Make New Friends - but keep the old.

This morning finds me in Denver.  A friend is having surgery and I'm here to play nursemaid. Why she wants me I'll never know - I'm a terrible nurse, but I am a good cook, love the kitties and put up with her BS  and her with mine - after all we've been friends for 50+ years.  Different kind of story today, probably inspired by 'friends'.

Jenna, Brian, Pete and Lindy were brought up in Echo Lake, a small lake community, nestled in the White Mountains of Arizona.  Three of the four of them had left Echo Lake to make their way in the city but still had family ties and commitments.  Lindy had stayed behind to take over her family’s general store. They tried and mostly managed to get together at least one weekend every other month and one week during every summer.  The year Jenna brought Bill up to meet her folks and friends that lifelong friendship began to unravel.

Bill Harlow was everything Echo Lake was not.  He was pretentious, arrogant, judgmental and prejudiced, things that Jenna didn’t see. When Jenna brought him up that summer it was painfully obvious to both friends and family that Bill Harlow was not the man for Jenna Grayson. They did their best to welcome him into their lives for the sake of Jenna but it just didn’t happen.  They felt bad and each, in their own way, tried to tell Jenna how they felt about Bill and tried to talk her out of marrying him.  But Jenna was madly in love with the man she thought Bill Harlow was and not who he really was. Bill didn’t care one way or another if her friends and family didn’t like him.  He didn’t like them, they were way too provincial and small town minded for his tastes so he saw to it that Jenna had less and less contact with them.

Instead of the big wedding she wanted in Echo Lake, he talked her into a destination wedding in Cabo San Lucas, which financially excluded most of her family.  Other than her mom and dad, only Brian and Pete were able to attend.  When the rest of her family planned a ‘meet and greet’ for the new couple, after they returned from their honeymoon,  Bill suddenly had a business crisis that demanded his presence in Bangkok and talked Jenna into accompanying him saying that it would be great to extend their honeymoon.

To Jenna,  he was a catch and she couldn’t believe her luck.  He was a tall, handsome, well-traveled rich man, a well-known engineer, and in love with her, or so she thought.  After meeting, and all during the courtship he romanced her like a fairy tale princess. She didn’t see all the insidious ways he was removing her from her life and into his.

After they were married about six months, things began to change.  Bill would be late a couple of nights a week, he suddenly had weekend meetings to which she wasn’t invited, they began getting fewer and fewer invites to parties and affairs.  When she questioned him about the changes he told her she was being ridiculous.

 Maybe she was, but she was lonely.  Bill had insisted she quit her job and her days and nights were filled with nothing but empty hours.  Not wanting to continue wasting her life, she joined a Women’s Club that was very active in the community.  The women tended to be aloof, it didn’t deter Jenna.  She knew she had something to offer and would eventually break through their disdain.  She started hearing the whispers’ and gathering her courage confronted one of the friendlier women.   The woman hemmed and hawed before telling her that although it was only what she’d heard, not first-hand information, that Bill Harlow was having an affair with Susan Simpson.

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“As I said, it’s only what I heard.”

“Thank you for being honest.”

Jenna couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of her husband cheating on her, so she decided to confront Bill.

Not only did he deny doing any such thing but told her to stay away from that gossipy group of women.  He seemed genuinely disturbed by her accusation so she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.  However, she didn’t do as he directed and continued to work with the Women’s Club.

A couple of weeks later,  she was riding downtown and saw her husband standing on the corner, holding hands with a woman.  She pulled over at the first available opportunity and took out her phone and snapped a picture.  Jenna confronted him with the photo that night.  He couldn’t deny it was him and made up some bullshit story.  Jenna wasn’t buying and they got into a huge argument.

 

He’d always settled their arguments before by either walking away or taking her over his knee.  She never minded the spanking, actually to her it was a turn on, and Bill was usually quite loving during, rubbing some of the stinging out before continuing with the spanking, and afterward – afterward he was just as turned on as her.  He’d told her he like spanking her bottom – watching his hand putting some color into her snowy globes. This time it was different.  This time he was angry and there was no warm-up at all - just flat out hard spank from the beginning.  He practically ripped off her clothes to bare her bottom. When he picked up his slipper from next to the bed and began applying it to her naked ass, she cried out.  The sting was unbelievable.  He took no time between spanks as he did in previous spankings, only the relentless pounding of the slipper against her bare flesh.  She writhed and wriggled, trying desperately to escape the punishing blows, to no avail.

Once he finally stopped, instead of the usual aftercare, he merely pushed her to the floor, stepped around her on his way to the bathroom.  She was still lying on the floor as he walked out the door.  She heard the garage door open and the car start.  Not believing he could be so mean, the tears started flowing, not so much from the pain in her butt, but in her heart.  ‘How could be so damn mean,’ she asked herself.

Crying herself out, she finally managed to get off the floor and into the shower.  The hot water hitting her bruised bottom was torture.  He had never spanked her so hard before and never left her without aftercare.  Standing there as the water ran down her body and swirled down the drain, her mind went to the rumors and putting the pieces together decided they were probably true.

Now, she was forced into making a decision.  Were her friends and family right – that Bill Harlow was not the man she thought he was.  She hated thinking she was such a poor judge of character.  Before stepping out of the shower she’d made a decision.  She would go to Echo Lake and talk to Lindy.  She would be welcomed with open arms. 

Not knowing how long she would stay, she packed a bag and left a note for Bill. It was a long ride on a very sore bottom and with each mile, her resolve strengthened.  

Lindy was the only one who knew the whole story, but both she and her family were supportive.  Each offered advice but said that only she knew what was right for her.  After weighing her options, she decided to extend her stay in Echo Lake.  She called Bill to let him know. When she couldn’t reach him at home, she called his cell.  He picked up and she could hear a female voice in the background.  He must have tried to put his hand over the phone because his muffled voice was telling someone to be quiet.

“Say hello to Susan for me,” Jenna said.  “Tell her she can have you because I’m through.  My lawyer will be in touch.”

And with that, Jenna ended her ‘fairy tale’ marriage and lived happily ever after.

See you later for more Aimless Ramblings.