My Best Friend Emily Ch. 07

Maybe I'll never make it out of the hospital, I thought darkly. I'll die here, and I won't have to deal with any reporters, or Lisa's parents, or the fact that I was a 30 year old widow. No, that's not what I really thought. I couldn't wish death on myself. I steeled myself mentally against the dark thoughts. This too will pass.

I was able to pull my mind away from the dark thoughts by thinking about how long it had been since I had gone two whole weeks without an orgasm. Surely since college, I thought, since my freshman year when I had nobody to sleep with and the fleeting privacy of the dorms made me reluctant to jerk off. I found that if I went too long without release, I would have a wet dream, and I hated wet dreams, so I made it a point to never go too long without getting off, eventually locking myself in the bathroom in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep to get myself off.

Emily was still moving up and down against me. It had been a few minutes already, Emily's unsteady movements aided by Angela. The way the bed was situated, with me angled into a sitting position, made sex difficult. I was too weak, and I couldn't get purchase to push back against her, so I just laid there and let her go.

Eventually Emily, with Angela's assistance, started to move against me faster. She was grunting and groaning, and I could sense she was struggling to reach orgasm. This wasn't one of the great fuck sessions we had during our brief time together. This was awkward and uncomfortable, and with me unable to help and Emily unable to keep her balance, she couldn't get herself off. Emily's eyes were closed, her face scrunched up. I looked away from Emily, listening to the hospital bed creak as she moved against me.

Then I heard Emily gasp. I looked back at Emily and to my complete shock Angela had moved one of her hands below Emily's dress. I could feel Angela's hand brush against me, her knuckles pressing against my flesh. She was rubbing Emily's clitoris. I could feel her fingers working. My eyes darted between them. Emily was staring at Angela now, sweat beading on her face from the exertion as she continued to move against me. Angela stared right back at Emily, her face inscrutable.

Angela's helping hand was just what Emily needed. Her breath started coming in short gasps and her legs started shaking, and within a minute she cried out and stopped moving against me. She was uncharacteristically silent during her orgasm, as if it finally occurred to her that she was having sex in a public place and she shouldn't draw any more attention to it. It went on for ten or fifteen seconds, with Angela rubbing her clit all the while. Finally with an enormous, contented sigh she slumped forward onto the bed, almost falling against me.

Angela held her up though, pulling her back from falling against me, and started to guide her gently up and off of me, off of the bed. "Dere, dat's better, right?" She said, patting Emily on the back as she led her to one of the chairs and down into it. "You rest," Angela said to Emily as she plopped down into the chair.

Angela left Emily and approached me. I hadn't come. I wasn't able to get enough stimulation, and my heart wasn't in it. I was still erect though, and it stood nearly straight up in the air, glistening with Emily's juices. Without a word Angela took hold of it and started stroking it vigorously. I grunted in surprise and tried to swat her hand away. Angela took my hand and pushed it down on the bed. "Just relax," Angela said, her dark brown eyes boring into mine. She corkscrewed her hand on my erection; using Emily's come as lubrication.

Resigned to the fact that this woman wasn't going to stop until she got me off, I focused on what she was doing to me. My hips bucked. My orgasm rushed to the forefront. I let go of everything and felt myself go over the edge, grunting and writhing on the bed as I felt a powerful orgasm arrive. I shot spurt after spurt of cum, covering myself and Angela's hand. I came and came. I forgot how it gets all pent up after two weeks. Finally the spasms stopped and Angela stopped her stroking.

I had closed my eyes during my orgasm, and now I opened them cautiously, seeing that I had gotten cum everywhere. Angela let go of me and went over to the sink across the room. She washed her hands thoroughly and then came back over to me. She took the bucket and sponge and cleaned me up, humming to herself as though the sponge bath wasn't interrupted by Emily coming in and having sex with me, with Angela helping both of us get off. For all I knew Angela did this kind of thing every day. I stared at her, incredulous.

Angela finished her work and went to stash the bucket and sponge under the sink. "What you two have is special," she said, "Don't let what happened to you get in da way." She looked at Emily, and she looked at me, and then she turned and left the room. I stared in her direction long after the door was closed, thinking about what she said.

