THE FINAL CONVERSATION

Written by Vandemonium1

Edited by CreativityTakesCourage

I’ve written them. Lots of others have as well. Wife abandons husband to marry a rich older guy. Most of the time the husband is stunned, angry and vengeful. What if he wasn’t?  

If you liked my ‘Talk of Betrayal’, you’ll love this one.

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As befits the most expensive and ever so exclusive restaurant in town, the tables were intimate and well separated. Each a little candlelit bastion of intimacy. Nevertheless, if one stood in the centre of the room as I currently was you could see all the tables and recognise the occupants.

They could also recognise me and the look of anger on my face.

This was proven when I saw Colleen, who I’d married twenty-seven years ago, holding hands across the table with a guy about fifteen years our senior. The pair were gazing into each other’s eyes. The cock-sucking mollusc looked like he’d been born in that $3,000 suit which, of course, he’d accessorised with a Patek Philippe watch.

The anger I felt was immediate and intense. After all, the attack this pair had launched on this loyal husband, after twenty happy years had been vicious and extremely well planned. The first that anyone in the family knew about it, apart from Colleen, of course, was when I’d come home to find all her stuff moved out and a letter explaining she’d fallen out of love with me and in love with another guy, who just happened to be from old money and loaded, that’s why she was asking for nothing in the divorce. I’m convinced she let on that she’d been sleeping with him for three months just so there was no going back. A bit like Cortez burning his ships. She well knew my stance on fidelity in partnerships and marriage, she’d heard me drumming it into the kids often enough. It turned out to be a bit of a misjudgement on her part and a major reason neither kid was talking to her more than six-months after that fateful afternoon.

And now here they were, holding hands across the table with her looking at him dotingly, the shared sixty-dollar Lobster Thermidor entree pushed to one side. His eyes were now firmly on her still impressive cleavage, a smitten look on his face. As I watched, the hand nearest me reached into a jacket pocket and came out holding a small box of the type rings came in.

Since quickly changing course toward them, I would swear I never made a sound but, call it a wall of incoming bad psychic karma or whatever you like, something made him look my way and his hand to pause mid-air. His face fell and I could see him tense up from even my distance. In reflex, he dropped both Colleen’s hand and the small box. One thudded onto the table, the other rolled onto the floor.

I know the expression on my face mustn’t have been pleasant, but his reflex actions were unflattering to say the least. He pushed his chair back and shot to his feet, taking three steps before his brain even engaged. Were those three steps to place himself between his future bride and the approaching threat? No. They were straight toward the exit, now behind me and to the left.

I’d already figured the guy was a coward by the way he’d hidden behind high-priced lawyers for the last six month and even behind hired thugs when I’d gone around to cheater’s mansion to speak my mind. The lawyers had enlightened me what legal pain would follow if I didn’t just quietly sign everything. The bruisers had enlightened me on what physical pain awaited me if I didn’t immediately fuck off from the premises, then kindly gave me a down payment. It was some small satisfaction to see the look of regret on Colleen’s face as their boots laid into me while I was curled in the foetal position on the floor, not that she said anything.

Shithead’s sudden reaction to my presence clearly bewildered Colleen. The beatific expression on her face morphed to confusion. She looked at him now halfway across the restaurant, then, following his gaze, clocked my approach. My expression must have softened by then, with the ebbing of my reflexive anger, she looked at me as though annoyed, then back at Shithead with a look bordering on disgust. Maybe she was remembering a far different reaction to a physical threat to her person from more than two decades earlier.

Six months after we married, Colleen was pregnant with our first child when we went for a romantic moonlight walk on a local beach. In the darkness, we were ambushed by two guys with evil intent. How evil we never knew. I managed to drop one of the guys with a wild fist and brought the other one down with an ankle tap. With the temporary reprieve, but lying on the ground myself, I yelled at Colleen to run. She did and escaped unscathed, which is more than I could say for myself. Let’s just say that by the time the police and ambulance arrived I knew exactly how a Black Snake feels on the wrong end of a lump of 2 x 4.

Violence wasn’t on the agenda tonight though, not even on the day the aforementioned twenty-seven-year marriage was dissolved by Colleen’s abandonment. I deliberately changed my facial expression to one of bonhomie and gestured Shithead toward me as I finally reached the table.

“Shithe.., sorry, Malcolm, please come back, I didn’t mean to interrupt your celebration.”

Mr. three-grand-suit hurried back, perhaps belatedly to protect his intended bride but more likely to try to undo the damage his flight reflex had done to his credibility. Nevertheless, he stopped three paces away and only continued to his seat after I backed off the same distance, which meant what I had to say was said at a louder than intimate volume. He eyed me warily as I spoke.

“Malcolm, I could spend the next ten years wasting my life resenting you and the way you and this slu.., sorry, my ex-wife here scuppered our twenty-seven year marriage by screwing around behind my back, but really, what’s the point? What would I gain?

“The best I could do is convince you both that what you did was really evil. That you, Malcolm Drybridge, are a disgusting prick who should be disqualified from the human race for not meeting minimum requirements and who should throw himself off the nearest cliff.

