18 comments/ 128146 views/ 6 favorites Life Ain't Easy Ch. 01 By: The Wanderer I must thank those kind friends of mine who live over the other side of the pond for the help they gave me in writing this one. Especially the guys who came up with a method of getting hold of a gun over there. I have taken some artistic licence here with the date Literotica was set up and certain stories were posted on it. If you don't agree with such things, "hard cheese". I'd also like to admit that almost all of this story was put into my mind by other authors on Lit. I haven't ripped off their stories but elements of them are buried in here along with two titles. One you'll spot easily the other is in the text. There are no prizes for spotting them, but they are both good reads. I must thank Techsan and my LadyCibelle for their proof reading and editing skills. But I must add, as I can't leave a story alone, I could well have added some cock-ups after they have seen it and before it gets posted. That should keep the GPs happy at least. * Chapter 1: Crying Time 'Now look, this is easy! It's just a six-foot gap. You can jump it with no problems. You've done it before.' Well that's what my brain was telling me. But my eyes were looking at the two-storey deep hole into which I would drop if I missed. Two hotel floors, the ground floor must have at least twenty foot ceilings then the standard ten feet or so for the first floor, add a couple of feet for the services etc. Shit, if I fuck this jump up its going to hurt, bad. Still I had to do it. I needed to be on the next balcony. It was from there; I was going to end three peoples' lives. One last check to make sure the gun was safe in my pocket. Yeah and I had the spare ammunition in the other pocket. Great. One, two, three and I'm off. God it seemed a bloody long way but I made it. I climbed over the balustrade and dodged into the shadow by the wall. I'm safe, out of sight. Now I wonder if anyone saw me. I seemed to be out there for ages. But who would be looking up at the building on a dark night like this. For twenty minutes I stood in the shadows, my back against the wall. Any minute I was expecting to hear the police arrive, or at least the hotel security sniffing around. But I don't know why I worried; no one had ever spotted me in the past. I had been on this balcony so many times in the last few years and never been spotted before but tonight was different. Tonight I was expecting something to go wrong. After thirty minutes I began to relax a little. How relaxed can you get when you're about to kill two people? Not very! I checked the gun again. Safety off. Safety on. This was the third bloody gun I'd bought. The first one was a complete dud, worn out and jammed up solid. I suppose a gunsmith could have sorted it. But I don't think I would have got much further than the local nick had I taken it in for service. The second one I laid my hands on worked fine, but I'd only had a few rounds for it. I had to have some practice shots as I'd never fired a handgun in my life before. It was only after I had used all the bullets up that I discovered it was some weird size and the wanker who sold me the gun couldn't get any more. I got the feeling that's why he sold the bloody thing to me in the first place. I could have shot the bastard, but I didn't have any bullets. You know hand guns and ammunition aren't too easy to come by in England. Unless you are one of the criminal community that is and my dealings with them got me stitched up twice. This third one I had acquired in the States about a year ago. I was over there with my company's sales team doing a tour of some trade shows with a brand new prototype machine for a few weeks. On a day off I went to one of the local gun clubs. You know the sort of thing; they've got shooting ranges and all that stuff. Some guy there was very helpful, showed me how to shoot properly and how to strip down a gun and clean it. I kinda hinted that I would like to get a gun of my own but would probably have trouble buying one, as I wasn't a resident. He got the idea but never actually told me how to go about getting one. But In the next hour or so I gathered all the information I needed to get hold of one from conversations he had with other club members whilst I was within earshot. So the following weekend I made my way to a gun show. It struck me that it was more like a car boot sale but with a lot more paper work. As had been hinted to me, I hung around outside watching for guys going in carrying, what I hoped was, the odd gun. On my third try I struck lucky. The guy was intending to sell the same type of gun as I had used at the gun club. After a bit of haggling I came up with an offer he couldn't refuse and we made a deal. We made it all official as he took down the details of the California driver's licence I showed him. The fact the picture was of a coloured guy didn't appear to worry him or the fact that I had an obvious English accent. He was just looking at all those lovely green backs. There was no ammunition for it but I was able to pick some of that up at the gun club. I had noticed whilst I was there that although you had to sign for how many rounds you bought, no one checked that you actually used the damn things. Well, with people coming in and out with their own guns I don't suppose it mattered. Getting the gun back to England was the least of my worries as I had that planned for some time. We had a whole container full of machinery going back. Being as I was in charge of maintenance and it being a prototype machine with many supposedly secret parts inside, I was there when they sealed the container. Well, I had to have a quick check inside to make sure that everything was safe and secure, didn't I? No one apparently noticed that I went in with one briefcase and brought a different one out. It was the same thing when the container arrived at Harwich. Customs broke the seal and the dog went in looking for drugs. I was lucky for me they use different dogs for drugs and weapons. Then I had to go in and have another quick look around. I even got a nice helpful customs man to carry the briefcase out, whilst I carried out a wooden rocking chair that I had brought for my loving wife. We had a good joke about whether there should be some duty to pay on it. All this didn't happen overnight. I'd been planning this evening for nearly five years now. Ever since I discovered my loving wife was a cheating slut. When I found out she was cheating, I was angry and mad at her, so mad that I almost divorced her straight away. But as it became clear what she had been doing and whom she had been making hay with, I got really mad. The more I found out about them the angrier I got. Until in the end I decided that I was going to kill them both. And then as my life was as good as over anyway and I didn't quite like the idea of spending the rest of my life in Parkhurst or one of Her Majesty's other secure holiday camps. I planned to shoot myself! None of this can really be making much sense to you, so let me go back to the beginning. I met my wife Maggie about six months after I returned to England from New Zealand. My whole family had emigrated out there when I was eighteen. But I never did settle down. The whole New Zealand experience hadn't been a good one for me. Well, the whole family in the beginning really, but the others seemed to settle down eventually. Shortly after we arrived in Auckland, we nearly all went down with some stupid childhood illness. The local health officials threw the proverbial fit and slapped us all into isolation for a while until they found out what it was. Some little brat on that damn 707 must have been contagious. But it was pretty uncomfortable for a time, I can tell you! No wonder they push that bloody MMR inoculation so much nowadays. Well, the first few weeks out there were spent getting over that. We settled into a nice house and I went to college where I completed my studies in engineering. I made a few good friends and I suppose for a while I must have enjoyed myself. But when I was twenty-six and after a disastrous failed relationship the end of which upset me very greatly, I upped sticks and, leaving my bad memories behind, returned to England. I met Margaret when she was employed in the sales office at Punchall where I got a job on the service crew. I was out on the road working with the service and maintenance team. We worked closely with the sales guys installing the computer controlled sheet metal punching machines they sold and keeping them in top-notch order. It wasn't long before Margaret and I were the talk of the company. All the sales guys had been after her for years and had gotten nowhere. I turn up and after a couple of weeks Maggie and I were an item. Now I'm not too bad looking, but I'm no bloody oil painting either. But Margaret was something else completely, altogether out of this world. Why the hell she ever teamed up with me I never could understand. We went steady for about eight months and then got hitched. My mother, father, Brother Bob and his wife Jane came over for the wedding. But both my sisters were tied up with their children. Well, that's what they said, but really I think it was the cost of flying over. Neither of their husbands was earning that well. It didn't really matter as the following spring Maggie and I went out to Auckland for four weeks so she got to know them all. Things went well for Maggie and me. We had bought a house in the suburbs of London. A four bedroom semi-detached, well three bedrooms and a large cupboard really. I never have been able to figure out how they can call those tiny rooms a bedroom. But it has made a nice little study for me over the years. Maggie and I had been married about two years or so when my brother broke up with Jane and also returned to England. Robert is a year older than me, but quite honestly we looked like twins. When the family emigrated, Jane, his then fiancée had