One of the things I enjoy most about writing is all of the people I meet doing it and the exchange of ideas and info from other writers. The kindly delivered criticism and encouragement they offer fuels my desire to get better at it. I recently met a new writer who I truly believe is going to set this genre on fire. He calls himself "The End Begins" and he gave me the idea for this story. Of course my final version is probably different from what he originally saw. It probably isn't as extreme and of course there weren't any Mustangs mentioned but this is a good thing because it means that he can someday grace us with his version too. I hope he likes what I did with his idea and I can't wait to see what he's going to put out. Thanks also to the incredible mikothebaby for both her editing skill and making me control my murderous impulses, I think she helped make this a stronger story than my original kill them all version. SS06

After a hard day of work, it feels really good to clock out and just go home. I'd just finished my last repair of the day so my boss told me to go ahead and go. It gets really hot in August in Oklahoma and the funny thing about that day was that I'd spent the bulk of the day fixing the air conditioning in most of our customers' vehicles but the air in my 20 year old F150 didn't work.

I rolled the windows down and left the truck sitting open to cool its interior down then ran back into the garage to grab my cooler and a couple of cans of Pepsi. Even getting off work a bit early didn't mean anything since my wife Heather's car was on the fritz as well. I had to drive all the way into town to pick her up and then back this way past the station to go home.

I really wish there was another way to do it but since she had to be at work before I did, there was no way around it until we got her car fixed.

As I started the drive into town, I turned on the radio to keep me company. After a few miles the breeze through the open window cooled the inside of the truck down even more and it really wasn't that bad. Of course, Heather would still complain. She complained about everything. Ever since she'd taken that job with the church, everything had to be done a certain way.

My ten mile trip down the freeway was uneventful and my local baseball team actually seemed to be winning this one. Approaching the property owned by the church, I was as usual struck by the beauty of the church itself and the grounds surrounding it. Everywhere you looked, shade trees provided a welcome respite from the relentless Oklahoma sun. It almost looked like the entire campus was shady while everything else around it roasted.

Heather was lucky to work in a place like this. Heather worked as one of Reverend Jimmy Hubbard's secretaries and actually made a little bit more money than I did so her job was good for both of us. I tried calling her cell to let her know that I was early but it went straight to voice mail. That put an end to my plan to just let her know I was here, then sit out in the truck and listen to the ball game.

I walked up to the door and waved to the guard. He smiled back and asked for the baseball score. When I told him the Red Hawks were ahead by one in the eighth, his fist pump made me smile too.

I guess that was why I was still smiling when I walked into the office. Jimmy's office is huge. He has an outside reception area, then there's the main office where his secretaries work and finally his private office. The reception area was deserted which wasn't unusual in the afternoon during the week.

The main office area was empty too but there was a very dim light coming from Jimmy's private office. Jimmy is a good old boy. He's nothing like you'd expect from seeing him on TV. He's the kind of guy that you can just walk right up to and talk to. Maybe that was what made him so successful at convincing people that that if they sent him their money, he could get them into heaven.

I figured that I'd just walk in and ask Jimmy where Heather was. I guess I wasn't paying much attention until I got close to the office. I walked right in and as I looked up I found Heather. She was bent over Jimmy's desk facing me while the Reverend Jimmy Hubbard sawed away at her pussy like it belonged to him. I just stood there frozen for a moment, not knowing what to do. Heather also froze as she saw me. Jimmy was still there just pumping away at her. His eyes were tightly shut and he was mumbling about getting pretty close. I pulled out my cheap camera phone and took a picture or two. Then I stepped towards them. Heather looked down in shame but still didn't say anything.

"Stay just like that Heather, baby, I'm almost there," said Jimmy, his words thick with lust.

"You may be almost there, but you're not going to make it," I snarled. Jimmy opened his eyes just as my fist slammed into his face. The force of my punch knocked the two of them apart and Heather started screaming at me to stop.

"Robbie, he's an old man, you'll hurt him," she yelled.

