A BEAUTIFUL LIFE

by Vandemonium1

Edited by CTC

This one was inspired by a news item when I was growing up. It been independently rated at 3.5/5 pickaxe handles. I think it contains a fairly unique discovery method. My mate Ian reviewed this one for me and as usual the talented CreativityTakesCourage took my gibberish and made it readable.

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Monday 10.10 p.m.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a beautiful life.

I have the face of an angel and a body built for sex, at least that’s what more than one man has told me. For me, it meant I never wanted for male attention, and I had fun playing the field until I was twenty-four. Then, after a serious talk with my parents, I decided to settle down and think seriously about doing my civic duty by giving them some grandkids.

Being the only child of rich parents, I‘d never really needed a serious qualification or a serious job. Dad tried to encourage me into a field of study that would allow me to take over his business when he retired, but it just didn’t interest me. I don’t know if that is what subliminally first attracted me to Dave, but he was perfect. A superior physical specimen, sharp as a whip, already finished a business degree and an MBA. I think Mum and Dad fell in love with him before I did. We were married within a year and less than a month later, I was pregnant.

Fast forward ten years and I was the best-looking soccer mum at the private school my two children attended. I picked them up in a top-of-the-range BMW, then took them to our twelve-bedroom McMansion in the leafiest suburb of our town. Dave, or the fifteen-year-old high school girl that lived next door, looked after them two or three nights a week when I went off to my ‘job’ as chairperson or board member of this or that church or charity organisation.

On the weekends I normally went shopping with some friends on Saturday, while Mum looked after the kids and Dave played eighteen holes with Dad. On Sunday mornings Dave and I took the kids to church. I’m not particularly a believer, but at our social level, it’s kind of expected, you know? We sat in the pew that Grandad had sponsored after he made his first fortune. Later, we’d go have Sunday lunch at my parent’s house, catered of course, where lately, Dad and Dave talked about the process of Dad retiring and my husband taking over.

After lunch, it was quite common for us to leave the kids with my parents, leaving Dave and I free to go home and do what married people do. Well, some of what married people do.

Early on in our sex life I’d decided that I’d be conservative in the bedroom. It was missionary most of the time, with an occasional cowgirl. Doggy style I found demeaning. When I was young and single a guy once came in my mouth and made me puke, so it was easy to rule that out of the marital bed. After some serious begging, I did allow Dave to warm me up with his tongue which always brought me off. Well, it had until recently. After I came from his tongue, Dave used his bigger-than-average cock and better-than-average staying power to bring me to at least one more orgasm. Well, again, he had until recently.

Yes, I snared the perfect man. A fantastic father, terrific provider, and considerate lover. I had money, comforts, status, respect, and just about anything else I desired. Almost. You no doubt picked up on the recent trouble I have achieving orgasm. That all started with an erroneous keystroke when I was internet browsing one day. One wrong key, sixty minutes of browsing, two finger generated orgasms, and my husband’s days of satisfying me were numbered.

You see, I accidentally stumbled onto a BDSM site and revealed a submissive side of myself that I never knew I had. Soon, I was rushing home from dropping the kids at school and logging onto a growing list of websites before masturbating to orgasm after orgasm. The whole pain thing didn’t yank my crank, but the idea of being restrained, of being bound and blindfolded, helpless while a powerful man did just whatever he liked to me made me gush.

The first weekend after I discovered my submissive side, I begged off going shopping with my friends, then pretended I was sick to stay home from church. After Sunday lunch, I tried to get out of sex with Dave but failed. I did orgasm from his tongue, eventually, by extending my hands above my head, grabbing the bedhead, and pretending I was tied like that.

Subsequent Sundays, even these fantasies failed to give me the satisfaction I craved. Once, I did reach down and rub myself while Dave was sliding in and out of me but that was unusual enough that he commented on it afterwards. The obvious solution to my ever-increasing cravings was to confess my new kink to my husband. I’m positive he would have done whatever was necessary to keep me satisfied, but, of course, nice girls don’t do that sort of thing.

Instead, I became a faker, while my sexual frustration escalated. I felt like a tightly coiled spring.

My downfall began with my discovery of a BDSM forum. It had a section where people could meet then tell the rest of the readers how hot their last scene was. And they were hot. Bound. Blindfolded. Collared. Brought to the brink of climax again and again before being given permission to come. Their words were as exciting as the images that accompanied them.

