Daydream Believer

The car skidded completely sideways. Dave slammed the steering wheel against the slide until the rear end reluctantly slid back. Regaining control of the car, he decided that he had better slow down, not because he was afraid of getting hurt, but because he was afraid of being pulled over. He knew the car couldn’t have been reported stolen yet, and most likely never would be. He was also sure that he had sobered up enough to be legally okay to drive. He knew though, if he got pulled over the cops would wonder why his shirt was covered with blood. The night had definitely turned out stranger than he could have ever dreamed, and that was saying a lot considering Dave was a perpetual daydreamer. There would be no need for daydreams after tonight though Dave thought to himself as he eased off the accelerator and replayed the events of the night over again in his head.

Dave started to feel uncomfortable and out of place the minute he walked through the doors. He very seldom went to bars, and never alone. This wasn’t the type of bar he had expected. He wanted a non-crowded dive, where he could sit in obscurity and drown away his marriage problems. What was in front of him now was a trendy little dance club filled with trendy young singles searching for mates.

Dave was about to turn around and walk out when a little voice inside his head said, “Fuck it, you’re here might as well go on in, have a drink.”

He walked to the only empty table in the place. The table was tucked away in a dark corner where he could sit unseen and watch the people around him. Dave was starting to feel better about his decision to stay.

No sooner had he sat down, a waitress came walking up, “What can I get you to drink tonight honey,” she asked as she tossed a Budweiser coaster onto the counter high table. For a moment the only thing that Dave could think of was how hot the waitress looked in her skintight jeans and men’s dress shirt, unbuttoned just enough to show a hint of cleavage.

“I’ll take a Bud Light,” Dave managed to say as he wondered if her tits would look as perfect when she was naked as they looked now, “and a shot of Yegermeister.” As quickly as she had come the waitress was off again. Dave took a quick glance at her ass as she walked away and then looked around at the bar's décor. In the middle was a small dance floor, sunken down a step. Around three of the sides were tables and on the forth a small DJ’s booth. Above was the typical arrangement of spotlights, smoke makers and the ever-present Disco ball. The music was loud of course, but not so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think. The lights were dim enough that Dave felt protected but not blinded by the darkness.

As Dave took a sip from his beer, washing away the Nyquil after-taste left in his mouth from his shot, he wondered how his marriage had become so screwed up in the past year. It’s not like he and his wife had decided to grow apart, it just happened, slowly and suddenly at the same time. There had been no great fights, no adultery, no one event that he could pin it on that had triggered the avalanche of hatred and mistrust. Just a tension that grew daily between them, a tension that swallowed everything that was good in their home. Yet, there was nothing that made them actually leave each other.

“Another Shot,” came a melodious voice from just to the left and behind.

“Yea what the hell,” he answered as he smiled a flirtish smile, that probably wouldn’t have worked even if he wasn’t ten years her senior. Not that Dave cared; he had mastered the art of the sexual daydream. Even before the young waitress had turned around to walk away Dave had an entire daydream in which she followed him outside, seduced him next to his car and took him home to her apartment for a night of uninhibited lovemaking. All of which caused Dave’s flirtish smile to slowly turn into a shit-eating grin and a little extra blood flowing between his legs.

“What I wouldn’t give to have just one of my little fantasies come true,” Dave thought to himself as he looked around at the virtual plethora of prospects around the bar, “just one.” But he knew the sad truth, things that he fantasized about only happened to spectacular, outgoing, fearless people, and Dave knew he was the complete antonym of spectacular; in fact he was the poster-boy for normality and mediacrace. From the time that he could remember Dave was never anything more than slightly above average at anything. He got B’s and C’s in High School and College. Every girlfriend he had was average looking. He worked in a middle class job, drove a middle class car, and lived in a middle class house. He had never had any great adventures or experienced any fantastic sexual escapades. Dave was middle of the line through and through, and it ate away at him bit by bit everyday.

