We got Joanie back to my car and got her inside. I thanked Sam before I got in the car myself. She was just staring straight ahead and I wasn't sure but I thought maybe it was a mistake to bring her with me. I maybe should have taken her to Emma's first but I couldn't be sure and I hated her to be out of my sight.

"I've never held one of these before," she said and I turned to her. Her voice was flat and small and I saw she had my knife in her hand, just turning it over and over like she was studying it.

"I'm sorry, Joanie," I said, "I shouldn't have brought you with me."

"Who would you have gotten to babysit me?" she was trying for a bitter tone but accomplished only a fearful one.

"Emma," I said honestly, "That way Al would be nearby too."

I wasn't even going to try to deny that I would have found someone to keep an eye on her.

"Is it this button?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, "But you have to turn it around like this." I moved the knife in her hand. "Otherwise you'll just stab yourself."

She hit the button and jumped a little when the blade popped out.

"How do I put it back?"

I showed her.

"Just please be careful with it, honey," I said, "I don't carry it anymore but I do keep it sharp."

I started the car and thought to put it in gear but I stopped.

"I don't know where to take you," I said, "There's my place or Emma's or your apartment; tell me where."

"I should check on Sherry," she said and I was happy that she sounded less and less like she was talking from the bottom of a well. I drove to Ann Arbor and to the girls' apartment.

We got inside and Sherry looked up.

"I hope you didn't try to call again," she told us, "Because the phone's been off the hook for over an hour. I just don't want to listen to his smarmy voice anymore."

She shuddered at the thought.

"What did you tell him when he called?" I asked.

"I told him he was a creep and my brothers taught me how to deal with guys like him."

"Sherry," I said, "Would you come into the city with us?"

"I don't understand," she replied.

"I just don't think you're safe here," I told her, "Sam's going to have Ann Arbor police start tailing Stan but in the meantime, neither of us could stand it if anything happened to you."

"I couldn't impose like that," she argued.

"It's no imposition to see a friend is safe," I argued right back, "We have a fold out couch."

She relented and went to pack a bag. Joanie did the same. She had clothes at my place but she wanted things to wear to temple in the morning. I put the phone back in its cradle and waited for the girls. It wasn't five minutes before it rang. I answered it hoping it was a friend from a study group or Sherry's parents or something.

"Hello."

"So you're staying over with the little whore."

Have you ever heard of someone blinded by rage? Well, that's how it was when I heard that. I truly couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

"Leave her alone," I growled at him. "You don't really want her and she really doesn't want you."

"You just tell her I'll find her and pay her back for the way she acted."

I slammed down the phone at that. I knew whatever I could say at that moment could come back and hurt me and worst of all could hurt Joanie. I looked up to see Sherry standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

"I know you want to kill him," she said simply as if discussing murder was something people did over coffee every day. "Get in line."

I smiled at her and we even shared a small laugh over that. I told you Sherry had a way with people. It's funny because when you think of someone as good at science as she was, you think of some nerd who doesn't know how to carry a conversation, not someone with such an easy manner as Sherry.

"Trying to steal my boyfriend again?" Joanie popped into the kitchen. It was a playful accusation and it felt good to see her acting normal even though I was catching on to the fact that she wasn't normal yet.

"As if anyone could," I said smiling.

I drove both girls back to my place and it was kind of nice. We all got dinner together and ate and just talked for a bit but thankfully not about anything serious. Eventually the girls decided I needed to run down to the store before it closed and pick up some more pop and beer and maybe some ice cream too.

I walked out of my apartment building and that's when I saw the shadow standing there watching me. I kept my eyes open and headed toward the store. It was only on the corner so I wasn't about to get in the car and drive it. I knew I was walking past whoever it was who was keeping an eye on me too but I tried to act like I wasn't bothered. I wasn't in nearly as bad a neighborhood as I had lived in before but it was still in the city and it paid to know your surroundings in the city. Now I would say the same is true everywhere you might happen to be. I saw the movement a fraction of a second before I heard the voice.

"Are you doing both of them now? Joanie I can see but I wouldn't think that Sherry girl would go for your type. Hell, Joanie will do anything."

I turned toward the voice. It was dark and there wasn't anyone around to see a damned thing but I knew Joanie didn't want me risking all we had for this S.O.B.

"She won't do you," I said.

"I might not have gotten her cherry but I guarantee I've been places on and in her body you'll never get to."

That was it. There is only so much a man can take after all and I charged at him. I knocked him over and had him flat on his back. I made sure I ground my knee solidly in his groin. I was at least going to make sure he wouldn't have use of that for a while.

"What's it like being down there?" I asked. "It's how you like your women isn't it?"

I punched him and I could feel his nose give way under my fist.

"Please," he said.

"Please what?" I asked him, "I'll bet Joanie said the same thing. Did you give her any mercy or did it turn you on to have her pleading under you for you to stop?"

