69 comments/ 170260 views/ 17 favorites The Incident Ch. 01 By: Blue88 I felt some of the tension easing as I sat quietly, sipping an outstanding single malt scotch on the rocks, looking over the azure waters of the Caribbean. There was a slight onshore breeze and the sun had just dipped below the horizon slipping the day into an easy, peaceful evening. Another day gone. Over 300 days gone since I arrived in "paradise." Despite all that had happened, I felt fairly content. Did it all work out as I had planned? Yeah, it did. Did I feel vindicated, has my bitterness abated, has my vengeance been satisfied? No...yeah...shit, I don't know. Whatever, it's now done and it can't be undone so I'm not going to agonize over it. Oh yeah. You're wondering who am I. Well...my name is Alexander Seagill. Hmm, Seagill is relatively new. My grandparents had come over from the old country and some good soul on Ellis Island had Americanized their name to Seagill. Hey, I shouldn't complain...Slutski would have been a difficult burden. I let my mind wander for a moment, remembering my grandfolks. They were my mother's parents, my dad's were still in the old country at the time and he never was able to locate them. He gave up after years of trying. I can still see them, my grandpop's bald head with a white fringe and my grandmom's snow white hair pulled back into a bun. I still feel a warmth remembering their unfailing kindness, not only toward me, their only grandchild, but to everyone with whom they came into contact. They lived with us, but died before I reached my teens. But I digress... Okay, let me tell you my story. My name...oh, yes. You know my name. I was born in 1964, the only child to Maria and Jake Seagill. (Let's forget about that Slutski crap.) My mother was an elementary schoolteacher and my dad was a cop. At the time of my birth he drove around in a patrol car, but it wasn't long before he moved up to the detective squad. No more uniform, no more squad car. By the way, he eventually retired as a Captain of Detectives with a very nice pension. I guess that I was a bit of a disappointment to him. You see I was a sickly kid. Shit, I was always coming down with something, from measles to mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever, so forth and so on. If it was around, I caught it. I was undersized and skinny. My mother was always coddling me which pissed my father off no end. He would storm around muttering..."let the kid grow up, for crissake. Don't make a sissy outa him." He was a big man and when he stomped, the whole damn house shook. My mom would always smile gently and murmur, "There's time for that, Jake. There's time..." Some kind of miracle began to happen the summer before I entered high school. During that summer I shot up 2 inches and by the end of my freshman year I was well over 6 feet. I joined the swimming team and started to put some muscle on that skinny frame. It didn't take long - between the growth spurt and my swimming I developed into a fairly good looking, well developed kid. Oh yeah, the bullies. All throughout elementary school and junior high school I was picked on. I never could understand the why of it; maybe it was just because I was a runt. I can be proud of the fact that I never ran and I always tried to fight back. That must have been funny. All of a sudden, in high school the bullies seemed to have disappeared. Who wanted to fuck with the guy I had turned into? It just confirms what I always thought - bullies are basically cowards. But again, I digress...let me continue. I graduated from high school with decent grades and got a scholarship to the city university -athletic, not academic. While my grades were decent, I had been too lazy to really buckle down. It was in my junior year when it struck me that I had better give some thought to what I wanted to do with my life after graduation. I was a business major, but that could mean anything if you know anything about that curriculum. I knew that I liked people, liked being around them, bullshitting, laughing, joking with everyone - and I was good at that. I was a likable schmuck; I liked everyone and everyone liked me. So where did that lead me? Marketing and Sales - that's where. I concentrated on that area in school, graduated, had a great job offer even before graduation and started life after school with a bang. I moved out of my folk's house, got a nice apartment downtown and really started to feel like an adult. Like that's all that it takes. Girls? Sure, I had my share in high school and college. Never anyone serious. I played the field, had tons of dates, got laid as frequently as I could and moved on. I guess I could be considered fairly good looking. I have black, wavy hair, gray eyes and an easy, friendly manner. Why no steady? Hmm, not sure I can answer that. Maybe I just wasn't ready, or never met anyone that really meant anything beyond a good time. Whatever... Okay, let me tell you about the job I accepted. I was a sales rep. for a large wholesale manufacturer of office furniture. You know: desks, chairs, conference tables, credenzas, etc. etc. Sounds pretty mundane, right? You want to know why I accepted that job? M-O-N-E-Y. The base salary was excellent and the commission mind blowing. You would just not believe the mark-up, it was like legal robbery. Just as an aside, the first year there I cleared just over 6 figures. Now you know why I took that job. Anyway - it was on my very first (that's right, my FIRST) sales call that I met her. Jeez. Casey was an new assistant buyer for a retail office supply chain and I had an appointment to see her. Ohh, her name - it was Mara Casey, but everyone just called her Casey. Why? I don't know why - it's not important. You know what's really funny? She took pity on me; she thought that I was nervous because I was new to sales. Jeez, that still makes me laugh. Oh, she was right, to a degree. I was nervous alright, I was nervous because she blew me away. She was absolutely, fucking, unbelievably gorgeous. Long blond hair, about 5' 5" and she had a body that most women would die for. You want measurements? Grow up, I never bothered to find out, who gave a shit. To me she was perfect - perfect ass, perfect tits, perfect legs and a face as sweet and innocent as a maiden out of a painting by Botticelli, especially with that hair and sparkling blue eyes. Plus, what was just as important, she was intelligent, educated and a ton of fun to be with. I later discovered that she had just been hired two months prior and had now been given some purchasing responsibility for one store, probably as a test run. Anyway, we clicked. I gave her good prices and she gave me a small order. I made her look good and I got my first sale. Actually, I got more than that - I got a date. Okay, okay, it was just for lunch, but I was walking on air. I think that I fell in love that day. Shit, I used to laugh at that old bromide - love at first sight, but so help me, it can happen. Shit, was I naive, love at first sight, crissake. It all happened so fast that it still seems like a dream. We dated, she moved in with me and we got married, all within a year. Talk about whirlwind romances - wow, this sure was one. I was 24, Casey was 22. Getting married so quickly certainly had it's dangers. We didn't have much time to really get to know each other very well, but it worked. Our first kid was an accident, happened one evening when we got too worked up. We named him Adam. Casey quit working to be a stay at home mom. I was making more than enough money to allow that. A little over a year later Emily was born. We had the perfect family. Perfect until it wasn't so perfect anymore. ******************** "Georgie, wanna get me another Laphroaig?" I yelled and held my glass up as the waitress poked her head out of the patio doors. My bar bill was going to bite me in the ass, but fuck it, I was far from broke and I really liked this place. It was within reasonable walking distance from my small place and I loved the name: Rick's Americaine. I laughed my ass off when I saw that. Rick's Americaine, a fairly decent restaurant and lounge that in fact belonged to Charley Coombs, who at 6' 6"and well over 300 pounds, no way resembled Bogie. "Sure, Alex. Be right back," she said as I admired the way her hips swayed as she walked away. Hey, I may be 44 but I ain't dead. "Hello, Alex." The voice came from behind me and I turned my head and saw Reggie Charles at my shoulder. "Reggie, old buddy. Sit down, take a load off," I said jovially, waving my hand at the other chair at my table. It appeared that I was the only one on the patio and I was enjoying the solitude, but Reggie was always welcome. Let me tell you about Reggie, at least the little that I knew. Reggie was somewhere in his 60s, hair totally gray, but lean and fit. He had a soldier's bearing, but was not a career military man. He had been a resident on the island for about 4 years or so and we had gotten to be friendly. Reggie had given me a short rundown of his past. His wife had passed suddenly, he found work meaningless, cashed in what he had in England and moved here. Short and sweet. He obviously had enough money to live comfortably and it looked like that's exactly what he was doing - living comfortably. "It looks like you're becoming a fixture here, Alex. Still drinking that awful swill?" "Awful? You're a riot, Reg. Best single malt in the world, comes from the UK and you, a Brit, don't even take pride in it, You should be ashamed of yourself and, don't tell me, you're going to order that rotgut bourbon you call nectar, right?" I laughed. "Absolutely correct, old sod. Maker's Mark, the one thing that convinced me that you savages have come out of the stone age." Sure enough, Georgie must have seen Reg at my table because there she came with my scotch and Reggie's bourbon. She quickly and efficiently served us and with a wiggle of her hips, departed. "Ahhhh," muttered Reg, watching her walk away. "To be young again, and..." "C'mon, Reg. You're not that old. I'm sure that you don't lack for female companionship. You're far from dead," I chuckled. He looked at me steadily for a moment. "You're quite correct , Alex. I certainly don't lead a monk's existence here, but..." and he paused and then continued, but carefully, I noted. "What about you, Alex? You've been here almost a year now and you've yet to make a move on any of the ladies, laddie, and I don't think that you're gay. Don't get your nose out of joint, but you must admit that that is just a bit curious." I let the silence envelope us for long moments. I finally glanced at him and saw him lazily sipping his drink and looking at me quizzically. I sighed and thought to myself, maybe it would do me good to talk about it to someone. Reggie looked like a good listener. He continued quietly. "It may not look like it to anyone here, Alex, but you're obviously hurting. I see the way you just sit, for hours at a time, looking out to sea. It may help to talk about it. I am far from a professional mental health counselor, but I am a friend and I think that you can use one right now." I sat still for long moments. I then nodded. "It's a long story, Reg. It's a very long story," I sighed. "I've got time, Alex. I have all the time in the world," Reggie replied. My mind drifted back over the years. "I don't where to begin, Reg...damn, it's been so long...so long ago. I guess It all started about 8 years or so into my marriage. Everything was going so damn great. We were in love, we had two great little kids, I had a great job, making a ton of money..." I had to stop, the familiar pain was back. I took a deep breath. "We had splurged, bought a really nice house in a great, new community. All young couples, mostly like us, married a few years with kids, etc. etc. We got friendly with our neighbors, joined the country club, became part of the "in" group. A group of us would get together about once a month to party at someone's house. We took turns, provided the snacks, the beer and liquor...everyone got babysitters and we would party. "It was never anything extreme, Reg. Just a bunch of us, maybe anywhere from 6 to 8 couples. We would drink, bullshit, dance... " I stopped again to take a breath. "Most of us had pools in the back and we would come with swim suits and splash in the water. It was all so fuckin' innocent. There was no grab ass, or titty feeling. We were too mature for that. Oh, there was some flirting, some joking around, but nothing outlandish." My mind drifted back to that summer night and I continued. " It was a Saturday, no one had any worries about getting up early the next morning. The few that had to drive home stayed