A Special Gift for Ms V Read online

  A Special Gift For Ms. V

  Copyright © 2019 Matt Tims

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  Contents

  Chapter 1 – Different Tastes

  Chapter 2 – Love, It’s a Bitch

  Chapter 3 – Guess Who Likes The Stones?

  Chapter 4 – A Game and a New Friend

  Chapter 5 – Retarded Ricky

  Chapter 6 – A Step Too Far

  Chapter 7 – Two Can Play That Game

  Chapter 8 – Time To Face The Music

  Chapter 9 – Not So Smooth

  Chapter 10 – All Alone?

  Chapter 11 – A Helpful Piece of Advice

  Chapter 12 – Never Alone

  Other Works & Contact Info:

  Chapter 1 – Different Tastes

  Saturday Night.

  “You’re such a fuckin’ idiot.”

  Phil could only shake his head at his friend’s comment. They were seriously arguing over something so dumb? It was midway through the third quarter of a 45-45 shootout, except no one in the room was even watching the football game at this point.

  “I’m talking about like a mentally challenged level of idiocy,” Dave continued.

  “Because I have a different opinion than you?” Phil asked.

  “No, because you have an opinion that you can’t have,” Dave told him.

  Phil turned and looked at Mike, who was sitting in the recliner next to the couch he was currently sharing with Dave. He was desperate to get some help here. “Do you believe this shit?”

  “I’m with Dave, bro,” Mike said. “Sorry, but you can’t have that opinion.”

  Phil should’ve known better by this point. Their arguments had a tendency to turn into two-on-ones, and he was usually on the undermanned side of the discussions. “Jesus Christ, it’s not my fault they suck.”

  The annoyed look on Dave’s face grew with each passing second. “I’m gonna punch you right in the fuckin’ head if you say The Rolling Stones suck one more time!”

  The three teens had been friends from the moment they’d first met in the fourth grade. Bonding over a mutual interest in sports and inappropriate jokes, they sparked a relationship which had lasted into their senior year of high school. Their classmates usually got fed up with Dave and Phil’s constant arguing: sports, movies, music, women—you name it. There was always a debate to be had about something.

  A world of arguing may as well have been home for Mike. That probably had something to do with his mom’s constant need to pick apart every little thing both he and his father did; and when it came to his buddies, a simple television advertisement for a fashion show would lead to a thirty minute argument over thin versus thick women. A bad performance in an NBA game would turn into a twenty minute shouting match because Phil claimed he was a better shooter than a professional basketball team’s all-star point guard. All the while Mike would sit back and let it play out—just like he did at home.

  “Okay, I’ll admit they aren’t terrible,” Phil conceded. “They aren’t good, but they aren’t terrible. I mean, they’re better than the shit you played for me last week.”

  “What did you play for him last week?” Mike asked.

  Dave promptly groaned, “You don’t want to know, dude.”

  Mike laughed as he looked at his Dave. Both had brown hair, brown eyes, and were in fantastic shape from their years of playing football and basketball. Phil, on the other hand, possessed blond hair and blue eyes, but was of a similar physical build as his two friends. The eighteen-year-old high school seniors were all tall, lean, muscular, and standouts on their school’s varsity football team.

  It was Saturday evening, and the three of them were at their friend and classmate’s Jake’s house, just like they always were. Hell, they spent multiple weeknights and almost all of their Saturdays in this very basement, watching whatever the must-see sporting event was for that particular night. Jake not being home didn’t even prevent them from coming over. That was probably a good thing because their buddy was rarely home on the weekends, but we’ll get to that later.

  Dave could see that Mike was waiting for him to continue. “Okay, brace yourself. You seriously need to prepare to hear maybe the most ridiculous thing ever. He told me that Led Zeppelin is a garbage band.”

  Mike immediately turned to Phil, stunned. “Dude…”

  Phil wasted little time going on the defensive. He was well prepared to defend his opinion against the oncoming gang up, per usual. This was exactly how things always unfolded. Mike would stay out of it for as long as he could, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he would ultimately join in and take Dave’s side. Same shit, different day.

  “I listened to like four songs,” Phil started, flabbergasted that his friends seriously liked this type of music. “All that whiny dickhead did was drone on and on about wanting a woman to stay loyal to him in every single song. It was fuckin’ draining.”

  “What songs did you play him?” questioned Mike.

  Dave answered, “I started with ‘How Many More Times.’”

  “Great song,” Mike chimed in with his thoughts.

  Dave dismissively glanced at Phil before turning his attention back to Mike. “No shit, right? But guess who didn’t like it?”

  “It was over eight minutes long!” Phil exclaimed. “Who the hell makes eight minute songs?”

  “Talented musicians,” Dave said.

  “More like self-indulgent blowhards…” Phil groaned.

  “Oh shit, I forgot that Phil doesn’t want to listen to anything that doesn’t involved bitches, guns, and money,” Dave laughed.

  Phil rolled his eyes, annoyed as ever. “You mean cool songs that you want to party to? Excuse me for wanting to have a good time. I’d prefer not to listen to some sissy moan about have a chick fuck around on him.”

