There is no sex in this story, sorry.

My name is John Turlock. I am an oilman. Actually I am THE OILMAN. I work oil refineries, pipelines, tankers, oil and gas wells and my favorites, platforms. I am the best in the business. I am in demand and I am proud of my work. I have a master degree in petroleum engineering from Texas A & M. Because of my knowledge and experience, I now have more money that I could ever spend in a lifetime. No brag, just fact. I can fix anything and I can do anything, or so I thought.

About sixteen years ago I was finishing up a batch of safety audits on some off shore oil platforms near Mobile Bay. One night, I was unwinding with a group of the guys at an oyster bar near Bayou La Batre, south of Mobile. It was a rowdy bunch in a rowdy bar. We were putting down long necks almost as fast as we were slurping the oysters. I found myself looking across the room at the women who was shucking the bivalves. She was popping them suckers open like a machine. Just watching her work was mesmerizing. When she reached down and picked up a 65 pound sack of oysters with one hand and dumped them on the shucking table, I was hooked.

She was definitely ethnic. Her long black hair was tied back with a red, checkered bandana. Her eyes were dark and deep set under eyebrows that had never been plucked. Her nose was large and had a bump in the middle, that you seldom see on women. She had a large mouth and thin lips that fit the rest of her face perfectly. I have seen and been with a lot of ladies from all over the world but this was the first one that I ever wanted to possess as my own. Her hands were hard and calloused and reflected years of work. She was not a pretty, young girl. She was a hard woman and fit to be the wife of a hard man.

“Hey John, what the hell are you staring at man?”

“Nothing. I was just watching that girl shuck oysters. I can’t take my eyes off her.”

“Hey fellows, John is checking out Marie.” That was followed with a bunch of hoots and catcalls. Marie looked across the room at the ruckus. I was caught off guard and was just a little embarrassed.

From the other side of the bar another of my recent workmates yelled over. “You must have a death wish John.”

I rapidly tried to save face by ordering another round of drinks for the crew. We spent another hour sucking beers and oysters, but I caught myself sneaking peeks at Marie every chance I got. Bill Connor was watching me look at her and finally leaned over to me.

“John, she is bad news. If you want to date her you have to get her brothers permission. It has never happened. Do you see that guy over by the bar with John Deere cap?”

“Yes, so what?”

“Last year he decided to get permission to date Marie. He drove over to Slidell to see the brothers. There are three of them: Clyde, Claude and Clarence. They beat the shit out of him, drove him back here and dumped him on the porch. He couldn’t work for a week. Hasn’t talked or even looked at Marie since.”

“What the hell is so special about her?”

“You tell me, you are the one who has been checking her out all night.”

“Bill, she is absolutely fascinating. If I don’t get to spent some time with her I know I will regret it my whole life.”

“It’s your funeral.”

A short while later I got up and ambled over to the John Deere cap. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“What? Are you gay or something?”

“No. No way. Just wanted to ask you about your experience with Marie’s brothers.”

“It was a bad experience. I wanted to take Marie out and she explained I had to ask permission. My work takes me over that way so I decided to stop and see her brothers. They lived on a bayou, south of Slidell. All three of them were skinny and wiry. There was not an ounce of fat on the bunch. They had a good time laughing at me and making remarks that I couldn’t understand. The oldest, I think his name was Clarence, told me I had to whoop each of them in order to take Marie out. If I wanted to marry her, I had to beat them all at the same time. It was a game to them.”

“Sounds a little crazy to me.”

“It was. They weren’t normal. I took the first one down pretty quick. I was hurting but was able to hold off the second one. Clarence was left and he beat the shit out of me. He was a kick boxer and I was not expecting a boot to the mouth. By the time I recovered from that he was all over me. The son of a bitch broke my jaw with the kick and a couple of ribs for good measure.”

“That hurts just thinking about it. Any suggestions?”

“Yah, don’t go.”

“I love a challenge.”

“Well if you insist. I’d say take out Clarence first and watch out for his feet. What ever you do, don’t fight fair.”

“Thanks.” I laid a twenty on the bar for his tab the rest of the night.

Marie stopped shucking and came around to the counter when I walked up. She had a half smile, half smirk on her face. I just stood and looked at her. She was more mysterious close up and I was sure I was making the right decision. Her rubber apron was wet with oyster juice and bits of shell. As she dried her hands on a towel, she looked up at me with out saying anything. The sweat was glistening on her face and arms.

“You need to be married. Where can I find your brothers?”

“Four miles south of Slidell on highway 11. Look for a sign on the right to Beaudreau’s Landing. They are at the end of the road.”

