Please read Only in a Dream Chapters 1 and 2, before reading this chapter.
Once again, for those of you that actually read the whole long version, this will look familiar. I broke it down into chapters and the conclusion to the long version will be chapters seven and eight.
As I said before, in the first couple of chapters, I try to paint a picture of who Brad is and how he met Kathy. I just wanted readers to get to know Brad on a personal level. In chapter 4, we get to the main theme.
This is Ch. 3 of the dividing up of the original 'Only in a Dream '.
Brad's thoughts and memories continue after hearing about his nephew's girlfriend's cheating. Still sitting out on his deck under the metal roof, the rain is now coming down hard. People cheating seems to surround his thoughts, as he thinks about some of his former neighbors and the loss of a dear friend.
He thinks about his father briefly, and about how life has fared for some of these people that he has been reminiscing about. He remembers the first time he and Kathy made love and the experiences that he and Kathy had with other people before they came together.
If you've stuck with the story (or read the original epic), thank you. I will turn on the comments after the final chapter.
*
As the rain continued to come down, Brad looked down hill and a little ways to the left and looked at the house that sat there. It was now abandoned and in need of extensive repairs. The most recent family to live there, had refinanced it several times during the mortgage loan crisis of 2007/2008. When their interest rate went up, they could no longer afford the payments and just walked away from the house.
Before moving, they somehow managed to acquire twenty five cats, then after the move, they left the felines inside of the house with no food or water, and no litter box. Apparently they had done this, to 'get back' at the bank for raising their interest rate. When the Realtor opened the door a month later. . . Well the mess was horrible.
The bank that now held the mortgage was located several hundred miles away and the home fell into a state of disrepair. The house was located right next to the woods and a window was somehow broken out, then wild animals managed to get in, the house was now a real mess.
As Brad thought about the people that had lived in the house, he couldn't help but recall the incidents that had happened that fit the theme of what he was trying to stop thinking about since he'd been out here on the deck.
********
He remembered the man (husband and father) that had lived there. Brad had talked with him a couple of times, he brought to mind good ol' Todd. He was twenty nine years old, about six feet tall, nice looking, and very cocksure. He really had an attitude and also reminded Brad of a teenage boy strutting his stuff around.
A young newly married couple had moved into the house next door to him and his wife. They were both nineteen and to anyone who didn't know better, the husband didn't look a day older than about fourteen. He was small in stature and had little or no facial hair whatsoever. The wife, on the other hand, was an absolute babe. About five foot seven, one hundred and ten pounds and 36 C breasts, she probably looked older at the age of fourteen, than her husband did now.
The young couple had just moved into town. Their entire lives had been spent living in a rural setting at least twenty miles from anything other than towns with populations of no more than a couple hundred people. So, they were both very naive. Even tho this small town was only about twenty thousand people, it was the big city to them.
The husband worked at a local factory on the seven p.m. to seven a.m. shift. The young wife made a habit of taking their large dog out for walks around the neighborhood during the evening after he left for work.
Mr. attitude next door took notice and started walking his dog at the same time. It just so happened that his wife was a nurse at a hospital thirty miles away, and also worked the same hours as the young girl's husband.
Before long, they were walking together, and the young wife, having never been around a confident, cocksure man like him before, fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The two fell into a sexual affair rather quickly. They would be out walking their dogs and the young girl would be practically hanging all over him as they walked, so it had become quite obvious what was taking place. Then he started spending the night with her.
Several times, as he was leaving for work at midnight, Brad had seen the man sneaking across the yard to the young couple's home. Kathy would let their dogs out early in the morning and had watched the man sneak out of the girl's back door and run home, before their spouses came in from work.
Kathy told Brad about the one morning that they must have overslept, because young girl's husband was going in the front door, just as the neighbor was sneaking out of the back. They only missed each other by about ten seconds.
It appeared that the man would wait until his children were asleep, then sneak next door, leaving his kids alone all night. Then, would sneak back home in the morning, getting the children up and off to school. Then he would leave for work.
The young husband finally figured it out and they moved. Brad and Kathy never knew if Mr attitude's wife ever figured it out or not.
********
"That shit is going on all over," thought Brad.
Brad remembered when both of those houses were built. The abandoned one was built not long after they had moved here. The man who built the home and his wife lived there for a while after it was completed. But, his wife liked the location of another house he was building better, and when it was complete, they had moved into it.
The home where the young couple had lived was built about eight years ago, a nice, but kind of quirky guy lived there now with his eighteen year old son. He was a widower, his wife had died of cancer a few years before.
Brad remembered his friend, Greg Rogers, who had lived in the older house before the people that abandoned it. Then he remembered how Greg's family had all assumed that Kathy and he were having an affair.
People just couldn't seem to believe that a woman as beautiful as Kathy could be married to Brad and not be playing around with other men on the side.
It seemed like, no matter which way Brad tried to turn, or what he looked at, it involved cheating, or rumors of cheating.
********
Just as he had with Matt, Brad had also gone to high school with Greg. He was a functioning alcoholic. Except for constantly repeating himself, it was actually hard to tell that he was intoxicated. But hell, he had also been a drunk in high school.
His family owned a thriving business in town and were wealthy, they took care of his expenses with his trust fund that had been in the bank since he was born. Greg (actually his father) had purchased the house from the builder after he and his wife moved.
A couple of years after he moved in, Greg married Jenifer, she was twelve years younger than him. Just about everybody that knew her, also knew what she was after when she married him. In layman's terms, she was a gold digging cunt. She tried for a couple of years to get pregnant, when she finally did, Jenifer bragged that the family fortune would soon be be hers.
After the birth of their daughter, Jenifer ran off with one of the guys she was fucking around with, Greg now was her baby sitter while she bar hopped and seemed to have a new man every other week.
Greg's first wife had left him for his best friend, then she moved on and married someone else. So this was strike two for Greg.
Brad was helping Greg cut some brush down on his property, when Greg's mother stopped by to visit. She noticed that Greg wasn't real good at keeping his house clean. She asked Brad if his wife would be interested in being paid fifty dollars to clean Greg's house once a week. Kathy said she would do it, fifty dollars for about an hour or two's work was not bad.
Kathy started going over once a week and her and Greg would talk while she cleaned. Brad would sometimes go over and visit with Greg and drink a few beers with him while Kathy cleaned. Greg was drawn to her the same as Matt had been, and started calling to talk to her almost every evening. As with most alcoholics, he would repeat himself over and over, he mostly complained about his ex wives, but he would tell Kathy how he respected Brad, but if there was anything that ever happened to come between Brad and her, he wanted a chance with her. Kathy felt sorry for him, but thought that he had kind of brought this on himself by drinking so much.
Brad was never worried too much, because he knew Greg was a drunk. Unlike Matt, who was obviously pursuing Kathy, Greg was harmless. It wasn't in his nature to try and get with a married woman, but it was easy to see that he'd fallen in love with Kathy.
********
Brad's mood became a little morose now, he almost wished he hadn't thought about Greg. He had died from liver cancer, six years earlier and he hadn't told anyone he was sick, not even his second wife, so it was a shock.
That also meant that Jenifer had to start raising her own child too. It put a serious damper on her partying.
********
Kathy had been cleaning Greg's house for five years when, one day she went over to clean and there was no answer at the door. His car was there, so, she went back home and called his mother. She told her that she was supposed to be there at one o'clock to clean, but he wasn't answering.
Greg's mom told her that she would be there in about ten minutes. The tone of her voice worried Kathy, something in it just didn't sound right. She waited until she saw his mom's car pull up and her and Brad walked back over to Greg's.
As Kathy greeted Greg's mother, she told Kathy to wait outside, as she unlocked the door and went inside. Kathy was a little confused by his mom's demeanor, the cold look she had on her face and the way she had told her to wait outside. She knew something was very wrong.
A moment later, Greg's mom emerged with her cell phone in her hand and hugged Kathy. She handed Kathy a gold bracelet.
"He loved you and he wanted you to have this."
"Wwwhat?" said Kathy.
"He's gone now, his suffering is over," his mother said quietly.
Kathy then came to the realization that Greg had died.
And she remembered when she had listened to his usual rant about his exes the night before, he had begged her to come and see him, he needed to talk to her, it was important. Kathy hadn't gone, she was busy working on someone's suit that they needed rather quickly, and she didn't go. She felt so guilty about not going over to see Greg.
"He knew he was going to die. . . And he needed to tell me something," she thought.
His mother told Kathy that Greg had been diagnosed with liver cancer about six years before, and was really surprised that he'd lived as long as he had. No on else knew, only Greg, his mother, and father.
Kathy's emotions were all over the place, as were Brad's. He was a dear friend, they would miss him.
At his funeral, there were whispers about Greg and Kathy, so it was obvious to Brad and Kathy both, that he'd told his mother that he was in love with her. She had already told Kathy as much. He'd never told his mom outright that they were having an affair, but after telling her that he was in love with Kathy, they all just assumed.
The family also gave a bunch of his other personal items to her. Brad and Kathy both had a hunch that they knew what Greg was going to tell her. He'd dropped hints about how he felt about her, but since he knew his time was up, he had to tell her that he loved her face to face.
********
Brad wondered if Kathy was about done with supper, as he was getting pretty hungry.
!!!!!KA BOOM!!!!!. . . Another clap of thunder roared after lightning struck close by again.
"HOLY SHIT!!" Brad said, "That scared the living shit out of me!"
It took a few minutes for Brad's heartbeat to slow down after that. He thought about Greg and how he missed seeing him out walking around the neighborhood.
He sat and reflected over how things had turned out now, all these years later for some of these people he'd been thinking about.
********
On a happy note, Brad and Jack were still best friends.
A while after they met, when they were both just sixteen, Brad's aunt and uncle had come from out of state to visit his grandma and grandpa for a few days. Their daughter Keisha (Brad's cousin), who was two years younger than Brad and Jack, had come with them. She was very pretty, and Jack was infatuated immediately.
