Title: Something Else
Fandom: Paper Moon Affair
Rating/Word Count PG-13, about 2,500
Media: Fanfiction (with screencaps)
Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this fanwork.
Summary: A police officer faces monumental change.
A/N: This is the first piece of fanfiction for this Canadian film (as far as I can tell). I’ll put a little more information behind the cut so anyone who wants to read the story can have a bit of context. Written for the prompt “do over.” Thanks to nyteflyer for the beta.



The film: This Canadian film stars Sebastian Spence as Vern Staub, and this story is written from his point of view. In this scene, Vern is sitting at his dining room table, a note in his hand and a faraway expression on his face. The events of the previous days and weeks have forced him to examine what he’s made of his life and to decide what he wants for his future.

****

Vern gazed around the trashed dining room, finally seeing it for what it was — a mess. It was a metaphor for something, if he recalled correctly from that long-ago English class where he’d learned to love Shakespeare.

With its piles of clothes, some of them barely worn before they were tossed aside; its games and toys, brand-new but with their pieces broken or scattered; half-done schoolwork that would never be finished; unread books with their bent covers and creased pages, plastic shopping bags brought into the house a week ago but never unpacked — the room was a metaphor for what their lives had become. Or was it a simile? He wasn’t sure.



He read the note again.

Their lives were a mess, his and Lucy’s. The kids’ lives, too, if he was honest about it. Vern couldn’t pinpoint the moment when everything changed, but it had changed and for the worse. And there was no fixing it. He and Lucy couldn’t go back and do things differently. He wished they could. He wished they could be happy again, the way they were when they married almost twelve years ago.

They’d been young. Young and horny. They’d decided that having sex once without a rubber wouldn’t do any harm. They hadn’t bought enough during that trip to Vancouver, and there was nowhere to buy them in their one-horse town. Not that they would have bought them there. If they had, then everyone would known what they were up to.

They had sex. When it was over, they were afraid of what they’d done. As it turned out, with good reason. Lucy was pregnant.

They got married. When Lucy lost the baby, Vern was secretly relieved, and he hated himself for feeling that way. But Lucy couldn’t work because she was sick most of the time, and his job barely paid the rent on their two-room apartment. They couldn’t afford a kid.

Things got better, despite everything. Lucy never went to work, but he got the job with the local authority and they finally had enough money to pay the bills, open a savings account and have a little fun for a change. He was promoted, and they were able to buy a nice little house.

Lucy got pregnant again. They had a son, and Lucy said she was staying home to raise him. Vern was fine with that, though it would have helped if Lucy had found even a part-time job. But he was a man, and it was a man’s duty to support his family.

So he did.

They had a second child, another boy.

The Lucy started shopping. The kids needed clothes, the latest toys. She pored over catalogs, ordering shoes, dresses and jewelry. When the credit-card bills came, Vern tried to pay them off, but it got so there was a balance every month.

The balance grew. He told Lucy to lay off the shopping, but she said she deserved pretty things. He had a good job; he could afford to buy her what she wanted. Besides, didn’t he want her to look nice? Didn’t he want his children to have what they needed?

When she put it like that, he felt guilty. So did his best to pay the bills and stopped complaining about interest rates that jacked up their unpaid balances to the point where he’d had to borrow money from his brother, the one with enough sense to leave town and never come back.

He loved Lucy. He did. He had to — she was his high school sweetheart, the mother of his children, the first and only girl he’d ever slept with, the one who knew that he’d once dreamed of being a teacher.

Years passed. The days dragged, but the years flew by and now he was thirty-six, with a wife and two kids, bills he couldn’t pay, a job he did because it was his job and a nagging sense that life was supposed to be something entirely different.

They were supposed to be happy. She was supposed to be glad to see him when he came home at night. The kids were supposed to mind, do their homework. He was supposed to come straight home from work instead of parking on the shore, drinking cheap whiskey from a flask and wondering what the ache in his gut really meant.

He tried not to recall the worst thing that had happened, the first time she’d turned away from him.

Six months. Six months since the last time they had made love. She hadn’t enjoyed it. She just stared up at him as he moved inside her. She laid there, not touching him, not telling him that she loved him, too. And when he came, instead of kissing him, she turned her face away and and told him to get off; he was too heavy.

He didn’t try again for another month. She said no, she didn’t feel well. A few weeks passed, and he thought she’d warmed to him. She’d laughed at a story he told during supper, hadn’t shooed him away when he’d offered to help with the dishes.

But when he tried to draw her into his arms that night, she remembered that she’d promised to call her mother and went downstairs to do it.

He tried not to bother her, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. He was attracted to Lucy, and he doubted that would ever change. He want to taste her warm skin, pleasure her body, love her the way a husband was supposed to love his wife.

But she wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t know why.

Well, yes, maybe he did. He was drinking more, sometimes falling asleep in front of the TV after dinner. He didn’t shave every day, believing it wasn’t worth the bother. Sometimes he’d wear the same uniform two days in a row, not caring whether it was clean or not.

He’d become a slob, and Lucy hated slobs. But Lucy didn’t want anything to do with him anyway, so it didn’t matter what he wore or how he looked.

He now knew what he was to Lucy, but it had taken a long time to admit it. He’d become a paycheck, a means to an end. She stayed with him because he had a good job, one of the few good jobs to be found. He was a police officer, the local authority. People listened to him — most of the time. That meant they listened to her.

Did Lucy still love him? He was afraid to ask, afraid he’d see the lie in her eyes.

Vern folded the note and put it in an envelope.

He thought about the kids, the two sons he thought would be his best pals. He’d wanted to teach them to play hockey and baseball, take them camping, read Shakespeare to them. But they were Lucy’s boys, through and through. They paid no attention to him when he was home unless they wanted something. And when they wanted something, they made sure everyone knew about it.