gone out with us and they got married in Auckland shortly after we arrived. But I had heard rumours from the rest of the family that all in the garden wasn't roses. For a few weeks he stayed with us; then got himself a flat in town. Maggie and I both wanted children but it did take an inordinately long time before Maggie fell pregnant with our first daughter, almost four years. Then we had another three all about a year apart after the first one. Four girls! It looked like I was in for a worrying time when they were teenagers. But actually things have gone very smoothly as far as my daughters were concerned. As the years flew by, I worked my way up in my job until I was promoted to the head of the service department. Nowadays I wear a suit and tell everyone else what to do. I spend most of my time negotiating service contracts. And of course I fly off all over the world making sure our franchisees keep their service departments up to scratch. Bob was always around to help Maggie and the girls when I'm away. It was strange when we were kids, Bob and I never did get on that well. But after he came back form New Zealand we appeared to get on like a house on fire. I had always thought that when we were younger he was jealous of me. Being the youngest, mum and dad always had tended to favour me. Bob married another London girl, Shirley, who I had actually gone to school with but unfortunately that marriage didn't last two years. Luckily there were no children so he didn't have the problems I had when I left Auckland. He shacked up with another girl for a while but that didn't last long either. I couldn't figure it out; there must be something about Bob that women soon get fed up with. My youngest girl was fourteen when my world began to fall apart, and that happened in the strangest way. I was doing the daily chore of going through my e-mails when this strange one came up with nothing but a link on it. I'm not stupid. I didn't recognise the address it came from and I don't get caught that easily. I trashed it and forgot about it. The next day it was there again. After three days I got fed up and blocked it. But the following day it came again but from a different address, and this time it said 'If you've got any sense you will read this story.' Well whoever it was had caught my interest. I studied the link address 'Literotica.com'. Who the hell were they? Instead of clicking the link I Googled them and discovered it was an erotic story site. After looking around a bit I decided it was probably safe to try the link. And so with just a little trepidation, I did. It was some stupid story called "Eight year break" I read the story; it was about some guy finding out his wife had been cheating on him and that one of his three children wasn't his, but had been fathered by some other guy. Well, I'm not into all this sort of stuff so I shut the site down and forgot about it. The following Monday morning the bloody e-mail was back. But this time with a link to a different story. Now I began to figure that whoever was sending me this rubbish was inside our system. Somehow they knew that I ditched the first few e-mails and had gone to the site on Friday. I figured whoever it was, was playing silly buggers. So I thought the easiest thing was to open the story then forget it. Whoever was messing around would soon get bored. Once again the story was about a wife getting pregnant by some other man. I quickly scanned through it, but as I said it didn't do anything for me. Tuesday there was a third. Same thing: wife getting pregnant outside the marriage and the husband bringing up someone else's kids thinking they were his own. That night as we all sat around the dining table at home I looked at my children. 'God, what must it feel like to find out the children you love are not really yours?' I thought. But that couldn't happen to me. I had a loving wife and all my children had distinctive features. My turned up nose and blond hair. Luckily (or should I say worryingly as the guys were already hanging around the older ones) they were all developing Margaret's lovely figure. But those noses were definitely mine. Over the next week or so the e-mails with the links kept on coming. The stories were all on the same theme. In the end I would just open them and forget them. One morning an e-mail had some text on it. 'For god's sake, man, open your eyes! Your children are not yours. Their father was bragging that you are a fool and will never work it out. He thinks it's a big joke that you are bringing up his children.' Now this wasn't funny anymore. Whoever sent these stupid stories was getting right up my nose now. So I sent a reply telling them that I didn't appreciate the joke. But I used more colourful language. Half an hour later another e-mail arrived. 'Where is your wife on the third Wednesday of every month?' This was bloody nonsense; every Wednesday Maggie plays bridge with her girlfriends and has done so for as long as I can remember. So I wrote back, "Playing Bridge as she does every Wednesday." 'Not on the third Wednesday of the month she doesn't. She plays something else in room 204 at the Royal Hotel. They've had a regular booking for years now.' By now I was seriously upset. So I wrote back demanding to know whom it was that I was corresponding with. The answer came back, "If I told you, you would never believe me and probably never talk to me again. But you have got to do something about your wife. I have told you now so you will never hear from me in this manner again. But please don't let them make a fool of you any longer. We will be here when you need us. Trust me." I wrote back but my e-mail was returned 'address not found'. I tried the other address and the same thing happened. At dinner that night I once again looked around my daughters' faces. Abigail the oldest at twenty, who had recently set up house with her boyfriend Mike, had come home for a couple of days as Mike was going away on a training course. Whoever the writer of those e-mails was, they had to be wrong. These four girls all had my nose and hair. The Wednesday of that week was the third Wednesday of the month. As we finished dinner Maggie got ready to go to her bridge night. I was still undecided about what I was going to do when Abigail suddenly asked me if I was going out. "Well I normally stay in, when your mother goes to bridge, to look after Hannah. (My youngest Hannah was still a few months short of her fourteenth birthday.) I know she wouldn't do anything silly but the law says she's too young to be left alone." "I'll stay with Hannah if you like. You go and have a game of darts or something." God, this was strange. I can remember all the arguments when Maggie and I had asked Abigail to look after her younger siblings in the past. Then I realised, Abigail is no fool. In a couple of year's time she is going to be looking for a baby-sitter herself. And who are the cheapest babysitters around? Mum and Dad of course. "Why, thanks, Abby, I'll take you up on that. And by the way I hope you and Mike are planning on tying the knot before you need me to reciprocate." "Next spring if all goes well dad. I'm having trouble persuading Mike to wait that long. He can't wait to make it official. He thinks I'm going to run out on him or something. But I think you must be sure you can trust the person you marry, mustn't you." A poignant remark but a strange one for my daughter to make. I told her she was being sensible, then went up to get changed. Of course I wasn't going to the pub; I was going to check where Maggie was going. I can tell you that wasn't easy for me to do. We'd been married twenty-two years and beside those e-mails I had never had any cause to distrust her. I drove around to the friend's house where Maggie was playing bridge. And guess what? Her car was parked just up the road. So the e-mails had been a cruel hoax. Feeling just a little relieved I decided that that pint was a good idea. I was turning the corner at the end of the road when something caught my eye. In the distance I just noticed a woman walking. When you've been married for twenty-two years you can recognise your wife a bloody mile away and that woman was Maggie. Another hundred yards and she would be at the Royal. The pain in my chest was crushing. I actually thought I was having a heart attack. I watched Maggie walk up the road staying in the shadows. When she got opposite the Royal she stopped and looked around. I was surprised she didn't recognise my car, but I got the chance to make sure it really was her. But why didn't she see me? Was it over-confidence? Had she done this so many times in the past that her checking around was just a formality? There had never been anyone to see her in the past, why should there be someone tonight? Then she quickly crossed the road and went into the Royal. The Royal is a large hotel about a mile or so from my home. It had at one time been a very flashy place but was nowadays living on its reputation. I had heard it had turned into a bit of a knocking shop on the quiet What the hell was I going to do now? Who the hell was she meeting in there? I knew one thing; it looked like Maggie and I were heading for the divorce court pretty rapidly. My informant appeared to have been correct and Maggie has been playing around even if he had got the children part wrong. End of part one * Note. "Knocking Shop" can be a brothel. Although in this case it's used in its more common colloquial meaning to refer to a Hotel or other such establishment, that has got a reputation as a place where illicit liaisons are known to take place. Message to PAPATOAD. Sorry mate couldn't get in touch with you to ask whether you objected to my referring to your story here. If you object, I apologise. Life Ain't Easy Ch. 02 I must thank Techsan and my LadyCibelle for their proof reading and editing skills. But I must also add, as I can't leave a story alone, I could well added some cock-ups after they have