Jack was very disappointed when they had to leave for home. Over the next couple of years, they came back to visit a few more times and Jack always seemed to be close at hand.
After Brad took up with Kathy, he and Jack were still good friends, but they didn't spend as much time together, because Brad was spending all of his time with Kathy. Then Brad was in the accident and was in and out of the hospital for all those months. Jack had also been best man at Brad and Kathy's wedding.
Jack dated a couple of girls, but none were serious. He still had a crush on Keisha. After she graduated high school, Keisha enrolled at the local college and came to live with grandma. Brad played matchmaker, telling Jack about Keisha coming to stay at grandma's. Brad still felt a little guilty, tho he would never change anything, that he had ended up with the girl Jack had wanted first.
Long story short, Jack and Keisha got together, were married within a year and have four children together. They're still married.
Kathy's sister, Tina was now on her third marriage. She had / has cheated on every one of her husbands, and has lost count of how many guys she has actually been with. Tina had always been very competitive with Kathy, almost like she had to prove that she was better. She slept with every one of Kathy's ex boyfriends, including her ex husband. She also slept with. . . Wait for it. . . Todd.
How does that old Z Z Top song go?
"I know a girl that lives on the hill, she won't do it, but her sister will."
Now in her late forties, Tina had spent some time in prison for embezzlement and the years have taken a toll on her looks, however, she still believed she is a goddess and could attract any man she wanted. Supposedly separated from her husband (he still lived with her) and back on the public dole, and only eighteen months out of the slammer, she lives with all of the amenities that anyone could ask for. And is screwing the Government over once again.
And Todd. . . Almost have to feel sorry for him. Poor sap. . . Now on his fifth marriage. With each marriage, the girls kept getting younger and he had already started fucking each of the new ones, before he divorced the previous one. His current wife is younger than his oldest son, the baby that his first wife supposedly 'trapped him' with. He has children with all, but the second wife, she was able to see through his BS pretty quickly and bailed before she became pregnant. He also has a child with an ex girlfriend (who was married to someone else at the time) from high school. Then, there are two more with two other young women in a town twenty five miles to the south. All together, there are eleven children with seven different women.
Todd did get a taste of his own medicine tho. His fourth wife, who he stayed with the longest, had a little affair of her own with a man from her workplace and Todd was none too pleased.
It all appears to be an odd situation tho. It seems that his current wife and all of his ex wives, including the three women he had children with out of wedlock, are all good friends. They all get together frequently. Almost like a club. . . The women of Todd. Needless to say, Christmas is probably a real circus at his house.
Brad wondered how Todd supported his current wife, having to pay all of that child support.
Also, Todd never divorced any of his wives. . . They all divorced him after they found out about his dalliances.
********
By now, Brad had all but given up on planning his model railroad. He closed the book and sat it down on the small plant stand that sat beside him.
Again a more somber tone took over his thoughts, as he sat and pondered what he was going to do now.
********
Brad had never liked the idea of people cheating on each other. He had felt this way ever since he had been very young. He wasn't really sure why it affected him like it did. Because of his upbringing, Brad had always considered sex as an expression of love between two people, not a sport. How could someone possibly claim to love one person, then go out and have sex with someone else. It was for this reason, that Brad had held back when he first met Kathy.
An entire month passed before Brad and Kathy had sex for the first time. He wasn't going to repeat mistakes he'd made in the past. Brad was absolutely sure that he was in love with Kathy by then.
He would see a cheating situation on TV or in a movie and it would sometimes bother him for days afterward. Maybe it was what he saw his mother go through and the way she suffered over the loss of his father. The loss of a spouse because of a death was horrible enough, he knew this firsthand. But, knowing the person that had promised to love you was showing that love to someone else. . . It was something he just couldn't fathom. Brad feared being cheated on more than death itself.
He remembered what his aunt, his dad's older sister told him. She said, that just a few days before his death, his father had sat and cried, because he was so worried about how his wife and young son would get along without him. He needed to be there to take care of them,
"Would they be alright?"
Brad knew that his father would have never left willingly, if he could have prevented his own death, he would have done so, not for himself, but for his wife and young child.
Brad had also witnessed the love his grandparents shared. After grandpa's death, grandma lived for twenty five more years, to the age of ninety eight, but she was never interested in, or even so much as looked any other man. That's the kind of love Brad wanted and felt he had found it with Kathy.
As Brad sat there, his eyes became a little misty, his youngest son was now twenty five and he looked just like his namesake. . . Brad's father. Comparing photos, he even stood and held himself just like he did.
Eric Clapton's song, "In My Father's Eyes " came to mind as he thought about how much he loved his family and how much he loved Kathy.
Brad's mind wandered to the different experiences that he and Kathy had gone through before they found each other all those years ago.
********
Before Kathy, Brad had been with two other girls. He had a seven month relationship with Natalie Walden, a girl he met the summer he was eighteen. They met after talking to one another on the CB radio one night. She was the first girl that seemed to really like him. Or so he thought.
Brad worked as an auto mechanic during the day and Natalie worked evenings as a waitress in a small town about ten miles from where Brad lived. He would only go and see her on the weekends, when they were both off. Although there were a lot of red flags, Brad, being inexperienced and full of raging hormones, ignored them. After getting to know her, and losing his virginity to her, he thought he loved her. She claimed to have had sex with only one other guy before him, but in hindsight, Brad thought she was most likely lying.
They had already broken up, when Natalie found that she was pregnant. Because of the way he'd been raised, taught to do the right thing. The thought of the baby being without a father was something he didn't want his child to ever have to experience, Brad offered to marry Natalie.
She said, "No."
As horny as Natalie seemed to be all of the time, Brad wondered if she had been screwing around with anyone else during the week while they were apart.
"Is the baby even mine?"
Right after they first broke up, Brad was hurt, but Natalie was adamant, she didn't want to be with him anymore. She was two months pregnant when the breakup occurred, by the time the baby was born, Brad had not seen her for seven months. It was another month before he found that she'd had the baby and by then, Brad was for the most part, over Natalie. He realized that he had been 'in lust,' not in love, and was in a way, glad that they had broken up. There were just too many things they didn't agree about, Brad saw that it would have never worked between them.
After Natalie gave birth, Brad visited her and the baby a few times. One time, she asked him if he'd ever thought about getting back together. He told her he hadn't really thought about it and she never said anything again.
He could never see any resemblance between him and the baby, but that didn't mean anything. She didn't necessarily look like Natalie either.
Less than a year later, Brad met Kathy. Then, he was really thankful that things had never worked out with Natalie. Now he new what being in love really was. After they had been together about two months, Brad took Kathy to meet his one year old baby daughter. Natalie was not there, her mother was babysitting. That was the last time Brad saw the baby.
While he was in the hospital from his accident, he received papers from the court indicating that Natalie's mother was seeking custody of the baby. Unless he wanted to protest it, he didn't need to appear. He was in traction at the time, and just couldn't seem to fit it into his schedule, so he never appeared. After Natalie's mother gained custody, she took the baby and moved away.
At times, Brad wondered about where they were, what the little girl looked like, if one day she might come looking for him.
"Has she already scoped me out?" he wondered.
He'd seen a few girls that were about the right age that looked an awful lot like Natalie,
"Could one of them possibly be my daughter?" Brad asked himself.
One day, ten years after he'd last seen the baby, Brad received a phone call from Natalie's mother. She explained what had happened, why she'd gone after, and gained custody of the little girl. Seems Natalie had gone out on a date and left the baby with her one evening, in fact, if she remembered right, thought it was the evening that Brad had brought Kathy to visit. She said Natalie never returned that night, she showed up three years later, after she'd (Natalie's mother) gained custody and moved.
"Your daughter really wants to meet you. We aren't seeking any support, or money or anything, she just wants to meet her father," she told him.
They lived in a small town one hundred and eighty miles north, about three hours away. Brad agreed to go and see her, but Kathy wasn't so sure if it was a good idea or not.
"You don't even know if that little girl is yours or not," she said, concerned.
"That's true, but my name is on the birth certificate and she believes I'm her father, so we are going to see her," Brad said firmly.
It just so happened that Brad's days off were going to fall on the weekend the upcoming week, so he, Kathy, and their children made the trip up for a visit. Once he laid eyes upon the little girl, he knew she was his daughter. When she stood next to his daughter with Kathy, there was no doubt. They looked so much alike, that she could have passed for Brad and Kathy's child.
He was then glad he had made the trip. Both of his daughters now had a sister and his older daughter now had a father, he could quit looking at little girls, and wondering if one might be. . .
His older daughter now has three daughters of her own.
"Unreal," he thought.
Brad's other encounter was one he would rather forget. Brad's grandpa had died about a month before Natalie gave birth and he began to drink a little, it helped numb the pain. There was a girl that he had been out with a couple of times, more as friends and drinking buddies than romantically (though they had made out a couple of times). She was very pretty, but she had been with a lot of guys and Brad didn't want to get involved with someone, that a lot of his friends could say,
"Hey, I fucked her too."
Her older sister had had the hots for Brad for as long as he could remember, but he was never interested. Something about her rubbed him the wrong way. If she'd had a better attitude and personality, he might have considered it, because she was by no means, ugly.
One night at a party, he drank way too much and felt like he needed to lie down. He found a bedroom, went in and passed out. He had been there, only for a few minutes, when he thought he heard the door to the room open and the sound of someone moving around. A short time later, he felt a naked body in bed beside him. He passed out again. He had a vivid dream as he drifted in and out of his drunken stupor. He awoke in the morning to what he thought had been a horrible nightmare of having sex with his drinking buddy's older sister.
He rolled over and there she was, lying there naked, an. . . And. . . So was he, holy sh. . . "Yikes!" She had even brought her own condoms. She put one on him and climbed on.
Then he remembered, that during the night, someone had opened the door to the bedroom and turned the light on, and a girl's voice,
"Ewwwe, there's somebody in there fucking."
"Oh my God!" he thought he'd dreamed that.