"Fuck him," I yelled back at her. "When this shit gets out his career is over. Nobody in Oklahoma will watch his fucking show when they see that he's no better than any of the people he tried to save. How the fuck can he pull anybody else out of sin when he's so stuck in it his God damned self?"

"Robbie, we have to talk about this," she said. "You can't do that."

"Watch me," I said. "And Heather, fuck you too."

"Wait Robbie," she screamed as I walked out of the office. Jimmy just laid there on the floor stunned.

I walked back through the church as quickly as I could. Heather trailed along behind me but she was stuck trying to pull her panties up and button her blouse. I was in the truck and gone before she cleared the building. She couldn't afford to come out of the office area partially undressed and let the guards or anyone who worked for Jimmy see what had happened.

Long before I got anywhere near home, my phone started ringing. I picked it up off the seat next to me and spoke into it as I drove.

"Heather, I have nothing to say to you," I snapped.

"But Robbie we need to talk," she said. "Jimmy wants to talk to you too."

"Call me back when I get home in about twenty minutes," I said as I pulled off the road.

"Why can't you come back here?" she asked.

"If you want to talk to me, it has to be on my terms," I said. "I have to pack and do a lot of other things."

"Robbie, where are you going to go?" she asked. I hung up on her.

Having a cheap phone can be a blessing. As I sat there on the side of the road, I downloaded the pictures I'd taken to my Dropbox account. My phone had so little memory that if I wanted to use it to record the call I'd make when I got home that the photos I'd taken had to be deleted from the phone in order to do it. That actually saved me or at least it saved my evidence.

I got back to our small home and parked in our driveway. I'd made so many plans for this house and what we'd do here. The location was great and though the house was a fixer-upper our six years of work were starting to show. We didn't have a lot of money but I always thought we had a lot of love. Heather and I were twenty four years old and we'd gotten married right out of high school. I wished that I had time to look around but at that moment I was just running on instinct.

I packed all of my clothes that I could find and my spare tools. We only had about two hundred dollars in the bank and I'd take half of that. I didn't need any of the furniture or any of the other stuff. I'd leave all of that for Heather. Maybe the good Reverend would give her some extra money to cover my half of our mortgage payment.

After I'd packed everything I wanted to take, I went back into the house to take another look around. That's when she caught me. A long black Lincoln town car pulled into my driveway and Heather jumped out of it.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" she screamed at me.

"As far away from you as I can get," said calmly.

"You can't leave, we're married," she said. "You can't just walk out and leave me here."

"As far as I'm concerned, the marriage ended when I caught you fucking Jimmy," I said calmly. "I'm sure neither you nor the good Reverend would know anything about being true to the things you say in church."

"Robbie, we need to talk about this," she said. "Okay, I had sex with Jimmy, but it didn't mean anything. He's an old man for God's sake. He's not even any good. He doesn't make me feel the way that you do honey, and I don't love him."

I turned to her and couldn't stop the tears from running down my cheeks. For the first time since this had happened I allowed my pain to show. "Then why?" I screamed.

"Robbie, Jimmy spends more money on one of those suits of his than all of our monthly bills combined. I love you Robbie. As God is my witness, I love you more than life itself. But I'm tired of busting my ass day in and day out with nothing to show for it. Jimmy's wife is as old as he is and that bitch sits up in that house like she was the queen of Oklahoma. She rarely ever even talks to Jimmy. And that brat of theirs ... That kid is six years old and he has more money in the bank than we do."

"What you saw today is going to get my car fixed so you don't have to keep coming out there to pick me up. Robbie, you're not a child. Can't you understand that we can improve our lives this way? It doesn't cost us anything and it'll be like money in the bank."

I just stared at her like I didn't know her.

"I never wanted to hurt you Robbie. This doesn't have anything to do with us. If you hadn't come in there today, you'd never have found out."

"Bull shit," I said. "I'd have known."

"How?" she asked. "You didn't know any of the other times."

