By SemperAmare
(A co-authoring by Vandemonium1 and CreativityTakesCourage)
HI. MY NAME IS MIKE and I love my kids more than anything else in the world. I’d do anything for them without a moment’s hesitation. Yeah, I know every parent says that, and words are cheap, but I believe it down to my bootstraps. Not many men are presented with the chance to prove that statement.
I was, and I proved it beyond a shadow of doubt.
The only pity is; I’ll never be able to tell my children.
Confused yet? Please, allow me to shed some light on the subject.
*****
HAD YOU ASKED ME last week, I’d have told you I was in the middle of a nigh on perfect life. Good job, nice house, a loving and beautiful wife, and three of the most perfect children you could ever imagine. The youngest of the latter was sitting in the back seat of my car as we leisurely drove toward our favourite park. Sweet, innocent, little nineteen-month old Cindy.
It always sent a little shiver through me when Cindy spoke. She was just learning, you see. I’d been through it twice before, of course, with her brother and sister, but as much as I loved and enjoyed my children, if I had my way, Cindy would be our last. So, the knowledge that this may well be the last time I’d experience the magic of all those firsts as a father added an extra bittersweet nuance.
“Daycare, Daddy.”
“That’s right, sweetie. That’s a daycare centre.”
Whoa. What the f…? It was indeed a daycare centre we’d just driven past. But how the hell did Cindy know that? She was smart, but she certainly couldn’t read yet. The mystery preoccupied me for the next two blocks, giving me an awful sinking feeling.
I process things quickly and, if you believe my friends, have an uncanny ability to take a bunch of facts and see every possibility very, very quickly. Two blocks later, the only possibility I saw was that Cindy had been to this particular daycare centre enough times to recognise it.
Problem is, my stay-at-home wife had never mentioned putting Cindy in daycare. In fact, we’d agreed to wait until she was two before doing that. This I had to sort out.
As soon as it was safe, I reversed direction and parked in the carpark attached to the centre. Any parent will tell you how long it takes to get a toddler out of a car seat, needless to say, today I was not the exception. It didn’t help that my mind was confusedly racing the whole time.
As I approached the doors, I planned how I could do this. “Hi, my name is Mike. Do you recognise this little girl?” might take some explaining.
In the end, the decision was taken out of my hands, when the young lady behind the reception counter smiled at the bundle in my arms.
“Hello, Cindy. What are you doing here on a Tuesday? You normally come on Wednesdays, though I can’t remember seeing you in our book for tomorrow. Hi, I’m Martha, you must be Cindy’s dad. Sarah has told us all about you.”
How I engaged in a normal conversation when my mind was whirling is beyond me. I think I told her Cindy saw the place when we were passing and wanted to say hello to her friends. After a couple of minutes of polite chat, I excused us and went back to the car. Further processing was impossible as I drove Cindy home.
Sarah and I had been married a decade and we were as rock solid a couple as they came. The knowledge she’d been keeping at least one secret from me for some time tried to lever into that statement, but I pushed it back. There must be a legitimate reason for the secret. I just didn’t know what it was yet. Frustratingly, I couldn’t just ask her. Sarah was on her annual cruise with her favourite aunt and would be incommunicado until Saturday at the earliest.
Anyway, as I was saying, I married Sarah twelve years ago, after a two-year courtship. Talk about two peas in a pod; that was us. Soulmates in every sense of the word. Neither of us were overly ambitious but we both knew what we wanted from life; see the world and have two kids. So, after four years of travelling and loving the shit out of each other, she went off the pill and within a matter of months we were expecting.
When we met, Sarah worked as a secretary for the owner of an electrical components manufacturer. Shortly after we married, there was a slump in the economy and she was asked to take every Wednesday off, unpaid. That was fine with both of us.
Life for us became complete when James was born. Sarah happily became a stay-at-home-mum and I happily became the sole breadwinner; a designer working for a bunch of wankers who wouldn’t know a good idea if it was shoved up their fat… No, don’t go there again, Mike. One day you’ll have enough saved to go out on your own and then you’ll be the one calling the shots.
Sarah took to motherhood like a ferret spotting an open trouser leg. We were soon the happiest bunch around; well, outside of work that is. We experienced a minor health concern when little James was about three months old. It seems Sarah was having trouble producing enough milk. On doctor’s advice, and mutual problem solving, we fixed that with a combination of supplementing her supply with formula and a day of enforced rest for her. I organised for Sarah’s widowed mother to take Jamie from mid-morning on Wednesdays to give Sarah a break. Sarah either stayed at home or did adult education classes. That’s when she re-kindled her childhood hobby of sewing.
Soon after, she was kept even busier co-ordinating the design and construction of the house we commissioned built. Sarah loved it, revelling in an outlet for her artistic side. She delayed fully weaning little Jamie until he was nearly two. One or two hiccups delayed the completion of the house, but we managed to move in just in time for the arrival of our number two, Jenny.
Yes, Jenny popped out when James was little over two-and-a-half. Life just got better and better. The only time I didn’t devote every non-working moment to the kids, was when I showed Sarah just how much I still loved her.
Jenny was another easy child. We were half expecting milk supply problems and knew exactly what to do when they arose. This time, Sarah fully weaned our little girl when she was about eighteen months old. When I proposed getting snipped, we had our planned two after all, Sarah surprised me by suggesting a third. I resisted, I have to tell you. We’d made a plan and having another child would put it back. In the end, Sarah convinced me with some easy logic. If two perfect children were good, how happy would we be with three? Cindy entered our perfect world two years and six months after Jenny.
I don’t want to paint a picture of absolute utopia, though. I had to work on getting my clothes actually into the laundry hamper instead of just around it. Sarah; not clog the sink with her hair. Long hair is nice, but I must admit to being amazed how much of it comes out every time Sarah brushes hers. And we had an ongoing battle with razors—she kept using mine on her legs and blunting the blade. Those were but a few of the minor irritating habits we worked on to keep harmony. I heard a saying once that said something along the lines of; it’s the little things like not putting the lid on the toothpaste that erode the love in a marriage because most couples had already tackled the major issues like religion and politics before tying the knot. I believed that saying, and so did Sarah, and so we made the effort to minimise the little annoyances.
Sarah and I also had the occasional more serious dispute. The first non-minor one was when James was about sixteen months old and over the stupidest thing. I’d come home to find Sarah had used some tinted hair mousse to colour Jamie’s hair ginger red. She gave me an idiotic explanation about wanting to celebrate her Irish heritage by dressing Jamie up as a leprechaun for St. Patrick’s Day. I had no problem with the idea but drew the line at her chemically changing our son’s hair colour. After a heated argument, one where I yelled at her for the first time, we agreed that, in the future, anything like that had to be discussed and agreed upon beforehand.
Another happened about a year ago, shortly after the sudden death of her mother. Sarah suggested putting Cindy in daycare on Wednesdays, so she could still have a completely child-free day. I opposed the idea strongly, not being able to stand the thought of Cindy being cared for by strangers and upset by the separation. Besides, now the elder two were in school or pre-school, Sarah would only have the one to look after, six hours a day. Like all good couples, we compromised. I would consider daycare when Cindy was two and emotionally strong enough for the exercise. Plus, I offered to look after the brood one day every weekend, so Sarah could be free. I was relieved that she hardly ever took me up on the offer, because after working all week and all the have-to’s that came with home ownership, I admit I wanted to play with my kids, not organise them. Besides, her lack of asking proved, in my mind, that she could live without the break.
Another source of angst was Sarah’s hints since Cindy’s first birthday that she would be amenable to child number four. Strange, when you consider we’d discussed it early in our marriage, deciding we’d aim for two and had already stretched that to having three. For a few months, Sarah brought it up at every opportunity. She was worse than a used car salesman. Funny, because she couldn’t give me a convincing reason when I asked why her major change of mind. Discussions were ongoing, but I intended sticking to my guns this time. Thankfully, she’d eased off in the last few weeks. Hopefully, that meant I’d dodged a bullet. I was one of six children and my dad died just after I, as the youngest, left home. Poor bugger worked his whole life and never got to relax at the end of it. I didn’t want to suffer the same fate.
Just then, as we were driving through the little shopping area near our house, I saw something which jolted me. It was the new electronic sign above the service station, boldly telling everyone that didn’t know it already that it was Tuesday the 1st May, along with the time and the temperature.
Tuesday today. Wednesday tomorrow…
Wednesdays.
For the first five years of our marriage, Sarah worked every weekday, except Wednesdays.
After James was a few months old, Sarah had her mother look after him. On Wednesdays. That continued until her mother died last year.
Now, I find she’d been putting little Cindy in daycare once a week on, yes, you guessed it, a Wednesday.
Net result; my wife had about six hours free, every Wednesday, and that had been going on for about ten years.
There must be a simple, innocent reason why I was being deceived by a woman who, to this precise moment of time, I thought completely incapable of guile. Something, some instinct, told me it was about more than having a day off from motherhood. I cursed my gut instinct because now a huge and growing seed of doubt was germinating in my head, and I hated it.
I wanted so much to just pick up the phone and ask her what that reason was. Put my mind at rest. Napalm the burgeoning sapling inside me. But I couldn’t. Sarah was incommunicado until Saturday.
Let me explain. Even before we married, Sarah took off once a year to visit her aunt who lives in England. Not that she went to England every time. Usually, and every time for at least the last eight years, Sarah flew somewhere to join her on a cruise. The Mediterranean, West Indies, Alaska, she’d done them all. I remember once asking her how much it cost but she explained that the aunt was quite wealthy and paid for the lot. At the time, I’d wondered if the annual trips were to keep in the aunt’s good books and maximise the chance of an inheritance. I’d dismissed that out of hand almost immediately. Now, I wasn’t so sure. When the kids came along, she juggled the trips around them. Freezing expressed breast milk and leaving me fresh tins of formula. The timing of her recent weaning of Cindy had been, in part, because of her current trip.
I’d never met the aunt in question, just spoken to her on the phone a few times. Did I resent Sarah being away from the family a week a year? Hell, no. She deserved it. I took the week off and the kids and I had our own whale of a time. Because I work to live, not live to work, I spent the week playing house-daddy, doing school runs and making dinner. I enjoyed it, so giving up one of my four annual leave weeks wasn’t an impost. Besides, after she’d recovered from her inevitable jet lag, it was well worth my while, if you know what I mean.
According to Sarah, they would be floating off Antarctica about now, where phones definitely didn’t work.
Hmmm. Isn’t it amazing? Catch someone in one lie and everything they’d ever said to you was suspect. How did I know she was on a cruise liner off Antarctica? Because she’d show us the photos when she returned and regale us with stories. That was inarguable, wasn’t it? There was an easy way to find out. I remembered Sarah calling her aunt a week ago on the home phone. I went through its memory and found an English number. Without a thought, I hit redial. It rang about six times before the time difference came to mind. It was around 1:00 a.m. there. I was just about to hang up to minimise my extreme antisocial behaviour, when message bank cut in. “Hi, you’ve reached the Simpsons. Pete and I are cruising off Antarctica at the moment. You can get us on my mobile from the third of May.”
That was good, wasn’t it? She really was on a cruise. Trouble was, this newly suspicious character wondered who the hell Pete was and why was there no mention of Sarah? Then, of course, there was the matter of the aunt being back on the third and my wife not being due back until the sixth. I ached to stop the gnawing feeling in my guts. Sarah and the kids are my life, but the mystery was like an itch I just had to scratch. I couldn’t leave it alone. I was desperate for answers.
The photo albums.
On the album shelf were separate little books with the annual cruise photos in them. I picked out last year’s and opened it. There was the beach in Cancun, there was her aunt in front of a huge ship in Barbados. There was her aunt dining at the officers’ table, surrounded by blinding white uniforms and gold braid. Flipping through every page, I didn’t find what I was looking for.
Anxious for proof of Sarah’s truthfulness, I grabbed a second album, then a third, then a fourth. There was not one single photograph showing my wife. If I was the suspicious sort that would have struck me as very odd. Guess what? Why had I never realised this salient fact ever before? Because I’d never been suspicious before.
Desperately wanting to prove my growing doubts unfounded, I wracked my brain for another way of proving Sarah innocent of all charges.
Her car.
For as long as I can remember, Sarah had always caught a late-night flight to wherever she was meeting her aunt. That meant she caught a cab to the airport or, as was the case this time, took her car and left it at the airport in long term parking.
