1
Don opened his eyes and stared at the spinning ceiling fan. He’d been awake for a while, but was finally conceding to the inevitable truth: he wasn’t going back to sleep. It was still dark out and the blades of the fan spun silently, the edges illuminated by some unknown light source.
It had been a week since his wife had left, a month since his youngest daughter had gone off to college in another city, halfway across the state. Both of them, and his oldest daughter some years earlier, had gone off to start, or reclaim their lives. Lives that apparently did not include Don.
His daughters’ abandonment was understandable, foreseen, but his wife’s was a stunning blow out of nowhere. He came home from work to find her waiting for him on the couch, a small packed bag at her feet. She told him she was leaving. Just like that. “I’m leaving.” He fell into his chair trying to make sense of this non sequitur. It was clear what she meant, but it was related to nothing that he could understand.
She stood up with her bag in hand. “The girls are gone. It’s time for me to live again. I’m joining an artist commune on the east coast. I want to get back to painting again. I want to feel again. I can’t do that living with a robot. When was the last time you kissed me, Don?”
Don just stared at her. What she was saying made no sense to him.
“Good luck Don,” she said finally. Then she was gone. When he tried to call her later, he found that she’d left her cell phone at home. So that was it. She didn’t even want to talk to him again.
Don spent the next week laying in bed and thinking. It was two days before he remembered to call work and tell them he was taking some time off. He had plenty of vacation time. He’d hardly ever used it except to help the girls or his wife with something.
Family vacations had pretty much ended when the girls were both in high school. And since then his wife had taken her vacations alone, to yoga retreats, artist workshops, and the like. Her plans never included Don.
So Don stayed home and “took care of things”. He figured that was his job as head of the house, to assist everyone else to accomplish their dreams. It had never occurred to him that he should have his own.
Don lay in bed that week thinking about Sheila’s final words to him. The first few days he floated in a dense fog of guilt and shame. But as time cleared the fog, Don’s brain started working again and he was able to start really parsing her words, trying to make sense of them.
Live again? What had she been doing? She’d seemed pretty alive to him. Yoga classes, book club, happy hour with friends, painting… When she was around him, Sheila spent most of her time complaining about her life: “The yard looks like shit,” “The house is too small”, “The kitchen is disgusting,” “Why won’t anyone buy my art?” and on, and on. Her life sounded like a series of tragedies that were somebody else’s fault. And since Don spent most of his time trying to rectify or prevent her complaints, her continued grievances felt to Don like a personal assault. Obviously, “live again,” meant living without him, because he was to blame for her previous, premature death. But what was she going to do without him to blame for everything that went wrong?
Get back to painting? When had she stopped painting? Don had converted half the garage into a painting studio for her. She spent a lot of the weekend, and many week nights, in there painting, leaving Don to take care of the house and the girls. He wondered what she thought she’d been doing all that time.
Kiss you? He’d stopped kissing her when she started turning her head away from him. And it wasn’t just kissing. Don hadn’t been laid in over ten years. But it wasn’t because of Sheila, not entirely. Sure, she’d shown no interest in having sex with him, but she also liked to complain about his lack of interest in having sex with her (naturally). And it wasn’t a matter of him having a waning libido, though he did like to let Sheila assume that was it. Mostly it was resentment; resentment at being ignored; resentment at being taken for granted; resentment of having to listen to complaining about his not helping enough, and not caring enough, and about how everything was his fault; resentment about being treated like a robot by everyone around him, until that was all that was left.
For the next several days Don concentrated on his resentment which grew into bitterness, and anger. He wallowed in it, stewed in it. At times he positively roiled on his bed not knowing what to do with all that hot anger.
“Fuck it,” Don said out loud as he watched the glint of light dance slowly up the length of each blade before jumping to the next.
What had holding on that resentment gotten him? Exactly this: emptiness. Don was surrounded by it, filled by it. What was the point of it? He’d never have closure. Even if he ever saw Sheila again, there’d be no point of telling her any of this. He already knew she wouldn’t listen. She’d deny it all and tell him it was just in his head.
And in a way, she was right. He’d let this resentment build up until it became a wall between them. Letting it go probably wouldn’t have solved anything, but at least he wouldn’t feel like this. Maybe it would’ve given them both a little more room in which to work things out.
He breathed in deeply and then slowly let it out. He felt better, lighter. He stretched himself out and suddenly realized he had a raging hard-on. Was it stubborn morning wood or his new found release?
Don moved his hand down to slide over his hard dick through his underwear. It felt good. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d masturbated. Hadn’t it been a month? More?
He slid his hand under his shorts and began to stroke himself. He closed his eyes… but all he could think of was Sheila. He tried to think of other women. He imagined that young girl who worked at the grocery store sliding down his body, her tongue running down the underside of his hard shaft until she reached his balls. But when she looked back up at him, it was Sheila. He imagined eating the pussy of that redhead at work. But when he stuck his fingers in her wet, trembling pussy and looked up to watch her squirm, it was Sheila. He imagined fucking that hot milf waitress from his favorite breakfast place. He’d take her from behind fucking her hard as he played with her big tits. But when she looked back at him, it was Sheila begging him to make her cum.
“Goddammit,” he sighed. He pulled his hand out, giving up. Already he could feel his hard-on fading. With a groan, Don swung his feet over and got out of bed. His phone told him it was 5am.