seen it and before it gets posted. That should keep the GPs happy at least. * I don't know how long I sat there staring at that hotel. My mind was in a kind of daze. I had just followed my loving wife to a hotel where I had been informed she was going to meet her lover; the guy who apparently claimed to be the father of my children. Then I saw the light come on in one of the rooms on the first floor. Now I had on occasions been into the Royal in the past. Sometimes we have used it for seminars and things at work. The rooms on the first floor are numbered in the 200's so I assumed that was room 204, the one my informant had said they usually used. Unfortunately there was a balcony on all the rooms on this side of the hotel that obscured my view. I moved the car up and down the road but I couldn't see anything inside the room even though the curtains were not drawn. For the next hour or so my mind was in turmoil. Should I go dashing in there like an avenging tiger? It sounds like the obvious thing to do. But on reflection I thought, I was only going on what someone else had told me. I had no proof that Maggie was in that room and if she was I had no idea who she was with or what she was doing. Supposing she was on some innocent errand, which seemed unlikely to me but it was a possibility. Supposing she was meeting some lover, but in a different room. I'd look a complete idiot, prove nothing and more likely tip Maggie and her so called lover off that I was suspicious. Let's face it: whilst I'd been sitting there a dozen couples had gone in and out. If I went to the wrong room I'd most likely get my teeth kicked in for my trouble. No, it was better if I waited to see with whom Maggie comes out. I was sure I would be able to get all the evidence I needed at their next rendezvous. In the end I settled on parking in the hotel car park to wait and see what happened. Look, what was the point in rushing things, if this has been going on long enough for this creep to be telling people that my kids are his, what difference is a bloody month going to make now? It would also give me time to move some finances around as well. These divorces can be very expensive. I'd be far better off if I quietly moved some of my money to where the lawyers can't find it and that was going to take some time. You'd honestly be surprised at what goes through your mind when you are sitting waiting for your so-called loving wife to finish her little tryst. About ten thirty the light went out in the room and a few minutes later Maggie came out the front door alone. She turned right into the car park and actually walked right past my car. But she was looking up and down the road and not at the parked cars. When there was no traffic about, she all but ran over the road into the shadows by the houses on the other side and then quickly made off down the side turning towards where her own car was parked. I sat around watching the door of the hotel but only groups and couples came out. I was expecting a single man to appear. But I was out of luck. At midnight I made my way home. I really didn't know how I was going to handle things at home. Whilst I had been sitting outside the hotel that was the one thing I hadn't thought about. I must have sat in the drive for a long time before I got up the nerve to go inside. When I got in I was met by Abigail and Ashley (my second eldest). They told me their mother had gone to bed and they were wondering where I had been as I was so late getting home. I told them I had been at the sports club where I had been playing snooker. I went up to bed and as I got in Maggie cuddled up to me. Now this was my big test, I didn't want her to know I was suspicious of her so I had to play the loving husband. Well, I was the loving husband; it was Maggie who was doing the betraying. Maggie's hands started roaming. I knew that she was intending that we have a session, but she was unlucky. For some reason my pecker decided that it wasn't going to play ball. Well, I think I knew the reason but Maggie was surprised. In all the years we had been together it was the first time she hadn't been able to turn me on. I acted just as surprised as she was and told her I was going to have to see the doctor about it as I was much too young to have the equipment failing. We fell asleep in each other's arms. Well, that's a bloody lie; Maggie fell asleep and I lay there wondering what had gone wrong between us and when. The following day and the days that followed nothing appeared to have changed. Maggie acted as she always had and I had to act my socks off pretending that nothing was wrong. The only thing I can remember that was any different about that time was Abigail and Ashley. They both seemed to have suddenly grown up; Ashley announced that she was moving in with Abigail and Mike. Basically they said it was to help with the rent. But I had my suspicions that she figured she would have more freedom with her fiancé Roger. If you know what I mean? Hey, I was a teenager in the sixties. Besides advising them to use extreme caution, my girls were free to make their own choices. As a matter of fact I suddenly realised how much all my girls had grown up. I may have been mistaken but over the few months before I found out about Maggie, all my daughters had grown much closer to me. I found I didn't have to lay down the law as much and the younger two would never be late home anymore. I gave the Royal a good check out. Being the director in charge of servicing and maintenance at Punchall I visited the Royal on the pretence that I was going to hold another seminar. They were too happy to help and laid out the red carpet. Whilst I was there, I gave room 204 the once over. It was the bridal suite, very nicely done if you ask me. I'd done my homework and asked if it was available for the third Wednesday of the next month. Guess what? It was booked for the third Wednesday of every month. I stood behind the guy as he typed the date into the computer; I nearly had another heart attack when I saw it was booked in Maggie's maiden name. I booked the room next door under my secretary Steff's name. I'd had to bounce all this off someone and besides my brother there was no one else I could trust. When I got back to the office I quickly told my secretary what I had done and that night I went round to her house and told her husband about my problems. I didn't want him getting any wrong ideas. He was very sympathetic and offered to come with me on the night. Apparently he had caught his first wife on the lam. Gary and Stephanie turned into good friends who I have relied on a lot over the last few years. Maggie and my sex life almost died out completely although it did recover a little as the years went on. Once I knew whom she was going with, I got my act together. I will admit I was using her for sex and sex alone. But I was acting the part of the loving husband. I was so hurt by her actions that when the time came to end it I wanted it to take her completely by surprise. All too soon it was the third Wednesday of the month again. I came home from work to find that we had visitors for dinner: Ashley, Abigail and Mike joined us. No sooner had Maggie gone up to change for her bridge night than Abbie asked me if I wanted to go and play snooker again. This turned out to be very useful since I had intended going out even if it did mean I left Hannah alone. But having her two older sisters there saved me having to worry. Bridget, the second youngest, was staying with a friend from college. Gary met me at the sports club and we used his car to drive to the Royal. He signed us in and we went up to the room. A quick look at the balconies assured us that I could get over to 204's balcony. From there I could film what was going on in the room. Assuming they never closed the curtain that is. They hadn't closed them last month so I was hoping that was their habit. I climbed over the balustrade and jumped the gap, with Gary holding onto a safety line. I had no intention of killing myself. Well, not at that time. I hid by the wall alongside the window and watched Maggie come up the road and enter the hotel. It was less than ten minutes before the light came on. I tentatively looked around the window frame and almost immediately threw up. Within seconds of entering the room Maggie was on her knees sucking my brother Robert's cock. Gary was at my side within seconds. He didn't know Bob from Adam and just grabbed the camera and started filming. I didn't look again and left Gary to do the filming. He stood there leaning back against the balustrade and filmed it all. How the devil neither Bob or Maggie saw him I'll never know? Gary was still filming and on his third or fourth tape when they turned the lights out and left the room. To say I was totally pissed off came nowhere near how I felt. To be betrayed by your wife is one thing but to be betrayed by your own flesh and blood was unbelievable. Yes, when we were younger Bob and I were always at each other's throats but I thought we had grown out of it. It appears Bob had found a way to really screw me (pun intended). Gary went down to the bar and brought me back a stiff drink. He got himself a scotch as well but I'm afraid I drank both of them. He told me that he had seen Bob leave by the back door. That explained why I hadn't spotted him last month; there was a completely different car park out the back, approached from another road. Gary went back down to the bar and this time returned with the bottle. I made a hell of a hole in it, I'll tell you. "Well, I must admit I've seen some porno films in my time," Gary said, "but I've never seen anything quite like that." "What do you mean?" I asked. "It was like sex by numbers. You wait until you see the film. No kissing or cuddling just sex." I must have had a confused look on my face because Gary went on. "Look, they came in, she gave him a blow job but didn't finish him off then they both stripped and he did her