SEVEN DEADLY SINS: SLOTH

by Vandemonium1

Edited by CreativityTakesCourage

Oh boy, this one was a toughie. How do you fit the deadly sin sloth into a LW story?

Because of the difficulty I’m asking for feedback. It’s had one round of edits by CTC (she usually does two to three) so please check for any logic or continuity errors. Yeah, and grammar and punctuation cos CTC will love you finding them…. Yes, folks, I like to live dangerously.

If you are someone who believes that a cheating wife should be forgiven for just about anything, for fuck’s sake stop reading now!

No pickaxe handles were damaged in the making of this story. That’s what you get for buying quality hickory.

Thanks to James M and Charlie for the review and suggestions. Some of which are included below. Thanks also to Heffay and others for spurring me on to finish this story and the series.

This is a long one, so a little info to help you judge if you’ll like it or not. If you liked my ‘Deafening Silence’ and my ‘When First We Practice to … Blackmail’, you should like this one. It scores around 4/5 pickaxe handles on the BTBometer.

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CHAPTER 1

Jane lay there as Peter pounded into her from above, pretending, for his sake, and hers, to enjoy what he was doing. ‘Thrash your head from side to side, girl, that’s what you normally do’, she said to herself. She normally loved what they did together but today was different. How different was demonstrated clearly to her when on one of her head turns she spied her husband’s side of the bed. The familiar sight of Dave’s bedside table, complete with his dress watch and other paraphernalia, caused her to freeze.

Mistaking her actions for an orgasm, Peter did what he’d always done, well, what he’d learned over the last six months anyway, and that was that she loved oral sex after her first vaginal orgasm. His mantra from his first marriage had been, ‘happy wife, happy life’, so he was satisfied with this routine. Sliding his cock out, he slid his body down the bed and his tongue down Jane’s body. With no more preamble, he began lashing at her clit with his tongue. Experience told him that after a couple of minutes thrashing, she would clamp his head between her exquisite thighs. At the end of her thrashing, he’d mount her again and concentrate on his release. Sometimes Jane came for a third time, sometimes she didn’t, but he was always so worked up by then, he had little control left.

Only this time was different. Jane’s stillness shouted a warning to Peter. He raised his head and looked at Jane’s face. Her eyes were focused on the side of the bed and tears were streaming down her cheek. He was alarmed.

“What’s the matter, darling? Is it because this is the first time in his bed?”

Jane, who hadn’t noticed Peter stop what she normally loved, started sobbing uncontrollably. Peter immediately shuffled back up the bed and wrapped her in his arms, before waiting for her to calm down.

“No, Peter, it’s not that. It’s just that I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing. I’ve loved him for twenty years, and… well, it just doesn’t seem like he’s done anything wrong. And I don’t want to risk losing my kids.”

Peter sighed. This was all familiar territory.

“We’ve been through all this, darling. The guy is a workaholic. When does he get home? After seven every night? Then he works just about every Saturday. And for what? Look around you. He’s been working for twenty years, had his own business for five, and you’re living in this little house, with barely enough money to scrape by. A beautiful forty-year-old woman like you deserves better. You deserve what I can give you. If you like, I can speak to my lawyers again to see if it’s vital we stay in this house. If it brings back bad memories, maybe we can move to mine.”

“No! Your lawyers were right. By agreeing to stay in the children’s family home, we maximise the chances of me being given primary custody of them. If I move to your mansion, Dave will stay here, and the kids may choose to stay with him, you know, for familiarity. We can’t rely on your plan of paralysing his business and keeping him penniless until the custody case. I can’t lose my children.

“Besides, the reason he chucked in his well-paid job and started the business was because I nagged him to. I wanted him to make something of his life. It wasn’t his fault that the GFC hit just after he started, and he had to lay off some staff and do more of the work himself. He works long hours because he’s doing the work of three. He’s sure the economy is just about to turn, though, and is investing so he hits the ground running when it does. Like I said, he doesn’t deserve what we’re doing to him.”

Peter inhaled slowly and deeply. Jane was as skittish as a racehorse, and he realised he needed to be patient with her. “Maybe not, darling, but I explained why it had to be done this way. Trust my lawyers, they’re the best that money can buy. The kids are due back in an hour. We’ll sit them down and explain that you’ve fallen out of love with Dave. They’ll understand. Dave will be served the divorce papers and restraining orders when he lands from his business trip. I made sure they didn’t use anything sexual as the reason for the restraining order, like we discussed, just the hint that he smacked the kids sometimes. It only lasts for a month but that should be long enough to give the kids time to come to terms with the new reality. By freezing the company bank accounts we achieve two things. The first is so he looks like he can’t afford to be given custody and the second is to keep him broke to limit his access to quality legal advice. It can all be overturned but I’m sure it will take at least a month to unravel. He won’t starve. He can apply to the courts to be granted a modest wage and working capital for the business. We’ll release everything once custody is awarded to you. Then he can have the house, the business, and everything else, while you and the kids move in with me.”

Peter kept his voice low and soothing. He’d explained all his lawyers’ intended manoeuvrings to Jane before, more than once, but it was clear she needed to hear them and his reassurances again.

“The only thing that will scupper those plans and make us play hardball for longer is if he wants equal custody. I will tolerate him picking up the kids once or twice a month, but I want them to look upon me as a father figure and my house as their home, not somewhere to live for the week. When they see what I can buy them, I’m sure they’ll love it.”

“I don’t know, Pete, he lives for those kids. He’ll be devastated. Maybe we should…”

“No, Jane. We’ve been through all this. It was part of the deal, remember? He’ll be so hamstrung, that in the end, he will grasp at any straw we throw at him.”

Jane still looked very downcast, so Peter threw in the reserves.

“Look, Jane. Dave will be upset for a month or so, then, when he realises it’s business as normal again, and he can see his kids, he’ll bounce back. Meanwhile, you’ll be treated like you deserve. The friends of mine you’ve met love you, and the rest will as well. I’m sure my kids will adopt you, and even if they don’t, they’re grown up now. Your friends will swallow the story that you and Dave fell out of love, and those that don’t, we can always hint that Dave fooled around on you. It’s all covered.”

They held each other until it was time to shower and face the children when they returned from school. To distract themselves, they talked about where they’d met, a mere year and a half prior. Peter was a benefactor and member of the board of the museum where Jane worked as a tour guide. For Peter it was love at first sight and, being able to afford anything he wanted, just had to have her.

Once the children returned from school and were seated, Peter did most of the talking. To say the children took it badly was an understatement. The story of falling out of love didn’t really wash, and they demanded to see their father, not really understanding the concept of the restraining order. Chloe, at thirteen and the youngest, kept asking what her father had done wrong. The only way Jane mentally got through it was to look around at her humble home, then imagine the widower’s sixteen room mansion on its two acres of manicured gardens that she’d be moving to shortly.

They remained seated in the lounge after the children had stormed off to their rooms. Jane winced when a text arrived to say that Dave’s plane had landed. Relieved when the text came from the lawyers to say the papers had been served, they sat quietly as the time came and went for Dave to show up if he was going to ignore the restraining order. They were just beginning to relax, especially Jane, when a thunderous knocking at the door made them both jolt. They concluded Dave must have stopped to read the papers thoroughly and knew he was in violation of the order.

After his key didn’t work, his frantic yells demanding to see his kids filled the room and filtered through to the children in their respective bedrooms. It took all of their combined efforts to stop Bart, Deb, and Chloe getting past them to the door. It was by far the most difficult thing Jane had ever had to do, but she knew it was the best thing in the long run.

Peter sent a prearranged text to his legal team and within minutes, Bart, looking out the window, announced the police had shown up. Five minutes later, they left with Dave. Two hours later, over a near silent dinner, the pounding on the door and yelling to see the kids re-started. Once again, the police were called, with Dave being led to the paddy-wagon in handcuffs this time. The kids were distraught and raced to their rooms. Jane wasn’t much better off. They only relaxed when Peter’s lawyer rang to say Dave had been gaoled overnight for contempt of court.

The next day, no one was interested in any sort of outing, so they stayed at home. Peter noticed the small lawn needed mowing, so called his gardener to come and do it.

Just after lunch, with the kids packed off to Jane’s sister’s house, shadowed by one of Pete’s lawyers, the banging and shouting at the door resumed. This time, Jane whimpered and hid, obviously distraught at the sounds of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s pain. Once again, the phone call was made, and the police hauled the screaming man away. This time the feedback from the lawyers was that Dave was in gaol until he could convince a judge he would no longer violate the restraining order. Three days later, they braced when told Dave had been released, but nothing happened.

Despite the clout his legal team had, Peter and Jane couldn’t get a custody court date inside three months, so settled in for the long wait. The children totally ignored them both while their dad was incarcerated, and afterward only spoke to their mother when absolutely necessary. They pretty much ignored Peter entirely. It was as if he were invisible. Dinner was an uncomfortable affair most days with monosyllabic answers to every question Jane put to the children and silence when Peter spoke. Peter promised Jane it would pass.

With Bart, at seventeen, about to get his licence, Peter brought several catalogues home, displaying a variety of top-of-the-range cars. The next day, Jane reported finding them in the bin.

Offers to buy Deb and Chloe ponies, went unheeded. Peter and Jane hunkered down to wait them out.

Peter waited until Dave had been released for a few days before propositioning Jane for sex. He was rebuffed. The next day, a top-of-the-range, king-sized bed was delivered, but there was still no nookie for Peter. When pressed, Jane told Peter she was too worried about Dave to relax. Peter set his lawyers to work for a status report on his rival. Unfortunately, they gave their report when both he and Jane were in the office signing documents. That was two weeks after Dave was released and Jane had concluded he was no longer a threat. Perhaps she could convince Peter to lift the restraining order. It would look better to friends and family if there was no order in place. The battle for the moral high ground had begun.

