The Texoma Deluge

"I don't know what Tracy sees in you, Davey, I really don't." she slurred while peering up through her half lipped eyes.

"She could have had any number of good men back home, hell, she still can. Maybe she still is." Lucy laughed lightly at that last thought.

"You fuck when you go on the road, Dave? I bet you get good pussy when you travel, lots of good pussy."

"Lucy, are you a common cunt or an extraordinary one?" was my reply. "I think you should call it a night."

Rather than get pissed she thought that was funny as hell as she lumbered toward the guest room patting her small ass the whole way. All in all I went to bed pissed not only at Lucy but at myself for the guilt I still had.

I was happy to see Lucy go but the next few months worsened. Tracy was now gone for two weeks at a time choosing to stay over in Dallas or up in Denton over the weekend. She tried to make up for it when she was here but there was something else that I couldn't put a finger on. We had been married for three and a half years now and I had never had any reason to doubt her commitment.

Tracy's other two sisters, Claire and Torre, had actually become quite demonstrative toward me since the wedding, particularly Torre. She called me one night a couple weeks before Tracy had to attend a week- long conference in Atlanta.

"How's my hunk of a brother in-law?

"Only half as good as your husband, Torre. Is he sitting there listening to you?" He was.

"Listen, I don't want to talk out of school but Jimmy and I and Claire too, we're a bit concerned with how much Tracy is drinking now."

"Really? I actually hadn't noticed much but then again my wife seems to be gone a lot more than she is here."

"Yeah, that too, it's almost like she's moved in with Lucy. Lucy has always been the wild one of the family and Tracy has always looked to Lucy as a role model. Are you guys getting along OK? I know it's not my business but we're concerned and we all love you all very much."

Torre had touched on something bothering me a bit lately. Tracy was drinking three, sometimes four glasses of wine most evenings during dinner and afterwards. We were still affectionate but I had this odd feeling that she was working at it more than she needed to.

Torre and I talked a bit more before ending the call. I had to think on some things. I knew how Tracy was when she drank. I had the same concerns about her that I had about myself when drinking too much. My bigger concern was Lucy's influence.

"Tracy, are you still staying at your folks when you hold over in Dallas?"

"Yes, Honey, why do you ask?"

"I thought maybe the next time you have a long duration I might join up with you and see your folks. I haven't seen them since last Easter."

I wasn't being altogether untruthful. I would make the trip for that purpose but I was also seeing if Tracy would lie to me based on what Torre told me. It was unsettling and was bothering me right up to her leaving for her conference.

She fucked me the night before leaving and I drove her to the airport in the morning for her flight to Atlanta...

"Dave, Will Jones took sick yesterday and ended up having his damn appendix taken out. That means they need someone sharp on the floor pronto." Monroe just laughed. "You been doing it for years now. Knock it out, boy."

That meant a quick trip to DFW and a ride into Oklahoma; nothing out of the ordinary. By 7PM I had a flight lined up on the last seat for 9AM the next morning and I could be in Durant, OK by late afternoon.

Monroe had called Susan and requested she join me in Durant although she couldn't book a flight until later that afternoon.

It was a non- eventful flight except for a good bit of turbulence as we entered central and north Texas airspace. I grabbed a rental car when on the ground and the desk clerk let me know they were having some severe thunderstorms that were rolling east from the lower panhandle and causing serious hail and a couple tornados so far.

If you have never been in a Texas downpour you haven't seen the best rain can deliver. I've sat in a couple of them that gave me a 360 degree panorama of lightening with a deluge of golf ball size hail falling all about. I sat beneath an overpass with the highway on both sides of me being littered white with layers of huge hailstones while a tornado ripped a farmhouse and barn to shreds just east of me.

I pointed myself north on Rt. 75 headed toward Sherman and the bridge across the Red River watching the ominous storm clouds the whole trip up. By the time I came within south Sherman the heavens opened up and everything on the highway came to a crawl and stayed that way until I saw the QuikStop off to my right.

