Brighter Days
Copyright© 2025 by Saxon Hart
Chapter 4C: Whose Ending?
Three weeks after I left my job at the mill, I sold my 4Runner to the busboy at Jimmy’s, and loaded my possessions into a rental truck. After I had my bike on a trailer, I loaded Scooby into the truck and we headed for Denton.
Because the couple, who had rented my cabin, had been such good renters, my parents told them they could take all of the time they needed to find a new place. In the meantime, I would stay in my childhood home.
When my parents moved to Arizona, they had rented out their home. The latest tenants had moved out a month before I left Elko. My parents were in the process of hiring someone to get the house ready for new tenants, when they decided that I could stay there until my cabin was vacated and in return, I would do the necessary work to get it ready to be rented out again.
I soon realized that my bike wouldn’t be the best transportation when the weather changed, so I went and bought a new Chevy Tahoe. Scooby, of course, approved of the roomy vehicle.
I had been there for about three weeks when the couple renting my cabin told us that they had taken a new job and were moving to Wisconsin. Within a month, they had gone so I went to see how much the cabin needed before I could move back into it.
They hadn’t really done much damage to the place, but it was clear that maintenance had been sparse. As I walked through, I was mentally spending money on everything that needed attention and was starting to wonder if I wouldn’t be dollars better off to tear the place down and build a new structure.
As I left my property and turned toward town, I saw a vehicle in the driveway where many years ago my insulation truck had sat as I took revenge on my cheating spouse and her paramour. Out of curiosity, I stopped.
The guy who owned the vehicle was the son of the man Ramon and Daisey had rented the place from. It turned out that the guy had rented the place to some ‘party dudes’ who had destroyed it, and for the past six years, it had been basically a wildlife sanctuary. He had told me that his father had passed and left him the derelict property.
When I asked him what he planned to do, he told me that was washing his hands of the place and selling it. I made him an offer, and he accepted it on the spot. Sarah’s mom and sister ran a realty office and they handled the paperwork and within six weeks, I owned both properties.
Since my grandfather’s land adjoined both properties I decided to remove the fences dividing the three. As I was removing fences that separated the properties I found a big clearing and had an epiphany. I immediately fell in love with the view from that spot and decided I would raze both cabins and build my home there.
I had found an old bulldozer and backhoe in a barn on my grandfather’s land, and in a few weeks, had both running so I would do the earthmoving on my own.
During my exploration of the property, I discovered an old logging road that had been there since the fifties. My grandfather had leased the timber rights on the land to a company for years. After he passed, my dad had refused to renew the lease. I was surprised that the road hadn’t been overgrown and lost, and was still passable on an ATV or bike.
I followed the road and found that it ended at the backside of an old quarry. The quarry had been in operation while I was in high school, but they had broken into an artesian and after not being able to keep the water at a manageable level, they abandoned the quarry, leaving it to become a large twelve-foot-deep pool.
The only accesses to the quarry was from my land on the hidden road and through the old Zeigler property, owned by Mr. Zeigler’s daughter Tamara, and her life partner, neither of whom had any interest in any of it. They had leased their pasture to a cattle rancher, who had also put boundary fences around the quarry to keep their cattle out of it, so I basically had a private pool. Of course, my furry companion approved.
Billy Gill, an old friend from school, had a contracting business, and agreed to be the general contractor. Most of the lumber needed would come from my own land and be cut on a portable sawmill, saving a fortune.
I had bought a dump truck and had been doing some earthmoving and wood-hauling on top of the work I was doing at my place, so it really didn’t bother me too much that the occasional outing with Sarah was the sum of my social life. Once the dirt-work was done at my home, Billy’s father asked me if I’d be interested in doing the earth moving for their contracts. I instantly agreed.
I talked to Sarah and Daisey often and saw Sarah a few times. Things seemed to be good between her and Mark, so I was happy for her. I had already become disenchanted with the local dating scene; it seemed the available women were either emotional basket cases, who required you to have a PhD in psychology to navigate any relationship with them, or they were only seeking a guy to pay the bills and become a daddy to their children.
The only women, who seemed to not fall into either category, ran in the other direction when they heard why I had been incarcerated. I often wondered if they had the habit of seeking strange dick and feared the possible consequences.
One day, Sarah invited me to dinner because she had some news. I had an idea of what she was going to tell me because she was wearing gloves in May. So I wasn’t surprised when she took the gloves off, revealing a large diamond ring and told me that Mark had asked her to marry him. I was happy for her, even if I was watching maybe my last chance at a lifelong relationship going away.
They were going to get married in Sacramento and move to Sarasota, Florida. She told me that Daisey was going to be one of her bridesmaids and Mark was going to ask me to be one of his groomsmen.