Eventually I looked over at Emily. She was still splayed in the big hospital chair. She had turned so her face was over the HVAC unit, and it was blowing cool air into her face. "I needed that," she mumbled. "Angela helping me, helping us both, that was so hot." She looked at me, and realized I was glaring at her. "You're not mad at me, are you?" She asked.

"Emily..." I started to say, and stopped. Yes, I was mad at her, but what do I say to her? There were too many emotions. My feelings for Lisa, the grief, the horror at who she was and what she did, what she tried to do. My feelings for Emily, mixing with the anger I felt toward her for what she just did... for what I let her do, I corrected myself. I could've stopped her, I thought. It is possible to stop Ferris Bueller. Part of me wanted this too, I thought.

"I'm sorry," Emily was saying, "Maybe I did go too far. I was talking with Angela, and she's such an enlightened soul. She's into Voodoo," Emily said with a giggle. "I wouldn't fuck with her. I had to talk her out of cursing Lisa's parents." Emily stood up and moved closer to me. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," I said. "I just..." I started to say, and stopped. "Lisa..." I started to say, and stopped again. I fell silent. "Fuck it," I finally mumbled. "Fuck it all. It just doesn't matter. Nothing matters."

"Yes it does," Emily said softly. "It does matter. What happened... with Lisa... it was tragic, but we have to move on. I'm hurt too, you know. Not just physically. Lisa became my lover too. All those years she was nothing to me but your wife, and I have to confess there were moments I wished she wasn't, but those last two weeks I learned so much about her, and found that there was still so much I didn't know, that we didn't know. It was so tragic. All of the things that Lisa struggled with, she struggled with alone. I wish... I wish she would've talked to someone."

We were both blinking back tears. I felt Emily take hold of my hand. "But it's us now, Joe. You and me. We're going to get through this together. You're going to heal and get out of here, and it'll be you and me. Do you want that?"

I nodded at her, tears streaming down my face. She leaned down and kissed me. "I love you Joe," Emily said.

"I love you too," I said.

"Get some rest," Emily said, "I'll see you tomorrow," and she gathered her things and left.

I was exhausted, but sleep didn't come easily that night. Angela didn't come back with a dose of painkillers, but the pain was bearable. I spent a long time thinking about Lisa, and Emily, what life was going to be like when I left the hospital, and what I would say to a reporter when the time came to tell my side of the story.

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The next morning I was visited by the paramedics who were the first to respond to the 911 call and basically saved my life. They were an unassuming pair of guys, and after I thanked them for the third or fourth time, they said it's all part of the job, and they were glad to see I was okay, and they left.

My next visitors were two plainclothes detectives. The case was already closed, they said, but they still needed to speak with me.

"The case?" I asked.

"Yes sir," the lead detective said. He was a rigid man, standing ramrod straight beside my bed, hands clasped behind his back. "Three people were shot in your house on the night of April 26th. Your wife, Lisa, suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Your... friend... Emily suffered a flesh wound to the right shoulder. You suffered a single gunshot wound to the chest which proved non-fatal. A forensic investigation determined that your wife Lisa was the only shooter, and that her wound was self-inflicted. You and Emily were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. Lisa's death was ruled a suicide. Lisa was charged with two counts of attempted murder, but since she is deceased the case against her was closed."

He stopped speaking, and I found myself staring at him, idly thinking he reminded me of the character actor Charles Napier. Was I supposed to say something now?

"Are you okay, son?" He asked me in his gravelly voice, and I sensed genuine concern. I nodded. "Do you have any questions for me?" He asked.

"Err..." I said, my mind racing, going through everything I thought I learned from all of the police procedural shows I watched. I could imagine this guy flipping on his sunglasses while Roger Daltrey belted out "Yeahhhhhhh!" I couldn't think of anything to ask him, so I said no.

He deftly pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table by my bedside. "If you do think of something, here's where you can reach me," he said. "Godspeed," the other detective said, and they left.

