This is Madness

byVandemonium1

This one is a little convoluted. You may wish to concentrate. Or, you could skim it and miss most of the experience. Once again, be warned. I believe some acts don’t ever deserve forgiveness.

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July 2016, a rainy Wednesday night. In the marital bed of David and Julia Smith.

It had been a crowded thirty seconds. Let me describe it to you.

It started with Julia languidly spreading her naked legs; an action that allowed a little trickle of semen to bubble out of her, still tingling, sex. The action also allowed access to the exploratory fingers of the man lying next to her. He took full advantage. His middle finger found her clitoris and began gently rubbing from side to side. An involuntary gasp escaped her mouth as she glanced at his nakedness. Once again she thrilled to the sight of the 6’ 2”, young, olive skinned mass of muscle pressed close against her slender pale 5’ 10” body. With her free hand she reached over and grabbed the flaccid penis, source of the aforementioned semen. As she squeezed it, she felt a slight responding pulse.

The gasp couldn’t have been that noticeable. It seemed to have been missed by the person on the other end of the phone she was holding to her ear with her left hand.

“Yes, Jen, Tom is fine; he’s lying next to me. In fact, you interrupted us while…

“No, honestly, that’s all right, Jen.

“Okay, goodnight, Jen. Yes, I took my vitamins this morning. What…”

This last was prompted by a crashing noise. A framed photograph had fallen off a shelf set next to the bed. The man next to her automatically got off the bed to retrieve it. After a hasty, “Bye,” Julia tried to beat him to it. The man had only time to glimpse a fading picture of a smiling figure in a military uniform before the photograph was snatched from his hands and returned to its shelf, facing the wall. To try to regain the mood, she dragged him back down to the bed. Once again ensconced on their backs, Julia grabbed the flaccid cock and restarted her efforts to hurry round-two along. Her target, slightly embarrassed at his obvious lack of interest yet, began talking. This woman really intrigued him.

“Who is the guy in the photo? Is that this Tom guy you were talking about? Is he your husband?”

This was a huge mistake. Julia became an angry spitting fireball. She started flailing at him with both her fists.

“I told you, you prick, never mention my husband. Get out! Go!”

With that, her anger subsided and she turned on her side, facing away from him. The guy looked down at her sobbing back from where he had leapt reflexively. He knew the fun was over for tonight, perhaps forever. He cursed his previous questions, got dressed and then did what he could to maximise his chances of being invited back. The effort was well worth it. Pussy of this calibre didn’t fall his way that often these days. He knelt next to the bed and began kissing the tears off her cheeks. This loving gesture caused her to stop weeping and smile a little timidly.

“I’d better go. Can I come around tomorrow night?”

“Okay. Same as usual though. Wait until after dark and park up the street, all right?”

“Okay, my darling.”

The last statement stuck in his throat slightly. This wasn’t the first time he’d, how shall we put this, banged a wife of Julia’s generation. He knew they had conscience problems having sex with someone they didn’t love, so he expended the effort to act the loving boyfriend. On this occasion, the effort paid off. Julia rose to her feet with him and hugged his face into her neck. He used the opportunity to cup one of her shapely but sagging C cups in a hand. He felt himself stirring and contemplated getting naked again. He was wise enough not to go there, though. This woman might be weird, but she was his whenever he wanted her. Well, during the hours of darkness, anyway. He decided not to push it. Still holding her breast, he gave her a lingering kiss on the lips.

“Good night, lover.”

“Good night, Brent.”

As she was hugging him to herself again, Julia missed the confused look on his face, as usual. With a final squeeze, he broke and left. Julia watched him crack the front door open and peer cautiously out into the street. Satisfied the coast was clear, he smiled at her one last time and slipped out. Julia locked the door and returned to her bed. As she was passing the kitchen, her friend Jenny’s words from before made her pause. Of course she’d taken her vitamins this morning. The woman was getting senile. It was extremely worrying. Making it to the bedroom, she went directly to the shelf and turned the photograph back to face the room. She felt the familiar swell of pride at the sight of her husband in his captain’s uniform. She kissed it gently. “I’m sorry, Dave, be safe,” she muttered quietly. Slipping into bed, it wasn’t long before the memory of those exploring fingers, a mere fifteen minutes ago, reminded her that session had ended before she was totally satisfied. Removing her panties, she spread her legs and started replicating Brent’s attention of before. She paused before she lost control, hopped back out of bed and turned the photograph, containing those accusatory eyes, back to face the wall.  

It was the next evening, and Julia waited in her lounge. As usual, the guilt over her three-week affair was battling with her mounting excitement. When Brent was actually here, she knew the guilt would fade. Every time he left, however, the guilt became crippling. Last week had been wonderful on a purely physical level. Meeting Brent in a motel for an afternoon of bliss with the younger man, while her children were at school was okay. This week, with an empty house, had been much better. Two sessions before they slept, then another after the alarm went off and Brent used the last lingering darkness to sneak out. She knew going back to motel trysts when the kids returned from camp was going to be an anticlimax. That, coupled with the mounting guilt, was beginning to increase her resolve to break off with Brent on Saturday morning. That decision made her feel better. That was then, but this was now. One more night with Brent, then, if he did what she asked, one other mind numbing night before she gave him the bad news.

