The Staircase of Dragon Jerico
Chapter Five
“THE COMPANY ISN’T HOSTING a general holiday party for all employees,” Bruce explained. “Instead, we’re just doing individual group parties. With Christmas on Monday, we figured Friday night after work would be the best. No big venues, and it’s employees only, without a plus one. Since we see each other almost every day, it’s not likely to be a late night. I’m going to take a cab from work, though, because I’ll probably have a few drinks.”
“I suppose that’s the way it is,” Erin sighed. “Do try to get home early if you can. I have a special party planned for just the two of us.”
“You know I love your special parties,” he said, kissing Erin. “Don’t wait up, though. I’ll wake you when I get in.”
“Better wake me before you try to get in. I want to be an active participant.”
“You bet!”
Erin worked her four-hour shift Friday and then stopped with her fellow waitresses in the back of the kitchen to exchange modest gifts. Everyone was in a happy holiday mood and it was beginning to look like they might have snow for Christmas.
“Big plans for your first holiday in Jerico City?” one of the waitresses asked her.
“Oh, I guess it will be pretty quiet. Might even spend the whole weekend in bed,” Erin giggled.
“Now that sounds nasty. Cheaper than buying the guy a present, though,” Penny said. Erin didn’t know any of their real names. They all went by their diner name badges.
“You know that’s all guys want anyway,” Debbie said. “I mean, unless you’re giving them a choice of sex or a 50-inch TV. I think most guys would take the TV.”
“Not my guy,” Erin laughed. “I’m not sure there’s anything I could offer him that he’d prefer. We’ve only been married seven months.”
“Newlyweds! Give it another five months. If he wouldn’t trade sex for a 50-inch TV by then, he’s a keeper,” Penny laughed.
The women hugged each other and Dolores gave each a $50 gift card with her wishes for a happy holiday. Erin decided to walk around downtown and look at the decorations. Downtown didn’t have all that much in the way of retail. It was mostly offices and support businesses. The real decorations would be found at the mall. She thought about it a while and decided to drive out and do some shopping with her $50 gift card. Maybe even have dinner.
Bruce knew he wouldn’t get home too early. Shannon had promised lots of slow dancing and plenty of booze. She’d even asked him for his favorite and said she’d have it there.
Most of the work groups at JeriCorp weren’t having a holiday party at all. Shannon had taken care of discreet invitations and no one on his team mentioned the party at all. Bruce had tallied up the ten people who were eligible to attend and saw they were evenly divided between men and women. At least the slow dancing wouldn’t be with another dude. His last trip to St. Louis had been rewarding with Shannon cuddling up to him for the night. What a fiery redhead!
He knocked at the door of the hotel suite where the party was to be held and Shannon opened it for him.
“Come on in, sugar,” she said. “Let’s party!”
It was only eight o’clock, but Shannon acted like she’d been partying for quite a while. She met him with a very sloppy kiss just inside the door. Bruce was surprised and was afraid the other people on the team would react, but as he looked over Shannon’s shoulder, he saw the room was empty—none of his team was there.
“Am I early?” he asked.
“Any later and I’d have finished without you,” she laughed.
“Um… Shannon?”
“Oh, come on, Bruce. I didn’t invite anyone but you. Have a drink. I got your favorite scotch,” Shannon said.
She poured him several shots over ice and handed it to him. He quickly took a sip before Shannon was pressed against him again, probing his mouth with her tongue.
“I shouldn’t really…”
“Bruce, remember St. Louis? We can pick up right where we left off. Don’t tell me you don’t want to have sex with me. I can feel that you do.”
“I’m married.”
“Me too. Lucky girl. Does that mean we can only make it when we’re out of town?”
“I… uh… Oh wow!”
“If you take any longer, my clothes are going to start removing themselves. Show me what you give the little missus when she wants big bad Brucey.”
“Geez, Shannon. I didn’t expect this was how we’d spend the night.”
“Eat, drink, and be merry. Who knows what the New Year will bring?”
“Right. Oh, Shan!”
Bruce knew he’d been set up. If he was any kind of husband at all, he’d have turned around and walked away. It was hard enough keeping his slip-up in St. Louis a secret. Shannon could be so damned persuasive—especially when she started removing her clothes. Facing the prospect of a night of unbridled sex with the stacked redhead, all the things he ‘knew better than’ flew from his head. He filled his hands and his mouth with her breasts.
They’d been flirting ever since Bruce joined JeriCorp and they were assigned to the same team. On their last trip to St. Louis, the two had bad news. Mackenzie couldn’t meet their next payment. It was likely the company would pull the plug on the project before they sank any more time and energy into it. He and Shannon had sat on the sofa in his room commiserating with each other. That mutual comfort had taken the form of kissing and then petting and then stretched out right there on the sofa screwing.