"What other times?" I asked.

"Robbie, we're young," she said. "All we ever hear from people who are older than us is about the times when they were our age when they barely had enough food to eat. There have been times for us like that too. Maybe not with food but there were times when I had to help out."

"How do you think we got the washing machine?" she asked. "And do you really think that plumber fixed our water tank for free?"

"Giving Jimmy a little bit of pussy every now and then won't hurt you at all. Robbie, you're the only man I love, but I'm tired of us living like this. I'm still going to always belong to you. It would be like you're just loaning me to Jimmy sometimes. You'll still get all the sex you want so you won't be hurt by this."

"I won't be hurt by this because it's no longer my business," I said. "I'm leaving. You can do whatever you want."

"No, you're not," she said. "You love me. We both know it. In a way this is good because now I don't have to sneak around anymore. Jimmy wants to talk to you. I'm pretty sure he's going to offer you some money and a lot of it, just to make this all go away. Then all you have to do is just sit home and listen to the ball game sometimes when I'm a little late. Jimmy's kind of old so he doesn't last very long. All he'll ever be able to do is warm me up for you baby."

"Okay," I said.

"So you'll talk to Jimmy?" she asked.

"Hell no," I said. "You talk to Jimmy. You let him give the money to you. Use it to pay for our divorce. There's no way I want to be married to a whore. Fucking some guy for money only makes you a whore. I guess I don't have any choice in you being a whore, but taking that money would make me your pimp. I have a choice in that and also in whether or not I stay with you."

"I guess we're just too different Heather. Having a lot of money or a bunch of fancy suits never mattered to me, but I guess you just can't live without them. So you go ahead and grab for that brass ring. I'm sure you'll easily find someone to replace me, maybe even someone who dresses in those fancy suits like Jimmy's."

I turned and left the house. Before I got to my truck, three big guys jumped out of the Lincoln and came at me. I punched the first guy in the face and his nose erupted in blood. He backed off and another guy tackled me and held me down. Then he and the third guy picked me up and put me in the back of the Lincoln. I was struggling and trying my best to pull away but the steroid cases held me pretty easily.

"I think he broke my fucking nose," said the one I'd punched. "That little bastard throws a pretty good punch."

"That's why we aren't letting his arms go until we get him back to the church and tied to a chair," said one of the guys sitting next to me."

We drove the rest of the way in silence. When we got back to the church they dragged me out of the car and into Jimmy's office. I noticed that no one, not even the security guards, were there. Another long Lincoln pulled up near ours. Jimmy got out. Looking inside the car I could see his wife sitting there beside him. She was a beautiful woman. She had their son who was about five or six years old sitting with her.

Jimmy blew her a kiss and closed the door. He followed us as we went through the church and into his office.

"Robbie, we got off on the wrong foot back there," he said. "I think that we can come to an arrangement that will work for both of us. I was wrong as hell and all you have to do is tell me what I can do to make up for it. What do you want? A car? I'll buy you a new one. How about if I pay off your mortgage? Just tell me what you want and it's yours."

"I'd like a plate," I said.

"Oh that's too easy," he said smiling.

"With your head on it," I finished.

"Robbie, we can make this easy for both of us," he said. "I can see that you're a man of honor. If what you want is for me to stop screwing your little wife, I will. She was just convenient, since she works for me and all. She doesn't mean shit to me. I can have much better looking women just by snapping my finger. But part of that is that there's a difference between screwing a whore and screwing the girl next door. You know?"

"Nope," I said, still straining to get loose from the gorillas. "I've never had to pay for sex, so I can't tell you about whores. And I've never had sex with someone else's wife and bragged about it. I guess you have to be a preacher to do that."

"All right then," he said. His voice took on a harsher tone. "How much is this going to cost me?"

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"How much is it going to cost me to keep you quiet?" he asked again.

