Paul

I took a step back from the conveyor belt and rubbed my hands together. The threat of carpal tunnel syndrome was very real and I could already feel the foretelling effects that years of this type of work could do to someone. I really hoped I was not working at the factory long enough for that to ever be a real concern with me.

I’d been back at the factory for just two days and it already was getting to me a bit. The time off had been great. I’d spent a lot of time writing and my novel was really starting to take off. I woke up each morning ready to get to it and continue writing, watching the words flow out of my mind onto the paper, the click-clacking of the electric typewriter I used, and the mountain of pages that piled up a little higher each day. I loved it. It was true that I had many passions in my life, but I truly felt that writing was my one, true calling.

I was lucky to have found it at such an early age. It had gotten me through a lot of tough times in my life and no doubt it would again.

I was just getting back to work when the lunch bell rang. The conveyor belt stopped in its tracks and everyone started walking towards the large, employee lounge.

I let out a sigh and took off my gloves, sitting them down at my small work space.

There was something nice and normal about the routine of having a day job, especially one I didn’t particularly like. It did keep me motivated to keep working towards my goal of being a published novelist and it helped get me out of the house. Being cooped up inside all day alone, even if I was writing, did start to get me wound up and a little stir crazy after a while.

It was good being out around people during the day.

I grabbed my lunch from the fridge and sat down in my usual spot to eat my bologna sandwiches I’d packed. Debbie kept warning me that bologna was basically poison, but it was good. Cheap and good. And very versatile. What more could you ask out of highly processed meat product?

“Hey, Paul! Great to have you back!”

A familiar voice shouted a few seconds before Al Dennings sat down across from me. Al was a good guy I’d met my first day at the factory. He’d been with the place over ten years and had worked in several different areas. He was a wealth of information, especially about the politics that went on in such a job. I couldn’t believe that there was as much weird drama in a factory like this one as there was, but once he started pointing things out to me I started seeing it. Al knew enough and was skilled enough he probably could have been my boss at this point, but he said it was safer flying under the radar. There was more longevity and much less crap you actually had to deal with behind the scenes. No, he wouldn’t be the boss for twice his salary.

“Thanks, man,” I said.  “How’s the family?”

“Good,” he replied. “Berta and the kids are all doing great. Our oldest is excited about graduating in the fall and has just been accepted to Notre Dame next year. We are all thrilled.”

“Wow, that’s fantastic,” I said.

“Yeah, that was where I always wanted to go to school, but life got in the way,” he said.

I nodded and smiled. I remembered him telling me that he and his wife were high school sweethearts and Berta had been pregnant with their first child right after they graduated, promptly putting an end to Al’s college dreams. He could have made it work and still gone to school, but Al decided that he just wanted to put those dreams on hold.

And I guess they still were.

“So, why did you come back to this place?” Al joked.

“You probably ask yourself that question every day, right?” I retorted.

Al grinned.

“So, are you feeling better after that string of bad luck you had? I heard about that crazy stuff in the tournament and that psycho ex-girlfriend of yours. That’s pretty wild.”

“Yeah, things are definitely getting back to normal,” I said. “That’s probably why I came back. I just wanted everything to go back to being the way it was. That’s the best way to prepare to move forward.”

“Good luck moving forward from this place,” Kyle Marks said sitting down beside us. “There is no movement here.”

“You guys are both so positive,” I said. “I always feel so motivated after I talk to you.”

“Then we’ve done our job,” Kyle said unpacking his brown bag lunch.

“Well, what else would you be doing if you weren’t here all day being such a productive citizen?”

“I always thought about being a male stripper,” Kyle said. “I used to be in much better shape before I hurt my back and had to stop lifting weights.”

I looked at him for a second to determine if he was actually serious. He was.

“Why would you want to do that?” I asked seriously. “Being naked in front of strangers? I mean, it’s not the glamorous life television and internet articles make it out to be. Think about it, you have to get naked for women, many of whom may not even be attractive. And you can’t touch them or do anything anyway. I really doubt very little actual sex goes on in those places.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Kyle said. He pulled out his phone just then. “Here, check out these pictures.”

Wow, he really had pictures?

Kyle pulled up a Facebook page of some male strip club and began scrolling through pictures of guys in various stages of undress.

Finally, he settled on a few photos that showed some male exotic dancers practically naked dancing and gyrating with several of the female patrons. I had to admit I was a bit surprised that they actually took things that far. As he continued to scroll from picture to picture I began to get the idea that a lot more went on in places like these than most people might have thought. I mean, as far as I knew prostitution was illegal almost everywhere in the United States, except some places in Nevada, but I think there were certain guidelines there. I was very shocked to see how intimate these women were being with the dancers.

“That’s insane,” I said.

“Yeah, but it looks like fun. If only the cards had fallen differently for me…” Kyle said.

Both Al and I started laughing. Neither one of us ever thought that Kyle could have been half as good looking as any of these guys, ever. He was a good guy, but he had bad skin, his hair looked a bit like a wet mop all the time, and he was about the scrawniest guy I’d ever seen. He couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred thirty pounds soaking wet with heavy boots on.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Kyle said. “Laugh it up.”

He was still scrolling through his pictures living out his fantasies of possibly being an exotic dancer and getting to be groped nightly by a lot of strange women.

I was just taking a bite of my sandwich when I happened to glance down. I swear my heart stopped beating in my chest for several seconds as my entire world came to a crashing halt.