I hit the filing cabinets and dragged out the folders for Sarah’s personal savings and credit card accounts. Luckily, the dates were on each photo album, allowing me to zero in on the relevant weeks fairly quickly. From personal experience, I knew the long-term carpark charged $85 for seven days parking. After ten minutes, I’d identified no amounts anything like that on either statement. I was up to the fourth last trip, working backward, before I noticed something else odd. For the eight or nine days she was gone, there was not one single, solitary charge on any statement. I knew auntie paid for everything, but not a single cup of coffee while in transit? Suspicion was growing. I had to know.
By this time, Cindy was awake. I distractedly rang my sister and asked if she could look after her for a couple of hours. As usual, she was delighted to agree. I dropped the chirpy mite off, promising myself she would never know she’d been instrumental in the only time I doubted my wife. Hopefully, after today, I’d be able to erase it from my own memory as a slightly embarrassing episode in a long and happy marriage.
I headed for the airport. Luckily, we live in a small, regional city. I parked in the short-term carpark, sandwiched between the two long-term lots. There was a time it had all been sheep paddocks, now, cars were parked in rows for hundreds of metres. Picking a direction at random, I began my walk. To cut a long story short, forty-five minutes later I knew Sarah’s car wasn’t there. So where was it?
Facts. I need more of them. And quickly, before the sapling of doubt in my head grew so big it burst through my scalp.
Arriving home with an hour to spare before I needed to collect the kids from their respective schools, I did the only thing I could think to do—search the house from top to bottom. What for, I wasn’t sure, but maybe something would leap out at me as being not right.
Sarah loved the house. She’d worked closely with the architect on its design, then supervised the builders. It was technically three storeys tall. Built on a steepish bank, you entered the main level where the kitchen, guestroom, dining room, main lounge and one bathroom were. Upstairs was the family room, four bedrooms, and two bathrooms. Due to the layout, there was ample room under the house for a storage room and Sarah’s sewing room. These were accessible from the rest of the house via a steep, narrow set of stairs. As her sewing room was the only space in the house that was uniquely Sarah’s, it was the obvious place to start.
By the time I had to leave for the school, I knew one thing—there was nothing at all suspicious in her sewing room. Everything in there was standard for a hobby room. I even checked the sewing desk for secret compartments, feeling a little silly.
Leaving Sarah’s sewing room, I glanced in the storage room, accessed by a short corridor, but realised searching it would have to wait until the next day. I noted, being half a basement, how dark the area was even in the early afternoon.
I was distracted as I picked up my three treasures and cooked them dinner. Not my usual self at all. When everyone else was in bed, I resurrected the old baby monitor, put it in Cindy’s room, and, carrying the mobile end, accessed the lower level again. In the storage room, I moved and opened every single box. Still nothing out of place or the least bit suspicious. Returning upstairs, I checked on the kids before settling into my favourite chair, staying up late into the night, brooding.
*****
I WAS STILL EXTREMELY unfun the next morning when I dropped the two eldest to their respective schools and Cindy to daycare. Yes, you heard me right. Cindy seemed to like it, so off we went. A different lady at the desk showed some surprise we were there but checked and said it was okay. Some subtle questioning by detective Mike confirmed Cindy was normally collected around two-thirty and had been attending for the last seven months. My almost-rage at my wife’s deception was growing and growing. I wondered what excuse she would have concocted if Cindy ever blurted out the word ‘daycare’ to me when I asked about her happiness one day.
I sat in the car, my head on the wheel. What else could I do to get to the bottom of Sarah’s apparent deception? There was no way I could wait for Sarah’s return to confront her. My lack of answers was driving me far too crazy to wait that long. I hadn’t found anything when I searched the house, but maybe I’d missed something. There had to be something that would explain everything.
Decision made, I sped back to the house. Starting with the guest bedroom, followed by the master, I checked everywhere there was to check, even to the extent of seeing if there were secret panels in the bottom of cupboards or the bottom of drawers. Nothing.
I fired up the home computer and searched every directory. Again, nothing. Sarah had no access to my work laptop so no reason to check that. Unless there was something in Sarah’s car, or her phone, there was apparently nothing to find. So, what was the reason she’d withheld the daycare thing from me? And where was her bloody car? Where was my wife and what the fuck did she do on Wednesdays? Talk about frustratingly pissed off.
It was still only one-fifteen, so I had time to start the only thing I could think to do. Going into the sub-basement, I started all over again. There had to be something I was missing. This time, I actually moved the sewing desk and looked for any unaccounted-for space where a compartment could be hidden. Nothing.
Next, I decided to remove everything from the shelves and look in, under, and behind every item. Half way through, I picked up one of those wheat bag things; you know, the type people stick pins and needles into. One of the needles stuck into my finger. Exhausted from lack of sleep, suspicious, worried, and very pissed off, I did something I was renowned for never doing—I lost my temper. Picking up the lumpy little bag, I hurled it at the opposite end wall. Well, aimed it in that direction. At the last moment, it moved in my hand and flew straight for the bare light bulb. There was the pop of the implosion and I was suddenly thrown into darkness. Upset with my loss of self-control, I slumped into the desk chair, with only the dim light from the doorway for illumination. The combination of the small windows on this level, and the fact it was a cloudy day to start with, meant it was gloomy at best. Rather like my mood.
I remained seated in Sarah’s chair, partly to calm down, partly to think where to look next, and partly to put myself in Sarah’s mind, seeking clues. At this rate, I’d have a heart attack before she came home on Sunday.
I swivelled the chair back and forth, rolling ideas and possibilities around my tired brain. Preoccupied, the awareness of a slender shaft of light was slow to seep into my awareness. In fact, it was only my glancing down at my hand, resting on the sewing table, that drew my attention to it. It had spotlighted my wedding ring. Only later would the irony occur to me.
I followed the line of light to the wall of the room which was made from distressed wood panelling. I remember Sarah saying she’d picked it up cheap when we were building the house. Distressed, I was assured, meant the wood contained flaws, including knot holes. The light was coming from one such small hole. It was about the size of a milk bottle cap, just above and to the right of the sewing desk. I put my eye to it, but apart from ascertaining there was a space there, couldn’t see a thing. As an experiment, I turned off the light switch near the main door. Sure enough, the light from the knot hole also disappeared.
Sprinting upstairs, I returned with a spare globe and quickly fit it. Light once more filled the room. For the next ten minutes, I pressed, probed, levered, and pulled the wall, looking for a hidden door. Again, all I got for my efforts, was an extreme sense of frustration. I was at the point of contemplating getting tools to smash the wall down completely, when the memory of one of Sarah’s and my favourite movies came unbidden to my mind. In the movie, a girl was going through a stately old home, trying to find the entry to a secret passage. She eventually found the trigger to the door when she stuck her finger through a tiny hole. My gaze revolved to the knot hole. My feet moved of their own accord toward it. A probing pinky circled in the hole and met an obstruction at three o’clock. It didn’t move inward, outward, or anticlockwise. When moved clockwise, however, there was a distinct click and one of the vertically laid wood panels, near the other end of the room, popped open about a centimetre.
My heart rate escalated, one moment steady, the next pounding. We’d built this house. The only people who could possibly know about this secret were the architect, the builders, and one other person; Sarah. Sarah, the only one with a motivation to build a secret room. What was I about to discover about my ‘guileless’ wife?
I instinctively knew that whatever was in the room was a big deal. The effort alone to keep me away from the construction site when this particular project was constructed told me that. Instead of satisfaction at having finally found I wasn’t going mad, that Sarah did indeed have a secret she’d been keeping from me, I swallowed, pushing my sadness and disappointment down to a place where I could deal with them later.
Throwing open the door immediately revealed the join butted onto a wall joist. That’s why I’d felt no movement during my earlier probing. The space within the door was lit by a strip light above the frame. They do say keepers-of-secrets are often betrayed by the simplest things. Tonight, the saying held true; having this light and that of the sewing room wired to one switch was a mistake. Unless the outer bulb blew, or, in this case, was hit by friendly fire, the secret room would never be detected. Bizarrely, I wondered if that was an oversight by Sarah, or whether the electrician hadn’t followed her instructions.
I recognised I was dithering. Knowing, deep down, that whatever was in the compartment was going to change my happy life forever I was now reluctant to unveil Sarah’s secrets. For a long drawn out moment I was tempted to close the room and walk away. Perhaps, ignorance was bliss. Later, I realised that not in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined how much change was in my future.
The space was twenty-four inches deep. Revealed by the three-foot-wide panel were clothes, hanging on a steel rail, just like in Sarah’s closet upstairs. Unlike the latter, though, these were obviously classier and much more revealing than I was used to seeing her in. At the bottom was a small set of drawers, which a quick search revealed were filled with lingerie that, when worn by my beautiful wife, would have caused an Egyptian mummy to get an erection. Next to the drawers, were racks holding about ten sets of high-heeled shoes.
The second half of the hidden room was entirely taken up with a huge fireproof safe. It was so big it could only have been installed before the room was anywhere near complete. Where had I been when all this was going on? Sarah, oh Sarah, what are you hiding?
On the front of the safe was a keyhole and large spoked handle. Damn. Now I had to look for the bloody key. In frustration, I grabbed the handle and leaned on it, almost losing my balance as it turned unexpectedly. Sarah must have been so sure I’d never find the secret compartment, she never bothered locking the safe. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Was she so confident because she thought me a fool, or herself so clever?
So, if it wasn’t for security, what was the huge safe for? Keep the mice out? Or protect the contents from fire in case the house burned down? That made the contents very valuable indeed. Taking a deep breath, I opened the thick door and stepped into a whole different realm.
The top two thirds of the space were steel shelves. The bottom third, a steel drawer. Incongruously, the first thing that caught my eye was a glossy brochure from a cruise line. The front cover showed a cruise ship sailing just off a spectacular iceshelf. Antarctica. Under that brochure were others, for Alaska, the West Indies and you guessed it, every other place she’d supposedly been to with her aunt. I suspected, even at this early stage of my investigations, that this was her research material. The source of her future stories about her fantastic, fictional cruises. One shelf held journals, conveniently marked by years, and documents, some loose, others in envelopes. The next shelf held more documents and a few DVDs. All non-commercial and all in individual plastic covers. Each disk had a set of initials and a date. The one on the top was marked AK, 4th August 2016. That was approximately twenty months ago.
The bottom shelf held an open wooden tray. When I pulled it out, its contents caught the light and sparkled. Thrown into it, seemingly randomly, was jewellery. Lots of jewellery. Jewellery has never interested me, but I know eighteen carat gold when I see it. It was obviously expensive stuff, but, rather bizarrely, it looked to have been casually tossed in, almost discarded. The owner, whoever they were, weren’t treating the expensive baubles with any respect at all.
Among the glittery bling were two satin ring boxes. These, at least, looked like they’d been placed with care. The contents of the first, larger box, left even me in awe. It was a solitary diamond, and a big one at that. I held it up for closer inspection and, by the way it sparkled as soon as it caught the least bit of light, I took it to be the genuine article.
I fell to my knees in a sick parody of my proposal, my hands trembling like that of a Parkinsons sufferer. Wherever my wife was, which was within driving distance, she was there as a single woman. The barriers against my thoughts going extreme, crumbled under this latest evidence. I’m only a little ashamed to say I clambered to my feet only to stagger backward and slump into the chair and was, well, emotional for a while. I was only interrupted when my phone alarm went off, reminding me it was time for the school run. I gathered my wits, compartmentalising my shock and grief, and left.
This time I picked up James and Jenny first, before going to my sister Carrie’s. We’d been invited to dinner. I stewed all the way on what I’d found and what it meant. After dinner, while my kids played with their cousins, I spilled the beans to my sister and brother-in-law. They couldn’t believe Sarah was anything but a loving wife and doting mother but wanted to race over to my place immediately and see what was in the envelopes, on the papers, and in the journals. We all knew if we were to learn the truth before Sarah came back, it would be from those documents. Sis wanted to go home with me right then and there, but I fobbed her off, saying I needed to deal with it all first.
As soon as was polite, I bundled the kids home and into bed. Grabbing the baby monitor after Cindy dropped off, I headed back under the house, anxious, and yet somehow reluctant to start reading. Before reaching for the first journal—I’d decided to read those first—I pushed the wooden tray back onto its shelf. That drew my attention to the one place I hadn’t investigated so far. The steel drawer at the bottom. At an awkward angle, I couldn’t shift it. I knelt on the floor and looked closer. There was no locking mechanism. Grabbing it firmly, and now at a better angle, I pulled harder. It slid out. I rocked back on my heels, stunned.
The reason opening it was so difficult proved to be because its contents were so heavy. But then, gold is.
