150
Ray was transfixed as Karen raised up and kissed him and continued to hug him. His dick that had been out of commission for way too long sprung to attention and sought to impale Karen. Subtly, he tried to move away.
“Unh hunh, boss! I’ve waited way too long for this opportunity and I’m not going to let you slip away!” With that statement she clinched him tighter and kissed him again. She also moved her hips forward encouraging his dick to throb helplessly in his trousers.
Reluctantly, Ray broke away. “Karen, I have to stop and call Marilyn and tell her the news. She’ll be so happy when she finds out that I got the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. I kept telling her that my brief would be sufficient to stop the lawsuit. Now, the home owner’s association will have to scramble to rewrite the regulations to include Christmas lights displays to prevent them from being displayed out of season.”
Karen was in mid response when the intercom on Ray’s office phone buzzed. Automatically, she picked up the phone and announced, “Ray Thompson’s office.” It only took a few seconds and her brow furrowed and she said, “Yes, Mr. Fletcher, here is Mr. Thompson.”
With that she handed the phone to Ray as he wondered why the senior partner was calling him.
“Thompson, Channel 8 is about to run a story that you need to watch and then come see me in my office!”
Before Ray could respond, Mr. Fletcher had hung up. Puzzled, he turned on his office TV and watched as the commercials ran. Finally, the local news came on and Ray and Karen watched as the attractive female anchor announced, “And now as we promised before the break we have a human interest story about a little girl who is suffering from cancer. For her birthday wish she wanted the Christmas lights to keep burning at her house. The problem is her neighborhood is full of Grinchs. Here is Neal Sullivan with the story.”
The image on the TV flashed to the Thompson’s living room where a nervous Marilyn waited to be interviewed. By her side was John Tullos.
“Thank you, Sonja. I’m here with Mrs. Marilyn Thompson whose daughter Rachel is being treated for leukemia. Rachel’s birthday is on Christmas Day. This past Christmas her birthday wish was to keep the Christmas lights at her home burning. That wish is being granted due to a very determined mother willing to do battle against her entire neighborhood.”
A stunned Ray continued to watch his wife being interviewed by the reporter. She went into the details of why she felt it was necessary to go public with Rachel’s plight. When the reporter asked her what her husband thought about the situation, Marilyn shifted uncomfortably and said, “He’s doing what he can, but that hasn’t been enough to resolve this. That is why I decided to listen to my friend, John and publicize this. Maybe, if people would let our home owner’s association know what they thought about them, then my daughter could continue to enjoy watching her Christmas lights.”
After the reporter got through talking to Marilyn, he began asking questions of John Tullos who introduced himself as a friend of the family. “Neal, I just want to see Rachel happy and to help my friend, Marilyn anyway I can.”
Ray turned off the TV and then hurled the remote against the wall shattering it into small pieces. As he stormed out of his office to Mr. Fletcher’s office, a startled Karen collected all the pieces to put into the trash.
That night an excited Marilyn anxiously waited for Ray to come home. Finally, around 9 p. m. she heard the sound of his car pulling into the garage.
As the door opened, she exclaimed, “Ray, where have you been? I have the most wonderful news! Today, I got interviewed on TV about Rachel and I told everyone about what the association is trying to do. They put the interview on their website and there are already 100, 000 hits on the link! People are flooding the association’s telephone lines and websites chewing them out over what they’ve done! What do you think about that?”
A disaffected Ray continued to move around the room, looking at everything except his wife. Marilyn couldn’t understand his nonchalant behavior.
“Ray, did you hear what I said? We finally got something going to put pressure on the association to drop the lawsuit!”
Ray settled in front of the bar and poured himself a drink. After he let the first sip of the smooth bourbon warm down his throat into his stomach, he turned to Marilyn.
“Yeah, Marilyn I heard you. Congratulations. The only problem is there isn’t a lawsuit anymore.”
With that listless comment, he reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out several legal sized papers folded lengthwise to fit into the pocket and plopped them down on the coffee table in front of Marilyn.
He vaguely waved at the papers with his shot glass.
“That is the copy of the order signed by the Judge and filed this morning dismissing the suit.”
He took another drink and studied the glass as he continued.