In a nutshell, Peter’s lawyers reported, Dave had disappeared. He hadn’t applied to the courts for either a living allowance or access to limited business funds. With no other surviving family— Dave was an orphan— Jane hadn’t a clue where he’d gone. Calls to mutual friends didn’t reveal any leads. Calls to the receptionist at his work resulted in the young girl, who Jane until now had considered a friend, virtually spitting down the phone at her. Peter showed no interest in helping to keep Dave’s business going, saying they didn’t need it. More troubling to Peter was the fact that Dave hadn’t signed any of the legal documents which would markedly slow the process down.

Peter was getting worried about Jane’s health. She wasn’t eating properly, and her skin was losing the glow that had first attracted him to her. In the end, he convinced her to go away for a week. Her parents were due for a visit from interstate the following weekend: they would spend the Saturday and Sunday together, then Jane would ask them to look after the kids while she and Peter escaped for some much-needed relaxation.

That reminded Jane. She had to have an uncomfortable conversation with her parents. They’d always looked on Dave as the son they’d never had. This would take some very careful spin. Over two hours, they rehearsed the official story. She and Dave had grown apart and separated. Peter was a friend who was helping her through it, and somewhere along the line, after the split, they’d become more than friends.

The phone call was made, to the expected disappointment, and Jane’s parents agreed to stay for the week. Jane couldn’t really relax until a long conversation with all the children convinced them that talking to Nan and Pop about the day of the serving would be in no one’s interest.

Decision made, Jane visibly relaxed and started to daydream about their week-long escape. Peter smiled, knowing he’d called the shots well. He chartered a private Lear to fly them to Phuket the following Monday. That night, Jane felt relaxed enough to accede to Peter’s request for sex, but insisted they make no noise. The need for silence somewhat dampened Peter’s enjoyment of the interlude.

The next day, a Wednesday, Jane decided to resume her exercise regime, so she looked her best for Peter while wearing a bikini on the beach or by the pool. She knew Peter, fifteen years her senior, had been attracted by her youth and beauty. She also suspected that any prolonged withholding of bedroom fun might lead him to slacken in his resolve. She’d nailed her colours to Peter’s mast and him dropping her now would be an absolute disaster, so she resolved to screw his brains out in Phuket, and maybe even in the private plane flying them there.

As it was a nice day, one of the last in late autumn, she decided to walk around the local park. Her job as a tour guide paid a pittance compared to what Peter was worth, so she’d resigned and was now trying to become what she’d always wanted to be – an attentive stay-at-home mum.

The park gently sloped up to one corner, had lawns and children’s play equipment in the centre, and a war memorial garden with a trimmed hedge on the downhill side. At different times of year, local and European flowers were showcased in different sections. What attracted Jane, though, was the path that ran almost along the boundary. A total of about six hundred metres, it provided different inclines to get the heart pumping and the calories burning. She’d pushed all the children around it when they were younger and she was working to regain her figure. She and Dave had… No. She wasn’t going to spoil her day by remembering the times she and her husband had stopped in a certain grove of trees for some bonding time while walking back from various restaurants after dark.

The only downside for the last few years was that some homeless people, known locally as winos, had taken up residence. They camped near the top corner, probably due to the thick bushes there and the shelter provided by the high enclosing wall on two sides of the park. You could see them sometimes hanging around the picnickers, hoping to be the first ones to the bins if any food was discarded. Jane herself never paid them much mind. It suited her exercise routine to walk rapidly up the hill and past that corner before relaxing on the downhill run. There had been a few incidents lately; mainly the bums fighting amongst themselves. The police moved them on sometimes, but they always drifted back.

There were three or four of them today, sitting around one of the benches; obligatory brown paper wrapped bottles beside them. She’d become very good at not seeing them; most people had. Now, she fixed her gaze centre-right and hastened past them. At one time, she’d wondered how they got that way, but since then her mind had focused on jealously guarding the comfortable lifestyle she and Dave had earned and shied away from them. To avoid thinking along those lines, Jane began daydreaming of her future, including a huge house with a maid and gardener. Trips abroad. Nice cars and no need to rush to work. Yes, she’d finally arrived where she belonged. If only thoughts of selling out Dave and the annoying voice in her head reminding her of her own morals would leave her the hell alone.

Entering the downhill slope, her mind drifted to what she’d already started telling friends, both her own and the ones she shared with Dave. It was a variant of the ‘she and Dave drifted apart, and Peter was just a friend’ story. The fact that Dave had disappeared might help there. No discrepancies in the story. A few dinner parties at an upscale mansion and they would soon forget her former life. If worse came to worst, Peter had plenty of friends who had already welcomed her.

Then there were Peter’s children. Fiona was twenty-four, married to Mike who was a stockbroker. They had a little girl of their own. She’d been a little cool toward Jane on the two occasions they’d met. Jane could understand that. In Fiona’s mind, Jane was being compared with Fiona’s mother; taken by cancer ten years ago. Brent was twenty-two and a typical spoiled rich kid. Still living at home; never holding a job for long, and generally living irresponsibly. His attitude was very much take-it-or-leave-it with Jane.

Jane stopped daydreaming when she neared the top corner again; on alert. The group of winos had broken up. One was still seated, two had wandered away, the fourth was digging through one of the bins for a late breakfast. Jane forced her peripheral vision to keep tabs on the two remaining. Experience told her they were harmless in groups but were more likely to approach her for a handout when alone.

Something about the one on the seat drew her attention. Jane never knew what it was. She turned her head directly toward him. The fact his eyes were downcast allowed her glance to linger longer.

Although he wore the almost obligatory moth-eaten army surplus greatcoat, his pants and shoes were in better condition than his bench-mates. His arms dangled at his side; his hands, clad in fingerless woollen mittens, rested on his lap. A blanket roll lay on the ground beneath him, clamped between his feet for protection. A paper-wrapped bottle was also between his legs. He wore no hat, and his hair was unruly; having not seen a comb for many days. His face was dirty and unshaven, and a large bruise extended from his left cheek to that eye. The eyes, what Jane could see of them were hollow and unblinking, tears trickling down both cheeks, glistened in the morning sun.

Jane stumbled, but her eyes never left the obviously broken man.

It was Dave.

Jane’s treacherous feet kept to her routine, and she entered the downhill run automatically. It was a good seventy-five metres later she overruled them, stopped, turned, and stared. Overwhelming feelings of guilt washed over her and nearly made her knees buckle. In an instant, she knew Peter, and, admittedly, her plan, was working too well. Stabbed in the back by the person who was supposed to be covering it; business paralysed by superior legal footwork; shorn of contact with his children, his reason to be, and his emotional support network; Dave had given up. Resorted to the oblivion of alcohol, and with no money or place to stay, joined that section of society who were no longer part of it. Jane staggered to the closest bench and fell onto it, devastated at what she’d done to a good man, whose only failing had been to be pressured into starting a business at exactly the wrong economic time.

Jane’s thoughts were too painful to remember. She continued to stare until a large, rough looking man went up to the bench Dave was on. Words were exchanged, and Dave picked up his bottle and belongings and shuffled to the top entrance before disappearing. Jane sat a while longer until she had the strength to move, then walked home in a daze.

She was sitting silently when the children came home. They ignored her as they’d done for weeks now. She was still sitting at the kitchen table when Peter came home. He stopped, looking around the room, noting the absence of signs of dinner being prepped. Normally, he’d only have time to change into casual clothes before it was served. Jane’s devastation was written across her features like a neon sign. Peter did the only thing he could think of – he wrapped her in his arms and gently asked what was going on. Jane broke down and it was twenty minutes or more before he had enough of the story to make sense.

He re-doubled his hugs, doing what he knew Julie, or any woman for that matter, would expect, but inside was triumphant. As a competitive businessman, he didn’t just want his opposition to suffer; he wanted them to haemorrhage. Besides, for him, his ideal scenario for Jane and her children was to never have any contact with the ex ever again. Things were turning out better than he hoped. If Jane came to accept her husband as a loser now, then the idea that he’d always been a loser became much more believable, an easier step to take.

Peter ordered take-out to feed the children, then took Jane to bed to console her. When she stopped sniffling, he fell asleep after a busy day. Jane, however, had a sleepless night. The internal arguments swung wildly. Her conscience thought she should abandon her plans of a comfortable life with Peter and take Dave back. That would make her feel better in the short term and gain her the kid’s forgiveness. But what were the odds of Dave fully forgiving her? Even an attempt to reconcile with Dave, though, would burn the bridge with Peter, and she had her heart set on a life of luxury. She’d known Dave would be hurt but had no inkling it would cause the devastation she’d witnessed today…, yesterday…, whatever.

Despite the risks, the loss of her dream life, she was stealing herself to back out of her plan, until the evil hour of 3:00 a.m., or thereabouts. That’s when the subliminal messages from Peter started working their evil magic. How strong was David when he never lifted a finger to fight for her? He fell at the first fence. Gave up totally. Did less to defend himself and his family than a sloth would have. Thoughts of Dave already being mentally exhausted after five years of long hours, fighting for his business before having to deal with the napalm attack of his wife betraying him in the cruellest way, tried to get through to her, but were beaten back when she started daydreaming about her life in the mansion with beautiful clothes and sleek cars. Yes, she’d done the best thing for her children and herself. Dave would get over it. If she’d been able to fully convince herself of that, she may have slept. She didn’t.

Instead, she leapt out of bed with a plan. She gathered her copy of all the legal documents contained in the packet Dave had been given and put them in her bag before making breakfast for everyone. Peter, convinced by her false smile, left for the day. The children left to catch the bus to school with barely a nod. Jane didn’t allow their coolness to dampen her resolve.

At 9:00 a.m., after a stiff whisky, she gathered all the papers from her bag, steeled her nerves, and headed to the park. Once she explained to Dave that he could still access money to live on and run the business, and that he would see the kids as often as he wanted after the custody case, then he would go back to normal. She took the application forms and was prepared to take as long as it took to show him how to fill them out.  

