The Celebrity Cock Club

Scarlett started smiling more, stopped slumping and got a new wardrobe. The change was amazing, and guys were hitting on her pretty hard, especially after she started wearing those tight little shorts to games and practices. By then, she was comfortable with me so I became her shield. The girls were constantly throwing us together. I don't know when it happened, but we'd often hold hands while the girls dragged us to their activities. They ended up spending the night often, the girls sharing a room while Scarlett used the guest room. My money had made it easy to afford a really nice house. It sat on forty acres of rolling hills and bottoms, had a pond, a ten-acre pasture, and a six-stall barn. The previous owners had been horse fanciers. It didn't take long for the push for horses to happen. I was a little leery of the idea. I hadn't been around horses much and their size, as well as their large teeth, intimidated me.

Scarlett gently laughed at me. She had been raised on a farm and always had a horse when she was young. Five months later, I capitulated and put her in charge of finding mounts for the kids, including hers, as well as one for herself. I would pay all costs; all she had to do was teach the kids how to ride and care for them. I'd pay, but be damned if I was shoveling horseshit.

There was a lot of grumbling, but Scarlett stood firm. They either cared for their animals or we'd get rid of them. I'm not sure exactly when we started making joint decisions about the children, Scarlett just assumed the lead and I followed.

That Christmas, Scarlett bought me a horse, a large pinto with a wicked gleam in her eye. It took a lot of pleading, and finally Scarlett said if I didn't start riding with them, she'd stop spending time with me. That put the kids in a panic. The girls had reached the age where their bodies were starting to change and they told her all their fears and concerns. My son apparently missed a mother figure quite a bit. He'd had a lot of trouble during the divorce and Scarlett seemed to be a calming influence. I learned to ride and ended up shoveling horse shit after all. Scarlett made us pile the waste up, and after it aged, she used it for compost for her garden.

There again, not sure exactly when I agreed to a garden, but then one day we were shopping for a tiller and hand tools. She tried to run the tiller, but the big machine bounced her all over the place. When I got done laughing, which pissed her off no end, I took over. After the plots were cultivated and smooth, she could run it, but if she wanted the plot expanded, twice so far, I was drafted back into service. The kids helped because she told them if they didn't, they didn't get to eat anything that came out of it. Then she told them the story of The Little Red Hen. They thought it was funny, but they got the point.

We had just dropped off the girls at soccer camp when I asked her if she thought she'd ever start dating again. Wasn't she tired of being alone? Her face went red and she had that "you're really not like what's coming" look on her face, but then she started laughing.

"I am dating. He's a pretty good guy, even if he is oblivious to the world around him most of the time."

Jealousy shot through me like a bolt of lightning and she saw it and grinned. "I'm dating you, doofus. How many times have we been out to eat, or the movies, or gone on day trips with the kids? I don't know why I even keep an apartment anymore, we're with you five days a week as is."

"But that's just family stuff."

"You're exactly right. I'd draw you a picture but I'm afraid you'd wreck trying to figure it out. It's family stuff because we've become a family. Your kids already call me Mom when you're not around, and Kelsey plans on taking you to school on Father/Daughter Day. It's a good thing she's in a different school right now or there would be a serious scheduling conflict."

She was holding my hand by then. "It's a good thing your son is off to science camp. I'm in love with you, honey. I have been for a long time. I've respected your pace because I know your ex did a lot of damage but tell me, when was the last time you were with another woman? You can't, can you? Maybe because you have feelings for someone but were afraid to tell her? That changes today. Time to come to a decision. If you want me all you have to do is turn right towards your house. If not, turn left and take me to my apartment. Your choice."

Just about then we pulled up to the intersection. I fiddled with the signal for a moment and grinned. "Would you look at that? The left turn signal seems to be broken. I'd better turn right then. Wouldn't want to cause a collision."

Her smile eclipsed the sun. "Oh, there is going to be a collision. A big one. The kids might hear all the way from their camps. Now hurry. Let's get home."

Just before we turned into our driveway, I grinned. "It's a good thing I got a house with extra bedrooms. Kelsey needs to pick one out."

Her grip on my arm almost cut the circulation off. "That won't be necessary. The girls have already decided to share a room, at least for a while. I'm sure they'll want their own bedrooms later, but right now they're joined at the hip. And who knows? Sometime down the line we may need that extra bedroom."

As soon as the garage door closed, we were all over each other for a few minutes. When we finally drew back, she took my face in her hands and looked me in the eye. "You don't talk about it, but I know what happened with your first wife. I just want you to know that I'm not much on the club scene and when I'm committed, I'm totally committed. I don't have much, but I do have my honor and I swear to you on the relationship going forward I will never do anything remotely like that. Ever. I promise. Good enough?"

