Hey Folks, it's a new year, hopefully it will be one full of joy and happiness for all of us. There are so many things to look forward to. There's a new platform out there, the first normal production run Mustang with an independent rear suspension. I love the back of the car, but the rest may just take me a little time. I'm excited about the engine choices that are going to be possible, especially in a year or two when the standard GT gets 500 horsepower. I'm also excited to have the great Barney-R working with me and hopefully we can continue to write stories that you guys want to read. My plan this year is to mix it up a bit more. I think I Got a little stale last year because of my heavy duty schedule and all of my exams. So this year I want to get a bit wilder. Anyway, here's my slightly late New Year's story. But before I go, for all of you who asked about Delilah from the last story, she was based on a real person, who is out there on the internet. SS06

"Holy Shit! Something is going on," said Peggy loudly beside me.

As we watched the dance floor, I wondered again what she was talking about. It seemed to me that Peggy just fuckin' talked too much. Everyone talked about New Year's resolutions. Perhaps the best resolution for me would be to stop listening to Peggy, and to stop hanging out with her.

It was just like me to spend New Year's Eve, grieving for what I had lost. What made my grief worse was that I had caused it myself. My addiction had ruined my life as surely as if I had just thrown it all away. Like a gambler betting his life savings on one roll of a casino's loaded dice. Just me and Peggy on a New Year's Grieve.

It was, in fact, her idea for us to come to this boring party. Everyone around us seemed to be laughing and dancing and talking. They all seemed to be having a good time too. Peggy and I watched it all from our table on the edge of the room.

I wish that I could say that our table was exclusive. Well ... In a way I could. There was no one at our table except Peggy and me. Not that we planned it. No one seemed to have any interest in dancing with us, or partying with us. They seemed to be more interested in pointing at us when they thought we weren't listening.

I was sure that they were whispering about us. How dare we show our faces here? The party we were at was our small Michigan town's New Year's Eve blowout.

I suppose there was a time when I would have enjoyed this party immensely. There was a time when I would be there among the party goers, wearing my own silly hat, and holding on to my husband for all I was worth.

There was a time when I would have been pretending to dance among all the others and screaming at the top of my lungs. I say pretending to dance because all I ever did was move my feet while rubbing my pussy against Gary as hard as I could.

To me, the best thing about the party was always what came afterwards when we got home. Both of our kids were born nine months after New Year's Eve parties.

Maryanne was conceived in our living room. We couldn't wait to get upstairs. Gary had just ripped my dress off of me and fucked me on the floor with the door standing open where anyone passing by could have seen us.

And two years later, with Benny it was even worse. Gary had just dragged me outside of the hall and around to the side of the building. He had pushed me against the wall, pulled my dress up, and fucked me in the cold night air.

It was supposed to just be a quickie, to take the edge off of the desire we had built up while dancing. However, we got so into to it that I ended up on the ground on all fours with my ass in the air, while Gary slammed his dick in me and mauled my tits.

God I miss those days. My sigh of frustration catches Peggy's attention.

"I know you hate her, but..." began Peggy.

"Peggy, if you say one God Damned thing about that bitch, I'll walk out the fuckin' door and leave you here alone," I snapped, interrupting her. The anger of my delivery caught her by surprise.

I looked across the floor to see her, but focused on someone else instead. Someone I could never look away from.

The first time I saw Gary, was at his company's Christmas party. He was twenty-five years old and was just starting with the company as an engineer. It was his first party for the company, and he didn't know anyone there. He was so shy and so uncomfortable that I took pity on him.

I was working the party as a server. My job was to keep glasses of drinks available to the crowd. Even though we were not supposed to fraternize with the customers, I couldn't resist him.

By the end of the night, I had handed him a last beer with what I thought was a dazzling smile. "Make sure you use that napkin," I said. He looked at me as clueless as ever.

