TITLE    : My Wife's Affair
STORYID  : my-wifes-affair-1
SUMMARY  : She fucked my brother.
AUTHOR   : Ephesus14@lit
DATE     : 2021-03-17
CATEGORY : loving-wives
FLAGS    : 
TAGS     : |drama|affair|cheating wife|husband's brother|brother's wife|


I am grateful to Randi for inviting me to participate. To be included in such a group of writers is high praise. Thanks also to Andi who made it a much better story. There is not much sex in it.



<strong>My wife's affair</strong>... She fucked my brother



Category 5? The year before we had been hit with both a Category 4 and a Category 2. Now the National Hurricane Center was telling us to expect a Category 5 Hurricane within 24 hours.



Sara, my wife, and I were in Houston to avoid it. We had loaded my truck and her car with those things we thought were worth saving. Photographs, files, deeds, titles, china, crystal and family heirlooms: things that couldn't be replaced. We watched the Weather Channel as it showed our home town being destroyed building by building. We watched as the extreme winds tore down huge billboards and as power transformers literally exploded, throwing sparks high into the air. During the two hurricanes we had the year before, salt water from the Gulf of Mexico made its way 30 miles northward to Lake Charles and brought with it alligators and snakes, both of which we already had in abundance.



That hurricane even shifted burial crypts and bodies that had been buried in those crypts were found throughout the area, many of which bodies could never be identified. It changed the way people were buried in our area. Since that hurricane, every body buried had to have a metal tag permanently affixed to it, identifying who it was in the event other hurricanes caused the same type of damage.



I looked at Sara and she was in tears. Everything we had, and everything our parents had, was waiting to be destroyed, and all we could do was watch it happen.



My older brother, Tim, had chosen to ride it out in his house. Riding out hurricanes was in our blood, but we had never challenged a Cat 5 before.



The city had issued mandatory evacuation orders, but Tim, like a handful of other Cajuns, stubbornly defied the order and stayed. He was convinced his house could withstand what was coming. After all, it had handled last year's Cat 4 with only the loss of a few roofing shingles. No amount of talking could convince him to leave.



The live news feeds showed almost total destruction of huge portions of Lake Charles, while other portions of the city remained practically untouched. Citizens were allowed back in almost immediately to assess the damage to their property. We knew from experience that all power would be out and no gasoline would be available for several days. Behind my truck, I pulled a 12-foot utility trailer. In that trailer was a generator, two window A/C units, two chain saws, assorted tools, 20 five-gallon cans of gas, 20 cases of drinking water, 15 extension cords of various lengths, sleeping bags and two large coolers with fresh meat, milk, vegetables and other perishable food items. Sara was driving her car and had our important documents and several changes of clothes and shoes. We always tried to ensure that creature comforts weren't interrupted. Of course, all these things meant nothing if your house was destroyed.



Before any major storm hit, there were some basic precautions we always took. For example: we always filled our bathtub(s) with water to be used for cooking, flushing toilets, and mundane things like that because we always expected the water supply to be interrupted or polluted for a period of time. We also turned off all circuit breakers in the main electrical panel of the house to reduce the possibility of house fires.



I had my radio tuned to the news station on for the trip back from Houston, I'm sure Sara did to. We stopped at what we thought might be the last gas station open and filled our vehicles. As usual, the news cautioned us about live power lines hanging all over town and blocked streets because of the many trees, poles and parts of buildings scattered about and blocking the streets and roads.



I tried numerous times to contact my brother and see how he fared, but he never answered his phone. Cell towers were generally victims of the storms. In her car, Sara did the same with her parents. My parents were able to call and tell us they were okay and were headed home. They couldn't contact Tim, either.



In town, Sara and I went first to our house. Our fence was blown down and about half of our roofing shingles were gone, but there was no other visible damage. A check inside the house confirmed that there were no water leaks. It was easy making our way through our neighborhood because most of the houses fared like ours. Shingles were missing, fences were down and furniture was scattered about, but all-in-all the houses received very little damage. Even most of our trees were standing.



Sara's parent's house suffered more damage. One of their trees fell on their house and took out part of their roof, and there was lots of water damage inside. Her father was a contractor and was already calling some of his employees to see if any were available to start work on repairing his house. There were always people who had no damage of their own who were willing to help others.



In the event of really big storms it might take weeks for an insurance adjuster to get to you so the larger, older insurance companies allowed property owners to take pictures of the damage for the record and inclusion as part of their claims, then immediately start repairs. Sara stayed to help them clean as much as they could. It often could take weeks or months to get repair crews to assist.



I made my way to my brother's neighborhood and it was a completely different story. In his five-block area, not one house or tree remained standing. It was like a bomb exploded in the middle of the neighborhood. It was difficult to tell which house had been his. I could see his car and truck in what used to be his garage, with the garage roof sitting on top of them and a huge pine tree lying on the roof. He had live-oak trees in his yard, but no pine trees, so I had no idea where the tree that was lying on his garage came from. The rest of his house was mostly leveled, but parts of some of his walls were still standing and some of the furniture was still sitting where it sat before the hurricane. The house roof was half on his property and half on his neighbor's.



I was getting really worried about him. I sat in my truck and started making calls to friends and relatives. Some cell towers were down so calls, when you could connect, took a long time. Nobody I was able to reach knew anything. I managed to get through to the first of two hospitals in the city and found out he was there with serious injuries. Part of his ceiling and roof fell on him and one of his neighbors was able to dig him out and get him to the hospital. I raced there to find he was in a coma. I talked to the medical staff and was told that he was in critical condition and they were keeping him in a medically induced coma.



There was nothing I could do, so I went back to his house to see what could be salvaged.



Back at his house, I walked around with a stick poking and prodding. I went into what had been his bedroom. His gun cabinet was lying face down on the floor so I turned it over and salvaged the guns he had in there. I knew his better ones were hidden in a small room off of his den. However, there wasn't a small room any longer because the den no longer existed and his guns were scattered all over the place. I gathered all of them I could find and put them in my truck with the others.



Where his office used to be, the only wall still standing was the one that contained his small wall safe, which was hanging in midair, so all I had to do was give it a yank and it was free. It, too, went in my truck. He had some important documents in his desk, so I looked around for it, and found it in his neighbor's yard. I went to it and started emptying drawers. Not knowing what was important, I took everything and put it in my truck. I thought I was finished until I saw a corner of what looked like a video sticking out from under what appeared to be a false bottom of the large lower drawer. I slid the false bottom back and took out the six videos that were there. They went in my truck with the other desk contents. I grinned to myself, thinking my brother had a stash of porno videos.



I made my way back to what had been his bedroom. His chest of drawers and dresser had been pushed together and his mattress was on top of them. Most of his clothes were in a big pile.



Everything was soaked with water, so I left it. I moved his mattress and opened his dresser drawers one at a time to see if anything there was at least partially dry. The top drawer had some moisture in it, but the second and bottom drawers were almost dry. The bottom drawer surprised me because it had bras and panties in it. I opened the other drawers and they had male shorts and tee-shirts.



I moved the dresser to get to the chest of drawers. The top three drawers had men's clothing, but the bottom two had female clothing. Tim was a bachelor. The female stuff I found didn't impress me as being items of a temporary nature. It was more like a recurring female visitor left things there for her convenience. I didn't even know he had a girlfriend.



A girlfriend and possible porno tapes. My brother was full of surprises.



In addition to his safe, I knew he kept a stash of money in the pocket of his tux. Most of the men in the city had tuxes, but wore them only for the Balls at Mardi Gras time. I rummaged through the pile of clothes until I came to his tux. I picked it up, felt the inside jacket pocket, took out a stack of bills and put them in my pants pocket. I had asked him before, why not use the safe for his money, but he never was able to explain why he chose to have at least some money stashed in a pocket. It probably had something to do with the fact that both of our parents stashed cash around the house because they were afraid the economy would crash and the banks would fail. Old-fashioned thinking.



I dropped the tux back on the pile, but immediately picked it up again. Lying beneath it was a dress I recognized. It was a red dress with a slit all the way up the side. There was a belt with it. Actually, it was a gold chain. I took a closer look at it and sure enough, the chain had the initials S. B. as its buckle. I remembered when we bought it the store had trouble finding the "S," so Sara had to wait a week before they got one in.



I held the dress and looked down. Another familiar dress was lying in the water. I picked it up and looked at it. It was also Sara's. I knew because it had her grandmother's brooch pinned to it. I used my stick to rummage around through the clothing and saw other female clothing, but none strictly recognizable as Sara's.



One dress could be a coincidence, but two? I went to the dresser and moved the underwear around; the aroma of her perfume hit my nostrils and I jerked back and shook my head to clear it. I moved back closer to the dresser and inhaled again. It was hers, all right. I backed away and moved around the house some more. The toilets and bathroom cabinets were still standing. I opened the master bath cabinet drawer. In it were the things normally associated with men. In the drawer of the other sink were things normally associated with females. One of those things was a half full bottle of Flash, the only perfume Sara ever wore.



I made my way to my truck trying not to get sick.



Sara's underwear, at least two of her dresses and a bottle of her perfume were all in my brother's house for no logical reason that I knew. It appeared to be another case of Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is usually the right one. The simplest explanation in this case pointed to my brother and my wife having an affair. I sat in my truck trying to convince myself I was wrong, but it didn't work.



My parents called me. They had just gotten to their house and it, too, had sustained some damage, but they could put one of FEMA's blue tarps on their roof and live in it until the roof was repaired or replaced. I told them about Tim and they headed straight to the hospital. I beat them there and waited in the main floor lobby for them. When they arrived, we went straight to Tim's room. The door was open and I saw he had tubes going into and coming out of, his body. I looked at my brother in a new light. No longer was he my hero. Now he was just a worthless piece of shit who fucked my wife. I hated him, but not as much as I hated her.



My mother took his hand, sat on the edge of his bed and sat there trying not to cry.



