Chapter 2

My name is Benson Norse Hedges. No shit, Benson N Hedges. Seems my folks had a wicked sense of humor. Everyone calls me Ben. Now that cigarettes are so frowned upon, no one really appreciates the humor in my name.

When I left off in Chapter 1, I was in the throes of trying to decide if I wanted to attempt to start afresh with Kathy Arnotta, nee Windsor, a girl I was engaged to twenty years ago. We were engaged until I became suspicious that she was cheating and then actually found her in the back seat of Ronnie Carter's car naked, with her legs sticking straight up in the air, and his cum spewed all over her breasts face and stomach.

The day I'd found them screwing, I'd promised Ronnie that someday I would get even with him. And now, after the story Kathy had just told me about how he'd blackmailed her into sex with him, I knew the time had come for my retribution.

I slowly began to peel back the layers of distrust, hate and sheer revulsion built up over the years by my brain's inability to forget the sight of Kathy being used by Ronnie like some two dollar whore. The single sight had cost me my ability to trust women or seek a long term relationship. As I stated before, the one woman I really thought I loved after Kathy turned out to have been a cheater, too. I dumped her in a New York minute after I found out. So, between Kathy and the other woman's histories, I was pretty screwed up about meaningful relationships with women.

After hearing how Ronnie had backed Kathy into a corner using the pictures of her younger sister as weapons, I was sure she'd only had sex with Ronnie for the love of her family and not wanting any of them hurt. She'd not willingly left me. She'd just left because she knew she was now soiled goods that I would never accept.

I began spending time on the weekends taking Kathy's kids, Mathew and Suzy, to special places like Chucky Cheese, various water parks, the zoo, and anywhere else I thought would appeal to four and six years-olds. Of course Kathy went, too. I had an in-ground pool at my home so I invited them to use it any time they wanted. In fact, I gave Kathy a key to house so they could use the showers after using the pool.

After our weekend activities or their use of the pool, I'd always volunteer to order in dinner. We must have tried every home delivery joint in five miles. After she put the kids down for the evening, she and I spent many hours just talking and finding out more about whom each of us was now.

We certainly weren't the same people that had been in love twenty years ago. Each of us had matured, been molded by our different environments, and shaped by our experiences.

I learned she couldn't date again for years after the forced rapes by Ronnie. She was also plagued with the guilt of what she had done to me. It was only ten years ago that she was able to extricate herself from the shell of isolation she'd wrapped herself in. She'd begun dating again. And then she had met a promising young attorney, Bill Arnotta.

He'd slowly won her heart and they wed seven years ago. Mathew their oldest was born eleven months after their wedding. Suzy was born two years later. Kathy had found happiness again only to have it pulled away by cancer. Bill slowly sank to less than a hundred pounds. His pain became too much to take and he'd killed himself with an overdose of morphine. He was out of his mind and failed to realize that suicide voided all of his life insurance. This left Kathy with no money as all of their savings had been drained paying huge medical bills.

But she'd still held a spot in her heart for me. Each of my birthdays, she'd gotten a card and written personal notes to me. She'd never had the nerve to mail them and had tucked them away tied in ribbon.

She gave me the collection of birthday cards one evening and told me, "Ben, you can do with these what you will. Read them; burn them, whatever you wish. I really hope you read them and see my most personal thoughts to you over the years."

I took them home and gingerly sat them on my coffee table. For two days I stared at the parcel of cards each time I went through the room. Finally my curiosity got the best of me. Grabbing a large Makers Mark bourbon, I sat in my Lazy Boy and pulled the packet to me.

Untying the ribbon holding the stack together, I looked at each envelope. Each was dated in the upper right hand corner where a stamp would normally be.

Sipping the drink, I took the oldest one. It was my birthday that happened three months after I'd caught Kathy and Ronnie together. I opened it and saw Kathy's beautiful handwriting.

I read:

I read each card in turn with pretty much the same content. In several she'd come pretty close to revealing the full reasons for her infidelity. She cursed Ronnie more and more as he became engrained into her family. She called him, the brother-in-hell. She did say she was starting to come out of her self-imposed exile and hoped both of us would find happiness in the future. She apologized over and over for any pain and mental anguish her actions caused me.

The year she married Bill Arnotta her card simply said:

The cards after that told me something of her family life, her children and her private thoughts.