As he walked from his car towards her house, her lover completely failed to obey Julia’s urging to carefully look for visible neighbours and to walk past the house if anyone was out and about. He just didn’t care enough to bother. He thought again how weird Julia was. Did he consider dumping her because of that weirdness? No way. Obligation free pussy was exactly that and not to be shunned. Her increasingly bizarre behaviour and sudden mood swings made her hard work, but not enough to give her up. For a woman of her age, she still had a body that turned him on. He entered through the gate, felt his way along the path to the back door and knocked. Inside, Julia jumped up and on the spur of the moment, removed her panties. Why waste time? With her new resolve, they had precious little left.

“Hi, Brent. Would you like some wine?”

He took one look at her, standing there in her short and silk dressing gown and came over to kiss her. His hand probed beneath the back of her gown. On discovering her bareness, he gave an animal grunt, slung her over his shoulder and carried her to the bedroom. Julia almost came there and then. This was better than a hundred bunches of flowers and ten romantic meals. The validation of her womanhood. The sure and certain knowledge that a young, virile man was so attracted to her that words were unnecessary. He just wanted to show her how attractive she was by fucking her senseless.

On arrival at the bedroom, he unceremoniously dumped her on the bed. He slowly removed his clothes as he struggled to regain his breath. Once naked, he threw himself on the supine Julia. He kissed, licked and bit her erect nipples through the thin silk. Julia groaned as he bit them. He clumsily undid enough of the buttons that he could repeat it all without the material in the way. This didn’t feel as good for Julia as before, so she tried to cover up again, hoping he would take the hint. Her lover misinterpreted that as she’d had enough foreplay. He moved up and while kissing her neck, fumbled to get his cock lined up with her opening. Frustrated that these sessions never went as well as she imagined them in her head, Julia grabbed his head in both her hands and forced it downwards. She kept going past her breasts and only stopped when he got the hint. He propelled himself the rest of the way and launched his tongue straight at her clitoris.

Once again, Julia was disappointed by this young man’s inconsideration. Her husband would have taken an hour to reach her clit and make her cum instantly, every time. But, her husband wasn’t here. Just this 6’ 2”, muscular, ego sustaining human dildo. With her eyes closed, she imagined it was an hour in and it was her Dave. Still, it was five minutes before her delusions fully cut in and she relaxed enough to explode. Crushing his head between her thighs, she screamed her pleasure at the ceiling. That’s what you couldn’t do in a motel room.

The fool kept going. He should know by now that she liked him to slowly trail off and gently lick her lips while she came down. She was forced to push his head away again. She held her arms out for a cuddle, but her lover had different ideas. He rolled her onto her stomach and knelt between her legs. Julia braced as his cock nudged her lips again. She knew from experience that it was a waste of time hoping to cum again before he did. Maybe later tonight or tomorrow morning. Still, it was nice lying there listening to his grunts and groans, feeling his sweat drip onto her and his teeth bite into her shoulder blades. She zoned out briefly, fantasising that this was against her will and she was powerless. Reality intruded, though, as she felt the tremendous pressure of his upper thighs pushing into her buttocks, as his cock tried to reach her ovaries while it injected her. After her own orgasm, this was perhaps her favourite time during sex. All too quickly though, her lover collapsed on her. She rolled out from under him and pressed her back against his front, draping his arms around her until he got the hint and enveloped her.

They shared a companionable time like this in silence. After a while, it became a little uncomfortable. The silence just highlighted the fact that they had nothing in common apart from desire. Eventually, this discomfort prompted Julia to roll towards him, kiss his nipples and grab his wilted member. Since she didn’t love him, she’d continually resisted his nagging to take him in her mouth at this stage, to speed up the process. A little embarrassed, her lover rolled out of range.

“Damn it, girl, guys my age need time to recover.”

Disappointed again, Julia rolled onto her back to let nature take its course. From experience, she knew subsequent sessions this night wouldn’t approach the sheer raw animalness of the first session, which had clearly ended. To cover the uncomfortable atmosphere, her lover dared asking some questions that intrigued him.   

“Who was that on the phone last night, Jules?”

“That was my best friend, Jenny. We’ve known each other since high school. I’m sorry I took the call, but she’s in a bit of a state at the moment.”

“Oh yeah, why?”

“Um, her husband caught her cheating on him a couple of weeks ago. He packed his bags and left. Jenny went chasing after him. She rings up most nights to make sure I’m okay, but to be honest, I’m more worried about her. I don’t think he’s going to forgive her and deep down she knows that. In fact, I think it’s driving her insane. Last night she kept asking me if Tom was here. I mean, I went out with a Tommy in high school but I haven’t seen him since then. Like I say, she acting very strangely.”

Silence returned as they both retreated to their own thoughts. Hers were concerning the mental state of her best friend. His were, “If this weird woman thinks her friend is weird, do I really want to ever meet her?”

“It was Jenny that made us get together actually.”

“Eh?”

“Yes, after she got a lover, she spent all her time raving about how fantastic it was. She got me so turned on I looked for and found my own. She was right. I was looking forwards to you and I going on double dates with Jenny and Peter. It would have been very naughty. However, before I could even tell her about you, her marriage blew up. I spent a few days having her cry on my shoulder and tell me that, although lovers can be fun, they weren’t anywhere near worth the risk. She even made me promise to forget anything she’d ever said about them. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I already had one. After a few days, she found out where her husband was and chased after him. Since then, I haven’t seen her. I just get these increasingly weird phone calls. She’ll be back soon.”