The only thing that kept Dave sane was his daydreams. Not all had to do with sex or women, most, but not all. They were however all a direct reflection on how Dave thought of himself as a man. If someone was picking on him Dave wouldn’t stick up for himself at the time, but would later relive the moment in his mind, where he could command all the right responses and actions. He did this with everything in his life, his bosses, people that cut him off in traffic, and even situations, he just made up in his head. Dave called these daydreams “Head Movies.” And in his “Head Movies” Dave was always the leading man, he always said just the right things, got even with anyone that wronged him, had the perfect job, won all the fights and always, always, got the girl.

Hours later, after swallowing the last drop of his fifth beer, Dave decided it was time to go home. The night was going to end just as he knew it would, he would go home and apologizing to his wife for whatever he had done wrong. It was better than continuing to fight and end up sleeping on the couch. He figured his wife would be surprised that he had come home at all since he told her he was going to spend the night at his brothers. He had actually expected her to stop him from leaving like she had always done before, but she didn’t this time, she just let him leave.

Dave had to take a small step to the side to keep himself from falling over as he hoped down off his stool. Realizing how drunk he was he decided to have a cup of coffee, and try to sober up a little before driving home. Since the waitress had stopped coming to his table, presumable because he had stopped tipping, Dave walked carefully towards the overcrowded bar to place his order. On the way he noticed a single seat not taken and decided to drink his coffee there at the bar. He pulled himself onto the stool noticing out the corner of his eye, a very attractive young lady sitting just to his right, along with her equally handsome male companion. It wasn’t until after he had ordered and received his coffee that Dave realized the couple was in the middle of a controlled but very heated argument. Without completely realizing it, he was soon listing intently to the quickly escalating conversation. It seems the young lady was tired of the man flirting with every girl that walked by, and had mentioned several times that there wasn’t a female ass left in the place he hadn’t gawked at.

“Your jus a jealous bitch, that sall,” claimed the obviously drunk man, “cause girls want me, and there’s snot a guy in the place that would fuck you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dave saw the lady grab her drink, readying to throw it. Before he could think about the consequences, he reached over and lightly grabbed the girl’s arm, stopping her from completing the drenching.

“No sense in wasting a perfectly good drink on an asshole like that,” Dave said as he slowly turned his head to look at the couple, “the guy is obviously not thinking straight.”

Dave turned his eyes up towards the man, now standing open mouthed in astonishment, and said, “You see, I, personally, given the opportunity would be more than happy to fuck the young lady.” He then returned his gaze down at the beautiful face staring back at him in astonishment and winked.

At first Dave thought that the girl might just redirect the drink back at him, but then, as though she could see the true intentions in his eyes, her arm relaxed, and she looked back up at her companion and proudly stated, “I guess I won’t be needing a ride home after all.”

“Why you limp, dicked, Depends wearing, Viagra popping motherfucker, all kick yours ass from one end of dis bar to tha other,” claimed the now outraged boyfriend as he slammed his beer down onto the bar. By this time, the situation had drawn the attention of numerous patrons in the surrounding area, all of which looked on in anticipation. As the much bigger than he had first realized man charged towards him, Dave jumped off his stool, grabbed an empty beer mug from the bar counter and turned to face his on-coming adversary. While he strained to keep from wetting his pants, Dave waited until the last instant and then jumped to the side, just avoiding being turned into a tackling dummy. Having timed it just perfectly, he then swung the beer mug with all his might, and nailed the now air born man on the back of his head. The boyfriend struck the ground, face first; creating a crunching sound that caused everyone who heard it to grimace. Dave stood frozen, amazed at what he had just done, and would have probably stayed that way if some young kid hadn’t slapped him on the back in congratulations, “Wow, you really fucked that dude up, hope he deserved it,” said the kid as he casually walked away.

“He did,” replied the girlfriend, smiling at Dave in obvious appreciation, “let me buy you a drink.” At this point Dave had completely forgotten that he was supposed to be to sobering up so he could drive home.

“Aaah, yea, I’d love a drink, but I’m not sure their going to let me stay after what just happened,” answered Dave

“Oh, you can stay, the bouncers my brother and when I tell him what happened he’ll probably want to buy you a drink himself, he’s not a big fan of JD.”