I punched him again and again and again. Oh hell, I don't know how many times I punched him. He stopped saying please after a few punches. He was still trying but it didn't come out right. His lips had been split a few too many times to say anything too clearly. But then I did hear something clearly and it was someone yelling for me to stop. I was so surprised and I think half afraid it was the cops or something that I did stop. I turned and there was Sherry standing there. I got up but I made sure to push off on the knee that was sturdily on his groin. I heard one last grunt of pain from him and I walked toward Sherry.

"Are you okay?"she asked me.

"I don't know," I said, "I'm sorry. I'll head to the store now."

"No you won't," she said, "You're going right back upstairs and I'll make us some tea. We need to get a look at your hands and make sure you're alright."

It might seem odd that she was so concerned about my knuckles when there was a guy not ten feet away coughing and bleeding in an alley but well, it was an odd situation and we weren't going to worry ourselves too much with him.

He was fine enough I guess just in case you're wondering. I broke his nose but good and his mouth was a big mess. Might have lost a couple of teeth too but I think he gained something too. Maybe he gained an understanding of what it was like to be on the receiving end of how he treats women.

I went back inside my building with Sherry and made it to the first landing before I just leaned against the wall. I was shaking, not from fear but I think from all the adrenaline that gets going through your veins when you're involved in something like that. I know my breath was shaking too. I hadn't thought at all about what I was doing when I charged him or when I hit him or even about anything I said to him. Sherry sat on a step on the next flight up and just waited for me to compose myself. She had brothers and I know it wasn't the first time she had dealt with the aftermath of a fight. After a few minutes I pushed myself away from the wall and headed the rest of the way to my apartment with Sherry right behind me. I unlocked the door and Joanie turned to me with a smile that melted off as soon as she caught sight of me. I wasn't hurt at all except for my hands but my face was splattered with blood and I know my expression probably told her something bad had happened.

She wanted to run to me but I could tell she was frozen to the spot. She sort of swayed but couldn't really move. Sherry grabbed my arm and sat me at the kitchen table before she hustled off to the bathroom to find some peroxide and a cloth. When she got back, she put on a kettle for tea before she even looked at my hands.

"They don't look to bad," she said, "I think once we get the scrapes cleaned up, it won't look much worse than what you do to yourself at work."

It's true I usually had really banged up hands from them being under the hood of a car most of the time. Once the blood was cleaned off and my hands passed inspection from Sherry, I went over to Joanie and sat down next to her.

"What did you do?" she whispered.

"It's not as bad as it looks," I said.

"What did you do?" she asked a little louder and I knew I'd better answer her if I didn't want her bothering the neighbors.

"I hit him," I said. It was an understatement but not untrue.

"You didn't kill him, did you?"

"No," I assured her, "I didn't even come close to killing him."

"He followed us here," she said as if it had just dawned on her. I nodded and then looked over to see Sherry holding a towel to me.

"You should get cleaned up," she said, "If he does call the cops, you don't want to be standing there in a bloody shirt with your face looking like that."

She was right. The hands I could explain away as work related but the shirt had gotten bloody about the time I smashed his nose and my face was covered in spattered blood. I looked between Sherry and Joanie and Sherry just nodded. I headed into the bathroom to take a shower.

I just stood there for a while letting the hot water run over me. I hadn't realized how tensed all my muscles were until the heat started releasing them for me. I knew that beating the crap out of Stan might have been a huge mistake but right about then it felt damned good to have done it. I leaned against the wall and if anyone had seen me they would have thought I had lost it for sure. I was naked and wet and crying and laughing all at the same time. If you have to have a breakdown like that, the shower is a good place to have it. No one sees you and if your eyes get a little red and puffy, well, you can just say you got shampoo in your eye or something.

I got out of the shower and put on a change of clothes and went out to see how the girls was doing. Sherry was sitting behind Joanie on the davenport and brushing her hair and they was singing together. I think they was singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'. They looked like any girls anywhere just having a slumber party. It was a nice sight.

"Hey Jimmy," Sherry said looking up from Joanie's hair. "You want some tea?"

"Yeah, I'll get it myself though," I told her, "You stay put."

It wasn't much after that when I pulled out the sofa bed for Sherry and tucked my sweet girl into bed next to me.

"James," she said so softly I almost couldn't hear her.

I rolled to face her, "What is it sweetheart?"

"I'm sorry."

I groped a second and found her hand in the dark and brought it to my lips.

"I wish you'd stop being sorry," I said gently, "None of this is your fault."

"Am I a bad person that I'm happy you beat him up?"

"Not unless I'm a bad person too," I said.

"Thank you," she said and moved closer to me in the bed, "For everything."

"You don't get how much I love you, do you?" I asked, "I would die for you if I had to."

"I would do anything for you too," she said and she started rubbing up against me. "I mean anything."

