Chapter 9

They lingered long enough that, in Claire's mind, this had gone beyond just getting some dessert to being an actual date. She felt guilty about that, but was having enough fun that she brushed that aside. She was firm in her resolve not to do anything with this fascinating man until later ... after the divorce.

To that end she dropped him off and, other than agreeing to run with him the next day, took no actions of any kind to encourage him to do something dangerous, like try to kiss her good night. Had he tried, she might have let him. But he didn't try. Instead, he just got out, waved, and jogged up to his front door.

She went straight back to Cindy's and was relieved to find they weren't home yet. She stayed up waiting for them and watched TV in a desultory manner.

When they got home both were grinning and tipsy. Claire scolded them for driving in that condition and, to her horror, Cindy started taking her clothes off right there in front of both her friend and her husband.

Claire fled to the guest room and, for lack of anything better to do, went to bed. It took her an hour to get drowsy.

During that hour she wished mightily that she'd brought her dildo with her to Cindy's house.

Having no alarm clock, Claire had to be wakened by Cindy. They got ready in separate bathrooms, but had breakfast together. Danny was nowhere to be seen and, when she asked about him, Claire was told he'd gotten up earlier and was already gone.

Her day at work seemed entirely familiar and normal. That was surreal in the sense that the rest of her life wasn't normal at all. She'd filed for divorce. Since doing that she'd already been out on a date. She lusted for a man she hardly knew and knew that man better than the man she was still married to!

She ate lunch in the cafeteria and, by two, was out of work to do. She went to Quentin's office and informed him of that status. He leaned back in his sumptuous office chair.

"I still can't put you back on classified projects yet," he said.

"When do you think they'll make a decision?" she asked.

"I'm hoping in a week or two," he said.

"That long?"

"You know how the government moves," he said, lifting a hand. He frowned. "Then again, maybe you don't. How's your memory?"

"Little things are coming back to me," she said, "But nothing important."

"Such as?"

"I remembered I like white wine," she said, shrugging.

"I guess that's a start," he said.

"Surely there's something I can do."

"You could go back over Rick Sanders's old files," he said. "I haven't assigned that to anybody. Everybody but you is busy with current work."

"You think they need to be audited?"

"Of course I do," he said. "He made a two million dollar mistake. Assuming it was a mistake. What if his other work was that shoddy?"

"I never thought of that," she admitted.

"If I don't make sure that gets done, somebody else will think about it and then I'll have egg on my face," he said.

"Okay. What the heck. I can do that."

"I'll have Marcie draw you up a list. You'll have to go dig them out of the archives yourself, I'm afraid. I can't spare her for that long."

"I need something to do anyway," she said, shrugging.

"Okay, then. Thanks. You know you probably could have just taken off and nobody would ever have known."

"That wouldn't be right," she objected.

"See why I value you as an employee so much?" He grinned.

She helped Marcie make up the list and by four she'd located and pulled two of Sanders's old files. She didn't have time to get into them that day, so at four she went back to Cindy's to change into running gear. Cindy was coming in as she was leaving and she said she'd be back in a couple of hours, and that she'd eat something later.

Then she went to the school. She could tell classes had started up again. The staff parking lot was full of cars. She found Chad and his players on the football field. Several players waved at her as she took her accustomed seat in the bleachers.

She had to wait an hour for him to get free, during which time five or six girls, dressed in cheerleader uniforms, pranced around on the sidelines in front of her, practicing cheers and posturing for the boys. She got some stares from them, but none of them said anything to her.

She was wearing spandex, which was apparently the only concession to sexiness Old Claire had allowed herself. She'd found the undergarments in her locker at work and felt a little better about her former self. She always made sure, now, that she was as decent as cloth like a second skin could be made to be.

When she saw the boys run off the field, followed closely by the girls, she went down to meet Chad.

"Be right with you," he said. "Let me change."

They ran for half an hour before either felt the need to speak. Even then, the conversation was clipped, inconsequential. The previous evening wasn't brought up, nor did he ask her for another date.