Luckily for me, I was halfway across the room when he discovered that I had written my name and phone number down on the napkin. "Cool," he yelled so loudly that everyone in the room turned to look at him.

I continued serving drinks as if I had no idea what was going on. I saw my supervisor looking at him just as everyone else was. "Maybe we should stop serving that guy alcohol," I said. She just nodded. But I noticed that she had a big smile on her face. Gary's enthusiasm and pure joy were so contagious that it infected everyone around him.

Less than a week later we were dating. Less than a month later, we were an item. Less than a year later, we were married. And every second with him has been precious.

I've often told people that Gary was made for me. He was my perfect match. He was so devoted to me and our children that I was sure that we would never be apart.

Our years together only served to prove me right. He was a great father, a devoted husband and I loved him more as time went on.

Our life together was a happy one. We bought the house of our dreams and loved our neighborhood. Our neighbors were all great people too. Some of them had their quirks, but as a whole, it was a wonderful place to live and a great place for our kids to grow up.

"Hey," said Peggy. "Do you think I should go and ask one of the shy guys to dance?"

"Peggy, you're a grown woman. Do whatever you want," I said.

Gary

It always seems to come out of nowhere, or at least, it seems to hit you when you're not looking. "IT" can be trouble, or betrayal, or pain, or sudden death. "IT" can also be luck or unexpected success. Sometimes it can even be love.

I really believe that I'm in love. I have all of the symptoms. That dizzy feeling when I look into her eyes; check. That surety that she is the most wonderful creature that God put on this earth; check. That desire to protect her and to kill anyone who tries to come between us; I have that too. And most importantly, that belief that she feels the same way about me and would never hurt me? I have that in spades.

However, as I prepare myself to knock her socks off, I hesitate. No one knows what I'm about to do. And there are a few people here who know and understand the significance of the place and the timing of the event. But even those few in the know illuminati as it were, have no idea what I've planned.

I wonder for the last time, if I should do this. Will it really make everything better? It'll make your relationship so much better, they say. I've also heard that it will supercharge your emotional connections by taking out the doubts.

My hesitation isn't based on any amount of doubts, no matter how small, that I have over being in love. Shit, I'm an expert on being in love. As I look across the floor, my eyes see Carol and her friend Peggy. A bit of bitterness still causes my stomach to churn as I see her.

It was Carol who taught me how to love someone. I won't go into how we got together or how our life together has been. I won't talk about our children, and I also won't talk about how we expected to be spending our remaining years of life, or the way we intended someday to spend our retirement years. Let's just stick to how we are now and how we got that way.

Carol and I had been married for twenty years. That was roughly two years ago. It was just before Christmas; Carol got that weird strain of the flu that had been going around. She was as sick as a dog. So naturally, being a devoted husband who worshiped the ground his wife walked on, I stayed home from work to take care of her until she was feeling better.

Both of our kids were out of the house by then. Maryanne was married, with a home, well an apartment anyway, of her own. And Benny was away at college. Carol had taken a part-time job, working in the local hospital's records and administrative division, and that was probably where she had picked up the virus.

While she was sick, she didn't have much of an appetite. It was all I could do to get her to try to force some soup down her throat. It took plenty of guilt trips and teen romance-like declarations of love to get her to consume even that. I knew damned well that the woman loved me after all of those years. So telling her that if she really loved me, she would eat her soup just seemed moronic and unnecessary. However, it was what I did.

All she really wanted was for me to sit by the bed with her and hold her hand. The medicine, her doctor told us, would make her better sooner, also put her to sleep in no time. She slept most of the first couple of days. So like any good husband, during her periods of lucidity, I asked her questions about what she wanted to eat. Then I slipped out to the market while she was out and bought her plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, because they were what she seemed to crave.

It was on one of those excursions to the market that I ran into Misti Clark. When we had first moved into our neighborhood, Misti and her husband, Steve, had been among our friends. However, it had been months since I'd seen either of them.