Laid out on a thick felt mat, were eleven gold bars. Some smaller 100g ingots, but most the larger 250g ones. I knew a little about bullion. Just after we were married, Sarah convinced me to buy a 100g ingot as an investment. It still lived in a safety deposit box at the bank. Her boss was convinced gold was about to skyrocket. He was right. The bar we’d paid about $7,500 for was now worth over $14,500. It seemed hardly a week went by when Sarah didn’t google the current gold price and tell me what our little shiny brick was worth.
I did a quick calculation in my head and estimated the drawer held about $133,000 worth of bullion. As I was trying to get my head around this, I noticed the layer of felt under the ingot was lumpy. Lifting a corner of the mat, I saw another layer of bars. Hastily removing a few of them at the front, I lifted another layer of felt to find yet another astonishing layer of gold. Was this how Howard Carter felt when he opened Tutankhamen’s tomb? Another hurried shifting of ingots revealed the third layer was the last.
Hurriedly, but gently, I emptied the drawer and stacked all the bricks according to size. I grabbed my phone, turning on the calculator app. I won’t bore you with the maths, but even assuming the current price was around $1,800 per ounce, the gold in the drawer exceeded one and a half million dollars. Only then did I ask myself, where the hell did Sarah get it from? My eyes drifted, as if on autopilot, to the right, to the sexy, revealing clothes hanging where I was never meant to see them. A horrible thought stole into my soul. As I stacked the bricks back in the drawer, I desperately tried to think of a rational explanation for all I’d found. Apart from the obvious one, that is.
I was a bit stuck on which of the documents to read first. In the end, I decided the journals promised the best chance of finding out what the hell was going on quickly, so I picked up the one marked 2018 and opened it.
I was wrong.
It wasn’t a journal. It was a ledger. Not only that but it was coded. No, I quickly ascertained, not a code. Just shorthand. The first page started with a balance carried forward, presumably from the end of last year. Strangely, it wasn’t just in dollars, but in ounces and dollars. Written in the far-right column was a dollar amount. $1,657,900. I realised it was the only way of accounting for a fluctuating gold price.
March contained three inputs of $1,500. For April there were three deposits of what I was fast beginning to see as the standard amount and one of a massive $20,000. Oddly there was a debit for the same amount the following day. I quickly looked through the rest of the book, but it was blank. Inside the back cover there were three printed A4 sheets. A quick glance at them showed they listed houses or something that were for sale. There were far more relevant things to read, so I only glanced at them.
I next grabbed last year’s journal. This time I only skimmed through it, stopping when I finally saw something in the debit column. Two things, actually, in the one month. The first was for $78.53 and was marked Ptrl. All I could think of was that it stood for petrol. Fuel for her car? How bizarre if it was. The second debit was marked VS $125, Ling. What the hell that meant I didn’t know.
This ledger also contained glued in delivery dockets. It took a couple of minutes to confirm they were receipts of the bullion bars. On the same page as the docket, sure enough, the cash amount went down and the ounces up. Most months contained three cash inputs, some four. The summer months sometimes dropped to one or two. Out of interest, I flicked to last March. Two inputs of $1,500 and one whopping $20,000. Written next to the latter was ‘West Indies’. You guessed it; that was the cruise destination last year. Quickly scanning the 2016 ledger, I found the $20,000 credit next to the word ‘Greece’, that year’s supposed destination. I glanced at the pile of brochures. Sarah returned that year with vivid stories and even a smattering of Greek words. If, indeed, she hadn’t ever been there, then the level of her dishonesty was both staggering and heartbreaking.
Who was this woman? Did I know her at all? I forced that down. I wanted to be as clear-headed as possible. I put last year’s journal back and rather than plough through them all, I picked up the earliest one. It was marked 2003, the year before we met. A quick glance showed there were many more entries per month, but generally for lesser amounts. The very first was for $200, but over the course of the first three pages, they rose to $600. Next to each credit was an initial. There seemed to be about four or five different initials. Scanning the rest of the book, I found three larger amounts. All for $10,000.
It was all confusing the hell out of me, so I moved from them to the envelopes.
The first of those was a normal, business sized one. The envelope might have been standard but with its contents things just got stranger and stranger. It held the registration papers of a Ferrari. The owner was Sarah and it was first registered a little under two years ago. Sarah owned a car that was probably worth at least $500,000? Where the hell was it?
A stray memory flicked, unbidden, into the forefront of my swirling mind. It was from sometime last year, I think. I was on an errand for work when I pulled up at a traffic light, right next to a gleaming red Ferrari convertible. I glanced over to admire it. The driver was a blonde lady, wearing sunglasses and a headscarf. She looked to be about my age, but I didn’t look too closely, I was interested in the car. Sitting next to her, with his hand on her bare leg, was a much older guy, who looked vaguely familiar. The words, ‘sugar daddy’ sprang to mind. I was admiring the long, sleek front of the car, when, in my peripheral vision, I saw the driver glance at me. I turned to give her a grin, but she turned quickly away. Perhaps her sugar daddy was the possessive sort. Again, my peripheral vision saw the light turn green. I expected the Ferrari to blitz past me, but it stayed on my rear quarter until turning off two blocks later.
Could that have been Sarah driving? There certainly wasn’t several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of car in our driveway. I’m observant and would almost certainly have noticed. So, where did she keep it? What a frustrating life she must lead. Owning one of the world’s greatest cars and not being able to drive it every time she wanted to. Maybe, only once a week, on a Wednesday…. But how would you avoid being recognised by people you knew? Perhaps, by wearing a blonde wig, headscarf, and huge sunglasses….
The next envelope was big and bulging. It contained cash. Lots of cash. That didn’t interest me in the slightest.
Strangely, there was a brochure for apartments under the envelope. I knew the place. Stage One of the complex had opened with great fanfare a couple of months ago. Sarah and I had talked about it. The units facing the river were not selling like hotcakes because of the price. Not much change from three quarters of a million. One of the things I love… loved…, oh bugger it. I had to give her the benefit of the doubt at this stage. Unlike lawyers, whose motto is ‘every man is innocent until proven broke’, I firmly believe in the old maxim, ‘every man, or woman, is innocent until proven guilty’. Where was I? I liked that Sarah was not upwardly mobile. She seemed perfectly happy with the low six-figure salary I brought home. We could have afforded one of those apartments, in time, if she’d worked. However, that would have meant her giving up her primary role of full-time mother. Neither of us were prepared to do that. Therefore, I could understand Sarah having the brochure, but why was it hidden away here?
As I stepped back into the closet, away from the better light in the sewing room, I noticed a folded piece of paper had fallen on the ground. It was a blank title deed for an address in the apartment complex. Sarah’s maiden name was written in ink in the appropriate box. At the bottom, where the franking stamp was supposed to be, was a rough sketch of the stamp. Whoever had drawn it had no artistic skills whatsoever. Written next to it, again in the same spidery script as her name was, You know what you have to do to get the real thing.
Sarah may have. I, however, was bewildered.
The next, much thinner, envelope, contained a simple one-page valuation of, I presume, the big diamond ring. It was valued by a business in the next major town over. I picked up the big ring box and looked inside again. Holy effing hell, so that’s what $132,000 or a five-carat diamond looks like. I’d guessed it to be the real thing the first time I looked at it, but it blew my mind that it could be worth so much. I put the ring and paperwork back. As an afterthought, I looked at the valuation again. July 2014. Jenny was only a few months old at that time. Was there any significance to that period? None that I could think of.
Moving a pile of desk calendars near the back of one shelf revealed two boxes of morning after pills. The calendars themselves were marked with Sarah’s cycle. In my haste to look at the rest, I didn’t think too long on their significance.
The rest of the documents consisted of envelopes marked by years, that, on inspection, contained receipts. I glanced at one. Victoria Secret. Matching bra, pantie, and suspender belt-maternity. Upstairs we had a similar hoard of receipts. Sarah kept them all, just in case she had to return anything.
That left only the DVDs. Subconsciously, I knew they would end any hope of Sarah’s innocence I had left. There were six of them. Three marked with different initials and dated shortly after our engagement. The other three were all marked AK. One was from three months before our wedding. The second, seven years later. The last, as previously mentioned, from just under two years ago.
I looked at the DVDs and then at my watch. Decision time. I was already exhausted from one sleepless night and suspected what was on the videos would rob me of many more. As in, for the next year or two. I had responsibilities with three children to look after. So, after texting my sister to ask if she could look after Cindy again the next day, I went to bed. If Sarah’s only crime was to rob me of this family time, she had already committed a big one.
*****
DETAILS OF GETTING THE two elder kids to their respective schools and dropping Cindy off, aren’t relevant. Suffice it to say, at five past nine on Thursday morning, I was in the living room loading the first DVD into our player.
As I walked back to the family room, case in hand and heart already pounding, I re-read the label; SJ 20th September 2005. I’d proposed to Sarah in September of that year. Was that significant? I didn’t know. Further musing came to a halt as the sound of Sarah’s voice issued forth from the television. I turned and fell onto the couch, my worst fears realised, not by the images that met my eyes, but by the words she was exchanging with SJ.
“So, you want me to role-play being your wife and allowing a man you’ve sourced to seduce me?”
“Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. But you know this already.”
“I know, but humour me, Steve. You talking to me about it helps me get into character. It makes me wet.”
I groaned. Bad enough she was about to fuck another man, but a wimp who got off on seeing his wife screw other men?
Steve inhaled loudly. “Okay. Um, I’ve brought you one of Josie’s dresses, along with some of her underwear. As you know, you have pretty much the same coloured hair, but you’ll need to put it up in a clip—Josie always wears her hair up during the day.”
They went on to discuss the nicknames and endearments Steve, as I now knew him to be, and Josie used.
Steve passed Sarah a bag which she tipped onto the bed. She proceeded, without the least bit of shyness or awkwardness to strip. Her ease confirmed what one of her ledgers had already told me even if I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it—she’d been naked with him before. That truth fed the knot of betrayal fuelled rage growing in my belly.
She pulled on a dainty set of underpants. They were white and innocent looking. The matching bra was the same. The dress was also white and in a style Sarah had once described to me as a sundress. Strappy sandals finished the ensemble. Sarah moved to stand before a mirror, gathering and twisting her hair into a messy knot held up by a clip.
“This okay?” she asked.
“Yes. Perfect. You could almost be her twin.”
“Is that why you like me, Steve? Because I look like your sweet, innocent wife?”
Steve nodded.
“But maybe the naughty version. The one who will do things to and for you that she won’t. Right?”
“Yes,” he whispered throatily.
“Get off on the idea of seeing her fuck another man?”
Again, Steve nodded. I scowled. What a weak-arsed jerk.
“Want to see her come on another man’s cock?” Sarah had dropped her voice to a raspy whisper. “Want to see Josie suck another man’s dick?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“I hope you found her a nice big one then. One that will give her a big orgasm.”
“I did. It’s huge.” Steve cleared his throat and adjusted his crotch.
Sarah stepped toward him, palming him through his trousers. “So, is he going to stretch my tight little pussy, honey?”
As soon as she uttered the word, ‘honey’ I knew Sarah was in character. It was not an endearment we used.
“Is he going to make me squeal and squirm? Is he going to make your sweet little wife scream?”
“God, yes.”
“I’ll scream so good for you, honey.”
Steve moaned. “Fuck him good, baby. Show him what a tight sweet cunt my pretty little wife has.”
“I will, Stevie. I promise.”
I stared at the screen, shaking my head. It was Sarah, and yet not her. Her demeanour, the way she held herself, her choice of words, even her mannerisms were not the Sarah I knew and had loved for so many years.
Hearing Steve excuse himself, I took the opportunity to study the setting. It looked like a hotel room with a small kitchenette. Behind Sarah, in the corner of the room was a small table set as if for dinner. The guy had clearly gone to a bit of trouble to set the scene as being reminiscent of his home. Sarah speaking directly to the camera ended my perusal of the room.
“Are you listening to this, Josie? He wants to see you fuck other men. Lots of other men. This is not the first time he’s had me role play this sort of scenario. Hell, it’s not even the tenth time. He likes this scene a lot. It turns him on like no other. Are you hearing me? He wants you to be his slut. He wants to loan you out to strangers, to his boss, to clients, your neighbours. He wants to watch you take cock after cock after cock. He’s just too afraid to ask you. That’s why he’s been coming to me for nearly two years. He gets me to shower beforehand using the same soap and shampoo you do. He has me wear your clothes, your perfume, even your used knickers. And then he gets me to pretend to be you and service some guy or guys he’s found. Watch and see what he really wants from and for you.”