The problem was, where was he? She crossed the road and walked through the sparse trees to the circuit track. There were two homeless men in the top corner, but neither was Dave. She used the elevation to scan what she could see of the rest of the park but saw nothing relevant. She eyed the bushes against the wall, where she suspected they all slept but when she started sidling toward the denser thicket, the two hobos interposed themselves between her and it. She did one lap of the streets bordering the park, looking down side streets, with no luck. Returning to the park, she did a slow circuit, peering into the bushes and every patch of garden, with no result. Frustrated, she crossed the road, a hundred metres from her house and headed toward it.

There were three ways into her house. One through the two-car garage, each side with its own roll-a-door. The front door, which was accessed by a path, through a gate near the garage, and the back door which opened toward the clothesline and back lawn. Jane had just placed her hand on the front gate latch when a familiar sound caught her attention. She glanced to see the right-hand roller door of the garage opening. It revealed the open side, where Peter’s car was parked when he was home. Where Dave used to park. She glanced up the road, expecting to see Peter’s BMW heading toward her, but the road was clear. After fully opening, there was a pause before the roll-a-door began descending again. Jane watched as if fascinated. The door stayed shut for perhaps ten seconds, then began to rise again, and still she watched. When it began to close for the second time, Jane dragged her gaze from it and scanned her surroundings. When she looked closer, in the direction of the low sun, she saw him. Dave was standing among the trees, staring at his old house; his home of twenty years; the remote opener for the garage in one bemittened hand.

Jane would remember it as one of the most difficult things she’d ever had to do in her life as she approached her partner of two decades. Dave looked even worse than he had the day before. There was a fresh bruise on his other cheek, tears in both hollow, staring eyes. The knowledge that she’d caused this devastation was crippling. Jane stopped beside him and tried to speak for several seconds, but the knowledge that this piece of human waste had once been a proud man less than a month ago, sucked all the air from her.

Finally, Jane gathered herself and launched into some semblance of the speech she’d been preparing for since four in the morning.

“Dave, you don’t have to live like this. You can get money to eat and somewhere to live, even to run the business. You just have to fill in these forms here,” Jane said, waving an envelope. “And lodge them with the court. Here, see, I’ve filled out some of them for you.” Jane reached into the envelope, partially extracting a small sheaf of papers, and turned them to face Dave. He didn’t look at them.

“I know it must be hard for you not seeing the kids every day like you’re used to; I tried to get Peter to not do that; stop you seeing them until the custody case that is, but his lawyers insisted. You can have the house back when we move to Pete’s place, I didn’t know it was going to take three months, honestly.”

Jane was aware she was babbling, but just couldn’t stop. The effect on Dave was…, nothing. His face remained expressionless, and his only body movement was the twitch of his hand that sent the garage door up and down. Jane stuttered to silence, her hand on autopilot as she continued to wave the court forms. Her conscience hammered her fatigued brain like an eagle trying to break open a tortoise. Her mind, bereft of sleep for over thirty hours, haunted by bad dreams for several weeks before that, took action to try to absolve herself of at least some of the blame.

“God damn it, Dave! Why didn’t you fight for me? The restraining order was against you coming near the house and the kids only. Not me. You could have confronted me away from the house and at least tried to talk me out of it. You could have cornered Peter and at least threatened to beat him up for sleeping with your wife for the last six months. You could have gone to court and at least tried to get that phoney restraining order revoked. Why did you just give in and do absolutely nothing? Why, Dave?”

Jane had moved during her tirade and was now red-faced, right in front of Dave, her stance and tone challenging. Apart from lowering the garage remote to his side, there wasn’t much movement from him. He continued to stare through her towards his former home. This close, Jane could clearly see how grimy he was, and her nose confirmed he’d given up washing some time ago. She couldn’t help the tears streaming down her cheeks as the cause of his breakdown was startlingly, obviously her.

She was about to turn and run away from the catalyst of horror in front of her when he spoke. His eyes remained unfocused, and his voice was flat and monotonous, barely above a whisper. With none of the usual inflections on some of the words, the meaning was a little hard to understand at times and she had to concentrate.

“So, that’s it, is it? No excuses, no apologies, no reason, no justifications. Just rubbing my nose in the fact you’ve been humping the slimy old cunt for months, presumably for his money, judging by the car he drives and the suit he wears.”

Dave lapsed into a silence which hurt Jane far worse than the words. She spoke to fill the screaming silence.

“I’m sorry, Dave. I had to sleep with him, or he wouldn’t have hung around. I never brought him into our house, though. Well, before this week anyway. Just take the forms, please. Get some food, get somewhere to live. Try to keep the business going. It’ll all go back to normal soon. You’ll get the house back. Despite what Peter wants, I’ll let you see the kids more than one weekend every month, you’ll see. Just look after yourself, please.”

Jane stopped and just stood there, panting. After seconds of silence, she just couldn’t stand to look at that battered, filthy, gaunt face before her any longer. She half turned away. That finally prompted a response as Dave spoke again in his quiet, dead voice. Again, she had to strain to hear. 

“Tell me, wife, do you have to apply to the courts for money for food? Do you have to fight for the right to search certain garbage cans, just in case someone has thrown half a burger in it? Do you get to eat hot food only twice a week, as that’s all the local soup kitchen can afford to offer the poor and the homeless?

“Do you have to find a sheltered bush to spread a blanket out to sleep every night, hoping and praying it won’t rain? Do you have anyone to share your blanket?

“Can you see your children whenever you like? Or do you have to stand here every morning, hiding, just to catch a glimpse of them? Oh, and by the way, the wife stealing cunt’s lawyers can’t insist you don’t let me see the kids, they can only suggest. Ultimately, it was your decision to gut me like this.”

Jane knew this, and the knowledge was tearing her apart. How she wished Dave had just screamed and abused her when all this went down, totally ignoring the fact that she’d had the restraining order placed on him and hidden herself behind locked doors. She could no longer fight the urge to turn and run. She clumsily stuffed the court papers in the large pocket at the side of Dave’s greatcoat and bolted.

“Stay here, Dave, I’ll bring you some food and some money.”

As she ran across the road to get some food, she determined she would stand up to Peter to insist he must allow Dave to see his children. Now! She gathered what she could out of the fridge, putting it in a reusable shopping bag. However, as soon as she reached the front gate, she could see Dave was gone. The only trace was the court papers swirling around in the breeze like oversized pieces of confetti.

Jane turned and slowly made her way back up the path. It took her all day to bury the guilt raked up by Dave’s simple questions, but she managed it. By the time the children returned home, she was back to cursing him for being so mentally slothful, by just giving in at the first hurdle.

After only perfunctory interaction with their mother, the children dressed and followed their new normal habit of going out until dinner time. Yawning her exhaustion, Jane cooked the evening meal. She didn’t say a word to Peter about her day. He would not be happy to know she’d initiated unsupervised contact with her ex. Jane went to bed well before Peter and slept fitfully.

Friday, Jane spent all day buying two new bikinis, and that night, after the children were in bed, decided to model them for Peter. He lay on the bed stroking his cock while she strutted in front of him. His excitement excited her, it was an effort of will to go into the bathroom and put the second set on, which was even skimpier than the first. That, along with the tease show, caused Peter to ejaculate on his own hand. Suppressing a giggle, Jane warmed a hand towel to clean him. Job done, she turned the lights off before sliding into bed.

She grabbed the now flaccid cock, trying to massage some life back into it, impatient, as her own heat had risen to match Peter’s during the erotic show. In the near silence, Jane thought she heard an unusual sound. Pausing all movement, she strained her ears, hoping and praying it was just her imagination. Silence. She had just relaxed again when her ears confirmed the horrendous sound her subconscious had picked up. In her mind, it screamed with the noise of a jumbo jet taking off, but in reality, must have been just loud enough for her to hear, but beyond the range of Peter’s older ears.

Her excitement disappeared instantly as her mind froze. She dropped the still flaccid cock from her hand like it was on fire. The justifications and burials of the previous day were swept away like dead leaves in front of an armoured attack. Her mind retained just enough control that she screamed into her own head rather than into the near silent house. Noiseless tears fell in cascades down her cheeks, but she could only allow herself the luxury of quiet sobs after she heard her bed partner’s soft snores. That, at least, masked the heart-wrenching sound and saved her an explanation.

Outside, in the rapidly chilling autumn night, the garage roll-a-door lowered for the final time.

CHAPTER 2

It was another sleepless night for Jane as once again her conscience came under assault from her actions. Again, her options swung wildly around the spectrum. Should she call the police and tell them about the garage door opening; clear evidence Dave was stalking her? At least in gaol he would get three meals a day. No, she couldn’t do that. By dawn, another compromise plan was the decision.

Although not specifically mentioned by Dave yesterday, she knew his biggest stressor had to be not seeing his children. If she could change that, then he might recover to the point, in the short term, that once the dust had settled, he could make a full comeback. Seeing his children meant lifting the restraining order, but how could she convince Peter to allow that without revealing her secret mission of Thursday?

Saturday morning, she woke Peter at 7:00 a.m. and laid it on thick about allowing Dave access to his children. It fell on deaf ears. All Peter did was sneer at his rival’s weakness and lack of guts and quickly put a stop to the conversation. He refused to be swayed from the plan. Giving up, Jane snuck away to quietly arrange for the garage door openers to be reprogrammed. How she looked forward to Monday when she and Peter were scheduled to leave on their break, and she could fully relax.

Jane left at 10:00 a.m. to pick her parents up from the airport. Peter stayed behind to remove his presence from the house. He was going to stay at his house that night. After picking them up and engaging in the usual chitchat about their flight, she stopped at a coffee shop she was familiar with for an extended explanation of her marriage. She didn’t want to be behind a wheel for it.

This was where Dave doing a disappearing act would work in her favour. The official story was well-rehearsed; Jane having told it to various friends over the previous weeks. On being informed that Jane wanted a separation, Dave spat the dummy and disappeared, abandoning her and the children. She’d wanted it to be a gentle split, out of respect for all their years together, but it wasn’t to be.