They seemingly disappeared from our social circle. Misti was a tiny almost bird-like woman that I had never paid much attention to. To be honest, I really didn't pay much attention to any woman except for Carol.

But as I watched Misti that morning, seeing her from time to time as I moved about the market, I noticed a lot of things about her. The first was that her face was far prettier than I had ever given her credit for. The second was that for a woman of our age, that is approaching forty or in her early forties, Misti was very toned.

I vaguely remembered running into her several times at local 5K and 10K races, but as I said we had never been the kind of people to chat with each other.

Her shapely, well formed calves and muscular legs were highlighted by the yoga pants, she wore that morning. Her flat tummy and small but perky breasts could have belonged to a much younger woman.

Carol, on the other hand, was a much bigger woman. She had big boobs, a big soft butt that I loved squeezing on and thick legs to match them. Maybe Carol could have lost a few pounds but most of the men we knew, looked at her like starving dogs looked at a steak.

But surprisingly, I found myself sneaking glances at her every time I saw her in the market. "Don't bother, she won't talk to you," said Sheila Phillips over my shoulder.

"Since she and Steve divorced; she doesn't really talk to anyone," she continued. I'd had no idea that the two of them split up. As I continued through the market, I found myself thinking about divorces, and how she must feel. I wondered why they had split up. I also wondered how such a thing had been seemingly kept a secret in our small town.

Oh, we had our share of wildness and weirdos, but we were pretty much a close-knit group of families. So what happened to most of us was pretty much common knowledge.

For instance, there was a dedicated group of swingers in our town. They weren't militant about it. They didn't insist that everyone joined them. It was kind of casual. They dropped hints and if you were like minded, you were allowed to join their get togethers. Of course, any party in our small town was open to pretty much everyone. So a lot of people, who didn't swing, also went to the parties.

If you weren't a swinger, you simply stayed away from the bedrooms and stayed on the main floor or in the yard. From what I'd been told, it was couples only and only consensual. In other words, no single men were allowed. However, in this case, no single women were allowed either.

In rare cases, a married person with permission from their spouse, who showed up with a partner could also participate. I guess that rule helped when one partner in a marriage wanted to swing, and the other didn't. However, having permission from the spouse made sure that those activities weren't likely to cause problems.

Carol and I had been very heavily recruited. We'd heard all of the usual crap about how sometimes having sex with someone other than your spouse, helped to spice things up. We heard about how it sometimes helped to save marriages that were becoming stale. Another good one was how making sex simply a normal human bodily function that was totally separated from love actually strengthened the love between two people. And finally there was the supposed fact that sex was simply a physical activity and didn't necessarily have to be connected with love. I never liked that 'sometimes' kept creeping into their responses. It didn't sound all that appealing to me.

I had laughed at all of those and refused to take any of them seriously. So after a while they simply realized that we weren't interested. Misti and Steve were another couple who were not participating.

I often joked with Carol that she could have ruined that club. "Honey, if they ever got a look at your tits, all of those guys would be fighting over you," I told her. "They'd have to break up the club."

"Gary, you're too silly," she always said. "Nobody wants this body except you."

I was so lost in my thoughts that I wasn't paying any attention to where I was going. And naturally, the person I crashed into was the person I was thinking about.

"Sorry, Misti," I said. I pulled our shopping carts apart.

"It's Okay, Gary," she said. "I know what you're going through. I was lost when I first found out too. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it does get better. It just takes time. You merely have to give yourself time to realize that you didn't do anything wrong. Hang in there. If you need someone to talk to who knows what you're going through, give me a call."

She just walked away after that, leaving me standing there wondering what the fuck she was talking about.

"Holy shit," said the ever nosey Sheila. "In almost a year, I have never seen that woman talk to anyone. What did you say to her?"

"I didn't say anything," I said. "She did all of the talking. Sheila, do you have any idea why she and Steve split up?"