It was a good thing I stopped because a couple tanker trucks had jammed up with each other going over the north bound bridge and the metal carnage brought everything on the river to a halt. Fortunately there was room at the Inn, the Sherman Garden Inn. And once settled in I let the plant know I'd be there in the morning and sent the same text to Susan...

The burger the waitress put in front of me was a double patty with the works, medium rare and one of the best I've ever had. I chased it with Ale on tap and ordered a second glass. Everything came together at that point. Everything that didn't make sense to me, all the long travel, the extended stay-overs in Dallas or Denton or where the fuck ever, all made sense now.

There is a difference between a one-off fuck and an on-going affair, at least in my mind. Given my own history, if there had been a traveling hotel room fuck for Tracy in my absence out of foolish error or poor judgement I could live with it. I might even be able to feign ignorance of it and continue as if I was unaware. I'm not one of those guys who think a pussy is indelibly polluted if an erect male penis makes its grand entry into it. I've parked in a few of them myself over the years.

What I saw wasn't a one nighter, a scratch of a pussy in need. It was an on-going love affair; the intimacy that is shared between a couple and not a crowd. Both couples were unaware of their observer. The crowd was busy and noisy with the band having just struck up a Texas Two-Step. I watched the lovers with a sick feeling in my gut as they danced and shared their closeness.

The waitress returned my card and after signing the check my eyes burned the image of their return to the table into my betrayed soul. Was I angry? No, I was stuck on neutral with the pedal to the floor and if I saw her precious gaze into his eyes once more I might shift gears with the resulting torque rattling the entire establishment to its foundation.

Her eyes met mine and at that very moment lightening filled the air with a thunderous retort and I walked silently to the table.

"Hello Tracy. Don't get up on my account. I'm just leaving."

I took off my wedding ring and looked at it in my hand and held it up as if to appraise it.

"Twenty four carat gold; it's probably worth more now than four years ago. Buy yourself something nice with it."

I looked Tracy in her sorrowful eyes and felt my heart break. I glanced at her sister Lucy and felt nothing and before anyone could speak I tossed the ring onto the table and turned, walking out the door. She stood in the entranceway with a hand over her mouth watching as I drove away in the rain.

-------------------------------------------------

"Damn good job, guys, damn good job." The plant manager was beaming in pride as we ran the new extruder line through its first run. Susan was on the finishing end while I powered the hopper and monitored the barrel screw. This first run was through a set of dies to make water bottles for an automotive promotional. It went off without a hitch after three days of installation work.

Later that evening Susan and I were having a drink where we were staying at the Choctaw Casino & Resort a couple miles from the plant site.

"So you ready to talk about it now?" She asked.

"I don't know. I still don't know any more than I did Tuesday evening. I haven't talked with her yet. Hell, she's left me a dozen messages and I don't know how many texts. I don't know what to say to her."

That was all true. All I knew was my wife was obviously having an affair with some guy on her home turf and her fucking sister was clearly in on it. Well, I knew more than that. Tracy was in love with him, whoever he is. I could see that on her face and there was no denying it.

Somehow I buried it and put it out of my mind for the time on the extruder job and now with that behind me I was facing my own personal realities and hell. I knew I would have to talk with her at some point.

"Do you still love her and if you do, is it enough?"

Jesus, what a question! That really was it. I did and I didn't know. I looked at Susan and took her in. Here was a woman that most men would die for whose husband was gone for three months at a time. If he knew he was losing her I would think he'd want to quit his job and sweep her back up into his arms. How come I didn't feel that way about Tracy? I knew the answer. She loved him.

"She fucking loves him, Susan. It doesn't matter."

She sat silent for a moment with just a hint of melancholy about her, a tinge of sadness.

"Do you think you can love two people, Dave? I don't mean can you put up with a love affair with another man but do you think a woman or man can love two people at the same time? If you do than do you think a woman can make the right choice if her husband believes love is enough for two people?

I know she was serious but I had to chuckle just a bit. She had that playful smile return to her face.

"I'm serious here. You still love her, I know and now you have to ask yourself if that is enough and if it is are you going to fight for her? What if she had discovered we were lovers even for that single night in a storm. Oh fuck it, I'm going for broke. What if she knew I'd leave my husband and be in your bed if she threw you away for what we did?"