“And you, my former wife, would come to the realisation that you’ve done an unforgivable thing and beg for my forgiveness and love.

“But…… fuck that! Haven’t I been a good citizen? Haven’t I earned better from life?”

Malcolm was looking around the restaurant now, aware that his social capital was taking a big hit here. A quick glance revealed nigh on all the restaurant patrons were listening as I aired laundry he was probably hoping would remain a secret forever, especially as many of the high class patrons would be known to him, perhaps share the same charity boards, and he would value their opinion of him.

Colleen’s pretty face had also turned bright red as her mercenary behaviour was held up for all to see. Her probable elation at seeing the ring box in Malcolm’s hand had been absolutely dashed by my appearance and the sudden swing from heaven to hell seemed to have rattled her cage immensely.

I paused, then stooped to pick up the errant ring box off the floor.

“l believe you dropped this, Malcolm.” I handed it back to him while I smiled and winked at my ex. I well knew what that ring meant to her.

Life with me was hard yards, with never a penny to spare on the luxuries of life. While being a fireman may come with a high level of job satisfaction, it didn’t come with a huge paycheck. That hadn’t stopped us from raising two great kids nor interfered with us keeping our integrity. Well, one of us still had our integrity and it wasn’t the one seated in an expensive dress and painted face.

That ring meant not having to worry about her future. Even when her looks faded and Malcolm traded her in for a newer model, as he’s done to at least one former wife, she’d keep some semblance of a well-to-do life. She again looked at her chosen partner with less than adoration as they were both reminded how the box got on the floor in the first case.

“Anyway, as I was saying, you can have her, Malcolm, with my blessing. Yes, once upon a time, I loved her with all my heart and thought we were soulmates, but she changed about seven years ago. Started hanging around with ladies of leisure, started nagging me to work more overtime so she could buy better clothes and we could move to a more socially acceptable neighbourhood.

“To put it bluntly, she became a shrew, never satisfied with me or anything I provided. She turned into someone I despised, and, I have to tell you, I hoped and prayed for a get out of marriage free card for at least the last five years we were together. But, in my world, a man’s word is his bond, including till death us do part. Plus, she gave me two great kids and I figured I owed her some loyalty for that alone. I just couldn’t drag up the courage to ask for a divorce.

“When she ambushed me, in what I would describe as typical behaviour for the new her, I was ecstatic. So, thank you, Malcolm. Just so you don’t think this is a case of sour grapes, I didn’t wait deliberately until today, when the divorce became final to tell you all this, it was actually the reason I came to your place that day, you know, when you had your goons rough me up a little.”

I stopped to let Colleen’s new investment strategy digest all this, although he seemed to be surreptitiously looking to see how many of his peers were listening attentively to his social injury. Pretty much, that was what Colleen was doing as well. Oh well, I kept going.

“Colleen knows I’m not an educated man, but I’ve heard a few good quotes in my life and my father’s of a couple of months ago was a beauty.”

I glanced at my former wife and saw her flinch at the reminder that when she ditched me she broke my mother’s heart. They’d once been as thick as thieves, but my mother now crossed the street to avoid even the effort of ignoring my ex problem.

“The worst way to punish a man that steals your wife is to let him keep her.”

At this point I felt a pair of arms encircle me from behind. Soft breasts pushed into my back and the scent of a familiar perfume filled my nostrils. Lucy. I instinctively smiled.

Lucy and I had met when I’d broken all protocols and entered her burning house to save her son’s life. She was a widow and almost ten years my junior. She was beautiful, inside and out and we’d quickly fallen in love. The fire department, well, fired me. They couched it in prettier words, but the end result was the same. I was out. There was no room for mavericks who endangered their own life before doing a complete risk assessment in the modern emergency services.

Her dad, firstly in gratitude, then I hope in recognition of my talents, found me a position in his company and I was now earning more in three months than my old annual salary.

His sexy daughter whispered in my ear, “Come on, Dave, we’re here to celebrate your release, remember. Besides, Daddy is hungry and wants to order. Have you wished these people luck? They’re going to need it. After all, she now knows he’s a coward who will run to save his own skin, and he knows she’s a cheater. Hardly the best start to a marriage.”

I turned to kiss the lovely head on my shoulder, thinking how wise Lucy was to know exactly what to say to cheer me up.

As I turned to walk hand-in-hand with my girlfriend toward the table where her parents waited, I glanced back to nod farewell to the couple at the table. Malcolm was stuffing the ring box back in the suit pocket and buttoning it up, while his so close to being fiancé scowled at him. Whether it was his poor performance during the interchange, their social destruction, his recent cravenness, or the fact he was ogling Lucy’s shapely arse, I never knew or cared.

Methinks their relationship is a tad more restrained than when I happened into the same restaurant they were in.

The End.

Now lighten the fuck up!

CTC is blaming me for ruining her birthday. That’s ridiculous, I didn’t even know it was her birthday.

*****

Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl whispered to her mother, ‘Why is the bride dressed in white?”

The mother replied, ‘Because white is the colour of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life.’

The child thought about this for a moment then said,

‘So why is the groom wearing black?’