"Not a clue," said Sheila. "They kept everything on the QT. They even went to an out-of-town divorce lawyer. She got the house, but that's normally the way those things work out, I guess. Say, if you hear anything, let me know, okay?"

That conversation with Misti, stayed with me. The whole situation made no sense. She was so pretty and so nice. I just couldn't think of any reason that any man would divorce her.

I went home to my own sleeping beauty. When I got home, she was still asleep. I sat down beside her, but I just couldn't stop thinking about that perplexing conversation I'd had with Misti.

The more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed. A few minutes after I settled into my chair to think about it, Carol woke up.

"Honey, where'd you go?" she asked.

"Only to the supermarket to get some things for my favorite girl," I said.

"I'd better be your only girl," she smirked.

"You always have been and you always will be," I said. That got a smile out of her. I fed her more soup and she settled down to try to fall asleep again. Her color had improved, and she was talking more; that made me feel better too. But for some reason, there was an itch in the back of my head that needed to be scratched.

"Carol, while I was at the market, I ran into Misti Clark," I said. Her eyes popped open immediately, and her hand clutched mine tighter. Her entire body stiffened.

Suddenly, I was even more on edge. Whatever was going on, Carol knew something about it.

"Did you know that she and Steve were divorced?" I asked. The tension in her body increased even more. Although she was pretending to be trying to get back to sleep, I knew that her yawns were fake. I just didn't know why. However, I had a feeling. My gut told me that this was one of those girl-feuds. Women were forever deciding that they didn't like each other. And sometimes it was because one woman didn't like another woman's friends.

I was really sure that it had something to do with Peggy. I really didn't like Peggy much either. She was a whore. I hated Carol being friends with her, but it wasn't up to me to pick my wife's friends.

I waited for Carol to tell me how Misti hated Peggy. However, she didn't say a word. Her entire face tightened.

"So what did you and Misti talk about," she asked.

"Nothing really," I said. "I got the feeling that there was something she wanted to tell me, but she didn't seem to talk much."

"Honey, I've heard bad things about Misti," said Carol. "I don't know why she and Steve got a divorce. However, I've heard that she isn't very friendly anymore. I want you to stay away from her. I think she went crazy."

A couple of days later, with the worst effects of the flu over with, Carol seemed strong enough for me to go back to work. There was only a skeleton crew in order to work on projects that had to be completed early in the new year.

I went out for lunch alone. My intention was to grab a sandwich, but it didn't quite work out. I was heading for my car when a woman jogged past me. All I saw was long tanned legs and a tight butt. My mouth dropped open. Surprisingly though, she turned to look at me and stopped running. It was Misti.

"How are you holding up?" she asked.

"Misti, I don't understand what I'm supposed to be holding up from," I said.

"Didn't you get a divorce too?" she asked.

"Why would I?" I asked in confusion.

"Never mind," she said. "I've already said too much. Sorry, Gary, you're a really nice man. You deserve better." And then she just ran away leaving me there confused.

For the rest of the day, I couldn't concentrate on work. When I went home, I tried to act normal, but I was on edge. I found myself watching everything Carol did. After dinner, I went out to the garage to work on my latest project.

I was doing a full-on resto-mod of a 1967 Mustang Fastback. My intention was to slightly streamline the body. I wanted to keep the same feel but in a more modern interpretation of the classic. I also wanted thoroughly to update the engine and drive train. Of course, I was also going to gut the interior and make it more up to date.

At this point, I was still disassembling the car. Normally, I might've invited a couple of friends to come over and hang out, but I really wanted to think.

About a half hour into the work I heard the phone ring. It rang a few times before Carol answered it. I never considered picking the phone up. Usually if anyone called on our landline it was for Carol. Anyone who called me, called my cell phone.

It was probably Peggy. She called my wife at least three times a day. I picked up the extension and confirmed that it was Peggy.

The two of them were having a heated conversation.