I stood for a few more minutes as I told Dad about the total destruction of Tim's house but I couldn't look at Tim any more. The urge to start pulling the tubes and wires out of him was becoming too great, so I asked Dad to go out into the hall to talk.



"I'm going back over there and try to organize things," he said before we got out of the room.



Mom looked at me. "Wait for me and I'll go with you."



She stayed with Tim a few more minutes. Dad went back in his room. I waited in the hall.



Sara was at Tim's house when we arrived.



"What are you doing here? Why didn't you go home?" I asked. It was the first time I saw her since I discovered she cheated and I had no idea how to act. I realized I spoke sharper to her than I ever had and I wanted to tell her I knew, but didn't. The time wasn't right.



She recoiled at the tone of my voice. "I, uh, just thought I could be more help here. Our house is okay, and Dad is getting his crew to work on theirs, but Tim's needs help."



Mom told me to string a rope between two of the live oaks Tim had in his back yard. It was obvious that the pile of clothes had been picked through. I figured that was the real reason Sara came over. She wanted to get rid of any evidence I might see that connected her to Tim. Mom and Sara started hanging all of the wet clothes on it. It took over an hour and when I looked there was only men's clothing hanging. I walked around and half hidden and piled next to what remained of his garage wall was a pile of clothing. I could see Sara's red dress among the pile. While everybody else was poking around, I looked in the dresser drawers and the women's underwear was gone, as was the bottle of perfume.



Keeping my own counsel was very difficult. In fact, I never knew I had it in me. I would have thought I would have exploded especially at Sara; even on the unconscious Tim, but I didn't. My inner anger was just smoldering, but it would make its way to the surface soon enough.



I watched as they cleaned as much as they could. I no longer had any desire to be anywhere near Tim, his house, or my wife, so I told them I was going home to get our own house set up. I wanted to go to Mom and Dad's and help them, but Dad insisted he had done it often enough he didn't need help. Sara stayed to help and, I assumed, remove any more incriminating evidence she might find.



At home, I filled the generator with gas, ran extension cords to the fridge, installed the two window A/C units and ran extension cords to the generator for those and some lights. I also cleaned out the refrigerator, because all of the stuff was spoiled. We were all set until 2AM when I would have to fill the generator with gas again. I put all of Tim's guns, his safe, his money and the contents of his desk in our garage. My original intention was to clean and oil all of his guns, but once I discovered he was fucking my wife, his guns could rust for all I cared. I felt the same about the files I had recovered from his desk. Let the fucking things stay wet and mildew and render them absolutely useless.



I heard the garage door open, so I looked through the window in the kitchen door that led into the garage. Both Sara and I had to park in the driveway because Tim's shit was all over the garage. I looked through the window and saw Sara take some documents I had recovered from his desk, leaf through them before putting them in another pile. She picked up another stack of documents and leafed through them as well. I saw her stop, glance over her shoulder to see if I was watching, but I ducked back. Then she pulled a folder from the stack she was leafing through. She brushed off the folder and turned toward the kitchen door.



I hurriedly left the kitchen before she came in. I was, by then, in the livingroom. She came into that room empty handed, so I knew the folder was in the kitchen somewhere.



Sara made romantic overtures in bed that night, but I rebuffed them.



I was up before Sara the next morning and didn't let her out of my sight. Even when she left to go help her parents, I walked with her to the kitchen not giving her a change to retrieve the folder she'd stashed. She was hardly out of the driveway before I was looking the folder. I found it in one of the lower cabinet compartments. The folder was dry, but the sheaf of papers inside were still damp, and the typing was a bit blurred. I was able to make out the words Petition for Dissolution of Marriage at the top of the page. I went on to read that Sara was petitioning for a divorce from me because of "irreconcilable differences". It was dated three days before she and I left for Houston to avoid the hurricane. Apparently, the hurricane screwed up their plans for having me served. I used my phone to take pictures of it and put the original back where I found it. When I looked at the pictures, enough was readable so there was no mistaking what it was.



I spent a lot of that day arranging for insurance adjusters to come to both my parent's house and ours. I made no effort to address Tim's house.



Sara was still at her parents' house later that day when I decided to watch the videos I found in Tim's desk. I really didn't want to, and felt I knew what I would see, but I couldn't stop myself. Sure enough, the first one was my brother and my wife fucking on his bed. I watched just enough of the second one to see it was more of the same.



Dad wanted to take one last look around Tim's and asked me to go with him. I didn't want to, but I went because my father asked. Tim's car and truck were still crushed under the roof and tree. Dad asked me if I had gotten in touch with Tim's insurance company.



"No, and I don't intend to."



"Why not? He can't do it."



"Dad, I don't care if he ever talks to them."



He looked at me and I could tell he wanted to ask me why, but he didn't.



The next few days at home were pretty tense. There were many times during those days that I was on the verge of telling Sara what I knew, but held my tongue. I would find myself looking at her and she would look back guiltily, seemingly knowing that I knew her secret. I held back because I wanted to include my brother when I told them I knew.



After twice trying to entice me into having sex, Sara gave up. She would, occasionally, look at me as if wondering why I no longer wanted sex. In fact, one time she got angry and alluded to my having some woman on the side so I didn't need her anymore. I came back at her with "Maybe I do, but maybe she's in the hospital, too." She turned red and her eyes got huge before she rushed out of the room. It was at that point that I was positive she knew I knew. After that, there were no more attempts at sex and virtually no communication. Fortunately, I was back at work and didn't have to spend much time with her.



It took ten days for us to get power back. I had used most of the 100 gallons of gasoline keeping the generator running. When the power did come back, I rolled up all the extension cords running through the house, took out the window A/C units, serviced the generator and stored it in the garage.



Between my parents and us, we had everything usable out of Tim's house. The only things left were rubbish.



Things in both of our parent's houses and our house were as good as they could be under the circumstances and all we were doing was waiting for the insurance companies to send our checks.

<hr pg="2" />I worked at a tire store. I sold tires, brake jobs, oil changes and front-end alignments. Half of our building was destroyed by the hurricane, but we opened the undamaged half for business as usual. All of the businesses in the city tried to reopen as soon as they could to try to get things back to some semblance of normalcy, but it was a slow process. My tire shop fixed thirty flats a day because everybody was running over roofing nails because of all the roofs that had been destroyed, scattering the nails everywhere.



TV and internet came back on five days after the power was back. That same week, we were all in Tim's room and he came out of his coma. When he was able to speak so we could understand him, his first question was "Where's Sara?"



"I'm right here," she answered. I glared at her as she lowered her head and looked at the floor.



The week after I discovered they were cheating, I had moved all of Tim's stuff out of my house to our parents' telling them they had more room than I did. I didn't want his shit near me or my house.



We heard that he was going to be released from the hospital, so we were all there. This was going to be my moment and I didn't want to miss it. Mom and Dad wanted him to stay with them until he was completely healed and his house was rebuilt. He agreed with them.



"That's good," I said, "and Sara, you can move in with him, because I don't want either of you in my house."



Tim seemed genuinely surprised. I had assumed Sara would have found time to tell him I either knew or suspected, but apparently, she hadn't. My parents were confused, however.



"What are you talking about?" Mom asked.



"I'm saying now that Tim is better, the two of them can continue their affair, but they're not having sex in my house anymore." I had no idea if they ever fucked in my house, considering the clothes she had at his, and why were they there anyway? Why would she ever need so much of her stuff at his house unless she was planning on moving in with him and she was moving her stuff a little at a time? That was only a guess on my part.



My parents were appalled by what I had just said. "You can't be serious," my mother said.



"Oh, but I am. I don't know how long it's been going on, but they've been having an affair."



"Oh my God. Tim, is that true?"



"No, Mom, it isn't. I don't know where he got that idea."



"Tim's right." Sara piped in without conviction, her eyes wide with fear and panic.



I looked at Tim and Sara. "Then you won't mind Mom and Dad watching any of the videos I found in Tim's desk."



"Oh my God, no," cried Sara and Tim together.



"Oh, my God, yes. You can get your stuff any time this afternoon, and take it wherever you want." I told Sara.



"You can't kick me out of my own home," she said.



My father looked at both of them. "Is it true?" he asked.



Neither of them answered. They just looked at the floor.



"Of course, it's true," I said. "And besides that, Sara had papers started for a divorce, presumably so they could marry." That brought protests from both of them. I took my phone out and showed my parents the pictures I had taken.



They looked at each other before my father spoke. "Tim, we will keep your things until you find a place for them and you, but no longer than a week. Then we want you out of our house."



I had no idea what they were going to do, and didn't care. Rescue and repair crews from all over the country were occupying every hotel and motel room for a hundred miles in any direction, except South, because that's where the Gulf of Mexico was, and there were no storage units available for rent in that same radius.



My parents and I left the two of them standing in the hospital room. We talked for a few minutes outside the hospital before they went to their home and I to mine. They wanted to know how I found out about the affair, so I told them.



The only transportation Tim and Sara had, since both his pickup and car were still in his garage with the roof and a tree on them, was her car, and it was at our house about four miles away.



An hour later she came into the house as if nothing happened and went to the kitchen to get something to drink.



"Have you come to get your things?" I asked.



"I live here. If you want somebody to leave, leave, but I'm not going anywhere."



"How do you have the nerve to even come back? You fucked my brother and have shown absolutely no remorse."



She looked at me. "I do have remorse, Brian. I wish it had never happened, but it did." She walked out of the room and disappeared into our bedroom.



My father called later that evening. We talked and he asked me what I was going to do.



"Well, the first thing is to get a lawyer and countersue for adultery. We'll take it one step at a time from there. What are you and Mom going to do?"



"We will support you going forward, but Tim is our son, also, and we can't stop loving him. We hate what he's done, and for now, we don't want him around us, but eventually things will be okay again." He added, "They will with you, too."



"I doubt it, Dad."