"You'd leave your husband for me?" I asked only half seriously. She was serious.

"Maybe, Billy and I are almost done with at this point. He signed on for a new two year contract extension even when I told him I'd had enough of just having a husband for three months of the year. You know what he told me? He said to have a discreet lover on the side if I needed to. Hell that just tells me he's already doing that. So, yeah, I'd file papers today if I knew I had a shot of hooking up with you."

She was laughing lightly but her eyes were moist.

"You need to talk with her and see what the two of you have left. I don't mean on the phone. I mean the two of you sitting down and putting it all out in the open. And, with that said, I'm calling it a night. I have an early flight back in the morning."

She got up, bent down and gave me a quick kiss on the lips and left me to ponder my state of affairs...

When Tracy was a little girl growing up, Denton was still a relatively small town. Today it is a sprawling suburb within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro area. Nonetheless Steve and Donna Gallant still live here with three of their daughters no more than a few minutes away. The two older girls each have husbands and two kids each. Lucy was the single one living in Dallas. Tracy was the baby.

I walked up the flagstone steps and before I could knock Donna had the door open and in a warm embrace. Steve had already headed for the fridge to retrieve a couple cold beers.

"Dave, I'm so sorry I don't know what to say, I really don't." Donna looked like she wanted to cry but she didn't.

"Torre told us everything, after she had to nearly pull Lucy's teeth out to get the truth. I'm so ashamed I just want to die."

"Donna, none of this is on you at all. We are all adults and each of us is responsible for what we do, not what others do." I said while trying to comfort her. Steve handed me a beer and we sat at the kitchen table.

"Dave, Donna and I will be here for the both of you, no matter what.

Tracy's our daughter and we'll do everything we can for her and you need to know you are also our son and we're going to do whatever you need as well. It's important to us that you know that."

"Guys, I haven't talked with Tracy yet so I only know what I saw the other night and for me it didn't look good. I'm going to fly home this evening and try to see where to go from here."

"Well, here is what I know about the mess, Dave." Donna offered. "Lucy has been playing matchmaker for Tracy since she was fresh out of college and living with Lucy in Dallas. She was almost successful at it one time with a young fellow from Denison. His name is Charlie Dugay and they were engaged for a short while until something happened and she headed out of here for Charleston and then met you.

"Lucy has been going out with Charlie's brother off and on for the past couple years and, Jesus this is bad, according to Torre, Lucy talked Tracy into going out to dinner with them and then Charlie showed up again and from there, well, you know where it ended."

I put up a good front and the three of us had lunch and later that afternoon Torre showed up with the two kids. I had always pictured Tracy and me in the same role someday.

"Dave, she does love you. She just doesn't know how to face you after what she's done. She never talked to you about Charlie Dugay, did she?"

I shook my head.

"When I found out it was him I wanted to slap the shit out of Lucy and Tracy, Lucy more so. I love my sisters but this really pisses me off."

"Torre, you don't have to get involved with this. I'm going to sit down with Tracy when I get back, if she's still there and lay everything out."

"That may be however you need to know that Tracy is fucking clueless when it comes to Charlie. He's a fuck around putz from day one but she thinks he walks on water. She caught him fucking a friend of Lucy's one night after they were supposedly engaged and the next thing I knew she was off to Charleston. He convinced her it was a drunken one- time thing but by then she had met you and that was the end of it. Mom says she told you the basic scoop which I got from Lucy. Jesus, I'm so damn pissed at her."

Apparently the whole Gallant family is pissed and Tracy has flown off or so everyone thinks. I played with the kids for a while and then with hugs and kisses headed for the airport to fly home...

My flight got in around 11PM that Saturday night and when I pulled into my parking spot I noticed Tracy's car was there but all the lights were off. I entered the place thinking she was asleep in the bedroom but the bed was empty. The guest room was also empty and next to the closet there were two suitcases. After tossing the clothes into the washer I showered, pulled on some comfortable jeans and a pullover before heading back out the door. I needed to unwind.

