On the Loveseat

Hello Patient Readers!

This chapter has been difficult to write. The aftermath of the last chapter left an indelible mark on the characters and their recovery hasn't been easy to chronicle. I knew how the events following that would happen but making them cohesive and flow has been hard. Also, this chapter takes place over a longer period of time as it is a sort of bridging chapter between previous events and those of the future.

And as a warning, this chapter doesn't have much sex in it. Sorry. I tried to come up with a way to include more, but the course of the story didn't allow a sexfest like some earlier chapters have been. There is more to come after this chapter and I hope you stick around for it!

Note: there is a summary at the beginning of Chapter 10 of events to that point. I've had little feedback about it so I probably won't update it. If you feel otherwise, let me know!

Read on!

Onedragon

To say that the following day was the worst of my life would be in no way an understatement.

I was up in the morning and out of the house before mom came out of her room.

I went around to all my teachers first thing before school started to get any schoolwork that I had missed from the previous day. I was not the only student to have extended spring break by a day, but I was the only one that had looked to make up for it.

Not that this made it any easier to get through the day. It dragged on interminably. That I couldn't focus on anything in any class only made it worse. I saw a few of my friends that showed off their subtropical tans and regaled me with their drunken sex stories. When I revealed that I had been dumped by my mysterious girlfriend they offered their sympathies and told me I should have gone to Florida with them. I don't know if that would have altered the events of Saturday and that I wouldn't have had the previous week with mom.

The last week I would ever have with her.

I had to sneak off to the restrooms to staunch the breaking dam of my eyes.

At the end of the day, the first and last place I wanted to be was home.

I could think of no other place to go though. I wanted to find a hole where I wouldn't hurt and shut out the crushing dark world.

I got home and tried to sneak in without having to see my lovely Jenny, knowing that the sight of her would rip out my heart again. I almost made it, as she had been working in the kitchen, as she usually seemed to be.

"Jeremy." Her voice was almost a question.

I glanced at her but the pain forced my eyes aside. She may have only been wearing a pair of jeans and a loose pullover top, but she was still so beautiful. I didn't even want to have sex with her. I just wanted to hug her, hold her, kiss her.

"Your principal called today. He was worried about all the time you've been missing lately." She paused as if I might respond, then she continued. "I told him that we've had some family troubles and that you shouldn't miss any more time. Especially with graduation so close."

I was still silent.

"Jeremy." Again the questioning voice. "Are you alright?"

I found the courage to look at her face. My pain giving me a voice to speak. The audacity for mom to ask such an asinine question.

"No. No, I'm not. What do you think?" The chill of my words like icicles in the space between us.

"I'm sorry. I really am, Jeremy. It'll get better, I swear it will." Her words didn't sound too convincing.

"Whatever." I said with harsh derision. I looked away from this angelic appearing demon in my mother's form. "I'll be upstairs."

"I'll call you for dinner." Mom said apologetically as if her words could ease the hole in my chest. I could sense the pain she felt at my response.

"Whatever." Was my cold answer.

If she said anything more, I didn't hear it. It may have been petty and unnecessary, but I slammed my door so mom could hear it, letting her know I was shutting her out.

I wanted to do something to distract me, but after only a few minutes on my X-station, I knew I couldn't concentrate enough to play, even though I had the urge to destroy countless alien hordes. If I couldn't play a game, I knew homework would be beyond my capabilities also. I just lay in bed with my headphones on and lost myself in the darkest of songs that mirrored my empty soul.

Johnny might have knocked, but I didn't hear him. He entered my room and told me that dinner was ready. My brother had a stunned look on his face when I told him that I wasn't hungry. I almost would have thought mom would have come up to check that I was alive, but I had no other visitors.

In the darkness of the night, the tears came again. Their flood did nothing to fill the void within me.

The next few weeks were a numb blur. I went to school, tried to concentrate on this last bit of free education, came home and filled my evening with homework, killing those alien hordes, listening to the blackest playlist of songs, and then falling roughly asleep on my salty pillow. Everyone in the family knew that I wanted to be left alone, and they gave me my space without question.

