Ginger Snaps

Here is your word of warning. There is a cuckold in this story, whether or not he remains one plays out as the story goes on. If you read the description, you can already guess where this one is headed. Once again Thanks to PapaGus and his deft hand for editing this.

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The headlights of my Suburban pierce the inky night, leading me back to a place I thought I'd never see again. Bad memories lurk ahead as well as possible arrest. My ex-wife Shawna is definitely still in town as are most of our mutual friends from our marriage.

I had managed to avoid contact with anyone from my home town of Lee Oklahoma, in fact for over a full decade I have not even stepped foot in the Sooner State. I would still be cozy, snuggled up with my girl Jasmine in my house in North Platte Nebraska tonight, but my job now requires that I return home for at least three days. My name is Dean Baker, but I have always been known as Ginger.

My Aunt Tori, who raised me after my parents were imprisoned when I was two years old for their part in a plot to blow up federal buildings, loved the band Cream. She especially had a thing for their drummer Ginger Baker. Since the man who had knocked up her sister was named Baker, she made her love for me known by giving me the nick name, and once she called me Ginger at a school assembly more kids knew me as Ginger than as Dean.

I loved my aunt more than life itself and spent my youth doing everything I could to avoid disappointing her. Once when I was eight, she caught me playing with a book of matches that a friend at school had given me. She didn't kick my ass, yell, or even threaten to send me away. She sat and talked to me about what I had done. While her words didn't make any more of an impression on me than any parent's words do on any kid, the profound disappointment on her face still haunts me to this day.

A lot of the boys I grew up with thought I was a sissy for never participating in their shenanigans but I would have rather faced ridicule than risk disappointing the one person in the world who cared for me. Looking back, maybe realizing that my aunt knew I was only human would have led me down a better path.

I was also cripplingly shy. While I wasn't an ostracized nerd picked on and chased by bullies daily, I also wasn't ever seen running around with the "in" crowd. I did however have a reputation for not taking shit from anyone.

One of the best things Aunt Tori did for me was enrolling me in a martial arts class each summer. Her best friend ran the karate school and as a favor to her took me under his wing. She got a free baby sitter, and I learned self-defense and discipline. I have only used karate twice in my life. Once was when a guy in Oklahoma City tried to snatch Aunt Tori's purse, the other was when Chip Dillingworth moved to Lee from Clearwater.

Simply put, Chip was an asshole. The only people he didn't fuck with were his few jock buddies and whatever girl he was trying to screw. One night around homecoming Chip took it upon himself to single me out and try to make my life hell. Many of the other jocks just ignored me and this occasion was no different. I guess I was just no fun to abuse.

It happened when I was walking to the school to meet my class for a float building meeting. Usually I would have skipped it and just went with the flow when it came time to build. Aunt Tori had insisted that since it was my senior year I should participate more.

I was nearing the school just as football practice was letting out. All of the team ran by as if I wasn't there except Chip. Chip smacked me in the back of my head as he passed and then stopped and began yelling in my face for "being in his way."

I could see a handful of player turn around to see what was going on, and some that had been behind Chip stopped to watch. I told Chip he should watch where he was running because everyone else had managed to avoid bumping me.

Seeing his fellow players gathering, he must have felt I had insulted him. His face turned red and I think I knew what he was going to do before he did. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. He tossed his helmet aside and drew back his fist. Just as his fist started forward I heard one of the players say "Chip! Coach is coming."

Chip was already in motion. I easily sidestepped his punch and he swung in a full circle. A few players laughed and he drew back again. This time when he threw the punch I caught his wrist in my hand and used his own force to send him sprawling across the ground.

This only served to infuriate him more and he just flew at me. As he rushed me this time, I grabbed his shoulder pad and used a judo move to send him flying ass over tea kettle along the sidewalk. He landed hard enough to almost knock the air out of him. I sprung back to my feet and was upright almost before he fully came to rest.

"Fuck man! Where'd you learn to do that?" one of the guys nearby asked. That was when I made my big mistake. I looked at the guy and was about to answer him when Chip got up and threw his next punch.

