Catching up with Jennifer

Scott got out of the car. “Hi Jenn, it’s been too long.”

“Yes, yes it has.”

As Mrs. Carter pulled away, Jenn walked over to Scott and gave him a big hug.

“I’m sorry for the silence Jenn, I . . .”

She interrupted him by punching his arm.

“Ow,” he said, stepping back.

“Come here and let me punch you again.”

“No! Why?”

“Because you deserve it, for disappearing on me.”

“But that really hurt.”

“Exactly.”

He looked at Jenn, he could see she was angry.

“Okay, I deserve it.” He stepped forward and winced expectingly.

This time the hit was weak, and followed by a hug.

“I’m sorry Jenn.”

“Wait, are you crying?” She had pressed her face into his shirt and he could feel it was wet.

“Shut up jerk.” She punched him again, but didn’t let go of him.

Scott put his arms around her.

“I missed you; I wrote but you never replied. I had my dad call people to make sure we’d find out if you died or were hurt, but we never heard anything.”

Scott felt horrible. He had really hurt Jenn, one of his closest friends.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m getting grease on your shirt.”

“Good thing I wore a black shirt.”

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“I’m sorry for making you worry.”

“You keep apologizing.” She said, with a little laugh.

“Is that Scott?” Boomed the voice of Jenn’s father.

“Mr. Buzek!” Scott yelled back.

“That’s my father’s name Scott.”

“Sorry Bob, it’s good to see you.”

Jenn used the distraction to escape, she never let anyone see her cry, even though the wet patch on Scott’s shirt gave her away.

Scott walked over to see his old boss.

“Look at you Scott, you finally put some muscle on you.” Bob clapped him on his shoulder, it didn’t feel as hard as it used to.

“Are you back for real or just visiting?”

“I discharged, so I’m home.”

“Well, if you need work we could use some help, you’d have to talk to Jenn though, she runs the garage now.”

“Wow, when I left, she was still trying to convince you to let her help in the garage and now she runs it?”

“She was always good with engines; I just didn’t like her working with the guys. But she keeps them in line, and she runs it tighter than I ever did.”

“I’ll talk to her; I’d love to get back to fixing bikes after all the trucks and officer’s cars I’ve been doing.”

“Jenn, Scott’s available to work, you still have an opening?”

“You sure you want to work for me Scott? I won’t take it easy on you.”

“I just got out of the Army Jenn, I handled drill sergeants just fine, I think I’ll be okay.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Mr. Buzek laughed. “Now you’re in for it Scott.”

“I’ve got a job to finish up, if you want to talk come out to the shop.”

“Wait, are you going to violate safety procedures and let a non-employee in the garage?”

“I’m giving a presumptive employee a tour of his work space Dad.”

“Oh, okay, sure." Bob gave Scott another pat on the shoulder and turned to go back inside. "Be careful in there Scott.”

“Go bullshit with your friends and leave my employee alone, Bob.”

“Well, looks like I have a job.” Scott thought to himself. He followed Jenn out to the garage. She was wearing her coveralls, but she still looked good. The few times Jenn really cleaned up she had been stunning, but Scott always thought she looked really pretty when she was working. It just felt right, and she was always happy.

The garage was cleaner than he remembered, and everything was organized and put away.

“Wow, it doesn’t look at all like I remember.” He said.

“Yeah, I couldn’t handle the mess dad always had in here, so I cleaned it up. He didn’t like it so he moved out to the store.”

Scott laughed, Jenn’s dad was tough, but when Jenn set her mind to something, it was best to just get out of the way.

Jenn was reassembling a bike, a Gold Wing, looked like the early 2000s model. He moved to the other side so he could talk to her without staring at her ass.

“So Scott, what happened after you enlisted? Why couldn’t you get in touch?”

“I. . . I got married.”

He heard the clang of something metal hitting the floor and Jenn stood up, staring at him.

“You’re married?”

“I was.”

“Divorced?”

“Yep, two weeks ago.”

“Damn, and here I thought you came back because you missed us.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t come back before now, I was so caught up in my life there.”

Jenn looked at him with a very serious face. “Do you have kids?”

“No, thank God Amanda refused. I wanted them, I was ready to start a family and live that white picket fence dream. I was such an idiot.”

“So who was she?”

“Name was Amanda, I met her in a bar during training in Virginia. Hit it off really well, got married 6 months in.”

“Wow, Scott, you must have really hit it off, the Scott I remember would agonize for months over just talking to a girl.”

“With Amanda it was easy. Looking back now it’s pretty clear that she was the dominant ****, I just let her talk, let her take the lead.”

“And that worked for you?”

“She was a lot of fun, she was smoking hot and the sex. . . she taught me a lot, and frankly, I was eager to learn.”

“It’s not like you were a virgin, Scott.”

“I had clumsy teenage sex, Amanda was. . . well. . . demanding. But she was willing to teach me. I think she really enjoyed being in charge, and I loved learning how to make her. . . learning how to be better at it, you know, made me feel powerful.”

There was awkward silence.

“I’m sorry, that was a serious TMI violation.”

“No Scott, it’s fine, I want to know what was going on in your life.” She didn’t sound fine. “So what went wrong?”

“When I went to Korea her Dad was sick and she stayed home to take care of him. Only he was back in Virginia, and she stayed in Texas, where I had been stationed.”

“She found somebody else?”

“No, she found everybody else.”

“Damn.”

“She was honest about it, told me she couldn’t go without sex for so long, wanted to open up our relationship just until we could be together again. But she wouldn’t come overseas. Kept making excuses, putting it off.”

“So you divorced her.”

“No. I didn’t. It gets worse.”

“It gets worse?”

“I would come back on leave and she would slip out at night to meet other guys, come home and try to get me to fuck her with other guys stuff still in her. She wanted to ‘explore’ her sexual desires and I was holding her back.”

Jen just shook her head.

“So I stopped coming home as much, started fucking around on base, but it felt awful, I hated cheating on her, even if I had permission, even if we were supposed to be in an open relationship, it just felt wrong, so I stopped and just focused on work, saved time, I wanted to get my discharge, come home and make things right, give her the attention and time I did before we were split up.”

“Oh God Scott, really?”

“Hold the judgement please, I need to get the rest out.” He took a breath.

“I saved up a ton of leave, hit the cash out max so I’d have money to get us started, came home to visit and try to fix things. She knew when I’d be home, and I walked in on her with two guys.”

“Fuck.”

“I stood there, crying like a fucking dipshit watching two guys nail my wife.”

“What did she say?”

“She wanted me to watch, tell her what it felt like, she thought I would enjoy watching her get fucked by other men.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“That’s when I left. I stayed with this guy I knew for a few days, got the divorce papers drawn up, tried to drink enough to kill myself but I lived, so I went back to Korea.”

Jenn had stopped working and was just staring at him with her concerned face.

“A few weeks later I decided to cash out half of my time and use the rest to leave early. The divorce had gone through, I was done, so I came back.” Scott leaned back, it felt good to get all of that off his chest, felt therapeutic.

Jenn got up, walked around the bike and hugged him.