Screaming for Vengence

All of his coworkers except for the store manager were eighteen years old or younger. They used Randy as an example of why going to college was a waste of time. One kid told his mother right in front of Randy. She'd come to make the kid quit working at the restaurant because his grades in high school had been slipping.

"What's the point Ma?" he asked her. "Even if I graduate and you and pop spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on me going to college like Randy's parents probably did back in the last century, how do we know that I won't end up back here in that damned clown suit? Shit Ma, I'm better off than he is right now and I haven't even been to college. At least I work INSIDE the restaurant and I make more than minimum wage. If I go to college I might make even less."

As I've said before, Randy had once been a proud man. Hearing the kid's sermon on the state of his life drove Randy further into depression. Randy was so distraught that he didn't pay attention to where he was flinging his sign. Some of the observers said it was on purpose others swear it was a freak accident. Randy threw the sign up in the air and it came down on a customer shocking her and knocking her bag of food out of her hands.

She started yelling at Randy and he went berserk. When the police arrived, he was still kicking one of her hamburgers down the street as if it was a street hockey puck and calling her names.

Randy was fired on the spot. He got his last check and used it to buy himself a bottle and a rope. He went home and before he started drinking, he used his college degree one last time. His degree was in manufacturing technology. He manufactured the best noose he could and climbed up onto the edge of chair and started drinking with the noose around his neck. As he drank he thought about all of the joys and mistakes in his life. He thought about his career and its downward spiral. He thought about his daughter and how she no longer respected him. He thought about his wife and how they'd once been a couple that everyone they knew envied. Now she barely tolerated him and they slept in separate bedrooms.

It hadn't been the changes in Randy's career that had doomed his marriage, it had been the way he handled each successive failure. They'd just been pulling further and further apart over the years. Part of it was that Randy was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Randy died never knowing that it had been me all along ruining him. He thought that it was just bad luck. I'd always intended to tell him someday. It would have been my final stroke of vengeance, but I never got the chance. The last thing that Randy thought about before drinking himself into a stupor, losing his balance and dying was Erica. He traced the beginnings of his bad luck to his friendship with her. He was never honest enough to admit that he'd had an affair and slept with a married woman. He blamed all of his bad luck on Erica.

After all, the start of his bad luck had been when Erica's husband had discovered them and beaten Randy's ass so bad he was hospitalized. Everything had gone downhill from there and simply never stopped going. His last thoughts were a wish that he'd never met her. His last words were about her too. "Fucking bitch," he thought as the alcohol in his system caused his brain to shut down his consciousness. When I wake up, I'll figure out some way to get back at her.

Randy's wife came home and discovered the body. It was sad that she couldn't even come up with enough emotion to cry. In a way she felt glad for him because her husband had really suffered in recent years and at least this way he could move on. He was beyond his pain and suffering.

One of Erica's former colleagues who knew her and Randy had emailed her and told her about his death and how it had come about. She'd called her and got all of the details about the last few years of Randy's life. Erica was shocked. I'd heard from my PI before Erica was notified so I knew to expect something.

She was definitely off of her game. I watched her and couldn't tell if it was because she'd lost someone that she loved or if she was just thinking about how fleeting life is. That night she tried to fuck me to death. She held onto me like she was worried about losing me. She even cried a little. When I asked her why, I didn't know what to expect.

I guess I was expecting her to tell me that she'd lost a friend from her past. But what she told me was anything but that. "I just love you so much," she said. "And I'm so glad to have you. I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to take you away from me."

Yeah, I know it. I'm a sucker and the bitch got to me one last time. That night the second round was different. We made love like we always used to. I did things to her that I hadn't done in years. Instead of pounding her like a drum and then going to watch the news, I spent a long time just kissing her, holding her and letting her know that I loved her too. I stupidly believed that I was healing and I could trust her again. It was as if over the past five years a scab had finally formed over my wounded heart.

The next night as we had dinner with Sammie and Darren, I held her hand as we ate and we gave each other longing glances. Samantha had even asked us why we were still so much in love after all of the years we'd been together.

Then Erica had to go and open up her big ass, flapping mouth and ruin it all by trying to get Samantha to name my fucking grandson after Randy. Things were never the same. I'd spent years preparing for the moment when all of this came to pass and I knew then why everything I did to Randy had just never been enough. It wasn't as if I hadn't done enough to Randy. What I'd done to Randy over the years had been the equivalent of unloading a full clip into him and then reloading the clip and emptying it into him again.

The problem was that Randy alone hadn't been responsible for my pain. In fact, he'd been the lesser of the two evils. Randy hadn't promised before God and all of our friends to love honor and cherish me all the days of his fucking life. That had been Erica. In fact, before I'd confronted him in Boston and whipped his ass, I hadn't known Randy at all.

What I had done for the past five years had been bad, it had been shameful and more than anything else it had been cowardly.

It was as if I'd been a normal sized high school student and one of the big hulking guys on the football team had pushed me down. So to get revenge I ran across campus and beat the shit out of one of the nerds on the chess team. Most of my revenge had been misdirected. While Randy did deserve a bit of it, Erica deserved more.