Sarah’s speech rocked me to my core. I’d braced myself to see her fucking another man, but this? Suddenly the purpose of the video was clear. It wasn’t a memento, or a tool for masturbation. It was a tool, all right, not for pleasure but rather for financial gain. I hit the pause button and dashed down to her sewing room, grabbing the journal for 2005. For each month up to and including September there was a deposit initialled ‘SJ”. Nothing for the remainder of the year. No large unexplained deposits either. I checked 2006 as well and it was as if SJ had disappeared. If she was or had been blackmailing Steve, where the hell was the trail? She kept a note of every other deposit and withdrawal so why would she treat the blackmail any differently?
Still pondering the riddle, I returned upstairs and steeled myself for the show. The guy Steve had found for ‘Josie’ was big, at least six-two or three, and heavily muscled. I watched, feeling vaguely nauseated, as the three of them acted out Steve bringing home an old college buddy for dinner. It was like watching a thinly plotted porno from the eighties, which, in a way, I guess, other than the era, it was.
“I’m going to get changed and wash up. Why don’t you two, ah, get to know each other while I’m gone?”
“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll keep Jimmy entertained for you,” Josie reassured Steve.
Steve left the screen.
“Here, let me freshen your drink.”
Josie rose and walked around to Jimmy’s side of the table, leaning over him, and brushing her breasts against his bicep as she refilled his wine glass. She placed the bottle on the table before rubbing his shoulders and arms.
“You’re so big and strong, Jimmy. Is that from playing ball?”
They exchanged some more innuendo accompanied by Josie flashing her tits and legs and then Steve re-joined them.
“Stand up, Jimmy.”
Jimmy rose as requested and it was clear he was sporting a huge erection.
“Now, will you look at that, Josie,” said Steve, gesturing toward Jimmy’s crotch. “You did that.”
“I didn’t, honey. I swear I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Thinking about you made his dick hard, baby. Looking at your pretty tits is what got him aroused. So, seeing as you made his cock hard, you need to help him do something about it. You need to let him find relief in your sweet pussy.”
Josie shook her head, letting loose a little whimper. “No, honey… please don’t make me. I… we shouldn’t. It’s wrong. I can’t. I only want you. I love you. I don’t want anyone else.”
I gasped to hear her say she loved him. For a moment I forgot she was pretending to be his wife.
“His cock is hard, baby. Achingly erect and hard and you made it that way. You have to do something about it.”
“No. Please don’t make me. I don’t want him, I want—”
“I know you don’t want him,” Steve interrupted her. “That’s what makes it so special for me, baby. It’s seeing you do it just for me, because you love me. That’s the turn on. So be my good little slut and service my friend.”
“You really want me to fuck him? That’s what you want?”
“Yes, baby, this is what I want. I want to watch him use your sweet cunt for his own pleasure.” Steve turned to Jimmy. “Get undressed.”
Jimmy dropped his trousers faster than a racehorse out of the starting gate. As he stripped, Josie (I could no longer think of her as Sarah) did a good job of looking nervous, her eyes darting back and forth between Steve and Jimmy.
Steve stepped toward her, kissing her gently on the forehead before moving behind her. I heard him unzip her dress, easing the thin straps down her arms. It slid down her body and puddled at her feet. He slipped his hands into the cups of her bra, freeing her breasts. He cradled them in the palms of his hands.
“Aren’t they beautiful, Jimmy?”
“Yes, they are. They look good enough to eat.”
Both men laughed.
Steve released Josie’s tits, moving his hands to the sides of her underwear. Slowly, he slid them down her legs until they joined her dress at her ankles.
“Step out of your panties, baby.”
“Stevie, please… please don’t make me do this.”
“Baby, you made his cock hard, so now you need to let him relieve the tension in your pussy. I want you to service him. Make his dick think he’s gone to heaven.”
Seeing Jimmy at the edge of the screen leisurely stroking his cock made me feel queasy, so I focused on Josie. She had dropped her chin to her chest. Had I not seen the earlier footage I would have believed her to be genuinely reluctant. It was scary how good an actress she was.
“Sit on the edge of the bed, baby.”
Like a lamb to the slaughter, Josie stepped out of the mess of clothes at her feet and clad only in her bra and high-heeled sandals, sat on the side of the bed. Steve gently manoeuvred her onto her back, swivelling her legs onto the mattress. He slipped his fingers into her snatch, sliding them in and out. I could clearly hear squishy sounds. I swallowed painfully; Sarah was turned on.
“Steve, please don’t. We shouldn’t. It’s wrong. He’ll wreck me. Wreck our marriage. He’s so big. My pussy will never be the same. Please, please don’t make me.”
“Baby, shh, it will be all right. You doing this for me is making me so happy. And, Josie, baby, for all your protests I can’t help noticing how wet you are. Wet and getting wetter by the moment, so much wetter.”
Jimmy, his engorged cock an angry shade of red, stepped closer to the bed. Josie squeezed her thighs tight against Steve’s wrist, turning to look at him worriedly.
“You can do this, baby. You can do it for me.”
Steve extracted his fingers from Josie’s vagina and brought his other hand to her knees, gently prying them apart. Josie kept shaking her head, but it seemed to me that she allowed him to open her legs quite easily, and certainly enough for Jimmy to slowly knee-walk between her thighs. She made one or two more feeble protests that Steve ignored, and I noted, though it broke my heart, that she didn’t take her eyes off Jimmy’s big angry looking cock. I knew that look. I’d seen it many times when I’d been the one between her thighs.
Jimmy leaned over her, staring into her eyes. He moved his large hands under her thighs, lifting and spreading them further apart. He didn’t attempt any foreplay and I could only guess this was part of Steve’s fantasy—his wife was there only to service, to be a vessel for a man to pleasure himself in.
I watched in sick fascination as he positioned his fat dick at the entrance of her vagina. I turned away, not wanting to see the actual penetration, but I knew the moment he entered Josie by her whimper turning into a grunt.
Once his dick was in, I returned my gaze to the screen, swallowing down bile. It burned my throat. How could anyone want to do this? How could they get off on watching another man take their wife? My cock was as soft as overcooked pasta. And the wife? How could any woman want or agree?
On screen, Jimmy was busy pumping while Steve was equally busy stroking his cock through his trousers while trying to undo his belt one-handed.
“Fuck him back, baby,” crowed Steve. “Show him what a sweet fuck my slut is.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I love you—”
At her words, I cringed, my gut clenching.
“You can, and you will,” ordered Steve. “Work your pussy. Milk his cock. Don’t make a liar of me. Be my good slut and fuck him good.”
Josie sighed in resignation, wrapping her legs around Jimmy’s hips, and began meeting him thrust for thrust. Jimmy groaned.
Steve, much to my horror, was clearly entranced at seeing his ‘wife’ submit to his will. He was now down to his underwear and sporting his own erection. Josie’s moans hit me like a punch to the gut. They, too, were something I was extremely familiar with. Paid or not, it was obvious to me Sarah was genuinely enjoying Jimmy’s big cock.
“You look so beautiful taking his cock, baby. So beautiful welcoming a stranger into your needy little cunt. And it is needy, isn’t it?”
Josie groaned at his words.
“You look so beautiful being my good slut. Does his cock feel good inside you, baby? Is he stretching your sweet little pussy? Does your hungry little cunt love pleasuring his fat cock?”
Josie groaned again but it was almost drowned out by Jimmy’s grunt.
“Tell me, baby. Tell me how much your slutty pussy loves servicing his big dick.”
Josie shook her head from side to side on the pillow, another groan escaping her.
“Admit it. You like it.”
Another shake of the head combined with more groans.
“Admitting you like his big cock pounding into your hungry little cunt isn’t going to make you any more of a slut than the moans that give away how much your pussy likes his big dick stretching you. So, say it. Tell me how much you like being my little slut and servicing a stranger.”
“Yes! Yes, I like it,” she whimpered, as if the words were being torn from her.
“Good girl. Now tell our stranger. Tell Jimmy you want him to visit again when he wants his dick serviced.”
“I-I like you using my pussy. I, oh god, I like making your cock feel good.”
I flinched, another knife to the heart—that sounded truthful.
“And the rest, baby.”
“I, oh Jesus, ugh, want you to use me whenever your cock needs relief as long as Steve says yes.”
“Good girl,” Steve moaned. “Is he going to make you come? Is he going to make you come all over his cock?”
“Yes,” Josie groaned reluctantly. “God, help me, but yes.”
Another flinch. More honest admissions lacerating my heart. The words no sooner left Josie’s mouth and she shuddered, arching off the bed. I cupped my mouth, dry retching. How many times had she come like that for me? Too many to count.
“So beautiful. You look so beautiful coming on his cock.”
No, she didn’t. She looked like a traitor.
Jimmy rode her like a bucking bronco, oblivious to her climax. He was too busy chasing his own. He only lasted a few more moments, fucking with many grunts and groans before coming noisily inside Josie.
As soon as he was done he pulled out, not staying to enjoy the feel of her pussy around his softening cock. Without a word, he rose and picked up his clothes and left, his only acknowledgment, a quick nod to Steve.
“My beautiful slut. You were perfect. You took his big cock so well. You made him come so hard.”
Before I heard the click of the hotel door, Steve was on top of Josie, pushing his erection into her messy vagina. It hit me—she’d taken Jimmy bareback. I slid from the couch, doubled over, praying I wouldn’t vomit up breakfast.
“God, baby, your cunt feels so good, So hot and gooey. So loose and slippery. I love it. I want it to always feel this way,” moaned Steve as he frantically humped away at Josie. “I love knowing your cunt is a sticky mess because you fucked a stranger simply because I told you to. God, you feel fantastic.”
Either Sarah had missed her calling, or she was as much into the moment as Steve was.
“I was a good girl. I fucked him for you. I was a good slut,” she mewled repeatedly as she hungrily thrust her hips up to meet Steve’s.
“Yes, you were, baby. You were such a good slut. You made him come in gallons. He’s made such a mess of your pretty cunt, but I think my slut likes that. I think she likes servicing cocks. I think she likes me loaning her cunt out.”
Josie moaned.
“And he made you come so hard. You came all over his fat dick. What kind of woman comes all over another guy’s dick in front of her husband?”
“A slut. Your slut. I’m your slut, only yours,” she cried, shuddering as she came for the second time.
That seemed to send Steve over the edge. He came with a roar before slumping on top of Josie, obliterating her from view.
There was no movement on the screen and the only sound was that of two people recovering from a hectic sex session. I sat on the floor with my back to the lounge, stunned. For much of the video, I hadn’t been able to see the woman on the screen as Sarah, so convincingly had she inhabited her role as Steve’s wife, Josie. It was her body that had given her away—her moans, her whimpers, the way she arched her back during orgasm. These were Sarah. My Sarah who wasn’t so mine, after all.
I rose, thinking the film over when suddenly it cut to Sarah talking directly to the camera, now fully clothed.
“Hi Steve. I thought I’d give you a little souvenir of our last time together. I’m sure you’ll agree with me, it was memorable. Yes, you heard me right. Our last time. My, ah, situation has changed and while it’s been fun, it’s time to move on. This little video will never see the light of day as long as you’re a good boy and never contact me again. If you see me in public, you won’t acknowledge me. If someone introduces us, you will pretend it’s for the first time. And you will never, and I do mean never, tell anyone about me or speak of our time together. If I get so much as one whiff that you’ve divulged anything at all about me to anyone your sweet little Josie will receive a copy of the video. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, Stevie?”
In the brief moment after her words before the screen went black, Sarah smiled knowingly. It wasn’t a nice smile, certainly not the happy and loving smile I was used to seeing on her face.
I felt sick and despondent, lower than a gnat’s belly. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to eat again, but at least the riddle of why was answered. The video wasn’t blackmail; it was insurance.
I looked at the remaining video cases resting on the entertainment unit, uncertain if I could stomach sitting through five more like the one I’d just viewed. I knew if I didn’t get through them today, I’d never be able to put myself through it again.
“Band-aid, Mike,” I said aloud, as if verbalising it would somehow give me more resolve than the mere thought alone. “Rip it off quickly and in one hit. It will hurt less in the long run.”
Sighing at the wisdom of my own logic, I walked as if through mud to the DVD player. I removed the SJ video, replacing it with RG 18th October 2005.
As I hit the play button, I decided I didn’t need to watch every moment, I just needed to be familiar with the broader story. RG, it turned out, was the wealthy, much-married CEO Richard, and Richard liked taking it up the arse with a strap-on.
Next was HD 25th October 2005. Sarah had clearly been busy in October. HD, or Harold, as Sarah called him was another pervert. He got off on Sarah leading him around on a leash, putting his cock in a cage, and paddling his arse, all of which might offend or horrify Harold’s customers at any one of his four car yards, not to mention, his good Christian wife and six kids.
