First Time

Definitely not a virgin or anything along the lines as being ignorant about the intricacies of sexual intimacy, Bryon Clayton was about to embark the “First Time” weekend fantasy getaway.  Before he engaged his two day sexual escape, he attended to his duties in court.
     This room reeked of mildew, humidity and anticipation from the onlookers as the thirty-five year old attorney sat at the table beside a man in an orange jumpsuit.  This person, a man in his early twenties, appeared to be younger than this.

     The face was boyish, innocent, rotund, nothing that betrayed the reality that he could be found guilty by the persons who normally occupied the twelve seats of the jury box. The defendant’s black hair was matted atop his head with perspiration.  He stared at the
jury box and deeply swallowed while liquid plopped from the tip of his nose onto the oak-varnished table.
     He turned to the side, noticing that his counselor fidgeted with some sort of brochure. first time appeared on the front in red letters with artistic depictions of a fetching female and a male wearing only black boxes that obscured their private regions.

     “Hey, Mr. Clayton,” wondered the defendant, “shouldn’t you be more concerned about my case instead of that pamphlet in your hand?  I mean, I’m facing twenty-five to life for killing my wife with a knife.”
     “Oh, uh,” said Bryon whose blue eyes reflected the trepidation-filled face of his client, “don’t worry, Oliver.  I think that we got this case in the bag.”
     “I don’t know,” Oliver shook his head.  “I mean, from what I heard when the jury comes back this fast, it normally isn’t too good.  They were out for two hours.  Two hours, man.  I mean, it takes me longer than that for me and my girl to bust a good one.”

     Oliver looked over his shoulder at a fetching blonde sitting directly behind him.  Her face was oval, kind, flawless skin.  The nose was keen at the end, and she wore a low-cut blouse that accentuated the positive of her D-cup bosom, size forty-four.  She blew a kiss at him.
     “Big Bertha,” sighed Oliver whose face almost melted as the air-carried kiss made its mark onto his lips.
     Bryon patted him on the knee.  “Don’t you worry.  You’ll be with Big Bertha.  You can count on that.”

     The judge’s chamber door parted, and the court clerk, a bespeckled man in a gray Cardigan and brown corduroys walked over to a side table where sit the bailiffs, a tandem of a man and a woman.  The male bailiff stood to the side of the judge’s bench and
bellowed, “All rise.”

     Everyone reached his feet, and a white haired man in a black robe shuffled from the judge’s chambers and reached the bench.  He planted himself on his leather chair and smacked his gavel against the thick piece of pine.  “Please be seated.” The nameplate on
the bench read HONORABLE HAROLD P. JONES.  He turned to the court clerk and whispered in his ear.

     Every man and woman returned to their seat, and the clerk disappeared behind the door marked JURY ROOM on the other side of the bench.
     “So, uh, Bryon, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s going on with that First Time’s thing.”
     “Oh, it’s nothing important, Oliver.” Bryon was toothy, hiding the brochure inside his attaché case.
     “Hey guy, I saw those two people on the front cover.  It’s got to be something special.  I mean, if worse comes to worse and I have to do hard time for a crime that I didn’t commit, this may be one of the last few things of the outside that I can enjoy.” Oliver
glanced over at the hopeful face of Bertha and said, “And since me and the big lady ain’t married, no conjugals in prison, so Byron, come on.  You gotta tell me.”
     The attorney read the despair on the face of his client, and he nodded at Oliver, “Well, if you must know, it’s one of those weekend retreats for professionals.  You go to this hotel, and they promise to fulfill your sexual fantasy, according to a little questionnaire that you fill out.”

     “But ain’t you married?”
     Byron put a “shush” finger over Oliver’s lips, and the court clerk returned.  The clerk again whispered to the judge, and Jones interlocked his fingers together.
     A moment later, twelve people entered the room via the jury room door.  All with nondescript looks on their faces as they file in the oak jury box.  Seven men and five women.  All of their eyes turned in the direction of the accused, and not the first set of their eyes conveyed their sentiments about his guilt.
     A woman, busty, middle-aged, handed the clerk a folded sheet of paper which eventually found its way in the hands of the judge.  Judge Jones unfolded this sheet and perused it briefly before handing it back to the clerk who extended it to the foreperson.  The judge stared through the accused.  “Would the defendant please rise?”

     After the bright-faced Oliver and Byron reached their feet, the judge angled his eyes at the middle-aged woman.  “Would the madame foreperson please read the verdict?”
     She read, “We find the defendant Oliver Demayer, guilty of murder in the first degree.”
     The life left the face of the convicted murderer.  He stood before his attorney, the courtroom observers and the jury as a pale, shell of a man.  Oliver’s legs went flaccid, and he wobbled from side to side, but he was too weak to actually collapse.  He fluttered in
limbo as the reality of the words from this woman settled in the pit of his stomach.

     The bailiffs grabbed the defendant whose eyes turned onto his attorney, and the questions “Why?  What went wrong?” poured from Oliver’s lips like the most bitter of vinegar.
     Byron adopted a poker face as he looked back at his client, a man convicted of a crime that Oliver claimed that he never committed.  This face on the advocate remained until the
unfortunate Demayer left the room, and a deep sigh appeared on Byron’s face, as he thought, “I wish that there was something that I could have done for you, Oliver.  I wish there was.”

     The only sound that hit upon the ears of the lawyer was the mournful wail of Big Bertha whose nose was covered with a purple handkerchief.  It was a penetrating cry that reached three octaves; Byron faced her eye-to-eye, but he didn’t say a word.  His eyes
registered his Grand Canyon-deep remorse.
     This look in his eyes remained as he went on his trip, fifty miles North from Fullerton, New York, to the town whose welcome sign read, “Welcome to Newland where new hope springs.”

     As he peered at this sign from the driver’s seat of his white Mercedes, Byron shook his head with a grand lack of certainty.  “I hope so.  I, sincerely, hope so.”
     He proceeded on the stretch of highway as the sun quickly descended in the distance leaving a mixture of pink, blue and magenta in the late afternoon sky.  Bryon continued to eye road signs looking for the one that would lead him to his promised land.  Billboards
for restaurants, radio stations, hospitals and hotels, although not the one that would surely pique his interest seemed to move pass the German auto in slow motion.
     He eyed the clock on the dashboard and the sky that rapidly turned into evening.  “It’s already six fifteen, and I’m still stuck out here.”
     He thrashed the steering wheel with the palm of a hand and thought back to the disappointment in the courtroom.  “He’s innocent.  I know, he is.” He shook his head. “He wasn’t even there until he received an anonymous phone call.  Then, the police found
him by his wife’s body.”