10-07-2026, 01:01 PM
CHAPTER 1: A DANCE AT THE END OF THE WORLD
My name is William Maitland. Six months ago I was a boringly happily married husband and father of two teenagers. I had one of - if not the hottest - women in Jacksonville in my bed, I basically ran the State Attorney’s Office for my boss while he ran for Governor of Florida.
I knew who and what I was and I was happy with it. I had my nightmares. I knew that I didn’t deserve the woman I was married to, that my kids had lost respect for me and that my hot wife Debbie for too long had seemed to look at me more as a roommate and good provider than a stud. I had gotten balding and fat and women no longer looked at me with an appraising eye, if they ever had.
But I told myself that nobody has it all. I had the woman I’d loved for 20 years in my bed and my life, the kids would grow up, I was doing a job that was actually more my life than an occupation, and I had a chance to make the world make sense sometimes. And then it all went away.
In the space of a few weeks, I learned that my wife didn’t love me anymore, she soon fell into bed with a tall, good looking young stud I couldn’t begin to compete with on any physical level, my kids didn’t know or respect me. I lost my wife, my kids in a way, my manhood and my balls when I couldn’t even get an erection while jerking off.
I made a detour into the bottle and could have lost everything, but some good friends including people I didn’t even know, helped me claw my way out. I fought my way back to a better body and better health and the realization that it’s possible to live even after the person you love most in the world has torn your heart out of your chest, chewed it up and spit it out.
It had taken awhile, but with the help of a better friend than I deserved, some kind ladies and one beautiful French woman, I had rediscovered my dick and my manhood. I hadn’t stopped loving that bitch Debbie. I was beginning to think when they dumped my body into the ground I’d still love her. But I knew now I could live without her.
And so, only days away from hitting my 42nd birthday and becoming officially Middle Aged, winning a major court case and sending an evil woman to Death Row at Raiford, burnishing my growing legend as the Angel of Death, and not so incidentally having hot sex with only the third and fourth women I’d known carnally in the last 20 years, I thought my world had finally begun to make sense again.
Until SHE walked back into my life....
“Bill, could you trot on down to Courtroom 4. Peters is in court with that hit and run driver, the one that killed those two kids. His attorney is balking at the plea deal we’ve offered, 15 years with no parole.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just walk in the courtroom and talk to Peters for a few minutes.”
“Why? I’ve just killed almost three hours giving you about a million dollars in free publicity.”
“And I appreciate it. Humor me.”
So I walked into Courtroom 4 and talked to Peters, a youngish blonde guy who was actually only a few years younger than me but looked like he was still in his 20s. I noted the hit and runner looking at me strangely and then his attorney and he conferred and in a few minutes a woman I thought must be the defendant’s wife came over to them and whispered.
The defense guy looked at Peters, and then at me, and suddenly I realized the world was a different place.
It got to be about 5 p.m. I was wrapping up loose ends, accepting congratulatory calls, and trying to decide if I wanted to make it to Hurly’s or try to get by Carlos’ place. It had been a while since I’d done any sparring. The way I felt right now, it seemed I could do almost anything.
I had put away an evil woman, made myself a legal superstar of sorts, had the kind of raw sex I hadn’t even thought about in more than 20 years, and did it right in the middle of the State Attorney’s Office without anyone being the wiser. Hell, I could probably fly if I put my mind to it.
The phone rang and I answered it wearily. I really wanted to get out of here. Susie, a secretary who was taking Cheryl’s place, said, “I hate to bother you, Mr. Maitland, but there’s a woman out here asking to see you.”
“I really don’t want to see anybody, Susie. If she’s a reporter, get her name and tell her I’ll definitely call her tomorrow.”
“She...said it’s important and that you might want to talk to her.” “She wouldn’t give you her name?”
“No sir.”
“Aw hell,” I said more to myself than her, then said, “Okay Susie. I’ll give her five minutes. Tell her.”
I was leaning over to get papers out of a bottom drawer when I heard, “I’d rather have more than five minutes, but I’ll accept whatever I can get.”