I won’t bore you with the details but I met a guy online who was an experienced dominant and who lived a couple of hours away. The pictures showed a guy that was perhaps mid-forties but who still looked to be in pretty good shape. He told me he was married and his wife wasn’t into the scene. He shared with me full nude photos of himself but I only sent him body shots. I was very careful and cleansed all records off our computer, deleted browsing history, the works. Some of my favourite stuff I kept on a memory stick that I hid in the lining of a rarely used handbag.

I don’t think I ever consciously made the decision to cheat on my husband. I certainly never had that internal debate with myself. I just never took any steps to stop things when the guy, Darren was his name, ordered me to arrange some time off to meet him. Nor did my conscience bother me particularly. I felt compelled to scratch a sexual urge that was no threat to my marriage. No threat because Dave could never know, nor could anyone else I knew. Nice girls didn’t do anything remotely like what I was planning. I started a list of all the things I would need to cover.

Darren must have interpreted my temporary silence as reticence. He bombarded me with tales of what he intended doing to me when we did meet. Some of them really weren’t my taste but we negotiated. I know being tied down by a total stranger was a huge risk but I was driven, as I said. I intimated that our meetings could become a regular thing, which meant if he didn’t toe the line at the first one, there wouldn’t be a repeat. In reality, I knew that the chances of discovery grew exponentially the longer an affair went on and had vowed to limit the experience. You see, I’d done my research.

Negotiations complete, I continued my research on not getting discovered. I know the word out there is that cheaters always get caught but that’s just propaganda and statistics. Stories and statistics of people getting away with affairs never get published. I imagine that for every affair discovered, ten go silent.

So, for the next three weeks my life fell into a pattern. Drop kids at school, race home, masturbate until sore to images and videos of the type of things I’d negotiated with Darren, then read cheating wife stories until it was time to pick the kids up again. My friends inevitably became bored with being rejected when they called to ask me to meet but I didn’t notice at the time.

It was early on in this pattern that I discovered that one of the big giveaways to cheating wives being discovered was by behavioural changes. A little honest self-analysis revealed I was giving all the signals to anyone watching. I dragged myself back to a normal pattern when anyone else was watching, especially remembering to propose sex with my husband, while all the time compiling a list of precautions.

I’d meet Darren at a place at the other end of my city; somewhere I would never be recognised. My husband travelled for work at least four nights a fortnight, he was the Business Development Manager of Dad’s company, after all. It couldn’t be too hard to prove he was where he said he was, I’d ask him to take a picture of his room when I rang him that night, saying I missed him and wanted to imagine myself where he was.

I’d only leave the house after about 10 p.m., that way no one would ring or visit me and discover I wasn’t there. I intended leaving my cell phone and car at home just in case someone had trackers on them. I’d meet Darren in a low budget motel, somewhere my acquaintances were very unlikely to spot me. That made me smile. I knew at least three of my friends had successfully hidden affairs in the past. Wouldn’t it be ironic if I was discovered by a friend meeting her beau at the same motel? I added a wig and other disguise elements to the list. I’d keep them in my locker at the tennis club so they were only here to be discovered for a minimal amount of time.

I would pay cash for the room and book it either in person a few days before or from a phone at one of the charities I volunteered for. I would travel to the motel by a cab that picked me up at a local park I would walk to. That way no strange cars would be seen in the driveway and I wouldn’t be seen leaving at an unusual hour. Thanks to mobile phones, phone booths were a thing of the past in our town so the one weak spot in my plans was that I would have to ring the cab on my cell. The best I could do was to then immediately erase all record of the call. It was highly unlikely that Dave would pull my phone records to check each individual number.

So, husband and acquaintances accounted for, the only the problem remaining was that of what to do with my children. Our regular babysitter needed to be home by 10 p.m. and even so couldn’t be relied on not to inadvertently mention sitting while Dave was away to my husband. I wasn’t about to use a stranger for looking after them and the youngest was too young for sleepovers.

That left one possible, if far from attractive, option. I could sedate my children and limit the time away. Say, leave at 10.15 p.m., an hour cab ride, five hours with Darren, another hour cab ride, and I could be home by 5.15 a.m., which was still an hour before dawn at this time of year. The wig and a coat I hardly ever wore should protect me from recognition by pre-dawn dog walkers and insomniacs.