That last thought creeped Brad out, he'd see that girl (woman now) out around town, usually in Walmart, and she still gave him the willies. It had almost made him scared of the dark, it gave a whole new meaning to the phrase,
"Things that go bump in the night."
He also quit drinking after that episode too.
As Kathy's past came to mind, he felt a hint of jealousy towards her ex husband, and wished circumstances would have been different, it pained him to think about what she went through.
Brad kind of felt the course of events surrounding her first marriage, and the fact that he'd had a child with Natalie made it even between them. But, even tho she was three years older that him, the thought of her ever being with anyone else really tore at his heart.
Kathy was born in California. Her father owned and operated a filling station and life seemed to be good. When her father got to be in his forties, he got restless, sold the filling station and purchased a semi truck, becoming an over the road truck driver.
After that life changing event, it wasn't long before Kathy's parents were having marital troubles. A couple of years after the purchase of the truck, when she was seventeen, her parents problems led to her mother leaving everything behind and running away, back to Ohio. Kathy would be eighteen shortly, but she had no means to support herself, so she didn't really have a choice.
Kathy was very angry at her mother for taking her away from her life and her friends without even letting her say goodbye to anyone. They had only taken what they could get into the car on short notice, then fled in the middle of the night. Her father followed them to Ohio, her mother and he reconciled, but it only lasted for a few months, then her mother divorced him. Kathy's whole world was falling apart. Torn away from her friends and stuck here in this little town, not knowing anyone, she just wanted to go back home.
When her aunt introduced her to her husband's younger brother, Kathy was excited a little, because he was older than her and she thought he was handsome. Fred Carter was twenty one, three years older than Kathy. He was infatuated with her immediately, and wanted to go out with her. Their first date went well, she thought he seemed nice and they got along well, so they started dating. It was just casual, more like friends going out. She liked him, but didn't really feel a romantic connection with him. He would kiss her goodnight, but there was never any necking, and absolutely no sex.
After they had been dating for about a month, he pulled her close and kissed her. She returned his kisses a little, then pushed him back, saying she wasn't ready for that yet. He then pushed her down to the ground, held her down, and raped her. It wasn't violent, he didn't give her any bruises or anything, just held her down and forced himself on her. She tried to resist, but he was too strong.
She didn't want to lose her virginity like this, she had saved that for someone special, now this jerk had destroyed any chance of that. She felt so guilty, and from then on, she associated guilt with sex.
She never told anyone, as she didn't want to cause trouble in the family, because of Fred's older brother being married to her aunt. And besides, would they believe her?
Brad was the first and only person Kathy ever told about the rape, that was only last year, after Fred had died. She knew Brad would have found him and hurt him. Not that she cared, just that she didn't want Brad to get into trouble.
She stopped dating Fred and told him to stay away from her. Her aunt was saddened, she thought they were doing so well and had a future together. Kathy had also become friends with Fred's sister, Angie, before Fred and her had ever started dating. Angie thought they were a couple and thought there would be a wedding.
A few days after she broke it off with Fred, Kathy, now a senior, met Dan Martin when he approached her at school. He was about six foot two and very good looking. Kathy wasn't even sure if she wanted to date right now, after the ordeal with Fred, but Dan persisted and she finally started dating him. He came along at just the right time, Kathy was hurt over what Fred had done to her, then there were all of the problems she was having at home. Her mother could see the type of guy Dan was (just like Todd), and told Kathy that she didn't want her seeing him. Her life at home, only got worse, she and her mother fought more and more about everything, including Dan.
Kathy didn't have any place else she could go either, it seemed her other relatives here, all had similar troubles.
She started feeling rebellious, almost to the point she didn't care about anything anymore. Her mother had yanked her away from her home, her life, her friends in California and drug her here to this God forsaken little town. She had hardly any friends, almost all of her possessions were left in California, and now she'd been raped.
Kathy knew she couldn't say anything at all about what Fred had done. If her dad or her brother either one found out, she suspected that they would kill him, and she didn't want that.
The final blow was when her mother let the man who would eventually become Kathy's stepfather, move into the family home with them. And here she was, telling Kathy, who was now eighteen, who she could and couldn't date??!!! And yet, she let a man move into her own bedroom?!
Kathy had managed to keep Dan at bay, her only sexual encounter was still the rape. But, extremely upset, thinking she was getting back at her mother, she had sex with Dan. He had been trying since their first date, so she just gave into him one night. They only had sex the one time, Kathy didn't like it at all. All of the girls at school raved at how wonderful sex was supposed to be but. . . She tried to get into it, and did feel a little sexual attraction towards Dan, something she never felt at all with Fred. She really just didn't feel that much of an attraction to Dan, either. He only kissed her a little, all he ever talked about was going out and getting high and how much he really wanted to have sex with her.
Kathy's guilt kept her from really getting wet, she was reluctant to let him enter her. After he did, it was no different, it hurt this time too, even tho, Dan was so much smaller than Fred. She was relieved, when it only took him a short time to finish.
He assumed that he'd taken her virginity, because she did bleed. But, it wasn't from a broken hymen, it was from friction and lack of lubrication. Dan then removed the condom and threw it out of the window of his car.
"Oh my God, that's so gross. What if somebody finds that!! she thought.
The guilt she felt afterward was horrible and lasted for weeks, she cried herself to sleep for several nights. Kathy avoided Dan after that, she knew she had made a big mistake by giving into him. She didn't know if her mother somehow found out about what had happened or not, but her mom forbid her from seeing him anymore and told her she couldn't leave the house.
"I'm eighteen, I can do what I want," Kathy told her mother.
Her mother's reply was,
"As long as you live under my roof, you'll do as I say, or you can find someplace else to go."
Fred's sister and Kathy talked on the phone frequently, so Angie was aware of all the conflict in Kathy's home. She told Kathy that she could come stay with her for a while as soon as she was out of school if she wanted.
Graduation was just a few weeks away, so as soon as she was out of school, Kathy went to stay with Angie at her home, which was located about six miles out in the country. Unknown to Kathy, Angie had ulterior motives. When she had asked Kathy to come and stay, she told Fred that Kathy was there, and tried to patch things up between them. He started coming to Angie's several times a week, under the guise that he was just visiting his sister, but he was really coming to see Kathy.
At first, she was repulsed, especially when Angie started pushing them to get married, and had even started planning the wedding.
Kathy wanted so bad to go back home, but things had gotten even worse there. Seems Kathy's brother had gotten into a fight with mom's new man, and her grandma had him (the man) arrested. Kathy's father kept trying to intervene and the police were constantly being called. It had turned into an all out war zone, so Kathy spent more and more time at Angie's.
Kathy almost felt like she could never go home again, there was too much turmoil going on there, and wasn't sure what she could do. She confided in Angie about the situation.
"You and Fred are going to end up married anyway, why don't you two just go ahead and get married now?" she said, "Then you'll have your own place."
After her conversation with Angie, she thought about it for a while, Kathy rationalized that this might be a good way out of her situation.
Call it mother's instinct, but Kathy's mom had reservations about Fred, and didn't particularly like the idea, but what could she say, Kathy was eighteen, and was no longer in her home, she could do what she wanted.
Although he had raped her, Fred was handsome; it seemed like he loved her; he had a good job and lived on his own; and his sister was already planning their wedding.
Kathy thought maybe she could learn to love him. He did take her virginity, she reasoned. She thought it may absolve some of her guilt about sex too. Kathy let Angie make all of the arrangements and there was a wedding, she reluctantly married Fred. Kathy knew she'd made a horrible mistake on her wedding night. She laid in bed and cried, while Fred had his way with her. He fucked her three times that night. His cock was huge, she wasn't turned on at all, moisture was almost non-existent inside of her vagina and he hurt her, terribly.
She had absolutely hated it this time too, she felt so guilty and so ashamed, like this was wrong somehow. This was her wedding night, she was supposed to be happy, but she wasn't and she was stuck, she had married him.
Maybe her mother had been right. She had always taught her that sex was for making babies, nothing more. Men were the only one's that got any pleasure out of it, and anything more than straight, regular intercourse, lying on her back, was absolutely wrong, period. Even if it was with her husband, because if she had anal sex, or God forbid, performed oral (man's pride as her mother called it), or even so much as touched a man's penis with her hand, her husband would accuse her of being a whore.
"If it starts to feel good for you, it's wrong!" her mother said, "And Ladies don't act like that."
Kathy's mother was not really that religious either, so why she believed the way she did, was anyone's guess. Then, her mother had let a man move in with her??? WTF??
After their wedding night, Fred rarely approached her for sex. Which was fine with Kathy. A year went by, they only had sex about five times. Each time, Fred would just come into the bedroom and do the same thing he had done when he raped her. No foreplay or anything so much as a kiss. He wouldn't even say anything, he'd just push her down, pull her pants off and enter her.
She very quickly learned to despise him, but Kathy felt that she had made this mistake on her own, so she stuck it out, hoping that things would get better.
They didn't.
Then two of Fred's brothers started making passes and dropping hints that they'd like to have a little piece of her. She told Fred, but he acted like he didn't really care, so Kathy then became scared that one of them would rape her the same as Fred had.
She loved to watch romantic movies, fantasizing about having a love like that, and wondered how she'd gotten herself into this mess. She hated that little prick in California, but she almost wished she'd gone back there after he'd called her. She didn't think he was near as bad as Fred.
Kathy wanted so bad to have a love like in those movies, but as much as she tried, she couldn't make herself fall in love with him. After two years of marriage, nothing had changed except, Fred couldn't seem to hold a job. He was constantly doing something stupid and getting fired from wherever he worked at the time. He rarely, if ever, bathed, and Kathy quit taking birth control pills because Fred barely made enough for them to survive, it was just another expense they couldn't afford. He hardly ever touched her anyway.
Kathy was in bed with a bad case of the flu, with a temperature of one hundred and four degrees. Fred came in drunk that evening and went about 'getting some.' She protested but, to no avail, he wouldn't stop. So she finally let him have his way, so she could just get it over with.