Wedding preparations hadn’t taken much of my time, which was mostly spent working on my new house. Mark had been kind enough to give the details for the groomsmen’s tuxedos to a rental shop in Reno, so that I didn’t have to go all the way to Sacramento to be fitted.
On the week of the wedding, Sarah called me and asked if I could come to Sacramento on Thursday to help her with last-minute details. She told me that she and Mark would even pay for a hotel, so I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth, with the rehearsal being on Friday and the Saturday wedding and reception.
I told her I’d be there, but I’d handle the room myself. She also told me that Daisey would also be coming on Thursday afternoon, and that she and Mark had a few activities planned for the four of us. I immediately wondered why Jimmy hadn’t been mentioned, but Sarah had to ring off before I could ask her. I would later learn that Jimmy was tending to his ailing mother in Boise.
I got to Sacramento around nine o’clock, and was soon running around town with Sarah. We went to the florist and picked up the flowers for the church, and stopped by a party store for some streamers and the centerpieces for the reception tables.
We had delivered all of the flowers to her mother Claire and sister Jennifer at the church, where they were decorating with the help of her future mother-in-law and sisters-in-law. Then, we ran around making sure of the final details with the caterers and the bakery that had made her cake.
A little after two, we went to the hotel so that I could check in. As I was signing the registration form, I heard Sarah say, “Oh hey, girl!”
I turned to see Daisey coming through the door wheeling her suitcase behind her. As Sarah went to greet her, it struck me that Daisey was dressed differently than I’d seen her dressed in the past.
Daisey typically wore conservative shirts that displayed little to no cleavage, and shorts or pants that were rarely form-fitting. The Daisey, who had just hugged Sarah and was approaching me for a similar greeting, was wearing a tight, white t-shirt that displayed her ample cleavage and light blue shorts that only accentuated her ass and legs.
“Hey you,” I said, lamely, as I hugged her.
“Hi, handsome,” she replied. “I’ve missed you.”
The three of us chatted idly as we approached the counter, so that Daisey could check in.
“Did you just get into town?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah,” Daisey replied. “It took me a bit to find the place, though.”
“I sprung for the guided tour package,” I said. I suddenly felt like a doofus who had to interject himself into a conversation between two cooler peers.
Neither woman seemed to notice my discomfort, as they politely laughed.
“So, do you guys still have a lot to do?” Daisey asked.
Sarah gave her the rundown of our remaining few errands, then I asked, “So, where’s Jimmy?”
“Oh he had to go to Idaho to be with his mother. She’s been really ill lately,” Daisey explained.
“That’s too bad, I said, as Sarah nodded. “I was looking forward to seeing him.”
“Well, you do get to see me,” she replied, with an exaggerated wink.
Things got interesting when Daisey approached the clerk to check in.
“I’m sorry ma’am,” said the pimply faced girl, from behind the computer monitor. “It seems your reservation has been canceled.”
“Canceled? How the ff-” Daisey’s frustration was obvious. “How and when was MY reservation canceled?”
The girl tapped some keys and looked up. “It says the reservation was canceled two days ago, by the cardholder who made the reservation.”
“How could the ‘cardholder’,” Daisey said, making air-quotes, “cancel the reservation when I am the cardholder, and I know damn well I didn’t cancel.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Maybe someone made a mistake.” The girl looked uncomfortable and tapped the keys again. She looked at her screen and frowned.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid that your room has already been re-booked and we have no available rooms left. Would you like me to call around and see if any other hotels have any available rooms?”
“No need,” I said. “You can share my room.”
“I can’t put you out like that, Jeff,” she said.
“Nonsense,” I said. “I have a room with two queen-size beds and I don’t sleep on two beds, and nobody has ever told me that I snore, so...”
“Oh Jeff, I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.
“No need. Just promise me that you don’t snore.”
After the errands were completed and the church was done, we went to Mark’s house where Sarah’s stepdad, Dave, had prepared a barbecue supper for everyone. Jennifer’s husband, John and their two children arrived from Denton, just after we got there. Shortly after we’d sat down to eat, Mark joined us.
After dinner, Jennifer and John left, and Mark suggested that we go play some pool. Daisey and I thought that was a good idea, but Claire and Dave declined the invitation and returned to their hotel for the night.
When we arrived at the pool hall, Daisey told Mark, “We better not let these two be a team all night or we’ll never win a game.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, pretending to be offended. “I haven’t played in years, so I’m probably going to be terrible.”
Sarah laughed and we all agreed that we’d rotate teams.
When I sank three balls on the first break, Daisey mockingly said, “I’m probably going to be terrible.”
