Once Upon a Project

by Bettye Griffin

  One thing for sure: if Charles insisted she keep her shirt on she would get up and leave.

  She gulped as she alighted from the car. This was it. She was about to cross a border from which there’d be no return.

  Charles made her feel at home from the moment he opened the door. He gave her a big bear hug that lasted just long enough and told her how glad he was to see her. Then he invited her to sit down and keep him company while he cooked.

  She sat on a bar stool—a comfortable one with a padded seat and back, plus arms—on the living room side of the pass-through window. She still remembered those hard stools Charles used to have that used to make her butt sore. She hadn’t been here in twenty-five years, and although the furniture had changed it was still neat and fairly bright, considering it was partially underground. Four small windows close to the ceiling helped. If she remembered correctly, it was darker in the bedroom....

  Uh-oh. She didn’t want to think about Charles’s bedroom. “What’re you making?” she asked. “It smells heavenly.”

  “An omelet with chorizo, sautéed red and green peppers, onions, mushrooms—”

  “My mouth is watering.”

  “—plus shredded potatoes and cheese. It’s almost ready.”

  Susan watched him cook in the compact kitchen. He moved with the ease of a man who had prepared many a meal on his own.

  She gasped when he added what looked like a homemade biscuit to her plate. “Wow,” she said, lightly fingering the bumpy texture. “Charles, did you make these?”

  “I cannot tell a lie,” he declared in his best schoolboy voice. “They came from the supermarket. They sell them frozen.”

  “They look fabulous.”

  He turned his back to her for a moment to remove chilled stemmed glasses from the freezer, into which he poured cold pineapple juice. He placed the glasses on the counter and then carried the plates and came to sit beside her on the other stool.

  “Charles, this is delicious!” she exclaimed after taking her first bite.

  “Hey, you think Ricky Suárez is the only man who came out of Dreiser who can cook? All of us guys were all raised by working women.”

  “I just had no idea you were so talented. You never cooked for me back in the day.”

  “My culinary skills came later. Back when you and I were together I’d just as soon go out for some McDonald’s before I picked up a pan.”

  After they ate she offered to do the dishes.

  “You wash, I’ll dry,” he said.

  She turned the tap to a light but steady stream of moderately hot water and rinsed each utensil, glass, and plate before placing it in the drain board. “You keep such a neat apartment, Charles. Even back in the day when you didn’t really have a whole lot in here.”

  “I still don’t have all that much, just better quality. That’s the key to neatness, not having a lot of junk. That . . . and having your mother live upstairs,” he added with a laugh.

  “And here I was hoping you would say you did this all for me,” she said with a smile. It surprised her how comfortable she felt, even with his mention of his mother. But then again, she’d always felt at ease with Charles.

  He sprayed the stovetop with disinfectant cleaner and wiped it while she washed the dishes. He moved close to her to place the Teflon-coated skillet, which he’d already filled with water after he finished cooking, in the sink. “This is real easy to wash; the grease comes right off.”

  “No problem.” Susan used the handled sponge to wash the surface of the skillet, and, as Charles said, the food particles and grease came right off. Suddenly she became aware that he was standing mere inches from her. She didn’t want to look, but instinct told her he was watching her. Her earlier nervousness returned as she ran the sponge over the outer sides of the skillet. She managed to rinse it and place it atop the dishes in the drain board. “Looks like my job is done.” She shut off the tap and reached for a paper towel from the hanging dispenser over the sink.

  Charles took a step to the right, now standing directly behind her. She felt his palms on her upper arms. “Whatever will we do now?” he asked softly.

  She swallowed hard. He certainly wasn’t wasting any time. Even as she had the thought, Susan knew she wasn’t being fair. A school day was short, and it would take her over an hour to get home. It was already after ten.

  Still, that didn’t mean she was ready. In spite of how badly Bruce hurt her heart, that didn’t change his status as her husband, and she didn’t take cheating on him lightly. Even with her being all but certain that he had someone else it didn’t make it any easier.

  But Charles stood so close that she could feel his breath on her neck. He ran his palms down her arms until he reached her waist, then embraced her from behind, his arms encircling her middle. She caught her breath and leaned against him, suddenly feeling lightheaded. He began to nuzzle her neck, at the same time undoing the buttons of her blouse from the bottom up.

  “No!” she said suddenly, clenching her shoulders, pushing his hands away from her blouse. “I can’t do this, Charles. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  He made no attempt to step back. Instead, he stretched his fingers and pressed his palm against her chest. “I can feel your heart beating,” he whispered. “It’s racing. I know you want me as much as I want you.”

  “I’m not denying that, but I can’t go through with it.”

  “Of course you can,” he said gently, his hands sliding back to where they had been before, although not undressing her. “You’re just nervous.”

  “You and I haven’t . . . been together like this since I was in my twenties. I’m forty-nine years old now, and I’ve had breast cancer surgery. Plus . . . I’m married.”

  “Turn around and look at me.”

  He dropped his hands from her waist, and she did as he asked. She saw much more than mere desire in his eyes, and she wondered what he saw in hers.

