Chuck and Me

CHUCK AND ME By Just Plain Bob It was a difficult situation. On the one hand I owed the man my life and on the other the same man had just ruined my life and I wanted to kill him. Oh God did I ever want to kill him. I'd known Chuck damned near all my life. We grew up three houses from each other on Delancy Street. We went to school together, dated the same girls and played on the same teams. We were closer than brothers. He'd had my back and I his any number of times and everyone knew that if you fucked with Chuck you were fucking with me and if you fucked with me you got Chuck in the bargain. If Chuck dated a girl and he scored he would tell me and I would try my hand with her and if I took one out and hit a home run I would tell him and he would ask her out. We shared a lot of girls that way. But grade school and high school relationships sometimes come to an end and it happened with Chuck and me. After graduation I followed my old man into the foundry, but Chuck wanted something different than the hot hard work in the foundry and he joined the Army. I saved my money until I had enough to get myself an apartment and then I started out on my own. I dated some, scored some, but never did find a girl who gave me that special tingle. That is I never found one until I met Merrily. It was at the company Christmas party and the only reason I was there was because that was where they handed out the Christmas bonus checks. My plan was to show up for the free feed, listen to the inevitable rah-rah speeches, get my bonus check and then leave to go check out some of the really jumping parties that I knew would be going on. I saw her sitting at a table with one of the recently hired draftsman. From the look of him I thought that she would probably be his daughter and not her husband or date. She wasn't a raving beauty, but something about her kept drawing my attention. I was looking at her when she turned her head and her eyes met mine and she smiled. I'd always heard about smiles that would light up a room, but I'd never seen one until then. All thoughts of leaving the party went out the window and when the band set up and played its first number I got up and went over to her and asked her if she would dance with me. She said she would be delighted and when she stood up I almost said: "Oh my God." You couldn't see it when she was sitting down, but she had a killer body and she was a tall girl. I'm six two and her nose was level with my chin. Of course the fact that she was wearing four inch heels helped put her there. Those heels told me something about her. They told me that she was one confident woman. Most tall girls won't wear a four or five inch heel because they feel it intimidates guys to have a girl as tall as them. Merrily's shoes said: "Here I am! Are you man enough?" I've never been a shy one and as soon as I took her in my arms and introduced myself I asked: "Are you married?" "No." "Engaged?" "No." "Going steady?" "No." "Any guys around that you are hung up on and are hoping that they will ask you out?" "No. None of the above at this time." "Then please allow me to apply for any or all of the above." "Well, I might consider you for the last one, at least for starters." "In that case I must do what is expected of the man who holds that position. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?" "I would love to." And so began my relationship with Merrily Ashton Martin. It was not a smooth road, at least not from my perspective. I wasn't the only guy who liked tall, confident women. Her "Are you man enough" attitude made quite a few guys step to show that they were, but I was persistent and I hung in there and eventually Merrily and I became a couple. At the next company Christmas party I danced her over to be under the mistletoe, kissed her and then went to my knees and proposed. I don't know whether she was more surprised or embarrassed, but when I handed her the little velvet covered box she opened it, took out the ring and handed it to me and offered me her left hand so I could slip the ring onto her finger. When I stood up she put her arms around me and gave me a passionate kiss as everyone in the place hollered, yelled and applauded. We were married in a civil ceremony the first week of June. Merrily was a secretary in the home office of a large insurance company and we decided to bank her paycheck until we had enough for a down payment on a house. My apartment was larger than hers so she gave up her apartment and when her security deposit was returned it went into the down payment savings account. When I got my Christmas bonus at the end of the year it gave us enough and we found a nice three bedroom that was equidistant from her office and the foundry. Life was good. I liked married life. I enjoyed waking up in the morning snuggled up to Merrily. I couldn't wait to get home to her when I got off work. When I was home I wanted to be with her - close enough to touch - no matter what she was doing. Merrily owned me! I wasn't stupid. I knew that regardless of how I felt about her and she felt about me (and it certainly seemed to me that she felt about me like I felt about her) my "hovering" would eventually get on her nerves. She needed some personal space. I told her she needed to get out of the house, have some personal time, at least one