He'd fantasized about her before then, but never imagined she would be available. ‘Available’ seemed an understatement now. He liked it when a woman took control and he could give up all initiative and responsibility. This whole encounter wasn’t his fault. He was a victim here. Yeah.
Bruce woke up, drunk from the night of debauchery and sex. His hand was still on one of the redhead’s big breasts. She was pretty, but with her carefully applied makeup and hairdo in a mess, he could see how much of that was artificial. What had he been thinking?
It was two in the morning. He needed to get out of the hotel room and get home. He’d make a plan on the way. Erin had said she had a surprise for him. It was probably too late for that.
He started to push himself up when Shannon looked at him through heavily lidded eyes.
“Oh, good. Ready for another round? Come here, big guy. Make this girl happy.”
He didn’t leave until after three.
Erin hadn’t waited up for Bruce. She knew how office parties went. She’d certainly been to enough of them in her days of working. Once people got into an unsupervised environment where human resources couldn’t see them, there was bound to be some flirting, close dancing, and maybe even a few shared kisses. She wouldn’t hold it against Bruce.
After all, he had no idea what she had planned. She’d been off the pill for thirty days. She’d had a period, even though it was light. Maybe they wouldn’t be successful at making a baby the first time they tried, but trying was half the fun.
After scrubbing the house thoroughly so there wasn’t a speck of dust to distract them, she went to bed, looking forward to the return of her husband.
Was she sure this was right?
She’d asked herself that question a hundred times and always arrived at the same answer. Bruce was a good man, even with his faults. He treated her well and was looking forward to having a family. He was kind and exhibited all the traits Erin considered herself to have. She only planned to be married once and this was it.
She was sound asleep when Bruce stumbled in and took a shower.
When Erin awoke in the morning, Bruce was snoring next to her. She slipped out of bed and made coffee the way he liked it. This was sure to bring him to life. She opened the blinds and the late morning sunlight streamed in through the window. She held the fresh cup of coffee to the side while she kissed him slowly awake.
“Mmm. Smells good,” he said. “Um… I’m a little hung over.”
“What kind of party would it be if you weren’t hung over the next morning? But it’s almost afternoon now. Here, have a cup of life.”
“Oh, that’s good,” he sighed, sipping at the coffee.
“Now just relax and let me do all the work. I’m ready for my party now.”
She began working her way down his body and found the arousal she knew she could inspire.
“We shouldn’t until…”
“Shh. It’s time. I might not be fertile this morning, but it’s time to start planting the seeds for Baby Silvers. You want it, too, don’t you?”
“God, yes. I’m so sorry.”
“Maybe, but it seems like you’re still functional.”
Bruce set the coffee aside and Erin mounted her husband. She sighed as they became one.
“Things changed in the past year,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d ever slow down and have children. Then I met you and I realized the perfect father had stumbled into my life and I’d be stupid to let this opportunity slip by. All of a sudden, my career didn’t mean as much as I thought it did. Since we moved here, I discovered I could be just as happy waiting tables as running a division. We’ll have such beautiful children.”
“Oh, Erin. I want to be the father your children deserve. I’m so afraid I’m not what you think I am. It’s a lot to live up to.”
“You’re handsome, loving, intelligent, and a good provider. What else do you need to be?”
Erin sped up her motions and before long Bruce moaned and did his part.
Erin happily got up while Bruce continued to lounge in bed. She made breakfast and fresh coffee and served them on a tray.
“Technically, I suppose you should be serving me. After all, I’m the one you’re trying to get pregnant,” Erin laughed. “Now tell me about your party last night. A suitable start to the holiday season?”
“It… um… I… uh… It was… you know.”
“Bruce? You went to your team’s holiday party last night, didn’t you?”
“Um… Yeah. I thought it was going to be different.”
“How different?”
Bruce inhaled deeply. Erin saw tears forming in his eyes.
“I thought the whole team was coming to the party. It turned out Shannon didn’t invite anyone else.”
“It was just you and that finance woman?”
Erin couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could he go out and cheat on her the night they were going to try to get pregnant?
“Did you…?”
“She got me drunk pretty quickly and then I found out no one else was coming and then we were kind of dancing and there was a bed in the hotel room…”
“You went to a hotel with a woman, got drunk, and fucked her?” Erin cried out. “How could you?”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“You didn’t mean to stick your dick in your co-worker and keep it there most of the night? I know you didn’t get home until after three. I’m not that sound a sleeper.”
“It was just a thing. It didn’t mean anything.”