"I'm sorry Reverend, but I'm not for sale," I said. "You said you could have better looking women just by snapping your fingers right? Well you should have snapped your God damned fingers, because Heather may not be the most beautiful woman in the world, but she was mine and you're going to pay for ruining my marriage. Shit, Jimmy your wife has to be one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I don't know why you'd even want..."

"I tried to be nice about this," said Jimmy. "Search him and take his phone."

The third gorilla, whose face was swollen up badly checked all of my pockets and came up with my phone. I'd only deleted one of the pictures to make room for the call I was going to record. He showed the picture to Jimmy and they deleted it. I just smiled.

"Now you can say whatever you want," smirked Jimmy. "Do you know how many frivolous lawsuits I have against me every year? Yours will die down just like the rest of them. You have no proof of what you're claiming. Your own wife won't back you up. You see she just got a nice raise and a lot of perks."

"My eye hurts," he said. "You need to learn some fucking manners." He looked at the two gorillas holding me.

"Take him outside and teach him some manners," he said in a very calm voice.

The two steroid cases holding my arms started wrestling me towards the door. The third one the one with the swollen face just smiled as he looked at me. As they hustled me towards the door it opened. Jimmy's wife, all barely five feet tall of her, stepped inside the door.

"Jimmy, what's going on?" she asked. She held onto the small boy's hand as she walked into the room and saw me.

"Aren't you Heather's husband?" she asked me. I nodded.

"He's had a little too much to drink and was acting out," said Jimmy. I looked at him strangely.

"He seems to be fine," she said. "Let go of him." The gorillas holding my arms let go of me and she took my hand. "I'll walk you out," she said. Jimmy just smirked at me.

"I'm sorry we couldn't make a deal," he said. "But you had your chance."

"What kind of deal were you going to make," she asked. I looked back at Jimmy and his face had gone hard. At the same time I really didn't want to do anything to hurt his wife so I didn't say anything.

"I'll walk you out," she said.

After we got clear of the room, she began talking again. "So Heather is Jimmy's latest fuck toy?" she asked. "I'm sorry, but don't worry about it. He doesn't stay with the same one for more than a few weeks. Before you know it, you'll be a lot richer and have her back all to yourself. He'll probably fire her when he gets bored with her so you guys can move away and forget all about it."

"Someday, your husband is going to pay for what he's done to my marriage," I said.

"What you're not happy with the money?" She asked.

"I didn't take any money," I snapped. "But I swear, I'm going to bring that asshole down someday." She just smiled at me.

"Finally," she said. "I doubt that you'll succeed. My husband knows all of the right people. He has the mayor, the police department and even the local judges in his back pocket. But it's nice to know that there really are some people out there who can't be bought. If you need any help, let me know."

She slipped a card into my back pocket and went back inside to her husband and child. As I started to walk away one of the gorillas ran over to me and handed me my phone. It had been emptied, even the contacts list were gone. I started trying to hitch a ride as the sun began to go down in the early evening sky.

My phone rang and I answered it. I recognized my home number though the display no longer said home.

"Robbie, where are you?" asked Heather. "How much did Jimmy offer you?"

I didn't say anything so she continued to talk. "The only reason that this means so much to you is because you love me so much, honey. I swear I'll make this all better. We'll talk when you get home. Are they going to bring you home soon? You'll see Robbie. This won't make any difference between us honey. I'm still all yours."

I put the phone down on a bench in front of the bus stop I was passing. I listened to her still yammering as I walked on.

I did stop at an ATM and withdraw all of the money from our bank account. I figured Jimmy could take care of her bills from now on.

As the skies and the night got darker around me I kept walking. I guess maybe I was too busy thinking about my future to feel tired but I walked for most of the night. I remember I did feel a pang of sadness when I walked past the turnoff to the house I'd shared with Heather for the past six years. My original intention had been to simply walk home and get into my already packed truck and drive away. But I guess thinking about it and remembering what she'd been yapping about over the phone gave me the idea that she was probably waiting for me either by the truck or in it.