There was no way I was seeing this.

“Wait!” I gasped as Kyle continued to scroll through the images.

He looked at me strangely but stopped on the image I was looking at.

There was no doubt about it. It was real.

It was Debbie.

She, Lara, and her cousin Cindy were sitting around a small table where an almost naked man was grinding on her, his cock practically rubbing on her body. From the picture she seemed to be enjoying herself, or at least Lara and Cindy were laughing their heads off egging her on.

But there it was clear as day.

The date on the picture showed it was about a week ago. It must have happened the night the three of them went out together. What else happened after that picture was taken? Was there more I didn’t know? If I asked Debbie would she tell me the truth? Would I believe her?

So many thoughts began racing through my head. I felt a bit dizzy. I felt sick to my stomach. I definitely did not have an appetite anymore. I needed to talk to Debbie and find out what really happened.

Would she ever… cheat on me?

Surely not. I knew her. I loved her. She loved me, right? I knew she did. I felt it, the love we shared.

There was no way she would do this. It had to be a mistake. It wasn’t what it looked like.

“Hey, you ok, man?” Kyle asked.

I didn’t respond. I felt like the entire room was spinning around me and I might pass out any second.

I had to get a grip and stay calm. Freaking out was not going to solve anything. I didn’t have all the facts yet. There was no use going nuts over something I didn’t know.

I had to speak to Debbie though.

The rest of the day was a blur, but somehow it dragged on forever. I couldn’t wait to get off work so I could confront Debbie about what I’d seen. I even thought about going home early sick, but it wouldn’t have done any good. Debbie was at work and probably wouldn’t answer her phone even if I’d called her. She was still crazy busy.

And if I did go home I’d just be sitting around stewing in my house all day. I’d probably try to get some writing done but I would end up thinking about nothing but this and it would eat at me all day. At least at the factory I had something to somewhat distract me.

So I toughed it out.

But when the end of the day came I bolted out of there so fast I was the first one to my truck. I drove home doing my best to obey the traffic laws and speed limit of the town. Luckily it was a very short trip to my place. In my state of mind I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel.

The second I entered my home I took a hot shower to wash the day of work and stress off me and I grabbed an ice cold beer to relax with. I was serious about letting myself get calm before I reacted to things nowadays. It was something that seemed to be working for me, but no matter how much I tried to calm down over this it kept eating at me.

I waited until just a bit after six and then I picked up my phone to call Debbie. I usually called her about this time to see if she wanted to come over. I wasn’t even sure why we bothered with the phone calls anymore; we spent almost every evening together either at my place or going out to do something fun.

But I did appreciate the fact that she respected my time enough to call first. Occasionally I was deep into a writing session that I hated to break from, but I always did for her. I would do anything for her.

Why was she letting that damn stripper dry hump her in that picture?

The thought kept hitting me hard in the back of the head. I could not stifle it.

“Hello?” Debbie answered.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said.

“Hey, honey,” Debbie replied. “How was your day?”

I let the question hang there for a minute not quite sure how to answer it.

“Well,” I said. “Funny you should ask.”

“Really? Why? What happened?”

I told her about the picture I’d seen.

There was silence on the phone for several seconds. Then Debbie tried to come up with an excuse.

“I can explain,” Debbie said.

“I’m listening. I really want to hear this,” I replied.

Debbie told me how it was Cindy’s idea to go there and this guy just came out of nowhere to start grinding with her.

I tried to see her side of things and I did to a degree, but I couldn’t shake the disappointment and the anger I had about the situation.  But I wanted to be understanding. I wanted to show Debbie how much I trusted her.

“You could have just walked away,” I said. “No one actually forced you to go in there in the first place.”

“I know, but it was just a goof. It was nothing,” Debbie said. “Besides if you wanted to go to a strip club I wouldn’t care.”

“Well, I would,” I said. I was getting angry. I tried to keep my cool and composure but it was slipping away from me. “I would never allow this to happen to me. I care about you and your feelings too much.”

“You are overreacting,” Debbie said. She seemed on the verge of tears, but I was growing increasingly angry. I was almost livid at this point.

“Overreacting? How can you say that to me? Some guy had his dick all over you and you think I’m overreacting?”

“Calm down, we can talk this through,” Debbie said. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I didn’t intend for this to happen. You know I would never cheat on you or do anything to make you not trust me.”

“Well, you have a funny way of showing that kind of loyalty,” I said.

Debbie paused a moment. At first I thought she might have hung up, but then she came back on the line.

“I’m sorry,” Debbie said. “But you are really getting weird about this. It was a stupid strip show. Nothing really happened. I feel bad about it, but I really think you are out of line with this.”

“I’m out of line? Wow, it’s good to know how much you care about my feelings,” I said.

I ended the call and clenched my cell phone in my hand. I wanted so badly to smash it against the wall or break something.

But I held it together, grabbed my beer, and sat back down to try to get calm.

I’d hung up on Debbie. That was the first time I’d ever done that to her, but I’d never had a good reason before. She had messed up. She knew it.

But I had been very hard on her. Was I overreacting? There was probably nothing really going on. I mean, I didn’t really think that Debbie was cheating on me or that anything else had happened with that dancer. That was part of the job, right?

I believed Debbie, but at the same time I could not let it go. To know that she’d allowed herself to be in that position and that she didn’t consider my feelings more just burnt me up to the core.

I was going to need a bit of time to cool off over this.