I froze. I smelled her perfume first and then when she leaned over to kiss the side of my face, a kiss that slid onto my lips, I tasted mint. She pulled back from me and was looking down on me and I knew I was dreaming.
“You wouldn’t come to me, Mr. Maitland, so I had to come to you.”
I was standing holding her around the waist and she was looking into my eyes with those sea-green eyes of hers. I couldn’t talk.
“I have two weeks, Bill. If you don’t want me to stay, I’ll go. I can fly down south if you don’t want me around.”
I pulled her to me and after a long moment I let her lips go and told her, “I don’t want you to go, Aline. I don’t want you to go.”
I left her and went to the door to my office and locked it. I didn’t want anyone wandering in. I wanted Aline to myself for right now. When I walked back to her we didn’t touch again, just stood looking at each other.
“It was time for me to leave the ship but Philippe called and told me that he has arranged membership for André in one of the most exclusive boy’s fraternities in France. It will be a feather in the cap of André for the rest of his life. Most of the leaders of French government, industry, business, were members as boys. It’s the equivalent of a club at...Oxford or Cambridge. You make friendships that will serve you the rest of your life.”
She looked at her hand and I noted that she had not put her wedding ring back on, but she was looking at her ring finger and I knew who she was thinking about.
“Philippe came from nothing. Middle class pencil pushers, he puts it. He rose because of his own drive and intelligence. But he could have gone so much further with the connections that André will make. He wants that for André . And for two weeks, André will be engaged in male-only activities on a safari in Kenya, with Philippe and some of the other fathers along. An outing. It’s one of the rituals they engage in.”
“And a Mom wouldn’t fit in?” She shook her head.
“Non. It deprives me of my time with him, but I love André as much as Philippe. I will see him in two weeks. I could have stayed on the ship. I should have stayed on the ship. I could have flown back to Paris and waited at our home there. I could have visited family and friends.
“Instead,” and she crossed the distance between us to put her hand on my chest, over my heart, “I chose to surprise a man I’ve only known for a week, a man trying to put his life back together, a man I threw myself at on our first cruise together. A man I was not even sure would welcome me. I must be a fool.”
I pulled her to me and held her warmth against me.
“I’m glad you’re here, Aline. God, I’m glad you’re here. You have two weeks? Do you have any plans?”
“Just one. To spend them with you. If you want me to stay the whole time.” “Of course.”
My mind started working again.
“I don’t know that I’ll be able to get away much. We have a pretty full calendar and...”
I stopped myself and looked at the dark haired vision that stood in front of me, delicious breasts rising and falling, remembering that great ass that was concealed beneath layers of clothing. She had chosen to come to me. And I was going to spend time on depositions and witnesses and recalcitrant defendants?
NO! I had lost one woman I couldn’t afford to lose because I’d put this office first. The woman in front of me wasn’t mine, never would be, never could be, but she had made me happy. She’d made me wake up with a smile on my face and a hard-on. She deserved more of me than I’d normally be willing to give.
“I have some things that need doing, but I’ll make time for us to go places. I’d like to show off Northeast Florida to you. It’s been my home for most of my life. It’s not exactly Paris, but there are a lot of things to like.”
“That sounds like fun. Do you want to go out and celebrate tonight?” I gave her a curious look.
“Everybody in the courthouse is talking about your great triumph and I saw a telecast on one of the televisions in the airport. ‘The Angel of Death’ takes a bite
out of the ‘Shark’ was one report I saw and ‘Killer Granny latest victim of the Angel of Death.’ You have become a celebrity.”
“I’m a 15 minute sensation, Aline. In a week they’ll be asking me for ID when I go to cash a check at the bank.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, slipping her arms around me. “My friend is a famous man and becoming more famous by the day. I think I’m going to become your first ‘groupie’. But we should go out tonight.”
I thought about it for a moment.
“I know a place we can go for drinks after we grab a bite. But I really don’t want to celebrate anyplace we’re liable to run into press or anybody I know.”
She gave me a hurt look.
“You are ashamed of me, Bill?”