Well, except the victor of course.

Dad came up to my room after a couple of days of my reclusiveness. He didn't knock but merely invaded my hermitage.

"Jeremy. We need to talk." He said as if there was no refusing him.

I was sitting in my desk chair. I spun to face him.

"I just want to be left alone. If you don't mind." I kept my voice flat, not wanting to let out any indication about how I felt about my father, or the actions he had taken that had precipitated my solitude.

"I do mind. You are upsetting your mother. Your brother and your sister." He declared while standing, as if he sat he would lose his authority. I noticed he said nothing about my upsetting him.

I was fairly sure that it wasn't my hiding that had upset mom. She knew the reason. The real reason.

"She told me that your girlfriend broke up with you." Like I didn't already know that.

"I know that can hurt. But you'll get over her. I've been there, I know. Life goes on and you find the right one. Like your mother."

I know he didn't know what he was saying but I had to stare at him with daggers in my eyes.

"Not some hooker in a hotel?" My words were as sharp as broken glass.

Dad looked stunned at my accusation.

There was a shift in our relationship then. No longer was he the father guiding his son through life's mishaps. And I was no longer the son seeking his knowledge, or his approval.

"Your mother told you?" He now looked at my bed as if his legs couldn't support him anymore. With a second glance, he did take a step and sat hesitantly.

I gave no answer, my silence was my acknowledgement.

"It was a mistake. One that should never have happened. I would take it back if I could. I had drunk too much." Dad's face grew pale as he recalled that night. "The guys ..." He trailed off solemnly.

"However it happened, it happened. And it shouldn't have. Things between your mother and I have been ..." Dad looked around the room seeking the words he wanted to say. "Things haven't been alright."

"And that's an excuse for that?" I asked chilly.

"No. There is no excuse for what I did." Another pause. The words this time hadn't escaped him, but rather were a tumble that he had to sort through.

"I have the most beautiful woman as my wife."

That statement almost made me break out in tears at their truth. I steeled myself.

"The problem is that I have become complacent to that fact. I forget how amazing she is."

He didn't need to tell me!

"Yeah, we all love her." I declared my feelings for mom to my father, even if shaded by our biological connection. My cold tone belied my words though.

"I was presented with a beautiful woman, practically a girl, almost your age. I was drunk. My buddies goaded me, telling me how okay it was. She was just a hooker. That it didn't mean anything. But even as I was doing ... what I did, I knew that it wasn't okay. It was a violation of the oaths I gave to Jenny. I came home and it ate at me, seeing you guys, seeing her ..."

I didn't know why dad felt he had to confess all this to me. He already had to mom; she was the only one from whom he had to seek forgiveness. I was just his son.

His rival. And his vanquished foe.

"I had to tell her what happened. I could have just pretended it didn't happen and go about my life, but it would have eaten at me. I could only make it go away by telling Jenny. I am going to spend the rest of my life making up for that mistake, and I will do so gladly to keep her with me."

I could feel the love dad had for mom. The same love I had inside me.

"I don't want you kids to be mad at me for what I've done. I know Johnny and Jojo have no idea what happened, only that mommy is upset with me. I hope that they never find out either." Pause as he looked at me, studying me as if we'd just met.

"I'm surprised that she told you, but you are an adult. I keep forgetting that. You will always be the little man that I played catch with all those years ago." A reminiscing smile graced dad's face. "Of course you saw that something major had happened and would want to know. You didn't think your mother and I would get a divorce, did you?"

I gave him a noncommittal shrug of my shoulders.

"Gladly it didn't come to that point. It would have killed me."

I was glad that it hadn't also, even if I had little sympathy for dad.

"But that's not why you came up here." I said.

"No, that's not." He looked me right in the eye. "You treated your girlfriend wrong and she dumped you. Next time don't treat a girl so callously. Fooling around with her

and

her sister. And her sister's friend, I believe." Dad told me, regaining some of his fatherly confidence.

"That's not what happened. It was ...," I couldn't tell dad that it was him that had caused mom to break up with me!