fairly sober, those who could walk to their houses had no such fears and the liquor flowed pretty freely. "Theresa Bower, our hostess that evening was slowly getting smashed and her husband, Fred, was not far behind her. She had been prancing around, showing off her new bikini and the other wives were just a little pissed off at her. She had a body that most of the girls envied and all of the guys drooled over. I appreciated it but was more than happy with my wife's body, Terry couldn't hold a candle to it, in my opinion. "Anyway, what she was almost wearing was a bit more, umm, revealing than the crowd was used to. Shit, the two pieces could fit into your shirt pocket with room left over. She had pretty good sized tits and it was obvious that she didn't have any or at least not much pubic hair. So she was showing off and was certainly getting everyone's attention. "The evening wore on and the party started to die down. Quite a few couples had already left and I think that there may have been around 6 or 8 of us there, all smashed to one degree or another; all except Casey, my wife. Look, she wasn't an abstainer, and while she did drink she was always careful. She would nurse two or three whatevers throughout the night. "Of course, I was used to the stuff. Business lunches with clients always included at least a couple of martini's, so I was used to it. Oh, it wasn't as if I craved it or needed it. I just drank for the fun of it, as did almost everyone else there." I paused, feeling the pain again. I wondered if it would ever leave me. I looked out at the sea again, remembering. "That evening was the beginning of the end, although I didn't really know it at the time. "As I mentioned, I was three sheets to the wind." I saw the puzzled look in Reggie's eyes and laughed. "I was smashed, Reg. While I was ambulatory, I was still smashed. I remember staggering into the house, through the french doors and into their game room. I had to maneuver past the pool table and I remember wacking myself on the corner of the ping pong table and muttering a curse. I found the bathroom, pulled my trunks down to my knees and with a sigh of relief and let go a stream into the toilet bowl. After a few seconds I finished and shook my dick before I started to pull up my trunks. " 'Wow, what a beautiful piece of man meat, sweetie. Lemme look,' and a hand pulled me around a bit. 'Wow, you put Freddy to shame.' "I stood there, my mouth open, looking at Terry in that outrageous swim suit. I just stood there, I had no idea what to do. I made a motion to pull my trunks up, but she stopped me. She sank to her knees and to my utter astonishment, she started to suck me. She took my limp dick in her hand and fed it into her mouth before I could even start to comprehend what the hell was going on. "Well, I'm as human...and as stupid too I guess, as the next guy, and the old peter didn't take long to get hard. Terry was slobbering over it like a starving bitch and I just stood there enjoying whatever the hell she was doing. All of sudden she stood up, lowered the scrap of material that was the bottom of her suit and propped her ass on the vanity. 'C'mon, sweetie. Feed me that dick, I need it.' "I looked down between her legs and sure enough, no hair. Her pussy was bare and wet, jeez, she was wet. Like an automaton, I just moved forward. She then grabbed my dick and before I knew it we were fucking. I bucked my hips and slid my cock in and out of her, listening to the slurping noises coming from between us. It didn't take long before I felt myself let go and I staggered as I came. Terry must have enjoyed herself because she was clutching my shoulders, shuddering and wailing like some kind of banshee. "The door then opened and my life changed. Casey, my wife stood there, staring at us, a look of total disbelief on her face. I just looked at her stupidly and for a moment I had no idea of much trouble I was in. The liquor was still befogging my brain and it was difficult to think. I did take note that Casey quickly turned and strode away and it was at that moment that I knew I had fucked up royally. "I staggered back, then straightened and pulled my trunks up. Terry giggled and patted my cheek. 'Don't worry, sweetie. She'll get over it, it's no big deal.' "I felt sick, my stomach roiling. I knew better. I knew Casey and I was sure that my immediate future was not going to be fun. I hurried after my wife, but she was long gone. I steeled myself and began to walk home. It felt like it was the last mile. My steps start to lag as I approached the house. There was a light in the living room and I wondered if she was waiting there for me. With a sigh of resignation I mounted the front stairs and entered my home. Casey was sitting in a chair and looked at me as I came into the room. "I felt my heart constrict and it was difficult to breath. I swear, Reg, I thought that I was having a heart attack. I was petrified. You see, in the past we had spoken about infidelity and we both agreed that it was wrong, hurtful and virtually impossible for a marriage to survive something like that. Casey would become livid about the subject. I didn't want my marriage to end, Reggie. I loved my wife passionately, I adored my kids, I loved my life. I didn't want it to end, especially over something so stupid, over some careless, drunken fuck that I didn't plan or even anticipate." I looked up at Reggie and I realized that my eyes were wet. I had to stop to catch my breath. After all those years, it still hurt. I still hurt for all the pain that I had caused, for all the grief I had created. "Take a break, Alex. Catch your breath," murmured Reggie. "Look, you don't have to tell it all now. Let's just sit for a bit. Try to come back to the present. Clear your head, relax." I leaned back and rested my head on the back of the chair. I felt exhausted and drained. Bringing up all of the old hurt, all of the pain wasn't easy, and yet it was a bit cathartic, as if some of the weight had lessened. Oh, not much, not much at all - but perhaps a little. "Enough, Reggie. Enough for now. I can't go on right now. Let's postpone this, okay?" "Of course, Alex," replied Reggie. "I can imagine how painful this must be for you, but I also believe that perhaps it's doing you a little good. We can always continue this at another time. Why not try to get some rest now, laddie. Go home. Go home and try to get some sleep." I made it home, staggering a little on the way. I locked the door behind me and sat in the darkened living room which was lit somewhat by the ambient outside light. Someone in an adjacent apartment was playing some soft jazz and a female was singing "Skyliner." I absently noticed that it had started to rain, a soft, gentle sound that was background to the music. I roused myself, went into the bathroom, took a sleeping pill and went to bed. I don't remember if I dreamed. ******************** I woke reasonable early the next morning and with few ill effects from the booze I had consumed the previous evening. Say what you will, really good scotch doesn't come back to haunt you the next day, or at least not terribly. The Incident Ch. 01 February 19th 1997 was not really the beginning, but that was the day it all happened. For Mandy Mitchell, it started as just another day. She and Tom had bought the 400-acre farm three years ago, just as the younger of two boys had started school, on the basis that she would do the light daily chores and that he would continue his job with the stock and station agents. Heavy tasks, like re-swinging a gate, would wait until the weekend when he and the boys were home. Raised on a farm herself, the jobs were largely routine -- shifting stock, checking the water, minor repairs to fences, adjusting the electric fence for pasture control, spraying the detested thistles, so the days usually passed in an uneventful procession. Today, the household chores were all done, and she thought she would check the water supply at the far end of the farm before the real heat of the day made moving about unpleasant. The farm was relatively long and narrow and they shared a small stream with their rear neighbour, that meandered more or less along their rear boundary. Because the stream was not in one property or the other, each had fenced the stream off so that stock could not wander up and down it and cross into neighbouring properties. But this meant that an alternative water supply had to be provided at this extreme point by means of a small boat pump set in a sump near the river, and powered by a car battery. Mandy went into the bedroom to change, slipped off her dress, unhooked her bra and removed her panties. She glanced at herself in the mirror and was pleased that the tan was nicely even at last. At thirty-nine, Mandy was still in good shape -- firm nicely rounded breasts, reasonably flat stomach in spite of two kids, good legs, and weight only a whisker more than she would have preferred. The emphasis on the tan occurred in mid January, on her return from their recent holiday. Catching herself in the mirror, she thought she looked grotesque with two white boobs, a snow white bottom and a white Y on each foot from the sandals she had worn, contrasting sharply with an otherwise evenly tanned body. So for the last six weeks, whenever she had work to do on the middle of the farm, she took the opportunity to slip her sun frock off for ten to fifteen minutes and to do whatever work was required in the nude. Mandy had the theory that she would tan more evenly if she constantly moved around in the sun rather than just lying on a towel in one position. She had even bought three new pairs of sandals, which she wore on alternate days, each with thin straps or strings in different positions, so that her feet now had an even tan. The sunfrock she slipped over her head was a medium length, buff coloured cotton tube with a drawstring that tied in the front and secured it under her arms. Mandy selected sandals, a hat and headed for the door remembering to pick up the battery voltmeter as she went out. It was a bit hot to walk the whole distance, so she put her weed wand in the pannier of the four-wheeler and decided that she might as well ride until she struck a gate that wouldn't open easily. As she bounced along the track, she became conscious of a butterfly sensation in her stomach and a vague sensitivity in her breasts and she imagined that she could see her nipples sticking out through her cotton frock. After fifteen years of marriage, she was pretty laid back about sex and very comfortable in her relationship with Tom. It did not have the fire of the early years of marriage but that was normal, wasn't it? Nevertheless, she had been disturbed by these feelings on several other occasions this year but put it down to anticipating the sensuality that working in the buff could induce. She always got a tingling sensation in her groin when she slipped her dress off and the waves of fresh air first flowed over her body. You're just an exhibitionist getting a cheap thrill, she kidded herself. But the occasional waves of sexual longing perplexed her and thoughts of a self-induced sexual release, had a certain attraction. No wonder she was tense. The gentle movement of her unrestrained breasts against the dress had stimulated the nipples so that they were now quite hard. She braked to a standstill, switched off the engine and clambered off. After a quick glance around just to make sure that no one was striding across the paddock, she slowly undid the bow, pulled the string loose and let it slide over her breasts to the ground. The fresh air caressed her body and there was no doubt about it -- her breasts were full and tight, her nipples erect, and to her surprise, she felt a slight wetness between her legs. What was happening to her? It was crazy, so she vigorously attacked the defenceless weeds in the immediate vicinity with her weed-stick, giving each a fatal dose of herbicide. After about ten minutes, she found that the tension had left her so she stood over the dress where she had let it fall, and drew it up and tightened the drawstring. When she reached the last gate, she parked the four-wheeler in the only shade for some distance around, grabbed her voltmeter and climbed over the gate. She could hear the stream bubbling away and she soon came to the little valley it had cut for itself. She climbed over the last gate that guarded the streambed from the stock and found the sump in which the boat pump was located. A two metre concrete pipe had been sunk into the ground so that the pump was always immersed in water and the delivery pipe snaked out of it and soon went underground back to the trough on the