  He cupped her face. “Susan, when I told you that night at Junior’s that the only woman I ever loved left me, I wasn’t kidding. I only went there that night because I thought there was a tiny chance you might show. I couldn’t let the chance to see you again go by.

  “I know I jumped on you for saying the other week that too much has changed for anything to be the same between us, but I was wrong. It hasn’t changed. I loved you then, and I still do.”

  “Charles, don’t say—”

  “Do you think I don’t understand how you feel? I know you’re not the type of woman who steps out on her husband. I know you’ve never done this before. But, Susan . . . I want you. You told me he doesn’t. Don’t you deserve to be with a man who thinks you’re beautiful . . . who’ll always think you’re beautiful?”

  Tears pooled in her eyes. “Charles . . . How do I know you won’t react the same way Bruce does?” She couldn’t stand another rejection; she simply couldn’t.

  “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

  Something in his easy grin told her not to worry, but nevertheless, she stood stock-still as he resumed unbuttoning her blouse. Then he unsnapped the front closure of her bra and pushed the cups aside. Susan held her breath. The only covering that kept her secret was gone.

  She kept her eyes closed and tried not to cry when his movements stopped. She couldn’t bear to see the distaste in his eyes when he saw her misshapen right breast. She’d lived through it too many times. Same shit, different man. There was nothing to do but close up her blouse and go home with what little remained of her dignity. . . .

  Her eyes flew open when she felt herself being lifted. Charles placed her on the counter next to the sink, lowered his head against her chest, and began planting soft kisses on her breasts, moving from side to side as he cupped them in his hands. She gasped softly when he took her breast into his mouth. Bruce hadn’t done that in so long....

  He stood up and spoke to her softly. “I told you, you’ll always be beautiful to me.”

  She found her voice. “
I don’t think you’ve seen the full effect yet. You might not feel the same after you’ve—”

  She broke off. His still-moving fingertips found the defect, and he moved his face to it. When he bent and kissed the protrusion she let out a strangled cry and began to quake, her muscles struggling to hold her eyelids shut and hold in the tears. The fingers of his other hand promptly moved to cup the side of her neck, steadying her trembling body. At last he raised his head. “Now do you believe me?”

  She opened her eyes, damp with happy tears. She threw her arms around his neck and hung on like he alone could extend her life. “Yes. I believe you. I didn’t mean to have no faith in you, Charles. It’s just that—”

  He pressed his index finger against her lips. “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t want you to think about anything unpleasant while we’re together. Now, let’s get the hell out of this kitchen.” He gripped her hips and pulled them forward. Susan’s arms instinctively went around his neck, and she wrapped her long legs around his waist. He lifted her and crossed the hall to his bedroom. The set of weights in a corner told her where he got the strength to lift her no-longer svelte hundred-and-seventy-pound body.

  The combination of the basement location plus heavy curtains covering the small windows made it look more like early evening than midmorning. She was glad when he made no move to turn on the light.

  He laid her gently on the bed, and in a playful motion she pulled him down with her. She felt so vital, so alive . . . And she couldn’t wait to feel him inside her.

  As her orgasm built, her guilt dissolved. Instead she thanked God for the snow last winter that kept the Pleasant Prairie schools open a few extra days. Her body exploded in wave after wave of pleasure, and she collapsed into the pillows, sobbing as she shook.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I feel right now,” she said softly after her body was still and her sobs ceased. “I wish it could last forever.”

  On his elbows next to her, Charles stroked her curls. “I know it can’t. So the question becomes, what happens now?”

  Sadness flowed through her at the forced return to reality. “I don’t know, Charles.”

  “You know I wasn’t just trying to get you into bed when I told you I love you.”

  She nodded. “But everything is moving so fast. I’ve barely had time to adjust to our making love.”

  “It’s not going to be easy for me to watch you leave me to go back home to Bruce.”

  “What else can I do, Charles?”

  “I want you to think about leaving him.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Leave?”

  “You can’t say you haven’t thought about it, even before we saw each other at Junior’s. You said you’d been unhappy for months.”

  “Of course I thought about it . . . for about a minute. Charles, as you know, I’m almost fifty years old, I haven’t worked in about eleven years, plus I’m a cancer patient. How the hell am I supposed to support myself and my children if I walk out on Bruce?” She looked away. Why couldn’t she simply savor the feeling of being loved and desired after being denied for so long? Why did Charles have to bring up all this complicated stuff? Did she get no reprieve at all? It wasn’t fair, damn it.

  “I’ll take care of you, Susan.”

  She had no response. This made no sense. Was he proposing that she and her two children move in with him? He had a one-bedroom apartment, for heaven’s sake!

  “It’s complicated,” she said finally, still not looking at him.

  He reached out and rolled her back toward him. “I know. We won’t talk about it anymore. Just remember that I love you.”

  Susan could think of nothing else.

  She felt strangely calm as she got behind the wheel and drove to the kids’ school. She’d gone home first and taken a quick shower. It would be just her luck that Bruce would decide to give her a treat when he got home from work, and she couldn’t risk that any more than she could risk the kids mentioning that she’d taken a shower in the afternoon. That would raise a red flag.