Kathy became pregnant.
Nine months later, she gave birth to a baby boy. She put the baby in between them in bed, then after a couple of weeks of getting woke up in the middle of the night, so Kathy could feed the baby and the like, Fred moved himself into another bedroom.
Mission accomplished.
Fred became a little more responsible and managed to get and keep a job in a coal mine. They purchased a new mobile home to replace the old one that Fred had owned before they were married. Kathy wrapped her life around the baby and the new home, they made things a little more tolerable.
In the two years following the birth of their son, Fred only approached Kathy for sex twice, he was drunk both times and it was in the same fashion as always. She had never gone back on the pill, so luckily, she didn't get pregnant either time. They seemed to get along pretty well, so long as he didn't try to touch her.
After five years of marriage, once again, Fred came in drunk, and unbathed. He pulled Kathy to the bedroom to have sex with her.
"No, I don't want to!" she told him.
When he protested, she held her ground, the ensuing argument woke the baby, now two. The baby came into the bedroom and tried to get to his mother, while Fred was trying to tear her pants off. In the struggle, the baby was knocked to the floor and started to cry. He was unhurt, but it had caused enough of a distraction that Fred backed off, he was pissed, and headed for the front door.
"I want a divorce!" he turned and screamed on his way out.
He left, and by morning, hadn't returned, so Kathy called her mother to take her into town, where she filed for a divorce. Her mother asked her why she hadn't done it sooner, she could tell that Kathy was miserable.
"I made this mess myself and I was determined to make it work, or live with the consequences. HE asked for the divorce, not me, so that's what he's getting," said Kathy.
In the five years since she left her mother's, things had calmed down quite a bit. Her mom had married the man that moved in, and her brothers and sister had all moved out of mom's house, except for her youngest brother. He was only sixteen. Her dad had moved away and was also remarried.
After filing for the divorce, Kathy went to stay with her mother until Fred was served, then moved back when he moved into his mother's house.
He fought with her, he didn't want a divorce, but he finally relented, letting it go through. Things were calm for a while, but then Fred started coming around and harassing Kathy. She took her son and moved into her brother's to get away, plus it was easier to get to her new job, because she rode with Eric to work. A couple of weeks later, Kathy met Brad and they were now together as a couple. This was the happiest she had ever been in a relationship.
In the weeks after she met Brad, Kathy was very busy. She now had her driver's license and had purchased an old car, so that she wouldn't have to depend up on her brother to get to work anymore. A month after, she decided that it was now time for her to move back home. This would be Brad and Kathy's first opportunity to actually have time alone, other than in a car. After Kathy's son was in bed asleep, they sat down to relax. Kathy's head was resting on Brad's shoulder as they sat on her couch watching a movie on television. As the movie progressed, a couple, having been to dinner and gone to see a play, ended up at the woman's apartment. She invited him in, half way through their drinks, they started kissing and it wasn't long before the couple were in bed making love. It was a very intense love scene, even if it was mostly implied.
Keep in mind that the mildest love scene shown on prime time TV today, would have gotten an 'R' rating in the 70's.
Brad could feel Kathy's heart beat quicken and her breathing was more labored. After the love scene, the movie went to commercial. Brad took his hand, guided Kathy's face to his and started kissing her, they moved around on the couch as their kissing intensified.
To this day, Brad couldn't remember where it came from, but a red plastic twist tie then fell out of his shirt pocket and onto the floor. They both reached for it and they ended up on the floor, their kissing turned into a major make out session.
Kathy thought it funny that, here she had been married, had a child and been divorced, but had never made out with a man in her life, before Brad. Sure she had done some innocent kissing with Fred, before he raped her, a little more with Dan, but this was something totally different. This last month with Brad, she'd fallen head over heels in love with him. She almost felt as tho she was a virgin with him, because he actually was the first guy she had ever done anything like this with, and was the first guy that had ever given her feelings like she wanted sex.
And now. . .
Kathy's nether regions were tingling, she was soaking wet. She had never, ever, been aroused like this in her life. This had been going on for a month now and they were both ready. Kathy protested as Brad pulled away from her and stood up, but the protests didn't last, he bent down, picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom. Once there, they undressed each other and continued to make out.
This was a first for them both. Brad's first time having sex in a bed (that he could actually remember), rather than in the backseat of a car. And Kathy's first time having someone who cared enough, to take the time to make sure she was ready before shoving their cock inside of her. The first time that a man actually made love to her. Brad and Kathy both just enjoyed the feeling of lying naked in each others arms, the emotions that it brought out.
They continued to make out for quite a while, then Kathy experienced another first. Brad suckled and played with her breasts, no one had ever done that before. Fred had never touched her breasts a single time, he was always in a hurry and usually just left her top on, hurried up and did the deed. Funny thing about the other guy, Dan had tried to feel her breasts up a couple if times, and she always pushed his hands away. But, when she finally gave in to his advances, he never even lifted her shirt up or touched her breasts at all.
When Brad sucked on her right breast, a surge of pleasure ran through Kathy's body and made her tingle even more.
When Kathy informed Brad that no one had ever paid any attention to her breasts before, he thought,
"Guys that don't like tits, what the fuck is wrong with them?"
And for the first time in her life, she had the craving for a man to shove his cock inside of her.
NOW!
When Brad gently penetrated her, she was so wet, there was almost no resistance, but once he was inside of her, he could feel her vagina tighten around his cock. He knew then, that there was no way that Natalie could have been with only one guy before him. She had been so sloppy, he could have stuck a baseball bat inside of her.
They continued kissing as this screw went on, and by the time Brad was ready to come, Kathy had wrapped her legs around him and had her hands on his buttocks pulling him in as he thrust. Brad's cock was not near as big as Fred's, but it felt so much better. Brad was able to last several minutes before he shot a huge load, deep inside of her. Afterwards, they lay in each others arm's for the longest time. Kathy was in heaven, now she finally knew what they meant when they said that sex was wonderful, it was. . . With Brad.
After that first time, they couldn't keep their hands off of each other, then after about a week, Brad moved in with her. Within that first week, Fred had found out about Brad and was not at all happy, he called Kathy and she answered the phone in the kitchen.
"I hear you dumped me and now you're with some twenty year old kid!"
Kathy just stood there while he screamed at her loud enough, that Brad could hear him all the way in the living room.
"He's a hell of a lot more of a man than you'll ever be!!" Kathy shouted back.
"We'll see about that!" he retorted.
A few minutes later, Fred showed up at the door. Brad, not knowing what to expect,
"Hell, this guy might be six foot, eight," he thought to himself, as he answered the door.
"Hi," Brad heard, in this sheepish little voice.
Brad was five foot, eight, and weighed one eighty. Most of his weight was in his shoulders and arms, and Fred was five foot six and weighed only about one fifty. After getting a good look at Brad, his anger was subdued quite a bit, he spoke nicely to Kathy for a few minutes and left, he never caused any trouble after that.
Fred's brothers wanted to 'get him,' but after Brad moved an old Ben Franklin stove out of Kathy's trailer by himself, they didn't want to mess with him. The stove belonged to Fred's dad, and he wanted it back. Brad remembered how funny it had been, and just how stupid those guys were. He hadn't use his strength to move it, he used his brain, he 'walked' it over to, and then out of the front door onto the deck.
When Fred and his brothers came to get it, they expected to have to go into the mobile home to retrieve it. Remembering how much trouble they had getting it in there, they just looked at each other, puzzled.
"How in the hell did you get that out of there by yourself? It took three of us to get that damned thing in there?!!"
Brad just shrugged his shoulders and smiled at them. Needless to say, there was never any trouble.
After Brad and Kathy were married, Fred never had anything more to do with his child either, so Brad adopted him. A few years later, Fred remarried, and four years into his new marriage, Fred started a three year prison sentence for lewd conduct, and rape.
While he was away in prison, many things came out about him. He was a sexual predator, he had raped several women, including family members. And as it turns out, was cheating on Kathy, with men. He was bi-sexual and seemed to prefer men over his wife. The rapes also explained why Fred had always just thrown Kathy on the bed the way he did, that's what turned him on. He had used Kathy as cover for his exploits and his lifestyle. She felt ashamed that she had never reported the rape, if she had, maybe it would have prevented him from assaulting more victims. Kathy was really embarrassed that she had actually married him too.
Brad told her that she probably should have reported the rape and not to feel embarrassed about marrying him, but,
"You were young, and you thought you were doing what was best, we all make mistakes. Look what happened to me, I was young and inexperienced just like you, when I got involved with Natalie. The what if's are always in your mind. What if you would have told on him, and he was arrested. You never would have married him. . . Remember, when you married him, I was only fifteen and you probably would have met someone else besides me. Although I don't like to think about you being with him, if you had never spent those few years with him while I became old enough to be with you. . . Then the circumstances that put you where you were the day I was washing my car. . . There's a real good chance that we would have never met and I feel like things turned out just fine. I don't know where I'd be without you in my life."
Brad put his arms around her after he told her this, he had made her feel so much better.
After getting out of prison, Fred went back to his wife for a few years, then they divorced and he moved to Louisiana. Last word was that he had married again, but nobody could confirm that. Then, last year, word came that Fred had died of cancer. Brad had been a little sad when he died (thinking of his own father), because he was his oldest son's biological father. But, after he thought about the rapes, any sympathy he felt, went away.
********
"How could so much time have passed like it has?" Brad said quietly to himself.
After all of the emotional strife he had been through in his early life, all of the physical pain he had gone through, and still did, from his accident. His biggest fear was, that his wife would cheat on him. He trusted her, but as pretty as she was, and all of the guys hitting on her all of the time, he didn't trust them.
Brad thought about that old Dr. Hook song,
"When you're in love with a beautiful woman. . . You watch her eyes. . . When you're in love with a beautiful woman. . . You look for lies. . . Everybody tempts her. . . Everybody tells her. . . She's the most beautiful woman they know. . . "
Then he heard the back door open.
"Brad, supper's ready, come in and eat."