It wasn’t competitive when Sarah and I were teamed together. Daisey and Mark still had six balls on the table when Sarah sank the eight-ball. Sarah and Daisey barely beat Mark and me, then Daisey and I won a close game. In the last game, I came within two balls of running the table, then Sarah finished it after Mark had missed.
The entire time we were at the pool hall, every guy in the place was taking every opportunity to look at Daisey. Before any of them could get up their courage to approach her, she started acting like she was with me.
Any time I wasn’t on the table, she’d be right next to me, often touching my arm or back. She even rubbed my ass once, when some guys were looking. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy her attention, but knowing she was a married woman made me slightly uncomfortable, but I knew her actions would most likely discourage the other guys in the place.
When we walked out of the hall, I did put my arm around her to help sell the illusion. Never in my wildest dreams, had I thought I’d ever be that intimate with her. We all said goodnight, then went our separate ways.
When we got back to the hotel, I took a shower and got ready for bed. Daisey had seen me without a shirt many times back in high school, when we’d sneak onto Old Man Zeigler’s land and swim in his pond, so I thought nothing of only wearing my shorts when I left the bathroom. I could have sworn I heard her say, “Mmm,” under her breath when I walked out, but figured I might be imagining it.
She went into the bathroom and I lay on my bed and looked through the TV channels to find something interesting. I finally settled on a show about women who murdered their significant others. During the third case that the show featured, I recognized the woman’s accomplice.
He had been locked up with me at Lovelock. He had worked as a server in the dining hall, and was always the guy who ladled vegetables onto our trays. Ironically he had been a vegetable purveyor in his pre-prison life. I laughed about that, just as Daisey came out of the bathroom.
She asked me what was funny, so I explained. I had a hard time because she was wearing a large nightshirt that featured a cartoon cat snoring. It wasn’t the cat, though, that had me distracted. The shirt, while large on her, only seemed to accentuate her chest, and only came down to her upper thigh, showing much of her shapely legs.
“I’m not really sleepy yet,” she said. “Would you like to watch a movie?”
I wasn’t ready to drop yet, so I agreed. She sat on my bed and we found The Breakfast Club on one of the movie channels.
“Do you know what I enjoyed most about tonight, Jeff?” she asked.
“Getting your ass handed to you on the pool table?” I replied, earning a slug in the arm.
“No, dumbass. I truly enjoyed getting to be ‘your girl’,” she said.
“I can’t say I hated that,” I said. “Even if it made me the most hated guy in the place.”
“I think you’re over-exaggerating a bit,” she said.
“Are you kidding me? I know now what it must have been like to be Ramon in school. Every guy hoped, and every girl feared that you’d dump him, or that he’d get run over by a truck.”
“Oh come on, Jeff,” she laughed. “I wasn’t that popular.”
“Shit,” I said. “You probably caused more wet dreams and stiff socks than Pamela Anderson. There wasn’t a single guy who wouldn’t have stabbed his own mother in the back to have a chance to get with you. I’d bet even Nick Calder would have turned straight if you would have looked his way.”
“Now I know you’re putting me on,” she laughed. “Most of the guys wouldn’t even talk to me.”
“That’s partly because of Ramon, and mostly because you wouldn’t date gringos.”
“That asshole Ramon started that rumor. He was so afraid that someone would take me from him; especially you.”
“What?! Me? He must have thought that I was as loyal a friend as he was,” I said, shaking my head.
“Anyway, I really did enjoy tonight.”
When I woke up the next morning, it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on. I was so used to sleeping alone that it shocked me to feel someone else was in the bed with me.
When Daisey and I had been watching the movie, we’d been reclining side by side on my bed. Obviously, we’d both fallen asleep without moving to separate beds. I was flat on my back with my left arm under Daisey. Her head was on my shoulder and her left arm and leg were draped over me. Of course, since I was effectively pinned down with no way to move without disturbing her, I had a raging hard-on.
I was contemplating the physics of the situation, when I felt movement and realized Daisey was awake. Oddly, she didn’t seem to have the same ‘oh shit’ feeling I’d had; as a matter of fact, she looked very comfortable.
“Good morning. Looks like we have finally shared a bed,” I said jokingly.
“Aww. And I don’t remember if I had a good time or not,” she joked back.
After we had breakfast, we went sightseeing. As the morning went on, I started to get the feeling that something was weighing on Daisey’s mind. I wasn’t going to pry, I figured if she wanted to discuss whatever it was she would.
Since we had the wedding rehearsal at five and the rehearsal dinner would follow, we opted for a light lunch at a local café. We were finishing our food, when Daisey made me almost choke on the last bite of my sandwich; if it had been soup she might have been on the receiving end of a spit-take.
“Jeff, if you had the opportunity to fuck me, would you?” she asked, as evenly as someone might ask you if you owned a red car.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” I asked.
