I thought Donna might be cheating on me, but to see it in action, see it laid out in the whiteness of Daan Fontaine’s ass, was something else entirely. Daan Fontaine? I’d just written the guy a check for new kitchen cabinets and a computer controlled Garbage Disposal System. He’d given me a ride to work that morning.

Daan’s muscled back and the familiar sounds of my wife’s wispy cries struck me dumb and motionless. I stood in the doorway and watched as he grabbed Donna’s heels and pushed them up over her head.

“Fuck me!” Donna yelled. “I’m yours cowboy!”

I’ll be honest. I was a little excited that it was Daan Fontaine. I mean, who wouldn’t want it to be Daan Fontaine? My wife was fucking our high school quarterback, I can’t think of many people from back in the day who wouldn’t be impressed with something like that. Manly Daan they called him, and he once held within him the dreams of every person in Watertown. Such a surprise when he only lasted three days with an outfit down south. The football hopes of a town crushed, the Daan Construction dynasty born.

I could only muster, “Hey, it’s me.” At first, they didn’t hear.

“Cum inside of me, Daan. Fluff my curtains!”

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by fluff my curtains. From my vantage point they looked like two spiders back-to-back, a position obviously requiring much practice and ingenuity. This wasn’t the first time my wife’s curtains had been fluffed by the likes of Daan Fontaine, of this I was quite sure.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said again.

Daan spun around. His dick popped out, hard and glistening. “Jesus, Gary!” Donna screamed. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“It was a half day,” I said, standing there like a kid asking his parents for a glass of milk. Daan got out of bed and walked calmly around the room collecting his things. “Sorry about this Buddy,” he said on his way out, “we’ll get a brewski.”

I watched as Donna gathered her wrinkled clothes in a heaping handful in front of her breasts. “You should have seen this coming,” she said, and then locked herself in the bathroom. I turned and walked down into the basement, spent the night on the futon we’d once shared in college. I found her the next day in the kitchen and asked if she really wanted me to leave.

She did.

So, I left.

I got in my car and started driving. Drove until Ohio, Canada, and California. Drove until Arizona, and a stretch of road off Highway 10 with one lone sign: Skinny’s High Flyin’ Parachute School.

I didn’t think of Ritchie once the entire drive.

Donna always said I needed to be tougher. Rolled her eyes when I suggested that mowing the lawn in my socks seemed pretty tough to me. It always started like that with her and me. “Be a man,” she’d say. I’d try something like archery or butterfly collecting, but it was never enough.

“Are you ever going to take this seriously?” She’d ask.


Skinny fits us with jumpsuits and the proper footwear. I’m the only one who doesn’t have his own Jumping Gloves. I say I left mine in my jump locker back in Connecticut, and Skinny lends me his. Michael asks questions about his chute’s Aspect Ratio and the others seem pleased with Skinny’s answer. I nod my head and make a comment about the color of the chute’s fabric and downplay the fact that Skinny helped me pack it. Old Barry wants to know if he can go first so he can catch footage of everyone else coming down. Skinny says that would be fine.

“Ok, let’s suit up,” Skinny says. Everyone has the chutes on their backs in what feels like seconds. I struggle with the straps, almost pulling the ripcord by accident before Skinny comes to my rescue. I drop a story about this chute being different from my one at home. He nods and mumbles something about Nam.