Chapter 8

Alycen went straight home after her confrontation with Dan, more than a little shaken or flustered. It wasn’t just his words or anything like that. It was the fact that, as frustrating as Dan was, he was always dangerously attractive to her. Now he was even more so. Something about his cold, even hostile response appealed to Alycen on a visceral level.

A man not under her thumb or spell for even a second? A man who could and would think for himself and openly reject society’s prevailing norms? A man who took delight in flouting the muddled message of mainstream morality? Alycen’s only previous lovers had been Dan’s own brother, David Leland, her estranged husband, a man by all accounts very old-school, very standard-fare Texan on the one hand, and Jeremy Ward, an easygoing, gregarious butcher who seemed to lack ambition for more from life.

Jeremy was interested in just three things outside of work: girls, football, and booze. Neither man was the stuff of which intellectual giants were made, nor was Alycen for that matter. Dan, however, had the dangerous air of a self-educated, self-willed philosopher of sorts. He was a rugged individualist. He was clearly not just some reclusive pothead, though that was part of the picture for sure. He was extremely antisocial, categorically rejecting not only society’s morals, but its etiquette as well.

There was a disturbing, even alarming revolutionary undertone with Dan Leland, a radicalism that was more pronounced the more one encountered the guy. Quite frankly, it both scared and aroused Alycen more than a little. She was drawn to a sense of danger ... and there was certainly a sense of understated risk inherent to Dan. Beneath his laidback, calm, lethargic, reefer-addict exterior, there was an undercurrent of contempt or disdain for conventional society, its values, and everything that it represented. Somehow, that was a lot more attractive than the slackers of the world like Jeremy or the conformists like David.

That was when Joanna called and Alycen rushed to answer her cell, “Hey, girlfriend, what’s new?”

“Yeah ... I’ve met and forgiven Les,” Joanna told Alycen with a surprisingly upbeat tone of voice.

“Really? He cheated on you with your own sister, Brandy. Six times, as I recall! Does that mean that you’re forgiving her, too?” Alycen expressed some surprise now, though she wanted to support her friend.

“Hey, he’s a cheater, you’re a cheater, I’d think that you’d be more in his corner, hon,” Joanna’s Okie accent came out a little stronger now.

“Yeah, everyone really likes throwing that in my face. At least whenever I judge Les and others for what they do. Yes, I get it, I cheated on David with Jeremy! I was there, I remember! No one’s quite so harsh on Jeremy. He was there, too!” Alycen complained.

“That’s because Jeremy never judges anyone for anything. Well, unless they do something to fuck with him at work,” Joanna laughed softly now.

“Hey, it’s important work! He’s a butcher! You want your sirloin to come out right!” Alycen retorted, the tension broken a bit now.

“Maybe you should have told David that you did it for the chuck steak. He might have forgiven your lapse then. Cheating, yes, but in a good cause,” Joanna snickered nasally now.

“Or porterhouse, but same principle, yes! So, does ... forgiving Les mean ... getting back with him or something else,” Alycen inquired, her curiosity piqued a bit.

“Well, let’s just say that he has a hall pass with Brandy now. I ... understand why he did it. And why he needs to keep doing it. And while I can’t ... fully undo the harm that I did to him ... and her, I’m mitigating it by wiring him some money and doing some other stuff. This doesn’t mean a license to cheat with just anyone. It’s a hall pass with Brandy ... and for the moment, it’s only with Brandy,” Joanna declared rather cryptically.

“What do you mean?” Alycen perked her ears up now.

“She needs to get pregnant. I can’t explain the details right now, but she badly needs to get pregnant. In fact, she took him in after I put him out on the street, so I really feel badly now. I was far too hasty of me. It’s important that he impregnates her. That’s all I gotta say about that!” Joanna insisted.

“I wish that I had an excuse like that. I really miss David. You can’t even begin to fathom how much I miss David at times! But ... to be honest ... I’m kinda ... smitten with his brother for some reason now. It’s embarrassing, really. I’ll be blunt here ... what if I’m just not a one-man woman? What if I’m just ... not cut out for monogamy?

“I just ... wish that he had forgiven me ... I would have made it up to him ... big time ... somehow! I only got nasty because I was hurt that he wouldn’t forgive me, you know. And I tried the absolutely worst tactics to try to force him to return to me, too, so I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed,” Alycen pouted.

“You really want your Dan, Jeremy, and David, too, don’t you? Yeah, welcome to the club! I’ve ... gotten a hall pass of my own for my recent lover from the separation. I felt like a hypocrite at first, but I ... couldn’t give this guy up. He’s a strange sort of man in another town, yes, but he’s so dreamy ... and he was great for the hot, steamy sex the past few weeks.