We were sitting under a tree outside our high school, skipping science class, a ways away from the building on the far side of the thick trunk of a big weeping willow. No one would see us unless they were close. I was looking forward to trying to get to second base with my lab partner. I was pretty smitten with her, like Charlie Brown and his little girl with the red hair.
“On a dare, yeah, but a double dare? A kiss is way too tame for a double dare,” I told her, “Can’t you do better than that?”
“Depends where that kiss is,” answered a female voice coming from the other side of the tree trunk.
As soon as I saw the source of that voice the redheaded girl in the grass beside me no longer existed. No other girl in the world existed but the tall brunette with the leather jacket and huge tits smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke into rings. She was the only girl for me for the next 6 years. And what she did to me ruined me for the following three.
Debbie was a rocker chick. Her style consisted of heavy black eye make-up, tight jeans, fuck-me heels, plenty of leather and body-hugging spandex, long nails --- talons, really.
That day we met was her first day at my high school and she and I were inseparable throughout the rest of it. She was wild, she had an insatiable sex drive, she was crazy about me, and the family I was from didn’t bother her a bit. In fact, she thought it was a thrill that my family appeared to toe the line between good and evil. She loved to suck my cock, had no sexual inhibitions whatsoever, and she kept me on my toes. She wasn’t my first lay, I was a pretty busy 16 year old
when I met her, but she changed the game for me. Back then I thought she was it for me.
On her 20th birthday I gave her an engagement ring. It was logical. We had a great time together. In hindsight there were things missing, things she didn’t give me, but I was young and in love with her spirit and the sex was incredible.
We split when we were 22, four months before the wedding when I caught her on her knees giving head to the goof hired to DJ our wedding reception.
When I walked into her place in the middle of the afternoon unannounced and found Debbie on her knees, I saw black. I got a lock on my rage with her but the guy whose dick was in her mouth wasn’t so lucky because he took the brunt. I hospitalized the guy, broken jaw among his injuries, and then I destroyed his life.
I had his and his father’s classic car that they rebuilt together crunched at a scrap yard and then returned to his driveway, got him fired from his day job, had all his DJ equipment destroyed, trashed his place, and then took steps that wound up bankrupting his father’s business. You could say when I got pissed it meant blowback.
A few times in the first year after Deb and I split I fucked with the guy just because. I didn’t want him to think it was over. I wanted him to keep lookin’ over his shoulder. Based on the shit I pulled he was probably still looking over his shoulder three years later. Yeah, I’d pretty much Greg O’Connor’d the guy.
I wasn’t proud of what I did to the guy’s father now and learning about my father’s tendencies in the revenge department had me analyzing some of what I’d done to get back at people who pissed me off but back then? All I saw was black. He knew she was mine. He knew who I was. He had a pretty good clue who my family was. He was a fuckin’ moron for crossing me.
She saw the error of her ways, so she said, but she no longer existed to me. She yelled, she slapped me, she threw things, then she begged and pleaded, tried to use sex to get me back, stalked me for weeks, sneaking into my bed, showing up where she knew I’d be. She no longer existed to me; just white noise. Women in general became white noise, unless I had to have a minor and shallow conversation with them in order to get laid. I had no trouble finding hook-ups.
Present time:
Fast forward to today, after watching my brother marry a beautiful girl who was perfect for him I was thinkin’ it might be time to settle down, look for someone compatible.
Revenge didn’t help me get over what Deb did. Splitting with her was the genesis of what my sister Luciana dubbed the “Man Whore Years” for me. I was cold for a long time. The next few years I got my rocks off in nightclub bathrooms and alleys or motel rooms and sometimes my place with nameless, faceless chicks. I was always focused, driven, but during the Man Whore Years I was focused and driven with a big chip on my shoulder and no desire to trust a female that wasn’t a member of my family.
Then one day my Pop says that he’s arranged for my older brother to get hitched. Yeah, it sounds prehistoric but my brother wasn’t gonna do things the traditional way and Tommy getting married was a piece of the puzzle in whatever sinister plot Pop had cookin’ so Pop said he had to get creative because to him he couldn’t hand the business over unless my brother showed he had settled down. A wife and preferably a wife with a bun in the oven said that to my father and his business associates. He wanted Tommy hitched so that he could move on and do other things while Tommy took over as president of the company with me as VP.