“It meant something to me!” Erin screamed. “Oh, my God. Then you came home and came in me. I could catch a disease! I could be pregnant! Pregnant from a cheater! I believed in you. I loved you!”
“I love you, Erin.”
“Right. You love me so much you fucked someone else before me. On the same night!”
“Erin, it will never happen again. I promise.”
“Oh, I promise it will never happen again. Get out! Get out! Never mind! I’m leaving.”
She jumped out of bed, dumping the breakfast all over him. She dressed and threw some clothes in a bag while Bruce pled with her. All her dreams, up in smoke. How could she have been so deceived?
“What am I going to do, Dolores?” Erin moaned. “He cheated on me! He spent the night in the arms of another woman and then came home to my bed. I had sex with him! Unprotected! Oh, God! I could be pregnant. I have to… I have to do something.”
“Let’s go to the pharmacy, honey,” Dolores said. “You can get a morning after pill on demand. Our pharmacist isn’t one of the religious nut cases. He understands reality and will give you what you need.”
“Yes. Yes. I need to do that. I can’t have a child with a man who cheats on me. I can’t even live with him.”
Dolores and Erin left the diner to walk the block to the drugstore on the corner. Through her tears, Erin explained what she needed and the pharmacist got the package and carefully explained the instructions. Erin thanked her and they went back to the diner where Dolores got her a glass of water. Erin looked at the pill in her hand a long time before she put it in her mouth and swallowed it with the water.
“God damn that fucking bastard!”
Dolores turned the restaurant over to her senior waitress and escorted Erin back out of the diner to her car. They drove to Dolores’s house and went inside to have a quiet chat. She made tea. Perhaps she’d overstepped her bounds when she suggested the morning after pill, but pregnancy should be a joyous situation. She was genuinely concerned that Erin might hurt herself if she found out she was, indeed, pregnant. This way, no one would ever know. If they reconciled, they could begin the process again.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Erin moaned. “We were supposed to spend the day talking about our plans. Guessing if we’d have a boy or girl. Thinking about our happily ever after. How could he do this? How could he take away our dreams?”
“What did you tell him, honey?”
“I told him to get out and that I never wanted to see him again,” Erin sobbed. “And I don’t! Dolores, I’m terrible. He made a mistake. One little mistake and I threw him away. What if I’m wrong? What if I threw away my one great chance at happiness? What if I’m the terrible person?”
“Well, you’ll stay here tonight. In the morning, things will look clearer to you. You aren’t in any condition to re-evaluate things when you are so hurt,” Dolores said.
“What… um… What about your husband?” Erin asked.
“Henry’s harmless. We made it through our rough patches years ago and reached détente. Come on. I’ve fixed Dennis’s room up as a guest room. He didn’t like it much when he came home for Christmas, but he left for school again yesterday. I already washed the sheets.”
Erin went with Dolores and the two women talked well into the night, with the help of a bottle of Chardonnay.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not as ready as I thought I was. Maybe I’m not even as mature as I thought I was. Dolores, when I was working, I could handle a meeting with a couple hundred people in it. I could make decisions that affected people’s lives and bank accounts. I approved quarter-million-dollar purchases. I thought I was a good judge of character. Maybe I’m not any of those things.”
“You made a huge adjustment when you decided to marry, quit your job, and move five hundred miles away,” Dolores said. She hadn’t known the extent of Erin’s experience and authority, but she couldn’t say it surprised her. Even in the restaurant, there was no employee Dolores trusted more. “Maybe it was just too soon to try to make all the dreams happen at once.”
“Would it have made a difference? Would it just mean that it would have been longer before I found out what kind of guy I married? I feel like such a dunce!” Erin declared.
“How long did you study to manage a business like you did?” Dolores asked.
“Four years of college and two for an MBA. I started as an intern with Allard when I was a senior and worked there ten years. They paid for my master’s.”
“And you think you could know everything about a man in a year? Married people keep finding out about each other for years and years. What does Bruce dream of? What does a happy life look like to him?”
“A fresh vagina for his dick every few months,” Erin growled.
“Well, you can’t really make that assessment based on one night.”
“I’m not,” Erin sighed. “He confessed that last night wasn’t his first night with that woman. They’ve been going to St. Louis on business together for the past several weeks. And there was a woman at a company outing in Cleveland. I made up my mind that I wouldn’t say anything about it because Sue could be very insistent and Bruce and I weren’t married yet. I blamed her. She knew I saw. She even winked at me when they got back. I don’t feel like I need to make another exception every six months.”
“Oh, honey. I wish there was anything I could say or do that would make this easier. I’m afraid you are in for a rough few months. Just remember, you have friends. We’ll still be here. We might not have solutions to your problems, but we have shoulders to cry on and arms to hug you. We’re here.”
Comments
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