Typically, when they ran, Claire deferred to Chad, in terms of the route they took. And, typically, Chad chose to run around town, instead of out in the country. One reason for this was that he sometimes combined running with doing errands. He actually ran errands. A second reason was that running in town exposed the runner to fewer fatal hazards. True, in town there was more vehicular traffic, but it was moving more slowly than on the roads outside of town. Getting hit by a car doing twenty-five was dangerous, but it might not kill you. Claire, herself, was a good example of that. Surviving being hit by someone moving at highway speeds was unlikely.

Another factor was that Millvale, by happenstance, had ended up having roughly six sections in its makeup. Two of those were suburbs. There was an industrial park. Then there was the downtown area and a fifteen acre sports complex. Finally, there was Old Town, the part of the city where its founders had built. Old Town was where stately old large houses lined streets adorned with trees that were fifty and sixty years old.

Basically, you could run for hours and never see the same scene twice. That's why Chad chose to run around town.

He timed things so that, at roughly the ten mile mark, they ended up back at the school.

"Good run," he said, walking to cool down.

"Indeed," she agreed.

"Thanks," he said.

"Any time."

"Tomorrow?"

"Same time?"

"Sounds good to me."

And then they separated.

Back at Cindy's she took a shower and changed into casual clothes. Danny was watching ESPN. Cindy was sitting across the room from him, and was reading a book.

"I'm going to run home and see how things are," said Claire.

"You think that's wise?"

"I can't just live with you forever," said Claire. "Maybe he'll be ready to discuss things."

"You want me to go with you?" asked Danny, looking over at her.

"No. You've done enough. There's no need for you to get dragged into things."

"You sure? I don't mind."

"I don't think we need a referee," smiled Claire. "If things are still too tense I'll pick up a few more things and come back. If not, I'll call you, okay?"

"It's up to you," said Cindy, but Claire could tell she was worried.

"I'll be fine."

"If I don't hear from you within an hour I'm coming over there," said Cindy.

"We're coming over there," Danny corrected his wife.

"Fair enough," said Claire, not wanting to argue. "Talk to you in a little bit."

When she walked in the door, everything looked normal. Completely normal. John was even sitting in his chair, watching TV, as usual. There were half a dozen empty beer bottles on the floor beside his chair, and a full one on the table beside him. He turned to look at her, sneered, and then, contemptuously, looked back at the screen.

The sense of normalcy ended at her bedroom door.

He'd torn the room apart. Everything was in a shambles. Her clothes were lying everywhere, torn and ripped, sometimes to shreds. Closer examination revealed they'd been cut up. Even the mattress had slices in it.

Her dildo, cut into four pieces, lay in the middle of the bed.

She stormed out into the living room.

"I knew you were juvenile, but I had no idea how much so," she said, her voice tight.

He looked over at her and sneered again.

"Sorry. I was looking for something."

"Sure you were," she said. "Did it ever occur to you that this kind of thing is why I filed for divorce?"

The sneer faded, to be replaced by anger.

"You filed for divorce because you're a bitch and a whore," he spat.

"So you're just going to act like an asshole?" she asked. "We could make this a lot less painful if you'd try."

"I don't want it to be less painful," he said, still calm. "Not for you. You'll find out how painful things can be. You'll be sorry you ever betrayed me, you stupid cunt."

"As I recall, you're the one who did the betraying," said Claire, hotly. "Remember anything about a hooker?"

"You've probably been cheating on me for years," he rasped. "Now, get out, you fucking abortion. I don't want you stinking up the place."

Claire returned to the bedroom and searched through it. His determination became clear as she realized he'd left nothing untouched. She found the family pictures she'd wondered about. They had apparently been in a box in the closet. Now they were strewn all over the bedroom, torn into pieces.

She thought about going out there and beating him into a whimpering pile. Then she thought about how that might appear to a judge. He probably wanted her to become violent, hoped she'd do something stupid. She took pictures with her smart phone and, taking only the pieces of her dildo, left the house to go back to Cindy's.