“JD, what’s JD,” Dave asked, still in a state of shock over what was happening.

The girl giggled and then quickly responded, “A JD, is the guy you just knocked out, the guy until just a few hours ago I was convinced was my mister right. But we can talk about that in a minute, let me just clear things up with Jake, and we’ll go sit down so I can buy you that drink and tell you how grateful I am.” With that the girl jumped down off her stool and intercepted the progress of a very large man headed their direction, a man Dave could only assume was her brother Jake, the bouncer.

True to her word, after talking to Jake for only few minutes, not only was Dave allowed to stay in the bar, but was given a free tab for the rest of the evening. Dave soon found out the girl’s name was Suzie, and she was a third year art student at CU. He also immediately realized that, much to his relief and despite his first assumptions, she was quite bright and engaging. They talked small talk for more than an hour; the kind of getting to know each other talk Dave hadn’t experienced since he had started dating his wife. He was amazed at how comfortable he felt talking with Suzie. Usually he would get all tongue tied trying to talk to an attractive girl, and Suzie was well beyond just being attractive.

“This girl is absolutely beautiful,” Dave thought to himself as he listened to her talk about her downward spiraling relationship with JD.

She had stunning light brown eyes, with dark brown, shoulder length hair. Her teeth were perfectly strait, a small fetish of Dave’s, and framed by naturally swollen lips. She was wearing a v-cut, Abercrombe and Finch T-shirt, and a pair of black jean shorts that showed off her golden brown legs. It was all Dave could do to refrain himself from leaning across the table and slowly touching his lips to hers, trying to taste her attraction. Yet Dave felt totally at ease sitting across the table from this girl. In a way, it troubled him how at ease he felt, he was afraid he would suddenly snap out of one of his “Head Movies,” and find everything that had happened in the past couple of hours a figment of his imagination. As the minutes ticket buy though, he realized that he wasn’t daydreaming, that he was actually sitting across from a beautiful girl and having a conversation.

Dave and Suzie talked until the DJ announced that it was last call, and that he was, “going to slow things down a bit and end the night on a lovers tip.” With that he put on the first of two slow songs, Eric Claptons, You Look Wonderful Tonight. Suzie reached across the table and gentle grasped Dave’s hand, “Would you dance with me, “she asked as she looked strait into his eyes.

“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do in this world right now than dance with you,” Dave answered, returning her stare.

With that they both got up from the table, never releasing hands, and made their way to the dance floor. When their bodies meet, holding each other close as they danced, a tingling sensation, like a million dull metal points vibrating softly over his entire body, came over Dave. He could feel the warmth of her breast as they pressed up against him. This, coupled with the feel of holding her small feminine body tight in his arms, caused Dave to become slightly erect in his jeans. And the friction of that rubbing up against her leg as they danced was almost more than Dave could handle. Within seconds of starting the dance Dave slowly lowered his head and kissed the beautiful girl he was holding in his arms. They danced like that, switching off between kissing and holding each other tight until the music abruptly ended and the lights of the bar suddenly became bright. At that point Dave pulled away slightly from Suzie, continuing to hold her hips, and looked at her sadly, “I wish this night didn’t have to end.”

“It doesn’t yet,” Suzie replied with a small smile as she rose up on her toes to kiss him one last time before they left the dance floor.
Dave would have preferred going strait to her apartment, but accepted her invitation to grab a bite to eat first. They agreed, in the great tradition of after club dinning, to go to a nearby Village Inn. Dave was trying to remember if there were any embarrassing items in his car as they headed towards the door. Before they made it though, a deep voice came barreling out from behind them.

“Whoa there, were the hell do you think you’re going,” said the voice. Dave turned around expecting to come face to fist with the ex-boyfriend. What he saw was not a much more appealing sight. Coming at a slight jog was Suzie’s brother Jake, and he didn’t look happy. While Dave was trying to think of a way to tell the brother he was just giving his sister a ride home, Jake stopped and tossed a set of keys at Suzie.