“Thank you. We will be getting married tomorrow at noon. Be ready. I will pick you up here.”

“How will I know you were there?”

“You tell me.”

“Bring back my brother Clarence’s leather hat.”

As I turned to go she added. “If you can’t handle them, you can’t handle me.”

I threw a couple of twenties on the table and said good night to the guys. I got a couple of verbal jabs from them on the way to the door. I turned and looked at her one more time before leaving. She yelled across the room. “I will come see you in the hospital.”

Damn I loved that woman.

It took me two hours to find the landing. The brothers came down off the porch to greet me. I recognized Clarence by the tattered leather hat. He looked like a Crocodile Dundee want to be. He asked me what I wanted as I walked up to them. I told him I wanted his hat. As he looked over at his brothers and laughed, my boot slammed into his nuts. I grabbed his hat, as he went down, and put it on my head. Clyde and Claude both came at me, and both went down with one blow.

Three hours later Marie and I were married. She wore a white cotton dress and I wore a leather hat. I had my own Cajun Queen. The sex was great and continued to be great through out our marriage. We both seemed to be happy with each other. The more time I was with her, the more I loved her.

Marie and I build a home just outside of Reading. It was large and expensive. The kitchen was her pride and joy. It had tile floors and all stainless steel commercial appliances. In the center of the kitchen was a heavy wooden harvest table. Life was good, with a few exceptions: I was gone too often on jobs and we had no children yet. Finally Timothy came, and later, Mark and Robert. We had three fine boys and Marie was happy.

Marie worked for a short time after we were married, not because we needed the money but because she wanted something to do while I was wandering around the world. I would be away for months at a time doing various jobs relating to my field. There was always more work than I could handle and it was always far away. She continued to work after Timothy was born but quit when Mark came. She was doing a good job raising them. Unfortunately I wasn’t doing as good a job as a father. Marie never complained.

The boys were six, eight and ten. For some reason I decided that we should all get complete physicals and make sure all of our medical histories were up to date. Marie did not seem excited about the plan, but seemed forced to go along with it. I didn’t understand, but just to make things easier, I suggested that she get her exam first and the boys and I would get ours the next day. Two days later the doctor called and ask me to come in to go over the examination results. Marie insisted that I go alone and stated that she would be happy with any decisions that I might have to make.

“John, It looks like all good news.” Donald Curry had been our family doctor since we moved to Reading. He also delivered all three of the boys.

“Good to hear.”

“I won’t get into Marie’s results unless you feel it is necessary. Let me just say that she is in fine health and has no immediate problems or pending problems to worry about.”

“Thanks fine Doc. I have no intentions of getting into her personal stuff.”

“Both her file and your file is pretty complete. The only thing I would like to get is more more information about the medical history of the boys biological fathers. It would us a better point of reference if anything came up in the future,”

I sat there quietly for a few moments. I was trying to digest what he just said to me and didn’t know exactly how to respond.

“Could you repeat that, please?”

“I am sorry, John, for not being clear enough. I just feel that if we could get some background information on the fathers, it would give us a database in case anything happened in the future. I just need your permission to request the data.”

“I am a bit confused here Doctor. Are you telling me that I am not the father of my sons?” I watched as he got a surprised look on his face and seemed to squirm a bit in his chair. He rifled though his files a bit before slowly looking up at me.

“You didn’t know, did you John?”

I didn’t answer him. I just slumped down in my chair and stared across the room at one of those stupid medical charts that hung on the office walls. It was a passionate moment. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or get raging mad. The overwhelming emotion seemed to be disappointment, if you can call that an emotion.

“Doc! Let me get back to you on that. I have a few things to work out.”

As I stood up I could tell that he was worried. It appears that everyone knew that I was not the father of the boys except me. I was on unfamiliar ground. I didn’t know what to do. That was a feeling that I did not get very often. As I was leaving, I turned one last time.

“Doc. You said fathers. Is there more than one?”

“John, each of your sons has a different biological father.”

I sighed, nodded and left for home.

She was sitting at the kitchen table when I got home She knew! I figured Doc Curry gave here a wake up call after I left. I don’t blame him. It was probably a good idea. I grabbed a longneck and plopped down across from her.

“Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“I was worried.” she started, “ It was three years and I was still not pregnant. I knew how bad you wanted children so I went in and had myself checked; several times. Each time they told me that I was fine. I couldn’t ask you to have yourself checked so I got a sample, don’t ask, and took it in myself. You are sterile, John. Not weak! Not a low sperm count! Sterile!”