Chapter 3

Friday April 25, 2003
11:30 PM

Tom's mind was focused on what he had to do when he got home. Pack his clothes and load the bike into the back of his truck. He also thought about the note he planned to leave for Lisa. He was trying to decide on the wording of the note when he came up on a car that had slowed to make a left turn. Tom slowed, waiting for the car to make the left turn onto McIntyre and then Tom accelerated hard letting his anger out a little.

Tom was leaning down behind the short windscreen on his bike when a large SUV coming from Indiana Street ran through the stop sign and hit Tom broadside. Tom's bike was pulled under the large four-wheel drive vehicle and the gas tank ruptured and burst into flames as the bike was dragged along the pavement. As soon as the SUV stopped the occupants jumped out and ran away from their burning vehicle. Within two minutes the SUV's fuel tank exploded in a huge fireball. A crowd had quickly gathered to watch the fire and everyone assumed that the driver of the motorcycle was under the SUV and must have been killed.

Joe Toyoaki was walking east along 44th Avenue and witnessed the accident. He wasn't sure what it was but he had seen something dark fly through the air and over the guide rail on the right side of the street but because of the noise from the fire Joe couldn't hear anything hit the ground. Joe thought it might have been the driver of the motorcycle or possibly a passenger. He looked down the embankment where he thought that whatever he saw would have landed but it was too dark to see anything.

11:35 PM

After the dance ended Lisa and Brad returned from the dance floor and Brad ordered another round of drinks.

"Let's have one more drink and then I think we should head over to my apartment," Tom said.

Lisa agreed.

11:36 PM

Tom was suddenly conscious that he was lying on his back on the side of a hill with his head below his feet. At first he didn't feel anything. He lay still for a moment trying to understand what had just happened. It took him a moment but then he realized that he must have been thrown from his bike, which for some reason struck him funny but when he laughed it triggered a lot of pain in he chest. He tried to push himself up but his left arm wouldn't move and caused pain to shoot through his body. When he tried to move his legs, the pain was just too much to bear.

Tom looked up the hill toward the road and wondered what the bright flickering light was. He could see the silhouettes of people standing at the top of the hill but he couldn't tell if they were looking at him or at the bright light.

11:40 PM

Brad and Lisa put their jackets on and walked out to the parking lot.

"Why don't we leave your car here and we'll come back for it in the morning," Brad suggested.

Lisa agreed because she knew she was in no condition to get behind the wheel of a car. For just a moment she wondered if Brad was sober enough to drive but then followed him to his car.

Brad drove out of the parking lot and headed east on 44th Avenue.

11:42 PM

Tom tried to call for help but couldn't... He couldn't get enough air into his lungs to speak above a whisper. Tom was beginning to panic because he couldn't move and he couldn't call for help and no one seemed to be coming to his aid. Then Tom felt something warm and wet on his neck. He moved his right hand to his neck and found that it was covered with what he guessed to be blood and there was a lot of it.

11:45 PM

As they crested the top of a hill, Brad and Lisa saw a huge fire in the road ahead.

"Holy shit, I wonder what happened down there," Brad said.

To avoid the accident scene Brad turned left on McIntyre Street and drove to 48th Avenue and then turned right. Brad then made a right on Eldridge Street, along the west side of Mt, Olivet Cemetery, which brought him back to 44th Avenue east of the scene of the accident. As he turned left onto 44th Avenue Lisa looked back to the west at the fire. She could see the SUV was fully engulfed in flames.

"That must have been really bad," she said. "I hope everyone got out okay."

Joe Toyoaki was still trying to spot the object he thought he had seen flying over the guide rail. He wondered why no one else saw it and he decided to wait till the police came and tell them what he saw. They would have flashlights and would be able to search the embankment.

Tom felt himself getting weaker as he listened for sirens but he didn't hear any. He knew that at the rate he was losing blood he would be dead in a few minutes. Then Tom remembered that he had his cell phone and somehow he managed to unclip it and tried to use voice dial to call Lisa but the voice recognition would not recognize his ragged voice. Then with a great deal of difficulty he punched in Lisa's cell number and pressed, "Talk."

11:47 PM

Lisa's cell phone started ringing. She got the phone out of her purse and saw that it was Tom calling so she turned the phone off and put it back in her purse rather than answer it.

Tom listened as the phone rang six times and then Lisa's voice mail answered. Tom wondered why Lisa didn't answer her phone.

He had to take several small breaths before he could speak and then he left a message.