Living downtown affords us a great choice of evening entertainment all within short walking distance. It's just a few minutes' walk to Market Square from my condo and one of our favorite places to hang out is Henry's. It was just past midnight when I arrived and the late night crowd had just started to show up.

"You want your usual, slick?" Satch asked me. He was the late night bartender; picked up the nickname because he looked like his namesake.

"Yep, and another one after that."

He put two Black Russians in front of me and I just grinned at him. I wouldn't need a cab.

"Your missus was just in here maybe an hour ago, had some guy and another chick with her I'd never seen."

"Short blond, nice tits, small ass, peacock tattoo on her shoulder?"

"Yeah, man, that's her."

I guessed it was Lucy. Torre told me she thought Lucy might have flown back with Tracy rather than let her deal with it alone. It didn't matter. Lucy meant nothing to me and I wasn't going to let her have any say in what Tracy and I needed to talk about. If she thought she was going to stay in my guest room with a fuck buddy, she had another thing coming.

I sipped the drink and before long the regulars engaged me in their conversations and by 2AM I was thoroughly buzzed and ready to walk back to my place. Half a dozen of us were heading in the same direction. I live just around the corner on Hasell Street so I peeled off from the group and turned into my condo.

The house was quiet when I entered. I guess I should have expected it at that hour. The guest room door was closed so I assumed it was occupied but I was feeling belligerent so I opened it anyway. Instead of some guy getting his nut off inside Lucy's quim, both Lucy and Tracy were sound asleep. I pulled the door closed and headed to my bed, stripped off and fell fast asleep.

I woke around 6AM out of habit, popped a couple aspirin and wandered into the kitchen bare assed without thinking looking for a jug of orange juice. Lucy was standing at the kitchen sink and I think she was just as surprised to see me as I was her.

I really didn't care that I was naked. I went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of juice, drank it down standing there in all my glory, set the tumbler down and looked directly at her. She actually is a very pretty woman, maybe the prettiest of all the Gallant girls. It didn't matter.

"I want you out of my house when I wake up."

I then turned and walked back to my bedroom, locked the door and crawled back into bed for another couple hours of sleep. When I woke the second time around 10AM both women were gone so after showering and changing into something I headed for the gym to get in a hard workout.

Pounding out calories and reps is one of those things that fuel my cognitive abilities; I can think straight when the endorphins are kicking and it allows me to plan my day or develop a plan for whatever I'm working on. Every which way I worked it I kept coming back to the simple conclusion that Tracy actually loved the guy. She loved him the first time. She appeared to me at least to love the guy now and I'm guessing she was still in love with the guy when she met me. I beat the frustration out of a punching bag for a while and headed home.

"Can we talk now, Dave?" She asked me curled up in the recliner by the window looking out into the street.

She had obviously been crying, whether for him or me remained to be seen, but she was right; it was time to talk.

"Let me shower and we'll talk in the kitchen."

Fifteen minutes later we were seated at the table across from each other with cups of coffee in front of both of us.

"It's your show, Tracy."

"Please take this back." She pushed my wedding ring across the table to me and I picked it up, examined it for a moment and put it in my pocket. She didn't say anything about that.

"I'm so sorry any of this happened. I never meant for any of it." She started.

"What are you sorry for, Tracy?"

She looked at me for a moment unsure of what to say.

"Why don't you start at the beginning and let's understand just how bad this is." I suggested.

I didn't think she knew that both her mother and Torre had shared some pertinent information with me and was curious about how truthful and revealing she would be if she went all the way to the beginning.

"OK, that is best. The man's name is Charlie Dugay and I've known him now for I guess eight years from my time in Dallas. We were a couple before I ended it and moved to Charleston. I guess he never got over it and when he found out I was travelling into Dallas on a regular basis he arranged to bump into me one evening and we had dinner together.

"Lucy and I would go out for drinks and Charlie would show up along with his brother who Lucy was going out with once in a while. Eventually it just became a regular thing when I was in town --"

"When did you first fuck him, after you re-connected?"