I heard Mom in the background, asking if he knew where Tim was. "He's probably at Russell's parents, and if Sara isn't with him she's at her parents." A mother was worried about her son regardless of how upset she was with him. Russell had been Tim's best friend. They were almost attached at the hip growing up. Russell was killed about six months before the hurricane.



"Sara isn't with her parents," I told him. "She's here. She told me if I wanted someone to move, it should be me."



"Jesus H. Christ. That takes a lot of nerve." Dad said.



"Yes, it does. I'll ask an attorney what I should do."



At bedtime I found her in our bed reading. I took my pajamas, toothpaste and brush, along with my shaving equipment, from the bathroom and started to walk out.



"Aren't you sleeping in here?" she asked.



I walked out.



She worked in the only real bakery in the city, and she had helped them get it up and running. She did it pro bono, which was fine with me. She was scheduled to go back on the payroll the day after I dropped the bombshell about her fucking my brother.



After I left her in the bedroom room and she went back to work, I didn't see her for two days. There was evidence that she was still at the house.



I found an attorney who was almost back in business. His office had been destroyed, so he was working out of his house. He looked at one of the videos and asked how I got them. I told him and he took the case. "Don't leave the house," he said.



Sara was served at the bakery. When I got home that evening, she told me she wanted to talk. "We'll talk in court," was all I said.



"You're here. I'm here. Let's talk now." She insisted.



"I told you we'd talk in court." I went in my bedroom and closed the door.



The next day, she came to my workplace. "Can we talk here?" she asked.



"No, we can't." I said. "Besides, why all of a sudden do you start making the rules? You fucked my brother for God only knows how long and now you're dictating terms? Hell, no! So, unless you want to buy some new tires, leave. If and when I'm ready to talk I'll let you know when and where.



Another customer came in and I waited on her. Sara left.



She tried talking to me every evening at the house, but I kept telling her no, and the more I told her no, the madder she got. I called her three days later and told her if she still wanted to talk, I would be available at the house that evening at 6:30.



I indicated she should sit. "Okay. Talk."



"It started at Russell's funeral. Actually, it started way before that, but let's start at the funeral." she began. Russell and Tim had been best friends since they were five. Russell's family had lots of money. His father started with one shrimp trawler and built it into a fleet of them. Russell and Tim were almost inseparable and worked on one of the trawlers occasionally. They even built themselves a pirogue (peerow - a small canoe-type craft used in the Bayous), in which they spent much of their youth. In alligator season, they always made spending money by catching and selling them. The first car they bought was bought with their "gator money," as they called it. The car ran when they bought it, but they decided to improve it, so they tore it apart and it sat in our garage for two years before being relegated to the yard for another year before going to the junk yard.



Russell and Tim had gone out in Russell's brand-new air boat. From what Tim said, Russell was tearing through the bayou at a ridiculous speed and hit a submerged log. Russell went flying and his head hit the metal corner of his boat. Tim was catapulted onto the bank and knocked out. When he came to, he found Russell's body in the water wedged between the shore and his airboat. He managed to get Russell on the boat and get it started. Telephone service in the Bayous is spotty at best, but he kept trying to get 911. He got Russell back, but the EMT's said he was probably dead before Tim dragged him out of the water.



"I was standing next to Tim at Russell's casket," Sara said. "You may remember that day. You and I brought Tim home with us after the funeral. You and your father went back to the funeral home to get his car. While you were gone, he was still grieving and he was clinging to me. I started stroking his hair and patting his back like you do a child to comfort them. Before I knew it he was kissing me. Then his hand was on my ass and came around to touch then squeeze my breasts. I stopped him and stepped away, but he didn't stop. He pulled me close and his hand went up my dress. I struggled and pleaded with him to stop, but his hand went in my panties and his finger was in me when we heard your truck. He pulled his hand out and I straightened myself and headed for the door. I was going to tell you, but he stopped me. 'If you tell Brian, I'll tell him that you and Russell have been fucking for two weeks.' You and your father walked in just then."



"You should have told me. I wouldn't have believed a lie like that even coming from my brother." I said.



She stood and walked away before turning back to look at me. "It wasn't a lie." I just stared at her. Could this get any fucking worse? Now not only was she fucking my brother, she was fucking his best friend. Before I could say anything, she started talking again. "I was almost happy when Russell died. I knew I wouldn't have to fuck him anymore and you would never find out I did it in the first place."



I couldn't just sit there and do nothing, so I stood, paced and still did nothing other than wave my hands and talk to myself. I finally turned to her. "Why? When?"



She walked to where she had been sitting and sat back down. "When you and I first met at that party at Russell's parents' house, you didn't know that he and I had dated and even had sex. In fact, he was my first sex partner." Russell's parents were always giving parties; either at their huge New Orleans style house or the country club. They were also members of the city's fanciest Mardi Gras Krewe. Tim enjoyed hobnobbing with them, and even bragged that Russell's dad started giving him financial advice when he was 12 years old. Tim listened and by the time he went to college, he had quite a nest egg. "I met you at the party and that was it. You may recall I wanted to exchange numbers very soon after meeting you."



I remembered that. I liked her immediately and couldn't wait to call her, which I did the next day.



She spoke again. "I saw him occasionally after you and I started dating, but not in the dating sense. We would see each other at the mall or someplace else. One of the reasons he and I stopped dating was because he wanted to control everything we did, when we did it, and how we did it. Even the sex was controlled by him. When, what, where...again, everything. When we broke up, I told him I didn't want to see him anymore and he even tried to control that, and did to a point. He wanted to have sex with me one last time at the party, and to 'make it special' he wanted to share me with his best friend, Tim. I refused. I had gotten to know Tim and knew he was almost as bad a of control freak as Russell."



She was right about that. All of our lives, Tim wanted to be the boss and in charge. It used to bother me, but after a while, I just got used to it, unless it was something I really wanted, then I fought him for it. I won as frequently as I lost, and he hated it. He was the sorest loser I ever knew.



"Anyway, Russell and I would see each other occasionally and acknowledge each other. Exactly one month before he died, he came in the Bakery. He and I were the only two in there and he started talking. He was bringing up the times we had sex and how good it was. I reminded him that was over four years ago and it was something I would rather forget. He told me he didn't want to forget it, he wanted to relive it. I told him there was no possibility of that and that he should leave.



"He left, but was back the next day parked next to my car waiting for me. He tried to get me in his car, but I wouldn't go. He only talked, he never touched me or tried to use force. Had he done that, I had my pepper spray ready. Looking back on it, I wish he had tried to force me. I would have sprayed him and none of this other stuff would have happened and you and I would still be... never mind."



I assumed she would get to the nitty gritty some time soon, so I waited.



"He came by three days that first week, and on the second week he came in again and again when we were alone. Only that time it was Friday."



"I'm going to fuck you again," he said.



"No, you're not. I'm married and I don't cheat so get out." She was pissed at that point.



"Tim tells me that you and your husband are trying to have a baby. Is that right?"



"That's none of your business. And none of Tim's, either."



"Talk to your husband about making it Tim's business, because he's the one who told Tim and you are going to talk to me because I'm making it my business. What do you think your husband would say if he knew you had an abortion and might not be able to have any children?"



"Oh my God. You wouldn't. It would kill him."



"Your choice. Tomorrow is Saturday. I'm spending tonight at our camp. If I haven't fucked you by noon, he's going to know by 12:30."



"He left and I cried the rest of the day. I called you three times trying to tell you, but each time I called I chickened out. On the third call, you were busy and got irritated and told me not to bother you at work. So I didn't. The next morning, I told you I was going to the mall but I went to him. We spent most of the day in bed and I cried the whole time. Finally, he told me that I couldn't fuck worth a shit when I was crying and the next time we fucked I'd better not cry and I better act like I enjoyed it. I panicked. I told him I thought it was only going to be the one time."



"Are you fucking crazy? We're going to fuck as long as I want to," he said laughing.



"Why now?" I asked him. "Why after all this time are you doing this?"



"Because I had forgotten about the abortion until Tim mentioned you trying to get pregnant. Then it dawned on me that I could have you again."



She took a deep breath. "I slept with him three more times before he was killed."



"I'm beginning to catch on. Russell told Tim and Tim decided to keep blackmailing you. Is that it?"



"That's it. I'm so sorry, Brian. I didn't know what to do. I hated it with Russell, but even worse with Tim. I can't say this without sounding like I liked it, but I didn't. It was horrible. I was nothing more than a place for him to come. He wasn't interested in having sex with me or anyone else. All he wanted was something other than his hand to jack off in.



"From then on we did it at least once a week and he never improved. It was always about him getting off, never about me or what I wanted. By then I was so overwrought with guilt for cheating on you that I didn't care. I hated myself and I started hating him. Early on, he said we should have memories of our time together so he recorded the videos you found. I hated that most of all. He tried to get me to watch them with him, but I couldn't and I never have." She stopped, stood, and headed for the kitchen. "I'm getting some water."



"Okay."



She came back carrying a glass of water. "Did you want something?" she asked.



"No. Go on."



"The more sex we had the more I hated it and him. He got tired of me just lying there until he got his rocks off, so he decided it wasn't worth it any more. If he was going to get laid, he wanted someone who enjoyed it. I asked him why he didn't decide that months ago. All he said was 'fuck you'.



"And it was over. We both felt that you would eventually find out what we did and divorce me, even though we ended it. He thought I would be better off if I got a divorce before you found out. That way I could blame you for causing the divorce. Everybody always blames the husband and I would get away clear."



"And that son of a bitch would be in the clear, too. He wasn't looking out for you; he was looking out for himself." I just looked at her. "So you filed. When were you going to have me served?"



"The day you and I left for Houston. Someone was going to serve you at work."



"Another question. Why did you have clothes at his house? Were you planning on moving in and were just taking them a few at a time?"