I looked into those soulful, loving eyes and smiled. "Good enough."

She offered later to sign a prenup, but after my explosion she just grinned and never brought it up again.

*****

Linda had a pretty rough go for a while. The aftermath of what she had done to me so publicly, and the Alienation of Affection suit splashed all over the headlines for weeks, followed her around like a stray dog begging for a handout. She gave up her old job, saying the baggage was too heavy to drag around every day. She was in good shape financially, thanks to her slice of the Marc pie, so she took her time and was out of the workforce for almost a year. Then she took a job with a small firm just starting out. She had done her research and invested a million in the startup, giving her a 10% stake in the company. In a year she had been promoted and the company was trying to expand.

I researched them out of idle curiosity more than anything else, and while they had a good product and a good business plan, they were seriously underfunded. I had a lengthy discussion with my investment managers and when they went public, I quietly invested five million in the names of our children and gave Linda the voting proxies. Despite what she had done to me, she would always have the best interests of her children at heart. The buy made her controlling partner.

When the business reached the point of having to compartmentalize, she ended up with a VP position over sales and manufacturing. Linda worked a fifty-hour week or better, but seemed to thrive and besides, the kids were at my house a lot, fawning over their baby brother. Scarlet was six years younger and told me one of the conditions of marrying was we have at least one child. Daniel Brock, the names of his grandfathers, was almost two, and I was kind of glad the older kids liked him so much, because it gave Scarlett a break now and then. The first thing she did was change careers at my insistence and become a stay-at-home Mom. It was a full-time job with three early teens and a two-year-old to keep up with.

I'm still a light sleeper and sometimes in the middle of the night my eyes will pop open and I think about where I would be now if Linda hadn't cheated. Then I noticed something. If I got up to get a drink or use the bathroom, Scarlett would be restless when I got back, but as soon as I lay down and touched her, she went right back into deep sleep. I'd often wake with her almost on top of me. It was like she wasn't happy or secure until we had physical contact.

I also realized we held hands a lot when we walked or shopped unless one of us had to attend to one of the kids. Then her hand was back in mine. I searched my memory. Linda usually slept as far as she could away from me, claiming I made her too hot to be comfortable, and though we did share intimate touches they were usually a prelude to sex.

*****

We were at our son's high school graduation. Scarlett had gone to get some pictures of him with his friends. Linda's new husband went with her because his son and ours were great buddies and that's what originally threw them together, much like me and Scarlett. They had been married three years and seemed happy. She looked over at me with sad eyes. "Can we talk for a minute?"

"Sure. What about?"

"I need to give you something twelve years too late. An apology. It took me about four years and a little therapy to truly understand what I had done to you and the pain you went through. For what it's worth, I am sorry. Even today I can't tell you why I did it and thought it would be all right. And that's after a few years of counseling. I was so terribly angry with you for years for divorcing me, I couldn't' think straight. In my warped view of reality, it was not a big deal. I had a chance to sleep with someone famous and I took it without a thought. You should have been proud of me."

I gave a look and she smiled. "I know. Reality took a long time coming. Then about two years into my therapy, my counselor asked me who was on your celebrity bucket list. You remember? All the people we'd sleep with if we were single and got the chance. I immediately thought of Anne Hathaway. Still got the hots for her?"

I grinned. "Yes, I do. I think she's gotten even better looking with age."

"Then my counselor asked me how I would have felt if we were at a premiere or something and you had a chance to sleep with her, got someone to distract me, and then left with her. Then coming home and acting like it was nothing and wondering why I was so upset.

"First, I laughed. He would never do something like that to me, I told her. Then she made me think of it like it really happened and the whole world knew about it. I shut my eyes and ran it through my head. I was almost in a rage imagining it. That's when the breakthrough happened. As angry as I was at you in the fantasy, I'd actually done the same thing to you in reality, and nothing could change that.

So this is my apology. I was wrong to do what I did and you had every justification to divorce me. If you had gone with Anne, I would have never trusted you again no matter how many times you professed your love for me and swearing it would never happen again. If I knew then what I know now, I would have laughed in his face when he asked me to dance."

I thought about that for a minute. "Thank you, Linda. In some way that makes me feel a little better."

I thought about it as I walked away. Water over the dam doesn't recycle. Burned bridges are really hard to rebuild. You take what life throws at you and do the best you can with what you have. I had a lot with Linda, but I have it all with Scarlett.