  “What about The Stones then?” Mike asked. “Most of their songs are jams. You’re telling me you can’t party to some of their stuff?”

  “Maybe if I was some old-timer,” Phil chuckled. “I can’t believe I have to take shit from you two every time we discuss music. You guys have the musical taste of my parents, yet I somehow get attacked for listening to shit people our age are into. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good,” said Dave. “What was that song you played for me last week? You know, the biggest song of the year until a new rap song comes out next week and everyone forgets about that trash?”

  “It was called—”

  “I remember now!” Dave interrupted Phil, looking over at his best friend. “Get this, Mike. Hand to God, I had to replay it three times to make sure I was hearing it correctly. It was the most ridiculous shit ever. Guess what this rapper kept rhyming the word ‘nigga’ with?”

  “No idea,” Mike said.

  Dave paused for a moment before revealing the answer. “Nigga.”

  “He rhymed ‘nigga’ with ‘nigga’?” Phil asked with a laugh. “Really?”

  “Dude, he rhymed ‘nigga’ with ‘nigga,’ like fifty times,” Dave confirmed, joining in on his buddy’s laughter. “Poetry, right? Led Zeppelin couldn’t possibly come up with something that creative.”

  Phil was done with this nonsense. His friends treated rock and roll like it was Shakespeare or something. “Like that Rolling Stones song about a white slavemaster fucking his black slaves? Poetry like that?”

  Mike quickly spoke up in defense of not only Dave’s taste in music, but his own as well. “‘Brown Sugar’ is a jam, dude.”

  “Jam or not, the lyrics are fucked up,” Phil said. “All I’m saying is that rock music has just as many senseless and vulgar themes to it, but it doesn’t get the shit that rap and hip-hop does for some re
ason.”

  “Because when a group of uber-talented musicians get together and create a piece of music from scratch, they’re given more liberties than some dude who is just making guttural noises over a computer generated beat!” Dave passionately yelled at his friend.

  “According to who?” Phil asked.

  “According to me,” Dave answered with a know-it-all smile.

  Once again, the only thing Phil could do was shake his head. He would never be able to get through to these two. “Listen, I’m open to giving The Rolling Stones another chance. I honestly can’t with Led Zeppelin because they’re just so fucking terrible, but The Stones at least have some kind of hope. Pick one song.”

  “You know, part of me actually shutters inside every time you say Zeppelin is terrible,” Mike told him with a wince.

  “The truth hurts sometimes, buddy,” Phil laughed, checking the TV to find the score still all tied up.

  Dave pondered the situation for a moment before turning to Mike. “One song, huh? What would you go with?”

  “No question for me,” Mike instantly answered. “I’d go with the ultimate Stones jam.”

  “‘Bitch’?” Dave asked.

  “Gotta go with ‘Bitch,’” Mike smiled back.

  Dave wirelessly connected his phone to the basement’s surround sound speakers and opened his music app. Seconds later, the room was filled with the sound of Keith Richard’s powerful opening riff. It was a true slice of heaven for Dave and Mike, and just about the closest thing to hell for Phil.

  Chapter 2 – Love, It’s a Bitch

  Claire stood at the kitchen counter, sliding a pile of chopped up pineapple into a plastic container. She placed it off to the side before moving her attention to the watermelon that was next in line to feel the acute edge of her razor sharp chef’s knife. If you would have told her five years ago that she would be spending her Saturday night making fruit salad for a group of high school boys—while her son was having his weekend visitation with his dad—then she would’ve looked at you like you were crazy. It just wouldn’t have been a possibility in her mind.

  Her relationship with her husband couldn’t have been better half a decade ago. Al was the loving, caring, charismatic guy she’d fallen in love with when she was just a nineteen-year-old college freshman, but the man she loved changed. She couldn’t pinpoint why—and still to this day she wasn’t able to explain it—but he transformed into someone completely different from the guy she adored. The fun, spontaneous, exciting husband she once had, became cold and distant.

  She wasn’t a demanding wife. She didn’t nag and complain about things, and she was more than happy to do her wifely duties like cooking, cleaning, and whatever Al wanted in the bedroom. Life definitely became easier once her son turned fourteen, however. He suddenly didn’t have a problem helping out around the house. She would arrive home from her real estate secretarial job to find the dishwasher unloaded, the laundry folded, and the grass cut. Jake really was the perfect kid: bright, personable, athletic, and helpful. And as far as she was concerned, she had a perfect husband to match. Life was as good as you could get.

  But then the deep conversations with Al became short and abrupt. The jokes and nonsense that always made her laugh, suddenly ceased to exist. The enjoyable sex just evaporated. It was like creatures from another planet had kidnapped her husband in the cover of darkness, and replaced him with an android programmed to replicate basic human emotions.

  She’d assumed he was having an affair at first. That was the only thing that made sense. For months she snooped around, trying to find out what was happening, but he turned out to be clean. An appointment at his doctor’s office for a checkup came back normal as well. Normal testosterone levels, no medical issues: perfect. She never imagined she would be disappointed to find out that her husband had a clean bill of health, but that was exactly how she felt. At least a problem would’ve given her some kind of answer. What could possibly be causing him to act like this?

