closed the door.
She was in there about ten minutes. She came out looking fabulous.
I complimented her: “You clean up well for a VP!”
She smiled and lit the room up. “Why thank you, kind sir. Your turn.” She swept her arm toward the bathroom door. We were both using our best manners.
I went in and cleaned myself up, washing my hands and face.
When I came out, Julie was sitting on the sofa with her shoes off. She was wiggling her toes. Her bright red toe nails sparkled.
I fixed us both a drink and she said, “I have this feeling of wanting to get even with my husband!”
I smiled. “Yeah, I went through that with my wife. My advice is to forget it and go on with your life. Don’t make any mistakes.”
She lost her smile. “You don’t understand. I am going to get even with him. It can be you or some other man, but it is going to happen. Want to reconsider?”
I made a face. “Julie, I don’t want to take advantage of you, but if you insist!”
She began to unbutton her blouse and soon she sat on the sofa in just her lace bra and panties. I had never been with quite so beautiful a woman. I realized that it was my turn and I began to remove my shirt, pants and socks.
We went to my bedroom and the second time took much longer than the first.
When it was over, Julie went to the bathroom, then put her clothes on and walked to the front door.
“Thanks, Brandon. You have my card. Call me sometime.” And then she was gone.
I felt foolish, but wasn’t sure why. Had I just been used? I wasn’t sure, but I had just had one hell of a good time, and I really did like Julie. I wanted to see her again. But the real world soon flooded back in. I was now involved with three women. What to do? What I did was crude: I decided to play all three women. Maybe it wasn’t a conscious decision, but it was what I was going to do.
The rest of that night I slept like a baby.
Monday morning I went to work and started on the second document of the three that I had to review. It was a control document regarding the interface of one of our products to the prime contractor’s aircraft system. We were providing all the hard-wired systems from the cockpit to the wing of a newly designed aircraft. It had two back-up systems and they all had to talk to each other through the computer networks. When the pilot manually made a control change or input, all three systems had to produce the same output from the pilot’s input.
I was not looking forward to the third document. It was three volumes of test procedures. I read the hard copy and made corrections, comments and changes in red. The engineers would go over my inputs and make the final document read as it should. I had to often go talk to the engineers who wrote the documents to find out what they were really trying to accomplish.
I was well into the second document and figured that I could complete it in another three days.
My phone rang. I answered it professionally: “Brandon Thompson, how may I help you?”
It was Marilyn. “Brandon, the kids want to see you tonight. Can you come for dinner?”
I looked at my watch. It was nearly three in the afternoon. I had missed lunch. “Yes, honey. I will be there at six.”
She thanked me and I went back to work.
At ten minutes to five, Erline stepped into my office. “Brandon, I need some help. Could you read these three pages and tell me what you think?”
I looked at my watch, took a deep breath and sighed.
I began to read the three pages. The first page made no sense at all. I turned to the front cover of the document. It read, “Atomic Systems Test Manual for Space Detonations.”
I looked up at Erline. “This makes no sense. Is the entire document this way?”
She shook her head. “No, just these three pages. They make no sense at all.”
I realized that this document was in response to a government request for bids. Quite probably the original document was messed up and no one had challenged it. I said, “Bring your specification in and let me read it.”
The specification was a government document that defined what a product should be, do, and what it should look like. It was quite thick, and was full of information that defined the government’s intent. In the bidding process, it was considered the bible. That is, right or wrong—and it was often wrong—the spec gave every bit of information necessary to build and test a product such as an airplane, or in this case a detonating device.
Erline left my office, and I looked at my watch. It was five after five o’clock, I had to hurry or I would be late for dinner, but I had to help Erline; she was new and I was supposed to be her lead. I showed her how to break it down into paragraphs that responded to the spec’s paragraphs, and it finally made some sense. This took some time, and I didn’t get out until five-thirty. I was going to be late. I wouldn’t have time to go to the apartment and get my swimming trunks; I had to speed to get to Marilyn’s on time.