"Lisa, I don't have much time left. I just need you to know that I love you and only you. I don't understand why you don't believe me about Las Vegas. I just hope that you will remember me as the loving husband that I really am and not the person you seem to think I am now. Unfortunately my last memory of you will be of the last conversation we had tonight. I forgive you for whatever happened tonight. I hope someday when you know the truth that you will be able to forgive yourself."

11:48 PM

Joe Toyoaki was still scanning the dark embankment when he spotted the light from Tom's cell phone.

"Down there," Joe yelled, "He is down there. Does anyone have a flashlight?"

A man who was standing near Joe and was watching the fire heard Joe and said that he had a flashlight in his car and he ran to get it.

11:50 PM

Tom wanted to try and call Brad but was too weak to hold the phone any longer. The phone fell from his hand and landed in the deep grass. Tom tried to pick it up again but he was beginning to lose consciousness. He could finally hear the sirens approaching and then he saw someone with a flashlight climbing down the embankment toward him. Tom passed out before they got to him.

Saturday April 26, 2003

12:05 AM

Brad parked his car in front of his apartment and took Lisa inside. They entered into the living room and Lisa noticed the sliding glass doors across the room from where they entered. The doors opened onto a small deck on the west side of the building and Lisa crossed the room and looked out through the glass doors. From there she could see the light from the fire down on 44th Avenue.

"The only thing I have to drink is beer," Brad said as he stood in front of his refrigerator.

"In that case I'll have a beer," Lisa said.

As she watched the fire Lisa thought of how sad it would be if anyone had been injured or killed in that accident. Just then Lisa felt a sudden chill. It felt as if someone had put a cold hand on her back.

Brad brought the beers over to where Lisa was standing and handed her one. They both stood in silence for a few minutes and watched the activity around the fire.

"Do you want me to turn the television on to see if we can get some news about that accident or would you rather listen to some music?" Brad asked.

"I don't think I want to hear about the accident right now. I can't deal with any sad news."

Brad turned on the CD player.

12:10 AM

Tom was unconscious when the paramedics loaded him onto a backboard and then onto a stretcher. They carefully carried him up the embankment and loaded him into an ambulance.

Lisa was still looking out the window and could just make out the ambulance leaving the accident scene when she began thinking about her last encounter with Tom at Ben's. Thinking about it was making her angry and the alcohol in her system was beginning to cloud her judgment.

Lisa finished her beer and then turned to face Brad.

"Would you make love to me?" She asked.

Brad was surprised by the question.

"I'm not sure that would be a good idea," he responded.

"Do you think I am attractive?" She asked.

"Of course I do."

"Then why don't you want to make love to me?"

"It's not that I don't want to make love to you, it's just that Tom has been my best friend for a long time. I haven't known you for as long but I have to confess that I have always had a crush on you. The truth is I would very much like to make love to you but I don't think it would be a good idea under the circumstances."

Lisa put her arms around Brad's neck and pulled him to her and kissed him. Brad did not pull away so she kissed him again and he kissed her back.

12:25 AM

The ambulance carrying Tom arrived at the hospital and he was taken into the emergency room. John Stanley, one of the paramedics that brought Tom into the hospital, began to apprise Dr. Raymond of the patient's condition. Dr. Raymond was the lead doctor in the ER that night.

"His left leg appears to be badly broken as well as his left arm," John Stanley said. "He also appears to have some broken ribs and, judging from the sucking sound he makes as he breathes, I suspect that he has a punctured lung. He has several lacerations and abrasions on his torso and he has lost a lot of blood."

Tom was rolled into a treatment room where they checked his blood type and ordered two units of O positive blood for him. As soon as the blood arrived Tom was hooked up to an IV for the transfusions while the ER team evaluated his injuries and tried to stop the bleeding and stabilize his condition.

Ms. Jackson, the ER admitting nurse, asked John Stanley for the patient's name.

"He didn't have any identification on him," John Stanley said. "Hopefully, once they put the fire out they will be able to get the license number off the motorcycle and get an ID from that. If that doesn't work we may have to wait till he regains consciousness or someone reports him as missing."

12:30 AM

Lisa and Brad moved to the sofa in the living room. Brad was kissing Lisa all over her face and neck. Lisa had become passive and was letting Brad dictate whatever was going to happen. Mentally she knew she should not be doing this but she was so angry with Tom that she wanted to hurt him the way he had hurt her. In addition to that her body was beginning to respond to Brad's stimulation. He had opened her top and was massaging her breasts and teasing her nipples with his fingers.