missionary fashion. I think he came but I'm not too sure she did. My first wife used to fake it all the time and I got the feeling. Anyway they had a drink then she blew him again until he was ready, then he took her doggy style. There was no way he rang her bells that time. Once he got himself off, she went into the shower. He got dressed, she came out of the shower already dressed and they both left. I tell you that is the most boring porno film ever." Over the next few days I did manage to watch the video and Gary was right. It was the most un-erotic sex I have ever seen. Come on, I told you I've been all over the world and watched some live sex shows in my time. That bit of film was just very dull sex. Now finding out that my brother was my wife's lover put a completely different aspect on things. My heart turned very cold. Divorcing Maggie was not enough for me and within days I had decided I was going to kill both of them. But this left me with a quandary. What was I going to do about my girls? But then I thought just hold on a minute, they might not be my girls. Bob had the same nose as me, and the same hair. I loved those four girls and I still had two of them living at home. It was with a very cold heart that I decided to wait until they were all settled and if possible married before I took any drastic action. Besides revenge is best served cold. Within days my e-mail friend reappeared, it was obvious they were aware that I knew that what they had told me about Maggie cheating on me was correct. They were asking me what action I was going to take. For weeks I ignored him or her. I knew nothing about them. But in the end I told them I would take action at what I considered the appropriate time. The last e-mail I got from them just said 'Good luck'. Then I never heard anymore. ----------------------------- Well, here I am on this bloody balcony and Hannah my youngest was married last weekend. None of the girls will have any money worries for a while as all my savings are to go to them. I have just to take three paces then fire though the French doors and kill the pair of them. Taking a deep breath I walked out to the middle of the balcony, turned and taking up the stance, legs apart two hands on the gun ready to let loose. I have nine shots three each for them and plenty left over for myself if I fucked-up the first shot. Bollocks I've miss-timed it and waited to long. Bob is fucking her missionary fashion. I needed to get clear shots at both of them. Now I'll have to wait until he's finished. I dive back into the shadows and flick the safety back on. Christ, I'm panting. What the fuck? Something is vibrating against my leg. Shit, it's my fucking cell phone. Lucky the bloody ringer is turned off but they probably wouldn't have heard it anyway. All the times I've been out here filming them over the years and they had never been aware of me yet. I don't know why but I pulled the phone out of my pocket. 'New message' it proclaims. There are times in your life when you don't think about what you are doing and this proved to be one of them for me. Come on; I was just about to murder two people and what the hell was I doing pushing the bloody 'read now' button on a mobile phone. "Dad, please come home. I know you have the gun. Please! We love you and need you. Don't do anything silly. Please come home now. Abbie" How the hell does Abbie know I've got a gun? I stuffed the phone back into my pocket ignoring the message and stepped back out onto the balcony; the two of them are sitting on the bed drinking wine. Carefully I took aim. But which one was I going to shoot first. Him or her? I decided she would watch her stud die before her eyes. End of part two. Life Ain't Easy Ch. 03 I must thank Techsan and my LadyCibelle for their patience, proof reading and editing skills. But I must also add, as I can't leave a story alone, I could well have added some cock-ups after they have seen it and before it gets posted. That should keep the GPs happy at least. * Carefully I took aim. But which one was I going to shoot first. Him or her? I decided Margaret would watch her stud die before her eyes. How long did I stand there ready to fire? I don't really know, but just as my finger went back to the safety catch again, I was suddenly aware of movement off to my right. "For Christ sake, Dave, please don't do this!" a hushed voice whispered, "The girls need you!" I turned and saw Abigail's Mike standing on the balcony to my room. "Please put that gun down. The girls want their father and our children are going to need a grandfather." It may sound silly to say but he was wasting his breath. I had already discovered that for all my planning I had forgotten one thing. I wasn't a killer! Angry as I had been, I couldn't stand there and shoot two people in cold blood. Even if I did despise them. I lowered the gun flicking the safety back on as I did so then climbed back over the balustrade and jumped the gap back to the balcony on which Mike was standing. I didn't worry about the drop this time; if I fell I hoped I would kill myself. Mike took my arm and led me back into room 203. "Thank god, Dave, we only realised what you were planning to do this evening. We were just expecting you were going to file for a divorce or something. But when Abbie found the gun was missing, Christ, you gave us a shock." "How the hell did Abbie know I had a gun?" "She's been watching you closely since you found out about this." I looked at Mike. "You! Those e-mails?" "Not me, Dave. Abbie and Ashley, I just arranged the computer access for them. You know my cousin works in your firm. The girls told us what to say. They've known about it for years; but how could they tell you? They loved you too much. They didn't want him as their father. It was only when your brother started shooting his mouth off and I overheard him in a pub, they decided it was time for you to know." "It was hard for them, you know, they love both of you and when they were young they didn't know what to do. As they got older they thought you would blame them for not telling you sooner. That left them in a quandary. How would you react towards them when you found out they had always known." I was in a daze as he led me out of the room and down to my car. Then he called Abbie and told her we would be at the house soon. Abbie and Ashley were in crying mode when we got there. They told me they had known something had been going on since they were children. They said that as they got older Bob would not visit the house so much when I wasn't around. But they had overheard strange arguments between their mother and Uncle Bob when they were small. When I wasn't around Uncle Bob would talk to their mother as if she was a scivvy and order her around. Abbie had overheard a big argument they had, in which uncle Bob had told their mother she was going to meet him on the third Wednesday of every month or else; as it was the anniversary or something. As they got older they realised that the or else meant I would find out about the meetings at the hotel. I couldn't make it out. From what they were saying it appeared Maggie had been going to the hotel under duress. But what could Bob be holding over her. What did he have on her that would put the kind of fear in her that would make her have sex with him every month? Could Maggie believe that the girls or at least one of them weren't mine? If she did, that could only mean one thing. She and Bob had had an affair that started all this off. I only wished that I had been able to hear what they said to each other in that Hotel room. But it didn't matter; Maggie had to have done something bad to start the ball rolling. Forgiveness was not in the cards here. I looked at my watch. I had an hour or so before Maggie would get home. Telling the girls I was going to try and get out of the house before their mother returned I began to pack my stuff. Ashley, Mike and Abigail helped me pack and asked me whether I was going to stay with them. I told them I was going away somewhere to reflect on what my next move was going to be. I knew of a religious retreat down near Newton Abbott in Devon. A friend of mine had been there a few times to get his head together after his wife passed away unexpectedly. It's a weird place completely cut off from the outside world, no phones or post. When you wish to go there you have to go and knock on the door. Mike insisted that I leave the gun safely locked away in my safe where I always stored it. It would be safe in there, as I was the only one who had the combination. My car loaded, I drove away, the girls and Mike remained to inform Maggie that it was over. I would really have liked to be a fly on the wall when Maggie got home that night. I think I drove a little on the fast side. For simplicity I went down the M4 and M5 arriving at the retreat at two in the morning. The place was in darkness so I reclined my seat and got my head down in the car. I fell asleep much quicker than I thought I would. Maybe it was the relief that I was over the strain of play-acting the loving husband for the last few years. --------------------------- A taping on the car window awakened me. I opened my eyes to see someone standing by the car completely covered by a monk's habit, only, unusually for England, the habit was White. The hood came down so far that I couldn't see the person's face. Coming to my senses, I wound down the window and took the cup that was being held out for me. As I took it I noticed it was a woman's hand holding it. "Good morning, Brother. Are you in need or are you here to visit someone?" "Well, I need somewhere to sort myself out. My life is a disaster at the moment." "Brother John will see you very shortly then. Please drink your coffee; it will help you wake up. Once you are settled you can rest all you wish." My friend had told me about this Brother John character. He ran this whole place. He wasn't apparently connected to any religious order. And when