I knew exactly what she meant. Now I'll explain me and Joanie had one fine sex life but for as passionate as we could be, it was pretty tame and straightforward if you catch my drift. I hadn't ever felt anything was missing at all but I knew there'd been things she'd done with him that were at that time less talked about acts. I knew about them and had even partaken in them in the past. There was lots of reasons why folks did and most often when I'd had occasion it was because a girl was just that afraid of getting knocked up. I had no complaints at all about what Joanie offered and never questioned it. Even once I knew she'd done those things with him, I didn't think to feel slighted at all. I mean it's not like she wanted to do any of that with him in the first place. But here she was offering me anything I might have ever thought of in my kinkiest thoughts. I held her tight but just around the waist.

"No," I said, "I'm not going to be like him. You don't owe me a damned thing. I love you and I will be here for you when you need me but I will not take advantage of you like this. It's still not your decision to do it."

"You don't want me?"

"You don't have to move your hand far at all to feel that I do want you," I told her, "But I only want what you're okay giving. Maybe someday you'll feel okay enough about all this to try some of those things with me but maybe they'll always be tainted for you and that's just fine too."

She hugged me tighter but wasn't wiggling herself against me and she stayed quiet for a bit.

"I want to feel wanted," she said, "I really do."

"You're always wanted," I said, "If I didn't have to work and go to school and you didn't have school, none of this would have happened because we'd never make it out of bed."

She did move her hand right about then and I wasn't lying about what she'd find when she did. I got her out of the nightgown she was in and I rolled over onto her. I noticed her tense up at that and rolled back on my back.

"I really do want this James," she said.

"I know but it'll be better this way," I told her as I brought her on top of me. "Just keep the noise down. We're not alone."

She leaned forward and kissed me.

"Oh Sherry? She could have slept through the blitz."

We did sleep eventually and then got up the next morning and got ready for temple. There was some argument from Sherry who wanted to just stay there but until I knew how things were going to settle after what I'd done the night before to Stan, I just didn't trust it. We took her over to Emma's where I knew Sam would probably be wandering over at some point and Al was right next door. Besides, Buck and Ike were usually there with their wives and kids. There was no way that creep would get anywhere near her. Then Joanie and I headed out to Bloomfield Hills. We were less than a block from the synagogue when Joanie finally said something.

"I can't do this," she said.

"Sweetheart, they already know," I reminded her, "If you aren't in temple today, they are going to send out search parties for you."

We got to temple and I took her hand as we walked toward the building. Before I could react someone rushed past me and was clinging to Joanie. It was Judy. In all of this I don't think either one of us thought of what this might do to her. The poor girl was just sobbing into her sister and Joanie let go with more tears than I had seen to that point and that's saying something because there had been a lot of tears. Within a few minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Cohen were both standing there and Judy released her sister and clung to me instead.

"Hey short stuff," I said, "How is everyone holding up?"

The two of us walked a little ways away to let Joanie and her folks talk but not so far away that I couldn't get to her if I needed to.

"Better than you, it looks like," she said looking at my knuckles and trying to crack a bit of a joke. "Did you fight a cement mixer or something?"

"Between you and me, Jude?" I had to make sure of this but she nodded and I knew she would. Judy could keep a secret. For a pest of a little sister, she wasn't that much of a pest at all, actually. "It was Stan."

"Good," she said, "Now Daddy won't have to do it. You're handy to have around, Jimmy."

"Keep telling me that and maybe someday I'll even believe it a little."

She gave me an even bigger hug then.

"Don't be modest," she said, "I know how you take care of her when she has her episodes and Uncle Eli told us how you've been seeing to her since, well, you know. She might be my big sister but I'm kind of protective. And she usually has the most terrible taste in men. I thought she'd never be able to find a good guy on her own. But then that's Joanie for you, tell her she can't do something and that's the very thing she'll finally manage."

Yeah, that was my Joanie all right. Damn that kid was smart.

Okay, confession time, that felt really good! I'm sure it did for Jimmy too. I'm still working out all of the fallout from all of this but I really like that I can get more into some of these other people too...Sherry, Judy and more in depth into Sam. *sigh*

Well, to cap off the most meh sports weekend I can think of, the Lions lost their first game of the season. So, out of four games I cared about this weekend, my guys won two of them. .500 isn't bad but after the week I had, I really could have used some more awesomeness from the Detroit athetes.

So, about that week last week. I have been a little cryptic on here and intentionally so. Basically, there was a huge problem at my son's school. My son is autistic and this all revolves around his autism. This is very touchy and I don't feel comfortable at all about detailing things in this open a forum. I know a couple of you already know what is happening. I probably wouldn't mention it at all except that I have to go to the school tomorrow and speak with the police liaison to the school about the incident. My child was injured and I'm really not cool with that at all. But I am not a confrontational person by nature. I can handle the confrontations and I can advocate for my son but I hate them and they tie my stomach in knots. Having kids is really hard work.

So let me know what you think of the way this is playing out.-J