" ... the hell did he run into her?" asked Peggy.

"I have no idea," said Carol. "But under the terms of the divorce, she isn't supposed to talk to anyone about it."

"What are you going to do?" asked Peggy.

"I'm going to call Steve and tell him to put a leash on his ex," said Carol angrily. "That tight assed bitch already got us kicked out of the club and ruined her own marriage. Now she wants to fuck mine up too."

"So have you given any thought to my idea?" asked Peggy. "Come on this is going to be a once in a lifetime thing."

"There's simply no way I could swing it," said Carol. "And to be truthful, I'm not sure I'd want to."

"You know you're thinking about it," laughed Peggy. "Talk to ya later."

As they both hung up the phone, I was filled with more rage than I had ever felt at any time in my life. I threw a wrench across the garage. It was a good thing that the garage was made of cinder blocks. The wrench bounced back and knocked several car wash products off of a nearby shelf.

"Gary, Honey are you alright?" called Carol from somewhere in the house.

"Better than ever," I said. And I meant it. "Honey, I'm having trouble getting some of these parts to come loose," I yelled. "I'm going out to buy an easy-out."

I knew she had no idea what an easy-out was actually used for, or that I already had several of them.

"Isn't it kind of late," she asked. "Maybe you should wait until tomorrow."

"Auto Zone is open until nine," I said. I grabbed my keys and headed for the driveway. I got into my current daily driver, a 2009 Mustang GT. That car was paid off, and since I was really happy with it. I had started the 67 as a hobby project.

First, I drove around the block to see my neighbors, Chris and Emily Green. They owned the house directly behind mine, and we often talked across the back yard fence. They also often jumped the fence and used our pool.

I knocked gently on the door, and it was answered by Emily. When she saw that it was me, she allowed her robe to open up a bit more.

"So what brings you by on this fine winter evening?" she asked. Her voice reminded me of Mae West. "Why didn't ya just hop the fence?"

"Em, you should probably bring Chris down for this," I said seriously. She nodded and called up to her husband. He came down the stairs, and we shook hands.

"Look guys, we've been friends and neighbors for a long time," I began. "So with that as a starting point, I'm asking you for the truth. Tonight, I overheard a conversation between my wife and her best friend, the town slut, that led me to believe that Carol was a member of your club and..." They looked at each other, and Emily interrupted me.

"I kind of figured this would come out sooner or later," she said. "Look Gary, like you put it; we've been friends for a long time. I almost feel like you're a part of my family, and I feel really bad about what happened, but we are not at fault here. We're as much of a victim in all of this as you are.

"Gary, we have rules that are designed just to prevent this type of thing from happening. They lied to us and falsified documents and..."

"Emily, calm down," I said soothingly. "I'm not here to blame anyone. I just want to know what happened."

"Okay, Carol came to see us," said Emily. "She told us that the two of you were having uhm ... A lull of desire and wanted to spice things up a bit. I was excited because the thought of you joining us ... Well anyway, she told me that she wanted to join but with a different partner, and that you were fully on board with it. Needless to say I was disappointed. She told us that you were having issues with your plumbing and that her membership would be temporary while you were being treated.

"We've had cases like that before, and it really is a good solution. That way, she could experience a host of different partners and wouldn't have to worry about becoming attached to any of them emotionally. Our rules prohibit any type of romantic or emotional attachments.

"So we gave her a form to have you fill out. And I asked her to have you call us. She told me that you were embarrassed about the whole thing, but she was sure that you would sign the form. I asked her also to bring a copy of your signature on a check, or a bill or some other type of legal document for comparison. But for the most part, I believed her. I mean we've been friends for years. We see each other on an almost daily basis. Why would she lie?

"When she first showed up for one of our parties, it made sense. She was with Steve Clark. Steve had wanted to join us for years. His wife, Misti, on the other hand, was kind of shy and standoffish. I'm sure she's a nice woman, but from the second, she found out about our lifestyle, she began to avoid us. She acted like I'm some sort of whore. I've always thought that she was frigid or sexually repressed.

