're making a fool out of yourself!"

"I don't have to do anything you say anymore," she hissed. "You called me over here to throw me away and tell me that you're not my father. So ..."

"I'll be back in an hour," said Mark timidly, as he closed the door.

"I'm glad Mark is gone," I said.

"Why, so you can try out the younger version of your favorite whore?" she hissed. "I'm not like her, so ..."

I crossed the floor while she was still screaming and grabbed her by both hands. "Let go of me," she screamed.

I sat down on the couch and pulled her over to me. "RAPE!" she screamed as I pulled her down so she was lying across my knees. I raised my hand and brought it flat down on her ass as hard as I could. She screamed even louder. I slammed my hand on her ass ten or twelve more times and every time her screams decreased in volume until she was just whimpering and begging me to stop. Then I flipped her over, wrapped my arms around her, and kissed her on her cheeks and forehead, like I did when she was a little girl, and I had to spank her.

"You can't spank me," she sobbed. "I'm a grown ass woman. And ..."

"I just did," I smirked.

"And my ass hurts," she whined. She snuggled her face into my chest and wrapped her arms around me.

"You deserved it," I said softly.

"You can't go around spanking grown ass women," she whined.

"Not even when they're throwing a temper tantrum like a child?" I asked.

"Not even then," she said louder. Some of the anger was coming back into her voice. "Especially when they're not YOUR child!"

I flipped her back over and swatted her ass again even harder. "No, Daddy," she screamed.

I raised my hand but stopped short. As my hand hung in the air, she looked up at it.

"Sorry," she said timidly. "I didn't mean to say that."

"You didn't mean to say what?" I asked.

"I know you're not my father," she said. The tears rolling down her cheeks were coming furiously, and it wasn't from the spanking. I raised my hand suddenly and bought it down even harder.

"Says who?" I told her. "I rubbed your mother's stomach for nine months and talked to you as if you were already out here. Back then they still let fathers in the delivery room. I was there ..." She looked up at me.

"I almost passed out," I said smiling. "But I was there. I changed your diapers. You peed on me; I want you to know. Your first steps were to me. Your first words were Da da. I bandaged your ouchies. I taught you to ride a bike. I helped you with your homework. I was there for every event in your God damned life, Sherry. I paid for your wedding AND your honeymoon. I gave you away at that same wedding young lady. If I'm not your father, Sherry ... Who is?"

This time she flipped herself over and hugged me to her as if she was afraid I was going to vanish in a puff of smoke. "Oh Daddy, I'm so sorry," she whined. "But I was so afraid and so angry ... Not at you, but ... Ohhh you know!"

"I know, Honey," I said. "That's why I called all of you together. There've been too many secrets and too much lying going on. I wanted to let everyone know what's going on, because we are going to have some changes around here."

"Like what, Daddy," she smiled.

"Well for one thing, your mom and I are done," I said.

"No duh," she smirked.

"I intend to fight for custody of Debbie," I said. "And that's where you come in."

"Daddy, I'm twenty two," she deadpanned. "You don't have to fight for custody of me, unless you're fighting Mark. And I love you with all of my heart, but I think I'm staying with him."

At that moment, Mark came back in the house. He put the keys down on the counter.

"Is it safe to come back in now?" he asked. We just stared at him. He'd been gone less than fifteen minutes.

"I just waited for all the screaming to stop," he said sheepishly. "I've never heard a motor that loud or that powerful. When I started it up, the whole car vibrated. I was thrilled and ... A little scared. Then I remembered that I can't drive a stick either."

"We hugged it out," she said. "Daddy's going to divorce her."

"And if I'm going to get custody, I'm going to need to show a stable home life for the next three years or so," I said. "So I was hoping that I could pay Sherry to pick Debbie up from school every day and start dinner. I just don't like the idea of Debbie coming home to an empty house. I'll still help her with her homework and all of that jazz ..."

"Daddy, I could help her with ..." Sherry interrupted.

"I like doing it," I said. "Besides, Honey, you're awful at math and your spelling sucks."