********
To be continued. . .
Once again, for those of you that actually read the whole long version, this will look familiar. I broke it down into chapters and the conclusion to the long version will be chapters seven and eight.
As I said before, in the first couple of chapters, I try to paint a picture of who Brad is and how he met Kathy. I just wanted readers to get to know Brad on a personal level. In chapter 4, we get to the main theme.
This is Ch. 3 of the dividing up of the original 'Only in a Dream '.
Brad's thoughts and memories continue after hearing about his nephew's girlfriend's cheating. Still sitting out on his deck under the metal roof, the rain is now coming down hard. People cheating seems to surround his thoughts, as he thinks about some of his former neighbors and the loss of a dear friend.
He thinks about his father briefly, and about how life has fared for some of these people that he has been reminiscing about. He remembers the first time he and Kathy made love and the experiences that he and Kathy had with other people before they came together.
If you've stuck with the story (or read the original epic), thank you. I will turn on the comments after the final chapter.
*
As the rain continued to come down, Brad looked down hill and a little ways to the left and looked at the house that sat there. It was now abandoned and in need of extensive repairs. The most recent family to live there, had refinanced it several times during the mortgage loan crisis of 2007/2008. When their interest rate went up, they could no longer afford the payments and just walked away from the house.
Before moving, they somehow managed to acquire twenty five cats, then after the move, they left the felines inside of the house with no food or water, and no litter box. Apparently they had done this, to 'get back' at the bank for raising their interest rate. When the Realtor opened the door a month later. . . Well the mess was horrible.
The bank that now held the mortgage was located several hundred miles away and the home fell into a state of disrepair. The house was located right next to the woods and a window was somehow broken out, then wild animals managed to get in, the house was now a real mess.
As Brad thought about the people that had lived in the house, he couldn't help but recall the incidents that had happened that fit the theme of what he was trying to stop thinking about since he'd been out here on the deck.
********
He remembered the man (husband and father) that had lived there. Brad had talked with him a couple of times, he brought to mind good ol' Todd. He was twenty nine years old, about six feet tall, nice looking, and very cocksure. He really had an attitude and also reminded Brad of a teenage boy strutting his stuff around.
A young newly married couple had moved into the house next door to him and his wife. They were both nineteen and to anyone who didn't know better, the husband didn't look a day older than about fourteen. He was small in stature and had little or no facial hair whatsoever. The wife, on the other hand, was an absolute babe. About five foot seven, one hundred and ten pounds and 36 C breasts, she probably looked older at the age of fourteen, than her husband did now.
The young couple had just moved into town. Their entire lives had been spent living in a rural setting at least twenty miles from anything other than towns with populations of no more than a couple hundred people. So, they were both very naive. Even tho this small town was only about twenty thousand people, it was the big city to them.
The husband worked at a local factory on the seven p.m. to seven a.m. shift. The young wife made a habit of taking their large dog out for walks around the neighborhood during the evening after he left for work.
Mr. attitude next door took notice and started walking his dog at the same time. It just so happened that his wife was a nurse at a hospital thirty miles away, and also worked the same hours as the young girl's husband.
Before long, they were walking together, and the young wife, having never been around a confident, cocksure man like him before, fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The two fell into a sexual affair rather quickly. They would be out walking their dogs and the young girl would be practically hanging all over him as they walked, so it had become quite obvious what was taking place. Then he started spending the night with her.
Several times, as he was leaving for work at midnight, Brad had seen the man sneaking across the yard to the young couple's home. Kathy would let their dogs out early in the morning and had watched the man sneak out of the girl's back door and run home, before their spouses came in from work.
Kathy told Brad about the one morning that they must have overslept, because young girl's husband was going in the front door, just as the neighbor was sneaking out of the back. They only missed each other by about ten seconds.
It appeared that the man would wait until his children were asleep, then sneak next door, leaving his kids alone all night. Then, would sneak back home in the morning, getting the children up and off to school. Then he would leave for work.
The young husband finally figured it out and they moved. Brad and Kathy never knew if Mr attitude's wife ever figured it out or not.
********
"That shit is going on all over," thought Brad.
Brad remembered when both of those houses were built. The abandoned one was built not long after they had moved here. The man who built the home and his wife lived there for a while after it was completed. But, his wife liked the location of another house he was building better, and when it was complete, they had moved into it.
The home where the young couple had lived was built about eight years ago, a nice, but kind of quirky guy lived there now with his eighteen year old son. He was a widower, his wife had died of cancer a few years before.
Brad remembered his friend, Greg Rogers, who had lived in the older house before the people that abandoned it. Then he remembered how Greg's family had all assumed that Kathy and he were having an affair.
People just couldn't seem to believe that a woman as beautiful as Kathy could be married to Brad and not be playing around with other men on the side.
It seemed like, no matter which way Brad tried to turn, or what he looked at, it involved cheating, or rumors of cheating.
********
Just as he had with Matt, Brad had also gone to high school with Greg. He was a functioning alcoholic. Except for constantly repeating himself, it was actually hard to tell that he was intoxicated. But hell, he had also been a drunk in high school.
His family owned a thriving business in town and were wealthy, they took care of his expenses with his trust fund that had been in the bank since he was born. Greg (actually his father) had purchased the house from the builder after he and his wife moved.
A couple of years after he moved in, Greg married Jenifer, she was twelve years younger than him. Just about everybody that knew her, also knew what she was after when she married him. In layman's terms, she was a gold digging cunt. She tried for a couple of years to get pregnant, when she finally did, Jenifer bragged that the family fortune would soon be be hers.
After the birth of their daughter, Jenifer ran off with one of the guys she was fucking around with, Greg now was her baby sitter while she bar hopped and seemed to have a new man every other week.
Greg's first wife had left him for his best friend, then she moved on and married someone else. So this was strike two for Greg.
Brad was helping Greg cut some brush down on his property, when Greg's mother stopped by to visit. She noticed that Greg wasn't real good at keeping his house clean. She asked Brad if his wife would be interested in being paid fifty dollars to clean Greg's house once a week. Kathy said she would do it, fifty dollars for about an hour or two's work was not bad.
Kathy started going over once a week and her and Greg would talk while she cleaned. Brad would sometimes go over and visit with Greg and drink a few beers with him while Kathy cleaned. Greg was drawn to her the same as Matt had been, and started calling to talk to her almost every evening. As with most alcoholics, he would repeat himself over and over, he mostly complained about his ex wives, but he would tell Kathy how he respected Brad, but if there was anything that ever happened to come between Brad and her, he wanted a chance with her. Kathy felt sorry for him, but thought that he had kind of brought this on himself by drinking so much.
Brad was never worried too much, because he knew Greg was a drunk. Unlike Matt, who was obviously pursuing Kathy, Greg was harmless. It wasn't in his nature to try and get with a married woman, but it was easy to see that he'd fallen in love with Kathy.
********
Brad's mood became a little morose now, he almost wished he hadn't thought about Greg. He had died from liver cancer, six years earlier and he hadn't told anyone he was sick, not even his second wife, so it was a shock.
That also meant that Jenifer had to start raising her own child too. It put a serious damper on her partying.
********
Kathy had been cleaning Greg's house for five years when, one day she went over to clean and there was no answer at the door. His car was there, so, she went back home and called his mother. She told her that she was supposed to be there at one o'clock to clean, but he wasn't answering.
Greg's mom told her that she would be there in about ten minutes. The tone of her voice worried Kathy, something in it just didn't sound right. She waited until she saw his mom's car pull up and her and Brad walked back over to Greg's.
As Kathy greeted Greg's mother, she told Kathy to wait outside, as she unlocked the door and went inside. Kathy was a little confused by his mom's demeanor, the cold look she had on her face and the way she had told her to wait outside. She knew something was very wrong.
A moment later, Greg's mom emerged with her cell phone in her hand and hugged Kathy. She handed Kathy a gold bracelet.
"He loved you and he wanted you to have this."
"Wwwhat?" said Kathy.
"He's gone now, his suffering is over," his mother said quietly.
Kathy then came to the realization that Greg had died.
And she remembered when she had listened to his usual rant about his exes the night before, he had begged her to come and see him, he needed to talk to her, it was important. Kathy hadn't gone, she was busy working on someone's suit that they needed rather quickly, and she didn't go. She felt so guilty about not going over to see Greg.
"He knew he was going to die. . . And he needed to tell me something," she thought.
His mother told Kathy that Greg had been diagnosed with liver cancer about six years before, and was really surprised that he'd lived as long as he had. No on else knew, only Greg, his mother, and father.
Kathy's emotions were all over the place, as were Brad's. He was a dear friend, they would miss him.
At his funeral, there were whispers about Greg and Kathy, so it was obvious to Brad and Kathy both, that he'd told his mother that he was in love with her. She had already told Kathy as much. He'd never told his mom outright that they were having an affair, but after telling her that he was in love with Kathy, they all just assumed.
The family also gave a bunch of his other personal items to her. Brad and Kathy both had a hunch that they knew what Greg was going to tell her. He'd dropped hints about how he felt about her, but since he knew his time was up, he had to tell her that he loved her face to face.
********
Brad wondered if Kathy was about done with supper, as he was getting pretty hungry.
!!!!!KA BOOM!!!!!. . . Another clap of thunder roared after lightning struck close by again.
"HOLY SHIT!!" Brad said, "That scared the living shit out of me!"
It took a few minutes for Brad's heartbeat to slow down after that. He thought about Greg and how he missed seeing him out walking around the neighborhood.
He sat and reflected over how things had turned out now, all these years later for some of these people he'd been thinking about.
********
On a happy note, Brad and Jack were still best friends.
A while after they met, when they were both just sixteen, Brad's aunt and uncle had come from out of state to visit his grandma and grandpa for a few days. Their daughter Keisha (Brad's cousin), who was two years younger than Brad and Jack, had come with them. She was very pretty, and Jack was infatuated immediately.