I was first told about it, I had assumed it was a bit of a rip-off place. But they had been a great help to my friend; even if it was a little on the expensive side. Another couple of habits opened the great doors. That's all you could call them, as you could not tell if they were male or female. I drove inside and the sister who had welcomed me told me to park my car over by some others. She told me to empty my pockets onto the driver's seat and leave the keys in the ignition. I would need nothing from the outside world while I was here. She was right. After I was shown to a room, I was issued a habit, some white underwear and a pair of sandals. Having changed I was taken down to a refectory and served breakfast. It was apparent that everyone else had already eaten. After breakfast I was taken to meet Brother John. He was a very unimpressive man, dressed in the same white habit that everyone seemed to wear there. But he had a mind like no one I had ever met before. We sat and talked for hours and during that time he somehow managed to get my whole life story out of me. . It amazed me he made no notes and the bare room had no recording equipment in it but he appeared to remember everything I ever said to him. All my families' names and all the relevant dates. On my third or maybe it was the fourth day there, (it's one of those places where time is unimportant) a sister came to tell me I had a visitor. With some trepidation I went down to the visitor's room to find Mike waiting for me. He told me that Maggie had collapsed when they had told her I knew everything. She told them that Robert had been blackmailing her but she had steadfastly refused to tell them anything further. They were speculating the same as I was that Margaret had had an affair with Robert and they thought that it was possible that one of the siblings was his. I remained silent on this; the time would come for me to speak on that one. There was no sense in rocking the boat any further. Apparently Maggie had been trying to find me. She was shocked when she called my employers to find I had resigned a couple of weeks earlier. She'd also been taken by surprise to find that all my savings had been transferred into a holding account. I had left £10,000 in our account. I had planned that would be used for our funerals. . My will gave my solicitor instructions as to what was to happen to the rest of our money. But for the meantime it was out of Maggie's reach. I had also set the wheels in motion to reclaim a loan from my brother's estate. I had lent him money to buy his flat; His divorce had virtually bankrupted him. I used Mike's cell phone (much against the rules at the retreat) to ask my solicitors to look into a legal way of keeping Bob out of my house. It was mine and in my name; I told them that if Maggie wished to remain living there it was to be without him. Mike told me that as far as they could work out Bob hadn't been near the place or Maggie. One of the girls had been with their mother all the time since I left. I was at the retreat for three weeks, having private consultations with Brother John almost every day. That's all you could call them; I have never visited a psychiatrist but I got the feeling that's what he had originally been. At my last meeting with him I found I had made the decision to go back to New Zealand and visit my family over there. I don't remember Brother John suggesting it; he didn't ever appear to suggest anything. But I'm sure he made me believe that I had to got back there and close that chapter in my life. ---------------------- The following weekend I flew out to New Zealand. My parents were shocked when I walked through the door. It appeared that no one had informed them of what had happened. Yet I knew my brother spoke to them on the phone every week. When I revealed what had been going on, my father nearly had a coronary. Mother went very quiet; I don't think she believed my brother could be that wicked. The younger of my sisters Yvonne, did not seem surprised in the slightest when she heard about it. Both my sisters had come rushing over the moment they heard I was in town. It was not the enjoyable afternoon that it should have been. Quite late in the day Yvonne took my arm and steered me out into the garden. "There's lots you need to know about." She told me, "You must come and see me in the morning. Come over to my house about nine when everyone's gone to work and don't tell mum and dad where you're going. If the old man hears about what I've got to tell you, it will certainly kill him." The following morning I was suffering from a bad case of jet lag as I somewhat groggily drove over to Yvonne's place in my hired car. Yvonne met me at the door and gave me the obligatory tour of the house, as I hadn't seen it for over twenty years. It struck me she was no longer in the hurry she had been to impart this important secret. When I asked her, she just told me to be patient. Around ten we were sitting in her back garden when I heard a car pull up out front. Yvonne made no move to see who it was so I gathered whoever it was Yvonne was expecting them. Then Alice Carter, a girl I had known and dated for awhile at college, came walking around the side of the house. "Hi, Dave, how have you been keeping?" she asked. Before I could answer her Yvonne stood up and said, "I'll leave you to tell him. If you need an umpire just call." Alice came over and sat beside me. "I don't know were to begin. I really should have told you this years ago. But I know why Erica walked out on you. She was devastated when she found out how they had tricked her. She went to England to find you but by that time you had married Margaret so she never did see you to explain. She's living in England now, on the coast in Dorset." ------------------------- Erica, the first love of my life, was the reason I had originally gone back to England. I had met Erica in college and we had hit it off straight away. Her people were quite well-to-do and hadn't thought too highly of me. Well, to be honest they hated me; I was one of the rougher kids and to their mind came from the wrong side of town. Against their wishes Erica and I had set up home together. We didn't get married as her parents were dead against it. We figured they'd get used to the idea in a couple of years and we would get hitched then. We had two children the first a boy (David Jr.) was never too well and died at three months. The second, a girl Otterley, was a dream; she was one of those perfect babies. Feeds and nappy changes all went like clockwork and she rarely woke us up at night. But Erica's family were dead set against me and were forever trying to drive a wedge between us. One day I came home from work and Erica and Otterley were gone. I had only just discovered they were missing when the doorbell rang. Two legal wallies stood at the door. They slapped a court order in my hand saying I wasn't to approach or harass Erica and I was also not allowed to go within a mile of her parent's house. As I said Erica's parents were well off. The more I tried to get in contact with her the more they used their influence to make things difficult for my whole family. I soon found myself out of a job. My boss told me that he had been informed he was going to lose a lot of business if he kept me on. My sisters' husbands were getting the same treatment and in the end I had given up the fight and returned to England. --------------------- Alice opened her handbag and took out and envelope. "This is why Erica left you." I opened the envelope and six or seven photographs fell out. They were of a much younger and very naked Alice having sex with a young man. But not any young man she was having sex with me! Now Alice and I had been good friends and we had been very close at times, but I had never had any sexual relations with her. "No, it's not you it's Robert. I think he had his haircut especially to look like yours and they were originally taken on a Polaroid camera. Someone copied them and doctored them. You will notice your birthmark has been added and the scar over Bob's right eye taken out. Erica and I took them into town and the guy at the photo lab blew them up really big and you could see the brush marks where the alterations were made." "Erica was tricked and you know by whom. I honestly didn't know what he was doing. I thought we were just having a little fun. He took the photos and I thought he had destroyed them. I didn't know what he was planning. We think he picked me because he and Erica knew I was sweet on you when we were in college. She was ever so angry with me and challenged me in the street one day. We had been friends in college and that hurt her almost as much as the idea of you cheating on her." "She called me all the names you could think of for having a fling with you; but I called her liar, said we had never been together and told her to prove that we had. Well she did! She came round to my house the following day and waved these under my nose. Well, it didn't make any sense so after we had both calmed down, we worked out what had gone on." "It was Erica's parents and your brother. They split you two up. But by then it was too late for Erica; you had married someone else." "Who else knows about this?" "Yvonne, Jane and me, oh and my husband. What was the point of upsetting everyone? What was done was done." "How did Jane come to know?" "That was my husband, Tye. Do you remember him from college? Apparently you helped him out in a fight one night." I remembered the guy, Tye Harding. His name wasn't Tye of course, but there was some actor with that name, so Tye had used it as his nickname and it stuck. I couldn't remember the fight but then I was in a lot of fights back then. "Tye was clearing out a drawer at home and found these; he wasn't too happy, I can tell you. I had to explain what it was all about. Well, he blew his top. You know he considered you as a friend so in a fit of temper he took the