"It was more complicated than that and had nothing to do with her sister. She has gotten a new boyfriend herself anyway."

"The sister?"

"Yeah."

Dad and I had now spoken more than we had since our golf outing weeks ago.

"You did seem to have a very cavalier attitude about this girl of yours. She may have said she was okay with how you were treating her, but I think she wasn't. She went back to an old boyfriend?"

I nodded. "Real old."

Practically ancient actually.

Even in my dark place, I had to grin at that thought.

"Well, whatever the reason, it will get better. You just need to get back out there and find another one, a better one." He gave me a weak smile, his 'mistake' still clouding his demeanor. "You know what they say, you fall off the horse, you get back on."

I couldn't tell him that there wasn't a better one.

Dad would have had to agree with me if I did.

He already had said she was the most beautiful woman. To the two of us anyway.

"You still okay in school?" Dad asked changing the subject to a safer one.

"Just fine."

I will say that I was touched that dad had shown some interest in how I was feeling, even if I didn't want it. It showed he wasn't a complete ass anyway.

Dad stood slowly, trying to resume his elder status.

"Just don't shut out the family because you are having a hard time right now. We all care about you, son." His love did reflect from his face. I just didn't want to see it right then. "You should talk to your mother. She's been worried about you."

"Did she say that?" Could mom have changed her mind?

"Not in words. But I see how she looks at you. I can see the pain in her eyes."

It wasn't worry dad was seeing. Mom was just as hurt as I, and for the same reasons.

But now was when dad starts to notice things?

Which I guess was fortunate that it was when things had ended and that it hadn't been in the midst of our affair!

"Are you sure it's because of me and it isn't you?"

"Well, she's not so happy with me right now, but no, it is you. You should talk to her." He repeated his advice.

The last thing I needed was to talk to the woman that had broken my heart!

"I will dad. Thanks for checking on me." I tried to seem consoled; it would be the only way he would leave me alone.

"Cheer up. Tomorrow's another day." Dad gave me one more weak smile and having done his fatherly duty, left my room.

Later that evening I did look towards mom and saw the dual grief written in her eyes. I gave her a small nod of my head in acknowledgement. Her eyes brightened briefly but then turned away as if afraid to meet my gaze for too long.

I did notice mom sleeping on the couch a couple more times interspersed over that couple of weeks. So things weren't completely settled between my parents, even after dad's words to me. I was sure that that meant that they weren't having sex.

(Ewww!)

I also wasn't having any sex.

Not with mom. Not with Aunt Jessica. Not with anyone.

I actually debated one day about going to Aunt Jessica's friend Margie's house for a nookie call.

I quickly told myself no.

As good as she might have been, the brash woman seemed to have her own issues that could cause untold problems for me. Even as bad as I wanted to get laid, some women weren't worth the hassle for a bit of pussy!

Sacrilege, I know!

Dad did buy mom an expensive diamond bracelet that she wore all the time after receiving it. I didn't see dad give it to her, its appearance on her wrist was a reminder of my father's infidelity, or as I viewed it, mom's continued slavery to her cheating husband. The double standard was not lost on me, but I wasn't the one cheating at all. That mom seemed so happy with the trinket made it appear that she was glad that dad had had sex with a hooker, which was very much not the case.

Movie night on Fridays had been put on hold for a few weeks while mom and dad worked things out. Aunt Jessica was getting very serious with her boyfriend and would have been a no-show anyway. Mom and I could no longer get up to any hanky panky on the loveseat, so what was the point anymore?

Besides actually watching a movie I mean.

Johnny and Jojo were the only ones really disappointed by the decision and I felt bad for them. They understood that mom and dad were having issues, or as Jojo put it, they weren't friends at the moment.

Dad actually took mom out on the second Saturday night following the 'incident'.

I babysat my brother and sister; having our own movie night. I even joined them on the floor for most of the night. We watched two movies before the pair of them could no longer stay awake. I moved to the couch and started another movie before I too fell asleep.

I was awoken by a loud commotion at the front door.

It was dad and mom returning home.