night a week. She said that the same held for me and we decided that would each take one night a week as a 'night out.' That actually gave each of us two nights away from each other. I took mine on Thursdays and bowled and Merrily took whatever night the girls she worked with decided to get together for dinner and drinks. We talked about kids, but we both decided to wait a while before taking on that responsibility. We would wait until after we had been some places and done some of the things we wanted to do. Merrily and I had been married just short of three years when one night the phone rang and Merrily answered it. "Honey, it's for you. Some guy named Chuck." Chuck had been discharged and was back in town. He wanted to know if I could meet him at Riley's Tavern to suck down a few beers and catch up on what had gone on since he left town. "The major thing that happened is that I'm now a married man." "It goes without saying that she is invited too. Only fair since I'll be there with my bride." On the way to Riley's I explained to Merrily who Chuck was and what our history was. Chuck was sitting in a booth in the back with an absolutely ravishing redhead. He rose to meet us and after a double bear hug with lots of back slapping I introduced him to Merrily and he introduced us to his wife Rita. We drank beers and talked about where he had been and what he had done and I brought him up to date on what was going on with our old classmates and friends. I asked him what his plans were and he told me that he was home to stay. "I talked to Ferguson this afternoon and I start at the foundry on Monday." It was getting late so we made a date to have dinner on Saturday and maybe go to Grady's Road House for some drinks and dancing. As we were driving home I asked Merrily what she thought of Chuck and she hesitated just enough so that I noticed before saying: "He seems real nice. I like him." "Him? Not they?" She hesitated again before saying, "I didn't like her." "Any particular reason?" "Just a feeling." "A feeling? What kind of a feeling?" "She's just a little too full of herself. Didn't you notice how she was constantly checking out the guys in the place to see if she had their attention? How she constantly moved in her chair to show a little more leg to the guys who were looking at her? I'm betting the marriage doesn't last and I'm betting that other men will be the reason for the break up." "Is this some of the famous "woman's tuition" that I've heard about?" "Laugh if you want to baby, but believe me when I say that girls know about things like this." We had dinner with Chuck and Rita on Saturday and then went out for drinks and dancing. Regardless of her misgivings about Rita Merrily and Rita seemed to get along fine. In the coming months, and not surprising given my friendship with Chuck, the four of us spent a lot of time together. Chuck and Rita had an apartment and curiously enough it was the same apartment that Merrily and I had lived in. I don't mean the same apartment complex, but the same exact apartment. Talk about weird! Anyway, because their apartment wasn't really big enough to entertain in they spent a lot of time at our house. We would play cards, have barbecues and stuff like that. Merrily and Rita never did get really tight, but they were friendly enough to each other even to the point that they went out on a couple of 'girls nights out' together. Chuck had been back about six months and the four of us were at the Starlight Lounge one Saturday night and I was dancing with Rita. I was into the music, had my eyes closed and was grooving when I heard Rita whisper in my ear: "I want it. When can I have it?" "When can you have what?" "Your cock lover. It wants me and I want it." That is when I became aware that I had an erection and that Rita was rubbing her leg against it. I quickly pulled back from her and she giggled and said: "Not to worry lover; she has her back to us and my hubby is clueless as always." Just then the music ended and I pulled away from Rita and led her back to our table. We were only there for another hour and I never asked Rita to dance again, but every time I looked in her direction she was looking at me and as soon as she saw me looking at her she would give me a small smile and lick her lips. I wrote it off as too much to drink and/or a joke in poor taste. I didn't mention it to Merrily. It was two weeks later on a Sunday and Chuck and Rita were over for a barbecue. We had been drinking beer and shooting the bull for about an hour and I got up to go use the bathroom. I took my whiz, shook off the last few drops and washed my hands. I unlocked the door and opened it to leave and found Rita standing there. She walked straight at me so I had to step back and when we were both in the bathroom Rita pushed the door closed and locked it. "What are you doing Rita?" "Shush baby, we don't have that much time. It would have helped if you hadn't already tucked it away." She went to her knees in front of me and I tried to step back but the sink was behind me. Rita's hands went to my zipper as she said: "You know you want this baby. Hurry up, let Rita see whatcha got." She had my zipper halfway down before I could stop her and I will admit that looking down at that gorgeous face on a level with and only inches away from my cock gave me an erection. She