"Moving in? Hell, no. When we first started, he liked roleplaying. One time he wanted me dressed up like we were going out for a fancy evening, another time he wanted me in tight cut-off jeans, so I had some clothes there, depending on what he might want. To be honest, I figured that if I was going to have to fuck him, I should get some enjoyment out of it and thought the roleplaying just might do it, but it didn't. Like the rest of the sex, it was all about him." She paused. "What made it worse was you and I were still trying to have a baby and we had sex a lot. I would leave him after he got his rocks off, then come home to you and we had wonderful sex."



I stared at her. "So I got sloppy seconds at least once a week?"



She nodded. "I'm sorry."



There was a pause as she sipped on her water. "What are you going to do after the divorce?" I asked. "Live with him?"



"God, no. We can't stand each other." She paused, and it was quiet for a long time as we were both lost in our own private little worlds. When she spoke, she spoke volumes with just two words. "I'm pregnant." She told me that she had seen two different doctor's and was told she should have no problem having the baby. Neither of them could provide the answer to her question, why couldn't she get pregnant when we tried so hard all that time? She received the same answer from both of them, and that was basically that Mother Nature moved in her own sweet time.



Discovering that my wife fucked my brother and his best friend shocked the shit out of me, but hearing her announcement that she was pregnant knocked me for a loop. We had tried without success for two years to have a baby, now here she was telling me we, or at least she, was pregnant.



"Whose is it? I asked.



"I don't know."



Things were just getting worse.



"Does he know?"



"No. Just my parents, and now you, but I'm going to have to tell him." There was another pause while my mind tumbled around trying to make sense of my new life. "So what do we do about the baby?" she asked.



"I'm not doing anything until I find out whose it is."



"I'm going to need help with the medical bills. I don't have a health plan at the bakery."



"How far along are you?"



"About ten weeks."



I did mental calculations and determined that the baby could be mine. We had taken a week of vacation and spent lots of time trying to get pregnant, but knowing she fucked my brother at the same time, cast a huge doubt over who the father was. "Okay. As long as we're married, continue to use my medical benefits. The divorce is going to keep moving forward and we'll see what the judge has to say about your medical bills." Although I knew what was going to happen. I was going to be assumed to be the father and forced to pay her medical expenses even after the divorce.

<hr pg="3" />I spent a lot of the following week trying to find a company that would do a pre-birth DNA test and was told, rightly or wrongly, that they could not do a pre-birth test when two possible fathers share a close biological relationship. It looked like I was stuck with waiting.



We had one meeting with our attorneys which took place a week after Sara told me she was pregnant. We split our few assets, the house being the biggest. My attorney and I agreed that I would get kicked out and she would get the house regardless of who the father was. That pissed me off, but I recognized it as reality.



"Get this in court as soon as possible," I told my attorney.



"Should be soon. All the courts are so screwed up right now, anything is possible."



We were in court inside a month of that meeting. The judge ruled that she would get the house. In the meantime, I, as we suspected, was responsible for her medical bills until paternity was determined. In a move my attorney said he had never heard of, the Judge ruled that if the child was proven not to be mine, the biological father would reimburse my insurance company for all medical expenses. His gavel hit the gavel pad and I was single. Since the judge made it official and ruled that the house was hers, I figured it was time for me to move out.



She stopped me as I was leaving the courtroom. "Tim has an idea," she said.



"Fuck Tim and his ideas," I responded. "Besides, I thought you two hated each other and weren't fucking, er, ah, talking."



"We aren't, really, but he called and I think he wants to do the right thing."



"He should have thought about that before he fucked my wife. Uh, excuse me. My ex-wife."



"No, listen, Brian, he is willing to pay half of the medical bills just in case the baby is his."



"I have a better idea. He can pay them all. I've been doing some thinking and I don't think there's any way I can be the father if you're right about when you got pregnant. The vacation we took was before you said you got pregnant, and shortly after that my father and I were working on their camp." Most Cajuns had fishing camps. Some were small canvas-covered wooden frame tent-like structures, while others were multimillion dollar mansions, and sometimes they sat right next to each other. My parents' camp was modest. It, like most of the camps, had been flooded so many times they put it on stilts.



"I'm telling the truth as near as I can figure it," she said.



"Then the baby is his and he can pay." I walked away.



That evening, I moved my stuff to my parents fishing camp on the lake. I heard from my parents that Tim was building a new house where his old one had been. I told them I couldn't care less.



My life went on. Day after day, week after week, and month after month. I spent time with my parents but I always made sure Tim wasn't going to be there at the same time. I did hear that his new house was nearing completion and my mother was going to help him decorate.



"Is Sara going, too?" I asked.



"No," said my mother. "Why would she?"



"Isn't she going to live there after the baby is born?"



"Brian, we've told you repeatedly, they don't see each other and he has nothing nice to say about her, but out of a sense of guilt, he is paying her medical bills."



"The parents hating each other is going to be a tough way to raise a baby."



"It's not our concern, so leave it alone," Mom said wagging her finger at me.



Tim moved into his new house about the same time Sara had her baby. She called me to let me know that she had a girl.



I was not the least interested but regardless of which of us was the father, my parents were still the grandparents; she also called them. She had also taken the baby to their house so they had met her. My mother told me that Sara had not picked out a name yet and they were anxious for her to do that. My mother wanted to make her some bibs with her name on them.



"Mom, I don't need all that information, so I would appreciate you not discussing her around me."



I was having dinner with them one evening when the doorbell rang. My mother went to answer it and came back carrying a baby and followed by Sara. "I didn't want to disturb you," she said to my parents, "but we were on our way home and I thought you might want to see your granddaughter. Hello, Brian," she added.



I grunted.



Both of my parents did their oohs and aahs, and Mom's face beamed and tears came to her eyes. She looked at my father. "Isn't she beautiful, Johnnie? And she's our granddaughter."



I had about enough, so I put my napkin on the table, stood and started out the door when I heard my father ask. "Have you named her yet?"



"Briana," she said. "I named her after her father." I stopped and turned to look at her. She looked at me, took some papers out of Briana's diaper bag and handed them to me. It was the DNA Report. "She's your daughter, Brian," she, said not trying to stop the tears. Then she corrected herself. "She's our daughter."



Briana started crying and my mother brought her to me. "Take your daughter."



I had no idea what to do, so I reached out and my mother put my daughter in my arms. Likewise, I had no idea how much, if anything, babies could see, but I could have sworn she looked up at me, smiled and stopped crying. I'm sure it was my imagination, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I continued to hold her not wanting to let her go. Finally, Sara sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island while my mother filled a plate with food and put it in front of her. Sara ate while I held our daughter and walked around the kitchen looking at her.



I knew it was too good to last and she started to get fidgety. Sara noticed. "She's getting hungry." She looked at my parents. "Do you mind if I feed her?"



"Of course not," said my mother.



I handed her to Sara, who put her in the proper feeding position, opened some secret opening in her shirt and Briana started to suckle. I sat back in my chair and stared open mouthed and watched. Sara held the baby with one hand, and ate off her own plate with the other like she'd done it all her life.



I picked up the DNA results and read them. They'd had my sample for months and, I assumed, Tim's, and they took Briana's as soon as she was born. It took three weeks to get the results so Briana was three weeks old.



Sara saw me reading the results. "I just got them today," she said. "There's no question, Brian. She's ours." We sat there watching the miracle of mother feeding child for a long time. Briana finished and was asleep. Sara put everything back where it was supposed to be and closed the secret trap door in her shirt. "She needs to have her diaper changed, then I'll take her home."



"Could I change her?" asked my mother.



Sara smiled. "Of course." Mom took Briana and the diaper bag and disappeared. She was back in a few minutes. Sara ate while Dad and I, not knowing what to say, sat in silence.



"It took longer than I expected. I haven't done it in a long time," my mother said, smiling. Smiling because she changed a diaper? Must be a woman thing, I thought to myself.



"Get used to it, Grandma. You'll have plenty of opportunity, if you want it," Sara laughed as she said it.



"Of course I want it," Mom said, reluctant to give Briana back.



Sara stood and looked at me. "I guess there are some things we need to talk about."



"I guess there are," I said meekly. "When would be good?"



"She likes to sleep between one and three in the afternoon. Could you come over then?"



"Sure. I'll take an extended lunch tomorrow."



She stood, took her purse and diaper bag and started for the front door. We didn't say anything as I opened the door and walked her to her car, watched as she put Briana in her little car seat and left. I went back to the kitchen and sat.



"Well, that sure as hell changes things," my father declared.



My mother stood behind me for a minute then sat beside me and turned me to face her. "You're going to take care of that baby, aren't you?"



"Of course I am. I just don't know how."



I didn't sleep much that night, trying to decide what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.



I met Sara at the house. Briana was asleep. I looked down at her and couldn't believe she was my daughter.



"Have a seat," said Sara. "Have you given any thought to where we go from here?"



"That's all I've done since last night and I'm no closer to an answer. I suppose the first thing is to give you some money."



"That's a start, but I'm thinking long term... like 18 years. She needs a home and she needs parents; not just a mother. What do we do about that?"



"She has a home," I said.



"It's a house, not a home. I want you to be in her life as much as possible. My parents want to give us the money to convert one of the spare bedrooms to a nursery. Would you consider helping me?"



I looked at her and then at the bassinette where Briana was sleeping. "Let me think about it," I said.



"Fair enough," she responded.



We talked for another hour before I had to get back to work. Briana was still asleep when I left and we hadn't made any other decisions.



My mother called the next day. "Brian, I know you don't want to hear this, but has Sara told Tim about the baby?"



"I don't know and don't care. I don't care if he ever finds out."



"You know he paid for her medical expenses because he thought he was the father. Are you going to pay him back?"



"No."



"Why not?"



"He had an affair with my wife. Neither of them cared about me then, I don't care about him now. I don't know how I feel about Sara. I had almost forgotten about her until two days ago. Now I'm going to have to deal with her on some level until Briana grows up."



"You're going to have to do the same thing with your brother. You can't ignore and hate him for the rest of your life."



"Oh, yes I can and probably will."