  Bruce might not want her himself, but she had a feeling he’d be out for the blood of any man she might be sleeping with.

  When she got home for the second time that day, she checked her phone messages. “Hey,” Bruce’s voice said cheerfully. “Just wanted to let you know I’ll be late tonight. I’ll be home about eight, eight-thirty. Don’t worry about holding dinner for me; I’ll pick something up here.”

  Susan smiled. So he’d be late again tonight. That was just fine with her. It would give her more time to savor her day with Charles.

  It beat sitting around wondering what the girlfriend he swore he didn’t have looked like.

  Chapter 34

  Mid-June

  Milwaukee

  Bruce Dillahunt groaned in ecstasy as a stream of semen filled the condom he wore. He gripped Shay’s hips and fell forward. That one took everything out of him.

  They fell against the mattress together, his groin against her backside. It took several seconds for Shay’s body to be still, even with him holding her tightly against him. He slid off her and onto his side, pulling her close.

  “That was fantastic,” he said when he caught his breath. He lifted long strands of her hair and threaded his fingers through them. Shay Johnson was one fine woman. She reminded him of Susan in her younger days. The two women in his life didn’t resemble each other, but they shared a similar body type. They were both tall—Shay came in at an inch or two less than Susan’s five ten—they both had wide hips, small breasts, and legs as long as a week that locked him in ecstasy.

  “It always is,” she said softly.

  He couldn’t argue with that. He’d met Shay in the parking lot of his office building. She worked as a supervisor in customer service for a medical claims service. That particular October afternoon her car had a dead battery and needed a jump.

  Right away he’d noticed how lovely she was. Susan had undergone her lumpectomy just six weeks before, and he found that he couldn’t stand to look at that damn cone shape sticking out of her breast. It was like making love to Death. He’d told her it didn’t matter when she reluctantly considered plastic surgery, and while he could readily understand her not wishing to undergo another surgical procedure—and even agreeing that it would probably be better for her health in the long run to leave the area alone—he’d been unable to reconcile his desire for her with his fear of her disease recurring. Nor could he bring himself to consult a counselor, as Susan suggested. Psychologists were for the confused, for the uncertain. He had no doubts about himself. It was Susan’s cancer he hated, not her. It had driven a wedge between them, invaded their marriage at the same time it invaded her body and marred her figure.

  He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth. It would be like knocking down a cripple. Because he had a lot to lose in a divorce—like half of what he’d amassed—he forced himself to make love to her occasionally in a halfhearted attempt to keep her satisfied. He wasn’t satisfied, and he suspected she wasn’t, either. Prior to her diagnosis they’d enjoyed an active, healthy sex life. He had no excuse for his diminished passion, at least none that wouldn’t hurt her feelings. Bruce loved Susan. He simply couldn’t reconcile his fears.

  He hadn’t meant for anything to happen with Shay. She’d been so grateful that day; she said she had an appointment she couldn’t miss. She asked him for his card, and he gave it to her. That Friday she called and invited him to lunch as a way to say thank you.

  Bruce held no illusions about her motives. She was, after all, probably fifteen years his junior. She’d seen his name and the title, president and CEO, on his business card and decided to invite him to lunch and flirt with him a little just to see where it went. If his card said he was a sales rep he knew he’d never have heard from her again.

  With that in mind, from the very beginning he made no secret of the fact that he had a wife and two children.

  But he found Shay enchanting and had been unable to sta
y away. He called her less than a week later. Within two weeks he brought her to dinner at the restaurant inside the InterContinental Hotel, and afterward brought her upstairs to the room he’d reserved and made love to her. At last he had an outlet for all the pent-up sexual frustration that had been building inside him.

  They started their affair in December, and now it was June. After six months, he knew she was getting restless. Her next action proved it.

  Shay sat up, the sheet covering her breasts. “How’s your wife feeling these days, Bruce?”

  He knew what she meant. He’d been wrong to make it sound like Susan was at death’s door when she was thriving, but it gave him much-needed sympathy in Shay’s eyes. He didn’t want to be ruled out because he had a wife at home. But questions like this from Shay told him she was getting tired.

  “She’s doing pretty well,” he replied cautiously.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Bruce, I really am. I don’t wish bad things upon people. But I’m not comfortable with sleeping with a man who’s married, even if his wife is ill.”

  “I understand that, Shay. But what do you want me to do?”

  “If she’s doing well, why not file for divorce?”

  “Divorce?”

  “Yes. It happens all the time. You know, the flame goes out between husbands and wives and they decide it’s best to start over with someone new.”

  “Well, that’s complicated, Shay. First of all, my wife isn’t well.”

  “You’ve been saying that for six months now. I’m beginning to think she’s a lot healthier than you’re letting on.”

  She was right, of course, but he didn’t dare avert his gaze. That was tantamount to admitting he’d lied. “She’s holding her own. But that’s not the only consideration. This is a community property state. I’d stand to lose half of everything I have in a divorce.”