“By the time your interview aired, I had already won the case. Anyway, thank you for your vote of confidence. I couldn’t have done it without your support.”
He took another sip.
“It was really a wonderful surprise to see you on TV and see you basically telling the world that I wasn’t doing enough for my kid.”
Marilyn cried, “Ray, I didn’t mean it like that!”
Again Ray wearily waved off Marilyn.
“I know, Marilyn, I know. You couldn’t depend on me. Thank God, your boyfriend was able to save the day for you.”
Ray got up and poured himself another drink.
“Funny thing is you haven’t heard the aftermath of your interview. Right after it aired, I got called in by the senior partner. Seems like he got a call from both the owner and station manager of Channel 12. I guess you didn’t know that Channel 12 is one of our clients.
Anyway, they weren’t too happy about their big rival, Channel 8 trumping them on a local human interest story. In particular, when it involves the family of an associate attorney for the law firm they have on retainer.
So naturally, Mr. Fletcher was giving me an “attaboy” pep talk and discussing whether I would still have a job next week. Well as you can only imagine I was thrilled at my prospects,
So, I invited Karen to go celebrate with me over a few drinks. Nothing special. Just the two of us, just like you and old Johnny Boy with your little lunch dates. I think you’re onto something there Marilyn. I had a wonderful time sitting with Karen, trying to figure out which law firms I might need to start sending my resume to.”
Ray ignored the tears from Marilyn as he finished the drink and prepared to go upstairs.
“Thank you, Marilyn for shaming me in front of the world. Watching you and John, sitting in my house, on my sofa, talking about my child. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Just before he started climbing the stairs he got in one last potshot, “Let me know when Channel 8 hits a million on their website. That’ll teach the HOA to mess with you.”
That scene fed into the dissolution of the relationship. Both were now locked into finding solace from a source outside the marital bonds. Still, despite the temptations neither could force themselves to actually cheat on their spouse. Several times both Karen and John were brought up short as Ray and Marilyn lashed out at them for trying to speed up the process.
It would cause the potential home wreckers to back off temporarily, but like a force of nature they would return and continue to entice their prospective lovers to fall deeper into their webs. Conversely, the attitudes of Ray and Marilyn at home became easier to deal with one another. It was though they had already subtly acknowledged that the marriage was over and all the underlying tensions of the past were gone.
They continued to put up a charade for their families and friends. Of course, with Rachel they had to be more careful about contriving the facade of Mommy and Daddy. But every now and then they would be forced to deflect questions from her.
“Mommy, how come you and Daddy don’t sleep in the same room anymore?”
The question coming right out of the blue caused Marilyn to pause. Should she deny it? Should she tell a little white lie? Or should she do the unthinkable and destroy the simple faith of her daughter’s trust in her parents and explain that Mommy and Daddy didn’t love each other anymore.
“Honey, the reason we don’t sleep together anymore is because we both want to be close to your bedroom in case you need us.”
The explanation seemed to satisfy Rachel. Then she said, “Oh, Daddy said it was because you snore all night long.”
“Actually, honey, your Daddy is the one that snores!”Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.
Marilyn drew back and made an exaggerated snore imitating what Ray was suppose to sound like. The effort caused Rachel to begin giggling and then started laughing at the preposterous sound blasting the room. She reached for her Mother and the two began a hug and Marilyn carefully swayed in a rocking motion the most precious thing in her life.
How much longer could they keep up the pretense, she wondered. What will she do when Rachel’s entire world falls from underneath her. How would she go and repair that pain? Marilyn had no idea to the answer any of those questions.
So the daily routine continued as Rachel remained the focus of their lives. Events were still coordinated. With the added proviso that during certain time periods, one or the other would inexplicably be delayed or detained. No questions were asked; no answers were forthcoming. On the rare occasions that John or Karen’s name would crop up, it would only serve as a minor irritation to the offended spouse.
And time ticked away.
One of the cherished chores was reading to Rachel at bedtime. Over the years the favorite books had evolved into more age suitable reading materials. Presently, the book being read to her was “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” Rachel had already had the book read to her, as well as the next two books in the series. But she didn’t like the trend the books were taking so she asked for the first book to be reread to her.