Jack was very disappointed when they had to leave for home. Over the next couple of years, they came back to visit a few more times and Jack always seemed to be close at hand.
After Brad took up with Kathy, he and Jack were still good friends, but they didn't spend as much time together, because Brad was spending all of his time with Kathy. Then Brad was in the accident and was in and out of the hospital for all those months. Jack had also been best man at Brad and Kathy's wedding.
Jack dated a couple of girls, but none were serious. He still had a crush on Keisha. After she graduated high school, Keisha enrolled at the local college and came to live with grandma. Brad played matchmaker, telling Jack about Keisha coming to stay at grandma's. Brad still felt a little guilty, tho he would never change anything, that he had ended up with the girl Jack had wanted first.
Long story short, Jack and Keisha got together, were married within a year and have four children together. They're still married.
Kathy's sister, Tina was now on her third marriage. She had / has cheated on every one of her husbands, and has lost count of how many guys she has actually been with. Tina had always been very competitive with Kathy, almost like she had to prove that she was better. She slept with every one of Kathy's ex boyfriends, including her ex husband. She also slept with. . . Wait for it. . . Todd.
How does that old Z Z Top song go?
"I know a girl that lives on the hill, she won't do it, but her sister will."
Now in her late forties, Tina had spent some time in prison for embezzlement and the years have taken a toll on her looks, however, she still believed she is a goddess and could attract any man she wanted. Supposedly separated from her husband (he still lived with her) and back on the public dole, and only eighteen months out of the slammer, she lives with all of the amenities that anyone could ask for. And is screwing the Government over once again.
And Todd. . . Almost have to feel sorry for him. Poor sap. . . Now on his fifth marriage. With each marriage, the girls kept getting younger and he had already started fucking each of the new ones, before he divorced the previous one. His current wife is younger than his oldest son, the baby that his first wife supposedly 'trapped him' with. He has children with all, but the second wife, she was able to see through his BS pretty quickly and bailed before she became pregnant. He also has a child with an ex girlfriend (who was married to someone else at the time) from high school. Then, there are two more with two other young women in a town twenty five miles to the south. All together, there are eleven children with seven different women.
Todd did get a taste of his own medicine tho. His fourth wife, who he stayed with the longest, had a little affair of her own with a man from her workplace and Todd was none too pleased.
It all appears to be an odd situation tho. It seems that his current wife and all of his ex wives, including the three women he had children with out of wedlock, are all good friends. They all get together frequently. Almost like a club. . . The women of Todd. Needless to say, Christmas is probably a real circus at his house.
Brad wondered how Todd supported his current wife, having to pay all of that child support.
Also, Todd never divorced any of his wives. . . They all divorced him after they found out about his dalliances.
********
By now, Brad had all but given up on planning his model railroad. He closed the book and sat it down on the small plant stand that sat beside him.
Again a more somber tone took over his thoughts, as he sat and pondered what he was going to do now.
********
Brad had never liked the idea of people cheating on each other. He had felt this way ever since he had been very young. He wasn't really sure why it affected him like it did. Because of his upbringing, Brad had always considered sex as an expression of love between two people, not a sport. How could someone possibly claim to love one person, then go out and have sex with someone else. It was for this reason, that Brad had held back when he first met Kathy.
An entire month passed before Brad and Kathy had sex for the first time. He wasn't going to repeat mistakes he'd made in the past. Brad was absolutely sure that he was in love with Kathy by then.
He would see a cheating situation on TV or in a movie and it would sometimes bother him for days afterward. Maybe it was what he saw his mother go through and the way she suffered over the loss of his father. The loss of a spouse because of a death was horrible enough, he knew this firsthand. But, knowing the person that had promised to love you was showing that love to someone else. . . It was something he just couldn't fathom. Brad feared being cheated on more than death itself.
He remembered what his aunt, his dad's older sister told him. She said, that just a few days before his death, his father had sat and cried, because he was so worried about how his wife and young son would get along without him. He needed to be there to take care of them,
"Would they be alright?"
Brad knew that his father would have never left willingly, if he could have prevented his own death, he would have done so, not for himself, but for his wife and young child.
Brad had also witnessed the love his grandparents shared. After grandpa's death, grandma lived for twenty five more years, to the age of ninety eight, but she was never interested in, or even so much as looked any other man. That's the kind of love Brad wanted and felt he had found it with Kathy.
As Brad sat there, his eyes became a little misty, his youngest son was now twenty five and he looked just like his namesake. . . Brad's father. Comparing photos, he even stood and held himself just like he did.
Eric Clapton's song, "In My Father's Eyes " came to mind as he thought about how much he loved his family and how much he loved Kathy.
Brad's mind wandered to the different experiences that he and Kathy had gone through before they found each other all those years ago.
********
Before Kathy, Brad had been with two other girls. He had a seven month relationship with Natalie Walden, a girl he met the summer he was eighteen. They met after talking to one another on the CB radio one night. She was the first girl that seemed to really like him. Or so he thought.
Brad worked as an auto mechanic during the day and Natalie worked evenings as a waitress in a small town about ten miles from where Brad lived. He would only go and see her on the weekends, when they were both off. Although there were a lot of red flags, Brad, being inexperienced and full of raging hormones, ignored them. After getting to know her, and losing his virginity to her, he thought he loved her. She claimed to have had sex with only one other guy before him, but in hindsight, Brad thought she was most likely lying.
They had already broken up, when Natalie found that she was pregnant. Because of the way he'd been raised, taught to do the right thing. The thought of the baby being without a father was something he didn't want his child to ever have to experience, Brad offered to marry Natalie.
She said, "No."
As horny as Natalie seemed to be all of the time, Brad wondered if she had been screwing around with anyone else during the week while they were apart.
"Is the baby even mine?"
Right after they first broke up, Brad was hurt, but Natalie was adamant, she didn't want to be with him anymore. She was two months pregnant when the breakup occurred, by the time the baby was born, Brad had not seen her for seven months. It was another month before he found that she'd had the baby and by then, Brad was for the most part, over Natalie. He realized that he had been 'in lust,' not in love, and was in a way, glad that they had broken up. There were just too many things they didn't agree about, Brad saw that it would have never worked between them.
After Natalie gave birth, Brad visited her and the baby a few times. One time, she asked him if he'd ever thought about getting back together. He told her he hadn't really thought about it and she never said anything again.
He could never see any resemblance between him and the baby, but that didn't mean anything. She didn't necessarily look like Natalie either.
Less than a year later, Brad met Kathy. Then, he was really thankful that things had never worked out with Natalie. Now he new what being in love really was. After they had been together about two months, Brad took Kathy to meet his one year old baby daughter. Natalie was not there, her mother was babysitting. That was the last time Brad saw the baby.
While he was in the hospital from his accident, he received papers from the court indicating that Natalie's mother was seeking custody of the baby. Unless he wanted to protest it, he didn't need to appear. He was in traction at the time, and just couldn't seem to fit it into his schedule, so he never appeared. After Natalie's mother gained custody, she took the baby and moved away.
At times, Brad wondered about where they were, what the little girl looked like, if one day she might come looking for him.
"Has she already scoped me out?" he wondered.
He'd seen a few girls that were about the right age that looked an awful lot like Natalie,
"Could one of them possibly be my daughter?" Brad asked himself.
One day, ten years after he'd last seen the baby, Brad received a phone call from Natalie's mother. She explained what had happened, why she'd gone after, and gained custody of the little girl. Seems Natalie had gone out on a date and left the baby with her one evening, in fact, if she remembered right, thought it was the evening that Brad had brought Kathy to visit. She said Natalie never returned that night, she showed up three years later, after she'd (Natalie's mother) gained custody and moved.
"Your daughter really wants to meet you. We aren't seeking any support, or money or anything, she just wants to meet her father," she told him.
They lived in a small town one hundred and eighty miles north, about three hours away. Brad agreed to go and see her, but Kathy wasn't so sure if it was a good idea or not.
"You don't even know if that little girl is yours or not," she said, concerned.
"That's true, but my name is on the birth certificate and she believes I'm her father, so we are going to see her," Brad said firmly.
It just so happened that Brad's days off were going to fall on the weekend the upcoming week, so he, Kathy, and their children made the trip up for a visit. Once he laid eyes upon the little girl, he knew she was his daughter. When she stood next to his daughter with Kathy, there was no doubt. They looked so much alike, that she could have passed for Brad and Kathy's child.
He was then glad he had made the trip. Both of his daughters now had a sister and his older daughter now had a father, he could quit looking at little girls, and wondering if one might be. . .
His older daughter now has three daughters of her own.
"Unreal," he thought.
Brad's other encounter was one he would rather forget. Brad's grandpa had died about a month before Natalie gave birth and he began to drink a little, it helped numb the pain. There was a girl that he had been out with a couple of times, more as friends and drinking buddies than romantically (though they had made out a couple of times). She was very pretty, but she had been with a lot of guys and Brad didn't want to get involved with someone, that a lot of his friends could say,
"Hey, I fucked her too."
Her older sister had had the hots for Brad for as long as he could remember, but he was never interested. Something about her rubbed him the wrong way. If she'd had a better attitude and personality, he might have considered it, because she was by no means, ugly.
One night at a party, he drank way too much and felt like he needed to lie down. He found a bedroom, went in and passed out. He had been there, only for a few minutes, when he thought he heard the door to the room open and the sound of someone moving around. A short time later, he felt a naked body in bed beside him. He passed out again. He had a vivid dream as he drifted in and out of his drunken stupor. He awoke in the morning to what he thought had been a horrible nightmare of having sex with his drinking buddy's older sister.
He rolled over and there she was, lying there naked, an. . . And. . . So was he, holy sh. . . "Yikes!" She had even brought her own condoms. She put one on him and climbed on.
Then he remembered, that during the night, someone had opened the door to the bedroom and turned the light on, and a girl's voice,
"Ewwwe, there's somebody in there fucking."
"Oh my God!" he thought he'd dreamed that.