There was a long pause. "How long are you going to live at the camp? Tim wants to take some friends out there for a weekend. We told him he can fish, but can't use the house as long as you are living there."



"I bet that pissed him off."



"He wasn't happy." She paused again. "He's going to find out the DNA results are back. He really wants to be the father."



"Well, he isn't. And if there's any way I can avoid him even being her Uncle, I'm going to do that, too."



"Brian, if he asks me, you know I'm going to tell him."



"I know you will, Mom."



She did. He had dinner with her and our father that evening and commented that the DNA results should be back. My mother told him they were and that he wasn't the father. She told me he was really upset and immediately called Sara. They only heard his first question to her because he was on his way out of the house. "Why didn't you tell me?" And he was gone.



Sara called me in tears after she talked to him. He called her everything but a female and accused her of knowing the baby was mine, but taking his money for her medical expenses anyway, and he demanded it back. She told him she didn't have it.



"Then I'll take it out of Brian's ass." She said he was on his way to see me.



I was standing on the front deck of the camp when he screamed up the gravel road. He was going way too fast to turn into the driveway, but attempted it anyway. He also tried his best to take out the live oak tree that was there. His almost new pickup truck burst into flames. I saw him get out. He was dazed, but otherwise appeared okay. I took out my phone.



"911. What's the emergency?"



"Some idiot just crashed into a tree in my front yard."



"Is anybody hurt?"



"It doesn't look like it. The driver is staggering around like he's drunk."



"Does he need first aid?"



"Beats the shit out of me."



"Could you ask him if he's okay or needs help?"



"I could, but I won't."



"Excuse me?"



"I said I could ask him, but I won't because I don't care if he's hurt or not." I ended the call.



Tim staggered around for several minutes before recognizing where he was and looked in my general direction. "That's my baby," he yelled. My parents told me that he was drinking quite a bit and they didn't know what to do. That night must have been one of his drinking nights.



"Leave him alone and let him drink. With any luck, he'll kill himself." I told them. Both of my parents reamed me out for thinking something like that, much less actually saying it.



Just then the EMT's and Police came, saw him staggering up the stairs toward me, caught him, dragged him back down and arrested him. He kept screaming drunkenly, "That's my baby. I'm going to kick your ass," over and over. He was still screaming as they handcuffed him and put him in the back of a patrol car. Communicating a threat is apparently against the law in Louisiana.



I told the police what happened and they asked me if I knew him. "We have the same parents," was my reply. I was sitting in my rocker on the back porch looking at the lake, so I didn't watch as they hauled both my brother and his burned out hulk of a truck away. The live oak tree he hit was way over a hundred years old and was none the worse for wear.



I called my parents and filled them in. They were going go the police station to retrieve him. I called Sara and told her what happened. "Did he hurt you?" she asked.



"No. The only things hurt were his truck and his pride." Then I told her I would help decorate the nursery.



All of a sudden, I was anxious to get started. She gave me back a house key and garage door opener. We moved the old furniture and carpet out of the bedroom closest to the master. It was probably the same room she and Tim used to fuck in. Sara chose a new color and I painted the room. I gave her money to buy new furniture, but she reminded me that her parents wanted to pay for it. I told her to keep the money anyway. Three days later we had a nursery. During those three days, I held Briana a lot and Sara showed me how to change her diapers. The more I was around the baby, the more I wanted to be around her. Whenever she would start crying, I would pick her up or Sara would hand her to me and it seemed she always stopped as soon as I took her; unless she was hungry and I couldn't help her in that department: At least not until she started eating baby food.



I kept expecting Tim to come by, but we never saw him.



I put some money into Sara's bank account and told her I would do it every week. In addition, I put Briana on my health plan.



I spent every evening after work with them and stayed until the baby went to sleep.



One evening I went by the house and there was a strange pickup so I didn't stop. We were no longer married and if Sara was getting her social life back, that was her business. I drove by the next morning and the truck was still there. Sara going on a date was one thing, but a man spending the night in the house with my daughter was something else. In my mind's eye I could see him and Sara naked in bed when the baby started crying in the middle of the night. Sara would get up naked, go to the nursery with some man's cum in her, sit and nurse my daughter. I could see the man, who was also naked, walk into the nursey and stand watching Sara nursing. A naked man in my daughter's nursery pissed me off.



I called Sara and gave her my opinion about men spending the night in the house with my daughter and how unhappy I was about that. When I finished and was out of breath, she spoke.



"Are you finished?" she asked.



"Yes."



"Okay. The truck is Tim's and before you get excited again, he came yesterday afternoon and was so drunk he barely made it to the porch before he passed out, so I called your parents who came and got him. Now, if you're so concerned about strange men spending the night, you can solve that problem so you won't be worrying about it anymore."



"How do I do that?"



"You can move into the other bedroom and keep an eye on both your daughter and me."



"You can't be serious."



"Oh, but I am. Why don't you think about it and get back to me?"



"Sara, we lived in the same house for four years and that didn't stop you from cheating. Why should now be any different?" Of course, now she wouldn't be cheating if she had another man.



"You're right. Maybe it would be a mistake. Sorry I brought it up."



I called my parents and they confirmed Sara's story. Dad and Tim were going over later to get Tim's truck. I went to the house. I wanted to be there when Tim got there. I was standing on the porch when they arrived. Tim looked at me and walked up almost to the porch.



"Why do you hate me so much? It was just as much Sara's fault as mine. Besides, you owe me a lot of money."



"I don't owe you shit. Consider it the cost of blackmailing your brother's wife so you could fuck her. Now get out of here and don't come back." He got in his truck and left. My father wanted to see his granddaughter. While he was gushing over her, I thought about Tim's comment. Their affair hadn't been just as much Sara's fault as his, because she was coerced, both with Russell and Tim. Of course she could always have said no. That was the bottom line, I suppose. She could have with Russell, as well, but she didn't. I couldn't have done anything about her fucking Russell before I met her, and I couldn't have done anything about the abortion. I wouldn't have liked either of those scenarios, but I wouldn't have divorced her over them. Maybe, down deep, she liked being told what to do like she told me both of them did. Maybe, down deep, she wanted to experience Russell fucking her again. I'd never know, and I doubted she would ever admit it, so fretting over it was a waste of time and energy.



Tim didn't know it, but I didn't start cutting Sara any slack until she told me I was a father. Until then, I was just as hard on her as I was on him. Maybe harder.



Which brought up another question. What was I going to do about Sara's comment about me moving back into the house? Had she withdrawn the suggestion after I brought up her cheating?



I had dinner with Sara and the baby. I held the baby while I ate and discovered it wasn't all that difficult, then I watched Sara feed her. I realized that never once in the times I saw her bare tit while she was either starting or finishing feeding, did I have erotic thoughts. Before, the sight of her bare tit would be instant hardon time.



Never during dinner, Briana's bath or getting her ready for bed was my moving back mentioned. After I left Sara, I went to my parents. Dad and I had a drink while the three of us talked. I told them what Sara suggested. Mom was all for it, but my father wasn't so sure.



"So, what happens if you move back? Do you start acting like you're married again? She cheated for months. I don't think you can forgive her for that. I don't think I could."



"But it's different now," my mother said. "She has a baby and is more mature. I think you should at least try it. That way Briana has two parents and it would be better for her, and what happens when Sara gets sick? What if no one is there and the baby is alone? You can't do that to that baby. She needs two parents."



I called Sara the next day and asked if she wanted me to bring dinner with me when I came. She thought it was a good idea, so I got ribs, baked beans and Cole slaw from our favorite place. I knew there was beer in the fridge.



I usually left when Briana went down for the night, but that evening I stayed to talk.



"Let's talk about my moving back in, if that's still an option," I said.



"It's still an option if you want it to be," she said.



"I can see upsides to it, but there are downsides, as well," I told her.



"Okay. What are the upsides?" she asked.



"First of all, we would both be here for our daughter. Second, like my mother pointed out, if you got sick I would be here. Next, expenses would be reduced because I can't live in my parents' camp forever. I'm going to have to find my own place sometime. Next, it would be more of a normal home for Briana, unless you want to consider that the same as the first thing I mentioned."

<hr pg="4" />"I agree with those things," said Sara. "And since you listed the upsides, I'll list the down." She paused. "The obvious thing is my having cheated. I see that as the biggest obstacle, don't you?" she asked me.



"I do."



"The next thing is, we're divorced. Sooner or later, we're going to start having a social life again. Neither of us can remain celibate until Briana turns 18, so we'd have to address that pretty soon, because, quite frankly, it has been a long time and I need some sex."



"I agree with that, and it's been longer for me than you." I said.



"Not to put too fine a point on it, but the last time for me was before we left for Houston and it was with you," she said. "I haven't had anything to do with Tim since we've been back. I resent and hate him even though I am as much to blame as he is."



"Okay. That makes us even, and that's a long time ago."



"Of course we can solve that problem for both of us."



"How?" I was almost afraid of what her answer was going to be.



She looked at me and spoke softly. "Brian, I'm sorry I cheated. From the bottom of my soul, I'm sorry. It would be nice if you moved back home and we shared everything we used to including our bed, but I know that would be difficult for both of us. Neither of us has a magic wand to wipe our memories clean, so we will be living with it forever, but if there's any way you could see your way clear to come home we could at least try to have some semblance of normalcy for Briana."



"But what would we do about the social thing?" I asked. "We're talking about me moving back and living normally, and with the next breath we are both talking about us having separate social lives. How would that work?"



"We act like a normal couple, including sleeping together until either of us accepts a date. Going on a date doesn't mean anything permanent. It would just be a date. We just wouldn't bring it home. Any dates I have would pick me up and drop me off here. If he and I decided sex was in the cards, we'd go someplace and do our thing. It might be more difficult for you watching me leave with somebody, knowing there was a possibility I was going to have sex with them. At least I wouldn't have to watch you leave with someone because you'd be going to meet them somewhere."