Lisa was torn between the rational thoughts she was having that told her she should stop this before it was too late and the alcohol-fueled, anger-infused emotions that seemed to have taken control of her. She could hear herself saying stop but no words emitted from her lips.

12:45 AM

Brad had removed Lisa's bra and was kissing and sucking on Lisa's breasts when he put his hand on her thigh. Brad gently massaged Lisa's thigh as he slowly moved his hand up between her legs. This felt strange to Lisa. She knew that very soon his hand would reach the top of her stocking and would touch the bare skin of her upper thigh. No man other than Tom had touched that part of her body in more than eleven years and until that moment she had always assumed that no one other than Tom ever would again. Lisa had only had one lover before Tom and she had broken up with him more than a year before she met Tom.

12:47 AM

Dr. Raymond ordered two more units of blood for Tom. He was concerned because Tom's blood pressure was dangerously low and if they didn't get it up soon they would lose him.

12:50 AM

Brad's hand moved across the elastic top of her stocking and onto the soft flesh of Lisa's upper thigh. Brad moved slowly and had given Lisa every opportunity to say stop but she had not made any attempt to stop him. Brad's dream was finally coming true. When his finger slipped inside Lisa's panties and touched her moist lips Lisa jumped a little. She actually didn't like what she was feeling but she still would not say stop.

1:00 AM

Dr. Raymond sent for two more units of blood. Tom's blood pressure was still not responding the way it should. Tom was having difficulty breathing because of the punctured lung but they could not do anything about that until they could get enough blood in him to stabilize his blood pressure, and stop the rapid blood loss.

1:02 AM

Brad slipped off the sofa and reached his hands underneath Lisa's skirt and started to slowly pull her panties off. He knew that this was it. If she didn't stop him now he was home free. He was finally going to get a piece of the pussy that he had only dreamed about since the first time he had met her. Tom Boyer was Brad's best friend but Brad was always jealous that Tom had married Lisa. Brad smiled to himself as he thought about how quickly things can change.

When he had her panties around her ankles Brad admired the sight he had never seen before but had imagined many times while he masturbated. What Brad really wanted to do at that moment was to go down on Lisa and taste her but he wasn't sure how she would react to that and he didn't want to push things. He thought that he could do that later.

Lisa felt like she wasn't inside her own body as she watched Brad remove her panties. She knew what was coming next and while she wasn't sure if this is what she wanted she didn't seem to have the will to make it stop. Lisa surprised herself when she heard her own voice tell Brad to use a condom. She wasn't aware that she had even had that thought. The only conscious thought in Lisa's mind was that she needed to do this to try and make the pain of what Tom had done go away. Lisa managed to disengage her mind from her body as she watched Brad put a condom on his erect cock.

1:05 AM

Lisa slid down on the sofa on her back as Brad positioned himself between her legs. Lisa could not bring herself to look at Brad as he rubbed the head of his cock across her vulva trying to find the opening he so disparately wanted to enter. Lisa turned her head away and looked in the direction of the blank television screen and then noticed the digital time display on the VCR. Lisa watched as the time changed from 1:04 to 1:05 while at the same time she felt the head of Brad's cock separating her labia and begin to enter her. Brad had penetrated Lisa with no more than half of his length when Lisa felt a sudden chill run through her body. The feeling was so intense that it scared her and she cried out as she pushed Brad away from her.

"Stop. Stop I can't do this," she yelled.

Brad was startled by Lisa's sudden shouts and immediately pulled out of her and jumped off the sofa.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Did I hurt you?"

"I don't know. No, you didn't hurt me but something happened. I just can't do this, I can't do it," she said.

Brad's heart was pounding caused by the unexpected panic he heard in Lisa voice as she told him to stop. As the fear that he had felt faded it was replaced by disappointment. He had to console himself with the thought that given the circumstances that Lisa would eventually come to him.

In the ER the only noise in the room other than the orders being barked out by Dr. Raymond was the steady but weak beep... beep... beep, of the heart monitor. Dr. Raymond took a quick peek at his watch to get an idea of how long they had been working on Tom. He noted that the time was 1:05 AM and at that exact moment the beeping of the heart monitor became a loud steady tone indicating that Tom had gone into cardiac arrest.

Dr. Raymond immediately began CPR as he called for the defibrillator. Dr. Raymond placed the defibrillator paddles on Tom's chest, yelled "clear" and then triggered the charge in an attempt to get his heart started again. It didn't work. Dr. Raymond began CPR again while the defibrillator was recharging and then hit Tom with the paddles again. This time his heart started to beat but very erratically. For the next twenty minutes it was touch and go while the team tried to stabilize Tom's heart beat.