Julia was about to suggest she introduce them, but remembered that her lover would be gone in two days. Her resolve was firm. As if on cue, the phone next to the bed rang. Julia saw that it was Jenny’s number. She answered.

“Hello BFF, how are you travelling?

“No, don’t worry about me.

“Yes Tom is fine, he’s right here. How are you… ?

“Okay, enjoy your dinner, see you Saturday. Bye.”

She hung the phone back up.

“See what I mean? She can’t handle talking about her problems, changes the subject every time or says she has to go. I’m going to have to do some major work with her when she gets back. Do you have any hunky friends? Maybe she could use some cock therapy.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Silence descended again. Julia wanted to explore a new line of thought. Maybe she could quiet the demons of her conscience and still keep seeing Brent. If he did have a friend and he and Jenny got together, she could justify keeping Brent. After all, she couldn’t let her friend go out on her own in her fragile state. Yes, things were looking up already. Once again, she rolled in and took his cock in hand.

“Speaking of friends, is everything set for tomorrow night?”

“Yes. John said he was in.”

“Okay. I’m looking forwards to fulfilling two of my main fantasies. Is he, you know, small?”

“He reckons it’s about five and a half inches and skinny.”

“I suppose that will be okay. There’s no way I’m having that monster of yours up my, er, bottom.”

The look of pride on her lover’s face made Julia smile. Unbeknownst to her, he’d always thought of his six incher as average, but the way Julia described it and the way it made her squeal, made him realise that he must be much thicker than average.

“Right. If you arrive somewhere between eight and nine…“

“Hang on while I turn the recorder on my phone on.”

“Why?”

“So there’s no question of rape later. Right. Go.”

“Okay. If you arrive somewhere between eight and nine, I’ll be upstairs pretending to be asleep. You two rush in and… well, don’t take no for an answer, okay.”

“Right, got it. I’ve been doing some research and it’s quite a popular fantasy, apparently. So, let me summarise, no pain, no bondage, no gag. Did I forget anything?”

“No, that’s it. So long as you avoid those and do that other thing we talked about, we’ll be fine. So long as it feels real, I’m happy. No matter how much I scream and holler, just don’t stop.”

“The websites I looked at said we should have a code word. Something unusual. When we hear it, we stop straight away.”

Julia thought for a long moment.

“No, no code word. I dunno, it seems like it would take all the realism out of it.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. It’s your pussy, and ass, of course. Speaking of ass, how about a little preview for me now? I’ll stop if you can’t handle it.”

“No. I told you, that monster is going nowhere near my ass, now or ever.”

“But tomorrow… “

“Tomorrow is tomorrow. The only way a cock is going anywhere near the back door is if another one is already in the front.”

“It seems unfair. I do all the setting up and John gets the prize.”

“Just the way it is, Brent. Those are my conditions. Take it or leave it.”

Julia was happy that he nodded, accepting what was probably a bluff on her part. Her partner wondered if that last statement of hers invalidated what was recorded on his phone.

“Now, go and wash the beast and I’ll speed up your recovery a little.”

Now that was one request from the strange woman that needed no thought. When he returned, Julia gave him one of her fantastic teasing blowjobs. Another reason she was worth the mental effort.

Once her lover was all fired up, he tried to tackle her onto her back and mount her again but Julia had other ideas. She knew from experience that unless she controlled this session, it would be a total washout for her. She restrained his lust by putting a hand on his chest, forcing him to stay on his back. She mounted him and forced his cock flat between his legs. In short but languid strokes, she began rubbing the top of her vagina along the top of his cock. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? It was wonderful for her, but not stimulating enough for him to end it. He did try to push his buttocks into the mattress several times, to gain the verticality to penetrate her, but she just followed him down. After ten minutes of frustration for him, but ten minutes of rising excitement for her, she lifted slightly and allowed his entry. Immediately, her lover pulled her chest down to his, so that he, not she, could control the pace. Thus began the familiar race, one that she normally lost.

All their previous talk of anal sex had given Julia ideas. With her left hand, she grabbed his right forearm and slid her hand down to his wrist over her kidney area. Forcefully, she dragged it to where she wanted. Taking the hint, her lover took over. Julia felt one or two fingers rubbing around her vagina. Thus moistened, they moved two short but very significant inches towards the ceiling, following the track at the bottom of the canyon.

At that point, a memory very nearly ruined everything. She remembered the one time that her husband had licked her anus. It had led to a shattering orgasm for her at the time, but was never repeated. Why? Easy, because after she had calmed down, she’d called him a pervert and almost slapped him. To ease the tension, he’d made a joke of it. Saying that it was a design flaw in women that the playground had been put so close to the sewerage plant. In the here and now, it took a supreme effort on Julia’s part to repress that memory, but she managed it by concentrating on purely tactile input. Bizarrely, Julia thought this was one advantage of having a lover. She would never have allowed this to happen with her husband, a man whose respect she demanded. With a disposable lover, it was acceptable for her to unleash her inner slut. Right back on track now, the slut in her crested the ridge and descended into one of the most powerful orgasms of her life. In her bliss, she was totally unaware of the man underneath her grunting his own climax and unloading a much depleted load into her. She remained oblivious as he rolled her off and spooned into her back. From habit, she filled her mind with inanities in an effort to fall asleep before the guilt made that impossible.