As unpalatable as sedating my children was, I was driven. The closer my preparations took me to fulfilling my new fantasies, the more problems were bulldozed. In fact, it took huge efforts of willpower to critically analyse my own plans.

I experimented with different over-the-counter sleeping pills, all listed as safe for young children, and found doses that forced me to wake them when it was time to get up for school. I did it every night for a week to ensure a one hundred percent strike rate. I only stopped when Dave commented on their changed habits.

It was during one of my internal security review sessions that I worried what would happen if Darren turned out to be a serial killer, or even if he got carried away and marked me by going beyond our agreed boundaries. I noticed his email address was an initial and surname and half an hour on Google and I had an address. I subtly let him know that I would be leaving clues to his identity before we met in case I disappeared. He assured me I would be safe.

I also recognised a weakness of him being discovered cheating on his wife, leading her to me and my husband, so I insisted he take the same precautions as I was. I had trouble believing his wife knew and condoned his meeting other women. He provided the STD test I asked for as I like my sex unprotected and there was no risk of an unwanted pregnancy because of the  contraceptive pill I take religiously at 8.30 every morning.

So, tonight is the night. It’s 10.10 p.m. I finished dressing in a slinky black dress that Dave bought me a couple of years ago and my overnight bag with toiletries and a few odds and sods, as my grandma used to say, is packed.

Caller ID showed that Dave rang from a number with an area code consistent with where he was supposed to be, a three-hour flight away. The cab was on its way and the kids were safely and soundly asleep in their beds.

I’d ended up paying cash for three nights of room hire, in a false name of course. The extra nights was Darren’s idea, and a valid one if you ask me. By the time I got there and then had to leave to be home before dawn, we’d barely have five quality hours. What if I loved it and wanted more? Dave was away until his flight landed at lunch time on Thursday. I could repeat what I was doing tomorrow and Wednesday night, after all, the money for the room meant nothing to someone as well off as me. Three nights to get it out of my system. Three nights to prevent it becoming a long-term thing, where the chances of being discovered rose exponentially. Yes, it was a sensible move.

I logged into our computer to check for any last-minute emails from Darren; there were none. I checked the deleted items folder was clear of evidence, then sent a quick note to my soon-to-be master saying I was on my way.

A glance at my watch showed it was time to walk to the park to meet the cab. After one final look in the mirror, I asked myself if I should back out even now, but the moisture in my panties said no. What could possibly go wrong? I put my phone on the kitchen counter and headed out.

I was soaking wet in anticipation by the time the taxi deposited me at the motel. No one was around, which was a relief. Tapping gently on the door of room 310, I smiled at Darren’s forethought. The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was already hanging on the doorknob.

There was only a shaded bedside light on when Darren opened the door. My first impression was one of disappointment. His profile picture on the website must have been quite dated, as in reality he was perhaps ten years older than I’d thought and carrying a fair bit more weight. I later noticed his fingers were stained by nicotine and when he kissed me it was with the unmistakeable reek of liquor mixed with stale cigarettes on his breath.

That’s as far as I got before, after a single ‘hello’ and a nuzzle of my lips, he attacked me. I heard the dress rip in his haste to remove it. Once it was gone, he stood behind me with a muscular arm over my shoulder and an unmoveable hand over my mouth. With his other hand he pulled my panties down far enough that they slid to my ankles and I could kick them off. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d stuck to the wall they hit. I felt him fumbling around with my bra clasp but only for a few seconds before he just pulled it apart by force in his impatience. All the time his rough hand muffled my sounds of protest. I loved it.

Once I was naked, apart from my rings, his free hand roughly groped my breasts, finding and pinching my right nipple quite painfully. I almost came right there and then. I just hoped he remembered his promise not to mark me, however, by the sound of his breathing, there wasn’t a lot of control happening, he was as excited as me.

Narrowly avoiding tripping over the bag I’d dropped on the floor, Darren wrestled us to the bed and, never allowing me the use of my mouth, pushed me down onto it. He covered my mouth with his shoulder somehow, freeing up both his hands to secure one, then both of my hands to the handcuffs already attached to the bed. They were padded but made of very real steel and held my outstretched arms immovably. Once I was helpless, he reached under the pillow and retrieved a harness arrangement which he fitted over my head. I don’t quite know how it worked but it held some kind of ball in my mouth quite securely, rendering me totally mute apart from grunts and groans. He then roughly pulled my legs apart and secured each ankle to opposite bedposts.