"So the combination of Carol and Steve, both of whom had permission from their spouses made sense. Anyway, to make a very long story short, almost a year after they joined I got a call from a lawyer. She threatened to make our whole club public and name Chris and I, and all the other members of the club in a divorce case. It turned out that Misti had not only NOT given her husband permission to participate, but she was divorcing him for serial infidelity. Your wife was also going to be sued for actions leading to the dissolution of the marriage.

"We kicked both of them out, and banned them both. From what I understand nothing ever came of it. Steve and Misti settled before anything went to court. She got the house, her car, and a huge amount of alimony in addition to half of their savings and checking accounts. She also gets half of Steve's pension. And get this, her alimony lasts until Steve retires, or she remarries. Steve also has to pay the mortgage on the house. That bitch made out like a bandit.

"We kept the whole thing as quiet as possible, so none of the innocent family members were hurt or embarrassed. I think you've probably noticed that while Chris and I are still friendly with you; we barely speak to Carol and never without you.

"We've heard lately though that Carol and that whore she hangs out with have been hosting a few parties themselves with a variety of single men. From what we've heard it's mostly Peggy, but Carol does participate occasionally. Gary, I'm really sorry." I just nodded. After taking a few moments to compose myself, I looked at her.

"Em, thanks for telling me," I said. My calm voice and steady gaze were all an act. I was far angrier than I had ever been in my life. I knew what my next step was, and it would not be pretty.

I called a friend of mine, Joe Clark. Joe worked for the same company I did. I was an engineering component designer, and Joe was a CNC programmer. Joe was also Steve's brother.

"Hey Joe," I said into the phone. "I need to talk to your bro about some of Benny's grades during his last year of school. Some of those classes were supposedly college-prep classes that counted towards his first year. Why the hell do I have to pay for him to take those same classes all over again?"

"Gary, I don't need to hear about it," he said. "I've been saving every nickel I can, and I'm still terrified about how much school is going to cost for my twins. Fill me in on whatever you find out so I'll know too." He gave me Steve's new address.

"Hey, Joe, Steve makes pretty good money as the principal at the high school doesn't he? Why the hell is he living in an apartment?"

"He and Misti split up a while back, and she got the house in their divorce settlement. Steve has to pay the mortgage and pay her alimony. That bitch really stuck it to him. The way I heard it, she just woke up one morning and asked him for a divorce. He was devastated. There are rumors that she's a lesbian. You'd think she would have told him something like that BEFORE she married him. I think she set him up."

Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of a building that did not house the best apartments in town. The apartments there mostly catered to people who had lower incomes, and we're just starting out in life. They weren't slums. They were well kept up and most of the people who lived in them were college students or people who had recently moved to town and had not yet established themselves.

I found out which apartment he was in by looking at the mailboxes. A guy coming out of the elevator held the security door open for me, and I went up to Steve's place on the third floor. I took the stairs two at a time, but it didn't burn off any of the energy I got from my anger.

I knocked on Steve's door. He answered it by opening it up a crack. I saw a thick security chain across the gap.

"Gary?" he asked. "What do you want? My brother called me and said that you needed some information about Benny's classes. Those were college-prep classes, he said. They weren't college credit classes. They don't transfer."

"Steve, what I want is for you to open this fucking door before I take it down," I hissed.

"Gary, I'm calling the police," he said.

"Here," I said. "Use my phone. I've already punched in 911. All you have to do is hit the call button. But remember once the police get here; they'll want to ask why I was here. And once I tell them that I wanted to talk to you about why you fucked my wife; I'm not sure how long you'll have your job. This is a small town. I'm not sure they'll like the idea of an adulterer running the high school and guiding all of those impressionable kids. As a..."

Before I could finish he had opened the door.