Life on a Printed Plane

Abby's mind was furiously working with everything Ben had told her.  Sitting in my office, mindlessly feeding pieces of paper into the fax.  What were the chances of him finding someone the first night?  I mean honestly?  One freaking night?  One!  And he was so smitten!  Was it only lust that made him feel that he was in love?  Could feelings of lust, be coloring his perception of this.... Derrick?  No, no, Ben knew the difference between lust and love, if he said he was in love, then he was.

Could he, will he, fall out of love with me?  Oh God!  What have I done?  Is our marriage over?  I love my Ben!  The idea of loosing him, takes my breathe away, stops my heart, leaves me feeling like a hamster in an exercise wheel.  Running, running, running, and staying in the exact same place.  I thought he would have some sex with a few guys, get it out of his system and life would go back to normal.  What have I done?





There is no going back now!  Not only is the tiger out of the cage, the cage is gone.  And it is on the prowl, stalking me!  Near tears, nerves almost to the point of disintegration, sure that the clock has started the countdown until their divorce, I was startled by the phone ringing.

Hesitantly answering the phone, "Abby Parker."

"Hi honey!  How are you?  I was worried that you were sitting in your office thinking that it was only a matter of time before we were using a chainsaw to divide our possessions in half."

"Oh!  Do I have any private thoughts at all?"

"Nope!  Why should you be the only one allowed to have private thoughts?  But that is what you were thinking right?"

"Yeah, it was.  I was sitting here working my self into a full blown anxiety attack.  Ben?  How is this going to work?"

"No idea what so ever.  You were the one who assured me that this could work. Remember?"

"How can I forget something like that?  How on earth was it only yesterday?  It seems like it was forever ago to me.  How about you?"

"Absolutely the same way!  It seems like yesterday was so long ago......  Are you really busy today?"

"No, not really, the fax was the cumulation of weeks of work.  Now we are in wait mode.  Until we hear back from them about our proposal, our group is on the back burner.  Why?"

"It is so pretty today how does lunch in the park sound to you?"

"Really?"

"Sure!"

"Wonderful!  It sounds wonderful."

"Do you want me to pick up the sandwiches?"

"No, let me.  I know a place on the way to your office.  I'll met you in your office, and we can walk there together.  Sound good?"

"Being with you sounds good.  Food?  Yeah I like to eat, but you are much more important to me.  Abby?  We will make this work. Please believe me.  I don't have any idea of how it will, I just know it will."

"If you say so.  You have never lied to me before.  Love you!"

"Honey, I love you too! Bye!"

"Bye!"

Feeling so much better, able to breathe, able to believe we would have a tomorrow, I could breathe again.  Looking around my cluttered office, today would be the day to clear away the debris.  The morning was devoured by the clock so quickly, I could hardly believe what it read.  Leaving the office in plenty of time to pick up lunch and still make it to Ben's office.  Lunch was going to run long today, but I didn't really care.

Riding the elevator up to his office, all I could think of was that Ben would fix everything!  He would find a way, I just know he will.  When the elevator doors opened on his floor, there stood Ben, a giant smile on his face.  He stepped on, and pushed the button to close the doors, and put his arm around me, pulling me tight against him.  As soon as his arm was around me, his smell, his body heat, pulled my heart rate down.

Walking to the park holding hands, chattering about our mornings, the perfect spring weather, made it feel that we could survive this intact, together.  Deciding where to sit, opening the lunch sack, handing out the food, teasing each other on our choices, a blanket of normalcy settled over us.  How many times had we eaten lunch at the park?

Ben cleared his throat, and began talking, "I want to be honest with you about something.  This morning for me was a real revelation.  For the first time in my adult life I felt whole, complete.  I always have this..... something missing inside me.  But, breakfast with Derrick, and then breakfast with you, filled my empty place.  Everyone has been asking me why I am so happy today.  How do I answer that question, without making them look at me differently from before?"

"Your co-workers are right.  It's as if you are illuminated from the inside!  You are well, glowing."

"Dearest?  What about...... me feeling whole for the first time in my life?"

"It makes me feel.... um..... that I am not enough for you.... and I guess that is true."

"No, it is not true, not really.  It is me, I need more than what one person, one sex can give me.  I need...... I don't think it is want.... both.  I guess some could call it being selfish, but it isn't really.  It is a soul deep need for both.  I think it is your love, because you love me without any restrictions, that made the empty part of me so painful."  Ben had been closely watching Abby's face while baring his inner self to her, looking for signs of anger, disgust or hurt.  All he saw in her face was intense concentration, she was obviously working through everything he had been telling her.

"So...... this morning, breakfast is what made you happy?  Not the sex with me, or.......him?"

"Oh Honey!  The sex this morning was mind blowing!  But, no it was the hugs from both, the kisses from both, the knowing that today I will get to talk to both of you.  Be with you and speak to him.  Your soft and sweet body pressed up against me, melding into me, heaven!  His hard muscular body, holding me..... Look, your sister loves you, right?  And when you hug her it is a different experience from hugging a man, and that is what it is like for me.  Except that I am sexually attracted to both."