He stepped back to admire his handiwork before ripping his own clothes off. His erection sprang out and I could see he hadn’t lied about that; his cock was a little above average size. With no ceremony at all, Darren knelt between my legs and stuck two fingers in my vagina, testing for lubrication, I suppose. No problem there, I knew I was gushing. Then, without further ado, he thrust into me. I came. Intensely. Quicker than ever before in my life.

As I basked in the sensations, already getting re-excited by my feeling of helplessness, I thought how I’d done the right thing. I could have three nights of risk-free ecstasy and no one would ever be the wiser. Stopping my new hobby anytime in the near future might be a problem though, but I’m sure the risks from that could be mitigated with a little more research.

Tuesday 9.45 a.m.

“Jan, it’s Dave, the kids just rang me to say that when they awoke this morning, Porsche wasn’t there. They’ve searched the house and can’t find her.”

Dave paused at this point to catch his breath, shortened by the adrenaline coursing through his system. His mother-in-law was worried by the tone of his voice.

“Well, she’s not here.”

“Can you get over there ASAP?”

“Sure, I’ll ring you when I get there.”

Tuesday 6.53 p.m. – Thursday 8.00 p.m.

Dave, having flown home as quickly as he could had just finished hugging his children tightly. They were putting a brave face on it but he could see in their eyes they were very worried.

He turned to his in-laws and thanked them for being there for his family.

“Have you tried the police again, Pete?”

“Yes, same answer. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, they assume a person just walked out for the first forty-eight hours. The place was as neat as a pin, with no sign Porsche hadn’t just walked out the door.”

Dave interrupted, “Except her car is still in the garage and her phone was on the table near the back door, not on the charger where she normally keeps it.”

Porsche’s mother, Jan, noticed that the conversation was distressing the children, so she hustled them into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. Dave and Pete adjourned to the study.

Dave’s father-in-law lowered his voice to a more conspiratorial level. “Her phone was here but her house keys and handbag weren’t. It’s like she just walked out to go to the corner shop and never came back.”

“Except that the nearest corner shop is an hour’s walk away and my Porsche would never leave the kids like that.”

“There’s one more strange thing, Dave. I found these on the kitchen counter.”

The older man showed him a bottle of over-the-counter children’s sedative and a tiny measuring cup. The obvious reason to why those items were there didn’t register to a man who loved his wife fiercely and respected her commitment as a mother above all her other prodigious attributes.  The possibility that she’d deliberately drugged them was just so far from his image of his wife that he ignored them and went back to worrying. His children had last seen their mother when she put them to bed at 9.30 p.m. the night before, where was she?

His own phone call to the police confirmed what his in-laws had said. With no disturbance in the house and his wife’s handbag and housekeys gone they assumed she’d just walked out and didn’t want to be found. It happened.

Dave then called everyone in their address book. No one had seen Porsche. He and his in-laws concentrated on distracting the children, nevertheless, sleep was hard to come by for everyone in the household that night.

In the morning, Dave staggered bleary-eyed to the kitchen where Pete was already halfway through a coffee. They exchanged pleasantries. Until the older man spoke his mind.

“Um, Dave, have you checked her email account yet? You do have access, right?”

“Good thinking, Dad. Unless she’s changed her password I’ll be able to access her account.”

They went to the study and fired up the family desktop. Porsche’s password worked and soon the pair were snooping. The inbox looked normal and sorting the emails by sender and a quick trip down the list showed no unfamiliar names. Pete, who was more comfortable around computers than his son-in-law next suggested they check the deleted items folder. It was empty. The older man’s heart sank a little more. He suggested Dave check the sent items folder, fully expecting that to be empty as well.

It almost was.

Almost, except for a solitary email sent to ‘Hardman’ at just after ten on Monday night. The simple message was chilling. Be there shortly. Either Porsche hadn’t bothered deleting it or it had been transmitted after she deleted the sent items folder. Dave turned his head away which brought the bottle of junior sedative from the previous night into view. A link clicked in Dave’s head just as Peter followed his gaze and quickly came to the same conclusion.

