When it comes to relationships, forever doesn’t mean forever. It means until something more exciting comes along.

For twenty years, Marvin promised that the day would come when things would be different. For nineteen of them, I believed him. Convinced that he was going to change, I lived hoping the next sunrise would bring with it a new life. One where I lived with the man of my dreams, not the one I was married to.

But change never came.

My fear of being labeled a failure prevented me from leaving him. Somehow comfortable in the awkward one-sided relationship, I accepted that I’d simply be alone throughout our marriage. That fear was replaced by anger when I found out he’d been cheating on me for two decades.

Humiliated, angry, and scared, I gathered my things and left one day while he was at work.

Although it took time, I became comfortably independent. Confidence followed. I planted flowers. I learned to cook for one. I joined the YMCA. I ran a half marathon. I planted flowers. I developed routines. I cleaned house, repeatedly. I planted flowers. Eventually, I found new friends and developed a new way of enjoying life. And, I planted more flowers.

Yet. I remained single.

Not by choice, either.

A few years passed. Several drunken idiots hit on me, often saying things like, nice tits, or do women your age give head? In my search for a new companion, I found no one who was looking for a true relationship. It seemed when people found out everything there was to find out about me, all they wanted to do was fuck me.

I realized I may never find love. Then, I accepted it as being inevitable. Even though I’d never felt better about myself, I feared I was simply incapable of garnering anyone’s interest in the competitive SoCal singles scene.

Initially, I blamed him for ruining my chances at living a normal life. He promised to cherish me and love me forever, despite what changes may come about in our lives. He took an oath. An oath that he broke repeatedly through dishonesty, infidelity, indifference, violent behavior, and sheer disrespect. I felt that I’d wasted twenty-five years of my life. A quarter of a century of dating and marriage, all for nothing. In the end, I realized it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was just the way life unfolded.

So, I accepted it as being nothing more than a speed bump on my life’s freeway.

Now, after nearly four years, that speed bump was standing on my porch. Dressed in my pajamas and house slippers, I stood in the doorway and stared at him. He had no right to simply show up at my home, and I was prepared to tell him so.

I stepped through the door, gave him an evil glare, and raised my index finger. “I’m going to count to three, and then--”

“And then, what?” he barked.

He stepped off the back side of the porch and looked me over. “You look good, Kim. I miss fucking you.”

“I mean it,” I snapped back, my voice thick with anger. “Get off my property, or I’ll--”

“You’ll what? You gonna scream?” A drunken laugh rumbled from his lungs. “I like it when you scream. Go ahead.”

“I’ll call the police. In case you forgot, you’re under a restraining order. You’re not supposed to be here. Ever.” I huffed out a sigh. “It’s been almost four years. I’m over you. Get over me.”

“You’re not going to call the cops.” He grabbed at his crotch. “You want it and you know it.”

He was an asshole by nature. When he drank, he was a belligerent asshole. He was ten feet away, yet the smell of whiskey leeching from his pores enveloped me like a dense fog. Reasoning with him was going to be impossible. I decided to give my closing remark and return to the comfort of the queen-sized Green Tea mattress I’d purchased immediately following our divorce.

“We haven’t had sex in five years,” I said with a laugh. “I don’t want it. Now, or ever. You’re disgusting.”

Courage was something else that I developed after we parted. I liked my new life, and the new me. Brimming with confidence, I turned and reached for the door.

He grabbed my shoulder and spun me halfway around, almost knocking me down in the process. I swung my arms wildly, hoping to fight him off. His massive size and drunken determination, however, prevented me from succeeding. It seemed his angry hands were everywhere, groping and grabbing places I decided he was no longer entitled entitled to grope and grab.

“Stop it!” I screamed. Blindly, I pounded my fists into his face and neck. “Get off me!”

“I’m going to fuck the shit out of you,” he warned. “You look like you need it.”

