Doesn't Know What She is Missing

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There were some things that he loved about having his own place; No conversation being made just for the sake of conversation, no kitchy art in the kitchen that said "Live, Laugh, Love", and the whole house didn't smell like some damn candle warmer. There was no one nagging him if he had a crappy day at work and just wanted to sit and play some games xbox. It just made life a hell of a lot simpler

He threw a frozen pizza in the oven. The Digiorno's box didn't quite look as appealing to him as it had a few weeks back. You could only go through the flavors so many times, but for five bucks. When he had been with Lisa, they hardly ever had pizza. He wished they would have had pizza and beer more, but she was always saving for something. Instead she would make something she read about in some magazine about frugality that tasted a little too nutritious. Always a vegetable on the side. If she hadn't been such a minx in bed he would have said that she was the most boring person on the planet. Just wanted to talk about the future, and college and family.

He smiled to himself. When push came to shove, the service he really wanted to keep her around for made her more of a high priced slut than a he used to think. He could get the same from his hand without dealing with all of her shit, and there were plenty of women hotter than her and more willing than her on the internet on some free porn site. As a bonus they didn't nag the hell out of him.

He was still a little surprised that he was thinking about her. Life didn't get much better than it was right now. He had plenty of free time and plenty of free money. Flirting with the women at the office was no longer forbidden, not that really stopped him before. It rarely went too far, even when he was still with her. His craft had slipped a bit while he was stuck in the relationship, but a few months would get him back. The ball and chain had held him down for too long. The air smelled like the smell of a bachelor, like the smell of freedom. He thought back to the night when he found out who she really was.

**********

He still remembered the shocked look on her face when he broke the door in at the apartment. Her jaw was almost on the floor. He had known something was up. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that. He was out having some fun with some friends after work. She was too damn cheap to go out and have a beer, and he knew that was how you made it up in the world. You couldn't just wait for connections to come to you, you had to go out and find them, and happy hour with the office was the way to do it. The office ladies getting a bit tipsy didn't hurt much either. She had called him a of times early that evening, asking him to come home, but he could barely hear her. The phone just buzzed after that when she called. He knew how damn rude it was to be picking up phone calls when you are trying to build a relationship, and he wasn't going to screw up a chance with his boss.

His manager, Jack, really knew what he was doing in life. He was always flirting with some new beauty at the bar, and he had taken more than one for a roll in the back of his Mercedes. "And you should see the car rock and roll." His boss said with a wink. Jack had been stuck with an anchor of a wife as well. They had a house out in the suburbs, so there kids could run around and have decent schools. After Jack dropped his old lady, all the sudden, all Jack needed was an apartment. All the sudden he had all the time to do what he wanted, including work extra to get ahead. Even with the Alimony and child support, he always had enough to buy a girl a drink, or maybe three- Whatever it took to start droppin' those panties.

Jack could drop in for his kid's games, so he was neglecting that either. Jack seemed to have it all figured out.

Ben sure as hell wasn't leaving the guy who was getting ahead to go home to a girlfriend that seemed more concerned about falling behind. If you are in sales, you have to be learning form the winners.

She had been sitting in the front room of their apartment when he walked in at 9, wearing a little black dress, with that stunned look on her face. He knew the reason a second later when he rounded the corner. The neighbor sitting on a chair popped into view. He was a little weaselly runt, one of those guys that knows too much for their own good. Gene smiled as he looked up, looking all happy until he realized the trouble he was in from the look on Ben's face. It didn't take a damn genius to know that that anybody sitting with someone else's girlfriend at night had something coming, and Ben was more than happy to deliver. Ben had to admit, he don't look as good as he did in high school, but despite the ninjas people are always telling you about, weight matters. The guy that played running back like won't having much trouble beating the hell out of the guy that was the captain of the Math Squad.

The runt barely got up to his feet before he was back in the chair. The fist of a 240 pound man will do that when it hits the face of a 160 pounder. Gene's face made a popping sound as Ben hit him. There is only one way to deal with someone disrespecting you in your own home, and it isn't gentle. Little shits like him got uppity when they went off to college, but a hammer to the face would set them straight.

Lisa threw herself between them, screaming at him. Ben still couldn't believe the gall of his own girlfriend. She knew she was caught, and the first thing she did was take the bastards side. Ben didn't like it, but he knew what you do with women that won't stand behind their man. If he let her get away with disrespect, she would think she ran the place, that she could run all over him. The room reverberated with the sound of his slap, and her body twisted as she fell over the back of the couch. By this time, Gene thought he could actually fight back. What kind of pussy name was Eugene anyway? Gene shouted and charge in, but it was clear that Gene had never hit anything but the books. Ben's fist sunk into Gene's gut, and then Ben dropped him with a punch to the side of the head. That kind of punch would take a little longer get up from. Ben strode around the side and kicked Gene in the gut. Then burning started. His whole face lit on fire. The fire filled his lungs. He hacked and coughed, his body trying to reject the pepper spray, the phlegm filling his throat and almost making him vomit. All he could think of was the fire in his nose and eyes, and the feeling of mucus streaming out of his nose and mouth onto the floor as his body tried to fight the burning.