They were all over each other and it seemed that they had had a bit too much to drink. I barely noticed dad, my eyes focused on mom in her slinky blue strapless dress that stopped at mid-thigh.

Both of them shushed the other when they saw their children sleeping on the floor and then burst out with loud laughter at their simultaneous action. Dad had an arm cradled around mom's back, holding her close as they kissed and laughed. They stumbled through the room as they tried to hold each other upright. Neither noticed my barely open eyes as I watched them with some hostility. The woman I loved and the man that had stolen her back away from me.

Mom looked to the couch and she grew quiet with a thoughtful look on her face when she saw my supposedly sleeping form. Was it regret I saw on her face? Or just my wishful thinking?

I knew she couldn't see me watching her in the near darkness as she turned off the television before dad groped her back into his grasping hold. They headed down the hall towards their room, their lips as roaming as their hands on each other's bodies.

It was only minutes later and I was still half-conscious, my anger keeping me from slipping back into slumber, when I heard dad grunting faintly from the closed room. Mom's barely heard moans triggered a Pavlov response in me, making me hard as I fell from the world.

This was not the only incident of me catching my parents having sex.

By not spending my time with mom, I decided to spend some with my brother and sister.

I wanted to distract them from the tension at home, and with me going to college next year, I knew I had little time left with them before we all grew up and went our own ways in life. Even if it seemed like there was no life for me without my dear sweet Jenny.

So I declared one afternoon that I was going to take the two of them to a local baseball game. It was only an amateur league, but it was inexpensive and the action would be the same as any big league game. And it would end early enough for the youngsters to be home for bedtime. Both were thrilled for this new and different activity.

I got caught up in the game, enjoying the time with Johnny and Jojo. I tried to explain some of the rules to my sister but all she was interested in was watching the batter's either swing and miss, of which she found hilarious, or in the sudden action when one did get a hit. She rooted equally for either team and equally booed them both also, sometimes for no apparent reason.

We filled up on hotdogs, chili fries, and lemonades.

Which led to a minor dilemma when Jojo stated she had to use the little girls room. I didn't risk letting her use the women's room by herself, but she argued about going into the men's room. I finally agreed to go in and tell everyone there to close their eyes before Jojo would enter. She even had to scold a few of the guys about keeping their eyes closed. I had to cover my mouth to hold back my chortle. I'm sure there was no safer place in the world for my cute little eight-year old sister to tinkle, as it seemed every male there was ready to fight for her safety. There were even a few giggles as she strutted out of the room as if she owned it. Johnny just groaned and shook his sunken head at his younger sister's display.

A foul ball was hit our way in the fourth inning and everyone in our section scrambled to be the one to catch it. Unfortunately, a teen boy a few rows behind us caught it. Jojo declared loudly that he had to give it to her. I had to explain to her that that wasn't how it worked. She pouted for the next few batters, but when the next foul ball was hit in our direction, she cheered when someone in the section next to us pulled it in.

So much for the fickleness of little girls.

It was late when we returned home, but not so much so. But late enough.

I hadn't taken any consideration as to what mom and dad would be doing while we were gone, which was strange since I had lived on those stolen moments not so long ago.

We came in and I ushered my siblings to their bedtime rituals. Mom came from down the hallway with a quickened step.

As my eyes fell on her it struck me as to what she had so recently been doing.

I recognized the flushed look of her face, her breath heavy, hair tousled, and her clothes wrinkled and hanging not quite right on her frame.

It hit me like a sledgehammer, as I understood she'd just had sex.

With dad.

Her eyes lit over the younger pair, confirming they were whole and without injury. When her eyes met mine that were filled with sudden anger, I saw her flinch and shrink back from my knowing gaze. She ducked past me to hurry my brother and sister up the stairs while they recounted the game's highlights to her.

Dad appeared a few moments later as I stood in the living room, not wanting to be upstairs near mom right then but having nowhere else to go.

It wasn't as apparent with him, but that could be that I was all too familiar as to mom's condition after sex.

He eyed me with a seemingly judging eye that seemed contentious as he asked me how the game had gone.