“You came here in it, and you can’t just leave it here, I don’t care what you do with it just don’t leave it sitting in the parking lot,” said the brother as Suzie grabbed the keys out of the air.

It looked like Dave’s concerns about the condition of his car’s interior were going to be of no importance after all. JD had left the keys to his brand new canary yellow Ferrari, and the bar didn’t want any chance of liability for it, Suzie was now in charge of the $150,000 car.

Once outside, both agreed that Dave would follow Suzie to the restaurant. Driving over Dave had to admit to himself, as he followed the Ferrari, it sure would be nice to drive a car like that. He then, quite suddenly, laughed out loud and said, “Look at your never happy ass, your about to spent the night with a young, beautiful girl and it’s still not enough for you, you greedy bastard.” Dave laughed out loud again, at both, his greed, and sudden luck.

Village Inn was only a short distance away but by the time they had pulled into the parking lot Dave had his mind back on just one desire, Suzie. The place was packed with young drunk twenty something’ers. Despite this the too were seated quickly and before they knew it had ordered and were being served by the obviously overstressed waitress. Then something happened that would change the course of the night and Dave’s life. The waitress without looking at either of them set their plates down one at a time announcing as she did, “Let’s see it’s the Club Sandwich for the middle-aged married man, and the Cesar Salad for the young naïve single girl.”

Both Dave and Suzie stared at each other in amazement as the waitress set a bottle of ketchup in the middle of the table and asked if there was anything else she could get them as though nothing unusual had been said. Since both Dave and Suzie were still too stunned to say anything the waitress just shrugged her shoulders and left. Without saying a word the too began eating their food, both hoping the awkwardness would soon clear itself from the table.

Hoping getting away from the table for a moment would help ease the tension Dave excused himself to the restroom. Not having to pee he went over to the sink, ran some cold water over his hands and splashed it on his face. He rubbed the water in for a few seconds, then as he removed his hands he came face to face with himself in the mirror. There staring from some unknown place was a man Dave had refused to see for some time now. Much to his surprise the man was handsome and distinguished looking but not young anymore. His dark brown hair was speckled with gray and he had some wrinkles around his eyes, but instead of making him look old he saw that they just helped to emphasize the youth in his emerald green eyes. He started to think about the last few hours, and came to another astonishing revaluation; he knew why he had felt so comfortable all night. Suzie reminded him of the times he had first spent with his wife, the attraction that first brought them together, the feeling he had the first time they talked, the way she had made his body feel when they danced. Suzie was just a stand-in for the feelings he used to have for his wife.

As he stared at himself in the mirror, Dave wonder if he could recapture the feeling he once had for his wife, the magic that had filled the first years of their marriage. He didn’t know the answer but he knew one thing for sure, he was not going to give up without trying. So, he made up his mind right there and then, he was going to walk out of the bathroom and tell Suzie that he had had a wonderful evening but he had to get going. He wasn’t going to try to explain or make a big deal out of it, he was just going to say good night give her money for the bill and leave. He wanted to believe that this was a mean thing to do and that Suzie would be left heartbroken sitting in the booth alone having just been dumped by her dream man, but he knew the truth, she would probably be relieved.

When Dave returned to his seat he found an empty booth. On the table were two half- eaten meals, a twenty-dollar bill and a note written on the back of a Target receipt. The note read:
Thanks for a wonderful evening, you were my knight in shinning armor. If life is fair we’ll met again someday under better circumstances. Stay sweet. Suzie

He felt hurt and embarrassed for a moment then realized everything was as it should be. He picked up the twenty-dollar bill and replaced it with the exact amount of the check, which he found under the Target receipt. Not because he was cheap, but because there was no way he was going to leave that bitch of a waitress a single penny. Even though things turned out for the better a waitress should learn to keep her fucking mouth shut. For a second Dave considered not paying for the meal at all, but decided not to push his luck. He didn’t need to get arrested for trying to steal a $12 meal. All he wanted to do at this point was to go home.