Julia was still drained when she was half-roused, hours later, by the alarm. Reaching over and turning it off, she relaxed again into Dave’s powerful arms and luxuriously fell asleep again. This time, she slept deeper than she’d done in the eight months since Dave had been deployed. Again, she was half awoken when the man behind her came back from the bathroom. He slipped in behind her and with one arm over and one under, grabbed a breast in each hand. Julia pressed her back into him and, following the habit of years, felt his ring finger to fondle the symbol of their unity.

She shot fully awake when her probing fingers found nothing but bare skin. The man behind her wasn’t her Dave. In the last three weeks she’d carefully justified to herself that what she was doing was just to fulfil a physical need within herself. So long as there was no intimacy, it wasn’t really cheating. This was about as intimate a two people could get. Self-loathing flooded her every nook and crevice. Her eyes shot open. Right into the eyes of the uniformed man in the photograph. She’d forgotten to turn it towards the wall as was her usual habit. She grabbed both the encircling arms and thrust them back, before moving to the furthest extreme of the bed and sobbing her guilt and shame at her own weakness. Confused, the man behind her quietly got dressed. Whispering, “I’ll see you tonight,” he left. Neither was concerned that it was now full daylight. Julia because she was too wrapped up in her own misery, her lover because he just didn’t care.

The day passed as a blur for Julia. Her defences smashed, her psyche was in full retreat. She stood in the shower until the water went cold. That washed the sweat and cum away but did nothing for the stain she felt on her soul. She returned to bed, not quite oblivious to the stained and twisted sheets. It looked like what it was, the bed of a whore. On the next required trip to the bathroom, she made the mistake of following her automatic pattern and looking in the mirror. She hated what she saw. She reached for her makeup, and in the next hour transformed herself so that the external image resembled her new internal one. She alternated sleeping and returning to the mirror to admire her handiwork for the rest of the day.

Thus it was, that when her lover and his friend snuck in the still unlocked back door, at 8.09PM that night and crept upstairs, they were greeted with the sight of Julia asleep in her bed. Both men disrobed quietly in the hall outside the bedroom, then tiptoed in and deposited the small bottle of lube on the bedside dresser before attacking. With rehearsed precision, John got behind Julia, clamped a hand firmly over her mouth and rolled her face up on top of him. Julia’s lover then began roughly mauling her breasts. It was too dark to see the expression on Julia’s face, so the man on top had no idea that he wasn’t following his lover’s new wishes. It was taking all of John’s strength to hold the struggling woman and stop her biting his fingers.

“Are you sure this is what she wants?”

“I told you she wanted it to be as realistic as possible. This has been her fantasy ever since she watched a porno on her hen’s night. I played you the recording for fuck’s sake, just hold her still.”

John was swayed to comply against his better judgement, not by logic but by lust. This was kinda hot and if the slut wanted it this way, who was he to deny her the fun.

Inside her head, Julia definitely didn’t want this but could feel her strength ebbing. After a few short minutes she gave up the struggle. Besides, she thought, she needed this punishment. Maybe after one night of being treated like the slut she was, she could begin to forgive herself.

Above her, her former lover fingered her sex, prior to penetration. It should have been a clue that it was as dry as a bone. At this point, a week of build-up and his current lust, meant wild horses couldn’t have stopped the inevitable. He reached for the lube.

Julia felt him penetrate her. The similarities to her very first time were remarkable, uncomfortable and entirely pleasure free. She gave a brief struggle, then settled back to endure her deserved punishment. She knew this was just the beginning.

Her lack of movement, disappointed, then enraged Michael. He’d been looking forwards to this. The bitch was spoiling his fun. Wanting to hear her screams, he released one of her wrists and reached up and removed John’s hands, fully expecting her now free arm to attack him. It didn’t, neither did her unobstructed mouth utter a sound. As an erotic experience, it was a bust. With a surge of anger, Michael said to his partner, “With a slight modification, it’s time for the main event.” In the darkness, Julia closed her eyes and accepted her punishment. At that precise moment, the phone rang. It went unanswered. Shortly after that, a cell rang somewhere. It got the same treatment.

Treating her like a rag doll, Michael turned his limp lover over and assisted impaling her on John’s cock. With a running commentary of what he was doing, he lubed up again. There was no response from his victim, which is probably what prompted Michael to be none too gentle when he pushed into her anus. Julia was determined to accept her punishment stoically but the fact that her sphincter was involuntarily tensed, made it all the more painful. She screamed, which went a long way towards making Michael lose whatever control he thought he had left.

The scene played out like this for about two minutes. Thrust, scream, thrust, scream. It may have ended inevitably within another minute, except for an unexpected intervention.

Racing up the stairs, in response to hearing the screams as he opened the front door, was a large man about 45 years of age. Seeing what was obviously a rape in progress, he reacted purely on instinct. He grabbed the naked man on top of Julia and threw him against a wall. Julia, feeling the weight removed, fell sideways, off the guy underneath. The large gentleman then lifted John up by his hair, planted a fist in his solar plexus and when he bent over, rammed his knee into his face. There was a very satisfying crunch. Meanwhile, Michael had regained his feet. Just in time to be dropped by an enraged fist to the face. Blood erupted from his mouth as he went down again.