It must have been about two or three a.m. and I was really starting to feel it when a truck stopped in front of me. I hadn't been hitchhiking, the truck just pulled over. I was too tired to even move around it so I just kept walking.

The guy driving the truck lowered his window as I passed.

"Hey buddy," he called. "Do you need a lift?"

"To where?" I asked. He looked at me with the strangest look on his face.

"We're doing this all wrong," he said. "You're supposed to be the one who tried to flag me down. When I pull over, you're supposed to ask me for a ride. And I'm supposed to tell you that I'm only going as far as ... wherever I'm going..."

"Okay maybe the next guy you stop for can do it right," I said and I started walking again. He got out of the truck and walked next to me. He took my arm and guided me back to his truck.

"Look," I said. "I don't have much money. So robbing me will be a lot more trouble than you're going to get."

"Relax buddy," he said. "I recognize that look and that set of your chin. I had it once myself. Now it looks like it's my turn to do for you what someone else did for me."

"How long have you been walking?" he asked.

"What time is it?" I asked him.

"It's three fifteen a.m." he said.

"I've been walking since six thirty last evening," I said.

As I got into the truck the air conditioning chilled me, but it felt really good. I realized he was still talking to me but I couldn't make out a word that he was saying as I fell asleep.

Heather

I was sure that once again something was wrong with Robbie's cheap phone. Maybe that should be one of the first things we buy with the money we get from Jimmy. Good cell phones for both of us. I settled down on our sofa in the living room to wait for Robbie. I was kind of conflicted. I didn't know what I should do when he first got home. I knew that what I did would determine how quickly he'd get over this. On one hand I could try to get him in bed quickly because doing that would show him that I still loved him and wanted to be with him. But on the other hand, Robbie had called me a whore several times so maybe sex wasn't the way to win his heart back. I decided to make him something to eat and just go with the situation.

Jimmy really wasn't very good at sex. It was probably because he wasn't very well endowed and compared to Robbie I could barely even feel him in me. He was also pretty old and though he fancied himself some kind of stud, nothing could be further from the truth. I'd been with him three times and each time I just lay or stood there thinking about what I'd do with the money, until he was done.

Since I didn't know how much money we'd get, I really didn't know what to plan. If it was a substantial amount, my plan would be to send Robbie to school. If he went to college at night or to a good trade school, he could get a much better job and support us in a finer style. Between the two of us, Robbie was the smarter one. He'd do much better in school than I would. I actually worried a bit because if Robbie went to some fancy school, he could probably meet girls who were prettier than I am. I mean I'm not a troll and I do have the advantage of being twenty four, and in the absolute peak of my life and health. I'm the best right now that I'm ever going to be. Maybe that was what made Jimmy so hot for me.

But my life couldn't be based on now. My life had to be based on securing a future for Robbie and me so we could become one of those cute old couples. Whatever it took, whatever I had to do. I know that what I was doing seemed bad. But I was doing it for the best of reasons. There were so many things that we needed. It's like that old question that people always ask young people. Are you going to live on love? Well for the past six years we literally had. We'd both worked our asses off and we had a place of our own and food but that was about it and I was just tired of it.

The average college student has more than we do. We don't even have a TV. One emergency would wipe us out. I know that I was the one who pushed for us to get married so young. But I didn't want the risk of losing Robbie. I only hope that he can understand that we have to live in the real world right now and sometimes you have to do a little bad, to get the greatest good.

Another way of saying it is that we have to be ready to use every resource at our disposal to get the things we need or at least to put us on the path towards getting them. And right now one of the resources we have is my body. I hope Robbie can understand that and stop being such a selfish child.

As I wondered again what was taking him so long, I fell asleep there on the sofa. I woke up the next morning thinking that Robbie had come home during the night and just left me on the sofa. That meant that he was probably still angry.

