She moved in almost immediately. Nine months later we married. Jen found a job she liked but didn’t pay very well. I had a good job, and had just moved up one place on the food chain when we got together. I already had my house, my dad had given me the money for a down payment from the insurance money. We weren’t rich, but we were comfortable, especially for a young couple starting out.
Jenny took control of our house, redecorating. We had a large back yard, and together we turned it into a nice entertainment area. We lay the pavers, placed the table and benches, strung the lights, built a pergola. We painstakingly put together a weatherproof outdoor kitchen, grill with side burners, cabinets, mini fridge, and a sink. Our centerpiece was a clay oven, built by a friend of mine with local clays. Our pizza parties were a big hit.
I was happy. She was happy. Life was good.
For two years.
……………………
I took Jenny with me once to a coon hunt. She hated it. I told her why I did it, and she said she understood, but in the last year or so she started resenting it.
The last time I went she stood in the door to the garage, trying to make me stay. The discussion got a little heated when she opened her robe, flashing me.
“You’re really going to give this up to stay up all night with some stinky dogs? Maybe I need to look for someone else to keep it warm, someone who appreciates what I have to offer.”
Before I knew it I had her by the sleeves of the robe and pinned up against the wall.
“Tell you what, why don’t you that very thing? You should call Sarah, I’m sure she knows the best places to hook up. I’ll leave the truck and take the car, that way she can help you move. Remember, this was my place first. Have a nice fucking life, Jenny.”
She knew, absolutely knew, that I hated a cheater more than anything else in the world. It had been almost three years since Scotty and his wife broke up, and it wasn’t even over Sarah, and I could still barely tolerate him. Knowing that, she still threw it in my face. Tactical error.
I snatched my bag out of the truck, tossed it in the car, and was gone before she could form a response.
The phone started ringing before I had gone a block. I ignored it. I ignored it all the way to the hunt.
Dad knew I was pissed when he saw me, but wisely didn’t say a thing. I petted and fooled with the three dogs I was hunting, attaching the GPS monitors to the collars. Twenty first century redneck gear. It made it a lot easier to find them and your way back.
I ran all three of them the first night. The male got hung up on a barbed wire fence and had to withdraw, but I placed top of class with the other two. The young female was the best I ever ran. I told dad so. He agreed.
“I think she’s gonna be a champion, for a long time to come. I think she’s the best I’ve ever bred.”
I was tired, dirty, and not in the best of moods when I came home. Sarah was still pissed but was smart enough to not push it. I showered, and crashed on the bed for a much needed nap. She let me sleep five hours before getting me up.
“Dinner is ready. You need to get up, or you won’t sleep tonight and will feel like shit at work tomorrow.”
Dinner was kind of quiet. We cleaned up together and went into the living room. I looked for the remote and couldn’t find it.
I looked up to see her holding it.
“No television until we talk. I apologize for what I said before you left. You have to know I have no interest in anyone but you. With my new job we don’t have as much time together as we used to, can you blame me for wanting to spend all the time we do have together?”
“Not at all. I miss our time too. That being said, you knew I had this family obligation when we got married. It should end this year, dad is thinking about making Jerry a full partner, that’ll take the responsibility off me and Jimmy. I will still go once in a while because I’ve learned to enjoy it. Is this really an issue? What got you into that mindset?”
She held her hands up in a surrender gesture.
“I hate my job, for one thing. I didn’t get my degree to manage a specialty shop in the mall. When you average out my hours, I’m just barely over minimum wage. I hate having to work two nights a week, and every other weekend. I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels, going nowhere fast.”
I felt bad for her, but she was like the rest of the country, doing the best she could in a bad economy.
“If it stresses you that bad, quit. We can make it until you find something else. Maybe you can transition into a new field. Motherhood. We’re almost thirty, the clock is ticking.”
It was an old discussion. We both wanted children, we just wanted to be a little more financially stable.
Jenny was crying.
“I want our babies, I just want to be able to give them the best.”
“So do I hon, but maybe love is the best thing we can give them. We never had much money growing up, but we had plenty of love. It was more than enough.”
In the end we apologized to each other, but left the baby issue on hold.
I skipped the next two hunts, Jimmy took one and Jerry another, and stayed home. Jenny seemed to appreciate it. She had started going to a girls night out, with her old friends, including Sarah.
She came to pick her up that first night.
“Damn, my turn to be the driver. Don’t worry Sam, I’ll have her liquored up and ready to go when she gets home.” Jenny blushed while Sarah rambled.
But Sarah delivered. Jenny had a pretty good buzz going and was horny as hell when she got home. I barely made it to work the next day.
…………………….
Another cliche? The neighborhood stud. You know the guy, he usually had the biggest house on the block, or the prettiest wife that he ignored at parties, the best job, or car, or bigger dick, etc.
Our was James[don’t call me Jimmy]Mitchell. He hadn’t been in the neighborhood for about a month. Jenny met his wife and invited them over to our once monthly barbeque. This particular night was focused on pizzas.
You could heat the clay oven up to over six hundred degrees, stick a pizza in and have it done in five minutes. The smoke residue made them extra flavorful.
Pizza night meant it was a child inclusive party. We would premake the crusts and have them waiting on a table piled high with ingredients. The kids would have a ball, building their own pizza. I would slide them into the oven three at a time, then take them out on a big wooden paddle. It was messy, loud, and very enjoyable.
James came over and ordered his pizza, being specific as to what he wanted. I just grinned.
“I don’t build them, I’m just in charge of cooking them. You’re on your own as far as making them.”
He frowned. I had a feeling he was used to being catered to. He had a nice wife, average looking and a little plump, and a daughter that looked like a carbon copy of her. Jenny had to explain how it worked to them. The little girl was having a ball, eying the ingredients and making decisions. She was about eleven, and the other kids were giving her all kinds of advice. Her pizza was about four inches tall when she was done. We deliberately made the crusts small for the kids, hard experience teaching us their eyes would overload their tummies every time. Even at that size they would often take home leftovers.
His wife told him she had already made his pizza, so he went back to holding court, impressing his new neighbors with his wealth and business savvy. A few actually believed his line of bull, most tolerated it with a slight smile. Some even argued with him, not worrying about his ego at all.
He tried to charm the ladies, but he didn’t make much of an impression on them. I caught him trying to chat up Sarah and Jenny, and Sarah caught me watching and grinned, raising her foot a little, letting me know he was piling it deep.
Sarah almost never came to our parties unless it was pizza night. Despite her lifestyle, she loved kids and was a favorite baby sitter in our group. To the last child, everyone loved Aunt Sarah.
I asked them after the party what they thought of the new neighbor. Sarah rolled his eyes.
“That one is a legend in his own mind, especially around women. He would lead you to believe he invented sex, and was the only man alive good at it.”