“Surely she wouldn’t have, Dad?”

“Got a better theory?”

Anger at his wife fought for dominance with fear. It was starting to look like Porsche had drugged her own children to meet someone on Monday night and for some reason hadn’t come back.

Armed with that circumstantial evidence of foul play, Dave rang the police again. They still refused to get involved but did suggest he take the children for blood tests, which he did. He dropped them off at school late then went home. Once there he sent an email to Hardman. Just tell Porsche to come home, her children are worried. If you’ve harmed her, I will find you and kill you.

Wednesday night passed as slowly as the previous one. The pathology lab rang early on Thursday morning to say that quite high levels of chemicals, present in the sedatives were present in the children’s blood samples. With possible evidence of a crime, the police finally took the case seriously and asked for the email address found on the computer but warned them not to get their hopes up as identifying people from an email address was iffy at best.

With nothing else to do, all three adults then sat near their phones waiting for news.

Thursday 8.01 p.m. 

I stood outside my own front door, dishevelled, exhausted and terrified. I clutched my torn, slinky black dress, the same one I’d put on Monday night, to prevent it from gaping and exposing my left, unfettered, breast. I breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm myself, trying to forget the nightmare that had been the last three days. Trying not to think of the immeasurable shitstorm that was going to be the next few hours.

But the nightmare… I’ve been unable to escape the memories of my nightmare… 

I remembered back to what seemed like years ago, to that feeling as my first orgasm abated, with a sweating Darren grunting away above me. He must have seen the look of pleasure in my eyes, and I guess as a sadist he didn’t like that. He reached past my left ear and pulled something from under the pillow. It was a black leather device, looking like a cat-o-nine tails whip from the old days. It had multiple leather tassels, each with a knot at the end. He continued thrusting away into me while all the time looking in my eyes as he raised the whip. I guess my expression had already changed before the first stinging blow fell across my tender breasts. It hurt; my eyes must have shown him that, as did my muffled scream. The look on his face was sickening as he laid in with the whip. I looked down and saw the angry weals on my breasts. His repeated promises not to mark me had lasted less than five minutes. It was only then I realised what a totally helpless situation I’d put myself in.

I screamed into the gag as the tails struck again, my eyes pleading with the man above me to stop. I guess that was the moment he’d been waiting for, because with a mighty roar, he pulled his cock out and jerked his climax all over my chest. The first emission hit my neck but he adjusted the aim and the next few hit my angrily red breasts. I closed my eyes in humiliation. True humiliation, not the fantasy stuff on all the websites I’d seen.

My mind was in terror for what Darren might do next and what shape he’d leave my body in. The rank smell of cum assaulted my nostrils, triggering associated memories and I vomited. Most of it forced its way past the ball gag, I had to swallow the rest again or suffocate.

Strange noises brought me back from wherever my terror-filled mind had gone. Opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was that the look of intense pleasure was gone from Darren’s face. It was replaced by a look of agony. He was gasping and clutching his chest as his face turned a sickly white colour. As I watched, he suddenly collapsed on me and twitched for perhaps half a minute, before I heard a sound I’d only read about in books. The death rattle. Suddenly unpowered lungs having the air expelled from them as gravity did its work. Unmistakable, even to someone who’d never heard it before, and terrifying.

Darren was dead.

The full weight of him was pressed on my chest and it felt like every time I exhaled, I didn’t have the power to inflate my lungs again. I thrashed around in panic but as my arms and legs were at full stretch I couldn’t get any leverage to push him off. Finally, I think it was my sweat that lubricated our body contact and Darren’s body slid into a position that was more on my stomach than my chest.

His head was in my left armpit and when I looked down I could see his sightless eyes still open and staring at me. Something that smelt rank and fetid was seeping from his mouth as his stomach was slightly higher than his head. That odour battled with my own vomit.

As horrible as this experience was, it was pushed to insignificance by my terror. It was perhaps 11.30 p.m. and I was stuck here, unable to call for help because I couldn’t communicate beyond a grunt or reach a wall to tap on it with any body part. I was stuck here until a maid came around to check if the room needed anything. When? Nine, ten in the morning? By that time my kids would have woken from their drugged sleep, gone into Mummy’s room to wake her, and found her gone. I could imagine their terror when they found the house empty and it made me panic and thrash around some more. I got myself under control though when I thought that I might move Darren’s body again to a position that was crushing my lungs. I stopped moving and cried instead.

