text: This is my first post of my writing. Feedback, good or bad, is appreciated. Enjoy. Dr Howard Corbin Dr Corbin was eating dinner with his new wife and her ingrate son. Chicken, 3 months of marriage and they had chicken 32 times. His child bride, Sheila, was 23 years his junior. He used to love chicken. His mother would wring its neck and bleed it out Sunday after church. He would watch it die, discretely. He was fascinated by that instant when the certainty of one's death is accepted. As a young man, in the triage tent on the "front line" of Vietnam conflict, he used to work with an erection. Not a raging one. It would just waggle in his boxers and rub against his thigh. He was a demigod, choosing who would receive grace through his over skilled hands and who was not worth the effort. He had met Sheila 8 years after his first wife left him. He hasn't done anything wrong. You aren't the man I married his ex would scream, every fucking fight. Of course I'm not, we got married 22 years ago. "I" grew up. She would slam the door of the house she had wanted, he had paid for, get into the sl500, slam the door on the car he bought her. Then drive to the bar and would buy her drinks on his amex. Maybe after a bad fight she would take a bar fly to a motel near the airport paid again with his credit card. Sheila had been introduced at a dull dinner a friend had thrown. She had walked in just as soup was put on the table. It was a magical moment. He had just put a large forkful of salad in his mouth. A rivulet of dressing slid down from the corner of his mouth unheeded. To say she was striking would be ungenerous. Mrs Sheila Corbin Sheila was born in Cambodia in 1974. She always thinks of it as being sold into slavery. In reality she was adopted shortly after her birth because most of her family had been killed, Her mother dying during Sheila's birth. She was fortunate to be "purchased" by a kind english family. She was fed and schooled with the other children by the rest of the house staff. She was released from service to attend college and never looked back to Asia, there was nothing there for her. She came to university of Maryland on a partial scholarship. The boys went crazy for her, Asian with a clipped British accent. She took lovers. They gave her things. Beautiful things. She donated them to churches, she was not a whore paid in jewelry. In her junior year she was dating a poly sci major. He was going places, he had interned in a senator's office. On Saturday night after an epic party they went back to his swanky apartment. They made beautiful love and Ryan. She didn't hate the baby, just resented him. He represented a door that had closed for her. She barely finished school while raising an infant. The poly sci major slowly pulled away after she told him that it was immoral to have an abortion. He sent her a $3,000 check after the birth. What the hell was $3,000 for and how did he decide on that number? She cashed it, only because she needed the money. She was 29 when she met Dr. Corbin, Ryan was 9. She loved him almost instantly. She had tried, on her own and through therapy to find out why. He was old and white so he seemed so much older. White men after 50, yuck. They are falling apart from the roof to the basement. He is kind and a doctor, if there had been a doctor at her birth at least her mother would be alive and she could have stayed with her family in Asia. That was the best answer she could come up with. So much kinder and serene than those self proclaimed spiritual men. 9 out of 9 times what you saw is what you got from Howard. One therapist said it was transference, never knowing her own father, I desire to have an intimate relationship with him. At the end of the session she invited her to coffee, on the pretext of talking about the therapy. She politely told her no and that she would be cancelling the rest of her appointments. The Corbins The doctor, as she always thought of him, had swept her off her tiny feet. They sat drinking brandy in the library, after the dinner party, until their friend, almost physically, kicked them out. They went across Martinsburg to the waffle house that was barely open. It was 3am and the Beaver Dam strip club hadn't swept its citizen debris to this side of the street yet. They talked, they laughed, his honesty drove her to truth. Her pat story of her childhood unraveled until the thread of history lay bare between them. Of course the "truth" is not a complete factual reenactment, but the omission of the all the lies. They had finished their pecan pie and drinking the dirty water, represented as coffee on the menu. Three sirens walked in. Their clothes unsuited for the November night. A down vest over a white tank top over nothing. Yoga pants and ugg boots. Was it the uniform of strippers going home? They ordered quickly, the young man behind the counter was shy but his desire radiated off him like a neon sign. The girls flirted, probably without realizing it. After they made their orders, and the man's night, they sat in the back giggling and waiting for the numbers to be called. A pair of street toughs walked in loudly. Without making eye contact with the boy behind the counter they turned to the booths. They had already cased the joint. Walking by the doctor and Sheila, the black one looked in the dr's eyes, puts a hand with bloodied knuckles on his shoulder and says nice pull grampa. They sit with the girls, boxing them in. Used to being in control of their interactions with the "clients", one of them start berating them. The Dr can't see what is happening past the high backed booths but he does see the kid behind the counter move down the bar and reach for an invisible shotgun. Howard, the dr, excused himself from Sheila. He walked over to the table that the 5 of them sat. What do you want old timer asked the scrawny white one. Just making sure these ladies were enjoying your company Howard replied. He casually drew back the right side of his sport coat revealing the pearl handle of the Colt .45 he had carried with him since he moved to WV. The gun was his sidearm from Vietnam. The handles a gift from his father for returning safely from fixing the boys when they got shot up in the war. One of the girls felt the temperature drop and almost knock the black teen on his ass pushing her way out of the booth. Your order is ready said the counter boy, the girls went to collect the greasy bags. The toughs retreated giving Howard a hard look. Helena gave him a kiss on the cheek on her way past.