"I think that it is beginning to make sense now.  It is not something lacking in the way I love you, right?"

Leaning over our lunch, I kiss her gently, "This is so not about your short comings.  This is about my need, my desire to be fulfilled, and unfortunately, not just one sex can do that for me.  You have made me so very happy, no man has a better wife, ever!  That very happiness made my need all the more painful."

Abby sat still and silent for a long while, her face once again one of intense concentration.  Her eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing, sandwich paused half way between it's wrapping and her mouth.  She was lightly chewing her bottom lip, a sure sign that she was intently working on a problem.  Coming back to life, she looked surprised at the sandwich in her hand, and laid it down on it's wrapping.

Shaking her head slightly as if to clear some unwanted cobwebs away, "I want to met him.  We need to work this out.  The sharing of you, it is not fair if he is as nice as you claim, for him to be happy with crumbs from our table.   When is he supposed to call you?"

"Sometime on his lunch hour.  Let's see, it is just now 12:20, his lunch time started only 5 minutes ago.  Give him a few minutes to eat and then he will call, why?"

"Invite him to Pastabella for supper tonight.  The food is great, the lighting is dim, if we get a booth in the back it will give us the privacy to talk.  Do you think he'd show if you told him that I'll be there?  Or would it piss him off, if you didn't tell him I am coming, and I'm there?"

"How about this?  He needs his car back.  I will tell him on the phone about our dinner plans.  On the ride to dinner explain things more clearly to him than I can do on the phone.  You will drive alone to the restaurant, and I can ride home with you.  How does all that sound?"

"I think it sounds like a plan.  Kiss?"

"Anytime baby."  Pushing the remains of our lunch away, I pulled her onto my lap and began to tenderly kiss her.  Not working up to sex kisses.  Kisses that let her feel how much I did love her. Slightly stiff when I first pulled her onto my lap, shortly after the first few kisses started to thaw, and her feelings came through loud and clear how much she did love me.  Like that was ever in question after the last day.  And then my phone rang, and when Abby heard the generic phone ring and not a special one, a little smirk crossed her face.  Oh! My kitten does have claws!"

"Hi! "

"Hey"  Hearing Derrick's voice ran a thrill thru me.

"What are your plans for tonight?"

"The usual nothing, why?"

"Have you ever eaten at Pastabella?  Do you even like Italian?"

"Love pasta, and I don't go to restaurants alone.  Either take out, eat at home or bar food."

"Will you eat dinner with me there?"

"Sure!"  The happiness in his voice was crystal clear.  He was buzzing with happiness.

"Derrick, Abby is going to be there."  Hearing a choking sound caught in his throat I hurried along, "She wants to work out some sort of arrangement we can all live with.  A sharing of me I guess would be the best way to put it."

The phone was quiet for a bit, I was beginning to worry when I heard him clear his throat, in a much lower voice than before, the ringing joy in his voice was gone, "Sure, I guess that is the best way to do this...... what are we doing anyway?"

"I am hoping for a relationship with you.  I fell in love with your last night, I love you.  We three can work this out, I just know it.  Making no bones about it, it will be work.  Finding boundaries we are all comfortable with won't be easy, but we can do it.  I love you, I love Abby, and both of you love me.  We are going to be forging a new path, one that hasn't been trod enough for their to be signposts along the way to guide us when we are lost."

"Did you just say that you love me?"

"Yes.  You wanna hear it again?  I love you."

A big sigh sounded in my ear, "I love you too.  Is Abby really ok with this?"

"She is the one who came up with the idea."

"Where is she?"

"Currently?  On my lap.  Would you like to say hi to each other?"  Looking at Abby's wide surprised eyes, listening to Derrick's strangling sounds, finally just saying, "Here she is."

"Umm, hi......Derrick."

"Hey there Abby."

"Well, this is all kinds of awkward, huh?"

"Yeah you can say that again."

"This is all kinds of awkward."

"Oh, you are a funny one, huh?"

"That is one of the nicer ways of putting it."

"Abby, thank you so much, really."

"What for?"

"Sharing Ben with me.  He is really very special."

"I know.  I would rather share him, than loose him.  Well, I will give you back to Ben."  Abby handed the phone to me, scooted off my lap and started picking up the lunch trash walking away to give us some private time.

"What time do you want me to pick you up tonight?  That way you can get your car back."

"Around seven.  Is that to late?  It takes me 25 minutes to drive home.  Then I need to shower and shave.  Ben?"

"Yeah, it's fine.  What?"

"This won't end badly will it?"

"I can't promise you it won't.  If we are honest with each other it has a better chance of working. Hey."

"Yeah?"

"I love you.  I loved last night.  I loved this morning.  I just flat out love you."

"I love you too. I never knew it was possible to fall in love so quickly. When I got back to the bedroom after my shower, and you weren't in my bed, I thought you had left.  When I heard you in the kitchen, you have no idea what that meant to me."