pictures around to Jane. She went completely bonkers, threw Bob out and divorced him. They had been married when those pictures were taken. Oh, Jane's remarried to Tye's older brother and they've had three children. Oh and she would like to see you, if you don't mind?" "What the hell does she want to see me about?" "She wouldn't say but the story of your recent problems has got around on the grapevine pretty quick. I think you should know there have been lots of rumours about what Bob was up to over there." "You mean everyone knows Bob been knocking off my wife." Well, not exactly. But Bob's friends have been saying that he has three or four children; Jane always says that's got to be bullshit. Although she never will say why she thinks that it is." I thanked Alice for the information and asked her if she knew any more about Erica and Otterley. But unfortunately Alice had lost track of them shortly after they had gone to England. Apparently Erica had disowned her family and not returned to New Zealand. Alice had received a couple of letters from her years ago but the only addresses she had were hotels and it appeared Erica had been moving about a lot. In the years since, Erica had sent Alice a couple of Christmas cards and the like but had never put a return address on them. Alice had deduced that Erica didn't want her parents to find out her whereabouts; Alice thought Erica was punishing them by staying hidden. It was a well-known fact that they were looking for her. Erica's father had apparently spent a fortune on the search for her. The only thing Alice was sure of was that all the post she had received from Erica had come from the Dorset area. Sometimes they were postmarked Weymouth and other times Dorchester. Well, it was somewhere I could start looking. For the next week or so I went into a round of meeting up with old friends and getting to know my nephews and nieces. I became acutely aware of some of Bob's old friends snickering when they saw me. And something else I found interesting; people that I hardly knew would come up and feign friendship. It wouldn't take long for these somewhat strained conversations to work their way around to Erica. I soon learned that Erica's father had a sizeable reward on offer for information about where she was. Almost as soon as I had set it up, e-mails started coming through from my daughters asking me to return to England. They all assured me that they loved me. But they also said that Robert had been in touch with all of them claiming to be their real father. It struck me that there was going to have to be a real showdown. Maybe I should have had it before I went to New Zealand but I was much calmer now and I hoped I knew where my life was going. Shortly after I began to make my plans to return to England I received a call from Alice telling me that Jane wanted to see me. We made arrangements for me to meet her at Alice's house. The meeting was short and sweet. Jane threw her arms around me and told me how sorry she was about what Robert had done. Then she told me what I had expected her to tell me and we parted promising to stay in contact. One of her daughters was planning to come to England for a while and I said I would look out for her whilst she was there. After Jane left, Alice told me she was working hard to track Erica down. It appeared that their old school friends had scattered to the four corners of the globe and Alice was slowly tracking them all down. It was apparent that Erica's father had been along the same route as some of them were being very coy. But Alice said that the moment she told them that it was me who was looking for Erica; they suddenly became much more co-operative; unfortunately no one had come up with anything concrete so far. Life Ain't Easy Ch. 03 Once again l climbed aboard a 747 for the journey back to England. Was I looking forward to it? Yes and No. I was hoping I was going to be able to find my oldest daughter and maybe if I was lucky I was going to be reunited with her mother. But it had been a long time and of course Erica could well be happily married. On the other hand there was going to be a showdown with Margaret and Robert. I no longer considered Robert my brother and neither did any of my family in New Zealand. End of part three Life Ain't Easy Ch. 04 I must thank Techsan and my Lady Cibelle for their patience, proof reading and editing skills. But I must also add, as I can't leave a story alone, I could well have added some cock-ups after they have seen it and before it gets posted. That should keep the GPs happy at least. Chapter 4: Crying Time Again On the way back home I stopped over in San Francisco for a couple of days. Alice had given me the address of an old school friend whom she suspected knew a little more than she was saying about Erica. To be honest I didn't blame her. Alice was relying on the Internet. It could be anyone using Alice's name. Who can tell who is on the other end of an e-mail? Sheila Carter, or Greenbay as she was now, had been one of our crowd at college. She had visions of being a famous actress. I must say she had the looks and figure for it but we all thought her voice would be her downfall. She had taken off for Hollywood straight from college whilst Erica and I were together. But like most of the hopefuls, she hadn't made it and had finished up marrying an American guy and settling down just outside San Francisco. As my taxi turned into the quiet suburban road she lived in, I was struck once again as I always was over there that so many of these lovely houses appeared to be made of wood. Wooden houses are rare in England. As we slowly cruised down the street looking for Sheila's house, I suddenly saw her working in her front garden. The years had taken their toll but she was beautiful as she ever was. Sheila looked up as I opened the taxi's door and instantly recognised me. "My god, David, you don't look a day older." "Well, I am girl, but you're just as beautiful as you always were. I've got a damn sight older in the last few years." "Yes, I was sorry to hear about your wife, but I get the feeling Erica will not be too upset." "You know where she is then?" I asked. "Not exactly, But I can give you the address of someone in England who knows where she is. She brought Otterley over here a few years back. Hey, would you like to see some photos of them? You can't have seen either of them since -- --. Sheila's sentence dropped off; it was obvious she didn't know how to finish it. "Not only see them, I'd like to get some copies of them if I can." "Come inside and meet my husband Milt, I'm sure he can scan them into the computer for you." With that we went inside and Sheila had showed me the photographs. God, if you had stood Otterley along side my other daughters, I doubt whether anyone could pick her out. Sheila and I talked about Erica and the old times at college. It was apparent that in her efforts to persuade Sheila to part up with some information about Erica and her whereabouts, Alice had filled Sheila in on my recent troubles. Sheila did say that someone who was acting for Erica's parents had a habit of showing up at regular intervals, asking if Sheila had heard from her. That's why Sheila had been shy about telling Alice what she knew. I stayed the night at Sheila and her husband's house; the following day she drove me to the airport. For the rest of the flight to London I sat and studied the pictures of Erica and Otterley that Milt had printed out for me. Abigail met me at Heathrow and took me to where I had left my car. I declined the offer to stay with them at the flat. I told her that Margaret was her mother. If I moved in with the girls it might look as if I was trying to influence them and drive a wedge between them and their mother. Although I would never be able to forgive, Maggie I was acutely aware that the girls needed her. A strange way to think, I know, considering that I had so recently planned to kill Margaret and myself. But then the human brain is a funny thing. If it is working rationally, what you would like to do and what you actually do are two entirely different things. Thinking back, maybe I always knew I wouldn't be able to take their mother from them. I checked into a small hotel I knew. It was close to a friend's house and he offered me easy access to the Internet. The next few days were spent getting my bio clock back in sync and tracking down a couple of people who I thought would be useful to me when I finally confronted the two lovers. Although from what Abigail had told me, Robert had not even tried to contact Margaret, but he was pestering the girls claiming to be their real father. I thought when it came to it, I had better have some people around to make sure I didn't 'lose it' when it came to the showdown. To be more honest I didn't want my girls seeing Robert and I coming to blows. There would be plenty of time for that later. It was the Saturday after I had returned to England. The night before I had tied one on a bit with my friend whose computer I had been using. I was awakened by someone knocking on my hotel room door. "Come in, it's open." I yelled, figuring it was room service with my breakfast. I wasn't in the mood to actually get up yet. All that happened was there was another knock on the door. "Come in, its not locked." I yelled again. 'What the hell, don't the staff here understand English' I thought. Knock. Knock. 