farm side of the fence. A cable followed the pipe and was connected to a float in the trough, so that when the water level dropped it switched the pump on and refilled it. The battery, however, was beside the trough -- well out of the way of the raging winter floods and encased by a louvered box. She lifted the lid of the sump and verified that there was plenty of water in the bottom, then walked back to the gate, hopped over it and tracked down the trough. It was full, so it had been working all right. She removed the cover from the battery, clamped the leads from the voltmeter to the terminals and saw that it was only two volts dawn. Then she depressed the float, which activated the pump immediately and was pleased with the steady flow of water that soon erupted from the delivery pipe. The voltage dropped another three volts as the pump laboured and that suggested that it would last another week at least, before the battery had to be exchanged or taken back to the shed for recharging. Having replaced the cover, she thought that she had done enough manual work for the moment, so climbed back over the gate and wandered back to the stream. Since the area was free of stock, the grass on the bank was quite long so she undid her bow again and slipped off her dress and rolled it into a ball for a headrest. She took off her sandals and lay in the sun with her hat tipped over her eyes. She spread her legs so that the sun could tan the insides of her thighs but was immediately unsettled by the surge of tension again. The long grass, like a tender lover, had caressed her bottom, her ankles, the lower part of her legs and inside her thighs and she felt a fluttering excitement within as her breasts tightened and her nipples hardened. It was not long before she felt overwhelmingly hot in the sun in this windless valley and decided that the only solution was to cool-off with a swim. At this time of the year the stream had a very low flow of water, but it was quite warm. There were no really deep pools, just short pockets of water up to your waist in places trailing off to shallow patches up to your knees. She selected a pool that looked inviting and which was partly shaded by an overhanging shrub on the bank. Mandy lowered herself into the velvety water, but found that while the gently swirling water cooled her body, it also stimulated her fantasies -- swimming with nothing on always aroused a special feeling within her. She sat on the bottom, wedged against the bank with just her head showing, and wondered whether she was missing something in life. OooOOOooo Thursday February the 19th, was shaping up to be much the same as any other for David. David was twenty-three years old and was living and working with his parents on a farm that they had owned in the Valley for the last fifteen years. Although it was one of the larger farms in the area, the returns were not such that it was likely to support another family if he chose to marry and stay there. Michael Carr was only fifty-five, and at least ten years off retirement, so David had decided that he better obtain some other qualification in the meantime. David thought that he might do an Ag science degree, since he was interested in farm technology and things mechanical, and see what opportunities were available when he qualified. Two of his friends had that degree and both were now in excellent positions in industry and while he was keen on farming, he knew he would enjoy doing either of their jobs. One option was take all the papers in the science part of the degree and see if the marks were good enough to qualify him for entrance to the medical degree, at either Auckland or Otago and to test whether he was a natural enough student to do the hard grind for that degree. So David's parents had agreed to support him at Massey, rather than use a student loan, provided that he worked the farm in the holidays, particularly in the month of February when his parents liked to spend as much time as they could at their bach on Taupo. He had arranged to go into a flat in the City with some senior vet students and he was really looking forward to that. David's social life had been pretty limited. The extraordinary social activity for which the rural areas were famous fifty years ago had changed completely and circumstances had led him into a bit of a social backwater. A far-seeing county council had bucked the fashion and encouraged subdivision and life style blocks, but the young women were just kids or widowed and he had not found many that were eligible in between. He gathered up the breakfast dishes, put them in the washer and decided that it was going to be a scorcher. Not a day for digging postholes anyway. A better option would be to slash some of the overhanging bushes along one of the permanent fence lines at the rear of the property to ensure that the electrified top wire was not shorting out when it rained. He had noticed that the voltage was down a bit over the last section and it was probably the bushes that were causing it. He loaded up the little trailer attached to the four-wheeler with everything he might need since it was a long way back if he forgot anything, and set off. As he rolled along he thrilled again at the prospect of moving into town. For his age, he thought, his sexual experience was practically zero. He had no difficulty with socialising. It was just that the opportunities had not been there to date. He didn't see himself as a raving stud after every skirt, but he had felt sexual pressures increasingly over the last few months. Subtle at first. He would wake with an erection if he had been laying the wrong way. He seemed to have an increased interest in the glossy photos in his mother's magazines, and he found that he kept recalling the details of his last sexual encounter some months earlier. He had been at a party on a neighbour's farm at which there was quite a crowd, a great number of whom he had never met before. One quite attractive young woman had engaged him in conversation and captured his attention as she described the subject of her thesis for a masterate in social work. The evening was quite hot and the drinks that they had, instead of cooling them, made them feel suffocated. They had wandered out into the garden area around the homestead and found themselves at the end of a line shelter bushes that looked across the valley. The sky was dark, but the stars were bright and the lightest of warm breezes gave them a sense of well being. She knew that he lived nearby and said how lucky he was to live in such a romantic atmosphere. That had not been his experience to date but it looked as if it was all changing for the better. He touched her hand and she had turned to face him. Now kissing was something he had had a bit of practice at and they were soon locked in an embrace that really wound him up. The kisses went on and on as tongues and lips explored, and he became aware that she had twisted her body so that the hand that had previously been on her back, was now perilously close to her left breast. He had very tentatively inched it around until his hand completely covered her breast and was rewarded by a sudden intensification of the kisses. This soon lead to a frenzied fumbling of clothes and buttons and zips, and the thing that annoyed him so much now, was that it had all happened so quickly, that he could not recall all the precious details of the experience. However, he could remember the overpowering sensation he had when their naked bodies first touched. It made the shock from a powerful electric fence pale to insignificance. David also recalled how strong the drive to climax was, versus his desire to make those wonderful moments last forever. In retrospect, he thought that she had had a bit more experience than he had, because she seemed to know what she wanted and how to go about achieving it. He would never forget his climax, or hers come to that, because his was accompanied by four muscular spasms that he thought would make him an invalid for life, that thrust him into her unfathomable depths. Hers was signalled by a sharp cry as she arched her back and gripped his bottom. The marks of her nails on his skin were there for days. They lay enmeshed and entranced by one another for some time as they gathered their breath, but in the end his elbows were screaming in protest and she became conscious of a sharp stone that was sticking into her back. They had walked back to the house in warm togetherness, promising to make contact in the near future. He phoned her and left a message, she phoned back and left a message, then there were her exams and then she went home to Te Awamutu for Christmas and the looked-for meeting never happened. However, he had relived those moments very many times, but it was so dark that he could not even properly recall what her body looked like without clothes on. He also wished he had been a better lover and had been more innovative, like he had read about in the occasional novel. His reverie ground to a halt. The offending bushes beckoned and he realised that he had opened and closed five gates in a complete dream. He parked in the shade of the bushes near the fence line, disconnected the power to the fence so that the falling branches would not short out the rest of the paddock, and squinted down the fence line. It wasn't too bad after all. Only about five large branches at various spots, which, once removed, would fix the problem completely. He backed the trailer upto the fence so that he gained a bit of extra height, fired up the chainsaw and lopped off two of the branches. The next three proved more difficult to reach, so he tied a pruning saw to a sturdy branch and hand-sawed them off. He used his machete to trim the cut branches up a bit so that when he threw them over the fence they settled down in a neatish pile to rot away over time. At the end of all these exertions he was extremely hot and sweaty so he thought he would ride to the end of the farm and check the water trough near the stream. David took off his shirt and hopped on the four-wheeler. The air flow was wonderful, but the hot sultry day seemed to inflame his sexuality and he was tempted take off the rest of his clothes and see whether he could find a mossy area where he could lie and have an orgasm by wriggling and squirming in the soft moss. Just thinking about it caused an erection that was uncomfortable within his tight underpants. He reached the last fence and located the trough and checked that it was full of water. He wondered why the previous owner had not saved a hundred metres of piping by putting the trough at the other end of the paddock. He supposed that stock could smell the water in the stream and might knock the fence down if a trough was not in easy reach. David could hear the water bubbling in the stream and thought he would see what its level was like, so he climbed over the fence, slid down the steep bank and stood on the narrow ledge on his side of the stream. The beach, if you could call it that, was on the other side so he kicked off his boots and socks and waded across to the other side. Just as he thought, pretty low, even for this time of the year, but there was a slightly deeper pool a bit further down in which he could swim. He glanced around, then undid the button and zip on his shorts and slipped these off with his underpants. The feeling was wonderful and he walked across the stones and sank upto his neck in the tepid water. He let the water current bounce him along downstream. This was the life, he thought. OooOOOooo Mandy heard the muted noise of a motorbike approaching and wondered where the farmer from over the back could be going. She had never met any of the rear neighbours -- what was their name, Carr? Then the noise stopped. She wondered if she should make a break for her clothes and risk being caught out in the open if whoever it was, was standing on the top of the terrace. She decided to stay put. Just as she thought she might risk a move, she glimpsed a young man teetering across the river, as people do with soft feet on river stones. Damn! She pressed herself closer to the bank and sank lower in the water. He might not see me on this bright day if I stay in the shadow. She watched as he stared at the river. He was a nicely built young man -- typical farmer though, with white ankles and feet and the outline of his singlet showing through the tan of his upper body. Then to her astonishment, he slipped off his shorts and underpants and tossed them up the bank. He was in good shape. Even at the distance she could see a flat stomach, narrow waist, well-muscled thighs and buttocks and, surely not, either a large dick or one close