The Texoma Deluge

We talked for a while longer and I committed to driving down to Denton to spend the day with her and the kids and help anyway I could. I was tempted to call Jimmy and give him a piece of my mind but what the hell good would that do. Instead I determined to help Torre as much as I could.

The next Saturday found me lugging a couple Moe's Pizza boxes and a 12 pack of Hires Root Beer into the kitchen of the soon to be single and beautiful mom Torre Richardson. The two parents have a couple children, Jimmy Jr. and Ann, 12 and 10 respectively and over the past few years I've come to love them like they were my own.

They greeted me with voracious energy as always and when I glanced up she took my breath away. I kept thinking to myself 'how in the world could that man be so stupid as to throw this beautiful woman away like that?'

All four of the Gallant sisters look alike, each with blond hair, blue eyes and athletic to a fault. They were all born one right after the other in a space of four years. It was almost disturbing to see Torre standing there like that. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a halter top with sandals and had her hair pulled back in a French braid. The halter was doing its job but just barely. It was an odd feeling. When I saw Tracy a few nights earlier she reminded me of Torre and now with her before me I didn't have another thought or concern for Tracy at all.

"Jesus Christ, he's a damn fool." I said without thinking and quickly apologized. Torre had a somewhat sly grin on her face.

"His loss, I suppose." She replied.

The kids had already dug in on the eats and we joined them. Later that afternoon they busied themselves with the pool and a couple of the neighbor's kids while Torre and I relaxed on the patio.

"Let's go out to eat tonight, Dave. I know just where I want you to take me."

OK, so she just asked me out on a date. How do I say no to that? I couldn't so I accepted the offer.

"I want you to take me to Cattleman's and then we're going to the Whiskey Girl."

"Ha! Jesus, you've got the whole night planned. Alright then, to Fort Worth it is."

Both places are in the Stockyards. I'd been to Cattlemen's before but the Whiskey Girl was unfamiliar to me. Nonetheless my obligatory two step Lucchese boots were out in my car. Being a Charlestonian, I had passed on buying a hat.

The kids were going to stay at the neighbors and after freshening up and changing clothes the two of us headed to Fort Worth. Over dinner we talked.

"So when did he hit you up with this?" I asked her

"It was about three weeks ago. He just flat came out with it, spilled his guts and said he wanted a divorce. I cried for two weeks, even when I talked with you last Monday but I've just about shed all the tears I'm going to over it now.

"We agreed on support and the house this week. He got the rest of his things and he can see the kids whenever he wants. I'm never going to be a bitch about that and he knows it."

I could see it in her eyes. She's a survivor and as beautiful as she is she won't be on the market for long. Some cowboy is going to try to latch onto her as soon as she makes herself available.

"So are you still doing that hot number that precipitated your divorce?" she asked.

I had to laugh over that. I had told her the whole story and she knew that Susan and I were seeing each other on a regular basis.

"Every chance I get." was my reply.

"Yeah, but are you getting serious?" she had a more inquisitive look in her eye now.

It's a funny thing. Susan and I nailed each other every chance we got, went out to eat when we could and as far as I know we were exclusive with each other. I know I wasn't interested in chasing a piece of ass in every town I came into and I knew for a fact Susan had turned down more swinging dicks than she could count. But were we serious? I didn't know. We enjoyed the rest of the dinner and later she pointed me toward the Whiskey Girl Saloon.

"My girlfriends and I would come down here on Wednesday nights; half price drinks for the girls and we'd watch cowboy butts all night long." She giggled and when I raised a brow in jest she added. "Oh, don't look at me like that. We kept our panties on!"

I believed her. She wasn't the one who ran around in her marriage but the more we danced the more I thought about those panties even though I was ever the gentleman. There were a few guys who approached her to dance and I certainly didn't raise any objections to it but she would only dance the swing numbers with a couple of them, nothing slow; she saved all of those for me.

Under different circumstances I would have gotten a room and taken that beautiful woman's pussy and claimed it as my own; it was pretty clear she was mine if I wanted it and to be truthful, I did want it but I couldn't. I was involved with another lady. I was Uncle Dave to her kids and just as important she was coming off a marital breakup and was vulnerable to me.