'For Christ's sake' I thought as I dragged myself out of my bed. I strode over to the door; pulling it open, I said "Don't you bloody understand English? Oh! Shit, Erica, what the hell are you doing here?" "That's a nice way to say hello and do you expect me to just go walking into some strange man's room?" "Sorry, you took me by surprise. Anyway I know it's been a long time but you can't really call me a strange man. After all we did know each other rather intimately at one time." Erica ignored my attempt at humour and rushed into an attempt at an explanation of her actions all those years ago. "Dave! I don't really know what to say to you. I! I was such a fool to believe them. Sheila said you have seen those pictures. Honestly I did think it was you in them with Alice." "They were good. But you could have asked me about it before you went running off. Look, we can't stand out here all day. I've got to get dressed. Do you want to come in or would you prefer to wait in the lounge? I can be down in a couple of minutes." "I'd love to come in, but I think it better if I wait in the lounge with Ottie. She can't wait to meet her father, and to be frank I'm not too sure I could control myself if I came into your room." "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in years. Give me five minutes." I went to give her a kiss but she stopped me. "Later, Dave, let's not start anything you might not want to finish. I told you I don't trust myself." She turned and walked down the hall. I dashed back inside and dived into the shower room. I don't think I have ever got shaved, showered and dressed that fast in my life. All right, two small nicks, but I was in a bit of a hurry. Oh! And I buttoned my shirt twice; one button out the first time. The stairs were quicker than the lift and I took them three at a time, with just a little tumble. As I walked into the lounge, both Erica and Otterley stood up as I entered. A waiter followed me in carrying a tray with coffee and teapots on it, which he placed on the table by the girls. Then he made a point of closing the doors as he left. It appeared Erica had arranged us some privacy. "David, I'd like to introduce you to your daughter, Otterley." Otterley did not wait for me to respond. She came rushing over, threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. "Um, hello, Otterley, I must say you appear to be somewhat larger and a lot more beautiful than you were when I last saw you." "Thank you, Daddy" She replied with tears in her eyes, "You don't know how long I've waited to be able to call you that. I have been so jealous of the others." "You know about my other daughters?" "I not only know about them, I've met some of them." "Met them, when?" "Sorry, daddy, I've been a bit of a stalker. I've watched you for years. I even went to night school with Ashley." "Oh, God, of course Ottie. Ashley said there was a girl who looked just like her at the college. And you didn't tell her who you were?" "Come on, father, how could I? What do you think Ashley would have said if I suddenly announced to her that I was her half sister? I know that you never told her I existed. It was up to you to tell her first." "Good point. I had always thought you were on the other side of the world and would never meet. But I think it could well have put the cat among the pigeons if your existence had become common knowledge." "Sorry, I don't understand what you mean." "Never mind, just a little twisted and somewhat sick private joke of mine. You might understand it one day." I turned to Erica, "Well, Erica, what have you got to say for yourself." "You will never know how sorry I am about what I did to you, Dave!" "God, girl I didn't mean that. I've seen those bloody pictures; Christ, Alice had to remind me that we had never got together. But why have you hidden from me all these years?" "You were married. I couldn't interfere in your marriage." "A marriage. Is that what it was? A pity my wife never realised." "If Robert was involved, she might not have been to blame." "It takes two to tango girl, you know that." "You've still got that annoying habit." "Pardon." "When you're angry you always called me Girl." "Shit, sorry, have I always done that?" "Yes, you have. But I'm not a girl. I'm a married woman." "Oh shit, who's the lucky man?" "You are, you idiot! But you died!" "That's news to me. Er, just when did we get married and how did I die?" "I found it easier to be the grieving widow than the unmarried mother. So you died in a car crash." "Why not just play the divorcee?" "Oh, the gay divorcee. That would have been good. I was trying to keep the wolves at bay not encourage them." "I see and what about this wolf. Are you going to chase him away?" "I don't know. If he plays his cards right and after he gets his divorce sorted out, he could well find himself getting resurrected. But it is going to confuse a lot of my friends." With very few words Erica and I appeared to be almost back where we were twenty five years ago. At complete ease with one another, as it had been when we first met. We didn't have to say much because we both knew what the other was thinking and feeling. "We've made a bit of a mess of it, haven't we." I said to Erica. "You didn't. I did; I should have trusted you." "Hey, that isn't what I meant. But from here on we have got to do things right." "I haven't got the faintest idea what you two are on about." Otterley commented. "We should have said 'sod them', and got married in the first place," I said. "But then I wouldn't have my other daughters." "And why not? I wasn't worn out you know." "Shit, I didn't mean that." Erica started laughing. And I realised she was taking the rise out of me. "I'm sorry, Dave, but you walked into that. I hope your girls will accept me as their stepmother. That's providing you'll have me." "They won't have much choice, that is providing you find you can put up with me. I must have some pretty big faults to drive Margaret into Robert's arms." "If you don't mind we'll take things slowly, or as slowly as I can manage. I'll tell you now we'll have none of your funny stuff until you've sorted things out with your wife. Otterley will act as our chaperone." "My ex-wife you mean. But tell me how the hell did you find me here?" "The Internet. I think Alice must have e-mailed everyone in the world. My e-mail was swamped with reports that you were looking for me. But we didn't trust my dad. He's tried some real slimy tricks in the past to find me. It was only when I heard you had turned up at Sheila's that I dared to believe it was really you who was trying to find me." "We could only have missed you at the airport by minutes. Then we had to wait until Alice could get the hotel's address out of Yvonne. What with the time difference and everything it's taken us ages." "You dashed all the way up from Dorset to meet me at the airport?" "Dorset? We don't live in Dorset. We live in Reading; Dorset was a smoke screen for my folks. I've got a friend down there who sends post on for me and then of course Sheila sends some on as well and you remember Gary Anderson, he does the same from Montreal. I think it's kept my parents confused." "Well, when you decide to marry me, I think we should put an announcement in the paper down there. That should piss them off royally." Just then we were disturbed when someone knocked on the door. It opened and the hotel porter stuck his head around it. "Excuse me, sir, but there is a young lady out here who wishes to see you." I was just about to say 'send her in' when I thought I had better see who it was first. I didn't know how 'old' this old codger called 'young', if it was Margaret it was going to mess up my plans if she saw Erica and Otterley. It turned out to be Abigail so I gestured for her to enter the lounge. Abbie walked in and saw Erica sitting facing her. Otterley turned in her seat to see who had entered. "Oh, my God." Abbie exclaimed. "Abigail, this is my first wife Erica and our daughter Otterley." "But, But." "Yes, Abigail, and I really would like you to keep this meeting to yourself for the time being. For obvious reasons." The strangest thing now happened. Otterley stood up and Abigail went over to her. They didn't speak just gave each other a hug that went on until the door opened and some guy stuck his head around it. "Ottie, can I come in yet, or have you forgotten about me completely? "Sorry, Mike, come in. Dad, this is my husband Mike." The guy confidently strode over to me offering his hand. "Pleased to meet you, sir. And if you don't mind, sir, may I ask for your daughter's hand in marriage." "I thought she said you were married." "Oh, we have been for four years, but I had always looked forward to asking that question of her father." "In that case, you have my blessing. But don't you ever mess her about or I'll set her sisters on you." "There I have you at a disadvantage, sir. Ashley introduced me to Otterley in the first place. I'm sure she would be on my side. Although she might still be upset that she wasn't invited to the wedding. We thought that would be pushing our luck and we didn't want to rock the boat." "The bloody boat's sunk years ago and will you stop calling me sir. Dave, Dad or anything but sir." "Yes Sssssad" Then a round of introductions went on and life stories were relayed; the whole morning disappeared and we adjourned to the bar, as they wanted the lounge back for the other residents. Abigail and I got together and she told me that my confrontation with Margaret and Robert was set up for the Sunday afternoon. All my daughters, Robert and Margaret where going to meet at my house to discuss Robert's claims that the girls disputed. I think Abbie's reaction earlier to meeting Otterley had completely put her mind at rest on that one. It appeared he had been making a good job of convincing them. I actually hoped his story had been good as I assumed it was the same one he used on Maggie. I, along with my entourage, would enter by the back door when signalled so, at what I chose as the appropriate moment. We would enter the room and I would say my piece. Abigail was not especially keen on my refusal to allow her to tell Margaret what was going on first. But I insisted. This was a bad decision that I was later to deeply regret making. ----------------------- The following afternoon, after we had watched Robert enter the house my little group and I entered the garden by the side gate and Abbie's Mike let us in by the back door. Mike returned to the dining room where this