What would my children do when they discovered themselves alone? Go next door to the neighbours? Or use the sheet of speed dial numbers next to the house phone and call who? Dave or my parents? Neither one was good. Dave would be terrified and confused and would immediately call my cell, which would ring from the table near the door at home. Then he’d ring my parents and Mum would go to the house as quickly as she could. Dad would be at work. She’d discover me gone, perhaps my phone, but missing purse and then what? Ring Dave? Ring the police? Either way, I was toast.

Unless, and here my mind was clutching at straws, the maid came in really early and I convinced her to find the handcuff keys and let me go, then promised her enough money that she wouldn’t call the police immediately. I could get my hands on maybe ten grand quickly and untraceably. I could rush home as quickly as possible, hopefully wake my kids, apologise for sleeping in and take them to school. Then call the police. I could threaten them with legal action if they told the media and have it all settled by the time school was out or get Mum to pick them up. It was no big deal. Two consenting adults participating in a legal activity. One that just happened to go very badly wrong.

That was all good. Things would work out fine.

Then I remembered that I’d booked the room for three fucking days. But that was fine. The maid service still checked each room daily for fresh towels etcetera.

Then I remembered the do-not-fucking-disturb sign on the outside knob, and all my delusions collapsed. I heard myself let out a noise past the gag that was half moan and half sigh. The death rattle of my marriage and perfect life. Terminally soiled by my and Darren’s bile and from the signals my bladder was saying, soon to be urine as well.

I guess I spent the next hour in an increasingly desperate attempt to remove the ball gag but the only thing I had to rub it against was Darren’s cheek and it just wasn’t solid enough. It got a little more promising when rigor mortis set in and I damned near rolled the ball out. What amazed me was that Darren’s whiskers seemed to actually continue to grow after he was dead. Closing my eyes protected me from seeing the fearful rictus his face was becoming, but nothing could protect me from the increasingly foul stench pervading the room. Death doesn’t smell pretty. Soon, the rigor passed and Darren softened again, by which time I had nothing left in my stomach to evacuate.

Daylight spilled through the tightly closed curtains, raising the temperature of the room slightly. Well enough that my shivering abated slightly. Darren’s cooled body was sapping the heat from mine badly. Far worse than the danger of hypothermia and the humiliation of lying in my own urine was the problem of thirst. How long can a person go without water? I seemed to remember it was as low as two to three days; I might have known if I’d paid more attention in school, rather than spent all my efforts on making sure my clothes were better than the other girls and making sure they were revealing enough to grab the bulk of the male attention in the class. Then I got to thinking that death might be preferable to what was possibly coming my way. My legacy and memory might well be annihilated, but at least I wouldn’t be around to see it.

The brightness of the curtains indicated the sun had set far enough to penetrate the narrow gap between rows of rooms in the cheap motel, reinforcing that rescue wasn’t coming that day. Already, my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth and I hadn’t urinated since around the middle of the day. Small blessings.

I hoped I could speak fast enough to stop the maid calling the police when she found me in the morning. With no police involved, all sorts of explanations were credible. As the night wore on, though, even I recognised some of them as fanciful delusions brought on by utter desperation and thirst. I think my last conscious thought before a crippling headache and delirium consumed me was a simple one. I’m screwed. Hero mother to zero with one stupid decision.

I never met the maid who found me, although I dearly would like to one day, when I’m armed with something deadly. My first memory was of being jolted on a gurney as they put me in the ambulance. I was attached to one of those devices that drips stuff into you. The ambos had obviously recognised my extreme dehydration and started me on fluids. They’d also stuffed my handbag beside me.

My next memory was of being wheeled into the hospital and someone trying to take my bag away. I clung to it like grim death. I would contact my family when I was ready and had half a chance of defending a credible story. Until then I WAS going to remain anonymous.

With heat packs and the IV, then small sips of water, I physically recovered enough by the afternoon to start thinking lucidly again. Planning was interrupted when the police interviewed me. I stuck to the truth and reminded them about their duty of discretion, threatening them with legal action, personally, if the media found out about my story. The sergeant gave me a look as he left which seemed to be a confusing mix of amusement and pity.