I pulled her to me and kissed her hard and while she fought it at first she gave in and gave herself to it. When I had to breathe again I held her out at arm's length and said, “Anywhere I go with you, every man in the place is going to be hating me and wishing you were on his arm. You’re going to be the most beautiful woman wherever we go. How could I be ashamed of you?”
“Then why?”
“I want you for myself, Aline. I don’t want to share you. I don’t want to have to answer questions and I don’t want Debbie sticking her nose into my business and she will be a pain in the ass if she ever sees you. We’re almost able to stay in the same room without my wanting to kill her and I don’t want to stir up any more shit than I have to.
“And....” I told her, “the world is a small place. A camera crew catches me celebrating with a beautiful, dark haired mystery woman, and what would you care to bet that it won’t somehow wind up on the Internet. And they get the Internet in France. Does Philippe know you’re spending your two weeks with his old friend, Bill?”
She shook her head and dropped her gaze.
“Do you want to try explaining to him why I gave you the Fleur de Lis AND you wound up coming to my home town and going out partying with me? I don’t think anyone, and especially Philippe, is a big enough idiot not to know what’s going on.
“He might be able to turn a blind eye to...us, especially since he’s doing the same thing, but if it goes on the Internet your friends will see us together. Is he going to be able to accept that? You’ll be hurting his pride, and from what I remember of him, I don’t think he’s the kind of man who can accept that and live with it. If you made him angry enough, you don’t think he’d try to use André against you.”
The color drained from her face.
My name is William Maitland. Six months ago I was a boringly happily married husband and father of two teenagers. I had one of - if not the hottest - women in Jacksonville in my bed, I basically ran the State Attorney’s Office for my boss while he ran for Governor of Florida.
I knew who and what I was and I was happy with it. I had my nightmares. I knew that I didn’t deserve the woman I was married to, that my kids had lost respect for me and that my hot wife Debbie for too long had seemed to look at me more as a roommate and good provider than a stud. I had gotten balding and fat and women no longer looked at me with an appraising eye, if they ever had.
But I told myself that nobody has it all. I had the woman I’d loved for 20 years in my bed and my life, the kids would grow up, I was doing a job that was actually more my life than an occupation, and I had a chance to make the world make sense sometimes. And then it all went away.
In the space of a few weeks, I learned that my wife didn’t love me anymore, she soon fell into bed with a tall, good looking young stud I couldn’t begin to compete with on any physical level, my kids didn’t know or respect me. I lost my wife, my kids in a way, my manhood and my balls when I couldn’t even get an erection while jerking off.
I made a detour into the bottle and could have lost everything, but some good friends including people I didn’t even know, helped me claw my way out. I fought my way back to a better body and better health and the realization that it’s possible to live even after the person you love most in the world has torn your heart out of your chest, chewed it up and spit it out.
It had taken awhile, but with the help of a better friend than I deserved, some kind ladies and one beautiful French woman, I had rediscovered my dick and my manhood. I hadn’t stopped loving that bitch Debbie. I was beginning to think when they dumped my body into the ground I’d still love her. But I knew now I could live without her.
And so, only days away from hitting my 42nd birthday and becoming officially Middle Aged, winning a major court case and sending an evil woman to Death Row at Raiford, burnishing my growing legend as the Angel of Death, and not so incidentally having hot sex with only the third and fourth women I’d known carnally in the last 20 years, I thought my world had finally begun to make sense again.
Until SHE walked back into my life....
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2005
About 4 p.m. I got a call from the Big Man.“Bill, could you trot on down to Courtroom 4. Peters is in court with that hit and run driver, the one that killed those two kids. His attorney is balking at the plea deal we’ve offered, 15 years with no parole.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just walk in the courtroom and talk to Peters for a few minutes.”
“Why? I’ve just killed almost three hours giving you about a million dollars in free publicity.”
“And I appreciate it. Humor me.”
So I walked into Courtroom 4 and talked to Peters, a youngish blonde guy who was actually only a few years younger than me but looked like he was still in his 20s. I noted the hit and runner looking at me strangely and then his attorney and he conferred and in a few minutes a woman I thought must be the defendant’s wife came over to them and whispered.