1:25 AM

Tom's heart started beating in a normal sinus rhythm again and his blood pressure started to respond to the six units of blood they had given him. Dr. Raymond closed up a couple more bleeders and then they prepared Tom for surgery.

The chill that Lisa had felt lasted for nearly twenty minutes. It had left her weak and crying. Brad didn't know what to do so he sat and held Lisa and kept telling her everything would be all right. Once the feeling had passed Lisa went to the bathroom and rinsed her face with cold water. When she saw herself in the mirror she felt ashamed. She had let her anger control her actions and while she had made Brad stop he had already penetrated her most private place. A place that she was supposed to only share with Tom. Did it mater that she had stopped Brad, that she didn't let him climax inside her? He had been inside her and even though he had only just barely penetrated her before she made him stop, would Tom ever forgive her for that? She had done what Tom had warned her against. She had done something that she would never be able to undo. Regardless of what Tom had done she should not have let things go that far with Brad. It wasn't fair to her marriage and it wasn't fair to use Brad that way.

Once Lisa felt that she had her emotions under control she went back into the living room.

"Brad, I think I would like to go to bed now," Lisa said.

"Would you like to share my bed?" Brad asked.

"I don't think that would be a very good idea," she said. "I'm sorry about all this. You must think I am a terrible person."

"To me, you could never be a terrible person."

1:45 AM

Lisa climbed into the bed in Brad's guest room and tried to go to sleep.

In the ER Dr. Raymond was finally satisfied that Tom was ready for surgery and had the orderlies take Tom to the operating room.

8:30 AM

In the morning Lisa woke up with a major headache and remembered what she had done and was angry with herself. She remembered the strange chill she had felt when Brad had tried to enter her. What was that all about? Had her conscience sent her a message to make her stop her destructive behavior? If that was the case, why didn't it happen sooner, before she let Brad get that far? Lisa got dressed and went into the living room where Brad, already up and dressed was drinking a cup of coffee and looking at the morning paper.

Brad looked up at Lisa and said, "Good morning, Lisa. Are you feeling any better this morning?"

"I'll survive although I am not sure I want to," she said. "My head is pounding."

"You did have quite a bit to drink last night," Brad said. "We both did. I hope you can forgive me for what happened last night. I never intended to take advantage of you like that. We were both drunk and I made the mistake of thinking it was what you wanted."

"It was not your fault, Brad, it was mine. I let my anger distort my judgment. I don't know now if I'll be able to save my marriage. Even if I somehow find the strength to forgive Tom, will he ever be able to forgive me?"

"Forgive you for what? You didn't do anything. Tom never has to know what happened last night."

"I can't lie to him about last night. If I expect him to be honest with me about Las Vegas, I will have to tell him the truth."

"You stopped before it was too late. You can tell him nothing happened."

"We both know that even though we didn't finish it we went to far for me to be able to say nothing happened."

"I guess you're right," Brad said. "You know that if there ever comes a time when you want to finish what we started, I will be here for you."

"If that time comes, I'll be happy to come to you," Lisa said.

Brad smiled and looked down at the newspaper.

"There is a story about last night's accident in the paper. Apparently there were no fatalities but they didn't release the names of the people involved." Brad didn't bother to mention that a motorcycle was involved because he didn't know it was important. He didn't know that Tom had been driving his bike.

Brad said, "I thought we would go have breakfast and then we can go get your car."

10:15 AM

The surgeons had done everything they could. They had set his broken leg and his left arm and repaired his punctured lung and his broken ribs. His left leg was in a cast from his crotch to his ankle, his left arm was in a cast and they put a body cast around his chest to protect his ribs. They had also stitched and bandaged several lacerations on his back and his legs. It had been ten hours and forty-five minutes since the accident and as they rolled Tom into the recovery room they still didn't know who he was.

11:00 AM

Brad and Lisa stopped at a Denny's for breakfast. Brad sensed that Lisa was deep in her own thoughts so he didn't try to engage her in conversation as they ate. After breakfast Brad drove Lisa back out to Ben's Lounge to pick up her car.

"Would you like me to follow you home in case Tom becomes violent?" Brad asked.

"I am sure Tom will be angry but I know him. He would never hurt me, at least not physically. I'll be okay. Besides I think it would be better if he didn't see you with me."

Lisa got into the car and thanked Brad for being there for her.

"Call me if you need anything," Brad said and closed Lisa's car door.

As Brad watched her drive away he thought, "Their marriage is a mess. There is no way they can save it now. Lisa, you may be mine yet."