She asked them to please not talk to the children about it as it was a very sore subject for them. Luckily, the children didn’t know the full details of the ambush on their father and the extent of her relationship with Peter before the split. The story to her parents regarding Peter needed no tweaking; a friendship that had grown stronger in the turmoil of the separation. Her parents were still disappointed but accepted that people drifted apart. They did comment that it wasn’t like Dave to run out on his responsibilities, though.

The kids were pleased to see their grandparents and acted as good conversation moderators when Jane’s parents met Peter that night. They were cautious toward him; they had really liked Dave. Jane and her mum talked for an hour after the children went to bed. Her mother expressed surprise that her daughter wasn’t showing more distress at the split. Jane bugged out as soon as was polite, finding lying to her mother extremely uncomfortable. And her mother knew her too well. Jane feared her mother would see right through her if she had to spend even one more minute with her. She once again found sleep elusive, despite her exhaustion.

At breakfast the next morning, Jane’s father remarked that he’d been woken at about 4:00 a.m. by the garage door opening and closing, seemingly on its own. Jane told him it had been doing that for a few days and a guy would be turning up on Tuesday to fix it. She was quietly terrified. If Dave was watching the house, then he might know her parents were visiting. If he came over sometime in the next week, her story was blown. Just one more thing to weigh down her overloaded mind as she transitioned to the life she deserved.

Just before lunch on the Monday, Peter turned up in a chauffeur driven limo; they’d agreed to start showing her parents the advantages of his wealth. The plane they flew to Thailand in wasn’t Peter’s, but he had chartered a Lear for the trip. Besides the two pilots, they were the only passengers. Jane was asleep before they hit cruising altitude; joining the mile-high club wasn’t even an option. Peter woke her in time to fill in the immigration card, which she completed just as the plane’s wheels thumped onto the tarmac of Phuket. After the limo ride to the chalet in the private resort that Peter had borrowed from a friend, there was time only for a long shower before dining out. Peter pressed Jane hard for the reasons for her strange behaviour and sleepiness. Jane felt guilty hiding the truth from him.

Guilt. It seemed a permanent part of her life these days. She drank too much at dinner and Peter disgustedly helped her back to the chalet. He deposited her on the bed, meaning to undress her after the electric roller-shutters had fully descended.

Jane was three parts asleep when she heard the first shutter motor, which to her tipsy, fatigued, guilt-ridden mind, sounded just like a roll-a-door. She jumped up screaming, adrenaline flushing the alcohol from her body, which confused the hell out of Peter. Again, she refused to tell him what was going on. Again, he spent the night celibate and with growing anger. And again, Jane lay there, all night, listening to him snore.

Peter had organised a deep-sea fishing trip the next day. He enjoyed that as Jane dozed in the shade on the back of the boat. Thus refreshed, she wanted to make love that night, but Peter was exhausted from the exercise and all that fresh sea air. She did wake him up with a spectacular blowjob the next morning, though.

When she first met Peter at the museum, she knew she’d need a competitive advantage and it wouldn’t be her three-baby snatch or her taut skin. Hence, she started researching how to pleasure a man orally and became quite the expert. Books, talking to friends, and even watching internet porn clips provided the research material and a succession of Lebanese cucumbers, the props. Within a month she would have been confident to go toe-to-toe with a Thai bar-girl.

As Peter fully hardened, and Jane took him all the way to the root, she smiled, and not for the first time. With the cucumbers, she’d been able to get over seven inches in without gagging. Peter turned out to be barely five inches long. Jane wondered if his below average endowment was the cause of his drive to dominate as a businessman.

She’d developed a technique with Peter. From her research, she knew the best performance was when she firmly grasped the cock with her hand, while also using her lips and tongue. With Peter, using a full hand didn’t leave much cock spare for her mouth to work with, so she learned to just grab it with her thumb and first two fingers. This she proceeded to do, feeling Peter thrust his hips up off the bed in a vain attempt to reach the back of her throat.

At one point in their relationship, she’d compared Peter to Dave, but they were chalk and cheese. Dave was bigger, had more girth, lasted longer, and was more patient. Peter tried but to no avail. She loved his adoration of her and his enthusiasm but a great lover he was not. Jane became an expert faker.

He did get something from her Dave didn’t, though. Jane increased the stroke rate, suction, and pressure of her thumb when she sensed the end was near. Jane braced herself not to gag in revulsion as Peter’s semen splashed into her mouth. She’d learned that if she wanted to save herself from the worst of the bitterness it was best for it to hit the back of her throat, bypassing her tongue. She made sure she made the appreciative noises he seemed to love so much.

With Peter back snoring, Jane rose to brush her teeth – Peter wouldn’t kiss later if she didn’t – check her phone for messages, and grab the resort brochures to read while waiting for him to re-awaken.

After breakfast, she explained what she’d chosen for the next day and asked Peter if he was okay with it. He barely glanced at the package and the price before agreeing. Jane was exultant. The full day pamper package cost more than it would take to run her old household for a month. This was what she deserved.

That booked, they hit the beach and found a private spot. After soaking in enough rays, Jane removed her bikini top and was pleased with the effect it had on Peter. She wanted to retire to the nearest grove of coconut palms, but Peter insisted on returning to the bungalow. Between the thoughts of paparazzi and private detectives, he was too nervous to do it in public. Jane knew Dave was in no shape to organise a detective, even if he could scrape the money together for one. Standing up and putting the top back on, Jane looked around to make sure they weren’t observed, then dropped the thong to mid-thigh to expose her freshly shaved honeypot, the work of fifteen athletic minutes in the shower that morning. Peter’s nostrils flared, and he roughly yanked her thong back up before grabbing her hand and literally dragged Jane back to their digs.

Jane was in heat by the time they got there, the knowledge of what she was doing to her lover excited her beyond belief. She knew that even with her oral relief of him that morning, if she let him mount her, he would come well before she was satisfied; so, as soon as the door was closed, she pushed him onto his back on the huge bed, then dropping the thong with lightning speed, straddled his face and started grinding. Peter played along and stuck out his tongue. Hurriedly pushing her top aside, Jane cupped and pinched her nipples, and within a minute her back arched, and she screamed at the ceiling before collapsing onto the bed.

She would have preferred to lie there for a moment to recuperate, but Peter demanded redress immediately. It was his turn to straddle Jane’s chest, squeezing her breasts together to make a tunnel which he then proceeded to fuck; badly. He was mauling her hypersensitive orbs painfully, so she pushed his hands away and took over the job herself. His equipment wasn’t really up to the job. She lifted her head from the pillow and tried to lick his tip with her tongue as it emerged each time from her compressed cleavage but couldn’t quite reach. To cover any embarrassment, she began shouting how hot it was. Her lover reacted by thrusting even faster.

At that moment, her phone, which was sitting on the bedside table, began to ring. At first, she thought Peter didn’t even hear it, but then his fist slapped it, presumably to stop the distraction. It stopped. Not half a second later, Peter rose on his knees. Jane braced herself for another mouthful that she’d have to pretend to enjoy, screaming, “Cum in my mouth, honey”, but Peter had other ideas. He grabbed his cock and let go stream after stream of semen into Jane’s helpless face, all the while bellowing, “Take it all, bitch”. Jane had never allowed facials before, and it was as humiliating as she’d imagined it would be. She was shocked and was both relieved and glad to see a look of remorse appear on Peter’s face, genuinely sorry he’d lost control so badly. That all quickly faded into insignificance when a familiar voice sprang from the speaker of her phone.

“Just friends, huh? Jane, this is your mother. I met David in the park this morning. When you’ve cleaned yourself up, give me a ring, we need to talk.” This was followed by the silence of disconnection.

Jane was mortified. A double whammy. Not only because her mother had overheard her and Peter engaged in some pretty graphic stuff, but what her mother knew about Dave. She’d said she had met Dave that morning. Met not seen. Oh god! Which of her lies had been exposed?

Not that she questioned it, but Jane didn’t know whether her bolt to the bathroom to void her stomach, and a good proportion of its lining, was due to the semen still on her face or to the sickening realisation that she’d damaged her longest relationship. Badly. She could still hear the disappointment and anger in her mother’s voice, and though she was a grown woman with children of her own, it hit her forcibly that she still wanted and needed her mother’s love and approval.

CHAPTER 3

Peter left her to compose herself after looking in the bathroom briefly and reassuring her that things would turn out okay. Jane was far from convinced. After fighting the urge to bury her head in the sand and pretending the call had never happened, Jane grabbed her phone, asked Peter for some privacy, and retreated to one of the spare bedrooms in the chalet. She didn’t waste much time preparing for the conversation. All she had to tell her mother was that the physical relationship with Peter had only started on this trip. The rest would depend on what Dave and her mum had talked about.

With trembling hands, she dialed her mother’s number, getting the international prefix codes right on the third attempt.

“Yes,” was the curt answer.

“First off, Mum, sorry for what you witnessed before, but as you heard, um, my and Peter’s relationship has moved on to something more, um, physical.”

The silence from the other end of the phone was long and deafening.

Finally. “Did you really think the kids wouldn’t tell us that your lover has been sharing your bed since you knifed David? I can’t tell you how disappointed your father and I are in you, Jane. Not only because of what you’ve done to your husband, but for lying to us. To think that a daughter of ours could do such things… it just… I can’t take it all in. I feel like I don’t know you anymore. Your father feels the same. He is so upset that his little girl could do something like this. I think you should come home straight away. Your dad pointed out that we were brought here under false pretenses. Let us know when you’ll be here and give us a ring when you’re half an hour away. We’ll have your neighbour sit with the kids for thirty minutes if you arrive outside of school hours. I, for one, don’t want to see your lying face for a while, and neither your dad nor I want to meet that arsehole you’re… you’re boning again. Ever.”

Jane’s mouth dropped open. Her mother was not one to swear or use crude language. “But, Mum, I-I-I need this break.”