“Your honor,” the defense attorney said, drawing the attention of Circuit Judge Dominic Dellaro. Dellaro looked up from some papers he’d been studying. “Uh, your honor, my client has changed his mind. We’ll take the State’s
plea.”
Dellaro looked at him with just the hint of a smile and asked, “Are you sure, Mr. Richards. I thought you said your client would never agree to 15 years imprisonment. You were going to fight to prove his innocence.”The defense guy looked at Peters, and then at me, and suddenly I realized the world was a different place.
“We changed our mind, your honor.” Dellaro just looked at me and smiled.
When I got back to my office the phone was ringing.
The Big Man sounded like a cat that had just swallowed a covey of canaries. “I think I’m going to have you stand around in every courtroom where we
have a trial going. At this rate, we won’t actually have to try many more cases. Not with the Angel of Death breathing fire and brimstone.”
I would have joked about it except I was still stunned. I really had frightened that guy into accepting a plea. This was almost not funny anymore.It got to be about 5 p.m. I was wrapping up loose ends, accepting congratulatory calls, and trying to decide if I wanted to make it to Hurly’s or try to get by Carlos’ place. It had been a while since I’d done any sparring. The way I felt right now, it seemed I could do almost anything.
I had put away an evil woman, made myself a legal superstar of sorts, had the kind of raw sex I hadn’t even thought about in more than 20 years, and did it right in the middle of the State Attorney’s Office without anyone being the wiser. Hell, I could probably fly if I put my mind to it.
The phone rang and I answered it wearily. I really wanted to get out of here. Susie, a secretary who was taking Cheryl’s place, said, “I hate to bother you, Mr. Maitland, but there’s a woman out here asking to see you.”
“I really don’t want to see anybody, Susie. If she’s a reporter, get her name and tell her I’ll definitely call her tomorrow.”
“She...said it’s important and that you might want to talk to her.” “She wouldn’t give you her name?”
“No sir.”
“Aw hell,” I said more to myself than her, then said, “Okay Susie. I’ll give her five minutes. Tell her.”
I was leaning over to get papers out of a bottom drawer when I heard, “I’d rather have more than five minutes, but I’ll accept whatever I can get.”
I froze. I smelled her perfume first and then when she leaned over to kiss the side of my face, a kiss that slid onto my lips, I tasted mint. She pulled back from me and was looking down on me and I knew I was dreaming.
“You wouldn’t come to me, Mr. Maitland, so I had to come to you.”
I was standing holding her around the waist and she was looking into my eyes with those sea-green eyes of hers. I couldn’t talk.
“I have two weeks, Bill. If you don’t want me to stay, I’ll go. I can fly down south if you don’t want me around.”
I pulled her to me and after a long moment I let her lips go and told her, “I don’t want you to go, Aline. I don’t want you to go.”
I left her and went to the door to my office and locked it. I didn’t want anyone wandering in. I wanted Aline to myself for right now. When I walked back to her we didn’t touch again, just stood looking at each other.
“Why?”
“I missed you, Bill. I tried not to. I know you didn’t want to see me again.
But I missed you. I thought it would get better with time. But it doesn’t.”
“How could you get away from the Bonne Chance? And if you had that much free time, I thought. you’d be going home to Philippe and André?”“It was time for me to leave the ship but Philippe called and told me that he has arranged membership for André in one of the most exclusive boy’s fraternities in France. It will be a feather in the cap of André for the rest of his life. Most of the leaders of French government, industry, business, were members as boys. It’s the equivalent of a club at...Oxford or Cambridge. You make friendships that will serve you the rest of your life.”
She looked at her hand and I noted that she had not put her wedding ring back on, but she was looking at her ring finger and I knew who she was thinking about.
“Philippe came from nothing. Middle class pencil pushers, he puts it. He rose because of his own drive and intelligence. But he could have gone so much further with the connections that André will make. He wants that for André . And for two weeks, André will be engaged in male-only activities on a safari in Kenya, with Philippe and some of the other fathers along. An outing. It’s one of the rituals they engage in.”