"So either you or I have a date, have sex, then we come home and sleep with each other. Then I'd be back to having sloppy seconds again. Is that what you're telling me?"



"Well, when you put it like that, it sounds weird."



We talked for another full hour without coming to any decision. We were pushed into one less than a week later, however. We were having dinner and Sara wasn't feeling well. She got progressively worse as the evening went along. Fortunately, she had been pumping her breast milk and bottling it, so I could feed Briana. I ended up taking Sara to the hospital that evening and they kept her. Her gall bladder, of all things, needed to come out. I left her there and took Briana home. I was alone overnight with my daughter for the first time, and solely responsible for her welfare. I had an infant's car seat in my truck and since I had used it before, had no trouble getting her in and out of it.



I called Sara's parents, who wanted to know if I needed help with the baby. I told them no so they went to the hospital to see their daughter.



It wasn't as bad as I thought, other than I didn't get a wink of sleep. I was afraid she would wake up, start crying, and I wouldn't hear her.



The next morning we went back to the hospital. They had removed Sara's gall bladder the night before and were treating her for an infection of some sort. We were told that in some cases, the patient could be released soon after surgery, but an infection developed so they wanted to watch her. There was a very small incision in her side and she was chipper as a bird and anxious to see her daughter and feed her. Apparently not having the baby suckle and not pumping made for some very sore breasts. While her parents were there, I went home to get her pump and some empty bottles since she was going to be there for at least another day.



Briana and I made it through Sara's hospital stay almost unscathed. I had taken time off to care for my daughter, and to a lesser degree, Sara. I thoroughly enjoyed the time although we were rarely alone. Between the two sets of grandparents, I hardly fed her, bathed her or put her to bed. The two grandmothers took complete charge of those chores; over my objections, I might add. They both kept telling me that I had lots of time to take care of her, whereas their time was limited.



Sara's parents brought her home from the hospital and they had welcome home signs all over the place. "Did you do all this when she came home from having the baby?" I asked.



"No," said her mother. "She wasn't coming home then. She came to our house. Coming to this house is coming home for her."



I understood the difference.



It was quiet after everyone left. Sara sat in what used to be my recliner, holding Briana as she slept. The look of peace on her face spoke volumes.



I had only planned to stay in the house until she got home, but it became apparent she would need help for a few more days. "I suppose I should stay here until you are feeling better," I said to her.



She smiled. "I would appreciate it. Thank you."



I moved some of my stuff into the other bedroom the next day. Everything was going well until Sara came home several weeks later and told me she met a man at the supermarket who asked her to dinner the next Friday evening. They had seen each other several times and had chatted a little. She told me she accepted.



My immediate reaction was anger, but then I realized I had no right to be. We had discussed the likelihood of it happening and the possible ramifications, so I had no recourse. Friday came and he picked her up. She introduced us and he seemed fine with our situation.



She was home by nine. While she was gone, I repacked all my belongings and put them in my truck. Five minutes after she got home, I was on my way back to the fishing camp. My parting words to her were, "I can't live like this."



I continued going to her house after work and spending time with my daughter. I just couldn't live in the same house.



After a week or so, she asked if I could watch Briana because she had another date. Dinner again with the same guy.



"Nope. Can't do it," I said. I really missed being with my daughter, but seeing Sara go on a date wasn't something I relished doing.



Friday came and I assumed she was on her date. I was sitting on the back deck of the camp when I felt someone behind me. I said the camp was on stilts and it was. It was twelve feet off the ground to allow for floods. When I heard someone come up behind me I turned with a jerk and almost threw myself over the railing and down twelve feet to the yard. She grabbed for me as I grabbed for the railing so I didn't go over. "Jesus Christ. Don't scare me like that," I said.



"I didn't mean to," she said.



I looked at my watch. "That was a short dinner."



"We didn't go. I cancelled."



"Why?" She shrugged. "Where's Briana?"



"At Mom's."



I sat back down and motioned for her to sit. We looked out at the lake for a long time before she spoke. "Brian, I know we talked about dating, but I don't want to."



"Why not?"



"Because I only want you. I want you to come home so we can be a family."



I turned my chair to look at her. "I've thought about it. A lot. I don't know if I have it in me. I don't have a desire to date, either, so for months I've jacked off just to get some satisfaction. It doesn't work all that well, but I have no desire to go out dating. I keep coming back to you, but when I do that, the image of you and Tim jumps out at me, or I remember the videos the two of you made. By the way, I'll give those back to you if you want them." I paused and took a deep breath. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to have a normal relationship again. And I hate you for that. I hate you and Tim and Russell, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive any of you.



"When I'm at the house with you and Briana, I feel contented and at peace. I see the way you take care of her and love her. And I see the three of us. Together. A family. Then I see you and Tim and the vision is shattered. All I see is the two of you going at it and my stomach jumps up into my throat and I feel sick and need to leave. It won't work, Sara. My heart won't let it work."



"Is it your heart or your ego?"



"My ego?"



"Yes. Your ego. Your brother had sex with your wife so your ego is damaged. You can't get over it because your wife gave herself to someone else. I was supposed to be yours and only yours, but I messed that up. I'm almost the same, Brian. A little of my soul is missing, but the rest of me is here and I'm all yours if you'll forgive me and have me back."



"But the commitment isn't. The commitment you made in church. You violated it and you can't take it back. The commitment that said you would keep yourself only unto me. That didn't mean just your body. It was your love, your trust, your word, your guarantee that regardless of what happened, you and I would love each other, and only each other. You gave that away and you can't get it back even though the sex was bad and you hated doing it. You didn't just give them your body. You gave them, both of them, that little bit of your soul you talked about.



"So go home and take care of our daughter. I will be in her life as much as I can and do whatever I can for her and with her." I turned my chair back facing the lake and heard her leave almost immediately.



I stopped by her house several times a week to play with my daughter, feed her, give her a bath and put her to bed. Sara and I stayed on relatively good terms, even if we had little to say to each other. I would take Briana to the playground and the mall and occasionally she would spend a night or weekend with me whenever Sara had a date. We did that for almost six months.



One evening, I was at my parents' house and Sara brought Briana to visit. We had been there about an hour when Tim staggered in. His drinking had gotten worse. My father tried to stop him, but he was drunk and barged in.



"Well, look who's here. My baby brother and his cheating wife. Do you miss me Sara? Do you miss me fucking you and us talking about how my dumbass baby brother had no clue what we were doing?"



"That's enough, Tim! Be quiet," said my father.



"Come on John," said my mother to my father. "Help me get him to bed, he's drunk." They had to almost drag his drunken ass to a bedroom.



I looked at Sara. "Did you really do that? Did you really call me a dumbass?"



"Brian, it didn't mean anything and was only at the beginning. He used to laugh about it. That's one of the reasons I started hating him.



I really didn't know whether to believe her or not. I walked out of the house. I got in my truck and left. I was following another pickup as we went down the two-lane country road. The truck in front of me had a camper on the back. We hadn't gone far when the camper door flew open and a box fell out onto the road. I swerved to avoid hitting it, but whatever was in it scattered all over the road and I heard popping noises. The other truck kept going not realizing what happened. I stopped my truck and got out stepping over hundreds of horseshoe nails.



I looked and saw the other truck's brake lights come on. A minute later it was back where I was. The driver was a very apologetic female, who, after seeing that I was okay, took a big industrial broom from her truck and started sweeping up the horseshoe nails which had fallen out of the box. Horseshoe nails don't have sharp points, but they certainly managed to do a job on two of my tires. I heard three distinct popping noises, but only two tires were flat. Only two, I said, but I only had one spare.



She introduced herself as Helen, and volunteered her spare tire. We both had F-150's with the same sized tires and full sized spares so there would be no problem. She cleaned up the nails as I changed my flat tires. I was still pissed from hearing what Tim said and Sara confirmed, but I was curious as to why this woman had a whole box of horseshoe nails in her truck, so I asked her. She told me that a friend of hers was a blacksmith and farrier, and she was taking them to him. We looked at the door on her camper and determined that she had simply failed to close it properly. When we were both finished, I was in no mood to stick around so I hurriedly left, but not before telling her where she could pick up her tire the next day.



It was just before noon when she came to retrieve her tire. I had it ready for her and took it to her truck. When we got there, she offered to pay me for my damaged tire. I reminded her that I worked in a tire shop. We chatted for another few minutes before she invited me to lunch to compensate for my inconvenience the night before. It was close to noon, so I clocked out and we went to the Pizza buffet restaurant next to where I worked. She appeared to be older than me, but I couldn't venture a guess as to how much.



We got along so well at lunch that I invited her to dinner, age difference be damned.



She readily agreed and we exchanged phone numbers.



Our first date was mostly me telling her about my cheating wife, how I caught her, and everything that happened subsequent to that. That explained why I was on the road that night.



Our second date was dinner, and I heard about her lowlife ex-husband who, as far as she knew, never cheated, but she couldn't keep him out of the woods hunting or off the water fishing or duck hunting. She hated it when he killed things just for their horns or their feathers. She wasn't a vegetarian and enjoyed a good steak as much as anyone else, but she claimed they had three freezers full of meat they could never eat and he kept killing more animals and bringing more meat to the freezers.



Two years before she and I met, she came down with the flu. Her husband made sure her mother was at their house to care for Helen before he flew to Nebraska to go on a planned pheasant hunting trip. A husband's place was with his sick wife, not in Nebraska. That was the first indication I had that she had money. You had to have it in order to fly to Nebraska to go pheasant hunting. Her pickup had certainly given no indication she had money; it was just a working persons truck like mine and her clothes were normal everyday working clothes. She impressed me as being a bit higher educated than I was, but that wasn't difficult, considering I only graduated from high school.



His comment to her was, "The trip was paid for and you were in good hands, so I went."



That was the last straw for her. He had done basically the same thing two other times, so it was time for a divorce. The first thing she did was give all the meat and the freezers to a charitable organization.