Each video ended with the now familiar warning from Sarah. It was clear, at least to me, that in preparation for our upcoming wedding, she was distancing herself from her past.
I paused before slotting in the first of the AK videos; the one from June 2006. According to Sarah’s ledgers, AK was an ongoing client. Why? What made him different? Why three videos? Was she genuinely fond of him? Love him, maybe?
I knew the only way I’d get any answers to my questions was to slot the first of his videos in, and still I hesitated.
They can’t be any worse than you’ve seen already, I told myself. Get it over and done with.
AK stood for Arty. He looked familiar. I paused the movie on the opening scene, on a close-up of Arty’s face, studying it. Where had I seen him before? The answer eluded me until I pressed the play button and Arty turned. His profile gave him away. He was the guy from the Ferrari, the one driven by the blonde. The blonde, who it seemed, was Sarah in a wig.
The first video proved my theory on degrees of pain correct. Well, almost. Sexually, it was tamer, but I recognised the master bedroom from our first home. Sarah, god damn her traitorous heart, had fucked him in our bed. Doing that she might as well have disembowelled me with blunt instrument. How could she? How could she bring him into our home?
And, what was with the guy? He kept suckling—that was the only word for it—at Sarah’s breasts and rubbing Sarah’s belly, repeating over and over again about putting a baby in her belly. Had my kids not borne a strong resemblance to my side of the family, I’d have been rushing out for DNA tests. As it was, James was a miniature me, and the girls both looked like my sister had at their respective ages. Sarah hadn’t gotten much of a look-in with our children’s appearance. She was true to her Irish origins having almost black hair but with brown eyes, whereas the kids were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and Arty was a bloody redhead.
I went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face. I was procrastinating, and I knew it. Unable to delay any longer, I returned to the living room. DVD #2 was calling. I couldn’t help noticing the date; August 2013. Sarah had been in the first trimester with Jenny. How could she fuck some scrawny old guy when she was making babies with me? How could she fuck him when she had our little girl in her belly and had not even quite finished weaning our little boy? And why the long break between movies?
So many questions, so few answers.
Shaking my head in frustration, I pressed play and braced myself for the next display of betrayal by my wife. What perversity would she perpetrate this time?
It was as sick as I expected. More suckling of Sarah’s breasts, so much so they squirted when he pulled his lips off them. Fucking bitch, squandering milk meant for James on a sicko. Was that why she hadn’t had enough milk for Jamie? Why she’d had to supplement?
The guy was nothing if not consistent. There was more cooing about babies. More fucking on our bed in our old house. She even let him have her arse, though with his needle dick she probably hardly felt him. The guy’s obsession with pregnancy and breastfeeding was repulsive. The whole time he was poking Sarah, he caressed her belly, moaning about having to be careful of the baby.
Tired and sickened, I slotted in the third and final AK movie, expecting to see more of the same. I knew by the date it was another one taken while Sarah was pregnant. This time with Cindy; the latter stage. That meant we were in this house. I sent up a silent prayer she hadn’t sullied our marriage bed here.
My prayers were answered… sort of. She hadn’t fucked him in our bed but had in what had been at the time a guest room and was now Cindy’s room. He did his usual suckling and belly stroking, all the while mewling about babies. Instead of fucking her, he sat astride her thighs while she was on her back on the bed. He rubbed his penis between Sarah’s breasts and all over her swollen belly. It was probably his biggest hard-on out of all three videos. His pregnancy-cum-nursing mother fetish was clearly at a height when the woman was large with child.
His eyes alternated from Sarah laying beneath him and a photo of Sarah and me on the bedside table. I frowned; what was a photo of us doing in the guest room? I’d wondered about it at the time Sarah decorated the room, and I wondered about it even more now. Did Sarah get off on it somehow? Like she did with the SJ guy from the first video? Did it turn her on to fuck a man while looking me in the eye via a photo? I gagged.
When he neared his climax, he rose from his seated position on Sarah’s legs, urgently thrusting his pencil dick back and forth in the tight tunnel of his fist. I thought he intended to come all over her belly and breasts, but with his first two spurts he aimed at the photo, covering it with his jism. I gagged at seeing his come sliding down the glass of the frame, pooling along the wooden rim. Fucking bastard. He’d pay for that.
I turned away, unable to watch him dump the rest on her torso.
I rose, needing to get the filth off my TV and out of the family room where I played and watched movies with my children. Just as I was about to hit stop and eject the movie, I saw Sarah glare at the door Arthur had just exited via, her face a mask of utter loathing, making her features ugly. She grabbed the frame, and with a look of revulsion to match my earlier one, she gently cleaned it with the corner of the sheet. Her face softened, making her look like my Sarah. She tilted her head, placing a soft kiss on the glass before hugging the frame to her breast. With a small sigh, she returned the frame to the bedside table, kissed her fingertips before pressing them briefly to the glass. I watched as she rose, heading directly for the camera. Her increasing proximity to the lens distorted her shape and then the screen went black.
Unlike all the previous movies Sarah didn’t speak directly to the camera, making her threats of exposure. Why? Like so many other things I’d discovered, I had even more questions than when I’d started.
As I returned all six horror movies to the hidden closet, a certainty crystallised in my shocked head. I’d married an alien. Without all the evidence I now possessed, never in a million years would I have believed my wife capable of what the movies revealed.
*****
IN A TRANCELIKE STATE, I went to pick up the kids. Again, my sister invited us to dinner. While the kids played, in abbreviated whispers, I revealed all I now knew. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Sure, I skimmed over the movies and hadn’t studied the ledgers properly, but there really was only one possible conclusion; I’d married a highly intelligent, very talented actress, who, when I met her, was a hooker.
She’d started off charging a modest amount. Without knowing how long her sessions were, it was impossible to judge exactly how modest. She’d slowly increased her fees toward what she thought she was worth. I could only assume paying for sex was like buying art—it was all about what a person was willing to pay. Sarah looking like she did—picture Kate Beckinsale and you’ll get a fair idea—and her willingness to indulge their kinks, and I guess you could say men were prepared to pay her a pretty penny for her services.
After we met, and I, for one, was falling madly in love, she’d slowly dropped her clients. Clients, who, I suspected, were all members of the city elite. They had to be in order to be able to afford to pay for someone like Sarah; a good-looking, discrete woman to indulge all their kinks.
Dropped them all? Unfortunately, no. Whoever AK was, he’d survived the cull. Judging by the gifts he was probably buying her, most likely because he was so generous. If she sold the Ferrari, diamond ring, and bullion, she was set for a good life.
Sis asked the question I’d been avoiding. What was I going to do about all this? Divorce for the blatant dishonesty and being a closet slut was my knee-jerk reflex. Rage at Sarah’s betrayal, at her long and ongoing deception pushed other emotions out. They, I guess, would get a look-in later. In a way, I didn’t want the intensity of my anger to lessen; feeling beyond furious was better than heartbroken.
Brainstorming current divorce laws with Sis, led to a sombre conclusion. Sarah would probably keep the hidden stash and have a huge nest egg in reserve. All the while, she’d be living in my house, have custody of my kids, and live off my alimony, while probably continuing to bone the scrawny old sugar daddy.
The possibility of being separated from my kids was too abhorrent to contemplate. I would have to think of a way of avoiding that. That became the one non-negotiable platform of my planned response. If that meant still living with the slut, then so be it.
It was Carrie who brought me back to earth. I was assuming I would have a say in my future. What if I didn’t? What was Sarah’s game plan? With her assets and, no doubt, contacts, would I have any say at all in my future? What was Sarah’s plan? The last video of her with the old pregnancy fetish guy made me think at least part of her loved me. Was I part of her future, in a good way? Or was it as I suspected? Was there a loving Sarah and an evil one? Did my future rely on whichever one was dominant?
Again, Sis questioned my assumptions. What if it was Sarah who didn’t have any resources? In modern society, didn’t fortune favour those with the fortune? Come to think of it, hadn’t it always been thus? Then, as now, the 21st century golden rule; he who has the gold, makes the rules.
So, after dinner, I accepted my sister’s kind offer to spend the night with me and the kids, to free me up to do what I had to do and help me read the ledgers more thoroughly. After the kids were asleep, we discussed something I’d thought of in the car on the way over. Did I need to ring her aunt in England to confirm Sarah never spent a week a year with her? In the end, we concluded, no. If my guess was right, then Sarah rang her aunt in the period between the end of her cruise and my loving wife returning home. Sarah stocked up on photos and convincing stories before coming home. Whether or not her aunt was in on her game was irrelevant. Sarah would be forewarned she was coming home to a shit fight and I wanted her caught unawares. I wanted her reeling, as off guard as my discovery had made me.
With that decision, Sis started reading. Goal? To make an intelligent guess on whether or not I was included in Sarah’s future plans. Two hours later, Sis was up to 2008 and the safe was empty of gold, jewellery, including Sarah’s rings, Ferrari title, and cash. They were in waterproof camping tubs, buried under the compost heap. I’d check in daylight to see if my camouflage efforts were convincing.
Now, I was the one with the resources. Hopefully, if push came to shove, they would counteract Sarah’s advantages under the law. If it came to that, that is. My plans were still fluid.
I joined Sis, and between us, we finished scanning the ledgers. Conclusion? My reading of the situation was confirmed. Sarah had multiple clients up until our engagement and only the one since our wedding. Entries from the earlier periods allowed us to match some client initials to the movies. From her little speeches at the end of each vid, except for AK’s last one, we knew Sarah anticipated trouble with dropping some clients. Quite clever, really, to record a session for the purpose of blackmailing them into going away gracefully and discouraging them from approaching her if they saw her out with her happy family.
I didn’t recognise any of the venues from the first three discs. Perhaps, she hadn’t wanted to reveal where she lived to those particular clients. On the other hand, all three movies of AK were in our home. Sarah was smart. I couldn’t see her organising to meet him there regularly. Too much chance of a neighbour mentioning it to me, or me coming home unexpectedly. There was evidence from the third AK movie that the guy got off on humiliating me. I could imagine the pressure he put on Sarah to hold their sessions in my bed. How often had she given in to that pressure? We could only surmise that AK knew where she lived so there was no reason to conceal that. Furthermore, setting up a blackmail camera is so much easier in your own home.
Keeping only the one client, probably due to his generosity as there certainly wasn’t any video evidence she loved him, and if the final video was any indication, was possibly repulsed by him, Sarah’s secret life had continued until now. The longevity of her deceit and betrayal was staggering. She’d evolved to charging $1,500 a pop every Wednesday. Well, every Wednesday outside some school and family holidays. Or, presumably, when lover boy was away, or Sarah had her period. The latter would explain why there were only three sessions most months. Once a year, we guessed, she faked a week with her aunt and either stayed in his house or really did travel somewhere with him. Whichever the case, it was costing him twenty grand.
The ledgers faithfully recorded his payments. Special notes gave us the dates he gave her a large cash bonus of $100K in the month following Jamie’s birth and the big ring just after Jenny was born. Then the Ferrari while she was pregnant with Cindy. Both valuations were noted carefully. They showed withdrawals from petty cash for lingerie. Suddenly the abbreviated noted I’d read against one withdrawal made sense. VS stood for Victoria Secret and Ling was short for lingerie. Whether Sarah invested in sexy underwear to keep her lover interested, or merely for herself, was impossible to tell. After all, they’d been fucking for more than a decade. After that length of time you have to think of ways to keep the sex vibrant. Every few pages had receipts from when Sarah converted cash into gold. Small amounts. Below the limit that might have raised the interests of anyone looking for clues on organised crime. I would have found her cleverness and planning impressive had it not been overshadowed by her skill at deception.
There were only a few entries we couldn’t explain. The biggest of which was only last month. It was the debit for $20,000 which had followed almost immediately from AK’s 20K payment, and simply had the initials HM in the comments column. Had she bought something? Was she being blackmailed? Nothing among the paperwork or ledgers explained the debit. Bizarre.
While I was trying to ponder this, I noticed Carrie scanning photos of the children on the wall of the family room, then glancing at me. When questioned, she raised the point I’d thought of once I’d viewed the first AK movie; namely, that of the paternity of my children. She even went to the sideboard and extracted an old family photo album of us as kids and spent ten minutes comparing colouring, facial and other features to us at similar ages and I was relieved she saw the same family resemblance I did. It was reassuring because I knew I couldn’t trust that I wasn’t just seeing what I wanted to see.
Suddenly, the significance of the morning after pills and Sarah tracking her cycle hit me. Thank god. Sarah seemed to be doing the right thing by our family, if only in that one respect. Still, accidents happen. I resolved, family resemblance or not, to commission some DNA and STD tests.