I didn't have time to avoid the punch. I was going to either defend against it or get hit, and if I could help it I wasn't going to get hit.

I started both of my hands toward his wrist hoping they'd cross under his forearm and force the blow up over my head, but I misjudged his punch. It wasn't coming as fast as I thought and my hands hit his arm on either side causing his forearm to snap.

I heard a high pitched scream and someone threw up. When all was said and done his football season was done. The coaches had witnessed the whole thing and let me go.

Chip moved from Lee just before Christmas.

Soon word spread around the school and people pretty much left me alone. It didn't make me accepted or popular, but even the jack offs thought good and hard about messing with me. Unfortunately unlike in the movies, the girls didn't flock to me seeking to have me father their children.

I wasn't, and am still not, a bad looking guy. But I never had a girl in school. I know many of the girls liked what they saw and would have been with me had I the courage to ask any of them. I didn't so I was probably one of a very few virgins to graduate Lee High that year.

The two years after I graduated high school were spent working. One of my aunt's friends got me a job at the rail yard. While other guys my age were out banging quim or altering their perceptions chemically, I spent six nights a week throwing switches in the rail yard. I would work ten hours a night and then sleep all day while Aunt Tori worked her shift at the bank.

My original plan had been to work for two years and then use the money I made to go to college. In my biggest dreams I would enroll in Norman and be a Sooner. Reality meant I might stretch and reach Tulsa, but neither was to be.

I was three days away from putting in my two weeks' notice at the yard. My supervisors had been trying hard to talk me into staying on. Dale Armstrong, the big yard's big boss, finally came in early one morning and offered to send me to the local community college on the railroad's dime if I'd stay on a permanent basis. Knowing how much my aunt wanted to see me go to school and make something of myself I knew I had to talk this over with her.

Because of my meeting with Mr. Armstrong I didn't get home before Aunt Tori left for work. That meant I'd have to talk to her that evening when she got home. I had a hard time getting to sleep. My mind played over every scenario of my upcoming discussion, but I couldn't imagine any where she would be disappointed. I knew she'd help me to make the best decision for my future.

I was awakened by bells ringing. I knew it wasn't my alarm clock, but in my haze I punched the snooze button anyway. I looked at the clock and saw it was 5:00. Maybe my aunt had locked herself out. I then realized I was hearing the phone as well as the doorbell.

I jumped out of bed and headed down the hall. The phone stopped ringing as I reached for it, but the doorbell persisted. I opened the door to find Lee police officers Jim Crocker and David Brenner on my doorstep. I knew in an instant that my world had changed.

As I was meeting with Dale that morning Robert Brown, Aldon Nash, and Jennifer Day were gunning down a gas station clerk in Arkansas. Driving at break neck speed across the state used a lot of their gas, necessitating another gas station robbery. The second clerk only got his skull fractured with a pistol butt.

The trio then drove into Oklahoma but started running low on fuel again as they neared Lee. One of the trio decided that robbing gas station after gas station was no kind of existence and figured to rob a bank so that they buy gas as they went on the lam.

Two blocks from the bank the Ford Fairmont the trio were driving succumbed due the harsh treatment it had gotten all day and refused to go another foot. Nonplussed the trio headed into the bank. As they were entering the bank one of them noticed my aunt's two year old Impala in the parking lot.

After holding all of the tellers and the three customers at gun point while the cash drawers were emptied, one of them demanded to know who owned the blue Impala in the lot. Aunt Tori admitted it was hers and offered the keys. She was shot in the face for her effort.

The trio was apprehended two days later in Pueblo Colorado. After a fifteen minute shoot out at a cheap motel just off of Interstate 25, Day and Brown were in an ambulance heading for emergency surgery while Nash was being bagged in the room.

Day would die two hours later on the operating table and Brown would get 125 years in federal prison for his crimes.

The fact that Aunt Tori didn't suffer at all didn't ease my suffering at all. For my entire life I had one constant in my world and she was it. I had seen my parents once when I was 13 years old. Aunt Tori had taken me with her for their parole hearings, both were denied, and I never gave them a real thought. Aunt Tori was my mother and my father. Now she was gone and I was truly alone in the world.