Tommy was practically doing all the heavy lifting at that point anyway but Pop dangled the business like a carrot, knowing what buttons to push with my brother. Pop was always makin’ us jump over hurdles, both of us. My brother laid eyes on the girl chosen for him and he was interested. More than interested. It didn’t take long for him to do a one hundred and eighty degree turn. It was astounding to watch.
Up until that point I’d never seen my brother in a relationship. He showed up stag to family events, business occasions, never brought women around. He had a rep for being a womanizer and he and I are tight, I knew he got action, women liked how he looked so he barely had to snap his fingers to get laid, but I knew he wasn’t interested in settling down. After Debbie I probably modeled my approach to women after my older brother. Fuck ‘em then chuck ‘em.
He was all about power and had a single-minded focus to get to the top of his game in our business, to be someone no one questioned deserved to be in Pop’s chair. His love life was something that wasn’t discussed much but he had a rep as a prick who liked it rough. More than a few women who were interested in sinking their claws into him got knocked back or scared off. They didn’t kiss and tell outright because they knew better but there were hushed whispers about Tommy’s tendencies, especially after a neighbor’s cousin who’d moved to town turned tail and left town after one date with my brother, rumor having it that she pursued him relentlessly until he finally gave her a shot. She learned her lesson. She had bruises around her wrists, ankles, and throat and left town the day after their hook-up. There were a few other stories like that about Tommy but not much was said. People knew better than to gossip about him. If it got back to him, there’d be hell to pay.
This flesh payment my father took, Tia…she’s a real looker, a knockout. And sweet. She worships my brother. He’s a lucky fucker. My brother was turned inside out over her. His whole focus, reason for what he did, his motivations … all changed. As I watched their love story play out I frequently thought about the fact that by that point I should’ve been married to Debbie a few years. She and I should’ve been thinkin’ about kids.
Debbie really wasn’t the maternal type and I guess I hadn’t really thought that through when I proposed because I wanted kids. After we split I found out she had an abortion and never told me. It shook me. If I’d married her, maybe she’d never have given me kids. Maybe she would’ve kept aborting them. Or maybe she’d have had kids but maybe I’d be raising kids that weren’t even mine. Before the “man whore” years I wanted a wife who’d drive a soccer mom Hummer (No woman of mine would ever be forced to drive a minivan) and fill it with enough sons to make up a soccer team.
I wanted daughters, too, to spoil. I wanted my woman to drive our boys to soccer and our girls to ballet and to do that while wearing lace and garters underneath her clothes for me because she was still a wildcat for me. I was foolish to think Debbie would grow up and mature into something maternal, traditional. She never promised me the picket fence, never promised to grow old together. I just figured it was a natural progression. I pushed the signs she wasn’t the one away until I was forced to face them when I saw her on her knees deep-throating that fucking goof.
I was Dario Ferrano, respected in my field of work. I was a member of an influential family with ties to organized crime but the appearance of loose ties and not a small amount of mystery so I was revered and feared. But I wanted the traditional sort of family that the Ferranos were not. I wanted someone I could have a real connection with.
I’d seen a little of what I’d wanted with my grandparents, my maternal grandparents. My ma grew up in a stable and loving home and when I spent time with her for two weeks every summer I saw that. She picked the wrong man to have kids with and that choice had far-reaching impact. I didn’t wanna make that same mistake.
Anyway, too bad I fell for a non-traditional girl. After I caught her it came to light that she’d cheated plenty. She was wild, willing to try anything in the bedroom, always bringing new ideas of ways to get us off. After we split I knew why. She’d been doing more than her fair share of wild oat sowing.
My father was married four times, widowed twice. He was in his early 50’s when he died. My Pop had not only been married 4 times but he also had a long string of girlfriends and mistresses in between and often at the same time and our upbringing was anything but traditional.
Rarely saw my Ma, and when I did she was timid, broken. My Ma’s parents lived in Iceland and they were amazing. If I’d have grown up there I’m sure I’d be a very different man.
&nbs