Nola's Touch

“I’ve always prided myself on my knowledge of people,” Nola said as she shot Madelyn a sarcastic look. “You on the other hand, have always been naïve and stupid when it comes to human relationships.”

Madelyn felt a sudden knot in her stomach. “You always did know how to deliver a compliment.”

Madelyn’s disintegrating relationship with her older sister, Nola, long on a downhill slide, was now accelerating rapidly since Frank, Nola’s husband, passed away a couple of weeks ago.

“I’m going to give you a piece of advice, Madelyn,” Nola said, lifting her eyes and studying her sister in their hot gaze. “You’ve always been a fuck-up. You blame other people for your failures. You could have married Delbert Reams. He would have provided you with a good life and maybe some children, but no, you had to chase your impossible and indefinable dreams. Now look at you, you’re fifty-two years old and alone. I, on the other hand, hand crafted my future with Frank Paxton, a man who adored me and left me a very rich widow. You’ll never amount to anything.”

***
Frank came from a family of intellectuals with lots of money. He had joined one of the most prestigious and buttoned-down law firms in town and had become one of the city’s most ardent champions of liberal causes. That’s where he met Nola; she was his assistant.

Nola was the quintessential hypocrite, a compassionate groupie and money addict, who hungered for the lifestyle Frank could provide. She wasted no time pursuing her prey. On their first date, Nola invited Frank in for a nightcap, but what she had in mind was some hot meaningless sex. She sensed Frank’s vulnerability and when she kissed him with erotic stealth and playfulness, she could feel his crotch growing, and that’s when she did what she does best. She unzipped his pants and wrapped her lips around his steel-hard cock and gave him the blowjob of a lifetime.

“When can I see you again?” Frank asked.

Nola smiled because she knew Frank was hers to be had. Three months later, Nola was pregnant. She attributed the conception to the miracle of the subconscious, which was providing genetic continuity, meaning that the child would be a replacement for Frank’s late wife, Amelia, who died in a car accident a year ago.

Although remorse was eating at Frank, he was defenseless against it. Nola would never pass as his late wife’s equal, but destiny had spoken in his moments of weakness, and even though he was not in love with Nola, he owned up to his responsibility and married her not realizing that the femme fatale had stacked the deck against him.

Their son, Maxim, was born with a congenital heart defect and lived for only three weeks. After the baby’s burial, Frank felt a widening irreverence, an ever-open chasm growing between him and Nola, but there was no way he could leave her. She was so heartbroken. It wouldn’t be fair.

***
Lawrence Hawkins opened the door to his office. “Ladies, I’m sorry you had to wait. Please, come in.” Lawrence was Frank’s executor of his will. “Have a seat, please, and we’ll get right to the reading of Frank’s will.”

“I don’t understand why is Madelyn is here.”

“I, Frank Hawkins, being of sound mind and body, do hereby leave to my wife, Nola, our home and all its furnishings, along with three hundred thousand dollars from my life insurance.

“W-what? Is that it? What about—“

Lawrence cleared his throat. “I leave the remainder of my estate, the summer house and all its furnishings, along with two million dollars to Madelyn Gregory, the love of my life.”

Nola sucked in a deep breath, “but—“

“Nola, Frank wanted you to have this letter.”

Despite her shaking fingers, she carefully pulled the letter out of the envelope and began to read:

Nola,
It’s wrong to continue to deprive each other of happiness. We haven’t lived
as man and wife for twenty years, and there is no passion in our
relationship. I can’t stand the idea of living this way a moment longer,
the stupidity of it; the waste of it.

I’m in love with Madelyn and have been since the first time I met her. What is happening to me now at age sixty-five is awesome, a kind of miracle. She has given me the missing link in my life—passion. She makes me feel empowered, alive.

I know you never loved me. You only wanted the materialism and the social rank I could provide, but I forgive you just as I know you will forgive me.

Frank

“You’re a liar, a cheat, a whoring cunt!” Nola screamed. “You were screwing my husband behind my back. How could you?”

“I believe that my own judgment about people is infallible, especially when it comes to you,” Madelyn said. “You never loved Frank or anyone for that matter. You turned your back on him when he needed you the most.”

“I never want to see you again. You are dead to me,” Nola said.

“Wasn’t I always?”


Word Count: 856