When Emily came by later I told her I was ready to talk to a reporter. She asked me if there was one in particular I wanted to talk to. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't pay much attention to the non-sports news. All I knew was that I didn't want it to be some kind of Oprah, Barbara Walters thing. "Bob Costas? Bryant Gumbel? Dan Patrick? Keith Olbermann?" I started rattling off the names of sportscasters who also became news reporters. Emily laughed. "I'll see what I can do," she said, "But if you want, I can give you the names of some publicists and lawyers that have been trying to reach you..."

"Huh?" I asked. "Publicists and lawyers?"

"Well, yeah," Emily said, "Publicists to help manage your appearances, negotiate your fees, things like that."

"Appearances?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know, on talk shows," Emily said, "Most people in your position would want to cash in on their fifteen minutes."

"No," I said, "Nuh uh. One interview," I held up my pointer finger. "I'll do one interview. No publicists. Why lawyers?"

"Well, there's the possibility that Lisa's parents will file a civil suit against you, against us," Emily said, "For wrongful death or something."

"What?" I was shouting now. "Why?"

"Why not?" Emily snapped back. "It's what people do. The criminal court cleared us of any wrongdoing, but the civil courts work a little differently. If Lisa's parents want to drag this out and get their pound of flesh, that's the way to do it. They talked about it in one of their interviews. Hopefully they're too chicken shit to go through with it, or better yet, they just decide to get on with their lives and let their daughter rest in peace. That's why lawyers have been offering their services on retainer. Just in case."

I could feel the air go out of me. The thought of being sued by Lisa's parents... I hoped they wouldn't go through with it. "I'll deal with it if it happens," I finally said.

"Good, that was my answer too," Emily said. "We can get the same lawyer. I'm sure they'd sue the both of us."

"Great," I mumbled.

Things progressed rapidly in the next couple of days. I actually started leaving my hospital room, shuffling up and down the hall under the watchful eye of one of the nurses and the guard. I started to get my strength back. The pain was subsiding, and I went a full day without the heavy painkillers. I even got my first look at the wound when the day nurse changed my dressing. I didn't know what I was expecting to see. Maybe a big hole in my chest? The wound was barely the size of a quarter, all pink skin and white scar tissue. I realized it was itchy. It's healing, the nurse said to me, just try not to scratch at it, and covered it back up.

They would stop bandaging me soon, she said. There was little risk of infection anymore, and because of that and the fact that I was off of the heavy painkillers and moving around, I was almost ready to go home.

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The last order of business before I left the hospital was the interview. The reporter I agreed to meet with, well, if you saw it on the news you know who it was. He walked in with a camera crew and did his best to put me at ease while they set up. I'm just going to ask you some questions, he said. You can answer them any way you want. We can edit out anything that doesn't come out right. Just be yourself, he said, and the producer gave him a thumbs up. They were ready to go. My stomach was doing somersaults.

The reporter went through a little preamble about where he was and who he was talking to. "Joe," he said to me, "Tell me a little about your relationship with your wife Lisa."

"Well," I said, "We were married for eight years. We met in college. I thought we had a pretty normal marriage."

"And you never knew she was planning to kill herself?" The reporter asked.

"No," I said, "I never knew about it."

"Joe, did Lisa ever seem depressed to you?" The reporter asked.

"She never really seemed depressed," I said, "She wanted to be alone a lot. I would do my thing, she would do her thing. I always thought she had a lot of schoolwork to do. Papers to grade, lessons to plan. I never knew what she was really doing."

"So you were married but you never really spent any time together," the reporter said.

"Yeah," I said, "I guess. It seemed to work for us. We were happy when we were together. I didn't see anything wrong with it."

The reporter paused, and I could tell he was about to change the subject. "Now, tell me about Emily," he said.

"Emily," I said, "She was my best friend since middle school. Since we were 15."

"Just friends?" The reporter asked.

"Just friends," I repeated.

"And then things changed," the reporter said.

"Yeah," I said, the events of that fateful day racing through my mind.

"Joe, did you know your wife was bi-sexual?" The reporter asked.

"No," I said. "It turned out to be one of the things that she was keeping from me. I didn't know until that night."

"Did Emily know?" The reporter asked.

"Emily guessed it," I said, "She told me she could tell by the way Lisa looked at her."

"Can you tell me how it happened? How your relationship with Emily became physical?" The reporter asked.