I got up to go and check on him and found that he wasn't anywhere in the house. I looked outside and saw that his truck was still there. I ran out to the truck to surprise him, but he wasn't there either. I tried calling his phone but he didn't pick it up. I decided that I'd just drive the truck to work and call him once I got there. I could always call him at work. He loved his job so he'd never miss a day there unless he was really sick.

He'd probably stayed with a friend overnight. It might take a few days for him to get over this but we'd talk eventually. I started to get ready for work myself. I was very sad that Robbie was angry at me but I was sure he loved me enough for us to get past this. We'd been through so much over the past six years. This was nothing compared to some of the things we'd endured.

When I walked into the office, Jimmy wasn't there yet. It wasn't unusual for him to breeze in at about noon or later if he didn't have a meeting or something for the show to work on. He had associate pastors and deacons to handle a lot of the heavy lifting. He just concentrated on the show and public appearances.

I sat down at my desk and started going through the rest of Jimmy's mail that I hadn't gotten to yesterday. That was one of my biggest responsibilities. Jimmy never read and rarely answered his mail. There was simply too much of it. Ninety-five percent of it was stuff that I could handle for him. I simply typed out an answer and signed the letters myself. If there was anything out of the ordinary going on, I flagged it and spoke to him about it during one of our mail meetings. Threats, letters from influential or famous people and anything that might look good on the show were things I alerted him to.

A couple of hours later Jimmy and Rhonda, aka Mrs. Hubbard wandered into the office. They were arguing as usual but this one seemed to be more venomous than their average set to.

"Why the fuck do I have to beg you to come to personal appearances with me?" he hissed. "I'm telling you it doesn't look good for you not to be there to support me."

"If I'm supposed to be a family man, I need to have the family there to show that you're behind me, God damn it."

"When was the last time you thought of your family as anything other than a prop for one of your appearances," she hissed back, matching him in tone, volume and in venom. "Josh and I don't need to be there every time you kiss some politician's ass or speak to some dumb assed actor."

"And why the hell did you name my son Josh anyway? Why the hell didn't you put James Hubbard Jr. on his birth certificate like I wanted you to?" asked Jimmy

Rhonda just smiled at Jimmy and said she had to go.

"You will be at the tour today though, right?" asked Jimmy.

"Maybe," she said. "But if you get on my nerves, you can pencil me in for a no."

Jimmy grumbled and watched her leave his office. Rhonda grabbed a cup of coffee as she passed the coffee pot and picked out a big glazed piece of coffee cake as well. If I was as slim as she was and looked as good in her clothes, I'd eat anything I wanted too.

Surprisingly, she didn't head out the door. She waved at a couple of the secretaries and came straight to me. We'd never really spoken very often during all of the time that I'd worked here. She carefully placed the coffee and the cake down on the corner of my desk.

"Thank you ma'am," I said.

"Don't mention it," she said. There wasn't a hint of malice or anger in her voice. And she looked just as sweet as she does on TV.

"If I eat these kinds of things, I'll never get to be as slim and beautiful as you are," I said.

"What good would that do you?" she asked. "What good has it done me?" I looked at her wondering what she was talking about. I was sure she was going to hit me with a church sermon. Preacher's wives are sometimes known for preaching nearly as much as their husbands do.

"You should eat and get everything you can, while you can honey," she said. "It won't last long, it never does."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Oh, Heather," she smiled. "There's no need to be shy. You're my husband's new whore. I have to take care of you and give you advice. We're on the same side here. You make my life easier. If he wasn't fucking you in the bathrooms or bending you over desks, I might have to fuck him myself occasionally. And with all of the women he goes through, Lord knows he probably has some kind of disease by now."

I was shocked. I guess I thought that it was a big secret. Or that she'd hate me. Shit if the shoe was on the other foot and some woman was fucking Robbie, I'd claw her eyes out. But she looked at me with genuine affection. She just shook her head as she looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I just wondered why ... I mean don't get me wrong. I don't care. If it wasn't you, it would be some other whore, but you just seemed so much better than this. You seemed ... I don't know, smarter. It seemed like you had your shit all together, you know."