“And a Mom wouldn’t fit in?” She shook her head.
“Non. It deprives me of my time with him, but I love André as much as Philippe. I will see him in two weeks. I could have stayed on the ship. I should have stayed on the ship. I could have flown back to Paris and waited at our home there. I could have visited family and friends.
“Instead,” and she crossed the distance between us to put her hand on my chest, over my heart, “I chose to surprise a man I’ve only known for a week, a man trying to put his life back together, a man I threw myself at on our first cruise together. A man I was not even sure would welcome me. I must be a fool.”
I pulled her to me and held her warmth against me.
“I’m glad you’re here, Aline. God, I’m glad you’re here. You have two weeks? Do you have any plans?”
“Just one. To spend them with you. If you want me to stay the whole time.” “Of course.”
My mind started working again.
“I don’t know that I’ll be able to get away much. We have a pretty full calendar and...”
I stopped myself and looked at the dark haired vision that stood in front of me, delicious breasts rising and falling, remembering that great ass that was concealed beneath layers of clothing. She had chosen to come to me. And I was going to spend time on depositions and witnesses and recalcitrant defendants?
NO! I had lost one woman I couldn’t afford to lose because I’d put this office first. The woman in front of me wasn’t mine, never would be, never could be, but she had made me happy. She’d made me wake up with a smile on my face and a hard-on. She deserved more of me than I’d normally be willing to give.
“I have some things that need doing, but I’ll make time for us to go places. I’d like to show off Northeast Florida to you. It’s been my home for most of my life. It’s not exactly Paris, but there are a lot of things to like.”
“That sounds like fun. Do you want to go out and celebrate tonight?” I gave her a curious look.
“Everybody in the courthouse is talking about your great triumph and I saw a telecast on one of the televisions in the airport. ‘The Angel of Death’ takes a bite
out of the ‘Shark’ was one report I saw and ‘Killer Granny latest victim of the Angel of Death.’ You have become a celebrity.”
“I’m a 15 minute sensation, Aline. In a week they’ll be asking me for ID when I go to cash a check at the bank.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, slipping her arms around me. “My friend is a famous man and becoming more famous by the day. I think I’m going to become your first ‘groupie’. But we should go out tonight.”
I thought about it for a moment.
“I know a place we can go for drinks after we grab a bite. But I really don’t want to celebrate anyplace we’re liable to run into press or anybody I know.”
She gave me a hurt look.
“You are ashamed of me, Bill?”
I pulled her to me and kissed her hard and while she fought it at first she gave in and gave herself to it. When I had to breathe again I held her out at arm's length and said, “Anywhere I go with you, every man in the place is going to be hating me and wishing you were on his arm. You’re going to be the most beautiful woman wherever we go. How could I be ashamed of you?”
“Then why?”
“I want you for myself, Aline. I don’t want to share you. I don’t want to have to answer questions and I don’t want Debbie sticking her nose into my business and she will be a pain in the ass if she ever sees you. We’re almost able to stay in the same room without my wanting to kill her and I don’t want to stir up any more shit than I have to.
“And....” I told her, “the world is a small place. A camera crew catches me celebrating with a beautiful, dark haired mystery woman, and what would you care to bet that it won’t somehow wind up on the Internet. And they get the Internet in France. Does Philippe know you’re spending your two weeks with his old friend, Bill?”
She shook her head and dropped her gaze.
“Do you want to try explaining to him why I gave you the Fleur de Lis AND you wound up coming to my home town and going out partying with me? I don’t think anyone, and especially Philippe, is a big enough idiot not to know what’s going on.
“He might be able to turn a blind eye to...us, especially since he’s doing the same thing, but if it goes on the Internet your friends will see us together. Is he going to be able to accept that? You’ll be hurting his pride, and from what I remember of him, I don’t think he’s the kind of man who can accept that and live with it. If you made him angry enough, you don’t think he’d try to use André against you.”
The color drained from her face.
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