My mind skimmed through the events of that day. The yard work, the mock strip tease, the mud fight... no, I shouldn't tell him about any of that. "Well, it was a truth or dare game," I finally said. "The truth came out, and then... the dares... and then..."

"So everybody entered into the relationship willingly?" The reporter said, and I was grateful that he cut me off from rambling into details.

"Yes, everything everybody did they did willingly," I said.

"And the arrangement was that..." the reporter said.

"Anybody could do whatever they wanted to anybody, basically," I said.

"Joe," the reporter said, and I could tell he was trying to shift the focus again, "Did you have any doubts about such an arrangement?"

"Yes," I said, "I think we all did."

"What kind of doubts did you have?" The reporter asked.

I took a deep breath. "I was worried about Lisa," I said. "I didn't know how she would handle seeing me... sharing me... with another woman. I was worried about Emily and her true intentions," I added before I could think better of it. "I was worried that at some point I would be forced to choose between them."

"You thought that maybe Emily was trying to steal you away from Lisa?" The reporter asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Why would you think that?" The reporter asked. "And why then after all those years of marriage?"

"I don't know," I said. "I thought I was the luckiest man in the world," I added, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips, "But I had to keep thinking 'why is this happening?'"

"Joe, if you would, would you take us through that fateful day?" The reporter asked.

"Well, we woke up, had breakfast, went shopping, and watched the Cards game," I said. I could feel my face twitch at the moments where I omitted the part where Emily and I had sex. I'm sure the reporter, the cameras, and millions of people saw it too.

"All three of you?" The reporter asked.

"Well, no, just me and Emily," I said.

"Where was Lisa?" The reporter asked.

"Well, she had breakfast on her own and then she said she had some work to do and shut herself in the bedroom. We didn't see her again until..." I trailed off.

"Did anything about Lisa's behavior at the time seem odd?" The reporter asked.

"Everything about her behavior those last couple of weeks seemed odd," I blurted out before I could think better of it. It was cut from the final interview. I backtracked quickly. "Yes," I said. "She seemed very distant that day. I was going to try to talk to her that night, after Emily went home."

"If you could have had that conversation," the reporter said, "How do you think it would have gone?"

"Lisa was a very private person," I said. "She never really shared her feelings with me. She rarely argued with me. She never even talked about her childhood. I knew her for ten years and I could only tell you two stories about her childhood, and they both really involved her brother. And I always thought to myself, Lisa's a very strong, independent woman."

"Joe, if you can, take us through those last moments," the reporter said, "Did you have any warning?"

I shook my head and swallowed hard. "No," I said. "I had no idea she had my gun. I didn't know she knew where it was, or how to get it, how to load it, how to shoot it. She came out of the room, and she came around the corner... and before Emily or I knew she had it she was shooting. I... I don't really remember those last moments."

The reporter paused to let me collect myself. "Joe," he asked after a few moments. "The police report indicated you were a responsible gun owner. That you kept your gun locked away and your ammunition separate. In the end it didn't matter. A search of your wife's browser shows she was researching how to load your gun and how to shoot it. Has this experience changed your views on keeping a gun in your house?"

I took a deep breath. "You know, I wasn't really a gun person," I said. "I don't hunt; I don't go to shooting ranges. I grew up with guns. My dad kept one in the house, and you just knew not to go near it. My uncles, grandfathers, probably back generations. Everybody had a gun. It's just what I knew, what everyone I knew did. I never really thought I'd have to use it. I mean, did I think somebody was going to break into my house one night and I would shoot them? Probably not. I know the odds are astronomical."

"So, to answer your question... No. I don't think I'll have a gun in my house anymore."

"Joe, do you think that stories like yours will influence the debate about gun control in this country?" The reporter asked.

I actually laughed at him. "No. No way," I said. "Stories like mine, well, stories kind of like mine, domestic violence, happen every day." I paused. "I think when that kid shot all of those six-year-olds... Sandy Hook... I think that was the tipping point. When a tragedy like that didn't change people's minds... I think our society has passed the point of no return. I don't think there is anything anymore, anything too tragic or horrific that will change some people's minds about needing stricter gun control."