The newcomer planted himself between Julia and her attackers and watched while they stumbled and crawled to the door, grabbed what clothes their spinning heads could perceive and headed for the front door. Up until this point there were three bewildered people in the room. It soon became four. Something hit the stranger in the back of the head. He looked down at the bottle of lube, now rolling away on the floor. His eyes swung to the hissing, naked mound of anger on the bed.

“You bastard! Why did you have to stop them? I needed that. I deserved that.”

Thoroughly confused, the man saw Julia reaching for another missile. Her eyes focussed on the heavy phone, on its base and began to reach for it. The man wisely retreated through the door, throwing over his shoulder, “Goodbye Julia.” He followed the two naked, bleeding, fleeing men out the front door. The crash of the phone hitting the bedroom wall being her only response to his parting words.

Julia collapsed back on the bed sobbing. Who was that guy? Why had he stopped her punishment before it was complete? Could she still forgive herself now? It all became too overwhelming and her mental self-defence mechanisms caused her mind to go somewhere else for a little while. A tiny little part of her kept an ear cocked for what she, deep down knew would happen next. The phone rang.  She saw the calling number display, ‘Overseas’. Discounting several other possibilities, she answered.

“Dave, is that you?”

“Yes Julia. I just got an email from Frank next door. He said that yesterday morning he saw a man sneaking out of our house. Are you having an affair while I’m gone, Julia?”

Her lips moving along with his words, whatever protective forces were holding Julia together, blew away in the wind. She never could lie to Dave, she never would.

“I’m sorry darling. So sorry. I was so lonely while you were away. I wasn’t strong enough. It will never happen again. It’s over. I’ve been punished. Will you forgive me… please? I’ve been punished enough, just please forgive me.”

The roaring in her ears drowned out any noises on the long distance line. The wait was interminable. Julia’s life hung in the balance. Eventually,

“No, Julia. How could you…  Goodbye Julia.

With her doom pronounced, Julia screamed and screamed. Inside her head she still screamed long after her throat could handle no more. She drifted in and out of cognisance. Approaching sanity again, she thought of the one person who always knew the solution to her problems. She turned to grab the phone but it was gone. Looking around, she saw it lying next to a wall. Quickly plugging it back in, she was relieved to hear the dial tone. Ringing her mother’s number from memory, she heard something that confused her even more than she already was.

“The number you have called is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.”

For the third time, she heard, “The number you…“ She pressed the ring off button and dialled again.

“The number you have called is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.”

Confused and desperately feeling more alone than she ever had, she dialled Jenny’s number. Engaged. If Julia had possessed the power of rational though at this moment, she might have seen the uphill battle she faced. Driven by loneliness and Jenny’s lustful stories, she’d spent two weeks convincing herself that beginning an affair was justified. She’d then spent three weeks, in the face of her mounting guilt, justifying why the novelty and the pleasure should continue. In both cases, if anyone had questioned her logic, apart from herself, they would have revealed it as the precarious house of cards it was. She’d taken enough precautions that it should never have seen the light of day. Never in her wildest nightmares had she ever dreamt of having to justify it to her husband, whose feelings about fidelity were regularly stated. Her current mental state was caused by the fact that she couldn’t stand to even think about the pain to come.

She wasn’t the first person to contemplate the obvious solution to her predicament. She had pills, she had a razor. All she needed now, the loss of her last reason to live. It must have been pure instinct that made her go into her daughter’s bedroom. A reminder of her children, and her love for them, was all that stood between thinking and doing. That one act almost certainly saved her life. She opened the child’s bedroom door and walked in. Almost immediately she recoiled as a strand of cobweb brushed her face. She brushed it away and looked around. Everything was neat and tidy but even though Rebecca had only been at camp since Monday, there was more than one cobweb and the place needed a dust. With a good distractive purpose, Julia set to work, dusting, cleaning and washing sheets from Rebecca and Monty’s rooms. This kept her occupied until after 4AM. Two spotless rooms ready for her children’s return tomorrow. Well today actually. Not being able to return to the scene of her crimes, she fell asleep, exhausted, on Rebecca’s bed.  

That is how Jenny found her on her return the next morning. Being a regular visitor, she had her own key. Until three months ago, she would have let herself in the door without knocking, but now her friend had a partner, she’d gone back to observing niceties. With no response to her knocking, she entered and called out. There was no answer to that either. Thinking Julia might be out, she went straight to the medicine cupboard out of habit. What she saw made her heart drop. It looked like Julia had stopped taking her ‘vitamins’ just after Jenny had left to take her turn at nursing her aging mother. That was two weeks ago. With a sudden feeling of dread, she sped to the master bedroom. One look at the messed up and stained bed, plus the lingering smells, confirmed her worst fears. With trepidation, she checked the ensuite bathroom and was greatly relieved to see it empty, particularly the bath.