The bad thing about funerals in smaller towns is every well-meaning woman decides that the bereaved don't need to cook for themselves. I had so much food that I ran out of places to put it. My appetite was low so I ended up having the church use the food that I couldn't deal with.

The parade of well-wishers was endless. People I didn't even know paid their respects and by time the funeral was over I was exhausted. I was given two weeks off of work for bereavement and told that I could have as long as I needed because they were holding my job for me.

The evening after the funeral I realized I didn't want to live in Aunt Tori's house any longer. I went to stay in a motel a few miles from work. I had all of the money I'd saved so I wasn't going to bankrupt myself by using a motel for a week or two.

Two days later I was in a lawyer's office. He informed me that since I was Tori's only living heir I would receive all of her death benefits, including a $150,000 life insurance policy that she held through the bank.

I put Aunt Tori's house up for sale and used the insurance money to buy a nice house across town from where I had lived my entire life. Since I only listed the house for $75,000, it was sold in just a couple of weeks.

Since I bought a house, I canceled my plans for going to school in Norman or Tulsa. I stayed at the rail yard and true to his word, Dale sent me to school where I learned safety practices and OSHA standards and became the safety pro for the rail yard.

School wasn't easy for me, but I managed to graduate high school with a 2.8 grade point average. In a couple of courses I spent my first two years of college taking remedial courses. One or two of the normal courses I took I found I needed the aid of a tutor.

My first tutor seemed to be pre-occupied all of the time and never made it to our sessions on time. I later learned that he was too busy trying to keep his girlfriend out of other guys' rooms to fully focus on his duties. I complained to my advisor and was assigned another tutor.

I can't say it was love at first sight. The woman who walked into the room wasn't ever going to be a centerfold or Hollywood star. She wasn't ugly by any stretch, but I am not sure too many guys would give her more than a precursory glance.

"Hi, I'm Shawna Peterson."

"Ginger Baker," I said standing to shake her hand.

"Ginger? Like the drummer?"

"Yeah. My given name is Dean but my Aunt Tori preferred Ginger and so it stuck."

For the next few weeks she was on time every day and really helped me pick my grades up. A few times after a late study session she would ask me if I wanted to go grab a bite to eat. She treated me the first time but I insisted on paying the rest of the time.

We were at a pizza joint one evening. I was eating and reading as I usually did. I found I had to study every bit I could to get through a few of my courses. Suddenly I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked around the room and saw no one looking my way. I turned back to the table to lock eyes with Shawna.

"What's wrong with me?"

"Beg pardon?"

"I said; 'What the fuck is wrong with me?'"

"I heard what you said, although I seem to remember less profanity, I just don't understand the scope of the question."

"Every guy I have ever been out with has either tried to fuck me afterwards, or has tried to get me to suck their cock. You and I have been out several times and you've never even tried to kiss me. Am I a repulsive troll? Do I make you sick? Are you gay?"

I was taken aback by her rant. I mentally went over every evening I'd spent with her looking for a clue that I had wronged her. Still startled I stammered out, "Um, No. I have to say no to all of your questions. Did I do something wrong? If I did I'm deeply sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong. It's, well, you didn't do anything. I wear my sexiest clothes; I wear my most expensive perfume. The only thing I haven't done is ask you if you want to go fuck! Why don't you want to be with me, Ginger?"

I didn't know what to say. I followed her lead and we went back to her apartment and fucked all night long. I'd like to say that I came once while she came a thousand times. I'd like to say that, but I can't.

I was a virgin until that night. I had wanted sex with girls before, but I was so shy and so unsure of myself that I never made it happen. Not to mention the fact that I was deathly afraid of getting some girl pregnant and disappointing my aunt.

Shawna was as patient in bed as she was about class work. I told her I was a virgin and she led me the whole night through. We didn't do too many positions, mainly because I didn't know any.

By the time I graduated college, Shawna and I were living together. Since I owned my own home, she gave up her apartment and moved in with me. She taught me how to please her and I did all I could to see to her sexual needs.