to an erection. Mandy was suddenly conscious that she had risen higher in the water in her desire to see better, and that the butterflies were back in her stomach, along with the generalised feeling of desire. He was going swimming tool He'd better stay up in his area, or -- or what? What could she do? Brazen it out? She settled lower in the water with just her nose above it, but thought that her face and hair will soon be obvious. So she took a breath and slowly sank beneath the surface to completely wet her hair and when she resurfaced, she turned her face away from him. She had just persuaded herself that he would soon get tired of this and go back because he wouldn't want to have to walk any distance across those stones, when she heard a fast approaching splashing sound and her hair was suddenly grabbed and she was jerked upright. She squealed with shock and pain as she got her feet and legs to take the weight of her body as it was hauled upright. David let go of her hair and stared with stark disbelief. "My, God", he breathed, "I thought you were dead. You gave me a hell of a fright", he accused. Mandy regained her balance and raised both hands and swept her hair back and wiped the water from her eyes. "I was here first," she countered somewhat defensively and inadequately. Oblivious to his own nakedness, he just stood there like an oaf, completely mesmerised by the vision of this beautiful brown body, glistening as the water streamed off it, every curve accentuated as she raised her arms to pull back her hair. "I'm sorry I startled you, he blurted out. I hope I didn't hurt you. By the way, my name is David and I live on the property behind yours, he added somewhat inconsequentially." It's OK" she said, "I'm Mandy and I was just cooling off." "Yes, it's that sort of a day," he added nervously, "although the stream water is very warm even for this time of the year. I used to swim here a lot as a kid but haven't come here much lately -- you're newish in the district aren't you? Do you use the pool often?" The Incident Ch. 01 Mandy thought that this was bizarre. Here we are standing about half a metre from one another as if we were at a cocktail party, chatting away about the weather and neither of us wearing a stitch of clothing. She could hardly have failed to have noticed the intense inspection she had been given but was probably a good deal less self conscious than she might otherwise have been, because of the time she had spent walking about with nothing on. He was so consumed by his appraisal of her that he failed to notice similar scrutiny in return. As if by mutual consent, they both turned and began to walk towards the beach where she had left her clothes, there being no pretence to any further modesty. He feasted on her glorious back, all one even colour from head to toe, and now he could see her nicely shaped ankles and feet as she picked her way across the stones. He still could not believe what he was seeing. What loveliness in that beautiful skin, what glorious breasts, what perfection? He felt smothered with breathlessness and needed to get away. Surely he was in a dream? Suddenly a stone wobbled and she put out both arms for balance. David caught her right wrist, which steadied her momentarily, but she slipped forward on the next stone, and because he was still holding her wrist, it swung her around to face him. To this day, he can never imagine what possessed him, but he pulled her the last few inches towards him and kissed her on the lips. Three things happened almost simultaneously. The enormity of what he had just done struck home. To his embarrassment, David developed a full-scale erection. And he realised that after a moment of absolute shocked stillness, she was kissing him back. Mandy decided that she better hurry up and get her sun frock on before she made an absolute fool of herself. This young man seemed to have arrived almost with the convenience of a dream and at a time when she had never been experiencing higher levels of sexual tension. If she did not get away from him immediately, she did not know how she would resist putting her hands on his buttocks and crushing his firm, flat abdomen and very nice dick against her red hot skin. Her own juices were flowing in a torrent of excitement but she hoped that they might be mistaken for the water still trickling down her body. All these concerns abated suddenly as she stumbled and struggled to regain her balance. She found herself swinging around in a half circle to face him. The movement seemed non-stop until she found herself hard up against him and his lips were glued to her own. I can't handle this, her instincts screamed. Why can't I move? She felt his hardness erupt against her stomach and the light covering of hair on his chest tangling with her rigid nipples. She lost the fight at that point, desire overcame common sense and she found herself returning the kiss, tentatively at first then with unrestrained vigour. How sweet it was, how consuming his ever widening mouth and probing tongue became, how right it seemed at that moment. David had never experienced unbridled lust before and the emotion shocked him with its power. He wanted to eat her, each beautiful part by each beautiful part -- starting with her lips. He also wanted to let her go so that he could watch her walk around and drink in every detail, from every angle. Only his big hands clamped across her back and her hands pulling his buttocks against her pelvis maintained their balance on the rocky surface. After what seemed like the longest kiss in history, they finally surfaced for air and stared in amazement at one another. He didn't know whether to apologise or jump for joy but they couldn't stand there like that for ever and a day, so he just picked her up and carried her to the grassy bank where he set her down near her dress. In normal circumstances, he would have stumbled over the last stretch of stones, but today he was surefooted and his strength was superhuman. She picked up her dress, opened it up like a towel and spread it on the grass, then sat on it, leaning back on her elbows. He sank down beside her doing his best to keep his erection in some sort of a dignified state by lying on his side. He moved his arm over her to the other side of the ground and leant forward to kiss her again. The fire was raging within seconds and she collapsed back as she put her arms around him, drawing him down with her. Time stood still as they rolled first one way then the other, their lips never parting as their passion build up to white heat. Suddenly he did not think he could hold out any longer and he fumbled to enter her. Responding to her own needs, she grasped his dick and stroked it up and down the entrance to her vagina, touching the clitoris and thoroughly wetting its head. Then she placed the tip inside her vagina and pulled strongly on his buttocks. He slid inside her like a velvety caress until their pelvic bones were almost as one. David thought that he had never experienced such a sensation even in his wildest dreams. The internal muscles of her vagina were pulsing with mini contractions, stroking him until all sense of reality left him and the pent up tension of several months, exploded. He let out a cry that would have been heard for a considerable distance as every muscle went rigid at the moment of orgasm and his essence of life spurted into her. Mandy had lost what semblance of control that she regained after she sat down, as soon as he kissed her again. All the vague longings and strange feelings rose up like an army in revolt and assaulted her senses, teasing emotion, sensitising nerve endings to concert pitch. Her breasts felt full and voluptuous and her nipples as hard as she could remember. Every blood vessel around her pelvis was engorged and sending the most delicious sensations throughout her body. I need him now, she thought as she found his dick and stroked her entrance with it. What a glorious feeling it was in her hand, but what fire it created where it touched and she found that the magnet within her was drawing it into her. She could not bear to play with it any longer. Setting the head into the entrance of her vagina, she grasped his buttocks and pulled him quickly towards her. She almost climaxed with the exquisite sensation as he slid inside her. Finally, their pelvises fully engaged and she heard David let out his great cry of ecstasy and sensed all the muscles of his body tension. The pressure on her clitoris became so intense that her climax began a split second later. First a rolling wave of pleasure, rapidly building up to a finale in which every nerve ending jangled and sang. A blinding white light enveloped her eyes and she seemed to become detached from her body. A voice, which she thought she recognised as her own, could be heard crying out in the distance. A great warmth coursed through her body as it began to relax and her pulse rate and blood pressure returned to normal. She just lay there as if paralysed, either unable or unwilling to move. She sensed David move on top of her and she realised that she was still trying to pull him further inside her. Mandy opened her eyes and touched his cheek. His look of concern disappeared when he realised that he had not hurt her. David felt weak and helpless but engulfed by an incredible sense of euphoria. This was perfection, surely the moment to die. He took his weight onto his arms and slowly withdrew his dick and rolled onto his side. She was, clearly, as whacked as he was, but happily relaxed. Apart from their brief introductory remarks, neither had spoken. He wondered if remorse or guilt would be the next emotions to be confronted. Well, whatever was going to be, would be; and nothing he could say or do now would alter anything. He leant forward, brushed her lips with his, and without a word walked off to find his clothes. When he reached the top of the far bank, he looked back and waved and left her standing like a bronze sculpture, watching him depart. She slipped on her dress and hat and started the walk back to the bike. He's got a slightly sunburnt bottom, she thought ruefully. David was thankful that he was leaving for town in the next few days. He knew that he would have found the knowledge that there was this desirable woman just across the back fence, pretty hard to ignore. As it was, he suspected that the glorious images would flash in his mind for many months -- this time in bright Technicolor. A glorious chapter in the book of life. Perhaps he would write her a note to say how privileged he felt to have spent that short but precious time with her, but then again, he must do nothing that would interfere in any way with her relationship with her husband. Mandy climbed onto the bike and began the ride home automatically. She still felt numb, and her brain felt as if it did not belong to her. Things like that did not happen to conventional, conservative married women - they just did not! Married women might stray for love, but not just for sex. Maybe she was dreaming; must be! She raced into the bathroom and showered every trace of him away then threw her semen-stained dress in the wash and set it going. There, that closes that chapter she thought, feeling strangely satisfied on the one hand and extraordinarily unsettled on the other. I do hope he doesn't contact me again -- I'll remember this day forever without the added embarrassment of seeing him as well. OooOOOooo The Incident Ch. 01 I smiled a bit wryly as I remembered regaling Reggie with the story of my marriage. Jeez, I really must have been maudlin as well as tanked, but strangely, I wasn't too upset. Reggie's a good guy and talking about it seemed to have relieved at least a tiny bit of the pain. Then suddenly the scene at my house that eventful evening came to mind and I actually cringed. After all these years, it's still so vivid. It's like a film being repeated again and again in my head. I can still see myself unlocking my front door and walking into the house. The babysitter was gone. Casey sat in the living room, staring at me. "You rotten, fucking bastard. You can't know how much I loath you right now. You're scum, you're horseshit, you don't deserve a loving family," she literally hissed, spittle flying from her lips. Her eyes were as cold as ice and I saw that there wasn't much color in her face, she looked ashen. I just stood there. I didn't know what to say. She was right to a degree, but I wanted to defend myself. I wanted to tell her that what she saw wasn't exactly what it appeared. It wasn't planned; she took advantage of me; I had too much to drink. Bullshit - all bullshit. I couldn't defend myself. There wasn't