In the days following the dinner, Erica tried to come home only to have me give her all of her clothing and personal items that I'd packed for her the first night.

She called me and I wouldn't speak to her other than to tell her that I thought that this coming Saturday would be a good day for her to come over to the house and take any furniture or appliances that she thought she deserved. I suggested that she bring our daughter and son in law along. One of them could call me to verify that the items that she took were not against my wishes.

I told her that I'd arrange to be gone all day Saturday and I'd come back Saturday evening when she called and told me that she was done.

It didn't quite turn out that way.

When I pulled into my driveway Saturday evening and went into the house, Erica was still there. Samantha was there too and they wanted for us to sit down and have a talk.

"John, I love you," she said. "I love you with all of my heart. I'd never do anything to purposefully hurt you. I'm sorry. I'm so much sorrier than you'd ever believe."

"Oh I believe you're pretty sorry," I said. "You may be about the sorriest excuse for a wife that I've ever seen."

"Can't we talk about this?" she asked. "We've been together for almost thirty years. We can't throw all of that away over something that happened and ended a long time ago."

"John, why didn't you confront me about this when you found out? I can't imagine how much pain you've been carrying around with you for the past five years. I'm beginning to understand a lot of things now. I understand why there's been a wall between us for the past few years. This is the reason isn't it?" I sighed and nodded.

"And that last night was so wonderful," she said. "It was the best sex we've ever had. You must've found out that Randy had died. And you thought that this was all behind us until I opened my mouth." I nodded again.

"John, can you let me talk?" she asked. "I really need to get this out of my system. I know that what I did was wrong, but it's been over for years. And yes I know that you ended it and I have some questions I'd like you to answer when I'm done, okay."

"Erica, I don't have to listen to shit," I said. "I could throw you out of here right now. I am going to let you have your say but only for one reason. I want to get this divorce over with and wrapped up as quickly as possible so I can move on with my life. If I listen to you now, you'll have had your say so you won't be able to go to the courts and tell them that I never gave you a chance to talk about things. So start talking. But first there are a couple of things I'd like you to explain while you talk. When did this shit start with Randy and why?"

"Okay John, this is two thousand and ten. We got married in nineteen eighty, so I guess it started in nineteen eighty two," she said.

"So this shit's been going on for twenty-eight years?" I screamed. "I had no idea it had been that long. I guess you and Randy looked at it differently. Maybe he only counted it from when you guys started fucking," I looked at Samantha. And she looked at her mother.

"John, there's no chance possible that Samantha is anyone's child except yours," she said. "The conference is in July. Samantha was born in January, it's just not possible."

"But you kind of hoped didn't you?" I spat. "Don't tell me that the possibility of it never crossed your mind." Samantha looked at her mother and the expression on her face wasn't good.

"Sammie, angel, I love you more than life itself. For the past five years you've been the only person I could trust completely. Most of my heart is yours baby, but could we do a DNA test? It doesn't matter now in the least. I'll never treat you or my grandkids any different. I just need to verify this," I said.

"John, I already told you..." she began.

"Why should I believe anything you've ever said?" I asked calmly. "From the very start of our marriage you've been lying to me the whole time. Since our marriage is over with it means you did lie to me for the entire marriage."

"No John, it's not like that. I love you," She said. "I've always loved you. You just don't understand."

"Well, start talking," I told her. "I'm giving you time to make me understand, but you need to give it everything you've got. This is the last time we'll be speaking without going through lawyers."

"John, you're not serious," she said. "I only cheated on you once and that was years ago. It isn't worth throwing away thirty years together on. For the past five years I haven't seen or heard from Randy. You're punishing me for something that ended a long time ago. I think that's unfair. You're not thinking straight."

"I know you haven't," I said.

"You know I haven't what?" she asked.

"I know you haven't seen or heard from Randy in five years. You did try to contact him four years ago though. The year after the last conference you spent together. You tried to find out when he'd be arriving at the conference for your yearly get together, but he didn't answer any of your texts. You tried to get in touch with him through friends. The friends told you that he didn't remember you. He did but he was afraid. He knew that if he answered you I'd either beat him completely to death this time, or worse tell his wife and ruin his marriage."

"So you know that it's over," she said smiling.

"How do I know that?" I asked. "The last thing you sent to him five years ago was a text message where you told him that your love would last until one of you died. It's barely been five years. But oh, wait he is dead now isn't he. But then again maybe you weren't lying after all. You did love him enough to try to get Sam to name my grandson after him, even though it cost you our marriage."

"No John, you don't understand," she said. "You and I had only been married for two years when I went to that first conference. I met Randy there and he was the nicest guy. I missed you a lot. It was the first time I'd ever been away from you. I kept leaving the lectures to try to call you but you were working. Randy and I started talking and he just made me feel comfortable. He was so much like you. The next year we met again and we got even closer. We even had dinner together, we talked and we kept talking until they threw us out of the restaurant. I never wanted to stop talking to him, but you have to understand a lot of it was because he was so much like you. We hadn't been together for that long and sometimes I needed to run things by someone to see how you'd react to them."

