The rug smelled like Cookie. Leo sat up, planted both palms on the carpet behind him, and took stock of the soft small disaster Cookie had made of the room.
He stood up and pulled his pants on. His shirt turned up behind the side table where Cookie had thrown it at some point he did not remember. Buttoning it back up while walking the perimeter, he kicked the rug into the floor with the side of his foot as he went. He cracked the window above the couch open. The door to the side hallway he wedged ajar so a small cross-breeze could carry the smell of Cookie's love juices out of the room. He set the two lamps back at their reading angles, sniffed the air, and went into the kitchen to wash his hands.
The doorbell rang as he was drying them.
…
He went to the door and opened it.
Manjula was on the porch, still in the dry-leaf sari she had worn to court that morning, the navy border slightly creased at the hip where she had been bunching it in her hand on the walk up the path. Her braid had loosened a little. Her bag was over her shoulder. Her face was awfully calm.
Behind her, on the porch steps and along the path, in a small obedient line, were eight children. Smallest in front, largest behind. Each one held a small bag. Sandals on, hair combed, all of them looking up at him with different levels of happiness. The sight was exactly the same as when Manjula had first shown up to his house with them. Leo counted all eight of them.
"Leo. I am sorry to be bringing them. Now that everything was wrapped up, I am the one who they will almost always be with. I have a plan for them today. You do not have to be worrying about them staying here. But I had to be telling you the news in person."
'Thank god.' Leo smiled at the jits. "Come in. Bring them in."
She turned and gestured, and the line came up the steps in order. Eight pairs of sandals came off in the entryway. Leo waved them through to the den, switched the television on, scrolled past Naruto since they had already seen the Kakashi bell test on the last visit, and put on the first episode of Bleach.
What was the best anime to put on for them? Leo had no idea.
The eight settled into a small efficient cluster on the rug, with the biggest two on the couch behind. He then walked back to the living room where Manjula was awaiting him.
…
Manjula was sitting on the edge of the couch with her hands folded in her lap when he came back in. He sat down across from her in the armchair.
"It went how we were hoping, Leo. The petition was granted in full. Custody is mine. The assets have been divided in my favor. Apu is reduced to supervised weekends, one per month, until he is being able to show sobriety. Hutz tried again with the crayon. The judge would not be having it."
"Just like I told you would happen." Leo nodded, reaching forward, placing his hand on top of hers.
"I am a free woman."
She said it quietly, feeling extra warmth from his hand.
"Completely free. That's great, Manjula. I mean it. That's great."
She nodded once and let herself smile.
…
"The settlement is supposed to be starting by the week," she went on. "Richard told me the first transfer will be clearing within days. Which is the other thing I came to be telling you."
"Yes?"
"I am not going to be staying here, Leo."
Leo let her continue before responding.
"I love it here. You are everything a woman would want. Everything I want. But I am not going to be a burden on you. And more importantly than that, I do not want to be rushing into the next thing the way I rushed into the last one. I married Apu after one day of knowing him, Leo. I am not going to be making that mistake twice. Not that you are any mistake. Even when everything in me is telling me to be ignoring this feeling. Because you seem too perfect to be walking away from. I still should be starting more on my own this time."
"You can stay if you want to. You don't have to leave. I like having you here, Manjula. Really"
Leo said it the way a good man would say it. Although, secretly, he wished she didn't agree to what he was offering. With all the women coming over recently it had become harder to balance keeping Manjula upstairs and knowing exactly when she should be.
Inevitably, one of the women was bound to mistakenly see Manjula or even meet her. Manjula's idea was for the best. He was a bit sad about losing twenty four hour access to her sexy Indian body though.
Manjula smiled at him.
"I knew you would be saying that. You are a good man. Don't worry. I will still be coming by often. It is not mattering anymore who is seeing me visiting you. I am single now, not married."
"That's true."
"And besides, my children are going to be needing my attention. It is going to be a lot of work. They have not had me with them for a week. I have to be giving them that time." She looked down at her hands. "And, Leo. While I have been holed up here, I have been looking at places. There is one I have found that I can be signing on arrival if I put down a good deposit. My savings are almost untouched, because you have been handling everything since I moved in."
"Mama?"
Poonam, one of the children, was standing in the doorway of the living room, a juice box in one hand and the straw between her teeth. Her braids were a little crooked. She was studying Leo with the slightly suspicious expression of a five-year-old.
She was one of the more talkative children. Her many siblings all had different personalities. Most of them had come to like Leo since their last meeting due to the snacks and show he had provided them. Poonam was one of the last ones who still didn't fold so easily with just those things.
"Mama, are we going to be seeing Mr. Leo lots of times?"
"Yes, sweetie. We are going to be seeing Mr. Leo very often. It is going to be wonderful. Now go and be watching your show with your brothers and sisters."