anything that I could think of to say that would mitigate what had happened. I just stood there and let her tear me apart, and she did. She continued to curse me, she used words that I never imagined she even knew. Strangely, Casey never raised her voice. She kept her voice down, not wanting to wake the kids I imagine. It didn't make any difference. In fact the whisper quiet of her virulence only seemed to magnify the hatred and hurt that she expressed. "Get out, Alex. Get some of your clothes and whatever, and get the hell out. I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to hear from you. NOW, GODDAMN YOU, NOW," and now she was shouting. She quickly looked up the stairs and kept still for a moment, worrying that the kids may have awakened. After a moment of silence, she again turned to me. "Out, out, out. Get the fuck out of this house and out of my life." I couldn't reply. There was nothing that I could have said. Any excuse that came to my lips would have sounded lame as hell. I turned from her, climbed the stairs and packed a bag. I threw my toiletries in a shaving kit and walked downstairs. Casey will still sitting there, stiffly, in her chair, still staring. I entered the den, scooped up my laptop and returned to the living room. I hesitated...looked at her for a moment, then turned again and left my house. I remember wondering if I would ever be able to return. ******************** I sat comfortably in an old rattan chair, admiring Reggie's bungalow. While I had been there before, I still marveled how an old codger like Reg had the talent to fix the place up so nicely. It was small, only 2 small bedrooms, 1 and a half bathrooms. What I enjoyed was the spacious back, screened in patio, and what was even nicer was the fact that it was on the water. Nothing to break the view of the gentle surf breaking on the white sand beach. The place may have been small, but let's not kid ourselves - anything on the water must have cost a fortune. "Let's go, Alex. Dinner is ready. Let's...how do you Yanks say it? Let's put the feedbag on?" he chuckled. Dinner was truly delicious. Damn, the man could cook also. We had poached yellowtail snapper, new potatoes and green beans. Everything cooked to perfection. I tore into the food and thoroughly enjoyed the meal. "Guess what, Alex. Knowing your poor taste in spirits, I managed to get a bottle of your precious Laphroaig. I'll join you with some true spirits," and he picked up a bottle of his Maker's Mark. I was astonished. You have no idea what a bottle of that scotch cost. I immediately offered to pay Reg for it, but he waved me off. He took my by the arm and steered me back onto the back porch. "Let's just settle ourselves, laddie. It's a beautiful evening, let's enjoy it." I smiled a bit to myself. I'm not dense, I knew Reg was trying to make me comfortable. He seemed to have some kind of strange interest in what had happened to me and I wondered why. Did he have some ulterior motive? Nah, not Reggie's style. I guess I would find the why of it sooner or later. Until then, I would enjoy his hospitality. "Alex, you mentioned children. They must be grown by now; how are they? Do you keep in touch with them?" I was still for a few moments. I was really conflicted about my kids. I had tried to shield them the fallout, from the shit spinning off the fan. I'm sure though that some of what happened got back to them, yet they never mentioned it to me. All they were concerned about was my well being. God, I love them. They are now the only things that mean anything to me. "Kids are doing well, Reg. They're both in college now and doing fine. I'm proud of them. We speak on the phone at least once a week." "That's good, Alex. That's good news, I'm glad to hear that." He smiled a bit sadly. "Margaret and I never had children. That was the one sadness in her life." He sighed and shook his head. "But we managed, laddie. We managed." We both sat for a bit, sipping our drinks, looking out over the water. It was quite dark now and comfortably silent, the only sound was the surf breaking over the shoreline. "Laddie, why don't you go on with your story. Tell me what happened after your wife discovered you...ah, flagrante delicto shall we say." I let out a short, bitter laugh. "You British...always so delicate. You mean after she discovered me screwing Terry." I shrugged and gave him a condensed version of the scene at the house ending with me leaving for a hotel room. "But you were both able eventually to put that behind you, correct?" he remarked. "I know it must have been dreadful for both of you, but it did eventually work out?" I sat for a moment, thinking back, remembering. "Reg, for the first six weeks or so she wouldn't speak to me. I would call and she wouldn't answer the phone. She had changed the locks. I would come by and when I approached the house, she would open the door and allow my children to come out and visit with me, but she wouldn't let me enter the house. The kids would cry and try to pull me inside, but she was adamant. She just didn't want to see me or speak with me. I was sure that I was going to be served with divorce papers any day. Then one day she called me - I almost dropped the phone. She called me, but her voice was icy. 'Alex, we have to talk. Do not interrupt me. Against my better judgement, I want you to come by this evening, after the children are asleep. We will sit and we will talk. Actually, to be more accurate, I will talk and you will listen. I will propose a scenario and you will either accept or reject it. That's up to you. I will expect you at 10 p.m.' The line then went dead. She was finished speaking." I gave Reggie a condensed version of our little talk and then begged off. I was tired, not physically, but again I felt drained, emotionally exhausted. I thanked him for the dinner and the company and slowly strolled home, enjoying the softness of the evening. As I walked, the scene at my house that night came vividly to mind. Not a condensed version, but chapter and verse. That conversation was the beginning of the rest of my life. A life that had been filled with love and laughter was now going to be a lot different. ******************** Casey opened the door and motioned me in. There was no smile of welcome or greeting. She motioned me to a chair and sat opposite me. "I want you to just listen. Do not speak, you'll have that opportunity when I'm finished. Just nod if you understand." She waited, I nodded. "I've come to the conclusion that it would be better for the children if you moved back into the house. The children need their father and I will grant that you have been a good father. But, please understand that our relationship, yours and mine, will be quite different that what it used to be. I will not share my bed with you. You will sleep in the fourth bedroom. All of your things will be in that bedroom. You will continue to support this family as you have been, but you are here as the children's father, not as my husband. Do you understand what I am saying? Do you accept these terms?" I just sat there and stared at her. I tamped down my anger and resentment, I thought that I didn't have the right to be angry for I was the one who had precipitated all of this. I was looking down at my hands and then I raised my eyes and looked at Casey. I didn't see a warm, caring wife. I saw a stranger. "Do you hate me that much?" I asked. "Is your anger so great that you can't find forgiveness? Do you really think that the kids won't notice how we react to each other? Is this going to be a facade of a marriage?" "Those are my terms," she said flatly. "Take it or leave it. If you refuse, I will begin divorce proceedings immediately. Just tell me yes or no." I knew when I was licked, I had no illusions about what awaited me. I would be a stranger in a strange land with a wife who could barely tolerate me. What kind of life would that be? But I felt that I had no choice, I wanted to be with my kids. I didn't want them to grow up without me. I told her yes. "You may move back in tomorrow. The bed is already made up and everything of yours that is still here is in that room. I'm sure that the closet there will accommodate all of your things." She stood and then hesitated. "During meals, we will act natural and be pleasant, but directing our comments to the children. Please do not try to engage me in conversation. I will not return a comment or answer anything you may direct to me. Please remember that." With that she strode to the front door and opened it. "I will give you a key to the house tomorrow." I left and she closed the door behind me. That was the first day of my new life. ******************** It was a miserable existence. Oh, not so terrible outwardly, our friends knew that we had separated for awhile, although they never really knew the reason for it, but they were pleased that we had "reconciled." We even started to attend the monthly parties again and everyone was tickled pink to see us. They kept clapping me on the back, bubbling over with enthusiasm. Of course we never again went to the Bower's. Sure, everyone noticed that, but no one ever said anything. To the outside world everything about our family was fine, normal, nothing terribly unusual. I, of course, knew better. The first few months were more than painful. I slept in the guest room and used the hall bathroom. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was never, under any circumstances, to enter Casey's bedroom or bath. I did as she demanded. I lived by her rules. I lived... no, not lived, I existed in that manner for months. We both tried to keep everything as "normal" as possible for the "sake of the children." They were young enough at that time not to realize that things were far from normal - in fact things were decidedly abnormal. Casey refused to acknowledge my very existence. The rules that she had imposed, and to which I had agreed, seemed iron clad. She let me know, time after time, that this was the way things were and were going to be. I did not argue with her. I followed her rules. I lived with massive guilt for I knew that I had destroyed the very things that had been so dear to me. Did I have any right to complain, to become belligerent, to whine at how unfair she was? No, I knew that I was the cause of the destruction of my marriage and I would bear that onus, that responsibility, that burden. Was I being a wuss? Had I turned into a pussy? Perhaps...perhaps that may seem the case in the eyes of some, that I had indeed become emasculated. But I had made the choice. I could have said no to Casey when she gave me her ultimatum. I could have chosen divorce and estrangement from my children. Let's not kid ourselves, a mother can easily arrange events so that a father has little contact with his children. Visitations cancelled because of illness, because of unexpected trips, because of any number of reasons. As angry as Casey was at the time, I just didn't want to take any chances. I didn't want to lose my kids. I just didn't want to lose my kids. Somewhat of a breakthrough came a few months after I had moved back into the house. It was a Saturday and we were eating breakfast. Casey was serving Emily some scrambled eggs. She turned to me and, looking somewhere over my head, said, "Alex, are you going to be playing golf today?" I sat there for a moment, dumbfounded. I wasn't sure if my imagination was playing tricks on me. "Alex?", she repeated and this time she looked directly at me. "Uhh, I...I guess...I mean I can...it's not really important. I can...," I stuttered. "That's okay, Alex. I just wanted to know so that I can take the kids over to my sister's for a visit. She and Ted haven't seen them in awhile and I thought that we could spend a couple of hours there. It's only a 50 minute drive." I truly didn't know what to say. Was she hinting that she wanted me to accompany her, or was she just making sure that I was going to be out of the way so that she could visit her sister? Shit, I didn't know what to do, so I played dumb. I wanted our conversation to continue. "Uh, that would be nice. I...I could go with you...that is if you wanted. I mean the golf thing is not important, I can cancel. They could play without me. I mean...I really wouldn't mind missing..." Casey interrupted me. "No, no, I don't want you to cancel. I just wanted you to know where we will be if we haven't returned. Sunny is dying to see the children." Sonia, known as Sunny,, was a couple of years older than Casey and was married to a decent enough guy. Ted was an airline pilot and was, unfortunately, away quite a bit of the time. Sunny had accepted these absences and had devoted herself to her job as a social