His Last Wife

Monty nervously tried to rush to his car, but Val was fast even in her heels, and she caught up with him just before the valet handed him his keys.

“You ain’t shit,” Val said to Monty. “You come here and you think you can say anything to me! Fuck you! Fuck you three times!”

Monty saw red in Val’s eyes and he knew not to say anything. He stood there and tried not to look too apologetic or hopeless. He couldn’t risk a scene. Getting arrested again wouldn’t go over too well at home. His wife was actually the plastic surgeon in the family. He was her office assistant.

When Val was finished cursing, she didn’t know what else to do. She told herself to back away, but her feet wouldn’t move. Then she did something she hardly expected—well, that no one watching expected. All of the red in her eyes and the anger in her heart fueled a passion that literally threw her into Monty, where she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Full tongue down his throat and lips pressed over his, she tried to devour him in a second.

The valets standing there didn’t know if they should cheer or tell the two to move on, as they were holding up the car line.

Monty didn’t know what to do, either, but the confusion was certainly turning him on.

Before Val let him loose, she ordered him very loudly, “Follow me.”

It was after 1 AM and the highways connecting downtown Atlanta nightlife to suburban sprawl were thinning out, but still active enough to provide some fantastic glow show of blinking lights and expensive zipping hot wheels along the interstate.

Val opened the Jag’s engine up in the fast lane, doing 95 the entire way home with Monty struggling to keep up with her in his Porsche. His wife was calling and texting. His heart was beating so fast the balding forty-three-year-old who’d just had his bulging belly liposuctioned four months ago might have been having a heart attack. Still, he continued the pursuit and zigzagged through the traffic to keep up with Val.

When they pulled into the circular drive outside of the house where Mama Fee was hiding behind blinds in her top-floor bedroom window, Monty’s heart was beating so fiercely, he feared he wouldn’t be able to take his Viagra to keep up with whatever Val had in mind in the bedroom.

When Val pulled into the driveway, she noticed a familiar automobile sitting in the space where she usually parked. It was a big, black truck that she’d seen recently but couldn’t place in her memory. She wondered if maybe it was one of her sisters coming over from Tennessee to be nosy about what she was into, but then she noticed the Georgia plates.

Both Val and Monty got out of their cars at the same time.

Monty was walking toward Val, saying something about her driving speed and he was laughing, but all of Val’s attention stayed on the truck.

“I’ve never seen a woman handle a car like that,” Monty was saying when the driver’s-side door of the truck opened. “You’re like the black Danica Patrick.” He laughed a little, but then he noticed where Val’s eyes were focused and looked that way as well.

“What are you doing here?” Val said when she realized who was getting out of the truck. It was the man who’d been in her bed the night before.

“What? Who—who is this?” Monty said, stopping in his tracks behind Val. He was standing just inches away from the front of Val’s car and a few feet away from the back of the truck, with the big man with the football player’s body walking toward him.

“I wanted to see you again.” Ernest spoke nonchalantly to Val like Monty wasn’t standing behind her.

“See me? I didn’t invite you here,” Val snapped.

“I know. I was going to invite you out. Maybe to a movie at the drive-in or for some dessert in the West End. But you didn’t give me your number,” Ernest said, chuckling. He was wearing the black suit he’d put on to go out for drinks with some of the other former Falcons players he sometimes hung out with. But when he got to the bar, while all of the other guys were complaining about their wives and chasing young girls, he was thinking about Val.

“What the fuck are you laughing at?” Val said. “I’m calling the police.” She went to pull her phone from her purse.

“What, you don’t know this cat?” Monty interjected, trying his best to sound tough.

“Dude, don’t say shit,” Ernest offered, still relaxed and ironically sounding tougher. “You don’t want it. I know you don’t. You might as well just go back to your car and drive home to your wife and kids.”

“How do you know I have kid—”

“Shut up, Monty!” Val shot and then she said to Ernest, “You don’t have a right to tell anyone to go home. Your ass wasn’t even invited here in the first place. What are you, a stalker?”

“Look, if there’s a problem, I can go,” Monty said with a sudden change of heart and already stepping away.

“That’s right, partner. Carry your ass home. Probably have soccer with the kids in the morning, anyway,” Ernest snapped at Monty. “Might as well call it a night.”

“No! Don’t you dare go anywhere!” Val ordered, turning around and pointing her finger at Monty like he was her teenage son.

He put his hands up again like he had at the club and tried to smile, but those dimples were looking very nervous as both Ernest and Val peered like they were about to attack him at any moment: one if he stayed, one if he left.

“I came here for some pus—” Monty started, but then he stopped when he looked at Ernest. “I’m sorry, bruh. I mean, I didn’t come here for no drama. I think you two need to talk about some things.”

“Yes, we do.” Ernest stepped up and stood beside Val, who was trying to push him away from her, but he put his big heavy arm around her shoulders and forced her to look something like his lady.