That last thought creeped Brad out, he'd see that girl (woman now) out around town, usually in Walmart, and she still gave him the willies. It had almost made him scared of the dark, it gave a whole new meaning to the phrase,
"Things that go bump in the night."
He also quit drinking after that episode too.
As Kathy's past came to mind, he felt a hint of jealousy towards her ex husband, and wished circumstances would have been different, it pained him to think about what she went through.
Brad kind of felt the course of events surrounding her first marriage, and the fact that he'd had a child with Natalie made it even between them. But, even tho she was three years older that him, the thought of her ever being with anyone else really tore at his heart.
Kathy was born in California. Her father owned and operated a filling station and life seemed to be good. When her father got to be in his forties, he got restless, sold the filling station and purchased a semi truck, becoming an over the road truck driver.
After that life changing event, it wasn't long before Kathy's parents were having marital troubles. A couple of years after the purchase of the truck, when she was seventeen, her parents problems led to her mother leaving everything behind and running away, back to Ohio. Kathy would be eighteen shortly, but she had no means to support herself, so she didn't really have a choice.
Kathy was very angry at her mother for taking her away from her life and her friends without even letting her say goodbye to anyone. They had only taken what they could get into the car on short notice, then fled in the middle of the night. Her father followed them to Ohio, her mother and he reconciled, but it only lasted for a few months, then her mother divorced him. Kathy's whole world was falling apart. Torn away from her friends and stuck here in this little town, not knowing anyone, she just wanted to go back home.
When her aunt introduced her to her husband's younger brother, Kathy was excited a little, because he was older than her and she thought he was handsome. Fred Carter was twenty one, three years older than Kathy. He was infatuated with her immediately, and wanted to go out with her. Their first date went well, she thought he seemed nice and they got along well, so they started dating. It was just casual, more like friends going out. She liked him, but didn't really feel a romantic connection with him. He would kiss her goodnight, but there was never any necking, and absolutely no sex.
After they had been dating for about a month, he pulled her close and kissed her. She returned his kisses a little, then pushed him back, saying she wasn't ready for that yet. He then pushed her down to the ground, held her down, and raped her. It wasn't violent, he didn't give her any bruises or anything, just held her down and forced himself on her. She tried to resist, but he was too strong.
She didn't want to lose her virginity like this, she had saved that for someone special, now this jerk had destroyed any chance of that. She felt so guilty, and from then on, she associated guilt with sex.
She never told anyone, as she didn't want to cause trouble in the family, because of Fred's older brother being married to her aunt. And besides, would they believe her?
Brad was the first and only person Kathy ever told about the rape, that was only last year, after Fred had died. She knew Brad would have found him and hurt him. Not that she cared, just that she didn't want Brad to get into trouble.
She stopped dating Fred and told him to stay away from her. Her aunt was saddened, she thought they were doing so well and had a future together. Kathy had also become friends with Fred's sister, Angie, before Fred and her had ever started dating. Angie thought they were a couple and thought there would be a wedding.
A few days after she broke it off with Fred, Kathy, now a senior, met Dan Martin when he approached her at school. He was about six foot two and very good looking. Kathy wasn't even sure if she wanted to date right now, after the ordeal with Fred, but Dan persisted and she finally started dating him. He came along at just the right time, Kathy was hurt over what Fred had done to her, then there were all of the problems she was having at home. Her mother could see the type of guy Dan was (just like Todd), and told Kathy that she didn't want her seeing him. Her life at home, only got worse, she and her mother fought more and more about everything, including Dan.
Kathy didn't have any place else she could go either, it seemed her other relatives here, all had similar troubles.
She started feeling rebellious, almost to the point she didn't care about anything anymore. Her mother had yanked her away from her home, her life, her friends in California and drug her here to this God forsaken little town. She had hardly any friends, almost all of her possessions were left in California, and now she'd been raped.
Kathy knew she couldn't say anything at all about what Fred had done. If her dad or her brother either one found out, she suspected that they would kill him, and she didn't want that.
The final blow was when her mother let the man who would eventually become Kathy's stepfather, move into the family home with them. And here she was, telling Kathy, who was now eighteen, who she could and couldn't date??!!! And yet, she let a man move into her own bedroom?!
Kathy had managed to keep Dan at bay, her only sexual encounter was still the rape. But, extremely upset, thinking she was getting back at her mother, she had sex with Dan. He had been trying since their first date, so she just gave into him one night. They only had sex the one time, Kathy didn't like it at all. All of the girls at school raved at how wonderful sex was supposed to be but. . . She tried to get into it, and did feel a little sexual attraction towards Dan, something she never felt at all with Fred. She really just didn't feel that much of an attraction to Dan, either. He only kissed her a little, all he ever talked about was going out and getting high and how much he really wanted to have sex with her.
Kathy's guilt kept her from really getting wet, she was reluctant to let him enter her. After he did, it was no different, it hurt this time too, even tho, Dan was so much smaller than Fred. She was relieved, when it only took him a short time to finish.
He assumed that he'd taken her virginity, because she did bleed. But, it wasn't from a broken hymen, it was from friction and lack of lubrication. Dan then removed the condom and threw it out of the window of his car.
"Oh my God, that's so gross. What if somebody finds that!! she thought.
The guilt she felt afterward was horrible and lasted for weeks, she cried herself to sleep for several nights. Kathy avoided Dan after that, she knew she had made a big mistake by giving into him. She didn't know if her mother somehow found out about what had happened or not, but her mom forbid her from seeing him anymore and told her she couldn't leave the house.
"I'm eighteen, I can do what I want," Kathy told her mother.
Her mother's reply was,
"As long as you live under my roof, you'll do as I say, or you can find someplace else to go."
Fred's sister and Kathy talked on the phone frequently, so Angie was aware of all the conflict in Kathy's home. She told Kathy that she could come stay with her for a while as soon as she was out of school if she wanted.
Graduation was just a few weeks away, so as soon as she was out of school, Kathy went to stay with Angie at her home, which was located about six miles out in the country. Unknown to Kathy, Angie had ulterior motives. When she had asked Kathy to come and stay, she told Fred that Kathy was there, and tried to patch things up between them. He started coming to Angie's several times a week, under the guise that he was just visiting his sister, but he was really coming to see Kathy.
At first, she was repulsed, especially when Angie started pushing them to get married, and had even started planning the wedding.
Kathy wanted so bad to go back home, but things had gotten even worse there. Seems Kathy's brother had gotten into a fight with mom's new man, and her grandma had him (the man) arrested. Kathy's father kept trying to intervene and the police were constantly being called. It had turned into an all out war zone, so Kathy spent more and more time at Angie's.
Kathy almost felt like she could never go home again, there was too much turmoil going on there, and wasn't sure what she could do. She confided in Angie about the situation.
"You and Fred are going to end up married anyway, why don't you two just go ahead and get married now?" she said, "Then you'll have your own place."
After her conversation with Angie, she thought about it for a while, Kathy rationalized that this might be a good way out of her situation.
Call it mother's instinct, but Kathy's mom had reservations about Fred, and didn't particularly like the idea, but what could she say, Kathy was eighteen, and was no longer in her home, she could do what she wanted.
Although he had raped her, Fred was handsome; it seemed like he loved her; he had a good job and lived on his own; and his sister was already planning their wedding.
Kathy thought maybe she could learn to love him. He did take her virginity, she reasoned. She thought it may absolve some of her guilt about sex too. Kathy let Angie make all of the arrangements and there was a wedding, she reluctantly married Fred. Kathy knew she'd made a horrible mistake on her wedding night. She laid in bed and cried, while Fred had his way with her. He fucked her three times that night. His cock was huge, she wasn't turned on at all, moisture was almost non-existent inside of her vagina and he hurt her, terribly.
She had absolutely hated it this time too, she felt so guilty and so ashamed, like this was wrong somehow. This was her wedding night, she was supposed to be happy, but she wasn't and she was stuck, she had married him.
Maybe her mother had been right. She had always taught her that sex was for making babies, nothing more. Men were the only one's that got any pleasure out of it, and anything more than straight, regular intercourse, lying on her back, was absolutely wrong, period. Even if it was with her husband, because if she had anal sex, or God forbid, performed oral (man's pride as her mother called it), or even so much as touched a man's penis with her hand, her husband would accuse her of being a whore.
"If it starts to feel good for you, it's wrong!" her mother said, "And Ladies don't act like that."
Kathy's mother was not really that religious either, so why she believed the way she did, was anyone's guess. Then, her mother had let a man move in with her??? WTF??
After their wedding night, Fred rarely approached her for sex. Which was fine with Kathy. A year went by, they only had sex about five times. Each time, Fred would just come into the bedroom and do the same thing he had done when he raped her. No foreplay or anything so much as a kiss. He wouldn't even say anything, he'd just push her down, pull her pants off and enter her.
She very quickly learned to despise him, but Kathy felt that she had made this mistake on her own, so she stuck it out, hoping that things would get better.
They didn't.
Then two of Fred's brothers started making passes and dropping hints that they'd like to have a little piece of her. She told Fred, but he acted like he didn't really care, so Kathy then became scared that one of them would rape her the same as Fred had.
She loved to watch romantic movies, fantasizing about having a love like that, and wondered how she'd gotten herself into this mess. She hated that little prick in California, but she almost wished she'd gone back there after he'd called her. She didn't think he was near as bad as Fred.
Kathy wanted so bad to have a love like in those movies, but as much as she tried, she couldn't make herself fall in love with him. After two years of marriage, nothing had changed except, Fred couldn't seem to hold a job. He was constantly doing something stupid and getting fired from wherever he worked at the time. He rarely, if ever, bathed, and Kathy quit taking birth control pills because Fred barely made enough for them to survive, it was just another expense they couldn't afford. He hardly ever touched her anyway.
Kathy was in bed with a bad case of the flu, with a temperature of one hundred and four degrees. Fred came in drunk that evening and went about 'getting some.' She protested but, to no avail, he wouldn't stop. So she finally let him have his way, so she could just get it over with.
Kathy became pregnant.