saw the tent form and she giggled and said: "I knew you wanted me lover." By then she had my cock out and she leaned forward and licked the head as I was saying: "Stop this Rita. It isn't right and you know it." "Bullshit lover. And don't give me that "I can't do this to my best fried" shit. If we weren't here he would have your honey bent over the picnic table and be doing her doggie." I put my hands on my shoulders and said, "You are crazy Rita" as I pushed her back and she sat down on her ass on the floor. I moved around her and got the hell out of the bathroom. It was another hour before they left and as we walked them to the door and gave the little "goodbye hugs" that friends exchange. Rita whispered in my ear: "I'm going to get you lover, and soon." After they were gone I grabbed another beer and chugged it down and Merrily said: "What's wrong? You seem uptight about something." I told her what had happened in the bathroom and then I told her about what had happened at the dance. "I'm not surprised" she said, "I told you that I had a feeling about her. One of the reasons I stopped going on 'girls nights out' with her was that she kept disappearing out into the parking lot with guys she danced with. I never followed her to see what she was doing, but I had my suspicions that it was more than just a little necking. You going to tell Chuck?" "God no! He loves her. She is all he talks about at break times and during lunch. He either wouldn't believe me or if he listened to me, checked up on her and found out it was true he would hate me for being the one to tell him. Either way it would kill our friendship. It's a no win situation for me. I'll just have to keep my distance from her or make sure that there is some one else around when I'm near her." "Well honey, if she is doing it with you, she will be doing it with others. Hopefully he will find out about her from some one else." A couple of months went by and although we went out with Chuck and Rita every two weeks or so and had them over for cards and barbecues I never let Rita get me alone. She was always watching me and when I would look her way if no one else was looking she would wink at me, lick her lips or blow me a kiss. Chuck had been back for almost a year when he saved my life. I was standing on the foundry floor reviewing some figures on a clipboard when I heard someone yell out, "Look out Rob!" and then something hit me hard and I went flying and ended up lying on the floor. I heard a loud crash and I rolled over and looked and saw a pile of steel ingots on the floor where I had been standing. "You okay?" I looked over and saw Chuck on the floor with me. I shook my head yes and asked what happened. The overhead crane had been moving a pallet of steel ingots from the yard to Furnace 3 when one of the cables on the pallet sling let go. The pallet started to tip toward the corner of the pallet that the broken sling had been holding and Chuck saw it. He threw himself at me as the ingots started sliding off the pallet. I looked at the pile of ingots and knew that if Chuck hadn't managed to get me out of the way they would have been cleaning me off the floor with a sponge. "I guess I owe you a beer." "Or three" he said as he stood up and then offered me his hand to help me up. The two of us got rip-roaring drunk that night and I had to call Merrily to come and get us since we could barely walk, let alone drive. A month or so after the accident I was offered a foreman's position. It was on swing shift which meant that I would be working three to eleven-thirty. With Merrily working days and me working swings the only time we would see each other would be on the weekends. The upside was that Mike Taylor, the day shift foreman, would be retiring in a year and then I could move to day shift. I talked it over with Merrily and while neither of us was too keen on the idea of only seeing each other on weekends Merrily pointed out that the increased pay would put us in a financial position where we could finally think about having kids. We decided that I should take the job. I'd been on swings just a little over nine months when one Tuesday at 11:45 AM the phone rang. It was Chuck. He was in jail and he wanted to know if I could come down and bail him out. I rushed down and got him out and found out what had happened. He had beaten a guy so bad that the guy had to be taken to the emergency room at the hospital. Our company had a random drug testing program. At any given time they could come up to you, tap you on the shoulder and tell you that your name had just come up. You left work, went to the clinic, peed in the bottle and then went back to work. The next day the results would be back and if you tested clean life went on. If your test was positive you were out of a job. Chuck had been picked that day and when he left the clinic he decided to stop by the apartment for a "quickie" with Rita. The problem was that when he got to the apartment he found that in order to have that "quickie" he would have to wait in line until the guy fucking Rita was done. While he was beating the snot out of the guy Rita was on the phone calling 911. I took him home with me and told him he could bunk in the spare bedroom; that I did not want him going back to his apartment that day. I was afraid of what he might do to Rita that might