It was about a thirty-minute drive from Village Inn back to his house and the entire way Dave ran different scenarios of what he would do and say when he got home. He thought about telling his wife Stacy the truth about the night’s events, explaining how it had changed the way he would be looking at things in the future, particularly their marriage. He quickly decided that would just make things worse. Stacy would never get past the fact that he had kissed another woman. In her mind that would be as bad as actually having sexual intercourse with her. He contemplated just crawling into bed and forcefully making love to her without saying a word. Again he knew that wouldn’t work. Stacy had always been one of the prudest women he had ever known. She had only given him one blow-job since they had been together, it had lasted about 10 seconds, she then gagged, ran to the bathroom, threw-up, and spent the rest of the night on the couch, pissed at Dave for talking her into doing something so gross. In the end Dave decided to just craw it bed, cuddle his wife and tell her how much he loved her and how he never wanted to fight with her again. Then after hours of kissing and lightly touching each other they would make love missionary style, like always. That would be fine with Dave, later maybe when things were like they used to be they would try some different things in bed. For now he just wanted to look into his wife’s eyes and let her know how much he loved her.

Going that route though meant Dave would have to lie about what he had been doing all evening. He was not real comfortable with this but as he turned the corner onto the street where he lived he decided in this case the end justified the means and he would lie to his wife one final time. He would tell her that his brother was not home so he went to a local motel and got himself a room for the night. Then he was awoken by a terrible dream that he couldn’t totally remember and was filled with a terrible sense that she wasn’t OK. Dave knew that his wife read a lot of meaning into dreams and would translate this into meaning Dave loved her dearly and felt ashamed for having left her alone.

So there he was just three houses away from home, ready to turn his whole marriage around when he saw something he couldn’t believe. There in his driveway was a brand new canary yellow Ferrari. “Now what the fuck is she doing here,” yelled Dave. At this point he was too confused to think of what he should do next. Without thinking he pulled in the drive next to the Ferrari, jumped out of the car and headed towards the house. On the way in Dave pictured being greeted by Suzie and his wife sitting on the couch, his wife with tears steaming down her eyes after learning of her husband’s betrayal. Suzie would be holding her, offering her a tissue like she had nothing to do with the whole thing. But when Dave opened the garage door leading into the family room he was greeted by total darkness. He wandered quietly through the first floor, every room the same thing, darkness. Dave was so confused that he actually drew the front window curtains to the side checking to make sure his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. Yet there in the drive looking totally out of place in his middle class neighborhood was that gorgeous yellow car. Dave found himself, if only for a couple of seconds, daydreaming the car belonged to him, it was after all in his driveway.

After confirming the car was actually there Dave, out of habit, carefully replaced the curtains and turned back towards the middle of the house. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, everything in its place as always. “If only my wife was as passionate about sex as she was cleaning maybe I wouldn’t be in this fucking predicament,” Dave thought to himself. Then he heard a noise that he instantly recognized as his wife’s, but it was like no noise he had ever heard her make before. A noise that could only come from her if she was being gagged and in terrible pain.

A million explanations ran through Dave’s mind at once. The most likely was that his whole night had been a scam. That Suzie and her so-called ex-boyfriend were actually con-artists and at some point during the night Suzie had managed to get his home address. He had quite a bit to drink throughout the night and couldn’t be certain of everything he had talked to the girl about. Maybe he had been trying to impress her and told her he had lots of money or jewelry around the house. Another possibility was that the couple was some kind of Mickey and Mallory from the movie Natural Born Killers. As dumb as that sounded, it scared Dave into action.

He ran up the stairs, rounded the corner at the top and headed down the hall that led to his bedroom. From the moment he reached the top of the stairs he could see a faint light coming from underneath the bedroom door. With each step Dave could hear his wife moaning in agony which made the short distance from the stairs to the bedroom seem like a marathon. When Dave finally reached the door he slammed his shoulder, and accidentally his face, into it so hard the door actually fell to the floor, ripping the hinges from the wall. Blood spew from his nose all over his shirt and the bedroom floor. What Dave saw in front of him was worse than he could have ever imagined.