She found her friend in her daughter’s room and immediately wept at the sight. Julia was lying on the bed in the spotless room. Her naked body showing fresh bruises and red marks. Her face was a mixture of garish make-up and tear streaks. Holding her breath, Jenny moved to her friend and felt an arm. Relieved that it was still warm, she sat next to her and let her tears flow. Returning to the kitchen she grabbed two and a half of the tablets and a glass of water. Two of the tablets came from a long plastic box with little compartments, labelled with the days of the week. The half pill, came from a different bottle stashed at the back. Once armed and mentally prepared, she shook her friend awake. She watched Julia’s eyes open, the smile of recognition, then the fade to horror. She held her in a hug while her friend sobbed and screamed incoherently into her shoulder. At the first sign of Julia faltering, she urged her to take the tablets with the water, telling her the truth that it would take her pain away. Julia consumed them like she hadn’t eaten for weeks. Once they were gone, Jenny went back to holding her friend. She didn’t try to decipher her mumblings. She didn’t have to.

Finally, Julia drifted back to sleep, the half tranquiliser doing its work. Even a half was risky, according to Doctor Jones. Jenny steeled her resolve and began cleaning up the master bedroom sadly. Half an hour in, there was a knock at the door. It was Tom.

“Hi Jenny, I’ve come to get the rest of my stuff.”

“Why Tom? Are you leaving? Is something wrong?”

“Didn’t Julia tell you? No I suppose she wouldn’t. A few days after you went to your mums, I got called away for work, fighting bloody fires up in the mountains. Two nasty weeks with no cell coverage. I reminded Julia to take her vitamins like you said. I got back last night and came straight here. I came in and saw her, I thought, being raped by two guys, it sure sounded that way. She had one in the front door and one in the back, if you know what I mean. I busted their asses and threw them out, then the bitch started tossing stuff at me. She wanted them here, Jenny. I can’t handle that shit, I’m outa here.”

Jenny heard the way Tom spat those last sentences and knew what she was about to say was almost certainly a complete waste of time, but for her sake as well as her friend’s, she had to try. He followed her into the kitchen at her request.

“Damn, Tom. If I’d known you weren’t here while I was gone, I would have made other arrangements. I only felt comfortable going away because I thought you’d be here. I was desperate. My mother is very sick and I don’t know how much longer she’ll be with us. I did think about telling you all this before I left, but, well, you’ll see.”

Jenny paused to take a very deep breath.

“Um, those weren’t vitamins, Tom, they’re antipsychotics. Julia is a very… damaged person. You haven’t seen it until now because I kept her medicated.”

Again Jenny paused. She knew the next bit wasn’t very self-complimentary but she felt obliged to minimise the blame on Julia to maximise the chances of Tom not running when he discovered the truth.

“Once upon a time, Julia and I were married to very good men. My Mark was an Engineer and Julia’s Dave was a Captain in the army.”

“Yes I knew about Dave, but I heeded your advice and never asked Julia about him. I presume that’s his photograph on the shelf of the bedroom?”

“Yes, that’s the only one she kept out of storage. Mark and I didn’t have kids but Julia and Dave had two. They were 12 and 14 when Dave’s mob left for Iraq.”

The intense memories almost caused Jenny to break down, but she rallied.

“I did something stupid, Tom. Instead of looking after Julia, I inadvertently led her on a path to destruction. You see, even though I had everything, I, er, took a lover. It’s hard to explain why, even to myself, but I think I was just a greedy, entitled bitch. It was so exciting that I just couldn’t keep it to myself. I had to tell someone how good it was.”

“Julia.”

“Yes, Julia. I should have known it was a mistake, she was missing Dave like mad and hadn’t had as much as a hug from a man in eight months.”

“I think I see where this is going, Jen. Julia saw how much fun you were having and decided to have some fun of her own.”

“No… it’s way worse than that, Tom. Yes, it was fun, but I felt as guilty as hell and thinking back on it, I wanted to feel better about what I was doing. How better to do that than to normalise it. If my best friend was a cheater, as well, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad,”

Tom didn’t say anything but the look he gave Jenny wasn’t generous. She looked at the table for the next bit.

“Yes, I encouraged her to go out and find a boyfriend. I even babysat her kids while she went out sometimes. In return, she covered for me when I needed her to. I should have known, though, she never could lie convincingly. She inadvertently gave me away to Mark. He did some checking and busted me. He took off straight away, just disappeared. It took me almost a week to find out where he’d gone. Julia was a rock during this time. I don’t think I would have survived without her support. I told her I was wrong to suggest she had an affair as well. The risk just wasn’t worth it. What I didn’t know, though, was that I was too late. I’d made it sound so exciting that she’d already started an affair. I found out later she was going to tell me the night Mark caught me and my life turned to shit. She never told me.”

Jenny paused to repress the memories of that 24 hours. Memories that refused to fade with the passage of time.

“She told me later that when she saw the effect on me, she almost ended things with her lover but figured the damage had already been done. Sleeping with him again would be no bigger a crime than she’d already committed. You don’t know what it’s like, Tom, when you cheat on someone, you cover your guilt with justifications and bury it. You think it’s gone but it hasn’t. It’s still there, waiting to erupt like a septic boil. Another reason she didn’t break it off, and this is really bizarre, is that she wanted to return the favour she thought I’d done her. Telling me how exciting it was just as I’d done her.”

Jenny shook her head. It had made a kind of sense at the time, but now?

“Sorry, I got off the story there. Anyway, I urged Julia to not have an affair but I was too late. Maybe if I hadn’t been so self-absorbed, I would have seen clearly. Then, I found out that Mark had headed to his parents and took off after him. It was a complete waste of time of course, but I had to try. I was away for two weeks and came back on a Saturday. Tell me when this starts to sound familiar, Tom?”