put him back in jail. Chuck said that he didn't think she would be there as he had told her while the cops were cuffing him that she would be next when he got home. I called Mike Taylor and let him know why Chuck wasn't back on the job and then I called Merrily and brought her up to date on the situation. Chuck stayed with us for two days and then he went back to the apartment. Rita had cleared out and had taken everything of value with her when she left. Nobody heard from her again. Chuck couldn't even find her to serve her with divorce papers. He was pretty broken up over it as he really did love Rita. He spent a lot of weekends with me and Merrily just for the company as he tried to get over it. Three months sailed by; Mike Taylor retired and I was getting ready to move to day shift. I was really looking forward to being able to spend more time with Merrily. The year of swing shift had been hard on us. I remember it as clear as crystal. It was the Saturday before I was to move to day shift. It was eleven-ten when Merrily came into the kitchen and sat down at the table across from me. I put the morning paper down and she looked at me in silence for several seconds and then she said: "I'm pregnant." "Honey, that's wonderful" I said as I stood up to go around the table to hug her. She put out a hand to stop me and said: "No it isn't. Unless my diaphragm failed it isn't yours." "What? What are you saying? What do you mean it isn't mine?" "I'm sorry Rob, but unless the diaphragm didn't do its job the baby is Chuck's." Stunned, I sat back down on my chair and stared at her. She couldn't meet my eyes. She looked down at the table and the story spilled out of her. She had gone off her birth control pills three months ago, but she wanted to plan her pregnancy so the baby would arrive in late May or early June so she used a diaphragm on the weekends we made love and also on the occasional nights she waited up for me to come home. The rest of the time it sat in it's case in the medicine cabinet and that is where it was on the night that Chuck stopped by. He had been drinking and he was a mess. He was going through a particularly bad time and didn't want to be alone. He and Merrily had sat and talked and then he had started crying and sobbing, "How could she do that to me. I loved her so much. Why did she do it" and on and on. Merrily went over and sat by him and took him in her arms and tried to comfort him. She held him tight while he cried himself out. "I don't know how it happened Rob; I honestly don't know. I remember kissing him on the forehead and saying something like "There, there, you will get over this" and then we were making love on the couch. He came in me and then broke down again over betraying you. "He was sobbing and crying and I felt sick over what had just happened. I couldn't change that it had, but I could try to get him to calm done so I hugged him and told him that it would be all right, that you would understand. That was a mistake. He was still in me and while I was hugging him and trying to get him to stop crying he got hard again. I tried to push him away, but he started moaning, "Goddamn you Rita, how could you" and he was driving hard into me and I just wasn't strong enough to push him off. "When it was over he begged me to forgive him and told me that he would wait with me until you got home, confess and tell you that none of it was my fault. I knew what it would do to you and your friendship and so I talked him out of it and told him that since it would never happen again it would be best to just let it be our little secret. And it would have been except for what he left in me. I had to tell you now. I couldn't wait nine months and pray that the baby wouldn't have Chuck's red hair." I just sat there with tears in my eyes and stared at her. The silence stretched out and finally Merrily said: "Say something Rob; for God's sake say something." I couldn't speak. I had tears running down my cheeks as I got up and walked out of the house. My mind is a blank for the next several hours. It was 4:45 in the afternoon and I was sitting in my car at Hawkins Point and looking out over the lake with no idea how I got there. I was still sitting there when the sun came up the next morning. I felt like everything I had worth living for had been ripped from me and stomped into the mud. I felt empty inside. I drove to the nearest ATM and withdrew the maximum amount allowable and then I took off down the highway. I drove for days until my money started to run low. I stopped in a town in Ohio and sold my car to a used car dealer and then walked into a recruiting office and joined the Army. I finish my basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood next week and only God and the Green Machine know where I'll go next. I haven't called home to let anyone know where I am. What would be the point? I can never go back. I know for certain that if I did and were to see Chuck I would do him serious - extremely serious - bodily harm and I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't kill him. And the way I'm looking at it the Army and wherever they send me has to be better than prison. And Merrily? I could not bear looking at her as her belly swells with the constant reminder of her betrayal with the man who used to be my best friend 4664 1.59/512345