Don got up and took his first shower in a week. Then he made himself some breakfast, the first meal he’d eaten in a week that hadn’t been delivered.
When he was done, it was still dark outside. He looked around at the mess that had accumulated around him. He sighed, not wanting to start cleaning just yet. He’d take a walk. ‘Yeah, a walk would be nice.’ He thought for a moment about what he needed to do before he left. But there was nothing, no one. So he grabbed his keys and headed out.
Don walked down the sidewalk not headed anywhere. The sidewalks were empty. The silence was only occasionally broken by the hiss of passing tires. The sky began to turn dark blue signaling the coming of a new day, at last. He made random turns.
Finally Don found himself at the local school. He hadn’t been here in years. He used to walk his daughters to school here sometimes. Later they would come down here to the large park that surrounded the school on three sides. But those trips had long since passed as everyone found other, better things to do.
He headed for the undulating sidewalk that circled the edge of the park. In the east the clouds glowed orange, spreading their light out to the rest of the sky, turning it ever more luminous shades of blue.
Don could make out more and more of his surroundings as they revealed themselves from his memory. The playground, the benches, the soccer goals, the baseball diamonds. In the middle of the field…something. A pile of clothes? A large dead animal? There had been sporadic sightings of cougars and coyotes ever since they’d lived here. If there was a dead dog in the park then he’d need to tell someone about it.
He headed into the grass. Immediately he felt the dew on his ankles. In a few seconds his shoes were wet, bleeding through to his socks. Wait, was he even wearing socks?
As he got closer he decided it was too big for a dog. Was it a pile of clothes after all, then? He stared more intently now as he got closer. His pace slowed as the possibilities expanded in his mind.
Don stopped suddenly about ten or fifteen feet away. He could see legs now. It was a person. “Oh my god,” he thought. He moved slowly forward. This couldn’t be real. Here? He was side-stepping towards the lump now, ready to run if it was some sort of trap or prank.
It was a girl. She was lying on her back. He could see her face clearly in the growing light. She wasn’t moving. He felt in his pockets for his cell phone, but he’d left it at home. He quickly took the last few steps towards her, stopping a foot away to avoid contaminating the scene. His heart was beating fast.
What should he do? He didn’t want to leave her out here to run home and get his phone. He also didn’t want to be found out here looking over the body of a girl. He took a deep breath. He felt strangely calm.
He looked closely at her. He was certain now that she was dead. There were signs of violence. Her mascara was streaked as if she’d been crying. Her lipstick was smeared all around her mouth. There were nasty looking bruises on her neck that looked like choke marks. Her clothes were disheveled and her skirt was pulled up and her panties were pulled down around her knees, leaving her completely exposed. Don tried not to look at her pussy.
He knelt down in the wet grass and tentatively reached for her arm. She was wet with dew. She felt cold, but he wasn’t sure if that was just the wetness. He lay two fingers on her wrist. He didn’t really know what he was do…wait, there it was, a pulse. She was alive! He sighed deeply and settled further into the grass.
Don looked at her again, studying her for clues to her origin, or something. She was wearing black boots, like Doc Martens. She had horizontally striped black and white socks. One was pulled up over her calf, the other was pushed down to her boot. Her light pink panties seemed to be a thong, based on the lack of material. They were basically a small triangle of lace attached to a couple of strings. On each thigh was a tattoo of a raven about four inches high. They were facing each other. Her pussy was shaved clean. Two wavy, dark strips of flesh jutted out from her light pink mound.
Her skirt was short, black, and pleated. Above that she had on a small, tight white concert t-shirt. It had a logo and writing that he couldn’t make out. Even on her small frame (she couldn’t have been more than 5’2″, and maybe 100 lbs) the t-shirt was too small and exposed her flat, smooth stomach. It looked old, because he could clearly see the dark flesh of her quarter sized areolas and the outline of her nipples through the threadbare material. On her hip was a tattoo of a cute red octopus.
Her fingers wore several rings on each hand, and her wrists were covered with leather straps and other bangles. One arm had a colorful tattoo of flowers and vines that went from above the elbow to her shoulder. Thin wisps of vine traveled down to her forearm and up the side of her long, graceful neck.
Don could tell she was pretty, despite the state of her makeup. Her face was triangular, with a small chin, full cheeks, and high cheekbones. She had a small mouth with a full bottom lip that gave her a pouty look. Her eyes were large and almond shaped, set beside a small nose that turned slightly up at the bottom. Her short black hair was tangled about her head and face. A couple of thick, black strands were pasted to her forehead in the dawn wetness.
Don found himself thinking that she was pretty hot before he chastised himself for doing so. She was a victim, and in a wretched state, and probably underage. He felt ashamed of himself. He blamed his earlier hard-on and long abstinence. But still…
Now what the hell should he do? He couldn’t leave her, but she needed help. He looked around, there was no one anywhere. The school was still closed for summer. The headlights of a lone car floated silently past in the distance. He’d have to go to the road and try to flag down a car.
Don looked back at the girl. He should at least cover her up before he went, he thought. Carefully, he leaned forward, reaching out with one hand. He pinched the lower hem of her skirt between the tip of one finger and the nail of another. He pulled gently, slowly down. But it stopped short, caught beneath her. He pulled harder, but it still didn’t budge. He gave the skirt a yank. His hand slipped off the skirt and he lost his balance. He caught himself before he fell on top of her, but in the commotion his hand brushed her inner thigh.
“What the fuck, perv!”