On the bed, that looked like it was strait out of a little girl’s fairytale, with its pink and yellow bedding and its lacey canopy, was a sight that would have made the strongest of men queasy. Where he felt like such a wimp even sleeping, but did out of love for his wife, was his wife, on all fours with a dildo sticking out of her ass and a mouth full of the completely naked man kneeling in front of her. At that moment Dave realized that the Ferrari in the driveway had nothing to do the night’s prior goings on, but was just the strangest of coincidences in a night filled with strange coincidences. The Ferrari belonged to this way over the hill pervert that presently had his dick shoved down his wife’s no head-giving throat.

Before Dave had time to contemplate his next move, his wife, having removed herself from her lover, covered herself with a sheet and cried out “ Dave, what, what are you doing here, I, I thought you went to spent the night at your brother’s.”

“Well its obvious you didn’t think I’d be coming home tonight, how long have you been fucking the senior citizen here,” replied Dave as he wiped the blood from under his nose and mouth.

“Look you guys probably have a lot to talk about and I…” started the scarred old man.

“You, shut the fuck up and don’t move a muscle, I’ll deal with you in a second,” interrupted Dave, causing the man to instantly shut-up and bow his head like a little kid being scolded by his father. Which was kind of ironic seeing as the man was old enough to be Dave’s father. He then turned back towards his wife and said, “I don’t understand, you’ve been like the ice queen in bed since the day I met you, now I come home and find you doing things Tracy Lords would be ashamed of, I don’t get it, was it the money that makes you wet, the power, or are my balls just not wrinkled enough for you yet.”

“Fuck you that’s not fair, maybe if you’ve been a little more persistent like Walter, then we would have tried more,” shot back Dave’s wife as though she had ground to stand on.

“First of all, every time I tried to talk to you, you said I should just love you the way you are and that if sex was that important to me maybe I should get a new wife. Secondly I can’t believe your fucking a man named Walter,” and this point Dave was starting to laugh, “and thirdly I’m not sure I would have wanted to have tried this much.” With that Dave broke out in to a full-fledged laugh. After finally regaining his composure, he looked at the odd couple in his bed and contemplated what to do next. By the look in their eyes Dave could tell they were both scared, sitting on that hideous bed, staring at the blood covered jealous husband not totally sure he hadn’t gone crazy.

“OK Walter,” Dave said after a few seconds, “this is what’s going to happen. Your going to walk out of here now, just the way you are. As for your car, I will call my wife in a few days and let you know where you can pick it up, but, if you report it stolen I will track you down and beat the living shit out of you.”

Dave thought he saw a tear in the old man’s eye as he slowly stepped down off the bed and walked as far away from Dave as possible heading for the opening where the bedroom door used to be. As he walked out carefully avoiding stepping his bare feet in the blood from Dave’s nose, Walter took one last longing look at his cloths on the floor and then headed out towards the stairs.

“Dave you can’t just…” started his wife before Dave shushed her.

“I want to enjoy this,” Dave said as he made his way towards the bedroom window to watch old Walter run his naked ass down the street. “You know I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite that funny in my whole goddamned life,” exclaimed Dave as he turned back towards his wife after Walter was out of sight.

“As for you,” Dave started as he packed a duffel bag with some clothes, “when I send you the divorce papers I suspect you’ll sign them with no fuss?”

“I won’t sign shit, I’m going to take you to the cleaners for this, you’ll wish I only took half when I’m done with this divorce,” yelled his wife suddenly full of confidence.

Dave stopped packing for a moment and looked his wife strait in the eye, “then I will be forced to tell you family exactly, and I mean exactly why we are splitting up, and as out of character as it may seem for you I’ll willing to bet they believe me, what do you think?”

Dave’s wife’s confidence suddenly and instantly drained from her face, she knew her family would believe Dave, they had admired him since the day she introduced them, and that she couldn’t risk them knowing what had happened, so there was only one last thing for her to say, “I’ll sign them.”

With that Dave finished packing, dug the keys out of Walters’s pants, took the wad of cash he found with the keys and without another word spoken between them left the house forever.