worker, and to volunteering at the local hospice. She couldn't have children. There was a medical reason for that, but we, or at least I, never learned exactly the why of it. Consequently, our kids became hers. She lavished a lot of love and attention on them. I was fearful at first about them getting spoiled, but they're good as well as sensible kids. I think that they just sensed that this was a need in Sunny and they reciprocated. "Okay...uh, Casey." I almost cringed. This was the first time I had uttered her name since I had been allowed to return home. I waited for a couple of seconds for an icy reply or stare, but...nothing. She continued fussing over Emily. I pushed my luck. "Please send my love to Sunny and tell Ted hello. Perhaps you can invite them for a cook-out or something one weekend." I quickly looked down at my plate. I didn't want to meet her eyes. I don't know if I had pushed too far. I just sat and continued to eat, but I could feel the tension. Or perhaps the tension was just in me. "Perhaps," she said. "Perhaps." I gave an inward sigh of relief and quickly finished my meal. As I arose, I went to the kids and gave them a quick kiss, telling them to behave for Aunt Sunny and Uncle Ted and to have a good time. I hesitated for just a moment, then I laughed to myself. Oh, no. I'm not that stupid. I just kept the smile on my face and entered the den, got my clubs from the closet, and left to play golf. ******************** And so went the next months and years. Casey and I were pleasant to each other. We had developed a very workable yet formal relationship. We entered into casual conversation, sometimes even when we were alone - until there was a setback. I made an attempt to have a conversation with Casey about the elephant in the room. I wanted to open my heart and pour out my regret and sorrow at my...ah, indiscretion. I had spent days rehearsing what I wanted to say. I had written a mental script, changed words and phrases countless times until I had it just the way I wanted. I had the words and I memorized them. I wanted to apologize and tell her how much I loved her and of the sorrow and regret I felt. One evening, after dinner after the kids were asleep, I sat down in the living room, across from my wife. "Casey, I need to say something. I want to tell you how sor..." I didn't even get a chance to finish the word. I saw the ice form in her eyes. She arose quickly and almost ran up the stairs to her room. I heard the lock click. That's something she hadn't done in quite awhile. Things almost reverted to the way it had been in the weeks after I first moved back in. The atmosphere was frosty to say the least, but finally, after more weeks in the doghouse, things eased and we became more comfortable around each other. So things went. Our relationship improved, we were civil and pleasant and I never, ever attempted to bring that "incident" up again. ******************** You know, I can think of it objectively now, of course that was next to impossible at the time. I was too close, too involved in that excuse of a marriage. Now, thinking about it from quite a distance in time and space, I can understand why things worked out as they did. A relationship between a man and a woman within a marriage is truly a fragile thing. Perhaps you can liken it to a seedling... yes, something young and vulnerable. In order for a seedling to flourish and grow it requires certain necessities, things such as water, warmth, sunlight and food. A marriage also requires sustenance. Marriages can grow and deepen and become even more meaningful as the years go by. That's why it's so damn important that the partners in a marriage make every effort to work at the relationship. The sudden kiss or caress, the glance and smile, a tender touch; these are the little, almost insignificant gestures that when added all up become very significant. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if both partners make the attempt to nourish, protect and cherish each other, a marriage can be the most beautiful thing in the world for the partners. But when you have a relationship without warmth, without affection, without caring...well, that marriage is in deep doo-doo. Perhaps that's why so many marriages fail, not through some sort of volcanic eruption, but just through lack of attention, lack of empathy. Most marriages die not with a bang, but with a whimper, withering and dying through sheer inertia. After a few years of living in such a marriage I found that I had changed. Oh, the changes were so gradual, so unnoticed, so insidious. I found that I was spending more time at work than necessary. I was using any excuse to avoid staying at home. The only things that pulled me there were my kids. I tried to spend as much time as possible with them. I was there for dinner with the family every night I was in town. We all did things together over the weekend. Yes, even my wife participated, but with the clear understanding that her presence was for the children, period. And I was traveling more. I had been given a larger territory and there were days during the week when I had to be away from home. I liked that. I was making even more money now. I missed the kids, but that's all I missed. I soon discovered that not only did I not miss Casey, but was actually relieved that I didn't have to see her or come into contact with her. I also found that I was no longer wracked with guilt. I had come to terms with that "incident "in my life. I finally recognized that that event was totally unplanned, unanticipated and unwanted. I did not commit adultery maliciously or with intent to hurt or deceive. I screwed up because of a horny female, a hard- on, too much booze and temporary, phallic insanity. I also came to the conclusion that I had paid too high a price for that "incident." Casey should not have kept my feet to the flame for that long or to that degree. It appeared to me that she wanted more than a pound of my flesh. She had gone too far and I had suffered too much. Fuck it and fuck her. I just didn't care any longer. The love that I had in my heart for this woman had withered, had died, or if not dead, was certainly buried deeply, so deeply that I no longer felt anything for her. This epiphany broke upon me like a deluge, it was as if a huge spotlight had gone off in my brain and this is the event that caused it. The Incident Ch. 01 Again, it was after a party. We had had a pretty good evening. We had even had a pleasant conversation about the kids and...I don't remember what else. You see most of our conversations were about the kids. That's it for the most part, just the kids. Anyway, we were walking home, our arms brushing occasionally. The silence between us was not strained, it was almost comfortable. Casey giggled a bit as she staggered for a moment. "Damn, I shouldn't have had that las' drink," she murmured and giggled again. We entered our home and Casey went into the living room and sprawled on the sofa. She looked at me and I saw a warm, deep glow in her eyes. I was puzzled, this was an expression that I had never seen before, or if I had, it was long forgotten. "Alex...Alex," she murmured. "I think that it's time perhaps...perhaps..." It looked like she was having difficulty. I had tensed, I didn't know what to expect. Was she trying to tell me that it's over, that it just wasn't working for her? I decided to keep quiet. It's her show, let her finish, let her get it out. "Alex," she said quietly. "Why don't you move your stuff back into my bedroom. I think that it's time for us to sleep together again." To say that I was shocked would be a total understatement. I stood there with my mouth open. Did I hear her correctly? Did she say that she wanted me to sleep with her? Then came the thing that coalesced my thinking, that made me realize what a joke my marriage had become. Since I hadn't responded to her suggestion with eager agreement, she flushed. "I don't want the children to start asking why their father is sleeping in a separate room. It could become awkward and we don't want rumors to spread," she said casually, almost offhand, but I could hear the tension in her voice. Bingo, that was it. It was at that time that I realized that I didn't care, I just didn't give a shit. She thought that like a good, little puppy dog I would come to her and lick her in gratitude and thanks for her kindness and indulgence in welcoming me back into HER bedroom. HER bedroom??? I stood there, trembling in anger. I wanted to scream at her, to curse her, to pile heaps of ridicule and contempt upon her for what she had put me through. I didn't do any of that. I looked at her and said, "No thanks. We'll keep things as they are," and I turned and walked up the stairs to my room. ******************* And so life went on. Casey and I were civil to each other. We were in fact pleasant to each other. We had fun with the kids during meals and whenever we had the opportunity to spend some quality time with them. Everything was just hunky dory except...except we made sure that we never came into physical contact with each other. Uh uh, no touching. Guess what, after awhile I had no desire to touch her. It eventually became a non-issue. Did I have blue balls? Sure, at times, but I didn't fuck around, I took care of myself manually - you know, by hand. Casey? Who knows. Did she play around? No, she didn't. How do I know? I checked periodically. Just leave it that way. I continued to work my ass off and I was successful. I was the top sales producer in my region and my income reflected that. I also started to skim quite a bit of money from my checks, money that I invested in foreign funds. Oh, I paid taxes on everything, I just made sure that these investments were secret, unknown to anyone except my overseas broker. Why did I decide to do that? Uncertainty, that's why. I had a strong suspicion that someday my wife was going to bite me in the ass, and I wanted to be prepared. I didn't want to be surprised if one day she decided to divorce me and take me for everything I had. I wanted a nice, hidden pool of money to comfort me in my old age. Wonderful way to live, isn't it, in a constant state of suspicion and mistrust. ******************** A couple of years passed when, on a pleasantly warm weekend, we had Sunny and Ted over for a cook-out. That didn't happen too often, most times Casey traveled down to their place. I enjoyed their company and it was nice seeing them. As usual, Sunny tended to spend as much time with the kids as she could, but they were getting older and it seemed that their friends were now more important to them then family. In any event, the kids were warm and welcoming and suddenly scarce. It wasn't long before we heard them and the neighbor's kids screaming next door. It never ceases to amaze me - young kids have stuck volume controls, either very loud, or very low - you know, muttering. One of our neighbors, Ann, was sitting outside chatting with Ted and Casey. Sunny was in the kitchen gathering up paper plates and plastic utensils for the hamburgers and hotdogs which were going on the grill soon. I was also in the kitchen getting a drink of water when suddenly Sunny turned to me. "Alex," she said softly and then looked out of the window, noticing that Casey was still in conversation with Ann and Ted. She turned to me again and repeated my name. "Alex, please...please sit down. I really need to speak with you." "Sure, Sunny. What's on your mind?" I asked as I pulled out a chair from the table. She stood for a moment, biting her lower lip. Again she looked out of the window and then turned and sat opposite me. "Alex, please don't consider me a busybody, but I believe that there is something dreadfully wrong with your marriage and I'm more than concerned." I sat still for a long moment, shocked. Was it that obvious? I thought that we had fooled everyone. I truly believed that no one had any idea that this so called marriage was a sham, that it was a union in name only. "Why do you say that, Sunny?" I replied calmly. "What gave you that idea?" "Come on, Alex. It's so damn obvious, at least to me. You and Casey are like strangers to each other. You never kiss, you never touch, in fact you both make it a point to avoid each other whenever possible." "Sunny, you're making a mountain out of a molehill." I saw her grimace and had to chuckle. "Sorry about the cliche, but it's true. We're fine. I don't know why you expect us to be all over each other all of the time. Don't forget, we're old married people now." Despite my attempt at levity, she seemed to see through me. "Bullshit, Alex. Don't try to bullshit me. You two are like acquaintances, you don't act like