If he was going to fuck me, he was going to have to kill me. I decided many years prior that he was never going to touch me again, and I was prepared to fight him like I feared nothing.

One of my wild swings caught him right in the eye. In retaliation, he slammed me against the side of the house, knocking the wind completely out of me. While I sucked a choppy breath, he fumbled to find the door handle. With his attention diverted away from me and one of his hands busy, I attempted to knee him in the balls. My knee slammed against his thigh, instead. A few wild swings of my clenched fists followed, as did several swift kicks toward his groin.

I’d hoped to get him to turn me loose, so I could either run inside or take off down the street. Instead of releasing me, his clenched fist came crashing into my jaw. The force of the blow almost knocked me off my feet. I stumbled across the porch as I tried to keep my footing.

When everything came into focus, his twisted grin was the first thing I saw. The second was the neighbor from down the street leaving on his motorcycle.

Marvin pulled the front door open, laughing at my efforts to fight him off. I took advantage of the opportunity, and leapt from the porch. Flailing my arms and screaming as I ran across the front yard, I made a beeline toward the flickering headlight of the neighbor’s Harley.

“Help me!” I came to a stop directly in front of the motorcycle’s path. “He’s trying to rape me!”

The motorcycle swerved to miss me and came to a screeching stop at my side. The rider cut off the engine. Through his clear-lensed glasses, he looked at me with anger in his eyes.

“What the fuck?” He unbuckled the strap on his helmet. “I almost hit you.”

He wasn’t my neighbor, nor was he familiar. I didn’t care. He was willing to listen, and that was all that mattered.

“He’s…” I heaved to catch my breath and pointed toward my house. “He’s trying to…rape me.”

Before I had an opportunity to explain further, the biker was half the distance to my porch, chasing after my stupid ex, who was running toward his Mercedes-Benz.

The biker tackled Marvin as if he were stopping him from scoring the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Filled with confidence that the stranger would keep my asshole ex from attacking me again, I walked toward the two men. By the time I got there, Marvin was flat on his back, and the biker was sitting on his chest.

I leaned over them. “Who’s getting fucked now, asshole?” I asked in a sarcastic tone. “Not me.”

“She’s my wife,” Marvin lied. “I was just…”

“We’re not married, you liar,” I bellowed. “We haven’t been for almost four years.”

With his knees against Marvin’s arms and his hands holding his wrists, the biker looked up at me. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“She’s out of her fucking mind,” Marvin said. “I’ll tell you what’s going on--”

“Shut the fuck up,” the biker demanded. “Nobody’s talking to you.”

“We divorced almost four years ago,” I shouted. “I’ve got a restraining order against him! I haven’t seen him in eighteen months, and he showed up tonight and said he was going to fuck me. When I said no, he did this.” I touched the tip of my index finger against my swollen cheek.

The biker studied me. Upon seeing the damage that Marvin had done to my face, his expression changed from concern to rage. Without saying a word, he removed his helmet, tossed it aside, and then yanked Marvin to his feet.

“You hit her?” he asked through clenched teeth.

During my marriage, I was convinced that men didn’t exist who were bigger than he was. The biker stood as proof that I was wrong. He towered over Marvin’s six-foot-two frame like a bearded giant.

Marvin looked at me, scoffed, and then looked at the biker. “Sometimes, women need it. She needed it.”

It wasn’t the answer the biker had hoped for.

His fist plowed into Marvin’s face. A flurry of punches from the biker followed – each of which caused Marvin to crumble closer to the ground. After the last swing – a wild right hand that came crashing against Marvin’s jaw with a crack, his legs gave out, and he fell against his beloved car.

Then, without throwing a punch or saying a word, Marvin slumped into a pile at the biker’s feet. The lop-sided fight took fifteen seconds, if that.

Marvin covered his bloody face with his hands and moaned.

There’s not a victim of abuse that doesn’t wish she’d be given an opportunity to kick her attacker in the balls without fear of repercussion. If given a chance, any woman would jump at the occasion.