“I have something I need to discuss with you, but maybe I should let you finish your lunch first,” she said, with a mischievous grin.
After lunch, we drove to a park and set out on one of the hiking trails. I figured we probably could use a bit of privacy for this discussion, if the question at lunch was any indicator.
We hadn’t walked far, when she asked again, “If you had the opportunity, would you fuck me?”
“Daisey, you are without a doubt the hottest woman I know. I can’t honestly say that I would ever pass up an opportunity to be with you, but since you are married, it is a moot point.”
“What if it wasn’t a moot point?” she asked.
“Well, it is; unless you’ve gotten a divorce that I don’t know about.”
“No, I am still quite happily married,” she said.
“See? It’s a moot point,” I said.
“Jeff, there’s something you need to know. You see, Jimmy and I have never had sex.”
“Wait, what?! You’ve been married for-”
“Yes, we’ve been married for a while,” she said cutting me off, “We’ve played sexually. He does things with his fingers, mouth, and occasionally with toys, but he has never physically penetrated me.”
My mind came up with a million questions, but I could put none of them into words.
“You see,” she continued. “When Jimmy was young he had an accident that severely damaged his groin area. He’s had countless surgeries. His testicles, prostate, and some of his penis had to be removed. He can’t physically perform. He even has to urinate through a catheter.
“We’ve been to specialists, but the only one that had any hope at all, mentioned a highly expensive and risky procedure that had only a five-percent chance of restoring any functionality.”
“Damn,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” she said. “Jimmy doesn’t want anyone he has to face to know; which is why I can tell you now.”
“So does your earlier question mean you are going to ask Jimmy to let you have sex with someone else?” I asked.
“He already does,” she said. “I tried for the longest time to get by on what he could do, but we realized after a while that I needed more to relieve my needs. For some time now, I have had one or two playmates, nowhere near Elko, of course, that Jimmy allows me to visit once or twice a month. I wanted to see if you’d be my playmate when you came to Elko, but Jimmy wouldn’t have it. No way could he face you every day knowing that you knew his secret.”
“So your question was legit?” I asked, not sure what I wanted the answer to be.
“It was,” she confirmed.
The wedding planner, Brett, or Adolf, as I came to think of him, was a real pain in the ass. Of course, it didn’t help that my mind was elsewhere when he was explaining that I needed to start off on my right foot. I didn’t see what difference it made, but it was a huge deal to him.
I had hoped to be paired up with Daisey for the wedding march, but she was paired up with Mark’s cousin Bruce, and I was paired with Mariel, a close friend of Sarah and Mark. We practiced the march three times before Adolf called an end to the rehearsal and admonished us all to be on time and on step the next day.
Needless to say, I was distracted during dinner. My mind was so full of thoughts that I barely noticed that Sarah was trying to talk to me.
“Huh?” I asked, when I finally realized she was asking me something.
“Wow, Jeff. Where’s your head tonight?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m just a bit distracted,” I said.
“Duh,” Sarah quipped. “You haven’t even noticed that you seem to have gained a fan.”
“A fan?” I asked, as I turned to follow her gaze. Mariel was looking at me from the other end of the table, but looked away when she saw me look her way. I also saw Daisey and my mind immediately, returned to our talk earlier.
“You might have a chance with her, Jeff,” Sarah said. Immediately, my mind went to my earlier conversation with Daisey, and I wondered what Sarah knew.
I decided to act like I didn’t know about Jimmy’s affliction. “She’s a married woman, Sarah. You know me better than that.”
She looked confused for a moment. “She’s not married honey. I know she’s not really your type, but she’s as available as available can be.”
“Not married?” I paused for a second, realizing that we were talking about two different women. “Who are you talking about?” I asked.
“Mariel,” Sarah replied. “Who are you talking about?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh hell,” I said. “I don’t know. My mind is all over the place tonight.”
“I’ll say,” she said. “You’ve been acting oddly all evening long. Daisey, too.”
I hoped I hadn’t visibly reacted to what she said, but I felt a jolt inside. I looked down the table again to figure out who Sarah might have been talking about. Once more, I thought I caught Mariel looking at me from the corner of her eye.
While Mariel wasn’t as hot as Sarah or Daisey, she was quite pretty. She had red hair and striking blue eyes. Her skin reminded me of the stereotypical Irish woman, who could blend in with snow. She wasn’t fat, but she was in no danger of being blown over by a stiff breeze. Sarah had said she wasn’t ‘really my type,’ but I actually found her to be attractive.
“Maybe she’s worried about Jimmy’s mom,” I said, hoping to throw her off of me.
“Could be,” she said, after pondering for a second. Her face, however, showed doubt.
“You’re not going to be all weird with me now, are you,” Daisey asked, as we were leaving the rehearsal dinner.