She knew what I did for a living because she came by to pick up her tire, but until her discussion about her divorce, I hadn't given any thought to what she did: I asked her.



"I'm a veterinarian. Have been for ten years." That certainly set me back. It also gave me an idea of how much older she was than me. I figured it to be about six years. I didn't care about the age difference, but she was a doctor and I sold tires. I started planning on how to end the evening gracefully. Fortunately, her telephone did it for me. Apparently, there was a sick horse that needed attention.



The next week I spent as much time as I could with Briana. I thought about calling Helen but decided against it. I kept thinking Doctor vs Tire Salesman, and it always ended up the same. Friday came and I was looking forward to closing the store, picking up Briana, and spending the weekend with her, since Sara had a date. I asked if I could have Briana for the whole weekend. Sara was very good at sharing her so she agreed. Of course, the possibility of spending the weekend getting laid without having to worry about a baby probably had something to do with it.



It was about an hour before closing when Helen came in. She had hit a deep pothole on a gravel road and the front of her truck was shimmying all over the road.



"My front-end guy just left, so we can't get to it until Monday," I said. "Can you leave it?"



"I guess I'll have to. I can't drive it the way it is. If I get any calls, I can use my car, but I have to get home." I was busy filling out the work order, trying, but failing, to ignore her. "I guess I can call my father to pick me up." I handed her a copy of the work order. "Or, maybe you could drop me off," she said. "What time do you get off? I can wait and if you don't have any plans maybe we can grab a sandwich." I couldn't very well get out of that... actually, I could, but, what the hell. A ride home isn't a proposal of marriage.



"Sure," I said. "Give me a few minutes and I'd be happy to." She went to the ladies room while I did what I had to do. Her make-up was perfect when she went in, but there was a subtle difference in it when she came out. I had no idea what it was; I just sensed it was different. More lipstick maybe. When she got in my truck I did notice just a hint of perfume that I hadn't noticed before.



She directed me to her house, and it was just about what I expected a doctor's house to be. I got out, went around to her side and opened the door for her. She stepped out and stood in front of me. "Do you have time for dinner? I could whip us up something pretty quickly."



"I can't, I have to pick up my daughter. She's spending the weekend with me."



"Oh. Okay. Maybe some other time?" I nodded. She stepped away and I closed the door. As soon as I did, she stepped back in front of me. "Did I do something wrong?"



"What do you mean?" I asked.



"I thought we got along pretty well the couple of times we went out. Of course, a Pizza Buffet is no place to get to know someone, but still..."



I looked at her. "The truth?" I asked her.



"Yes, please," she said.



"You're a doctor. You graduated from Vet school. I sell tires and barely finished high school. I'd be an embarrassment to you every place we went if we dated, and it would be worse if our relationship really developed. I can't imagine what your family would say."



Her eyes started to get a bit misty. "I thought it might be something like that. As far as my family goes, they already know what you do. I told them when I told them about meeting a very nice guy I'd like to get to know better. As far as anyone else, I really don't care." We looked at each other for a few seconds, neither saying anything. Finally, she spoke. "Thank you for the ride."



I watched her disappear into her house before I walked to her front door and rang her bell. When she opened the door, she had a tissue and was wiping tears from her eyes. She stood there and didn't say anything.



"I'm going to pick up my daughter and take her home with me. There I'm going to play with her, feed her, bathe her and fix me a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches. Would you like to join us?"



The smile was huge. "I'd love to."



Sara wasn't surprised when I introduced them. They shook hands and Sara handed Helen the diaper bag. I grabbed Briana and we were on our way.



The only place I had to live until I found my own place was the fishing camp. I had no hesitation taking Helen there and she was fine with it. "I just don't want to live in one," she said. She didn't have to live in one; not one like my parents' anyway. Her parents owned one not far from ours, only theirs was much nicer. I had seen it multiple times and always wondered who owned it. It, too, was on stilts, and went through the hurricane with some missing shingles and a destroyed mailbox. She told me her father and two brothers loved to fish. She could, but wasn't crazy about it.

<hr pg="5" />I met her whole family the following Friday. I was invited to dinner at her parents' house. I very much enjoyed meeting and spending time with them. Her father and both brothers were physicians who married nurses. She was the black sheep of the family: She became a veterinarian and had her own clinic. She was on her way home from treating an animal and was very tired when the nails fell out of her truck.



We were together most evenings for several weeks. I would pick up Briana and take her to either the camp or to Helen's house, where we would eat and play until I had to get Briana home. We also had her on those evenings when Sara had dates. All-in-all, things were working out nicely. Sara was very generous about sharing Briana with me, and since I had a nice lady for company, the only concern I had about Sara's dates was how they treated, and acted around, Briana. I initially had the same concern about Helen. I figured most women liked babies, but they preferred their own, not their boyfriend's. Everything worked out well, however, and I had no need for worry. Helen immediately took to Briana, and seemingly, vice versa.



Helen and I were at the camp one evening sitting looking out at the lake. Tim drove up and came up the outside stairway and leaned against the railing. "Who's your friend?" he asked.



"None of your business," I answered.



He looked at her. "Hi. I'm Tim, Brian's older brother. What's your name?"



"I don't think my name is any concern of yours," said Helen.



Tim looked at me. "I have some friends coming out here this weekend. We'll be here Friday through Sunday."



I started to object, but Helen jumped in. "That's perfect. We'll be in Houston for the weekend, so that works out."



I just looked at her and she smiled. Then I smiled. Tim walked to the top of the stairs then turned and looked at me. "You know we're going to have to talk someday. We can't go on like this forever."



"Yes, we can. You cheated with my wife and broke all trust with me. I have nothing to say to you except that I feel sorry for you having to go through life knowing that you're a despicable, lowlife, scumsucking, pig."



"Look, Brian. The affair ended before the hurricane hit. It was over! I want nothing to do with her and vice versa. We made a huge mistake and we're both sorry, but it's over. Done. Finished. You have to forget it. I'm even letting you raise my daughter."



"Fuck you, asshole. I don't have to forget shit and don't tell me it's over. It never should have started, you selfish, blackmailing bastard. And she's MY daughter and I can't live with her because of you. That isn't over. She'll grow up with some asshole like you in her life and she'll be calling him daddy and not me. That isn't over and never will be. Don't tell me the affair is over, fuckface, because my life changed forever. For you, it was six months of fucking your brother's wife and laughing at him behind his back. You've gone on with your life not being able to figure out why I'll hate you forever because your life hasn't changed. You didn't lose a wife and daughter and that will never be over."



"What do you mean my life hasn't changed? No one in my family will give me the time of day. My parents barely speak to me and you hate me. Oh, believe me, my life has changed."



"Good. I hope you suffer for the rest of your fucking life. Now get out of here."



He started down the stairs, made it down three of them before he tripped. I didn't see him tumble because I was looking at the water, but the noise he made got my attention and I turned just as Helen scampered down after him to see if he was hurt. I stood at the top of the stairs and looked down. It was obvious he was in pain because both of his legs were twisted underneath him and he was screaming.



"Call 911," yelled Helen.



"Fuck him. Let him die," I yelled back.



"Brian, call them now," she ordered.



I did but I took my time. Thirty minutes later he was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital. I called my parents.



I was staring at the lake when I felt her hands wrap around my waist and a soft tender kiss on the back of my neck. I took her hands in mine and just held them. After a few minutes she pulled away and patted my shoulders.



"You really didn't mean let him die, did you?"



"Just a little."



"Would you like me to go home so you can be alone?"



"Please stay."



She went inside and fixed us both a drink. She did that two more times for me, but not herself, before she decided it really was time to go home. She leaned down, kissed me and left.



It was long after midnight before I went in to bed. Helen called the next day, but we didn't see each other. She did call, however, and asked what time I was going to pick her up Friday.



"What's Friday?" I asked.



"We're going to Houston, remember?"



I laughed. "We don't have to do that. Besides, Tim won't be using the camp. He has two broken legs and damage to his spine. They're not sure he'll ever walk again."



"Oh, God, I'm sorry." She paused. "Why don't you come stay with me for the weekend?"



"Are you sure?" I asked.



"I'm sure. I'll be home around five, we'll have something easy for dinner and go from there."



I pulled in her drive at 5:15. At 5:17 we were kissing in her living room, not thinking about dinner.



I had been examined by doctors many times in my life, but I had never had the opportunity to examine one myself. I know, she was a veterinarian, but she was a doctor just the same, and I took my time examining and exploring every inch of her body, and exploring for medical reasons was the farthest thing from my mind. I tried to find every spot that made her jump, twitch or moan and I found plenty of them. With each article of clothing I took off her, other spots were found. She had the jumpiest, twitchiest body I had ever seen, and besides that, she was ticklish. It was fun watching her trying to decide whether she wanted to moan or laugh: It made her that much sexier.



We started in the livingroom and we were both naked by the time we reached her bedroom, clothes were scattered along our route.



God must have loved males a great deal because of the gift he gave us in the form of the female body. I touched, rubbed and kissed practically every inch of Helen's body that first time, and she did the same to mine. We were both in a hurry because it had been a long time since either of us had been laid.



We hurriedly leaped on the bed and she landed flat on her back with her legs spread in the "I'm ready to be fucked right now" position.



When I leaped, I landed on top of her in the age old "my dick is hard and ready to plunge" position.



We both lasted a surprisingly long time before either of us came, but when it happened, it really happened.



I spent my first night in her house that night, but didn't sleep much. The next night was the same, as was the third. After that, things settled down and we developed an almost normal sex schedule. On two of those nights, we had Briana for a couple of hours. I would pick her up at Sara's and Sara would pick her up from Helen's.



Sara and Helen had met, so Sara was not surprised when Helen opened the door the first time she picked Briana up at Helen's house. She did seem to be impressed with the house, however.



I was changing her diaper when Sara rang the doorbell. Helen answered it.



"Hi. Is Briana ready?"