  Claire eventually grew to accept it after years of the same old routine. Having Jake in her life definitely made things easier, but she most likely wouldn’t have changed a thing even if their son wasn’t around. She was an easy going girl. Sure, she wasn’t happy and her marriage was about as far from perfect as it could possibly be, but she’d made a few rather important guarantees all those years ago on her wedding day. Remember for better, for worse? What about for richer, for poorer? There was that whole thing about in sickness and health too. Oh yeah, until death do us part carried some weight, didn’t it? Except Al apparently didn’t feel the same way, and he made that perfectly clear three years ago.

  “I’m filing for divorce today.”

  She looked up from her morning coffee with a smile. Maybe his sense of humor was finally coming back. It was about time.

  “Great,” she laughed. “Now I’m finally free to date Johnny Depp.”

  “I’m serious, Claire,” Al told her with an extremely serious look on his face.

  She waited for a crack to appear. A smile. A grin. She would settle for a wink. How about an eyebrow raise? A noise of some kind? Just something to let her know that this was a joke.

  “I don’t want it to be messy,” he said. “I think you should stay in the house with Jake, and I’ll find my own place. The mortgage is paid off so that’s not an issue. We don’t have any debts or major bills, and neither of us are the vindictive type, so I don’t see any reason for fighting. I’ll obviously still help you out with bills and stuff for Jake. We just need to go our separate ways and start over. This isn’t working.”

  “Why?”

  Al shot her a curious glance. “Why what?”

  “Why isn’t this working?” she asked again.

  For years she’d been trying to figure out why their marriage was falling apart, and she still wanted an answer despite how obvious it was that nothing could be done to save it. This was the only life she’d ever known. Unhappiness had just turned into her regular routine at this point. It felt too late to start over.

  Al only stood up and walked away from the table.

  She sank into an immediate depression. It didn’t start when the divorce was finalized, it didn’t begin the first time she dropped Jake off at his father’s new apartment, and it didn’t hit home when she saw Al’s new girlfriend on his Facebook page. It started the moment Al walked away from that oak table they’d shared thousands of meals, laughs, stories, and emotions over. That kitchen table symbolized their life together. It represented their commitment to one another. It embodied their family, and he’d stood up and walked away from it.

  She simply stopped caring about herself. Her work struggled, her body suffered more, but her mind endured the most pain. A constant cloud of exhaustion followed her. Her healthy lifestyle vanished. Even her parental responsibilities such as checking up on Jake’s schoolwork and activities were often forgotten. She felt overwhelmed all the time. Her weight ballooned from one hundred and thirty pounds to one hundred and eighty pounds, but the worst part was that she didn’t care. There wasn’t even a hint of desire to impress anyone.

  The most confusing part of it all was when she saw Al’s new girlfriend. She wasn’t some sexy twenty-two-year-old with a slim waist and D cup breasts. This woman was two years older than herself, significantly less pretty, and possessed love handles Claire never would’ve dreamed of having at the time of her divorce.

  So, if it wasn’t Al’s hormones or mental state, and it clearly wasn’t her own looks, then that left just one thing. It had to be her as a person. Was she that unpleasant to be around? She’d always been under the impression that people enjoyed her company. She was more of a bookworm who’d much rather curl up on the couch with her Kindle than be out socializing at some party, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t up for having a good time. She still liked to go out and have fun, but Al always bitched and complained whenever she wanted to do that. The more she attempted to figure all of this out, the further confused s
he grew, and the deeper she sank into that terrible physical and mental state.

  Two years went by before her son said something. In fact, it was almost one year ago to this very day that he finally spoke up.

  “I can’t see you like this anymore.”

  She was seated across from Jake at their granite kitchen table when she heard those words. She’d ended up ditching the oak table a few months earlier. It was full of too many memories.

  “Can’t see me like what?” she asked, glancing down at the open pizza box on the table between them before looking back to her son.

  “He didn’t deserve you.”

  She wasn’t following. “Deserve me? Who didn’t deserve me? What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

  “Dad,” he clarified himself. “He didn’t deserve you.”

  “Don’t say that about your father,” she lightly scolded him. Jerk or not, Al was still his dad.

  “It’s the truth though,” Jake continued. “You know I love dad, but he really changed toward you for some reason, and I hated it. And part of me was relieved when you told me that you guys were getting divorced. I wanted you to be free from him.”

  This was news to her.

  “But instead of freeing you, it just dug you deeper into some kind of hole,” he voiced. “It doesn’t make sense, Mom.”

  “It’s more than that,” she groaned, her dejected tone showing just how much this was still weighing on her.

  Jake pushed his plate off to the side to give his mother his undivided attention. “Tell me then. You don’t think getting this off your chest might help?”

  Maybe it would help. Four years had passed without her speaking to a soul about what was on her mind; and to be completely honest, she wasn’t even that sad anymore. She was more confused than anything. It was like reading a long novel, only for the author to leave the ending open. Some people looked at that as creativity, but she saw it as laziness. She put the time in, so she wanted some answers, but Al had never given her that necessary closure.