I pulled up in front of my old house, got out and ran up the steps. It was straight up six.
Dinner was on the table. Marilyn looked like the perfect wife. I noticed that she had her wedding rings back on. That gave me food for thought.
I sat down at the table and Rachael moved her plate closer to me and I patted her on the hand.
She looked up at me. “Daddy, please come back home. We are all lonely. Mommy misses you.”
She had hit a nerve. What did I say to my young daughter? “Honey, Mommy and I are working on that. We will do our best.” I was glad that Johnny was too young to understand.
Marilyn couldn’t or wouldn’t leave it alone. “You can move back in anytime that you want to.”
I smiled. “Why don’t you get a babysitter and let’s go out Friday night?”
Rachael sat up straight. “All of us?”
I looked at her with surprise on my face. “How about we just go to the park Saturday morning?”
She nodded her head. “Yeah, I like that better; we have to go to bed too early Friday night.”
Marilyn and I both laughed, and she said, “Pick me up at eight!”
I smiled. “I have a new place for us to go to. It is in Grand Prairie.”
She had a sexy smile. “You going to let me drink?”
I smiled back. “Yep, I was planning on it.”
She asked, “What is the name of this new place?”
At the time, I never gave it a thought. “Grandeurs. It is a high-class joint. Wear something sexy.”
We finished dinner and went in and watched a Disney movie. Marilyn fixed Cokes for the kids and mixed drinks for the two of us; she also fixed buttered popcorn for all of us. She put the kids to bed at eight-thirty and we had another drink. Then she fixed us another one.
“You can stay if you want to. There are still some of your clothes in the closet.”
She was being just too nice to me, so I said, “What the heck,” and I spent the night, sleeping with her.
The next morning I drove to work. I was thirty minutes late, but I figured that we were even.
At nine my phone rang. I looked at it. “Hello, Sharon, how are you?”
She said, “I came by your place last night. You were gone. I was just wondering if you were all right?”
I smiled. “I am fine.” We talked for ten minutes, then she invited me over to her apartment for Saturday night. My weekend was filling up.
That afternoon I got another call. It was from Julie. Now I also had a date Sunday night. I was meeting her at a hotel bar. My weekend was now full.
The week went by quietly. Erline was doing well and left me alone all week.
Friday night I picked up Marilyn and took her to Grandeurs. We had been there about an hour when three men approached us. I recognized Salva and Gilbert but not the third guy.
Marilyn introduced me to Eli Smith. He was new at her company, and I could sense that he was really interested in Marilyn. I
n fact, he asked her to dance.
Salva and Gilbert sat down beside me. Gilbert offered me two marijuana cigarettes. I kind of, reluctantly, took them.
Eli kept Marilyn out on the dance floor for three songs, one a slow one, where he kept pulling her closer to him. I could tell that he was whispering in her ear, and she was laughing. Now I knew why she had asked me at dinner where we were going. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Before I realized it, both Salva and Gilbert had danced with Marilyn. They both whispered in her ear and she would look at me and laugh. I was ready to get up and leave her there when she came back and sat down by me. She was still laughing.
I asked her, “What’s so funny?”
She leaned back, giving me a look at her beautiful chest. “You are, baby. You look like you lost your last friend.”
I smiled at my smart-assed wife. “I thought perhaps that I had lost my wife!”
She took my arm. “Never.”
The three guys left us and the rest of our evening went wonderful. We stayed until one in the morning, then we had to go home and take Lori home. Again, Marilyn asked me to stay with her, but I had had enough of her for one night.
I drove to the apartment and was in bed at two in the morning, smoking the marijuana cigarettes. I really liked the high that the weed gave me. I could see why Marilyn liked it. It really mellowed me out. I lay in bed naked and puffed on the “joints.” At some point, I started laughing and couldn’t quit. I had no idea what I was laughing about.
The next morning, Saturday, I was at the playground at ten, but Marilyn and the kids didn’t show up. I went by the house to see what