With our investigations stalled, we decided on a plan. Wait until Sarah came home and confront her. What else could we do? It was Thursday night and Sarah wasn’t due back until Sunday night. I’d already planned to take Monday off. Sis agreed to look after the kids Sunday and get them off to school Monday. The rest was in the lap of the gods.
Before we went to bed, I showed Carrie some excerpts from one of the AK videos. Sis also thought the guy was vaguely familiar but couldn’t put a name to him.
*****
WHAT I DID FOR the rest of the week is a blur now. Thank god for the kids and their routines. Thank god for their needs and constant questions. They were my anchor. Loving them made it hard to sustain my rage, for as much as my children were a part of me, they were also a part of Sarah. I missed my anger. Anger made things easier to bear.
I was distracted and increasingly nervous, yet resolute, about Sunday. The expected call on Saturday from Sarah saying she was back in phone range never came. After dropping the kids off on Sunday, I sat and mentally prepared for the confrontation to come. Details of my contingency plan became irrelevant—Sarah didn’t show.
Nor on Monday. Not a word. Now, extremely pissed off, had a companion emotion; worry.
With no word and no better idea, I filed a Missing Persons report late on Monday afternoon. I stuck to Sarah’s stated facts with no hint I knew of her other life. I could tell from their responses, they thought she was just another runaway wife. I literally got a; don’t call us, we’ll call you.
I was sure to conceal my worry from the kids; just made non-binding statements she’d been delayed. I took the rest of the week off.
Wednesday, I was roused from reverie by the screech of brakes in the drive. I looked out the window to see my sister running toward the front door, waving a newspaper. She calmed down enough to show me page five. The leader read, RECLUSIVE LOCAL MILLIONAIRE OPENS NEW BATTERED WOMEN’S SHELTER. The guts of the article went on to say he’d donated the funds for the shelter, but that information hardly penetrated my brain. I couldn’t see past the photographs. Arthur Kindred. AK.
He looked about the same as in Sarah’s most recent video, apart from being clothed, that is. His wife was dourly standing beside him. At a glance she appeared much younger than her husband, even with the sour expression on her face. She perpetuated the stereotype of the bored wealthy wife—coiffed and painted to within an inch of her life. Upon closer inspection the age gap wasn’t so vast; she’d just slowed the aging process down with the aid of the scalpel and maybe an injection or two. She was a looker, or at least, had been in her youth. Now she looked like a faded rose trying to recapture the first bloom of youth.
Arthur Kindred was rich. I mean, seriously loaded. He was also renowned for being publicity shy, unless he wanted something that good publicity would help with. No wonder he was familiar yet hadn’t been at the forefront of my mind. That also explained the Ferrari. Anything less than a million was pocket change to this guy. He never even showed up when he donated his Gulfstream 550 on fair-day for joy flights every year.
Excitement zinged through me. Now, I had a name. Now, I could get an address.
And then reality sucker punched me.
For sure, I now I had a name, but because of that name I now had a dilemma. This man could be a key source of information on the whereabouts of my wife. The only problem being, I couldn’t act on the information without telling the police way more than I wanted them to know. If Sarah had been the victim of foul play, I would automatically be suspect number one if I revealed I knew about her lover.
In the end, I decided my only option was to check things out myself. Saying goodbye to Sis, and packing Cindy in the car, I drove over to Arthur Kindred’s house.
Kindred’s house turned out to be a mansion the size of a small state, kept safe behind closed gates. I parked across the road, contemplating whether I could see into the compound from any vantage point. No. While pondering my next move, a silver Lexus pulled up to the opening gates. Mrs. Kindred alighted from the driver’s seat to check the mail box. I recognised her from her sleek, expertly dyed blonde hair.
Cindy, from her back-seat vantage point, stated clearly, “Aunty Jean.”
Again, blind rage almost consumed me. The prick’s wife knew my daughter! My slut of a wife must have brought Cindy here. Where oh where would Sarah’s betrayal end? How bloody sick were these people? Was nothing too low to stoop to?
Gunning the engine, I crossed the road and pulled up behind the Lexus. Mrs. Kindred blanched but stood her ground. I threw open the door and was yelling before it was even fully open. “Can you please explain how my little girl knows who you are?”
I watched as she looked toward my car. Cindy, in her innocence, gave her a little wave. I watched as the little remaining colour drained from Mrs. Kindred’s face as she stuttered an answer. “This has nothing to do with me. You’ll have to ask my husband.” She turned and headed back to the driver’s side of her car.
“Is he here?’ I yelled.
“No. He left this morning. He’ll be back on the weekend. Now go away or I’ll call the police.” With that, and an odd expression on her face, she drove through the gate, which closed behind her.
Her expression puzzled me. What was it? Was it merely discomfort? Panic? Anger? Annoyance? None of the adjectives seemed to fit.
Jean Kindred knew more than she was saying about Sarah’s whereabouts. Of that, I was certain, but without being able to confront her or her husband in a place where they couldn’t dodge me, and no better plan, I headed home.
Cindy confirmed she’d been to the big house ‘lots’. I hoped like hell she wasn’t visiting her father there. I stopped off and picked up DNA test kits. The kids might resemble me and Carrie, but I was at the point where I needed something certain, something solid I could believe in because with everything I’d discovered thus far it was clear next to nothing in my life was as I’d thought it to be.
*****
TO CUT A LONG story short, I didn’t go back to the mansion on the weekend. It was all over the news that night. Arthur Kindred, local philanthropist and all round good guy’s private plane had crashed in the next state. There were no survivors. How frustrating could things get? When would I cop a break? How was I going to find out what the hell was going on with Sarah now? Cornering Jean Kindred was my only hope.
Two bodies had been recovered from the wreckage. Both male. That was a surprise; I’d half expected to hear one was a woman. Relief, anger, fear, and frustration mingled uneasily in my belly. It was a terrible thing to want your wife alive and well and dead at the same time.
Speculation, pending disaster victim identification procedures, was that the bodies belonged to Arthur Kindred and his pilot. The plane was en route to Brisbane before re-fuelling and heading to Mexico, where Mr. Kindred was known to have businesses.
No one was more surprised than me when Saturday morning saw a certain silver Lexus pull into my driveway. Why would Arthur Kindred’s widow visit me now when she’d done her level best to avoid me previously?
I watched her approach and without turning my head asked my sister to take the kids to play in the backyard. Carrie didn’t even ask why; she just rounded the children up and ushered them out the back door. The sound of it closing coincided with the front door chime.
With each step toward the door another possibility presented itself in my mind. She’d come to tell me where Sarah was. That Sarah had met her maker. Maybe, she wanted to find out exactly how much I knew. Buy my silence? I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of the possibilities.
“Mrs. Kindred. To what do I owe the honour?”
“Mike, um, sorry, I don’t mean to be so presumptuous, but I never knew Sarah’s married surname. Would you mind if I came in? I have a few things I need to discuss with you.”
My answer was to step aside, giving her room to pass. She did so, her heels click-clacking on the polished floor boards. She paused where the entry way opened up, waiting for me to direct her. I gestured to the left, to the lounge room.
“Make yourself at home. Can I get you something to drink?”
“A glass of water, please.”
I poured myself one while I was at it. After handing her one, I seated myself opposite her. She took a sip, carefully placed her glass on the coffee table and squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she met my gaze. Hers looked determined and something else I again couldn’t put my finger on.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”
“You said you had a few things to discuss with me.”
She smiled awkwardly. “So, I did.”
I waited, holding her gaze. She cleared her throat, then laughed nervously.
“If you had told me as a newlywed that I would one day be sitting in someone’s living room having the conversation I’m about to have with you I would have called you crazy.”
I smiled. It didn’t reach my eyes, but I figured a show of friendliness might help her get to the point.
“Can I assume from your visit earlier in the week that you are aware of the relationship between Arthur and your wife?”
I nodded, not wanting to reveal the extent of my knowledge. I was more interested in knowing how deep her awareness went.
“Did you kill my husband?”
The bluntness of the question shocked me, and my mouth fell open. I recovered, anger making my reply harsh. “Listen here, lady. Your husband died in a plane crash.”
“Yes and no.”
I raised an eyebrow, determined to control my responses.
“Yes, the plane crashed, but it wasn’t due to either mechanical failure or pilot error. They found bomb residue. Don’t ask me how I know that, it’s… ah, unofficial. He was murdered.”
This time I kept my reactions under control. It was difficult. Murder? I had the sensation of my life spiralling out my control. Panic fought with indignation. Indignation won.
“So, what’s that got to do with me?”
“Well, one might say finding out your wife had a long-term arrangement of a, ah, sexual nature with my husband might be motivation for murder.”
“The same could be said of you. Crime of passion and all that. Add to that what you stand to inherit, and I’d say you’re probably suspect number one. I’m wondering if the purpose of your visit, and your question is to distract me from those thoughts. To stop me going to the police with a theory like that.”
She pursed her lips. “I have known about Arthur and Sarah for years. Why would I kill him now?”
“Maybe you’ve finally had enough. Maybe they did something that was the veritable straw that broke your back. Maybe you found out he was going to divorce you. Maybe you were biding your time. Maybe you decided you suddenly had a fall guy; me. I don’t know. You tell me.”
Jean Kindred snorted in a rather unladylike manner, but beneath her bravado I detected a touch of anxiety. “All twaddle. As I said, young man, I have known for years whereas you, on the other hand, have only recently found out, if my guess is correct, and I think it is. The police might find it quite a coincidence that Arthur died within twenty-four hours of you turning up at my home looking for him.”
“They might also find it interesting that you condoned your husband paying a hooker for kinky sex and that his, ah, paramour is now also missing.”
“Don’t be so naive. Many wealthy men keep a mistress and have wives who turn a blind eye.”
I looked at her with contempt. “Sorry. I forgot. You’re rich; the usual rules don’t apply.”
She had the decency to flinch. “Is that why you killed him?”
“For the last time, I did not kill your husband. Did you?”
She sighed impatiently, but again there was an undertone that didn’t fit. “As I have already made quite clear, I had no reason to. I have known about the pair of them for a long time. And why would I come here accu-asking you if you killed Arthur if I was guilty?”
I noticed she didn’t provide a simple ‘no’.
“Well, there’s the old saying of the best defence is offence.”
“This is getting us nowhere, Mike.”
“Well, I’m not about to confess to a crime I didn’t commit just to suit your agenda.”
“What do you know?”
“Why should I tell you?”
She gave another huff of frustration. It occurred to me she was a woman accustomed to being obeyed and I wasn’t doing as I was told. I needed information from her without revealing what I already knew. How? How to achieve that?
“Okay, Mrs. Kindred, how about you tell me what you know about my wife and your husband and I’ll tell you if I already knew that snippet.”
She looked at me hard, weighing me up. Finally, she sighed and nodded. “Deal.”
I was surprised she agreed but I wasn’t going to argue.
She took a sip of her water and cleared her throat. “Sarah had some sort of financial crisis in college. To get herself out of it she turned to prostitution. She once, ah, told me she liked it. Said it made her feel empowered and sexy. She also liked the money. Arthur started using Sarah’s, ah, services in 2003.”
She waited, eyebrow cocked.
The financial crisis in college was news to me but I nodded anyway. “I know.”
“Sarah tried to end their arrangement in 2006, but Arthur convinced her to continue.”
“I know.”
I hadn’t been sure of that, but it made sense considering the date of the first video. The second video was taken during Sarah’s pregnancy with Jenny, so perhaps Sarah had thought of ending the arrangement again after the birth as we had our two planned children. Clearly, something must have changed her mind after making video number two as we’d gone on to have Cindy and she’d even been talking about us having a fourth. I said nothing of my thoughts aloud; Jean Kindred didn’t need to know them.
“Arthur was unable to have children so he…he, um, he was somewhat obsessed with it. As time went on, he encouraged Sarah to get pregnant. He rewarded her with a considerable amount of money when she had Jamie.”
I flinched at her awareness of Jamie’s name, but nodded. I couldn’t help asking the obvious question. “If Arthur was so obsessed with becoming a father, why didn’t you try IVF or adopt when you found out he couldn’t have kids?”
“Arthur was a proud and vain man. He was in denial about our inability to have children stemming from him.” Jean Kindred looked away, clearly uncomfortable but after straightening her spine she continued, “And, by then, some of his kinks were known to me and I wasn’t sure I could remain married to him and so I went along with his denial. To be honest, had it not been for him having Sarah I would probably have left.”
“Thanks,” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Glad my wife could be of assistance in helping you maintain your lifestyle.”