"It wasn't until the fourth year that we slept together and then it was an accident. We'd both gotten really drunk and we just ended up in bed. We woke up the next morning and we were both consumed with guilt. We could barely even look at each other. We didn't even say goodbye. The next year was the fifth year. We kind of avoided each other, but truthfully I missed my friend. I was, of course, pregnant with Sam that year so unless Samantha took over a year to come to term, there's no way that he was her father."

"We didn't even have dinner or talk that year. The next year he came over and told me how sorry he'd been about everything that had happened two years prior. He blamed it on himself and told me that he thought it was stupid for us to avoid each other because of a mistake. So we had dinner and to tell you the truth for over two years I'd been wondering what sex with him had been like. We'd both been drunk and I wanted to remember what it had been like. So at that point it had been six years and we'd only slept together once. And then it had been a drunken thing."

"That year dinner was all that happened. The following year again nothing happened but there was this weird tension between us. It had started to seem like we only went to the conferences to see each other. Year eight, just to break that tension we had sex. I feel the most guilt about that one. For the past three years I'd been avoiding him and fantasizing about what sex with Randy would be like."

"It was awful. It was worse than awful. And it was boring. You already know that sex isn't really about size but Randy's equipment was not really your equal in terms of dimensions. And worse than that, I guess Randy had been with his wife for a very long time and he knew exactly the kinds of things she liked. However, they weren't the same things that I like. I realized then that I'd made a terrible mistake."

"The next year I avoided Randy again. I don't mean that I didn't have dinner with him or just didn't have sex with him. I didn't even speak to him. I basically hid. I did go over to him towards the end and pretend that I'd just run into him after looking for him for a long time. I asked him a lot of questions about his wife and then left."

"The year after that, John, we'd been going to that conference for ten years. Randy was waiting for me at the airport. He kept telling me about how special that year was. We'd been friends as he called it for ten years. It was like our anniversary or something. I ended up giving him a mercy fuck and suffering through it because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. He really was a nice guy."

"Yeah," I said. "So nice that fucking him was worth more than your own marriage."

"John, you have to understand, he really was a lot like you. And I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Plus it only happened once a year. There was nothing wild or strange about it. It was like old people sex. On the other hand look at what you and I do, there was no comparison. Randy wasn't experimental, it was like romantic sex without the romance. I've never given him a blow job. And he's only been in one place, if you know what I mean."

"Erica, you don't understand this either," I said. "You and I started getting experimental after I found out about you. Think about it. I let you give me blow jobs but I don't do you anymore. I'm not sticking my mouth anywhere that Randy's been. And I started fucking your ass because I wanted to have something that Randy hadn't had. But also because in a way I wanted to hurt you and make you do something that you didn't want to do. Until a few nights ago, the time that you just said was the best sex we ever had; you and I haven't made love either. There hasn't been any romance because on my part I was just fucking you like I'd do a whore. You were just pussy and you were available." Her face fell a little bit then.

"So for the next few years I just survived it. I knew that every year I'd look forward to being with Randy at the conference. He was a great friend. And though I dreaded it, I knew that I'd have to endure having sex with him at the end. A few years after that, I started making up excuses. One year I was on my period. The next year I put up with it. The following year I claimed that I had a yeast infection. The year after that I was on the rag again so I went about three years without having to fuck him. Then we'd do it and I'd skip a few years. The year that it ended we hadn't slept together in four or five years. He always talked about it like he really loved having sex with me, but it was like pulling teeth for me. But he was my friend. He liked hearing how much I cared for him. We often told each other we loved each other. I never really felt or meant any of that. I just didn't want to hurt him."

"So you chose to hurt me instead," I snapped.

"John, how were you hurt?" she asked. "It had gone on for over twenty years when you found out. In that same twenty years, you and I probably had sex literally over two thousand times and I loved them all. In total I had sex with Randy maybe eight times at the very max and hated every time that I can even remember."

"If it had been a case where I put Randy ahead of you, I could understand it. But that never happened. If it had been a case where I gave you sloppy seconds or did something to embarrass you, I could understand it. But that never happened. I love you too much for that. This was a once a year thing that happened so far away from where we live that no one who knows us would have been in the vicinity. So there's no way that you've been embarrassed by this. And even the year that you beat poor Randy up and ended it. It was already ending on its own. Since you know about my texts to him you probably also know that we had spoken at dinner about how much better things were that we weren't having sex, just enjoying each other's company. That relationship would have ended on its own soon anyway. I was never going to have sex with him again. That was what I meant by we were better without the guilt. I was just trying to let him down easily. I figured that the next year we wouldn't even have dinner and the following year I wouldn't even have gone. I'd have changed my cell number and everything would have been over."

"No one would have ever known that it had happened and just like you at the car shows when those models take pictures sitting on your Mustang, it would be only something pleasant to remember in our old age. You beat a nice guy up for nothing, John. He was never a threat to us. He was only a threat to your ego. I wanted to name OUR, not YOUR, OUR grandson after Randy not because he was someone I was in love with but as a last memory of a special friend." A tear rolled down Erica's cheek.