“It’s not negotiable.”

Just before the connection was broken, Jane heard her father’s voice in the background, Tell that slut…

Slut. Her father had called her a slut. Jane’s hands were trembling so much that it took several attempts to redial, but re-dial she did. Then she laid it on the bed, knowing the speaker function was still engaged. This shit had to be put to bed. NOW.

“Mum, I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’ll get Peter to charter the jet back. I’m sorry for lying to you, I… I’m just sorry, okay? I thought if you knew Peter and I were sleeping together, you’d think I was moving on too fast. That you’d lose respect for me, that’s all. When Dave moved out…”

“Before you’re tempted to lie to me again, Jane, let me tell you that Dave and I had a good long chat today after I saw him in the park. We sat on a bench. He refused to come in for a coffee due to some restraining order or other. Know anything about that, Jane? Doesn’t sound like the amicable split you described. My god, woman, the man is shattered. Care to depart from recent habit and tell me what really happened?”

“Um…”

“On second thoughts, I don’t want to be here all day. Did David do anything to deserve being thrown out, never mind all the other stuff you did?”

“Um, not really. I think I just fell out of love with him. He was always at work or so tired that he just didn’t have any time for me anymore.”

“Well, we both know why he worked so hard, don’t we, Jane? Then, I suppose this Peter guy came along with a flash car and flying you to Thailand in a private jet. He must be loaded and swept you off your feet. Please don’t tell me this all about you upgrading to a better lifestyle.”

“But, Mum, I’ll… we’ll never have to worry about money ever again. Peter has a huge house on the other side of town. I won’t have to work, and he’s already said that he’ll pay for the kids to go to the best schools. I did it for them.”

“Bullshit, Jane. In my day it was called gold-digging. Tell me, why did you have to ambush David like that? Having him served with no notice when he came back from a business trip.”

“Peter’s lawyers said it was best that way.”

“I’ll keep my opinions on that to myself for the moment, Jane. Why the restraining order?”

“Peter said that it would maximise my chance of getting primary custody if I stayed in the house. He refused to share the house with Dave, so the only way was to get an Apprehended Violence Order.”

“And what grounds did you use to get one of those? I know for a fact they don’t hand them out like candy.”

“Um, well, I may have implied that Dave smacked the kids.”

In the background, Jane heard her father snort in derision, making her realise her mother was using the speaker phone function.

Her mother’s voice rose a couple of octaves in disapproval. “That’s disgusting, Jane. I’m betting he never touched the kids like that, they were his reason to live.”

“I know, I felt bad doing it, but it was Peter’s idea. He’s assured me it won’t appear on Dave’s record permanently. After the custody hearing, I’ll let Dave see the kids whenever he wants, but right now, I can’t risk the slightest chance of losing them.”

“I can’t believe this. So, tell me, if this shithead, Peter, is so loaded, why cut your husband off without even the price of a burger for dinner? The poor man was humiliated when he tried to check into a motel, only to be told none of his credit cards would work.”

Jane had been listening to her own justifications and was beginning to get a fuller realisation of just how shallow and mercenary they were making her appear. Thus, she withheld the primary reason, which was to restrict Dave’s access to quality legal advice.

“Peter said it increased my chances of getting custody.”

“Stop hiding behind that arsehole, Jane. He couldn’t force you to do anything. It was you who applied for the restraining order, and you who cut your husband off at the knees, broke his soul, and beggared him. YOU!”

The near scream, with its implied disapproval, stunned Jane. That was something else her mother rarely did. Raise her voice? That was rare, scream, never. Jane was incapable of speech while her mother regained her breath. Jane clutched at any straw to help ease the condemnation coming from the other end of the line.

“But, Mum, when I saw him in the park, I told him how to get access to money to live on. I even offered to bring him some food. He refused. What more could I do? He won’t help himself.”

“Yes, I know what you mean, Jane. I offered him money as well and he refused it. I didn’t understand why until your dad explained it to me. I should have realised; after all, I’ve known Dave for twenty years. He’s a proud man, Jane. For his entire adult life, he’s supported first you, then his entire family. Sure, maybe it wasn’t to the standard you think you deserved, but you never starved or seriously went short, did you? In essence, he’s a man who supports other people. The idea of accepting charity is against his very nature. Accepting anything from you would be charity. He may no longer have a family to support, but he’s damned well going to support himself. With no access to money, the only way to support himself is to live on the streets and scrounge food from bins, so that’s what he does.”

Jane’s mother broke down crying at this point which was undoubtedly the worst sound Jane had ever heard. Whether all of it was in empathy at Dave’s plight or disappointment in her, she didn’t know. Until she’d seen Dave in the park that first day, she’d been so focused on the goal of improving her life that she’d thought little of others’ feelings. The thought of only having to swallow her principles a little, and some unchallenging acting to achieve a life free of worry and full of luxury, was just too seductive. Now it was thrust past all her internal defences that she’d completely lost the respect of her mother and father and destroyed a good man. A loyal man whose every waking moment had been focused on one altruistic goal – THEM. Her and their children.

She’d repaid that loyalty, that commitment to the family, with a meat cleaver in the back. Her conscience was on the point of collapse. She needed time to think. Speaking loudly to penetrate over her mother’s loud sobs, she said, “I’ll be home as quick as I can, Mum. Peter can explain better than I can.”

The ensuing ten seconds of silence seemed like an eternity for Jane.

Finally. “Jane, there’s a name for people that sell their bodies and souls for material gain. It’s called prostitute. And if I want to hear from an arsehole, I’ll… I’ll fart.”

The silence once again told Jane that her mother had hung up on her. She put the phone down before burying her head in the pillows of the spare bed.

From the doorway, Peter looked on with a combination of anger and concern. He’d buried the fundamental trust problem he had with this woman, she was a cheater after all, when he fell in love with her. And love her he did. Almost as much as he had his late wife. The knowledge that she’d been in contact with her husband and not said anything to him came as a shock. He’d seen her reaction to her mother’s words and had an inkling of the torment and turmoil going through her mind. He knew she must be having second thoughts about her chosen course and that terrified him. He’d lost his love once before; he didn’t want to have to go through that again. Burying his anger, he determined to show her only love and forgiveness while at the same time vowing to be more vigilant in the future.

Parts of the conversation he’d eavesdropped on had gotten through to his conscience as well. The fact that he would probably never get on with his new in-laws would be uncomfortable for him and Jane but not a showstopper. No, the bit that hit home was what his determination to win this sweet woman’s heart had cost another human being. Like most people, Peter considered himself a decent person. The image that he was someone who could cause a man to reject everything and live on the streets troubled even his underdeveloped conscience.

He shied away from the unfamiliar pain and towards what he did best – planning. Planning to come out ahead. Silently retreating from the doorway, he messaged his PA to organise a Lear jet ASAP.

Peter looked down at the screen of his phone, at Jane’s smiling face. He stared until the screen went black, contemplating whether to contact the PI firm his company used with info on Jane, so they could keep tabs on her when they returned home. He fired up his phone, once again studying Jane’s face, and decided against it. He then returned to the spare room and cuddled a broken Jane.

His scolding of her for withholding information was quite gentle, and, over the five hours until they had to pack for the trip home, Peter thought he’d convinced Jane that she’d gone past the point of no return in her relationship with Dave and the only future rested with him. All the way home, he talked of what he could give her, continuing the seduction he’d begun many months before. The niggling doubt of mistrust of her remained, though.

CHAPTER 4

Dreams of a luxurious future helped Jane bury thoughts of Dave’s pain and the fact she’d been the sole cause. Peter had been successful in convincing her that once the custody hearing was complete and all restrictions were lifted, Dave would rejoin society and eventually get over his pain. She half-heartedly tried to convince Peter to relax some of the restrictions, particularly the restraining order, but he was adamant. He wanted everything on his terms.

As arranged, Jane rang her mother when they were leaving the airport. The kids were at school, so the house was empty when they arrived. Peter had Jane text her parents, asking what flight they were on so he could get them upgraded to business class seats, but a terse ‘no’ was the only reply.

The one good thing about returning early, Jane realised, was they could attend the neighbourhood party that Friday night. It was a once-a-month tradition attended by all her closest friends. The venue rotated among the dozen or so families involved. This month it was at Sarah and John’s place.

Sarah was Jane’s best friend and had been told the same story her mother and father had. Jane tried ringing her on Wednesday and Thursday, but the calls weren’t answered. Finally, on Thursday evening, the night before the party, Jane left a message that she and her new beau would be attending. When she went to check for a response Friday morning, Jane couldn’t find her phone. Peter pulled it from a crack in the sofa when he arrived home that night just before rushing off to get ready for the party and the chore of winning over Jane’s friends. If she’d looked at Peter’s face during the exchange, she may have deduced that he was hiding something. He’d taken Jane’s phone away that day to get his IT people to install some spyware on it.

If Jane had checked the messages on it, she may have been spared the embarrassment to come.

They rushed to Sarah’s place, arriving about half-an-hour after the usual start time. It was only two blocks, but they took Peter’s Bentley. He opened the door for Jane, resplendent in her new designer dress. Nothing flash but nonetheless costing the equivalent of the clothing budget for an average family for an entire year. Jane had spent most of the day choosing it and several others with the help of Peter’s credit card.

Arm in arm, they strolled past two men having a smoke outside the front door. Neither had been close to Jane and Dave, so Jane merely nodded at them before striding into the house. As it was a cool evening, the action was in the lounge and kitchen rather than the outside entertainment area. Jane led Peter in the door to be greeted by a rapidly expanding silence.

Laughter, hubbub, conversations, and smiles, all stopped in the space of about five seconds. All eyes stared at the new arrivals. John glanced towards the kitchen just as his wife, Sarah, appeared from it. Her easy smile quickly morphed into an expression of annoyance.

Quickly marching over, she hissed, “Didn’t you get my text?”

“No, my phone went missing today. What’s wrong?”