Jean Kindred winced. I watched the flush creep up her throat. Her look of shame filled me with a brief, but fierce, joy.
“Um, well, continuing on, Arthur, ah, encouraged Sarah to get pregnant again and when she had Jenny he gave her a diamond ring.”
I was prepared for her knowledge of Jenny and managed to control my natural urge to flinch. At the same time, I could almost admire Sarah’s manoeuvring. She’d conned a whacking great diamond ring out of Arthur for doing something she intended to do anyway. I nodded, and Jean Kindred continued.
“I believe you were resistant to having more children, but I imagine Sarah can be as convincing as Arthur because you went ahead and had Cindy.”
Rage boiled in my belly, its bitterness burning my throat. “Yes, she can be and, let me guess, Arthur rewarded her with a Ferrari?”
It was Mrs. Kindred’s turn to nod.
I fought the urge to hit something. My fury at knowing I now had three beautiful children because a filthy old man paid my wife to have them was almost more than I could bear. Children were meant to be conceived out of love, not greed.
“I know Arthur offered to buy her an apartment if she could convince you to let her have one more.”
I turned away to hide my anger.
“I know.”
“Then you know it all.”
“Not really. I don’t know why you would be so, hmm, how to say it, understanding? Accommodating?”
“Mr.… um, Mike. I didn’t like it. In fact, I rather resented it. It was humiliating but it relieved me of the, ah, burden, of meeting certain of Arthur’s needs and so I tolerated it.”
“You mean you sold yourself for a life of comfort and privilege.”
Her chin went up and she glared at me, but she didn’t protest. I wondered at that. Why didn’t she defend herself?
“So, Mike, I guess we’re at a stand-off. I think you killed Arthur, you think I did. We both had motivation. Either way, being investigated is bad for both of us. So is publicity. Think about your children.”
“Wow. You’re a real grieving widow, aren’t you?”
“Arthur killed any love I had for him many years ago, but that doesn’t mean I murdered him. Nor does it mean I shouldn’t receive what I’m owed by his death.”
I nodded. In a way I couldn’t fault her logic—she probably had earned her inheritance tenfold. “I’ll tell you where I’m at, Jean. May I call you Jean?”
Jean nodded.
“Jean, I’ll keep my mouth shut with the press on two conditions. One; you don’t mention me to the police as a means of throwing the spotlight off yourself. If you’re as innocent as you say, you should be able to clear your name easily. Come to think of it, even if you’re guilty of murder, and I think you are, you have the means to avoid prosecution. And two; if you tell me what you know about Sarah’s disappearance.”
After undergoing another long hard scrutiny by Jean, she began, “Arthur flew Sarah to Mexico in the Lear, he came back alone. When I asked him where Sarah was, he told me he’d left her there in a whorehouse for a week.”
“What?” I blurted, leaping to my feet.
“It’s the truth. He said he did it because she tried to end their arrangement by blackmailing him with some compromising videos. Add to that, he’s wanted her to bring it all out in the open with you for a long time. And, lastly, to pressure her into having another child. He laughed saying he was not only killing two birds with one stone; he was killing three. He was actually on his way to Mexico to pick her up when his plane was downed.”
“What? Bring me in on it? Why? Obviously, he doesn’t know me very well. What would have stopped me going to the press and outing him?”
Well, that answered the question about why Sarah would have a photo of us in the guest room. I could easily imagine Arthur Kindred pressuring Sarah to have sex in our marital bed, and seeing as this was our dream home, she’d probably resisted, and they’d compromised on having a photo of me or us on display in the spare room.
“The why has two aspects, I think. He always said that after the first fifty million or so, money becomes meaningless. From then on, it’s all about power. What could be more powerful than using your influence to fuck a guy’s wife in front of him, knowing he’s powerless to do a thing about it. The added bonus was that he would be able to enjoy Sarah whenever he liked without her having to sneak around. As to how to ensure your silence, he thought offering you a million dollars would buy it and your agreement on child four.”
“Ah, so like most men motivated by money he thought it would motivate me too.”
“Yes, he believed everyone had a price.”
“It’s clear my wife did,” I muttered angrily and then frowned, unhappy I’d revealed my fury to the likes of Jean Kindred. I cleared my throat, making sure to keep my voice calm and even. “So why take extreme action then when she tried to call it off? With his wealth why didn’t he just offer Sarah more money or toys, or find another woman?”
Jean looked away, clearly weighing up her response. I knew she’d made her decision when she sighed, looking resigned. “As much as I hate to admit it, he loved her in a sick sort of way. I’m sure I don’t have to list Arthur’s kinks for you but are you aware he even deluded himself the children were actually his? His, ah… fetish was quite focused, for want of a better word, and a new woman would mean building that rapport from the ground up, and the new girl might not have been as discreet as Sarah. Someone new would have been too great a danger to his reputation as a philanthropist. Arthur decided scaring Sarah into compliance by leaving her in a whorehouse in Mexico was the best option.”
I collapsed into the armchair. It was too much. I don’t know what I suspected, but not this. This was too farfetched. Too surreal. A whorehouse? Mexico? It was such a cliché, like something out of a movie.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. They had orders there not to touch her or let her be touched. She was just there to get a taste of what she was in for if she didn’t play ball. My husband could be quite ruthless at times. Remember our agreement, Mike. No press.”
All I could do was nod. Words failed me.
“Okay. I’ll see myself out.”
*****
WITH EACH CLICK-CLACK of Jean Kindred’s departing heals, I winced. They were as nails in a coffin. My coffin. Prior to her visit I’d been hurt, confused, angry, disappointed, and frustrated.
Now I was in purgatory.
Jean Kindred had confirmed all my suspicions. Had confirmed my worst fears.
At the sound of the front door closing, I hung my head. My fate was sealed. I could never un-know Sarah’s deception, her long list of lies. Never again would I live in blissful ignorance of her ongoing betrayal. Never again would I be able to believe she loved me unconditionally. Never again would I be able to tell myself she was mine as I had been hers since the first time we kissed. Never again could I be certain she was in my corner, had my back.
Always, from this day forward, I’d have doubts. For the rest of my life I’d have questions. Everything; every shared moment, every conversation, every whispered word of love, every promise. How much had been real? How much Sarah acting a part? I’d never know and that broke my heart as much as her betrayal.
Hearing my children’s breathless laughter roused me and I lifted my head. Regardless of how I felt, they needed me. I had to remain strong for them. My grief would have to wait. I stretched my neck from side to side to ease the tension cording it, trying to focus my thoughts.
Why had Jean Kindred felt compelled to speak to me? If she genuinely thought me guilty of murder, she risked me tying up loose ends, so to speak. And if she had, as I suspected, organised the murder of her husband, she risked being seen visiting a man who had reported his own wife as missing. A wife with connections to her dead husband. Had I foiled her ‘perfect murder’ with my unexpected confrontation earlier in the week? Was she really so concerned about bad press? Did she have more to hide than mere murder?
And Sarah? What the hell should I do about her? How did I go about getting her out of Mexico when I didn’t even know which damn whorehouse Arthur Kindred had left her at? And even supposing I managed to have her returned to Australia, where the hell did we go from here?
An insidious thought entered my battered mind. I tried to fight it, but its tendrils were like smoke, infiltrating, contaminating, pervasive. ‘No,’ I told myself, ‘no, that’s not you, Mike.’
But still it persisted.
Did I want to rescue Sarah from that whorehouse?
Before I could rid myself of the aberrant thought Sis and the kids burst in. By unspoken agreement we shelved discussion of Jean Kindred’s visit and threw ourselves into bathing children and cooking dinner. Jean’s words echoed in my brain, tangling with memories of Sarah. Ugly words and tainted memories. I hated how they distracted and interfered with my time with my children.
“God, I thought Cindy was never going to settle,” Carrie complained as she flopped onto the lounge, curling her feet under her. “So, what did the bereaved widow have to say?”
“I don’t know where to start,” I began, handing her a glass of wine.
“The beginning, Mike. Tell me word for word what she said and then we can break it down together.”
I related the conversation as best I could, only faltering when I reached the part concerning Sarah’s whereabouts.
Carrie’s gasp said it all.
“Jean assured me they were instructed not to put her to work or anything, but still….”
“What are you going to do? Do you know? How does one go about rescuing people from Mexican whorehouses?”
“I don’t know to all three questions.”
“Okay, let’s park rescue plans. When Sarah is back on Aussie soil, what do you plan to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Carrie sighed. “You don’t know much, Mike. You’re going to have to start making some decisions. You need to have a game plan.”
“I know, but I still can’t get my head around it all. I can’t reconcile the Sarah of the ledgers and Ferrari to the Sarah I have loved for twelve years. One moment I see Sarah in yoga pants making pancakes on a Sunday morning and then I have a vision of her dripping in diamonds and in one of those plunging neckline thingies hanging in the secret room and I struggle to believe she’s the one and the same person.”
“That’s understandable. Her double life has thrown me for a loop too.” Carrie paused, taking a sip of her wine. “How about we go back to basics and weigh up the pros and cons?”
I nodded; what else could I do?
And so we laid it out and at the end the pro-divorce list was looking a little sick. In that column were certainly some biggies, trust being the huge one along with betrayal, but I had to admit to pride and ego also making a showing. On the con or anti-divorce side of the ledger was a lot of material things like losing sixty percent of my assets, paying alimony, paying child support, having to live in a shoebox-apartment, but that paled in comparison to the emotional items. How could I live with being a weekend warrior father? How could I bear not to see the kids every day? I loved reading them a story. I loved being the one to put them to bed, love it when they were all snoozy and cuddly, smelling of soap and innocence. Even if I disclosed to the courts Sarah’s secret life of prostitution there was a high probability they would still award her custody.
“I can’t believe what I’m about to say, but, well….”
“Just spit it out, Sis.”
“Have you considered not rescuing Sarah?”
“What?” I stared at Carrie as if she’d sprouted a second head. Normally, she was kindness personified. I couldn’t believe she gave voice to my earlier thought.
“Is it any worse than what she’s done to you since your first date? She’s cheated on you since the very beginning. She’s lied to you every single day that you’ve known her. My understanding of divorce law is that if she doesn’t return after two years, then you can get the marriage annulled, or maybe it’s still a divorce, on the grounds of abandonment. That way there’s no losing everything you’ve worked for, no having your time with the kids decimated. Is leaving her in Mexico so much worse than what she’s done to you all these years? You could always ask Jean Kindred to make sure Sarah isn’t harmed. Would that be any harder on the kids than a divorce?”
I sipped my wine, rolling Carrie’s words around my brain. Even knowing the length and breadth of Sarah’s subterfuge and betrayal, and for all the sense Carrie’s words made, could I do that to Sarah? Could I leave her in Mexico?
*****
I TURNED MY HEAD to the side and looked at the clock radio. The display glowed a ghostly green. 12:27 a.m. I sighed and rolled, turning my back on the torturous numbers. Sleep just wouldn’t come. Carrie’s words kept repeating in my mind.
She’s cheated on you since the very beginning.
Have you considered not rescuing Sarah?
Would that be any harder on the kids than a divorce?
Sarah had wronged me in the worst way possible. She’d delivered such a blow to my heart I wasn’t sure I’d ever fully recover. She’d left me questioning every shared moment of the last twelve years. The Sarah of the secret room was a stranger to me but the Sarah who had cried in gladness in my arms when our children were born, I loved. I loved her with all my heart.
Why? Why had she continued after we got engaged? I could understand her using her assets, so to speak, to work her way out of a financial crisis. I might not agree with her method, but I could understand. But after we became engaged? After we married?
That I would never understand.
Images of Sarah from our life together morphed into ones of her driving her Ferrari in a blonde wig. I saw her in her favourite white sundress and then draped in one of the expensive gowns from the secret room.
Which Sarah was the real one? How would I ever know? How could I believe anything she ever told me again? How would I know when she was sincere and when she was acting a part?
Of one thing I was certain—regardless of what motivated her to have our children, she loved them. She couldn’t fake that.
Not knowing who my wife was, what her intentions were, where the kids and I fitted in, gnawed at me. I had to know. There had to be some way of finding out.
Something nagged at me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew whatever it was it was to be found in the secret room. Without hesitation, I sat up and swung my feet out onto the cool floorboards. Baby monitor in hand, I made my way down to Sarah’s sewing room.
I attacked the envelopes and loose documents first. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but once again, I was trusting that I’d know it when I saw it.
Next, I hit the ledgers, grabbing the most current one. In my haste to flip it open the loose papers from the back fell to the ground. I was going to ignore them, but instinct made me look down. Words leapt off the page. FOR SALE. DESIGNS 4 LIFE. INNER CITY GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIO LOOKING FOR A NEW OWNER.