I had a credible story by mid-afternoon but I won’t bore you with it. Much of it hinged on my family being so relieved by my sudden reappearance that they wouldn’t ask too many searching questions.

The staff doctor finally released me during his evening rounds just before 7 p.m. and I quickly donned my torn dress. I asked the nurse on the way out if there were any clothes shops nearby open at this time of night and received an abrupt and rather cold, “No.”

She did deign to call me a cab though and I sat in the hospital entrance waiting for it, quietly confident, despite my apparel. There was a television in the reception area, tuned to the seven o’clock news and it ended my confidence and my life.

The top story was all about little old me. There were photos of me lying on the motel bed under a dead Darren, obviously taken by the maid and sold to the media. My face was blacked out, I suppose for legal reasons. It was a scene under the control of the coroner after all. No such courtesy was afforded by the television cameras though. How they’d beaten the ambulance leaving I’ll never know, but they had. My face was clearly recognisable as the gurney was trundled up to the ambulance. They even showed one of the handcuffs still attached to my wrists.

I collapsed mentally and must have been almost carried to the taxi when it arrived. Who gave the driver my address is a mystery but the next memory I have is of standing right here, right now, facing the door out to the execution yard, devoid of hope or even the will to fight.

Monday 11 a.m.

Any delusions I may have harboured lasted about 300 milliseconds after my husband opened the door. Over his shoulder I could see the television and it was tuned to the station I’d so recently seen myself on. He looked deep into my eyes with an eyebrow raised in question. This was it. My moment of truth. My opportunity to say I was kidnapped, handcuffed to a bed, and abused for three days. That I was worthy of his pity, not his contempt. Then I looked at my phone, still on the table next to the door, the handbag in my hand, then down at what I was wearing. Any fight left in me drained away with that last glance.

I sank to my knees in shame and defeat; Dave didn’t have to say a word.

As if that wasn’t enough, I heard a high-pitched voice ask from somewhere behind him. “Really, Porsche, drugging your own children?”

It was my own mother’s voice. If my mother was sure enough to condemn me I knew I would be well and truly written off in my father’s eyes. He loved Dave, as the son he never had, almost as much as he did me.

I don’t know how long it was after the door slammed in my face that I heard a voice behind me, asking me to confirm my name. It was the police. I was arrested, cuffed, taken to the station, and charged. When presented with the evidence of my fingerprints on the bottle of sedatives, my absence from the family home and blood tests from the children, I saw no point in denying anything.

The media went into a frenzy of course. High profile mother drugging her children so she could attend a tryst with her lover; and not just any sort of lover. Her Dominant. And then said lover croaking it while she’s tied to the bed and is trapped for three days. The BDSM angle just added fuel to the flame. I challenge you to write a more emotive story.

After four nights in gaol, when it became obvious that no one was going to post bail, the state released me on my own recognisance. Someone must have tipped off the media as they were all waiting for me outside the gaol, and it was the longest walk of my life until they finally gave up on me.

I reviewed my options when my feet took me to the main street of town. Did I say hero to zero before? I meant, hero to negative several million.

My shallow society friends would never have anything to do with me ever again, or risk being smeared with my poison. My children were old enough to understand I’d risked and betrayed them in just about the worst way a mother can. Besides, they had a doting dad and two close grandparents, they didn’t need me. If I stuck around, I’d be laughed and spat at until the memory of my behaviour faded, then just shunned until I died.

I looked in my purse to see how much cash I had. Less than $200. I spied a cash machine across the street and decided to see if any of my cards still worked. It was a fifty-fifty chance in my judgement, but we all know how bad my judgement of late had proven to be. If any of my cards worked I would turn left toward the bus station. If they didn’t, I would turn right. Toward the bridge over the long drop to the river.

I pushed the first card in and held my breath…

THE END

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My friend, Ian, has pointed out that whiskers don’t grow after you’re dead. Apparently, the skin contracts from around them giving the illusion they’re growing. Crikey, you’re never too old to learn are ya?

Now lighten the f%$# up.

I can do no better than to quote the talented Julie Brown, comedienne and philosopher. Google her hilarious songs, ‘The Home Coming Queen’s Got a Gun’, and ‘Cause I’m Blonde’.

“I took an IQ test and flunked it of course, I can’t spell VW but I’ve got a Porsche, cos I’m blonde.”