On her way out he yelled one last thing at her.

"And you'd better put the fucking money back in our account, or I'm going to swear out charges against you for theft!"

Both Danny and Cindy saw the anger in her face and stance as she stalked back into their house.

"What happened?" they asked, together.

Claire tossed her phone to Cindy.

"Pictures," she said, tersely.

Cindy fiddled with the phone as Danny got up to go kneel by the chair so he could see.

"Oh my God," moaned Cindy as her fingers flicked from one picture to another.

"What a prick!" said Danny, his voice tight with anger.

"I might need to impose on you a little longer," said Claire.

"No problem!" said Danny.

"Could you save anything?" Cindy looked up, sorrow in her eyes.

"Nothing," said Claire. "Not even..." She trailed off, thinking about the fragmented sex toy in her purse.

"What?"

"Remember that gag gift I told you about?" she said, hoping Cindy would get it.

Her friend's eyes widened.

"Yes."

"He cut it into four pieces. They're in my purse."

"Oh ... my ... God," gasped Cindy.

"What?" asked Danny.

"Nothing," said his wife. She got up and, for some reason, handed the phone to Danny. She shoved Claire toward the bedrooms and then looked chagrined. "Sorry," she said. Then she grasped Claire's wrist and pulled her more gently until they were behind the closed door.

"Show me!" said Cindy.

"You don't believe me?"

"Of course I believe you. I just want to see it."

"Why?"

"I don't know! I just do."

Claire opened her purse and extracted the pieces of latex, arranging them on the bed in order, with an inch between each piece.

"Wow," said Cindy. "He was really pissed off."

Danny barged through the door.

"What's going on in here?" he asked, somewhat petulantly.

"Don't you know how to knock?" barked Cindy.

"It's my bedroom!" Danny barked back. His eyes went to the bed and he froze. "Shit! Is that what I think it is?"

"It used to be what you think it is," said Cindy, calming down.

"What a motherfucker!" said Danny.

"Well stop looking at it," complained Cindy. "It's personal."

He blinked several times, but otherwise didn't move.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I was just worried about you. When you took off like that I was afraid she was going to show you bruises or something."

"So you came in here hoping to see bruises?" Cindy arched one eyebrow at him.

"No!" he yelped. "That's not what I meant."

"Well what did you mean?" Cindy's voice rose.

"Stop it!" snapped Claire. "Don't you two start fighting too."

"Sorry," said Danny. "I was just worried." His eyes went back to the pieces on the bed. "Maybe I could glue it back together for you or something."

"Danny!" gasped Cindy.

The laughter that bubbled up out of Claire's throat was both unexpected and, to her mind, inappropriate to the situation, but the relief it brought her overstressed mind was welcome, so she let it happen.

As she laughed, she scooped up the pieces of what had been her dildo and dumped them back in her purse.

Her laughter disarmed Cindy's ire too, and the tension in her hosts abated as well.

"What a prick," groused Danny, again.

"Not anymore," laughed Claire.

The next morning, at work, Claire took time to give Cuddles a call. She updated her lawyer on what had happened and said she'd taken pictures.

"Email them to me," said Angela. "I still haven't heard from any counsel for the defendant. He may just let things go uncontested."

"I doubt that seriously. He made it clear I'd be sorry."

"He threatened you?"

"Not in so many words," said Claire. "Not physically, anyway. But I think we should expect him to fight. He told me to get out of his house."

"Big words," said Angela, "but if he's got a brain he knows it's community property."

"Which reminds me. He also told me to put the money back in our account. He said he'd call the police if I didn't."

"He hasn't got a leg to stand on," said Angela. "I checked. What we moved out of your account is less than half of what you brought home in your salary since the first of the year. In fact, I can't tell where some of your money has gone. Your mortgage payments to the bank don't account for it. I need to get your credit card statements. His pay is paltry by comparison. You've been carrying the weight in this marriage."