Chapter 1: Jarrett lays out a contest and how things will be from now on

It was a cold day in December and that made Debbie all the more surprised to see Todd riding his motorcycle. After all, here she was inside and, even so, she had still just pulled her favorite cashmere sweater on over her turtleneck shirt, just to stay warm. So, as she stood by the window and watched him ride away with her 14 year old son Jarrett by her side, Debbie wondered if she would ever see her husband again or if he might hit a patch of ice and die rather tragically at the age of only 42.

She wasn’t wishing for that, Debbie could never wish for such a fate to befall anyone, much less the man she had been married to since they both had been in high school, but she could see it happening. She had always hated that motorcycle, even when she had been drawn to it, because she feared it as something that was excessively dangerous. Still, when she had seen Todd sitting on it for the first time, astride it as if it were a horse, she had immediately swooned for the 17 year old high school senior, even if she herself was still only a freshman.

On that day, she had been the shy and nerdy bookworm, fourteen years old with big horn rimmed glasses and reddish brown curls while two still developing muscular but feminine legs showed between her knee high socks and plaid skirt. Hidden beneath her clutch of books and under her cardigan Debbie had hidden the beginnings of a large and firm chest of which she would always be self conscious.

She hadn’t been much to look at back in those days, Todd had always called her his ‘hot librarian’; the stereotypical mousy and unattractive lady who suddenly turned gorgeous once she took off her glasses and let down her hair. Even then he had been able to see behind her mask of homely clothes, braces and an home-perm to her elegant, delicate facial features, features that were so soft and perfectly proportioned that they would have made a cover girl model feel awkward standing next to her.

He had been three years older than her and not much of a student; for Todd, school had been a torture, an interminably dragging agony that he didn’t suffer one moment longer than he had to. He hadn’t been bad back in those days, Debbie never would have fallen for him if he had actually been bad. He was just exciting, a swirling vortex of male sexuality, a mass of shoulder length sandy blond hair and a lantern jaw, with muscles that stood out all over his arms, chest and back but, also, with a gentleness underneath that captured Debbie’s heart, her mind and her loins all in a single brief romance.

It had been a different motorcycle back in those days, just a cheap little Honda but still, when he sat astride it in jeans and a leather jacket, with his sparkling white t-shirt stretching across his chest, and with his chiseled face and slicked back dark blonde hair falling over his Terminator sunglasses, he was the only man who had ever made Debbie feel weak in her knees. While he hadn’t excelled in school that didn’t mean he was opposed to hard work for, when he had dropped out of high school on his 18^th birthday, he had gotten hired on by an HVAC company the very same day.

Unfortunately, that had been where Todd had almost peaked. Twenty years later he was still working HVAC and, though now he was a senior technician, to have taken only one step up in 20 years didn’t make Debbie’s heart swell with pride or admiration and his salary only provided for a lower-class lifestyle. Debbie, for her part, had not peaked at 18, for though she had married Todd before she left high school, she had continued on in her studies, getting first a bachelor’s degree and then a masters degree, both in accounting.

Once she had done that Debbie had immediately started her own business. Kressel Lawn, Garden and Landscaping was now the largest business of its kind in the area and was showing no sign of slowing down. There were plans to open a store as well as hire more workers and invest in more equipment and Debbie had no doubt that, with her careful money management and insistence on perfection, her business would continue to expand.

She had, of course, asked Todd to come into the business but he had always taken it as pity, as if she felt bad about the fact that she was the owner of a thriving business who brought in many times her own husband’s income. It had been a silent rift between them for Debbie knew her husband would never admit to feeling emasculated by her success or even admit to himself that he felt inadequate in any way.

But he had and, though she loved him, Debbie had refused to stop. After all, she wasn’t going to forgo all of life’s little luxuries just because her husband couldn’t afford to give them to her. As the years passed and Debbie had finally bore Todd a son, he had grown bitter and resentful all while never admitting that it was her success that caused it. Instead he just became angrier all whilst looking for any reason to blow up. Even over the smallest thing, and not just at Debbie but at their son Jarrett also.

When she had gotten married; it had never even occurred to her that she would get divorced, for she had been raised strict Catholic and, in her family, that sort of thing was completely out of the question. So far it was a question she had managed to avoid, for, in reality she was still married. Todd may be leaving but that was a matter of being separated but still married and it wasn’t nearly the same thing as being divorced. And, in the end, it was a relief. A toxic weight had been lifted from her shoulders and a tension that had lived in the air of the four bedroom house had been removed.

Now, Debbie felt as if every single muscle in her body was untwisting almost like, for the first time in years, she was actually able to relax. Forcing a smile onto her pretty face, Debbie turned and looked at her son. Jarrett had always been short for his age. If he had been at least average, he should have been only about four inches shorter than her own 63 inches. As it stood she was still a full head taller than him and she wondered, not for the first time, if he was sickly. It was a question that soon be answered and, in a way, more horrible than anything Debbie could possibly imagine.