John stepped up beside his wife for support, as she spoke.

“John and I saw Dave in the park across from your place two days ago. He told us a totally different story to the bullshit you told me. Then I went to see your mum and dad. If you’d read the text I sent, you would know that I and everyone else here want nothing to do with a lying, traitorous bitch who would put her own needs so cruelly before her those of her husband and family, who would treat him worse than a rabid dog. Ad all in order to trade up. We don’t want you here, Jane. Please leave.”

Jane was stunned. These were all her friends. In shame and anger, she looked away from Sarah and around the room. Without exception, every returned gaze was condemning. She suddenly felt very, very alone. Humiliated, she turned and bolted back out the door with Peter in her footsteps.

Halfway to the gate, she stopped. Peter almost collided with her. Her whole body was trembling as rage took over her being. She turned and tersely ordered Peter to stay where he was, then stormed past smoker’s corner and back through the door.

Striding two paces into the lounge, she waited until she had everyone’s attention before snarling, “Fuck you all. I’ll wave from my Ferrari when I pass you in the street from now on. I’m in clover from here on in, and if Dave has to suffer for me to do that then so be it. If that means I have to fake a few orgasms along the way, then that’s a small price to pay.”

With that bridge well and truly alight, she turned and strode back out, pushing past the two smokers crowding the doorway, then striding past a silent Peter to the car. Reaching it, she looked back and saw Peter still facing the house.

Peter was trying to assimilate what he’d just heard. As instructed, he’d stayed on the path outside while Jane said her piece and was thus out of hearing range. However, just before she stomped back out, the smoker further outside the door asked the one leaning in, “What did she say?”

“I think she just committed social suicide, and then she said something about faking orgasms with the new guy.”

At that point, they’d scattered as one enraged woman stormed past them and him.

Peter was left wondering how to interpret the bit about faking orgasms. Apart from the obvious one, that is. But surely Jane wouldn’t have meant that he failed to satisfy her sexually. She couldn’t be that good an actress, could she?

This niggle joined his new distrust of Jane in working its way deep into his system. Distracted, neither spoke until they were at Jane’s home, then she ran to the bedroom and wept another part of her old life away. Peter cuddled her to sleep again. Neither noticed the children quietly returning home from wherever they’d spent their Friday night.

CHAPTER 5

Peter knew how important friends were to women, definitely the more social half of the human race. He spent the next morning arranging for all his friends to attend an afternoon barbecue at his house. He had to pay a premium for short-notice caterers, but it was done. Jane perked up a little at the news. She’d met a couple of Peter’s friends, but her upbeat mood didn’t last for long. Attempts to get the kids interested failed as they all had plans for the day already.

They drove to the mansion and while Peter checked all the arrangements, Jane eagerly explored the vast house again. She sat on the huge, overstuffed leather lounge suite in the vast, opulent entertainment room, with the almost cinema screen-sized TV and sighed in contentment. Pulling her handbag toward herself, she extracted from her wallet the two cards Peter had given her that morning, a platinum credit card and a debit card to his main household account. Dreams of what these represented almost made her forget the trail of bodies behind her. Almost.

Peter’s friends and their wives began arriving. Jane was a little self-conscious, partly because most of the wives spoke with a much classier accent than she did, and partly because, while the dress she was wearing was more expensive than she’d ever bought before, it paled next to most of the others. Peter introduced her as the love of his life, and the other women seemed excited to welcome her into the circle. Just about all of them asked for her number and promised to invite her to this or that, while ignoring the fact their husbands were trying to look down her cleavage. She politely bent the truth when questioning became personal.

The caterers did a mighty job and the food was first class. The champagne and wine flowed in rivers. As usual at parties, once everyone was there, they segregated into the sexes. Jane was mildly bored with the inanity of the conversations in the women’s group. How she longed for the deep and meaningful conversations she used to have with Sarah. That caused her smile to fade. When she eavesdropped into the men’s conversation, it was all business. By three hours in, she’d identified three or four of the women she might try to pursue a friendship with.

Peter, perhaps still troubled by his conscience, drank more than he usually did. He reached that magic point where his befuddled mind thought he would have even more fun drinking further still. He was loudly holding court among his friends, too far away for Jane to hear what he was saying. She became aware of several members of his audience turning to look at her. Some of the wives noticed this as well and drifted toward him, curious to discover what he was saying.

As soon as was polite, Jane wandered over as well. She was just in time to hear, “I tell you, the loser didn’t deserve someone of Jane’s quality. Once she’d dumped him, do you know what the fucking no-hoper did? Became a tramp. I’m not kidding. A tramp. Just gave up. Jane’s a good girl, though, she didn’t go running back to him out of pity, she stuck with me. She knows which side her bread is buttered. It was kind of amusing though this week. While he was rooting through the bins in a park, looking for his next meal, I was rooting his wife in a five-star resort in Thailand.”

The expanding silence finally got through Peter’s buzzing brain. He looked around until he spotted Jane standing like a statue, with a look of utter devastation on her face. He sobered up instantly as a replay of his recent words scrolled across his brain. Jane looked from him to his audience. She saw the increasingly condemning looks, particularly from the women. While some had made compromises to ensure their comfortable existences, none of them had wreaked such devastation doing it. Those that weren’t staring at Jane were giving Peter equally sour looks.

Jane turned and bolted. Peter gave chase and dragged her into a cloakroom near the front door. Jane ripped into him along the lines of, you’ve won, why humiliate the guy even further? She was starting to realise what an insensitive prick her new partner was; how friendless her immediate future was; and, not for the first time, thought she may have made an enormous mistake.

Her new ‘friends’ never did call her.

Peter had to remain for his own damage control but failed to convince Jane to stay. When he was sure he hadn’t ruined their relationship, he gave her the keys to his top-of-the-range BMW SUV and promised to meet her on Sunday. They’d agreed for her to bring her children to the mansion to attempt to seduce them with his wealth. He’d arranged for his children to be there as well. Fiona with her husband, Mike, and eight-month-old baby girl, and Brent. Mike was another high-flying business executive and Fiona had chosen to give up her career to be a stay-at-home mum. Getting Brent to attend was a simple matter of asking him to be awake by midday.

CHAPTER 6

Peter was a little non-plussed when Jane and the children arrived in her old station wagon rather than the BMW. Jane looked miserable, and the children were very reluctant to get out of the car. Peter greeted them all and explained to the kids where the pool was. They sauntered off. Peter looked askance at Jane, who buried her head in his shoulder, sobbing. When she quieted down, Peter questioned where the Beamer was.

“Oh, Peter, it was awful. I offered to let Bart drive over here on his L-plates and said that you might buy him one like it for his eighteenth birthday, like you suggested. He… he said, ‘He may have bought you, Mother, but it will be a cold day in hell when I let him buy me.’ Then he and the others went and sat in the station wagon. I’m scared stiff that I’ve lost them forever. Can’t we get the restraining and freeze orders removed and let Dave see the kids?”

“I’ll think about it,” Peter said, knowing he was lying. The situation would just have to be toughed out.

It wasn’t a disastrous start to the day. Jane’s kids loosened up a little around the pool and the baby. Brent showed up but didn’t interact. Fiona stayed for the catered dinner, but Mike had to leave early; something about a meeting. Fiona’s eyes followed her husband out the door, her expression strange enough to draw Peter’s attention. He sidled up to her, asking what was on her mind. She told her father that this was the third Sunday in a row her husband claimed he had a meeting, which, with other abnormal behaviours, made her suspect he might be having an affair.

Mike had been a business colleague of Peter’s before he introduced him to Fiona. Although Mike was ten years her senior, Peter had endorsed the match. He couldn’t believe, or possibly couldn’t allow himself to believe, that Mike was doing the dirty on his daughter and granddaughter. In a quiet huddle, he asked Fiona if she and Mike had shared find-a-phone apps on each other’s cells. Cursing herself for not thinking of that, Fiona admitted they had and handed her phone, unlocked, to her father; eyes pleading to prove her gut feeling wrong.

When he whispered his plan to Jane, she asked to come with him and, welcoming all the alone time with her he could get, he agreed. Fiona was happy to look after Jane’s tribe as they frolicked in the pool. Peter and Jane jumped in her station wagon, much less conspicuous than his Bentley, and raced off.

The directions the app gave them were only halfway across town and Peter’s heart sank as they got closer and closer to the area of cheap motels near the airport. The function finally told them they’d reached their destination when they were outside one of them. Peter asked Jane to pull into the carpark around the back. There was Mike’s car, large as life, outside room 120. Jane backed into a vacant spot on the opposite side of the quad, just as a little Renault, one of those cars Peter thought of as a pregnant roller-skate, pulled in beside Mike’s. Peter’s heart sank as a young woman, who he recognised as Mike’s PA, stepped out, walked straight to the door of room 120 and knocked. They watched as she adjusted her cleavage and were halfway out of the car before the room door opened. They both had a good view of Mike kissing the new arrival and not in a ‘they’re-just-friends’ way either.

Peter was livid. Jane held back at the car as Peter strode toward the embracing couple. The latter sprang apart at Peter’s roar across half the carpark.

“You back-stabbing, unfaithful little cunt. How could you treat my daughter like this? When she’s given you nothing but love and the greatest little girl in history.”

Jane decided to chase after him for no other reason than stopping Peter ending up in gaol for assault. He was clearly that angry. Mike broke his embrace when he heard the shout and stepped between his PA and the irate advancing man. His mind immediately jumped into crisis mode.

With no response from his target, Peter kept talking. “And you, Melissa, didn’t you get married last year? What would your husband say if he knew his slut wife was meeting this shithead in a sleazy motel, huh? Would he be happy if he found out?”

Waiting for an answer to any of his questions, Peter stopped three paces away from the boldly standing Mike and his cowering assistant. Mike had always found attack the best means of defence. His response came just as Jane caught up with her partner.