meeting was taking place and I stood just by the side of the doorframe where I could hear everything that was said in the room. "Right, girls" I heard Robert say, "I have told you that I am your real father. Let me explain what has been going on. When your father was in New Zealand he got ill with the mumps. Unfortunately one side affect of the mumps in adult males is it can severely damage the testicles. My brother caught the mumps when we first went to New Zealand and it left him with a very low sperm count. The odds on him being able to father children were very low. Virtually non-existent. When I found out how much your mother wanted children I offered to act as a sperm donor for her." "What did my father think of that idea?" Abigail interjected. "I told you it is almost impossible that my brother is your father and the truth is we never told him. He had never told your mother about having the mumps or that the side effects could be that they never had children. I think David was hoping for the best. Your mother was checked out but David never volunteered to be tested. I think he was worried what the results would show your mother." "And you believed this rubbish, mother?" "Well, I saw the medical reports. Robert showed them to me." "Why didn't you speak to dad about it?" Abigail was loosing her cool a little. "Look you're er, my brother couldn't accept the fact he more than likely would never have children. Your mother and I thought it would be kinder to keep it a secret and let him think he was your father. We wouldn't be telling you now if your father hadn't stormed off and deserted you all." "Is that right, mother, you only slept with my father's brother so you could get pregnant?" "Yes, I wanted children and Robert was David's brother, their genes must be almost identical. We were only together to create you girls." "So why have you been shagging Robert every since? You haven't been trying to make babies for the last fourteen years, have you? We know you've been on the pill. You're lying, you two are nothing more than a pair of adulterers." Abigail was really loosing it now. So I made my entrance before she said something to her mother she would regret later. Almost everyone in the room gave a start as I walked in. "So, Robert, you say that I can't produce children, do you?" Robert didn't answer. I don't think he had ever thought how he was going to play this one out. I realised he was in denial and couldn't handle the truth. "Margaret, I never told you much about my life in New Zealand, did I?" "No. Robert told me how that girl left you because you were infertile, so I never broached the subject with you." Margaret replied. "Infertile, was I? I afraid there's been a bit of roll reversal there. There is a grave outside Auckland that says I'm not infertile and if you would like more evidence, would you like to meet my oldest daughter, Otterley. Or is my loving brother going to claim he fathered her as well?" Otterley entered the room. "When we were in New Zealand, both Robert and I had the mumps and we both had it go to our genitals. Orchitis they call it. Very rarely it leads to sterility but it was Robert who picked the short straw on that one. His sperm count is zero, that is why Jane divorced him out there. Shirley, would you like to join us, please?" Robert began to rise. I think he thought it was about time to make a strategic withdrawal. "No, stay seated, Robert. I can assure you you're not going anywhere until I say you can go. Gentlemen!" Two rather large friends of mine came into the room. "Don't worry, Robert, these guys will not touch you. Providing you do not try to leave until I tell you to get out. Shirley, you've got the floor." "I should have known something was wrong before I married Robert. Look I've been around the block a few times and I wasn't a virgin when I met him. His testicles are much smaller than any mans I've ever known. Now I've had to have two abortions. I'm one of those women, I only have to kiss a guy and I'm bloody pregnant. So when I didn't get pregers pretty quick after I married Robert. I had his semen tested. Zero, I could bleeding well fu-- um have sex with him from now till dooms day and never have a kid." Life Ain't Easy Ch. 04 I was looking at Margaret and her face was showing disbelief. "That so called medical report he showed you, Margaret. Was it an original?" Shirley demanded. "No" Margaret answered in little more than a whisper; "It was a photo-copy." "A photo-copy probably of this one. But this one is the original it hasn't been doctored by having the name changed. I found these amongst Robert's papers after I threw him out and here's Dave's one. It's not the best sperm count you can have but I can tell you it's way above average. Didn't you wonder why Robert would have a copy of Dave's sperm count?" Shirley had taken me by surprise. She hadn't told me she had those reports. She obviously felt more vindictive towards Robert than I had thought." "But why did it take so long for me to get pregnant?" "Damned if I know." Shirley replied, "just bad luck I suppose. My sister tried for ten years before she had her first one, then she fell for two on the trot. Making babies isn't as easy as it should be for some people." Maggie couldn't stand anymore; after all these years of lying and cheating on me she must have realised it was all for nothing in the first place. She got up and ran out of the room crying. Ashley went to get up and follow her but Abigail told her to leave her mother for a little while. I was finished with Maggie but not with Robert. "OK, why did you force Maggie to keep on having sex with you. You knew I would find out one day. Did you figure you would step in and play daddy to my girls if I divorced Margaret?" "Fuck you! You always had everything; I wanted a family of my own." Robert shouted back at me. I was drained and I really just wanted him out of my life. "Get the hell out of here and never come near my family again. If I ever see you again I will not be responsible for my actions." He got up and I stepped back so he could walk past me. He had just got to the doorway when we heard the deafening bang. Robert was propelled backward by the impact of the bullet and collided with me. Knocking me off balance, we both fell to the floor. I must have hit my head because everything went a little hazy. My chest felt like a hammer had hit it and the breath had been knocked out of me. I looked down and saw some blood on my shirt. 'Hey, have I been shot there? That's my bloody heart! Shit, I'm gonna die!' My muddled mind tried to make sense of things. "Oh, God, no. David, I didn't mean it. Please, David, don't you die!" Margaret screamed as she came into the room the gun still in her hand. Abbie's Mike appeared from nowhere and took the gun from her. Maggie crouched down to me babbling on that she hadn't meant to hurt me. I looked into her eyes and realised she was no longer with us. The bullet had gone through Robert's heart, exited his back and stopped when it embedded itself in my breastbone. Bloody frightening and painful but not serious. That bloody gun had come very near ending my life as well as Roberts after all. When the police arrived my daughter told them that Robert had given Margaret the gun to protect herself from me. I don't think the police were too convinced and they were never happy with the story. Apparently the gun did not have a single fingerprint on it; so Mike must have done a quick cleaning job. I blame myself for what happened that day. I had left the gun in the house and I should have realised that all my family knew the combination to the old safe in my study. How had Abbie and Mike known I'd had a gun in the first place if they couldn't get into that safe? Apparently the girls had spent hours playing at breaking into the damn thing, when they were young children. When eventually they got lucky they had been too scared to tell me what they had done. The safe had been in the house when we bought it and I had never kept anything of value in it. Except that bloody gun. At the inquest, the coroner found that Margaret had killed Robert whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed. The Criminal Prosecution Service decreed that she was unfit to plead and no useful purpose could be served in bringing a prosecution against her as she has been certified as being of unsound mind. Robert's ashes were poured (not scattered) into the Thames. So far Maggie has not recovered. The head doctors say she is unlikely to do so. She is now resident in a sanatorium just north of London. Maggie sits in her room and talks to herself all day. The girls and I visit her often but she rarely knows them. When I visit she sometimes becomes lucid and has been known to talk about the children we are going to have when she is well again. Her mind appears to be in a time before we had the children. Margaret made a serious mistake. But the mistake I made was just as bad if not worse. Robert lied his way into her bed and then blackmailed her into having sex with him for the rest of his life. I completely under-estimated the mental strain that Margaret had been living under all those years. Had I let Abigail tell Margaret that I had never been sterile and that Robert was, would she have been able to handle hearing it that way? I will never know? But the way she did hear it was too much for a troubled mind to handle. Now she serves what appears to me to be much worse than a prison sentence for the murder of Robert. Erica and I did not get married. We live together as we did originally in New Zealand. We both agreed that I could not divorce Margaret with her mind in the condition it is in. I have to keep control of her treatment; I don't want the doctors giving up on her. We have spent thousands of pounds on specialists, but so far to no avail. I have noticed that all my daughters have got into the habit of calling Erica Gran now that we have some grandchildren. Life goes on. The End