The one line that was constant in each card was:

When I see my children sleeping so innocently in their beds, I think to myself "They could have been Ben and mine's. Don't get me wrong. I treasure my husband Bill, but I still have the place in my heart for you."

But each also seemed to show she was developing a stronger love for her husband each year.

The next to last card told me of Bill's disease and how she was dealing with the crisis. She was very distraught over his approaching death. It was plain to see she did love him.

And then there was the last card. This was written just a month after she started work at my company.

Now it was my turn to be astonished. Renee? Is in love with me? I've never done anything to give her any ideas that I thought of her that way. I sat back and considered.

Renee had come to me to tell me I needed to talk to Kathy and hear her side of the events that broke us apart all of those years ago. Yet Renee loves me? Why would she send me back to my former fiancée?

My brain was swirling around. First I've got no women in my life and now I've got two. I know my feelings for Kathy are coming back to life. But now Renee is in the picture? What to do?

I hardly slept at all last night. I got to the office a few minutes late and had to immediately chair a meeting on some mundane company business. After it was over I called Renee into my office.

"Renee, please push the door a little. I want a private conversation with you."

She turned around and closed the door.

Before she turned around I said, "Renee, I only wanted the door pushed partially closed. It would be unseemly for us to be behind closed doors together."

She turned around and grinned, "What are you going to do, Ben? Attack me? Heck, I'm a big girl and can defend my virtue, so don't worry. No one around here would think you would do anything so out of character for you." She sat down in the chair across the desk from me.

She patted the chair next to her and said, "Come sit here Ben. I think I know what this is about and you and I need to talk as peers for a change."

I nervously got up and came around the desk and sat heavily into the chair as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

She saved me from having to say anything.

"I guess Kathy has told you about how I feel, right?"

"Well, yes."

"I told Kathy that for one reason."

"What's that reason?"

"I wanted her to make sure you knew how I feel about you. I love you with my whole heart. You are a wonderful guy. A wonderful guy who has had his head screwed on sideways for twenty years. You're a wonderful guy who doesn't want a relationship because you're afraid of getting hurt again, right?"

"Renee, I don't understand why you would tell Kathy you have feelings for me."

"Because you idiot, I wanted you to know that what I'm about to do is what I think is best for you. And what I'm willing to give up to see you happy. It hurts me to my core, but I'm never going to be the woman in your heart. There is only one of those. And it's Kathy."

"What are you saying?"

"My, we are slow on the uptake today. Kathy is your soul mate. It's obvious you two are meant to be together. She told me the whole sordid story about Ronnie and what happened all of those years ago. She didn't plan it. She didn't want it. She was simply used by a very skillful predator. She's hurting too. She's been hurting ever since she saw your face when you found them together. Did you know she tried to commit suicide twice? Thank god she really doesn't know how to do it right."

"So, Renee, what am I supposed to do about this?"

"Get off your ass, go over to her, and get on your knees and beg her. Yes beg her to forgive you for being such an oaf and ask her to marry you. You know you love her and her children. And I know they all love you. You're so damned smart with business and always seemed to make the right decision business wise. Do the right thing for once in your personal life and make the right decision!"

With that she got up and walked to the door. Grabbing the doorknob she turned and looked back and me. "I do love you Ben. I'd love to be your wife and be a mother to as many babies as you want, but that's not going to happen. Kathy is yours and you are hers. Do what's right and be happy for once in your miserable personal life!"

With that she swept out. I was floored. Here was a smart, beautiful woman expressing her love of me and the want to have my babies and then telling me to go to another. Was she that much smarter than I was?

I had to smile. Yes, in matters of the heart, she certainly was smarter. She knew me better than I knew myself. She'd just kicked me in the ass and told me what I had to do.

Kathy was at her desk industriously working away on yet another project. I walked up alongside and waited for her lay her pencil down, sigh, and stretch as she normally did after toiling at a task for a long while. As she stretched I asked in a low voice, "How about getting your shoulders rubbed? You must be tense from being hunched over that desk for so long."

She startled and whirled to meet my grinning face.

She smiled back and replied, "Maybe after work. I don't think the boss would like such employee fraternization at the office."

I lifted her up and brought her tightly to my chest. We looked into each others' eyes for what seemed an eternity. Lights danced from her eyes. I gently bent and kissed her lips. Raising my head I said, "I'm good friends with the boss, so I'll bet I can insure that this behavior will be tolerated."