He’d tried to correct them when they got out of line, but either Lucy or her mother told him to leave them alone, that they were just kids, and they’d grow out of whatever it was they were doing. The boys knew they could get away with anything, and they did. Their teachers said as much.

Still, Vern loved the boys. They cared for him in their own way, as a familiar, inconsequential presence in their lives. They’d notice if he was gone, but only because he wouldn’t be there to give them a fiver or to drive them to a friend’s house.

Vern pulled out the note and read it again.

He wanted to blame the whole thing on Keiko. But he couldn’t. Her sudden appearance in his life might have set things in motion, but that wasn’t her fault.

He remembered the first moment he saw her, standing there behind her asshole of a husband, wearing that beautiful kimono. She looked like something out of a movie, so exotic and beautiful. He’d stared. He’d actually stared at her like some kind of slack-jawed idiot.

He should never have picked her up that day. But he’d felt sorry for her. The whole town knew she’d been abandoned. People talked about it constantly, made nasty remarks about Asian people. The gossip had embarrassed him, but it intrigued him, too. He wanted to know more about her, why she had come and why she didn’t pack up and leave.

That hour at the beach, he couldn’t put it out of his mind. Something strange had taken hold of him. At the time he didn’t recognize it, but now he did.

It was joy.

He’d turned on the truck’s radio and started to dance. He hadn’t danced in years, not since their oldest son was born. Keiko had been shocked, then delighted, and she’d join in the fun. Yeah, they were both a little bit drunk, but that didn’t matter because there was no one there to see them.

They’d collapsed on the sand, dizzy and laughing. She’d dabbed at the cut on his forehead, her touch gentle and kind. It broke something inside him and he’d kissed her, really kissed her, with his mouth open and his tongue sliding across hers. He and Lucy hadn’t kissed that way in so long, and for a moment he forgot himself, forgot he was a married man.

He and Keiko rolled around on the sand, her on top of him, and then him on top of her. She spread her knees, cradling his hips between her thighs, her slim body welcoming him. He got hard, so incredibly hard, and when he heard her soft moan of encouragement he almost came in his pants.

The thought of it brought him staggering to his feet. Keiko stared up at him, her expression dazed, but she nodded and got up, too. He took her home and vowed never to see her again.

Guilt and his raging libido made him approach Lucy yet again, though he knew she’d reject him. He wasn’t wrong about that.

He broke his vow the following night. He drove to Keiko’s house, knocked on the door, a tiny part of him hoping she’d slam it in his face.

She didn’t. She invited him inside and stood there, looking up at him, her eyes dark and searching in the dim light.

We were young, he told her. She nodded; perhaps she had been young, too. He kissed her, plundering her willing mouth, letting her feel how much he wanted her.

But after a moment she slid her hands between their bodies and gently pushed him away. His face burned in embarrassment. He turned to leave, but she took his hand and led him into her kitchen.

She made tea. He watched as she boiled the water, filled a strainer with leaves and arranged a tray. When the water was hot she filled a blue teapot, swirling the water once, twice, three times before pouring it into the sink. Then she poured hot water through the strainer, put a lid on the teapot and brought the tray to the table.

Watching her precise, graceful movements soothed him, made him forget his humiliation. Why had her husband left her? She was gentle, beautiful and she made a man feel wanted and needed. Why had he left her here in this house, all alone, prey to the wolves he knew were out there?

She poured the tea and handed him a cup. She did not pour one for herself, but sat there watching him. He took a tiny sip of the tea, and she nodded, smiling. She poured one for herself, and then she began to talk.

“You are a good man. You have a wife, responsibilities, and you do not forget them. At this moment, you are weak. It is not right for me in my sorrow to take advantage of you.”

Vern stared at her. “You take advantage of me?” The idea made him want to laugh. He could easily overpower her, take what he wanted.

“You are sad. Lonely. I think you have a wife who does not kiss you. And she does not make love.”

Vern jumped to Lucy’s defense. “She’s busy with the kids. She’s got a lot on her mind.”

“So busy that she would chance her husband looking elsewhere for affection?” Keiko tasted her tea. “Husband and wife should place each other ahead of the children. In that way, the children see the parents are strong and cannot be separated. One day, the children will leave. What do the parents have if not each other?”

Vern opened his mouth to answer her, but Keiko held up her hand.

“If your wife made you happy, you would not seek me out. I know this. I have made my husband unhappy, and now he is gone.”

“Your husband’s an asshole.” Vern put down his cup, ashamed of his bad language. “I’m sorry.”

She smiled. “My mother said much the same.”

“You didn’t make him unhappy,” Vern said. “Some guys are like that — they get what they want and move on.”

“Perhaps. But you are not the same. If you left your wife you would still provide for her and your children. You would not let them suffer that way.”

It was the first time he’d acknowledged the thought that danced in the back of his mind. Before he could say anything, Keiko put her hand on his.

“You have much to think about, and you cannot do it here. If you stay I fear we would forget ourselves.” She squeezed his fingers. “You are a good man. You will come to the right decision, the one that makes you happy.”

Vern leaned over and kissed her forehead. “What will you do?”

“I am going home to Japan. My mother and father want me with them. My father has threatened to bring the gods down on my husband, and I must stop him before he can engage in such foolishness.”

She smiled, and he realized she wasn’t serious.

She walked him to the door, stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Be happy.”

“You, too.”

He drove home. He got in bed with Lucy, but he didn’t touch her.

He put the note back in the envelope and placed it on the table where Lucy would be sure to see it.

It was now or never. He got up, draped his holster around his shoulder and put on his hat. He took one last look at the dining room, turned and walked out the door.