[The people in this story have somehow solved the problems others see about unprotected sex (they don't have and won't get STD's or AIDS) They also have decided that certain other beliefs of "normal" society don't work well for them. There are sexual acts like coitus, oral and manual genital manipulation, hickies, more than two people sharing sexual activities, and watching. Oh, and incest too. You are invited to vote and comment on the story. Typically less than 5% of readers vote and less than 10% of those who vote leave a comment. Be unique, do both!]
She left. She left her job, her home, her friends, her church, her credit cards, her car and she left me.
That last one is the one that was toughest to take. I was stunned. Let me back up just a little. Sandi and I had been together since our freshman year at UCLA. She and I met at a track meet. We were watching. When it was over we bought food and sat on the grass for a picnic with a hundred other people and somehow she sat by me.
We hit it off and before we graduated we were man and wife. We were married in a small ceremony at a park with some friends. Everything was great, I thought. She didn't want kids and I wasn't all that big on them either. We worked hard, played hard and loved a lot.
Our careers allowed us to live at the beach, enjoy lots of activities and great vacations. We had friends. We enjoyed every moment we were together.
Twice a year I flew back to Boston for a week of meetings at the company head office. The last one was six months ago. Sandi took me to LAX and kissed me good-bye at the curb. It was a good enough kiss a passer by said, "Get a room!" We laughed and she drove off.
Whenever I went to Boston, I called home every night. On the last trip we had phone sex the first night I was gone. The second night I called at a little after eight her time. No answer. I thought of five good reasons she might not be there. At nine-thirty I called again. No answer. Then it hit me, no answer and no answering machine! I set my alarm and at two in the morning, L.A. time I called again. No answer.
At nine that morning I called her work. Her assistant Karen answered. "Karen, this is Nick. Where is Sandi?"
The pause was full of everything except information.
"Karen?"
"You don't know?"
"No. Where is she?"
"Her last day was last Friday. She's gone. Took her last check with her. I don't know where she is."
I called friends and the pastor of our church. No one knew or no one was talking. I left the meeting two days early and flew home. When I got home her car was parked behind mine. The house looked fine, except all the little things that were hers were gone. The bathroom was almost empty. No blow dryer, curling iron, lipsticks, perfume, pink razors. Her closet was empty and clean. Her chest of drawers, empty and fresh paper on the bottoms of the drawers.
In the kitchen I opened the fridge and saw an envelope with my name typed on it.
I opened it and read her note. "I left you. It is cruel to do this but it's done. I needed you and I used you. I am sorry. We were not legally married. The guy who performed the ceremony was an acting student. You can't get a divorce and you don't need one. I will never be back in L.A. For your own sake don't contact me. Thank you for the best years. I will cherish them. It was good and now it's over. Sandi"
I sat on the floor of the kitchen and did nothing for hours. Some time during those hours I did manage to close the fridge. Over the next few days I discovered she had prepared to leave and then, just left. Her car was in my name and she left it. She even paid the lease on our place for three months ahead.
A week later I was back at work. A week after that I went to church and the pastor asked about Sandi. I showed him the note. We talked. I was going through the motions of being alive. Her words kept ringing in my ears. "We were not legally married." Maybe according to the state of California but my head and my heart were married! I checked and she was correct, California had no record of our marriage.
Over the next few months I got into a cold routine. I became a robot. My programming got me out of bed, dressed, to work, back home, and kept me alive so the next morning I could do it again. I made it through an entire NFL season without watching a single game. I didn't walk along the beach once. I didn't take my car or hers to a car wash.
One day I noticed a moving van in front of the house next door. I briefly wondered if the people were moving in or out. I didn't see anyone and I couldn't remember what the people looked like who lived next door.
When I came home from work a few days later, I noticed Sandi's car was shining and clean. The ground around it was wet. Someone had washed her car. I had the sudden thought that Sandi was back. The door almost came off its hinges as I burst into the house.
She wasn't there.
I sat down in the living room and cried. I hadn't cried in months. Seeing the car had brought back all the pain and missing. Eventually, I fell asleep right there in the living room.
In the morning my programming took over and I showered, dressed and headed to work. When I stepped out of the house I stopped. My car was as clean and shiny as Sandi's.
At work I forgot about the cars and focused on getting through the day. When I went back out to my car at four that afternoon I wondered about who might have washed it.
The deck behind my house is about ten feet above the beach. There were many days when we sat out on the deck naked and no one walking by saw us. Not only was the deck ten feet high but it had a three foot high wooden fence along the sides. I hadn't been out on the deck once since Sandi left.
My car stopped two feet from Sandi's and I wondered if it would even start. I walked past it and around to the back door. When I climbed the stairs I saw the deck had been swept and the chairs and chaise lounges cleaned. Then I noticed a woman on one of the chaise lounges. I cleared my throat and she sat up, covering her breasts in the process.
"You're on my deck."
"You don't act like it's your deck."
"It is attached to my house."
"Oh? Does someone live here? When I moved in next door I saw a yard with dead plants, two filthy cars, and a deck with a year's dirt on it. I assumed no one lived here."
"You're right. I quit living a long time ago. You want to use the deck? Go ahead." I opened the back door and went inside. Later, while I heated something in the microwave for dinner I noticed she was still sitting on the deck.
The next night when I came home I noticed new plants by the house next door. A few nights later I saw three pots of flowers on my deck. On Friday as I drove home from work, I realized I hadn't changed the oil in my car in a year. I stopped at the station not too far from my house and left it. I told the mechanic at the gas station I'd walk back for it in the morning.
I broke my own programming by stopping for a small pizza on the way home. I walked in the sand from the pizza place home, carrying my shoes. I slept really well that night and woke late. When I looked out the bedroom window at the beach I noticed my neighbor on the chaise lounge. She had on a g-string bikini bottom and a baseball cap. It said, "Cubs."
I couldn't stop looking at her body. The last tits I had seen were Sandi's the morning she took me to LAX. My neighbor didn't look like Sandi. Sandi had DD cup breasts with elongated areola and smallish nipples. Her breasts had always stayed white. She only went topless on the deck when she couldn't get burned. My new neighbor was brown all over. Her breasts were maybe a B cup. The areola were puffy and toped by nipples the size of blueberries. The right breast had a scar on it, out near her arm pit. The scar was round, and red like it was still healing.
I pulled myself away from the window and got dressed for my walk to the station. I figured to get some breakfast after I got my car. I opened the back door and my neighbor sat up, hands over her tits.
"I didn't think you were home! I'm sorry."
"I left my car down at the station for an oil change last night. If you'd like to go for a walk, I'll buy you breakfast after I get my car back."
"I'm not dressed."
"I'll wait. I'm not in a hurry. I'll even go back inside so you can have privacy while you go for clothes." I went inside and closed the door. I didn't look. I didn't need to.
Three minutes later she knocked on the back door and I went out. She wore white shorts and a white bikini top with a thin, flowered print blouse over the bikini top.
Half way to the station she asked, "Why did you invite me along?"
"I honestly don't know. I've been a hermit for months."
"I don't even know your name."
"Pete."
"Did you ever ask your parents why they named you Peter?"
"They didn't."
"You changed your name to Peter?"
"No. Pete. When I was in high school there were five boys in my class with the same name. My last name is Peterson so the coach started calling me Pete. I've been Pete ever since."
"Oh. That makes more sense than someone naming their son the slang term."
"I knew a guy named Richard and his family called him Dick."