So, that’s what I did. I jumped. On Marvin’s nuts, that is.

With all my might, I stomped my heel into Marvin’s overly active male anatomy. The air shot from his lungs with a grunt, and his body wadded into the fetal position.

“Damn.” The biker looked at me. His mouth twisted into a smirk. “That was cruel.”

I wasn’t cruel, Marvin was cruel. After we divorced, he’d often stop by and threaten to burn down my house or kill my cat. My house was never touched, but one day my cat disappeared. I despised him. I wished he would be hit by a passing truck while changing his tire on the Five.

A recurring daydream of bits and pieces of his body being strewn along the freeway from Los Angeles to San Diego brought an odd sense of comfort when it came to mind.

His leg in Costa Mesa for fucking the tattooed skank of a bartender at Twin Peaks. An arm in San Clemente for repeatedly dipping his dick in the anorexic receptionist at his office. His head in Oceanside for the fling with the nineteen-year-old Vietnamese girl who believed his promise of getting her legal citizenship.

He didn’t have enough body parts – nor were there enough cities along the interstate to toss them – for all the fucked-up shit he made me endure.

“Cruel?” I folded my arms over my chest. “You don’t know him like I know him. What he did tonight was nothing compared to what he’s done to me for years.”

His face went stern. “He’s done this before?”

“In so many ways that I lost count many years ago.”

He brushed his hair out of his eyes, removed his glasses, and studied me. An untrimmed beard covered his face, giving him a rugged don’t fuck with me appearance.

I looked him over. He was tall and built like an athlete. A black tee shirt clung tightly to his broad chest, and tattered jeans covered his long legs. A pair of lace-up leather boots finished off the biker ensemble perfectly. He looked mean, but if I’d learned anything in my forty-four years, it was that a person’s looks were no indication of who they were on the inside.

Marvin groaned, and attempted to stand.

Without shifting his eyes away from me, the biker swung the toe of his boot into Marvin’s crotch. The impact wadded him into a tight ball, ending any chance of him getting up for a long, long time.

My rescuer undressed me with his eyes, and eventually met my gaze.

“Cash,” he said dryly.

I coughed out disbelief and gave him an I can’t fucking believe you look. “You want me to pay you?”

“No.” He chuckled. “My name’s Cash.”

Marvin remained incapacitated, moaning his displeasure into the warm night air. I studied the biker. His rough looks, disheveled appearance, and bloody knuckles convinced me that in his presence, I would be safe.

“Kimberly.” I shook his hand. “Kimberly Welch. Thank you for helping me.”

He eyed me up and down. After pausing at my boobs for a moment, he looked me in the eyes and grinned.

“I like your pussy,” he said flatly.

My face flashed hot. My lips parted, and although my mind wanted me to respond, my mouth had gone completely dry. Saying anything wasn’t going to come easily.

I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth and swallowed hard. “Huh?”

His eyes dropped to my hardening nipples. “Nice pussy.”

I glanced down, and then quickly realized what he was talking about. There was a cartoonish cat plastered across the chest of my pajama shirt. He didn’t like my pussy at all, he was simply making fun of my late-night attire. Despite the awkwardness of having my ex-husband moaning in pain at my feet I imagined riding away on the back of his bike and never looking back.

It was nice to dream, if even just for a moment.

I squeezed my biceps against the edge of my boobs, feigned a chill, and gave a quick curtsey. “Thank you.”

The sound of police sirens wailed in the distance. He cocked his head to the side. One side of his mouth curled into a grin. Then, he winked playfully.

I gestured behind me. “Sounds like someone called the cops.”

He looked me over but didn’t budge from where he was standing. “If I had any common sense, I’d leave,” he said dryly.

I glanced at Marvin, and then met the biker’s gaze. “But you’re going to stay?”

He took another look at my pussy and grinned. “Yep.”