“You should know, Dad. Was your slut’s husband happy when he found out you were boning her?” Mike indicated Jane with a flick of his head. “You’re not really in a position to lecture me on morality, are you?”

Jane was stunned as the accuracy of those questions brought home her own situation. She had been outraged along with Peter when she saw Mike’s PA arrive, dressed to fuck. Fiona would be devastated by the news. But Mike’s simple words had thrown in her face the fact that she’d been the cause of her own outrage not that long ago. Sure, Dave hadn’t caught her like this, but her betrayal of him was as obvious as that in front of her now. Once again, she caught the tiniest glimpse of what she’d done, and it severely dented her self-image as a decent person.

Peter stood rooted to the spot with his mouth opening and closing. The knowledge that he’d surrendered any moral high ground he ever had robbed him of the power of speech. He turned toward Jane, desperate for some reassurance that he was a fundamentally nice guy, but her head was hung low. She had her own demons to fight. By the time he turned again, Mike and his assistant had disappeared behind the closed motel door.

Peter and Jane were lost in their own thoughts on the drive back to his place. On arrival, Jane quietly rounded up her kids and left. Peter braced himself to tell his daughter the bad news. He was still consoling her at 9:00 p.m. when two child services officers knocked on the door with an order to temporarily remove the baby to a foster home. Mike had launched a coordinated attack, obviously pre-planned, with the goal of getting custody of his daughter. He’d accused Fiona of being an unfit mother. Only the intervention of her father’s powerful legal team stopped disaster that night. It did distract them long enough, though, for Mike to complete the wrapping up of their joint finances and obtaining restraining orders, preventing Fiona from going home.

Like many people subject to such an assault, Fiona felt violated. She was learning and having to assimilate all sorts of new stuff, while her husband had obviously been thinking about them long and hard for some time and was well prepared.

Peter never did see the irony of the situation. Mike had done to Fiona, pretty much exactly what Peter himself had done to Jane’s husband. In fact, Mike had drawn some of his inspiration from his father-in-law’s example.

Whatever, it was after 11:00 p.m. that Peter was able to text Jane that until it was all sorted out, he would stay in his house with his daughter, for support. Peter’s lawyers had stressed how important it was for Jane to remain resident in the family home, so it seemed they would be forced apart for the foreseeable future.

Jane did recognise the similarity in situations between Fiona and her David and hoped Peter’s daughter didn’t suffer the same mental collapse as her husband did. There was an element of selfishness in her hope. Certainly, she didn’t wish that level of anguish on anyone, but Fiona’s need would keep Jane away from her only source of emotional support. There was none coming from her parents or children, or former friends. No one. No one except Peter. She tried to put the growing resentment of Fiona aside to allow sleep. She was on the brink of succeeding after two hours when the sound of the garage roll-a-door going up and down three times made her scream into her pillow. She’d had the damn thing re-programmed, for fuck’s sake.

Consequently, when Peter visited the next day and saw what a state she was in, and with the best of intentions, suggested they all move into his place that night, Jane snapped his head off. She railed at him for putting her eventual custody of her children at risk, just so he could stay with his precious daughter, who was old enough to look after herself. It was a shrewish side of Jane that Peter had never seen, and it shocked him to the quick. He did love her, though, and after Jane’s wheedling to him for over an hour on the phone that night, she was sure they were back on track.

CHAPTER 7

Fiona would eventually win her legal battle, but it was many weeks of distraction for Peter. Weeks where Jane had to fend for herself. Peter had managers to run most of his business and spent the bulk of his free time with Fiona. For her part, Fiona had negative associations with Jane. She didn’t want to be reminded that her precious father was capable of the same level of deceit and ruthlessness as her estranged husband. Consequently, she resisted most of her father’s attempts to either invite Jane around or all go out together.

Peter took to ringing Jane on her home phone every few hours to check she was where she was supposed to be. He still refused to have a PI set on her. When she didn’t answer the phone during the school day, he’d ring her cell. She was usually at some boutique or other, doing a little retail therapy with the aid of his credit card. Sometimes he’d casually ask where she was and then surprise her with a visit. Or just pop in and observe her shopping on her own. Once, he arrived just in time to see her leaving a fashion clothing shop. Just outside the door, two women, obviously old friends, were sharing a joke at a café table. Peter saw Jane glance at them, then put her head down and march off with the bags containing her new purchases banging against her legs, such was the force of her swinging arms. Hiding her devastation at being a woman without a friend behind layers of new clothes.

Peter did go and spend one night with Jane. Being ten days after her marriage collapsed, he thought Fiona would be all right for a short time. Jane needed some serious consoling. Her youngest child, thirteen-year-old Chloe, had come home from school, where she’d been asked if she was as big a slut as her mother. The child was distraught and asked her mother again what her father had done to deserve such punishment. Jane managed to keep up the strong façade until the children went to bed, then lost it completely. Things were far from how she’d imagined them. The trail of bodies lying behind her was getting to be an overwhelming drag on her psyche.

She and Peter had sex. They kept the noise down for the sake of propriety, but there was a desperate edge to their coupling, filled with whispered words reassuring each other that their love deserved all this.

Jane was riding Peter reverse cowboy, forcing an insincere moan, and trying not to shudder while his saliva-greased finger caressed her anus, when she froze. Only just that day, workmen had been there fitting a third new, state-of-the-art door opener to the roll-a-door. Now, in the pre-midnight quiet, she could clearly hear it opening. Peter never did know why she collapsed sobbing. He held her and they both fell into an exhausted sleep. He knew she was a wonderful person and that he loved her, but the term ‘emotionally high maintenance’ was starting to creep into his head more and more.

CHAPTER 8

Two days later, at noon on a school day, Peter dropped into Jane’s house to surprise her. When she wasn’t there, he rang her cell. She told him she was across the road, walking in the park, and to wait at the house. When she arrived, it wasn’t missed by Peter that she was neither out of breath nor particularly dressed for exercise.

Conversation was stilted. Peter preoccupied with why she was being deceptive. Jane preoccupied with what she’d seen in the park and what it was doing to her conscience.

She’d gone to the park that morning to try and find Dave. She intended to check his level of forgiveness of her but was quite willing to beg him to take her back if that was what was required to combat her chronic loneliness and extreme insomnia. It was a win/win situation for her, she thought. He would either accept her back or tell her they were irrevocably finished. That, at least, would take the decision on their future away from her, and bizarrely, she thought that would ease her conscience. Fatigue does very strange things to logic.

She could see Dave in the top corner of the park and her flight reflex was immediately on overdrive. Three other winos surrounded him, one, the biggest of them, was right in Dave’s face. As she approached reluctantly, the guy behind Dave hit him in the kidneys. Dave fell to the ground and all three of the others lay into him with their feet. Jane now realised why her husband was sporting bruises whenever she saw him. She called the police emergency number and gave details, urging them to be quick. One of the winos saw her and guessed what she was up to. He shouted to the others, and they all started in Jane’s direction. She fled. They gave up as she ran toward her home, outstripping their shambling pace. That was when Peter rang her. She hung around the park until the police arrived, just before Peter.

They were having a coffee in her house and Jane was in full lie mode describing why she was in the park. It was almost a relief to her when Peter’s cell rang. He sprang to his feet a few seconds into the conversation and with no word to her, sprinted for his car and screamed off. Then her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts of Peter’s strange behaviour. It was the police. When they’d arrived at the park, there was no one in sight and no other witnesses to a beating. Did she recognise any of the men? Jane denied knowing them. She didn’t want yet more condemning words, looks, and thoughts.

She greeted the children when they returned from school, made dinner, and was just encouraging them toward their beds when Fiona rang. She sounded livid.

“Bitch! Did you set out to deliberately destroy my family?”

“Wh… what?”

“Brent is in hospital, he’s in a fucking coma! The police say he was in bed with a woman and her husband came home unexpectedly. The guy beat the crap out of him. I hope you’re satisfied, slut.”

Fiona became the latest in a long line of hang ups in Jane’s recent life. Leaving her wondering why the hell she was being blamed for all the problems in Peter’s family. She was the one seduced by Fiona’s father. She was a victim of all this too. She could only eventually surmise that Fiona just couldn’t blame her father but needed an outlet for her anger and fears.

CHAPTER 9

Jane used the hours that sleep used to fill that night to plan. The result was largely delusional but surprisingly co-ordinated. The lack of answers to her calls to Peter’s phone told her that bridge was probably a smouldering ruin.

Her aim was to get her husband back. Her method was to show him Peter was irrevocably gone by launching an attack on him. Surely, when Dave saw the damage she was trying to do, he would believe she was the victim going after her attacker.

Right on nine the next morning, she used Peter’s own credit card to engage a lawyer. His brief was simple. Lift the restraining order on Dave and take one out against Peter. Thanks to the latter’s explanations, she knew the process well. Her new shark suggested she might use accusations of rape and blackmail to cause damage and Jane was seriously contemplating it.

With that call over, Jane packed some food. At the last minute, she went to the bedroom and unlocked the gun safe in the closet. Like all Australians that wanted to own a pistol for home defence, Dave had joined a pistol club to acquire a twenty-two-calibre target pistol, then attended the club enough to keep his licence. He’d shown Jane how to use it. Jane loaded the pistol and put it and the remains of the box of ammo in her coat pocket. She hoped to convince Dave to come home right now, but if he didn’t, she wanted to give him the means to defend himself. She hurried to the park.

She burst through the trees and looked up toward wino corner. There was only one other guy there apart from her husband, but he was laying into a cowering Dave with a large stick. Not pausing to call the police, Jane accelerated toward them. Panting she shouted at the big wino.

“You leave my husband alone!”

With surprising speed, the big guy swung around and started toward the enraged woman. Jane reacted on reflex, pulling the pistol from her pocket, hoping like hell that stopped him. It didn’t.

With increasing fear, Jane aimed and pulled the trigger. Which didn’t move. Thinking fast, she undid the safety catch, aimed, and pulled again. With a scream, the wino went down, clutching his stomach.