I know how she felt about me and honestly, I felt pretty much the same about her. I could love this woman for the rest of my life but for the baggage we both brought into it. Instead we enjoyed a peaceful ride back to Denton and she put me up in the guest bedroom for the night...

I broke ground on my lakefront lot three months earlier and had an oak log cabin shipped in from Sevierville, TN which their crew had in place with utilities and finish work in less than 60 days. A local crew out of Durant finished the dock and boat launch the previous week and I watched as one of the local marinas dropped my new Sea Hunt 22 foot BX into the water.

Susan had closed on a house a couple months earlier and I was spending half my time at her place rather than living out of the hotel. Monroe had allowed me to stay on temporary living expense until the house was complete but as I've said before hotel rooms are not my favorite hangout spots even if I am staying on the company dime...

"Uncle Dave, let's get going. The fish aren't going to sit there all day." My niece Ann shouted out as Jimmy Jr. and I walked down to the dock. She had already slipped her life jacket on and was waiting on the stern.

Torre had let me keep the kids over the weekend after they pestered her for over a month. Put two kids and a lake together and they wanted their own rooms, permanently. That was fine by me. They were great company and after a while my place on the lake became their regular getaway.

After two days of fishing and swimming and burning a tank and a half of gas water skiing, Torre drove up to pick up two slightly sun burned and worn out kids. After I convinced her to let them stay another night and gave her the guest room, the two of us took a breather on the front porch overlooking the sunset to the west.

"Tracy caught the prick cheating on her again." She said while looking for my reaction.

"What's that, twice since they were married nine months ago?" I had a smug grin on my face.

The first time after the wedding Charlie Dugay had been caught fucking another one of Lucy's friends during a drunken party spree down in Austin and the girl's boyfriend didn't take to kindly to it; he knocked out his front tooth and put a damn good shiner on his eye according to various accounts.

"True love." I added. Torre just slapped me playfully.

"She came home unexpectedly this time and caught him in their bed. She packed up her stuff and moved back home with Mom and Dad; neither one of them are too happy about it either, I'll tell you."

"I'll have to remember to send flowers and condolences to Steve... I'm being mean, I know. They love her just like they love the rest of you all."

Torre looked at me oddly before speaking again.

"She told me she made a mistake not long after she came back from Vegas; a lot of good it does her now. I can't remember who told her, either Mom or Claire but one of them told her she was going to regret leaving you for that sack of shit until the day she died. I think she's realizing that now."

I didn't say anything and instead turned to the scenery. The sun was finally settling the last vestiges of its soft glow beneath the horizon and I watched Torre's face in the fading light. She was gazing over the water now and the dusk accented her Gallant features before she turned back to me.

We sat out there talking about everything for the next couple hours before calling it a night on Lake Texoma...

"Do you like it like this?" she asked before dropping her mouth very slowly down to the base of my almost painfully erect prick.

"Or is this more to your satisfaction?" She started tugging me with her hand while sucking and licked the mushroom crown.

"Fucking both, you devil!" So she did both until I busted a week long nut onto her lips.

After she brushed and threw on one of my tee shirts we sat out on the porch and enjoyed the morning coffee.

"Dave, we should probably talk about things."

"What do you want to talk about, Susan?"

"You and me... what you want, what I want. Are you looking to get married, settle down or do you like things how they are?"

Jesus, how to hell do I answer that? I really hadn't given any thought to marriage but I guess if that was what she wanted I'd seriously consider it. Then it hit me. At least for now it wouldn't be what I wanted but what she might want and that would never work out in the long run.

"Susan, I'd be lying if I said I didn't love what we have right now but to be honest I'd probably be convinced of it if you wanted to take it further. I just don't know why we would change what we have right now."

OK, I was spinning in circles but she saw right through it and burst into one of her trademark contagious grins before hopping up and sitting in my lap with her arms around my neck.

