Chapter 1: A Familiar Face

Aaron:

We were the best of friends through high school. The four of us: John, Michael, Don and I. College isn’t for everyone, so Don went into the Army, while the other three of us headed off to various colleges and universities. When Don’s enlistment was up, he returned to our hometown just like the three of us had. Reconnecting at our Tenth High School reunion to discover that Michael having studied Clinical Laboratory Sciences in college, became the lead of the local hospital laboratory services. John used his degree in Police Sciences to open his own Private Investigation firm. Don dealt with tank maintenance in the Army and he founded a successful heavy machinery service in our city. After graduating with a degree in Engineering, I became the Sales Manager for a mid-sized machine tooling firm. We were true friends in high school and it turns out we stayed good friends even after ten years. I can prove it in my story that was not a just phrase.

Don and Michael still lived with their first wives and kids. John and I are living with our second wives. John has two kids from his first marriage and two from his second marriage. I did not any children from my first marriage, but I am now a proud daddy of two kids. We get together five to six times a year for poker, alternating at our houses. On top of that, quarterly we gather in a restaurant or bar on a Friday night, so that our wives can take us home. Putting everyone’s mind at ease ... they can check up us and nobody was obliged to drink soft drinks as the designated driver. The newest hotel was opened a few months ago and we came to the hotel bar for our regular Friday night and to check out the new spectacle.

I am Aaron Botteron. I was born in this city and I came back here with my college lover, Samantha, who became my first wife. I was dating several girls in the college, but I eventually picked Samantha. Samantha was a blond, buxom girl with green eyes. Earlier, we dated others, but we were both smarting after breaking up with others. So, we consoled each other which lead to dating each other. Samantha was from my hometown and was the next reason why we wanted our futures together. I attend engineering at college and Samantha was a Business administration major. We graduated same time so we came back to our hometown together.

I got a job at a machine tool firm and that is when my boss found that I was good at selling products. I began to travel to the neighboring and distant states, even Canada, to sell our products. I was successful. Samantha worked for an commercial agricultural firm and she enjoyed working there. We earned enough money to live comfortably. We lived in an apartment while gathering money for a nice house. She laughed at me because I preferred low-fat milk to other alcoholic drinks. When I was home, I was glad that I do not need to act as if I liked booze. Soon, I asked her to be my wife with a nice ring. She said, “Yes.”

So our families planned our wedding. We had a big wedding with parents, relatives and friends. After wedding, we went to Fiji for honeymoon.

We purchased a nice house and the mortgage loan was not too big. We were successful and we went to ski in the winter and in the summertime, we traveled in the States or abroad.

We had lived together for more than six years, when I asked her when are we going to have kids. She was proud of her buxom body and she told me the baby would spoil her body. She did not want any kids. We argued about kids, but I could not persuade her to change her mind. She told me the grandkids had been produced for our parents by my sister having kids and, also, her brother who lived in Sacramento, California having kids too, so we need not have a kid. After some more arguments, we remained a childless pair.