Nine months later, she gave birth to a baby boy. She put the baby in between them in bed, then after a couple of weeks of getting woke up in the middle of the night, so Kathy could feed the baby and the like, Fred moved himself into another bedroom.
Mission accomplished.
Fred became a little more responsible and managed to get and keep a job in a coal mine. They purchased a new mobile home to replace the old one that Fred had owned before they were married. Kathy wrapped her life around the baby and the new home, they made things a little more tolerable.
In the two years following the birth of their son, Fred only approached Kathy for sex twice, he was drunk both times and it was in the same fashion as always. She had never gone back on the pill, so luckily, she didn't get pregnant either time. They seemed to get along pretty well, so long as he didn't try to touch her.
After five years of marriage, once again, Fred came in drunk, and unbathed. He pulled Kathy to the bedroom to have sex with her.
"No, I don't want to!" she told him.
When he protested, she held her ground, the ensuing argument woke the baby, now two. The baby came into the bedroom and tried to get to his mother, while Fred was trying to tear her pants off. In the struggle, the baby was knocked to the floor and started to cry. He was unhurt, but it had caused enough of a distraction that Fred backed off, he was pissed, and headed for the front door.
"I want a divorce!" he turned and screamed on his way out.
He left, and by morning, hadn't returned, so Kathy called her mother to take her into town, where she filed for a divorce. Her mother asked her why she hadn't done it sooner, she could tell that Kathy was miserable.
"I made this mess myself and I was determined to make it work, or live with the consequences. HE asked for the divorce, not me, so that's what he's getting," said Kathy.
In the five years since she left her mother's, things had calmed down quite a bit. Her mom had married the man that moved in, and her brothers and sister had all moved out of mom's house, except for her youngest brother. He was only sixteen. Her dad had moved away and was also remarried.
After filing for the divorce, Kathy went to stay with her mother until Fred was served, then moved back when he moved into his mother's house.
He fought with her, he didn't want a divorce, but he finally relented, letting it go through. Things were calm for a while, but then Fred started coming around and harassing Kathy. She took her son and moved into her brother's to get away, plus it was easier to get to her new job, because she rode with Eric to work. A couple of weeks later, Kathy met Brad and they were now together as a couple. This was the happiest she had ever been in a relationship.
In the weeks after she met Brad, Kathy was very busy. She now had her driver's license and had purchased an old car, so that she wouldn't have to depend up on her brother to get to work anymore. A month after, she decided that it was now time for her to move back home. This would be Brad and Kathy's first opportunity to actually have time alone, other than in a car. After Kathy's son was in bed asleep, they sat down to relax. Kathy's head was resting on Brad's shoulder as they sat on her couch watching a movie on television. As the movie progressed, a couple, having been to dinner and gone to see a play, ended up at the woman's apartment. She invited him in, half way through their drinks, they started kissing and it wasn't long before the couple were in bed making love. It was a very intense love scene, even if it was mostly implied.
Keep in mind that the mildest love scene shown on prime time TV today, would have gotten an 'R' rating in the 70's.
Brad could feel Kathy's heart beat quicken and her breathing was more labored. After the love scene, the movie went to commercial. Brad took his hand, guided Kathy's face to his and started kissing her, they moved around on the couch as their kissing intensified.
To this day, Brad couldn't remember where it came from, but a red plastic twist tie then fell out of his shirt pocket and onto the floor. They both reached for it and they ended up on the floor, their kissing turned into a major make out session.
Kathy thought it funny that, here she had been married, had a child and been divorced, but had never made out with a man in her life, before Brad. Sure she had done some innocent kissing with Fred, before he raped her, a little more with Dan, but this was something totally different. This last month with Brad, she'd fallen head over heels in love with him. She almost felt as tho she was a virgin with him, because he actually was the first guy she had ever done anything like this with, and was the first guy that had ever given her feelings like she wanted sex.
And now. . .
Kathy's nether regions were tingling, she was soaking wet. She had never, ever, been aroused like this in her life. This had been going on for a month now and they were both ready. Kathy protested as Brad pulled away from her and stood up, but the protests didn't last, he bent down, picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom. Once there, they undressed each other and continued to make out.
This was a first for them both. Brad's first time having sex in a bed (that he could actually remember), rather than in the backseat of a car. And Kathy's first time having someone who cared enough, to take the time to make sure she was ready before shoving their cock inside of her. The first time that a man actually made love to her. Brad and Kathy both just enjoyed the feeling of lying naked in each others arms, the emotions that it brought out.
They continued to make out for quite a while, then Kathy experienced another first. Brad suckled and played with her breasts, no one had ever done that before. Fred had never touched her breasts a single time, he was always in a hurry and usually just left her top on, hurried up and did the deed. Funny thing about the other guy, Dan had tried to feel her breasts up a couple if times, and she always pushed his hands away. But, when she finally gave in to his advances, he never even lifted her shirt up or touched her breasts at all.
When Brad sucked on her right breast, a surge of pleasure ran through Kathy's body and made her tingle even more.
When Kathy informed Brad that no one had ever paid any attention to her breasts before, he thought,
"Guys that don't like tits, what the fuck is wrong with them?"
And for the first time in her life, she had the craving for a man to shove his cock inside of her.
NOW!
When Brad gently penetrated her, she was so wet, there was almost no resistance, but once he was inside of her, he could feel her vagina tighten around his cock. He knew then, that there was no way that Natalie could have been with only one guy before him. She had been so sloppy, he could have stuck a baseball bat inside of her.
They continued kissing as this screw went on, and by the time Brad was ready to come, Kathy had wrapped her legs around him and had her hands on his buttocks pulling him in as he thrust. Brad's cock was not near as big as Fred's, but it felt so much better. Brad was able to last several minutes before he shot a huge load, deep inside of her. Afterwards, they lay in each others arm's for the longest time. Kathy was in heaven, now she finally knew what they meant when they said that sex was wonderful, it was. . . With Brad.
After that first time, they couldn't keep their hands off of each other, then after about a week, Brad moved in with her. Within that first week, Fred had found out about Brad and was not at all happy, he called Kathy and she answered the phone in the kitchen.
"I hear you dumped me and now you're with some twenty year old kid!"
Kathy just stood there while he screamed at her loud enough, that Brad could hear him all the way in the living room.
"He's a hell of a lot more of a man than you'll ever be!!" Kathy shouted back.
"We'll see about that!" he retorted.
A few minutes later, Fred showed up at the door. Brad, not knowing what to expect,
"Hell, this guy might be six foot, eight," he thought to himself, as he answered the door.
"Hi," Brad heard, in this sheepish little voice.
Brad was five foot, eight, and weighed one eighty. Most of his weight was in his shoulders and arms, and Fred was five foot six and weighed only about one fifty. After getting a good look at Brad, his anger was subdued quite a bit, he spoke nicely to Kathy for a few minutes and left, he never caused any trouble after that.
Fred's brothers wanted to 'get him,' but after Brad moved an old Ben Franklin stove out of Kathy's trailer by himself, they didn't want to mess with him. The stove belonged to Fred's dad, and he wanted it back. Brad remembered how funny it had been, and just how stupid those guys were. He hadn't use his strength to move it, he used his brain, he 'walked' it over to, and then out of the front door onto the deck.
When Fred and his brothers came to get it, they expected to have to go into the mobile home to retrieve it. Remembering how much trouble they had getting it in there, they just looked at each other, puzzled.
"How in the hell did you get that out of there by yourself? It took three of us to get that damned thing in there?!!"
Brad just shrugged his shoulders and smiled at them. Needless to say, there was never any trouble.
After Brad and Kathy were married, Fred never had anything more to do with his child either, so Brad adopted him. A few years later, Fred remarried, and four years into his new marriage, Fred started a three year prison sentence for lewd conduct, and rape.
While he was away in prison, many things came out about him. He was a sexual predator, he had raped several women, including family members. And as it turns out, was cheating on Kathy, with men. He was bi-sexual and seemed to prefer men over his wife. The rapes also explained why Fred had always just thrown Kathy on the bed the way he did, that's what turned him on. He had used Kathy as cover for his exploits and his lifestyle. She felt ashamed that she had never reported the rape, if she had, maybe it would have prevented him from assaulting more victims. Kathy was really embarrassed that she had actually married him too.
Brad told her that she probably should have reported the rape and not to feel embarrassed about marrying him, but,
"You were young, and you thought you were doing what was best, we all make mistakes. Look what happened to me, I was young and inexperienced just like you, when I got involved with Natalie. The what if's are always in your mind. What if you would have told on him, and he was arrested. You never would have married him. . . Remember, when you married him, I was only fifteen and you probably would have met someone else besides me. Although I don't like to think about you being with him, if you had never spent those few years with him while I became old enough to be with you. . . Then the circumstances that put you where you were the day I was washing my car. . . There's a real good chance that we would have never met and I feel like things turned out just fine. I don't know where I'd be without you in my life."
Brad put his arms around her after he told her this, he had made her feel so much better.
After getting out of prison, Fred went back to his wife for a few years, then they divorced and he moved to Louisiana. Last word was that he had married again, but nobody could confirm that. Then, last year, word came that Fred had died of cancer. Brad had been a little sad when he died (thinking of his own father), because he was his oldest son's biological father. But, after he thought about the rapes, any sympathy he felt, went away.
********
"How could so much time have passed like it has?" Brad said quietly to himself.
After all of the emotional strife he had been through in his early life, all of the physical pain he had gone through, and still did, from his accident. His biggest fear was, that his wife would cheat on him. He trusted her, but as pretty as she was, and all of the guys hitting on her all of the time, he didn't trust them.
Brad thought about that old Dr. Hook song,
"When you're in love with a beautiful woman. . . You watch her eyes. . . When you're in love with a beautiful woman. . . You look for lies. . . Everybody tempts her. . . Everybody tells her. . . She's the most beautiful woman they know. . . "
Then he heard the back door open.
"Brad, supper's ready, come in and eat."
********
To be continued. . .