I remember a line in an old Mathew Broderick movie. He tells the camera that his buddy is likely to marry the first woman who he lays. Well I guess I am like his friend in that respect, I ended up marrying the only woman I'd ever slept with. I knew I wasn't her first, but I knew I was going to be her last. I conveniently forgot about the second part of Mathew's line in that movie; "He's gonna marry the first woman he lays and she's gonna treat him like shit."

We married in a simple ceremony the evening before our college graduation and went to Corpus Christie Texas for our week long honeymoon. Although we had been sleeping together for a year or so, it seemed different doing it in a different bed.

As soon as I graduated and had my degree, Dale moved me into the office. George Parton, the grave yard safety coordinator was set to move into Cliff Robinson's position when Cliff retired at the end of that summer. George trained me for a month, and then we worked together until August when he went to day shift to work with Cliff for two weeks. Within a year George got moved to the Chicago office and I got the head safety job.

Three weeks after our graduation, Shawna went to work for the County Assessor's Office. She made good money and made several friends at her office. I met a few of them, they seemed nice enough, but my shyness made it hard for me to socialize with any of them unless I had met them a few times.

Over the next few months we would grow close to one couple in particular. Jason and Heather Douglas were just slightly older than Shawna and I and Heather was Shawna's best friend at work.

All summer it seemed that we would barbeque at either their house or ours. For the first few times there was always another couple or two at the get-togethers, but by early August it was just the four of us every week.

I actually got to be pretty good friends with Jason. He worked as a car salesman at a Nissan dealership and was always trying to talk me into trading my trusty old Chevy for a Nissan.

As the socializing got more frequent I began to notice a few things about Heather and Jason. The first thing that struck me was the fact that when he took her a drink or made her a plate, he'd always curtsy and call her mistress. I thought it was just him being a dick whenever she'd ask him for something, but it happened far too often.

Another thing I noticed was how she'd ask him for things. It was never "Honey would you bring" or "Jason if you wouldn't mind," it was always "Your wife requires this, or your mistress needs that." She never said "please."

On the Friday of Labor Day weekend we all got together to go to the first football game of the season for Lee High. They were playing a really tough team out of northern Texas that had stomped them a year before down there.

We got together in the parking lot before the game. There was a man with Jason and Heather who was introduced to Shawna and I as Kevin. He shook hands with Shawna and I, and Shawna said "It's so nice to finally meet you Kevin. I've heard so much."

Jason was acting odd. He didn't say much but to agree with anything Kevin or Heather said. As we were walking into the game I would have sworn I heard Jason asking for permission to sit with me, but with the crowd noise I couldn't tell for sure.

The game was the slaughter I had expected. The Texas team was up by 30 at half time. Every time they scored I swore I heard a moan out of Jason. I figured he might have some money on the game, which was stupid because Lee hadn't had a winning team in 15 years and we always got our ass handed to us by the teams out of Texas. I turned to make a comment to Jason but he was gone. I looked over and Kevin, Heather and Shawna were in conversation about something and weren't paying any attention to the game.

About five minutes before halftime was over, Jason returned carrying nachos and sodas from the concession stand. He did that weird bow/curtsey move as he handed helpings to the other three. He handed me some nachos and a soda and sat.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to get food? I would have gone with you and paid for mine and Shawna's."

"It's no big deal," he said dismissively.

We chatted as the game wore on, but nothing eased the feeling that something was off. Shawna dismissed it when I brought it up on the ride home. "He'll be fine when come over Sunday evening. You'll see."

"So who is Kevin? I've never heard his name mentioned before."

"Oh, he's just a friend of theirs. I'm sure Jason has mentioned him a time or two."

"Not that I remember."

She changed the subject to the game. It was obvious that she didn't want to talk about Jason and Kevin, nor had she paid much attention to the game.

I worked in the yard on Saturday morning. I cut down several branches from a tree that were endangering the roof of the house and mowed the lawn. When I went in to get a glass of tea I could hear Shawna in the other room talking in hushed tones on the phone.