"Hi, Sara. Brian is just changing her. Come in. I'm sure he'll be right here. He's getting good at that diaper thing." They both laughed.



I came out carrying Briana and her diaper bag. Briana's head was lying on my shoulder. "Hey, Briana. Here's Mommy." I told her. Her head jerked up, she smiled and reached for Sara, which is exactly what she did to me everytime I picked her up... unless she was asleep: Then she was a bit cranky. I watched as they left and didn't know Helen was beside me.



"Have you ever thought of having more children?" she asked.



"I have, but it doesn't seem likely. Sara and I tried for a long time to have one, so I figure I'm not too good at making them." I looked at her. "Besides, don't you need a woman who wants to be a mother for that to happen?" Then I added. "Why haven't you had any?"



"I never met a man I wanted to be the father."



"Not even your husband?"



"At first I thought he would be a good father, and I tried to get pregnant, but he changed after the wedding and the longer we were married, and I'm talking just a matter of months, the idea of having children with him became something I didn't want." She looked at me. "But I haven't given up hope."



I hadn't given any thought to Helen and me being more than friends and fuck-buddies. In the first place, she was older than me; not that that was a bad thing, but she impressed me as being set in her life, both personal and career. I was just a pleasant, but temporary diversion for her.



Sara had her share of dates and one guy in particular seemed to hold her interest. She asked if I could watch Briana the upcoming Friday evening and keep her overnight. "We're going to Houston and will be back late. I don't want to wake her in the middle of the night."



"That's fine," I told her. Briana was on formula and baby food by then, and I had adequate supplies of both, as well as diapers, clothes, a playpen, which I called her "baby jail" and crib. I called the playpen "baby jail" because that and her crib, were the only things she couldn't get out of. Of course, everything was at the camp so that's where I took her when I picked her up.



Helen was going to meet me at the camp a little later. She had a meeting with one of her "owners" which is what she called the owner of whatever animal or animals she was working on. I had to drive by her clinic on my way to the camp. That evening as I drove by, she and a man were standing in front of her building and they were embracing. She looked up just as I drove by.



It was three hours later when she made it to the camp. I was giving Briana her bath when the knock on the door came. "I'm busy. Come back later." I yelled.



"It's me. Helen. I'll wait."



"Don't bother. I'm going to be busy for a while."



"Brian let me explain."



"It isn't necessary."



"Brian. Please?"



I thought for a few seconds. "It's open. Come in."



She came in and looked like she had been in a fight. Her hair was tousled, her blouse was ripped and her face was bruised. I picked up Briana, wrapped her in a towel, and approached Helen. "My God, what happened to you?"



She came to me and held me in a hug so tight, I could hardly breathe. She started crying and wouldn't stop. I stood there with Briana in my arms and being held by Helen. After a couple of minutes, Briana started getting antsy. Helen felt her moving and released me. "May I hold her?" she asked.



"Only if you sit down and tell me what happened."



She did and eagerly reached for Briana who seemed to serve as a calming effect and snuggled into Helen's shoulder as she stopped squirming.



I retrieved a bottle of formula and heated it before giving it to Helen. "Just in case," I said.



She nodded and smiled.



"Okay. What happened?"



She took a deep breath. "I had just locked the front door of the clinic when someone knocked on it. I opened it and a man lunged at me. I dodged, ran for my purse circled around and got outside before he caught me. I thought I would be safer outside where someone might see me and help. I didn't want to be trapped inside with him.



"He grabbed me and slapped me knocking me down. Then he reached for me to pick me up. In my purse was some pepper spray. I grabbed it as he yanked me to my feet. I looked over and saw you drive by. I yelled but you didn't hear me. The man grabbed my hair, pulled it back and when he did that I sprayed him. He let me go and started to rub his eyes and face. I sprayed and kept spraying, then kneed him in the balls and he went down to the pavement. The pepper spray was empty so I picked up one of the stones in front of my clinic and hit him with it. It knocked him out and I called the police. He was still knocked out when they came. I had to go to the police station and file charges."



She was still holding Briana. Briana burped and Helen smiled as she patted Briana's back.



"At the police station, I called my parents. I explained what happened and my father wanted to come get me. I told him I was okay and that I wanted to come here."



I stammered and paced, not knowing what to say. "I saw you and I thought you were hugging him." I knelt beside her and pulled her as close as Briana would allow. "You could have been killed and I just drove by. He could have killed you. My God, I am so sorry." We both started crying, and it didn't take long for Briana to join us. We all calmed down and I fed Briana and put her to bed while Helen soaked in the tub and talked to her parents who, I assumed from Helen's side of the conversation, wanted her to come home. "I am home," I heard her say.



I fixed her a Vodka Martini and put her to bed where she was still asleep at noon the next day. Sara called mid-morning to see if it was okay to pick Briana up. She laughed. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't otherwise engaged."



She got there about thirty minutes later. Briana was in her baby jail playing. "Where's Helen?" she asked. "I saw her car outside."



"She's still asleep. She had a rough night. And just to let you know, we never have sex when Briana's here."



She looked at me and patted my arm. "I never gave it a thought, Brian. I never thought you would." She moved away speaking. "And in case you're interested, neither do I." At that point, she turned and smiled at me. I wasn't sure that I believed her, but maybe she didn't believe me either.



"Is that why you were late today?" I asked.



She smiled broadly.



It had been a couple of weeks since Helen's attack and she had a few bad days, but was doing better. I still hated myself for driving by and not helping her, but she had forgiven me, given the circumstances.



My parents, in an ongoing effort to get me to forgive my brother, told me that he wasn't as bad as first thought and that he would walk again. In my own ongoing effort to keep hating him, I told them I didn't give a shit if he did or not.



Sara had gone out again and anticipated being late, so I had Briana. We were at the camp sitting out on the back deck and I was feeding her strained bananas or some such vile food they said was good for babies. She had more on her hands and face than in her stomach when I heard car tires crunching the gravel in the driveway. I assumed it was Sara, and I was going to catch hell for Briana being such a mess. I tried to clean as much as I could before she knocked, which is something she rarely did.



"Come in," I said when I heard it. "We got started late, but I'll be finished in a minute and you can have her."



"I think she's adorable the way she is." When I heard that voice I jerked around and Helen was standing there. "Hi," she said.



I jumped up and hugged her, but Briana wasn't interested in having her meal interrupted and let me know she wanted more food. "Hello," I said. She went to another chair and sat watching me. I sat and started feeding Briana again, but I kept one eye on Helen. She sat and watched. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her smile occasionally: Especially when Briana would have too much in her mouth and it dribbled out.



I made sure Briana's mouth was full then looked at Helen. She pointed to Briana, whose face was again covered in bananas and she was still smearing and it was getting in her eyes. Helen stood and came over to us. She nudged me. "Get a wet washcloth. I'll take care of this."



I did as I was told and handed it to her. She made short shrift of the mess, and everything was perfect. Briana held out her arms for Helen who took her. She sat and held her in her lap and played "Patty Cake" which always made Briana laugh. Helen was wonderful with Briana, and always spent a lot of time with her when we had her. I guess it was her motherly instinct and she took to it like a duck to water.



They were still playing when Sara came. She came through the house and out to the back deck. We watched Helen play until Briana saw her mother and Helen became chopped liver. It didn't take long for Sara to grab the diaper bag and the baby, thank both Helen and me and leave.



I cleaned the high chair and the deck around the high chair before sitting.



"Are you hungry?" I asked.



"No, thank you," she said as she stood. "I have to go. I just stopped by for a kiss." I obliged her.



"So soon?" I stood.



"Yes," she said. "I have a date."



"Oh?"



"With a sick mare, but I'm available for dinner later if you're interested." With that, we were in each other's arms.



We had dinner that night and three other nights that week. Of course those three were at the camp with Briana, but I loved it. I decided somewhere along the line that I loved Helen as well.



She had gone with me one evening to take Briana home and afterward we were trying to decide whether to stay at her house in town or go to the camp. Her house won when she started playing with my dick while I was driving. We pulled into her driveway and she used the garage door opener she had in her purse to open the garage. It was a three-car garage, and two spaces had her car and the pickup she used as her traveling office. I parked in the driveway and we entered the house through the garage.



We entered the kitchen from the garage and she was in front of me. I took her arm, turned her around, and looked in her eyes. "I love you," I told her.



She smiled. "I love you, too, and it's a good thing because the baby will expect its parents to love each other."



I looked at her. "What are you talking about? I just told you I love you. I don't love Sara."



She was laughing. "I didn't say you loved Sara. I said the baby will expect its parents to love each other. Our baby, Brian. Yours and mine. Our baby will expect us to love each other."



"Our baby?"



"Yes, goose. Our baby." We hugged and kissed and both had tears in our eyes. "We're going to have a baby," she said it again, seemingly not believing it herself. "I just found out this morning."



"I love you," I told her again. Then I asked, "Will you marry me?" That started another round of crying... on her part.



She immediately called her parents and told them, and I called mine.



At the wedding it was obvious she was pregnant, but in today's society, that didn't seem to matter. We sent Briana an invitation figuring it would be in bad taste to send Sara one, but she came as Briana's "plus one".



A year later Sara was married, and it didn't turn out like I told Tim it would. Briana still calls me Daddy and calls Sara's husband her "other daddy".



My son calls me Dad. His sister calls me Daddy.



It has been eight years since Sara and Tim's affair. Sara and I still share Briana, and will for the rest of our lives, but we also share each other's other children. There is a total of four of them and it is not unusual for Briana and her brother to spend the night at our house and vice versa. All in all we're a pretty civilized group.



There is an uneasy peace between Tim and me, and we speak, but just barely. Helen and I did go to his wedding, but only because she and my mother threatened me if I didn't go, but we didn't stay for the reception and I didn't give them a gift. I think Helen did, however. Needless to say, I wasn't asked to be his best man.



Tim and Sara haven't spoken in years.