My brain went into overdrive doing the math. She was going to use at least a part of her ill-gotten fortune to buy me my own design studio. She’d continued selling herself for us, for me. I might not like or agree with what she’d done, but she’d done it for her family.
I fell to my knees. My eyes smarted with unshed tears. I did have a place in Sarah’s future. She did love me. A rush of love mixed with relief coursed through my veins.
Jean Kindred’s words reverberated in my head; he did it because she tried to end their arrangement by blackmailing him. Sarah had been trying to end it. She must have decided she’d earned us enough. How she was going to explain the money to me remained a mystery. Perhaps an inheritance from the aunt, or even a lottery win? Regardless, she had wanted out.
Whether our marriage survived or not was still hugely in doubt. How would I ever be able to get the images of her with some of her clients out of my head? How would I ever trust her again, knowing her acting abilities? She’d managed to deceive me for so long.
But, despite how sorely she had wronged me, she didn’t deserve the fate she was currently suffering. I had to save her. I had to free her from the whorehouse.
I prayed Jean Kindred would know which one Arthur had dumped Sarah in.
*****
“IN THE MATTER OF Shaw vs Shaw, I find in favour of Mr. Shaw and grant the dissolution of marriage due to abandonment. Mr. Michael Shaw will retain custody of all three children as well as one hundred percent of the marital assets.”
The remainder of the judge’s words faded. It was done. I was no longer married to Sarah. I was a free man. No sense of victory or pleasure filled me; only sadness. I looked over my shoulder at Carrie. She smiled reassuringly.
*****
WITH THE CHILDREN SAFELY tucked in bed, I poured myself a port and sat on the veranda. It was a beautiful night, but I barely noticed, caught up in the past as I was.
I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, the same questions running through my mind as had been for the last two years.
Had I done the right thing? Had I ever really had a choice? What life had I condemned Sarah to?
I shuddered as I recalled that night. The night of my epiphany over Sarah’s motives. I’d gone to bed relieved, only to be woken by the light of a torch shining in my face.
I replayed the scene in my head.
At the edges of the light, I discerned a man clad entirely in black, a balaclava concealing his features, sitting on the edge of my bed. He was pointing a gun at me. I stared past the silencer at the tips of the bullets nestled in their chambers.
“Hi, Mr. Shaw. Nice place you have here.”
The incongruity of his words versus the gun in his hand made me gape at him speechlessly.
I was certain Jean Kindred had decided to remove me from the equation, just as she had Sarah and her husband. The knowledge made me just about crap myself, positive I was about to meet a grisly end. My first thought was for my children and without hesitation I begged for their lives.
“Please don’t kill my children. They don’t know anything. They are innocent in all of this.”
“I’m not here to kill you or your children, or, at least, not yet, Mr. Shaw, or may I call you Mike?”
I nodded, pushing myself slowly and carefully into a seated position. I was confused. Why was he here if not to kill me?
“So, Mike, tell me, where’s that hot little wife of yours? She and I had an appointment today which, I’m sad to say, she missed. I do so hope she’s not trying to wriggle out of our deal.”
I stared at him dumbly. He quirked an eyebrow, subtly shifting the angle of his gun.
“I don’t know where Sarah is. She’s been missing for over a week. You can ask the police; I filed a report.”
“Hmm, that’s not good news, Mike. You see, Sarah was supposed to pay me today the balance of what she owes me. What are we going to do about that?”
“What?” I shook my head confused. “Sarah owed you money? How much? For what?”
Even as I asked the questions, my brain started connecting the dots.
“We had a, ah, business arrangement; half down, half upon completion. Well, let’s just say the job is complete.”
“A business arrangement? What job?”
“Mike. Mike. Mike,” the man lectured. “If Sarah wanted you to know the details she would have told you. All you need to know is I’m owed 20K. Pass the message on to the missus. I will be back at two tomorrow to collect.”
“But I don’t know where Sarah is. I can’t pass any message on to her.”
“Then you’ll have to cough up on her behalf.”
He stood, leaning forward to gently brush the end of the gun up and down my cheek.
“Repeat after me, Mike. 20K at 2:00 p.m.”
I did as I was told.
He walked nonchalantly to the door as if he had all the time in the world. It didn’t even occur to me to attack him when he had his back to me. Something told me this guy could handle himself.
At the door, he turned. “Oh, and, Mike. Nice kids. Real cuties. I checked on them before waking you for our little chat.”
At his words I leapt out of bed, the sound of the man’s soft laughter echoing in my head as he made his way down the stairs. One by one, I checked the kids, tears streaming down my face in relief to find them sleeping peacefully, unharmed.
The shock wore off and I started to shake uncontrollably. On unsteady legs, I made my way to the family room. I tried to process his words but my mind rebelled. I forced it to think. Suddenly, the unaccounted-for entry for $20,000 in Sarah’s ledger made sense. Half before the job; half after. The job was done. HM stood for Hit Man and he wanted his money. The job was to kill a man. Kill Arthur Kindred. Dispose of a human problem like a used tea bag. I felt sick.
Suddenly all the unexplained expressions I’d seen on Jean Kindred’s face made sense. Embarrassment and fear; an odd mix, to be sure. No wonder I hadn’t been able to make sense of them at the time.
I had been so wrong—it wasn’t Jean Kindred who had organised to have her husband killed. It was Sarah.
I shook my head again and again, not wanting to believe the obvious. Despite all Sarah had done, all her lies, all her deceit, her betrayal, I struggled to believe her capable of murder.
But she was. The man’s words damned her.
We had a, ah, business arrangement.
All you need to know is I’m owed 20K.
Half down, half upon completion.
20K at 2:00 p.m.
What would drive a person to murder? I could see just about any parent doing so to protect their partner or child, but to wantonly end another’s life? What kind of person could do that?
Sarah had known and been involved with Arthur Kindred for well over a decade and by all accounts he’d been generous to her. Christ, she had been sexually intimate with him. So why want him dead? The only conclusion I could come to came from Jean Kindred’s words—Sarah had for the second time tried to end their arrangement and Arthur clearly wasn’t going to go quietly. Sarah had wanted out and Arthur wasn’t letting her go.
Did that justify her organising a hit on him? No, not in my book. It would seem he wasn’t a physical threat to me or the kids, only to Sarah keeping her secret. She’d murdered a man to avoid the truth being revealed. That was truly terrifying. Was she capable of treating me with the same cold, hard logic?
The night passed sleeplessly.
The next morning, I got the children off to their schools and Cindy to Carrie’s. I said nothing to Carrie of what had transpired. Time enough for that later.
Using money from the secret room I made up an envelope for the hitman. The situation was ironic on so many levels. Arthur Kindred had, in effect, paid for his own hit, paying the ultimate price for his abduction of Sarah. And Sarah? Well, she was at that very moment locked away in a whorehouse because her hired hitman had killed Arthur while he was on his way to release her. She was responsible for her own incarceration; not me. Not Arthur. She’d done it to herself.
At two precisely the door chime sounded.
“Hello, Mike.”
Knowing the guy’s purpose for being at my door, and what his profession was, made his over-the-top friendliness sinister.
I had the envelope in my hand, but I didn’t immediately pass it to him. With my heart pounding, I asked the question that had kept me awake all night.
“How do I know that once I pay you what Sarah owes you that you won’t come back for more?”
A look of surprise followed by offense replaced his false smile. “I’m a professional, Mike. Sarah and I had a business arrangement and once you hand over that envelope our business with each other will be complete.”
I nodded and gave him the cash, praying I wasn’t making a mistake. I mean, how reliable are the words of man living outside the law?
I watched him walk away. It might have been my imagination or knowing what he did for a living, but everything about him exuded danger.
His words of the previous night echoed. Oh, and Mike. Nice kids. Real cuties. I checked on them before waking you for our little chat.
Something told me for the right price he’d have no trouble killing a child.
And Sarah had brought him into our lives.
Into the lives of our children. Our sweet innocent kids.
That knowledge made all her other transgressions seem like mere drops in an ocean. No matter how terrible her years of lies were, no matter how painful the knowledge of her betrayal, or gut-wrenching the images of her screwing and indulging the fetishes of other men, they paled in comparison to her having risked the wellbeing, the very lives of our children.
That was unforgiveable.
In that moment, I knew my decision was made for me. One of my most important jobs as a father was to protect my children. The horror was in realising I needed to protect them from their own mother.
Sarah had committed a crime for which, had she been caught and tried by a jury of her peers, she’d have been given a life sentence. Through something as simple as a case of bad timing she’d incarcerated herself in a Mexican whorehouse for what would likely be the same duration.
Karma had certainly bitten her on her arse.
Inhaling deeply, I brought myself back to the present and took a sip of my port. I love my children beyond measure and would go to any length to protect them. That meant accepting it would take time to be fully at peace with my decision to leave Sarah in Mexico.
That was the cost of doing what needed to be done as a father.
EPILOGUE
JEAN KINDRED
Jean was unable to miss being investigated for the murder of her husband. The police were thorough, to say the least. Though she was innocent, and no charges were ever laid, enough dirt clung that she was ostracised by her former friends and excluded from the society for which she had sacrificed so much to be a part of.
She kept her word and never mentioned Mike to the police. Apparently, she feared bad publicity more than the police investigation.
After a two-year investigation, police concluded Arthur Kindred had been assassinated by the Mexican Cortez Cartel for having opened a shelter for battered wives and unwed mothers to which many of the wives of the cartel’s lower ranking members had fled.
Jean never remarried.
MIKE SHAW
Mike sold the house he’d shared with Sarah. The couple who bought it were delighted to have a secret room. Mike took great pains to show both the opening mechanism.
Mike bought a new house closer to his sister Carrie that had a detached four-car garage with an apartment above which he converted to accommodate his graphic design business. Using some of the 1.6 million from Sarah’s secret-life earnings he was able to take the time to build his business from scratch as well as hire a full-time housekeeper/nanny for James, Jenny, and Cindy. Over time, Mrs. Knowles became a pseudo grandmother to the children.
Five years after Sarah’s disappearance he met Dianne, a young single mother. They had a rocky start to their relationship as each had quite a bit of baggage but through perseverance they finally found love, peace, and lasting happiness with each other. Ironically, Mike did end up with four children.
Dianne’s son, Ryan, who was a year younger than Mike’s son, Jamie, ended up falling in love with Cindy when he came home from college to find her all grown up…. But that’s another story.
HM (Hitman)
True to his word, HM was a professional and never bothered Mike and his family again. On one of his visits to Mexico he came across a familiar face….
SARAH SHAW
It took a while, but Sarah finally got used to the Mexican climate. She soon became a favourite with those indulging their white woman fetish.
By the time of her ‘retirement’ at age fifty she had earned her ‘employers’ 23,000,000 Mexican Pesos which, at the exchange rate of the time, quite coincidentally equated to 1.6 million Australian dollars.
Having become addicted to drugs and having lived for so long under the pseudonym Arthur gave her when he left her in Mexico, Sarah had long since forgotten her true identity by the time of her retirement.
AFTERWORD
So, there you have it. The cheating wife ended up in a Mexican whorehouse. Vandemonium1 has been accused of that particular scenario by a well-known author on this site and rather than make a liar of him/her, we decided to make it a truth.
NOW, TO EASE YOUR JOURNEY FROM FICTION BACK TO COLD, HARD REALITY…
THE GYNECOLOGIST WHO BECAME A MECHANIC
A gynecologist had become fed up with malpractice insurance and endless paperwork. Feeling burned out, he decided on a career change where skilful hands would be beneficial. After much research he chose to become a mechanic. He attended the local technical college and diligently learned all he could.
As the date of practical exam where he would have to strip and totally rebuild an engine approached, the gynecologist prepared carefully and completed the exam as best he could. When the results came back, he was surprised to find that he had obtained a score of 150%.
Fearing an error, he called the Instructor, saying, “I don’t want to appear ungrateful for such an outstanding result, but I wonder if there is an error in the grade?”
The instructor said, “During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly, which was worth 50% of the total mark. You then put the engine back together again perfectly, which is also worth 50% of the mark.”
After a pause, the instructor added, “I gave you an extra 50% because you did something I’ve never seen in my entire career. You did it all through the muffler.”
This has always been one of my favorite story’s. Keep them coming!
absolutely riveting, edge of my chair story. The secret room scenario had me feel like I was there looking over his shoulder the whole time. Bravo!!
Thanks for your kind words, Sir. I wrote that part of the story and that’s the effect i was going for. I thoroughly enjoyed writing that bit.
Van1
The uglier half of SemperAmare