Tom thought he glimpsed where this was going, but the sheer enormity of his suspicions stilled his tongue.

“While I was gone, Julia escalated her affair with her boyfriend, Brent, his name was. I never met him, but she said he was much younger than her, very muscular and had a huge cock according to Julia. She told me later that she spent just about every afternoon with him in a motel that first week. During the second week I was away, Julia’s kids were both on a school camp and she had Brent come over every night. That might have been the end of the story, she told me later she was going to break off with him before the kids got home, but something happened on the Friday night.”

Jenny paused to look at Tom with raised eyebrows.

“Don’t tell me, it involved two guys did it?”

“Yes. Unbeknownst to Julia, Brent brought a friend of his over on the Friday night. Julia was going to tell them both to piss off but decided not to. She’d always fantasised about having two guys at once and thought this was a way of ending the affair with a bang. Only, it didn’t turn out like she’d imagined it. She said it was wonderful to be spoiled by two guys to start with, but then it turned nasty. She was on top of one of the guys, when the other forcibly sodomised her. It was painful and she hated it but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do but accept her fate. When they finished, they just laughed at her and left.”

Jenny again paused. Tom examined the facts. So far two plus two was equalling ten.

“There’s more to the story though isn’t there, Jen? Something else happened.”

“Yes. Julia told me later that the night before, she and Brent slept through the alarm and rather than sneak out in darkness in the morning, Brent left after daylight. She didn’t realise at the time. A neighbour must have seen him and emailed Dave in Iraq. Sometime after Brent and his mate left on the Friday night, he rang her. She was so shattered by what had happened to her, that she didn’t even try to deny it. She confessed everything and threw herself on his mercy. They talked for hours and she kept asking him to forgive her. He never did.”

Many of the missing pieces of the puzzle, swirling around Tom’s head, flew over his shoulder and settled in their correct spaces. He could almost see what the jigsaw picture was now.

“You mean she…”

“Yes, it drove her mad. I keep her medicated, but every now and then I miss the dosage wearing off, or go away and she lives it all again. Finds some guy who she always calls Brent. Some of them can’t handle it and run away, but every now and then one puts up with it for the sake of some free pussy. In her mind, he IS Brent. Mid 20s tall and muscular. You saw them Tom, what did they look like?”

“Well, I don’t know which one was supposed to be Brent, but they were both shorter than Julia and older. If those were huge cocks, then call me John Holmes.”

“Yes, I thought so. Anyway, she replicates the situation with remarkable accuracy, up to the point where she gets an imaginary phone call from Dave. We go to church every Sunday and I don’t know what Julia prays for but I pray like fuck that during one of the phone calls, Dave forgives her and she can begin to heal.”

Tom contemplated this sad story in silence. There still seemed to be a piece or two missing, He just didn’t know where to look for them.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before? I could have helped. I certainly wouldn’t have gone away and left her alone.”

“Look at it from my point of view, Tom. You’ve known Julia for three months and obviously care for her, but I’ve been here before. You’re not the first boyfriend since this all went south. All the rest I’ve told too soon, and every one ran away. I was waiting till the time was right.

“Anyway, I thought I had it all under control. I had to go away but I made sure you knew how important her ‘vitamins’ were. She’s become very good at hiding her lovers over the years but I learned to keep an eye on the kid’s old rooms. When she starts tidying them up, I watch her like a hawk. It’s a kind of litmus paper for her moods.

Further discussion was interrupted by a shriek from the bedroom. Jenny glanced at the clock and sighed.

“Shit, I forgot this part. Stay here, Tom, please.”

She jumped up and grabbed another two tranquilisers and a glass of water, before heading to the bedrooms. Tom followed, but stayed out of sight outside the master bedroom. He tried to make sense of the shrieks.

“Jenny, I rang the after-hours number for the school, Beccy and Monty should have been home by now. They said there was no camp. When I called them liars, they told me there was no record of the children even being enrolled.”

“Calm down Julia. Here, swallow these.”

“Jenny, the school has kidnapped my children.”

At that point, the pain in the voice of the woman he loved caused Tom to retreat back to the kitchen and make lots of noise. After about fifteen minutes, Jenny reappeared looking ashen, sat down and gulped the coffee Tom had made.

“Okay, Jen, I accept why you didn’t tell me, but why can’t you get someone else to look after her while you go away?”

“That’s a little more complicated, Tom. If people found out how sick she really is, she would be committed. I can’t have that, although it would make my life a hell of a lot easier. I feel I owe it to her.”

Tom felt he had all the pieces in place now, except one. It was right in the middle of the face on the jigsaw. He could see it was a male face, in a uniform.

“So, where is Dave? Where are the kids? Did he come back and take off with them? I can guess he never forgave her.”

Jenny looked down at the table, as the tears fell in a steady stream down both cheeks. The silence was extremely uncomfortable.

