Chapter 5

Once I had breakfast ready and the kitchen cleaned up, I took everything up to the master bedroom and after spreading a towel across Beth Ann's lap, so I could serve her breakfast in bed. By serve, I mean that I fed her each bite, paused to gently wipe her mouth with a cloth napkin I'd found in a cupboard drawer and held a glass to her pretty lips, to help her drink her orange juice without spilling, or lifting a finger.

We giggled a lot as she enjoyed being pampered for a change.

When my marriage was young, I discovered that pampering Judith led to all kinds of happy endings. From blow jobs to great sex, I benefitted when she was treated like a queen. Backrubs, foot massages, bathing her like a newborn all worked to light her fires and once lit, we generally had a wonderful time.

It all changed when Marcy, Judith's cubicle partner at work, began to spend inordinate amounts of time at our place to avoid her husband. Marcy always gave off a butch vibe but I didn't think much of it because she was married. That was naïve, as I was to learn one day when the process server handed divorce papers at work and Marcy called shortly after to "inform" me that Judith was a lesbian down deep and if I loved her at all, I wouldn't try to talk to her about her sudden "enlightenment."

Saddened by the end of a ten year marriage and flat busted by the time I got to pay for two lawyers and all the ancillary costs related to a divorce, I threw myself into my job, got transferred into the client services division and started traveling 85% of the time to keep my mind off my sorrow. It worked, because the new job was so demanding, I had very limited time to feel depressed. Work can be very effective therapy, I found.

All of that to remind myself why pampering Beth Ann was such a great idea.

She was, of course, immeasurably impressed with my exclusive, first rate, room service and customer satisfaction skills and dutifully showered me with praise, which was precisely my plan. If I was going to build a life in this new setting, I needed to work hard to make it the best life I could. Brian, her real son – not Brian the interloper - was dead. I was borrowing his body at least for the time being and it was my responsibility to be a good steward of his life and my intention to give her some happiness, which seemed like it had rather rare for her lately. From the sound of things, she had precious little real joy, of late. Maybe we could find some, together.

It wasn't my idea to get caught in his brain on my way to judgment. It's just what happened but it was solely up to me how Brian's life went from here forward.

The thought of hurting Beth Ann by informing her that Brian was dead and that a strange man inhabited her son's body and shared her bed the last two nights, was too much to contemplate. Maybe I was a coward but I couldn't imagine hurting her that badly. It would destroy Beth Ann and I wasn't willing to be the person that did that to her.

My life was gone and the reality of that was still seeping in. For two days I pushed it to the back of my mind and just went with the flow but the truth continued to intrude and it affected my every waking moment.

Carl was dead. I died in the car wreck. I read about my own death in the Springfield

newspaper shortly after breakfast yesterday morning but didn't mention it, because I was afraid to hurt Beth Ann, I knew I could never go back to any part of my old life.

It hurt.

Like it, or not, this was my life. There's no going back. I can't even risk visiting any of my personal history without risking dangerous consequences. As much as it might comfort me to sneak in and take my parent's pictures I knew I couldn't and that hurt.

Chapter 6 »