a loving couple. Don't forget, I've seen how you were before, and what I have been seeing the last few years is shocking to me. Alex, what the hell is going on? Level with me, please," she pleaded. I sighed and thought for a moment. What the hell, she sees the truth, but I was still reluctant to spell it out. Then again, why not. It won't be that many years until the whole thing falls apart anyway. I got up and I looked out the window. Casey, Ted and Ann were still chatting away. I turned back to Sunny and as briefly as I could I told her that she was totally correct, that our marriage was one in name only. I told her what had precipitated the collapse, I didn't try to duck any of the blame, but I have to admit I sounded bitter at how my wife had, in effect, divorced me. Oh, not legally of course, but in every other sense of the word. Sunny sat and listened. I saw her mouth tighten as I spoke and when I had finished her face was pale and there were tears in her eyes. "Alex, we don't have the time now, but please promise me that you'll call me and we can make plans to meet. There are things that I have to tell you. I don't know if what I will tell you will make things any more pleasant for you, but it may bring some understanding. Call me and we'll make a date to get together. Please, Alex. It's important." "Okay, Sunny. That's no problem. I'll call you tomorrow from work," I told her, puzzled at her intensity. "In the meantime I had better get some of the food on the grill. I think that the coals are hot enough now." ******************** Events at work the next day pushed my promise to Sunny clear out of my mind. I came in early, as was my custom, to find an email asking me to see Ray Fowler first thing in the morning. Now Ray was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing and while was not my immediate boss, I certainly didn't question the request. I quickly mounted the stairs to the executive floor. I met Ray in the corridor. He slapped my back and quickly ushered me into his office. As I sank into the soft leather chair, he took the one next to me, not behind his desk as I would have expected him to do. He had asked Suzy, his secretary to bring us coffee and while we waited he smiled and let me know that the company appreciated all my hard work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I looked about a bit surreptitiously, taking in the opulence of his office and the way it was tastefully decorated. Walnut paneling, lush beige, wool carpet, a large desk and executive chair, and a small bar in the corner. The large window behind the desk looked out over the small lake behind the building. These guys knew how to make work worthwhile. "Alex, Bill Conner just quit. He handed in his resignation last night," Ray said quietly. Jeez, Bill was one of the regional sales managers and my boss. I was stunned as to why he would just get up and quit what was a very lucrative job. Then it hit me...last night? Damn, last night was Sunday night. What the...I sat and waited for Ray to continue. "There's no easy way to say this. We've had our eyes on him for awhile now. He's been taking kick-backs and some of our customers have been getting pissed at his greed. So when we had all the evidence we needed I confronted him and, to his credit, he didn't try to lay a load of bullshit on me. I gave him the opportunity to resign and he took it. He cleaned out his desk last night." I just sat there, stunned. I had no idea that Bill was playing that game. I know that it wasn't happening with my customers - that I would have known. I keep good track as to what's going on with the people to whom I sell and they would have complained to me in a second if they had been pressured. "I can guess what you're thinking," Ray smiled at me. "I know that it wasn't happening to your clients. He was playing his games with large, wholesale accounts. He was cutting prices and getting dough back under the table. What first tipped us off was the red flag that was raised by the prices he was giving certain large accounts. It didn't take us long to figure out what was going on." I shook my head in surprise. Oh, I believed it alright, it just really shocked me. Why the idiot screwed up a truly great job for a few extra bucks just didn't make sense. Of course avid greed leads many people to extreme acts. "Anyway," Ray continued. "We want you to fill Bill's position. You've certainly demonstrated your fitness for the job and everyone seems to like you. You know how important that is - not too many people will get pissed by being passed over. How about it, Alex. Can I shake the hand of a new regional sales manager?" Wow, another stunner. Shit, at age in my late 30s I would be the youngest regional manager on staff. My income would shoot up dramatically. I did give some thought to Laura Ingram. Laura was a couple of years older than I, had been with the company a bit longer and it was thought that she would get the next shot at regional manager. Fuck her. Did I agree? You bet your sweet ass I did. I stuck my hand out so quickly that I made Ray laugh again. We shook hands while wearing huge, shit eating grins. ******************** I didn't make a big deal of the promotion at home. I just explained to Casey and the kids that I had been promoted and part of the new job meant I would be traveling quite a bit. I assured the kids that I would be home almost every weekend and that they probably would get sick of seeing me around, getting in their hair. They laughed and seemed pleased that my travels wouldn't keep me away for weeks at a time. I didn't give Casey much of a chance to comment. Once I was sure that the kids understood the situation I turned and went into my study. Glancing into the mirror over the fireplace, I saw Casey standing alone, looking at my back as I exited the room. Every one at work seemed to delight in my promotion. Well, everyone except Laura Ingram. Oh, she said all the right things and made all the proper gestures, but I could see that she was seething inside. I could almost feel the hatred she radiated. Again, fuck her. Her husband had some kind of lucrative, commercial real estate company. It wasn't as if she needed the money. I didn't have the time or inclination to worry about that bitch. ******************** The next weeks and months were absolutely crazy. God bless Ray. He took me under his wing and made sure that I learned the ropes. He traveled with me, introducing me to a ton of customers new to me. Fortunately, it didn't take long for me to feel comfortable in this new job. I'm not stupid, I knew what a break this was and I worked my ass off making a good impression. As I had predicted, I was away most of the week, in one location or another, but I was always home by Friday evening. I spent as much time as I could with the children, but let's not kid ourselves. By this stage of the game they were into their friends and kid activities. While they did appreciate Dad wanting to be involved, I had to make sure that I didn't push that too much. They were trying out their wings, I didn't want to be a drag. Casey? I don't know. Really. I don't know. I saw her infrequently during the week. Those rare evenings during the week when I was home, saw me spending most of the time in my study, doing paperwork, getting settled in the job. I didn't know what was going on with her, and frankly, I didn't care. I was just too busy to care. I was busy making a ton of money, part of which went to fatten my own personal nest egg. Anyway, you can understand why I had totally forgotten Sunny's request that I call her. Events were overtaking me and I had totally forgotten that I had promised to call. Strangely, Sunny didn't call me and so we didn't get together for our talk for quite awhile. (To be concluded) The Incident Ch. 02 I was startled out of my nap by the harsh ringing of the telephone. "Hello," I croaked, my voice feeling rusty. "Alex, it's Reggie. Where have you been hiding? I haven't seen hide nor hair of you in days. Why not join me at Rick's this evening for dinner. Tell you what, laddie, you can pay. That should make you feel better," he chuckled. I cleared my throat and laughed. "That sounds fine, Reg. By the way, what time is it. I must have fallen asleep reading." "It's 3 p.m., Alex. I'll meet you there at 7. That gives you plenty of time. Don't be late," he cautioned and hung up. I roused myself and went and looked into the mirror in the foyer. Shit. That's right, I looked like shit. I hadn't shaved in 3 days and I had forgotten if I had even showered. What the hell is wrong with me? It's not as if I had second thoughts about what I had done. It wasn't as if I was all that heart broken about the end of my marriage. It wasn't as if I was that devastated by Casey's betrayal. So why the hell was I moping about? I thought that it could be just laziness. I hadn't had a real opportunity to be lazy in decades. College required study and part-time work. After graduation it was right into the work force. Marriage, kids, keeping up the facade of married life, all of that tended to keep one busy. I realized that this was the first time since I was a kid that I had no responsibilities, no place I had to be, no need to even look at my watch. I looked at my bare wrist - I didn't even wear one now. You know something, it's not at all difficult doing nothing. "Well," commented Reg as I walked onto the patio at Rick's. "You look turned out. Are you seeing someone after we dine, Alex?" and he chuckled at his humor. In fact I did look fairly decent. I had showered, shaved and even managed to get a haircut. I had dressed fittingly with a clean and pressed pair of khakis and black polo. I smiled at his jibe. "No date later for me, Reg. I'm all decked out just for you. It looks like you're my date, damn it." Reggie smiled and we ordered drinks and dinner. The drinks were outstanding, the food a bit less so, but that wasn't a surprise. We chatted about nothing in particular. Reggie was in a nostalgic mood and he was able to keep the conversation going with tales of growing up in the southwest of England and the years he spent in Scotland. Dinner was soon over and we sat back, again pleased that we were the only ones on the patio. Well, it was the off season and most of the locals were home and the few tourists preferred the air conditioned interior of the place. Reggie pulled out a slim panatella and offered one to me, nodding as I shook my head in refusal. He lit up, sipped a bit of his drink and turned to me. "Well, Alex. Now where were we in your narrative? I believe you ended by telling me about the conversation you had with your wife, when she invited you to return to the household, but with conditions, correct?" I sat still for a moment, gazing at him. I was puzzled. Why was Reggie so interested in my life? Did he have ulterior motives? Nah, I truly believed Reg to be a decent guy, but I had to ask. "What's going on, Reg. Why this interest in my past? I know that you're not the type to get vicarious pleasure from the misery of others. Come clean, Reg. I know that you must have a reason for this fascination." Reggie smiled softly. "I knew that eventually you would ask that question, laddie. You're quite correct, I do have a reason. How about I give you just a broad outline and will fill you in on the details at a later date when the time presents itself. Will that do, Alex?" I shrugged and nodded. Reg looked pensive for a moment and then continued. "You see, my boy, I had a similar event in my early years. Oh, I was much worse than you had been. To be brief, I was a bit of a womanizer, even after I had married my love. A few years into my marriage Margaret discovered that I was having an affair. It truly devastated her and we separated. Well, that separation shocked me to the core. It changed me. I didn't want to lose Margaret so I changed. I vowed to never again betray my marriage and finally convinced my love that I was sincere. That is my long story cut very short, but you can understand why I find your situation so interesting, especially since the outcome of your...ah, incident turned out so differently for you. There's more to my story, but I'll get to that later, okay?" I nodded. I guess I understood Reg's motives a bit better now, but I still wasn't totally convinced. Well, I was not all that interested in the long version of his tale, so I accepted what he told me and told him of the years after I had moved back in. My tale was fairly mundane. Some events seemed to create more interest for Reggie, especially Casey's so called bedroom invitation and I noticed his raised eyebrows as I told him of my refusal. He again perked up when I mentioned