“Dave died, Tom. A couple of days after that phone call, his company was ambushed. He pulled them back, but six of his guys were left behind, wounded. His second in command came and told us all about it when he got back a couple of weeks later. When he saw the enemy soldiers advancing on his wounded, Dave ignored his second in command’s advice to call in an artillery strike. Said they were too close to his guys. Before they could stop him, he ran out and put himself between them. By the time the rest of them could follow, Dave was dead. The guy knew Dave’s story and figured he wanted to die or didn’t have a good enough reason to live. I was here when he told us that. We thought we were alone but I found out later, Rebecca and Monty overheard us. They blamed Julia for their father’s death and never forgave her. They ran away to Dave’s parents and told them the story. They blamed her as well. That’s when Julia had her first breakdown and was in hospital for over a year. The courts granted the grandparents custody and they moved, to stop Julia stalking them. I guess when she has one of her episodes, it’s easier to believe they’re still away at camp than accept the truth.”

A fresh bout of sobbing stopped Jenny from continuing for many minutes. Tom gave her all the time she needed.

“They haven’t talked to their mother since then. Her mother is dead now, as is Dave’s father. Now his mother is very sick as well.”

Another silence. Tom examined his jigsaw. One piece was still missing.  

“After Julia got out of hospital, I went with her to Canberra. Dave got some sort of medal. They tacked us onto a bunch of other guys getting theirs.”

“What medal was it, Jen?”

“What?”

“What medal did they give Dave?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was holding Julia together and wasn’t listening that much. It can’t have been that good, though. All the rest were shiny with pretty blue, yellow and white ribbons. Dave’s was a dull looking thing with a boring red ribbon. They made a big thing of it being made of recycled bronze from some old cannon, brought back from somewhere in Russia. I dunno.”

With a piece of the puzzle still missing, Tom kept digging.

“Didn’t the Australian Army pull out of Iraq years ago, Jen?”

“Yes. This all happened in 2004, Tom, twelve years ago. Both Rebecca and Monty are married now and Rebecca has two kids of her own. I still see them occasionally but Julia never has. They still refuse to forgive her. I keep working on them, though. Hopefully, if they forgive her one day, Dave will as well, in one of his phone calls.”

Tom tried to imagine twelve years of Groundhog Days and suddenly realised that there were multiple victims here. Including Jenny herself. His mind shied away from thinking about the purgatory both women were suffering.

“Why do you stick with her, Jenny?”

“Because if I didn’t she would either be dead from suicide or in an institution within a month. That’s no kind of life for her. My conscience couldn’t handle that. Not when I caused it all in the first place.”

Tom couldn’t imagine having a friend who would go to such an extreme. Not even one driven by guilt. There had to be a factor missing. The fact that the distraught, fifty plus year old woman, sitting across from him still couldn’t meet his eyes, only confirmed that. With no more questions leaping to mind, he took a different tack.  

“Even with your involvement at the start, I still think it’s a wonderful thing you’re doing. I mean, you’ve practically put your life on hold for twelve years to look after her. Now that’s commitment.”

“Yes, well, just as Julia punishes herself for her affair by reliving it in every painful detail over and over again, I think my punishment is to watch her do it.”

Again, something struck Tom as odd. Most people, when paid a compliment, look at the one giving the compliment to see how genuine it is. Jenny not once lifted her gaze from the table. There had to be more.

“Still, Jenny, I greatly admire your commitment to your friend. Most people would have salvaged their own life and walked away. Let the mental health system pick up the pieces.”

Unbelievably, this extra compliment elicited not a smile of gratitude, but further tears. Tom waited. Eventually.

“I can’t, Tom. I owe it to her and Dave.”

At this point, Jenny’s voice dropped to a barely audible whisper.

“You see, Dave was my brother.”

That was the final piece. It flew over Tom’s shoulder and slammed into the table, stunning him on the way past. Tom now had the last horrifying detail, and horrifying it truly was. In a daze, he arose and stumbled towards the door. His original mission to retrieve his belongings, forgotten. Jenny jumped up and tried to get between him and the door.

“Please. Tom, won’t you stay? If not for Julia’s sake, then for mine.”

Now it was Tom who couldn’t meet the red eyes of the desperate woman.

“I don’t know, Jenny. I just don’t know. You’ve given me a hell of a lot to think about. I don’t know if I can ever forget what I saw last night. You didn’t see her eyes, Jenny. She didn’t know who I was.”

With that, Tom opened the door and walked away.

Behind the closed door, Jenny threw up her hands in frustration.

“Damn! That didn’t work either.”

The end.

All right. Hands up all those who thought the author had finally lost the plot. For those that spotted the inconsistencies, her lover being taller and younger than her, yet when they stood together, he only came up to her neck; he was a young man but got out of breath carrying her to the bedroom and said, “Guys my age need time to recover.” Not to mention that his name changed from Brent to Michael and that Julia received a phone call on a phone previously thrown against a wall. Well done. For those that actually wrote them down to comment to me how inconsistent the story was; you need treatment. For those that missed them; pay attention in class! Yes, they were all clues that she was severely delusional.

To pre-answer the critics who will say that no one could be that delusional, google Anorexia Nervosa. These people look in a mirror and see a fat person, an hour before they die of starvation. That reminds me, I’m about due for my annual Anorexia check. I may choose a different doctor this year, though. Last year when I told the doctor that I thought I was Anorexic because every time I look at myself in the mirror, I see a fat bastard, he couldn’t stop laughing.  

Sorry, no joke today. I’m too upset. I’ve just had a letter back from Screwfix.  They said they regretted to inform me that they’re not actually a dating agency. Back to the drawing board.