He did hear the others in the room, coughing and sputtering. He even seemed to remember Lisa kicking him once as she walked past to put a fan in the window. That sorry bitch never knew when to quit. He wanted to show her, but he couldn't even open his eyes. He could his wife and some other women mothering over Gene, but they just left him on the floor.

When Ben heard the cops show up, he knew where he was going. He had spent one night in the slammer before on a drunk and disorderly when someone had picked a fight with him.

It was about as he remembered, only this time had a little extra spice. He looked at the wall, and wondered what the hell he had done to deserve this. The decor in the room did little to help the mood. The stark white walls were nicely decorated by profanity that had carved in by people carving poems purely of profanity. They really didn't rhyme either.

What the hell am I doing here, he thought. He always tried to be a good buy, but Lisa seemed to have no interest in helping him along. He tried to keep their relationship fun and light. She was such a downer all the time. She didn't know how to live in the moment, she was always pointing to the future. She would ride him about every damn mistake he made. Everybody loses a bit now and then, and people should be a bit understanding.

Laying on the cold floor, he thought about when they got together. He was in the middle of senior year when her family moved into town. Some bitch had just dumped him because she thought he had been fooling around a bit. Maybe he had, but kissing doesn't really count. Clothes were mostly on the whole time. Anyway, he saw her dancing and she knew how to move it. Thinking about watching that ass swivel back and forth still made him hard. When a woman moves like that, it ain't hard for her to give a guy the ride of his lifetime. It wasn't until a couple months into chasing her that he found out what a damn prude she was. It took 6 months were of pushing before he got to finally push. Turns out she was a virgin. She was such a prude that she wasn't even on birth control. She was pissed when she found out he stretched the truth a bit about using a condom that first time, especially when she was a little late. It did get her to move in with him, but her period started back up a bit later. By then she was on the pill, and he was still turning up the old Ben Graham charm.

She wasn't that good in the sack at first, but he trained her up. Porno is good for something other than jerking off to. She did have the body to make it work, and she aimed to please. The thought of that made him even more angry. He taught her all that and she still left him in here to rot.

It was because of her pushing that he got his first job after high school in sales at the dealership. Turns out he had an in. With his dad's natural salesmanship and charm grafted into his genes, he knew he would be killing it at sales. He did pretty good, and had plenty of money for rent. With an apartment, it was a lot easier to get Lisa to move in so they wouldn't have to sneak around. The other nice thing was that if he had an off week, his dad spotted him the money during a couple of slow weeks. It was not to long till his dad showed his cheapskate genes and cut that off. His dad was so cheap that his first car had been a year old, and it was just a 4 Runner. One of his buddies got a Mercedes. He realized that he had been surrounded by people that didn't realize what they had in him. The insurance company he had moved to because his dad refused to give him a raise wouldn't show up either. They just didn't' know how to appreciate him, any of them. The more he thought about it the angrier he became.

It was morning before his dad finally showed up to post bail after the hearing. Ben didn't even talk to him, he was so pissed about being left in overnight.

He prepared as he walked up to the door. If she would confess, give him a blowjob, and go for anal he might consider forgiving her. Maybe. Maybe he could get her and one of her friends to go for a threesome. She didn't' reply to his shout through the door. Her side of the closet was bare white walls.

Then he found the letter on the kitchen counter addressed to him.

**********

He was glad he was rid of her when he thought back to the letter. Full of lies and half-truths, it was hardly worth reading. She expected him to believe that the Gene and his girlfriend had come over for the evening, and they were waiting for him to come home. It's amazing how some people will always turn it around and try to make it the other person's fault. His parents even bought off on it, and tried to convince him it was his fault and he should try to beg his way back to her. He thought about begging once, but she wouldn't accept his calls.

The smell of a pizza aggressively crisping in the oven snapped him out of his reverie. Even burnt, it wasn't half bad, especially with the Popov vodka mixed with some orange juice washing it down. Call of duty was exciting, just like every night. He didn't need the old broad anyway.

All the same, as he finally drifted off to sleep, he wondered what it would be like to hold in his arms as he went to sleep. He thought about gently squeezing her breasts, and about gliding his hands softly along her thighs as they slipped off to sleep. He could almost still feel the shudder of her body as he lightly teased her before they turned over and both drifted off to sleep. He opened his eyes and just saw the blue rumpled sheets, turned gray by the night, and smelled the bedding that had gone a couple of weeks to long without washing.

He hoped she would finally ask hi forgiveness and come back. He wished she would just get over herself and realize that they had something good. He did like his freedom, but he would be willing to sacrifice it for her.

It had been six months since she left. She had apparently gone off to some college. He thought of some college boys trying to read poetry, fopping around like a bunch of weak-spined French aristocrats with lace at their throat. She'd ache for a real man sometime. He knew he would catch his break, He just had to hang on a bit longer, and people would realize what they were missing when he wasn't there. She would realize it. He just knew it.

Postscript.

I know that Lisa wasn't actually Ben's wife. She during the first half of typing this out, but by the end I had to change it. There is no way she would have stuck around for him long enough to be married. On the other hand this seemed like the closest match.

This is my first effort, and I do appreciate constructive criticism. We all have to start from somewhere.