EPILOGUE

Five years later.

“That’s an incredible story, Wendy. I’ve never encountered a couple that met in gaol before. It sounds like the stuff of fiction.”

“I swear it’s absolutely true, Pauline.”

“So, what were you in for?”

“Well, I came home and found my first husband in bed with my best friend. Ex best friend, I should say. I was as mad as a cut Tiger snake and clocked him on the back of the head with my briefcase as he was doing the deed. The rat couldn’t take it on the chin, though, and called the police. They gave me an obligatory night in the cells for domestic abuse.

“I was just settling in when they brought in Dave and put him in the cell opposite me. God, Pauline, you should have seen him. You wouldn’t recognise him. The guy was a wreck. What his ex-wife did to him… Have you ever heard anything so evil? I couldn’t ignore his pain. It certainly took my mind off my own problems. It took me a couple of hours to get the full story out of him. He was obviously terrified that he’d lose his kids, and, even worse, that they’d be raised by a pair of bottom feeders like his ex and her lover.

“I know we’d only just met but something told me I could trust him, so I offered him a place to crash when he was released. I had that huge house to myself after the cheating scum I married split while I was in gaol. Anyway, Dave and I shared a bottle of bourbon and cooked up the plan of him getting custody of his kids by driving his wife off the cliff. What other choice did the guy have? The rich guy’s lawyers had everything else sewn up. We never dreamed it would work out so well.”

“So, how did you do it again?”

“Well, I was working as a lawyer at the time, that’s how I knew the odds were stacked against Dave, but my first career choice was drama. I actually did a year at NIDA, the National Institute of the Dramatic Arts, you know, where Cate Blanchett and Mel Gibson studied, but whereas they studied acting, I studied makeup and costume design. It was my drama background that gave us the idea. Dave pretended to be living on the streets,” said Wendy, chuckling at Pauline’s shocked expression,

“Had I still been studying at NIDA I could have used Dave’s made-up to look like a hobo as my end-of-year project. Dave got into character by spending some time with the homeless guys in the park. He said it was the most humbling experience of his life.”

Wendy paused as Pauline’s daughter sidled up; legs crossed.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Brown.”

“Yes, Melissa.”

“I need to pee, but someone is using the toilet near the pool and the one down here.”

“I’m sorry. If you go up those stairs over there and turn left, there’s another toilet along there. Or if you turn right, all the bedrooms along there have ensuites. If all those are busy, then go up the stairs to the top floor and use my bedroom ensuite.”

Wendy watched the little girl rush off, impatient to do her business and rejoin all her friends outside in the pool.

“Where was I? Oh, that’s right, Dave getting into character. He became quite friendly with the park dwellers; brought them food and clothes. The clothes he gave them were second-hand, but good quality. He swapped them for their old stuff. I can still remember the stench of some of them; eau de rat’s piss. We kept them in shed because the smell was so bad. He let them in on the story of what he was doing. Many of them were homeless after being let down by a spouse, so they were happy to help. The kids helped him put cameras in the master bedroom and a couple of other places around the house.”

“The kids knew Dave was faking it?”

“Yes, he wanted to make sure they agreed their mother was unfit to have custody of them. Kids aren’t stupid. They know which parent values them more. Our kids are smarter than most and were really offended by what their birth mother did to their dad. Also, Dave couldn’t leave the kids hurting and confused so he pretty much let them know the plan as soon as it was cooked. It wasn’t like he was weaponizing them or anything, just letting them participate in the decision-making.

“They hoped the cameras caught not only evidence of adultery but something we could use to prove Jane was an unfit mother or that Peter was a threat to them. Dave was determined that the kids spend not one second longer in the evil pair’s company than was necessary.”

“So, the cameras were how Dave knew Jane was going to the park that first day?”

“Yes, we quickly got him in character – with practice we had gotten his dressing down to five minutes. Unlike his make-up which I did first thing every morning neither of us could bear for him to dress in the clothes just on the off-chance Jane went to the park. Then it was just a matter of escalating the hurt on the cheaters, especially Jane, to ratchet up the pressure. The pair going to Phuket was a godsend as it gave Dave a legitimate reason to tell Jane’s parents the story while staying in character as a devastated drop-out. We wanted to severely put a dent in her support network.”

“I meant to ask before, Wendy; did you and Dave have anything to do with what happened to Peter’s kids?”

“No. That was all on Peter and the example he set for his kids. Dave is in two minds. That it proved the existence of God or was just the best bit of damn karma we ever saw.”

“Your karma ran over my dogma, hey?”

They both chuckled as Pauline quoted Dave’s favourite saying.

“So, whose idea was it to mess with the roll-a-door?”

“Buggered if I know. Dave and I don’t work like that. Even at that early stage, we were so in tune with each other. We’d just brainstorm ideas and bounce off each other. At the end of the process, who can say whose idea it was? We like it that way.”

“Still, the roll-a-door going up and down must have messed with Jane’s head. How did you do it?”

“Dave’s company was into electronics, and he’d been messing around with how to improve the security of digital signals. He said it was simple to hack both the re-programmed door controller and the replacement mechanism. That’s what his trip was about at that time. He’d come up with an uncrackable remote system and was trying to sell it. The meeting he was returning from when Jane ambushed him was the last in a series.”

Wendy paused to sip her wine.

“He meant to sell the concept but the company he was talking to, a multinational, wanted to buy Dave’s company lock, stock, and barrel. That way they could put in an anti-compete clause in the contract. It was an extremely generous offer and Dave was excited to be going home to tell Jane they could retire in luxury on the proceeds. It certainly put all three kids into good universities and allowed me to chuck in my job and go back to NIDA to finish the course. It’s a little overkill for a NIDA graduate to do all the make-up for the local amateur dramatic society’s plays, but, what the hell, I enjoy it.”

Both women smiled as they watched all the kids frolic in the pool. Bart’s wife waved as she and her husband played with Dave and Wendy’s most recent addition to their family, little one-year-old, Jen. Bart adored his tiny baby half-sister. Out of habit, Wendy’s eyes searched for her other child, three-year-old Lachy. She thanked whatever gods were listening, every day, that she’d met her soul mate on what was for both of them the worst day of their lives.

“Where is Dave now?”

“He’s attending a business awards do for the local chamber of industry. The manager of one of his outlets is receiving some sort of award for excellence and Dave wanted to show support. The guy used to be one of the park dwellers. A few of them did pretty well after Dave renewed their faith in society. The guy that Jane shot went back to university and became a lawyer. He calls in every few weeks for a beer after he does his shift at the mobile soup kitchen Dave sponsors. Lachy makes the poor bugger show him his bullet scar every single time he comes. He sometimes brings one or more of his grandkids as well.”

“He doesn’t blame Dave for what happened?”

“No, far from it. The plan was just for him to back off when Jane started waving the gun around, then act as a witness for a police statement. He admits he adlibbed for his friend and getting shot was all on him.”

“When did you say Jane was due to be released?”

“We’re expecting her to make parole at this year’s review In June. She got five years for unlawful use of a firearm and three for malicious wounding. It’s strange how none of the witnesses bore out her side of the story, and, of course, Dave just had to wipe the bruises off before the police arrived.”

“What do the kids think of her being released?”

“It’s been such a long time, they could take it or leave it. Dave said he will support whatever relationship they want to have with her.”

“What about your ex? You’ve never said anything about him. Did you come up with some fantastic form of revenge for him?”

“Maybe,” said Wendy, her sly grin at odds with her coy words. “But that’s a story for another day. Ask me in five years… when the statute of limitations is up.”

Pauline gasped, staring at her friend.

“And the rich guy, Peter? What happened to him?”

“Well, we had enough evidence from recordings in the house to sue the crap out of him for the lies he and his lawyers told and the trouble they’d caused. He paid up gracefully and became a bit of a recluse after this incident. His son never fully recovered, and his daughter turned on him. I think he was totally disillusioned about women by Jane’s attack at the end. Apparently, he stayed at the hospital all night and the next day with his son. His phone went flat at some point, that’s why he never returned Jane’s calls. The next thing he knew, the woman he loved launched a vicious attack on him. It’s in the news every now and then when he sells off one of his businesses, for the cash, I suppose. Ironic, isn’t it? He still has lots of money and that huge house, but nothing to live for.”

“You call that ironic? What about Jane? Traded a comfortable life, great husband, beautiful family, and for what? A prison cell? Bet she regrets the hell out of throwing Dave away.”

Pauline followed Wendy’s gaze as she surveyed the opulent house on its manicured grounds. The kids laughing and splashing in the huge pool. She sighed.

“One woman’s trash is another’s treasure, don’t they say?”

THE END

Now lighten up!

This is a story about the bond formed between a little girl and a group of building workers. It’s allegedly true and might help to confirm your belief in the goodness of people and that there is hope for the human race…
       
A young family moved into a house next door to an empty plot. One day, a gang of building workers turned up to start building on the plot.
       
The young family’s 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and started talking with the workers. 
      
She hung around and eventually the builders, all with hearts of gold, more or less adopted the little girl as a sort of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had tea and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.
       
They even gave the child her very own hard hat and gloves, which thrilled her immensely.
       
At the end of the first week, the smiling builders presented her with a pay envelope – containing $10 in 50c coins. The little girl took her ‘pay’ home to her mother who suggested that they take the money to the bank the next day to open a savings account. 
      
At the bank, the female cashier was tickled pink listening to the little girl telling her about her ‘work’ on the building site and the fact she had a ‘pay packet’. 
    
‘You must have worked very hard to earn all this’, said the cashier. 
      
The little girl proudly replied, ‘Yes, I worked every day with Steve and Wayne and Mike. We’re building a big house.’
       
‘My goodness gracious,’ said the cashier, ‘And will you be working on the house again next week?’ 
    
The child thought for a moment. Then she said seriously:   
    
‘I think so. Provided those wankers at Boral deliver the fucking bricks on time.’