"OK, Romeo Hoff, I think we both feel the same way. I thought you were going to push marriage and like you I'm comfortable with what we have. But, there's more I want to talk about. I married Billy right out of college when I was 21 and hell, I'm almost 39 now --"

"And a MILF at that" I interrupted.

"Shut up, I'm not a mother. My point is one of the contract techs working on the floor asked me out a while back and I turned him down even though I actually wanted to and that's the thing. I felt like a wife and I just spent 16 years doing that, mostly in misery for the last four years of it."

"Susan, baby, listen to me for a minute."

I could see where this conversation might go and I needed to reassure her.

"You and I love each other's company, you're a great companion. We fit like gloves and God knows you have to be the best lover I've ever been with but I'm not your husband. You're not a married woman and if you want to go out and have a good time, no, make that a great time, then you are a free woman to do just that.

"We've been pretty much 'semi-exclusive' with each other since our divorces with a very few exceptions for both of us and none since we relocated here. I'm not going to sit and pout if you go out and have a good time. You know already I've gone out with Torre a couple times and I've taken pains NOT to fuck her. Oh boy, have I taken pains!" She knuckled my shoulder on that last comment but only playfully.

"Torre is a little different; you know the baggage there, I don't have to spell it out."

If I fucked Torre, it would have made the two of us exclusive and a serious couple and we both knew it which is why it hadn't happened.

"Dave, stop it, we understand each other. I want what we have to continue as long as it's good for us." She then pressed her lips to my ears. "If I have sex with anybody else, that is all it's going to be and there will always be a condom involved. I only make love to you, OK?"

I just held her for several minutes before I picked her up in my arms and walked her down to the dock.

"You would NOT dare, Dave Hoff!"

I did and followed her into the water at the end of the dock.

"That ought to cool your dirty little mind off for a bit." I laughed...

Susan did eventually go out with the Techie, a couple of times and I have to admit the second time when she spent the weekend with him in San Antonio I walked the floor a bit, at least until Torre rescued me from my imaginary pits of despair and we did a repeat of the Stockyards...

One evening I was sipping a new bottle of wine in a chair out on the dock when my tranquility was interrupted by the ring of the phone.

"Dave, is this a good time? Can we talk?"

I didn't want to, I really didn't but I suppose something inside told me it would do me good.

"Tracy, I guess this is as good a time as any. Is this something we can do over the phone?"

"No, that's why I'm parked out front."

Well, that took me by surprise so I invited her around back and met her up on the porch, offering her a glass of wine before we sat. I can't deny she looked good, she looked great as usual. Her hair was considerably longer. For some odd reason I thought of the last time I fucked her, the night before I dropped her off at the airport for her imaginary trip to Atlanta and odder still I had this recurring vision of pushing her fit little body down on the floor and fucking that tight little ass. It was the one orifice of hers that I never had.

"Well, we're both looking good." I said with half inebriation.

She cocked an eye brow and I saw the hint of just the tiniest little smile trying to wedge itself through the corners of her mouth. Maybe it was the alcohol but I thought for a moment if she tackled me I'd go into a full guard and loose on purpose.

Our divorce had been as amicable as an adulterous whore dog cheating bitch cuckolding experience could be not to mention the effect of my own guilt. From outward appearances however, we smiled, even hugged and went our separate ways. The wine was wanting me to scream 'bitch' to no one in particular.

"Torre keeps me up to date of how you're doing, Dave. She knows I'm a fool but then these days who doesn't? Mom and Dad said to give you their love."

"They are a good people, Tracy."

"Yeah, they look after me when nobody else will. I'm thankful. I needed to sit and talk with someone I love tonight and I know what we had is long gone but you're the only person I know that would ever tell me how it is."

"Considering how everything turned out I don't know how good I was at that..."

She kind of looked away while trying to stay on me.

"It's kind of funny, here you are living just about in my back yard after I moved back here following my self- destruction. I guess you know Mr. Wonderful lasted just long enough to require a divorce instead of an annulment. What a complete fuck up I am."

I knew she wanted to cry but I didn't want any of it. I did my crying in the rain, twice, and I wasn't going through it again.