Poonam looked at Leo.
"Mama, are you happy?"
"Very, sweetie. So much. Now go with your siblings."
She looked at him for another second, then nodded, turned around, and padded back down the hall.
…
"Fine," Leo said when Manjula turned back to him. "I wont push you too hard since you've decided to go. But before you go signing anything, I want you to know something. I'm opening my own daycare. Two weeks out. Maybe faster. It is going to be a high-quality operation. I am putting real money into it. And I need you to promise me something. Once it opens, you are going to leave the kids there most days. For the full day."
She blinked at him.
"Leo, that is —"
"You are your own woman now, Manjula. You have to give yourself time to yourself. You have to explore, you have to figure out who you are with the leash off, you have to do whatever it is you have been waiting years to do. Besides, you need to be free on the days you're going to model. You can't miss the one on coming up on Wednesday. It's your first one." He stood up and crossed the small distance between them and pulled her up off the couch and into him by the back of her elbow. "And while we are being honest about it, it is also going to give the two of us some extra time together still. I have been noticing how much your appetite for me has grown since you started experiencing 'me' on a regular basis."
He kissed her.
She let him kiss her, and when he pulled back her face was a little flushed.
"Yes," she said quietly. "Your dick has been having that effect on me. I am not going to be pretending otherwise."
He laughed.
"Okay, Leo. That is fine. I will be trusting you and your daycare once it opens. I owe you so much. It is the least I can be doing."
She put her hand flat on his chest and then let it slide down his stomach and stop at the waistband of his pants. Her thumb brushed the print of him through the fabric.
"Besides. All the reading I have been doing in the upstairs room has been giving me a lot of subjects, Leo. And a lot of things I am wanting to be trying. Ones' we have not done."
…
The kids were gathered up about ten minutes later. Bleach paused on the screen mid-frame, the image of an orange haired woman with large breasts. They could rival Marge's.
The line of children reassembled itself in the entryway in the same order it had arrived, smallest to tallest, and Manjula went down the row counting heads with one finger and adjusting a bag strap or a sandal here and there as she went. Sandals on, bags on, eight small obedient faces tilted up at her.
She turned at the door and walked them down the porch steps and out to the car at the curb. Leo watched from the open doorway. She had them in their seats and buckled and the doors closed within seconds.
Then she came back up the path alone and stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.
"I will be calling you soon, Leo."
"Sure."
"You are a good man."
She looked up at him for one more second from the path. Then she turned and walked back down to the car, got in the driver's seat, and pulled away.
Leo closed the door.
He had not made it more than three steps back into the living room when an engine wound up hard somewhere down the block. It was the wrong kind of noise for a residential street on a weekday this late at night: too much throttle, too much horsepower. He turned back toward the front of the house.
*Screeeechhhhhh. BOOM*
Tires barked. Through the front window came a red blur up the street at speed, a 1981 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, T-tops out, gold Firebird decal stretched across the hood, the engine note unmistakably the 403.The car uncontrollably slid across the street directly in front of his house and the front end met the utility pole at the curb with a metal-on-metal crunch
Steam rose off the folded hood. The horn was stuck on for three seconds. The Trans Am's front end was bent around the pole like wet cardboard, and the gold Firebird on the hood was now a gold bird folded in half.
Leo started quickly opened his door and started walking down his porch to check on the person.
The driver's door of the Trans Am shrieked open against bent metal, and Apu spilled sideways out of the wreck onto the lawn. He was still holding a bottle of something brown by the neck. His shirt was the same one from the courtroom, untucked now. His hair stood up on one side. He got to his feet by stages, planted one palm on the hood for balance, hissed, pulled the hand back from the hot metal, and pointed the bottle at Leo.
"YOU."
Leo stood on his lawn with his hands at his sides.
"Apu. You just drove into the pole."
"You! Are you the bastard?! Are you the man Manjula mentioned?!"
"Mentioned what?"
"Do not be playing the fool with me! I followed her! From the courthouse! I followed her all the way here! She walked out of your house, you, new neighbor! Your house! With my children! My eight children!"
"Apu —"
"And I have been selling you items at my Kwik-E-Mart! You heard me vent to you about her! You stood at my counter and you nodded your head and you— YOU BASTARD!"
"Apu, you're drunk. You drove your car into a pole. Sit down on the curb. I'll call you a cab and explain. You're misunderstanding what you saw."
"I am not sitting on any curb!"
"Apu —"
"YOU HAVE BEEN SLEEPING WITH MY WIFE!"
The yelling was overdramatic and loud. Leo didn't like causing a scene. His eyes narrowed on Apu.
"...What wife? I heard you don't exactly have one anymore. Now stop yelling and sit down before you do something —"
Apu raised the bottle over his head like a club.
He rushed towards Leo.
...
...
...
[A/N]: Back to back day posting, sheesh setting records.