"I won't ever treat you like some cheap one night stand.  That is a promise.  No matter how this all works out, you deserve more respect than to be treated like that."

"Did you, ah tell her..... about us.... umm last night?"

"Yeah, she asked and I told her."

"Was she upset?"

"Upset?  No, she was not the least bit upset.  In fact we had the hottest sex we have had in a while in the hall on the bench."

"Really? Whoa!  The hallway?"

"Yeah, and if you are good, we can do it there too."

A deep groan came into my ear, "Don't talk like that.  I gotta go back to work soon.  And if I show up with a hard on, they will never let me live it down!"  The sound of dinging and then he said, "Shit!  I gotta get back to work.  See ya tonight I guess."

"No doubt about it.  Have a good afternoon.  Bye."

"I'll try.  The rest of the day will drag now that is for sure. Bye."

Getting out of my truck, and heading back to the welding bay, my head was in a whirl, and to be honest, my head wasn't at work.  Luckily, it was something I could have done in my sleep.  Welding wear iron on the inside of a bucket from one of the big Cat's we run at the coal mine.

All I could think of was how much different today was than yesterday. Today I had hope in a tomorrow, not just a vast unrolling list of empty days.  Today there was someone to think about, someone to think about me.  The feeling of having someone with a connection to me had been so long in the past, now that I had someone to care about me again, it was nearly a virgin feeling.  My dad had passed when I was only 6, and for the longest time it had just been mom and me.  When I was 12 she fell in love again, and at first life went smoothly.  But, when I was caught with my best friend Mike fooling around in bed, things went down from there.  My sexuality didn't seem to bother mom that much.  Well, I am sure she would have been happier if I had been straight.  But, she never threw it up in my face like Bill did.  Over and over and over, and yet over again.  No matter what I did, either good or bad, somehow me being gay was dragged along into the conversation.  A great test score?  That's pretty good for a fag.  A bad score?  What'd expect from a queer, good grades?  I stayed away from home as much as possible during high school.  Dating was almost impossible due to the chaotic life I lived at home.  Unless it was a school group or project, I was at home, in my room.  Hanging out with friends was not allowed.  Phone calls were screened and then he listened on the extension to every call I got.  Because he refused to pay for college, refused to fill out the FASFA so I could qualify for student aide, I was resigned to trying to find a job out of school that would train me.

My shop teacher had talked me through quite a few days of despair, and he knew how badly I needed to get out of that poisonous environment.  He found me a scholarship to TSS, Technical Skills School.  I had to wait until I was 18 to fill out the paperwork, so I was of legal age and didn't require a parents signature.  With a start date not until the end of September, I was facing a summer at home, something that I really wasn't sure I could deal with.  When once again, Mr. Latton came through for me.  A job at a summer camp as a junior maintenance worker.  I was only home a total of 4 weeks between the end of high school and the the move to TSS's dorms.  The best summer I could remember.

After ninety thousand years, work was finally over.  Throwing away the cartridges for my respirator, I noticed that tomorrow I needed to go to the warehouse and get a new respirator, it was getting worn around the edges.  Taking off my work faster than was normal for me, several co-workers starting teasing me about having a hot date.  And when I grinned they all whooped, and demanded details tomorrow.  Like that would ever happen!

Jumping in the ol' truck, the drive home was over almost before it had begun.  Opening the front door, I almost broke my vow to never go past the mat in my work clothing.  Furiously stripping down, stuffing everything in the laundry basket, sprinting to the shower, my heart was so full as to almost want to break to release the pressure.  Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing, of course this afternoon, a hydraulic line had broken and the oil ran down my back.  Errr!  Finally clean and not stinking to hell of oil, it was time to shave.  Take a breath, slow down, breathe.  The last thing I wanted was to show up for dinner with cuts all over my face.  Carefully shaving my face clean of stubble, going extra slow so as not to cause any nicks.  Washing the rest of the shaving cream off.  Whew!  Operation not looking like a fool done!

Dressing in my one pair of dress pants, black.  Looking for a shirt to wear, two meager choices, white, or a pale blue.  Blue it is.  Do I wear my earrings?  I love them, Ben loved playing with them, but what would Abby think?  No!  I have to be me, just me.  Not a run thru a filter, pale version of me.  Except for work, I always wear them, in they go.  Tie?  No, I don't think it will be that formal, just open at the neck will be fine.  Belt...... more casual would look better.  Shoes, watch, wallet, and keys.  Ready to go!  What time is it????  Oh, it is only 6:40?  Damn!  Did I hurry or what?  Now, I have to wait, and I am already nervous as hell.  How am I going to make it another 20 minutes?

Pacing the floor back and forth, stop to take a breath turn, ready to repeat as long as it took, because there was no way that I could imagine sitting down to wait for Ben to arrive.  Just as I had completed lap 3 the door bell rang thru my heart.  Dashing to the door, quickly throwing the mat in the basket, wrenching open the door, there stood my heart, Ben.