"Tracy, every bit of it is water under the bridge. You are going to be whoever you make yourself to be starting whenever you figure that out. That's an old 'Monroe' truism." I chuckled.

"Good old Monroe. You know I always liked that old lecherous man. Did you know he pinched my ass one time at the New Year's Party you guys had at the Alley?" She laughed and started to relax and after a pause continued.

"Dave, can we be friends? I don't have any friends left and I'm lonely."

Jesus Christ, I needed a drink so I got both of us a refill and she gulped the whole thing down before flinging her arms around my neck and whispered in my ear.

"Please fuck me, Dave. I don't want you to make love to me. I want you to fuck me."

I was drunk and that's my excuse. Besides, she had leapt into my arms and wrapped her strong thighs around my waist so I had to carry her by the ass lest she fall...

The next morning I woke alone in the bed, the alcohol haze cleared out and the knowledge that I had fucked my ex-wife swirling around in my head. I blamed it on the wine but I knew better. After popping myself in the shower and throwing something on to wear I found her letter on the table.

"My sweet dear Dave,

"I didn't want to be here when you woke and have you see me cry my heart out. I'll do that on the drive down in my solitude. Last night was the best night of my life next to my wedding night and it was also the worse. It's the worse because I've decided to leave Texas altogether and move to the west coast.

"I told Mom and Dad yesterday and while they were sad, they understood why. I quit my job earlier this week and took a position with a company in San Jose; no travel like before so I guess I'll have to learn how to put roots down.

"Dave, I've made so many mistakes I don't even know where to begin. I guess the first place is apologizing for not confronting you after that Memphis trip. God knows I know how you get when you drink Cuervo and I believe none of this would ever have happened if I had been the strong willed woman you married. The next big one, aside from ever taking up with that loser, was waiting for you to fight for me. I know you put the decision on my plate but when you stepped back and let me hang myself I should have rushed home and begged you to have me. Yes I meant home because that is where my home will always be, with you. Everything else will just be a place where I spend my nights.

"I know you've seen Torre a few times and while I don't know where that will go, please do right with her. She loves you, I know, but she's also afraid because you are family and is having a hard time to get past that.

"I am always going to love you, sweetie, always and while I know I destroyed everything we had I can only hope that you will find that peace and love I know you want. I wish it could be me but I'm afraid I know that could never be. You deserve better, much better.

"If you are ever in San Jose, please look me up. I'll buy.

"Your always loving wife,

"Tracy"

Well, I sat at the table for several minutes sipping my coffee and re-reading the letter. I wanted to say some things to her this morning that needed to be said. I had forgiven her for what she did and hoped she had forgiven me for my own sins. Maybe I had fucked all my anger out the previous evening but on that morning I simply felt sadness for what we had lost. A couple of years had passed since the 'Loose Wheels' events and life had gone on with its own pace and circumstances.

I gathered up the letter and placed it with some other things from our marriage in my dresser drawer, next to the wedding ring she returned to me at the kitchen table on the last day we were an effective couple...

Susan had gone back to Charleston for a few weeks to work on another project that Monroe needed help on and I had tried immersing myself in a variety of projects at the plant but I felt distracted. At the end of one particularly frustrating day our receptionist Rose invited me to join her and her husband along with a few others that evening at the Choctaw.

I arrived at the designated hour and found myself seated at a table with Rose and Walter, her husband and two other women, one named Sarah, I have forgotten her last name, and an interesting thirtyish divorcee named Winona Gustophsen. It was the latter who struck my curiosity.

She used to be an employee at the Casino until she went back to school and was now a radiology assistant at the hospital down in Sherman. We had a great dinner and when it was concluded I offered to buy a round at the bar and because of the hour only Winona was able to stay.

It takes a bit of imagination to describe her. She wears her hair in a short pixie cut that she keeps dyed in various shades of dark purple inter-mixed with her natural black hair. Both arms are covered with intricate black and grey sleeve tattoos to the wrist and, according to her, she has a selection of rose and vine tattoos encircling her breasts and weaving down her torso.