the conversation I had with Sunny. The one where I had promised to call her and didn't get around to for quite awhile. I finally ran out of steam after telling Reg about my promotion and the busy years at my job. "And throughout these years, you really had only a shell of a marriage, Alex? There was never any physical contact? None?" queried Reg. "Yep, no physical contact. Oh, we related fairly well to each other. There wasn't a load of tension in the house. It was almost as if we were brother and sister...no, no, not quite that homey. It was as if we were acquaintances. That's really the appropriate term. We got along, but we were never intimate, physically or emotionally." "Alex, I hope that this isn't, ...ah, indelicate, but how did you manage with normal, male sexual urges? From what I understand, you never again attempted an extramarital affair. How on earth did you manage." I laughed, albeit a bit bitterly. "I ran, Reg. Almost everyday. I found that my so called sexual urges were strongest in the mornings, so I would rise early, go out and run. If the weather was good, I would run outside, if not, at the gym. Even when I was away on business, I always took my jogging stuff with me. You know, clothes, sneaks, etc. Running helped suppress those urges." I looked at him steadily, thinking to shock him perhaps? "Then, of course, there is always Madam Thumb and her four sisters. That helped quite a bit also." I sat for a moment, thinking. "I guess...that is I suspect...oh, shit. What I'm trying to say is that it could be that the results of my little extra-marital foray may have kind of prevented me from pursuing that route, Reg. I'm not trying to be an amateur psychologist, but every time I thought of "looking around" I seemed to shut down. Perhaps the price I was paying for my adultery prevented me from trying it again? I don't know, but I did keep my pecker in my pants." Reggie sat there, shaking his head sadly. "So for over 12 years you lived a lie of a marriage. How dreadful that must have been for both of you." For both of us? Both of us??? Hmmm, interesting. I never really gave much thought to how Casey felt about the situation she had created. Oh, yes, I was at fault at first, but she had blown it totally out of proportion. I screwed up, but she had let it destroy us. Was it all that dreadful for her? Interesting. I thought about that for a few seconds. Nah, not so dreadful, I speculated. She probably luxuriated in her martyrdom, casting herself in the role of the betrayed victim. Fuck it, I was getting a headache. Reggie commiserated with me for a bit and then we moved on to other, less sensitive, topics. You know, like why we Americans loved violent sports like football. I had my reply ready. Like rugby is less violent? Yeah, sure. ******************** I got up the next morning and made sure that I showered and shaved. I put on a pair of swimming trunks, got a large beach towel out and prepared a thermos of lemonade. Yeah, yeah, lemonade. I took some sun block with me, despite the deep tan I had already developed. Better safe than sorry. Less than 10 minutes later I was lying on a pristine, white sand beach, under the fronds of a queen palm, sipping lemonade. The sun was still low on the horizon, but it had already become hot. I had dark sunglasses on, a necessity considering the glare from the water and the shimmering sand. It was relatively early and there were few bathers, which suited me fine. I thought back to my evening with Reggie and smiled. He was a good sort and I was lucky to have found a friend. It made my exile easier to take. WHOA...whoa. What exile? Where did that come from? Shit, no exile. This is what I had chosen. This was MY decision. This is what I had planned. This is where I wanted to be. Forget exile. No exile. This is my place in the sun. Shit, the sun is scrambling my brains. Gotta move further back in the shade. Shaking my head in disgust at myself, I did just that - I moved further back into the shade. I was leaning back against the trunk of the palm, sipping my lemonade - okay, so it had a splash of vodka in it. Big deal, it was only a splash. I had gotten comfortable and my thoughts drifted back to my years as a regional manager. Jeez, I really enjoyed those years. I had fun, truly, I did. I enjoyed the people I dealt with, I was really successful and I was making a ton of money. Damn, I was making a ton of money doing something that I really loved. If my home life had been half as rewarding as my work, I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven. My relationship with Casey hadn't really changed all that much. As had been mentioned, we were civil and relatively friendly. Ha, friendly. That's with a small, not a capital f. No intimacy, no physical or emotional contact. Did it bother me? Nah, this is how it was for some years now, I had gotten used to it. I had...really. You know, sometimes life deals you four aces in one hand, and shit in another. That's me - great job, and a marriage that sucked, figuratively speaking, of course. The kids were now young adults, preparing for college. Damn, they grew up so fast. When did that happen? Anyway, Casey decided that she wanted to return to the work place. The kids really didn't need her around all of the time now and she was getting bored. I was in my study when she knocked on the door. I told her to come in and she sat in the chair in front of my desk. She didn't say anything at first, just glanced around the room. It was almost as if she had never seen it before. I suddenly realized that may not have been too far from the truth. We had a cleaning service come in every week and they took care of the dusting, vacuuming, and the rest of what they do. Casey probably had no reason to come into my study. "Alex," she began. "I need to do something. The children don't really need me around constantly and I feel useless. I'm thinking of getting a part-time job." I blinked. That was a surprise. I shrugged. If she wanted to work, let her. It really didn't make any difference to me. "What do you intend?" I asked. "Are you going to try your old place? "No, no. I was thinking of real estate sales. It seems that the market is hot now and it could be a lot of fun. The community college is offering classes and I can get certified. The money could be significant too. I could contribute to the household expenses." I just looked at her. Didn't she have any idea of what my income was? We had a ton of money in CDs, money market accounts, and stock and bond funds. I could have supported two households like ours with plenty left over. I didn't reply to that comment. "Okay, Casey. If you want to work, then do so. Do what ever makes you happy," I replied and then turned to my computer and continued to work on my spreadsheet. I heard her get up and leave. I didn't look after her. ******************** Another year or so went by and I was now very comfortable with my position. I was not only comfortable, but extremely successful. I had increased sales by almost 12 percent which of course also increased the amount of my bonuses. I loved what I was doing and I was successful doing it. I also did not have to travel as extensively as before. The customer list had grown, and my sales force was keeping things humming. Every customer knew me and they knew that I was good at getting problems solved and glitches worked out, so now my travels consisted of just a few days here and there during the month. Casey? Well, let's see. She did finish getting her real estate license and got a job rather quickly with a commercial real estate firm in center city. You have to remember, I had gotten to the point where I wasn't really all that interested in what she was doing. It seemed that she was making money. I thought that was amusing, she was actually putting money into our checking account on an irregular basis. She was "contributing to the household expenses." Jeez. I was sitting at my desk, looking at my calendar when my secretary buzzed me. "Alex, there's a woman on the line who says that she's your sister. Her name is ..." "Shit," I blurted out. "Oh, sorry, sorry about that, Connie. Pardon my language. Please, put her on." I had totally forgotten about my promise and hearing her name, in my office, brought back that promise. "Sunny? Sunny, please forgive me. I'm an ass, I had totally forgotten that I was to call you to set up a meet." I heard her laugh. "Alex, don't be silly. I had learned of your sudden promotion and I knew that you'd be really busy for awhile, so I didn't even want to bring that up." She hesitated for a bit and then said casually, "I just wonder if you have time now? We could meet for lunch, or coffee, or..." she left it hanging. "Of course," I reassured her. "Tell you what. Can you get away today? I can free up my afternoon. Can you drive here? We can go and have a nice lunch and then return to my office where I can leave word that we're not to be disturbed. How is that?" "I can do that, Alex. As long as you're sure that this won't be bothersome for you. I know how busy you are now," she said. "Nope, no bother at all. I'll expect you around noon, ok? True to her word, Sunny did show up at noon and we went down to my car and had a very pleasant lunch at a Thai restaurant not far from the office. Our conversation was pleasant and innocuous. Obviously Sunny wanted to keep it light. I obliged her. Once back in my office, I left instructions that we were not to be disturbed and made Sunny comfortable in one of the two leather, easy chairs I had which were grouped around a small cocktail table. I took the other chair. "Would you like some coffee, Sunny?" I asked. She shook her head. It was obvious that she now was uneasy and a bit nervous. She shifted in her chair and looked around my office. "Very nice, Alex. You've really done well here, but that doesn't surprise me. I've always been impressed with your talent." I smiled pleasantly and waited. She had something to say and she would say it in her own sweet time. Sunny finally bit her lip and looked at me. "Alex, I want to tell you about a time when Casey and I were very young. It may help you understand the reasons for the mess your marriage has become, but please don't interrupt me. I had to steel myself to get to this point, the subject isn't pleasant." I just nodded and smiled pleasantly. "Casey was about 10 years old. She had come home from school early one day, I've forgotten the reason now - that's not important. Casey was always a rather quiet child, not raucous or loud. From what I could gather, she came home and went up the stairs to her room for something. She heard noises from our parents bedroom and discovered our father screwing a woman who was not our mother. Mom was at work and I guess that Dad felt that he would have the house to himself at that time." Sunny was quiet for a long moment and I could see tears in her eyes. "From what I understood, Casey just stood there in the doorway, shocked, stunned, whatever. Dad saw her standing there. He donned a robe, I presume, and steered her into her room. She just stood in her room for hours, not moving. She was traumatized." Sunny had been giving me this information quietly, with her eyes downcast. "Alex, Casey spent years in psychoanalysis. Don't forget, I was only a couple of years older, but even at that time I recognized how disturbed my sister was. My parents divorced and the assumed quilt of that split only made Casey's mental state worse. She was treated for almost six years before she became anywhere near normal psychologically. "She was home tutored for years. I did whatever I could for her, but it seemed that she only lived in her own mind for so long. Oh, she wasn't violent or explosive - sometimes I wished that she would show some real emotion. She just tended to internalize her demons. Eventually though, she came around and enrolled in our local high school. She did well, seemed to get involved with the normal high school things, had friends and graduated with very good grades. "Look, Alex. I'm just a social worker. Despite the courses in psychology I had taken for my degree, I'm not a shrink and I don't know the appropriate jargon that applies here. But, Alex, there is no doubt in my mind that when Casey discovered you with that woman, all of the old pain returned. Perhaps that's why she just couldn't treat this as an aberration, a drunken slip, an almost laughable faux pas. I think that what she saw was a re- enactment of the scene she witnessed so many years before." Sunny was looking at me with a an intensity that was palpable. I sat there, trying to assimilate what I had just been told. I had gotten too much information, too much and too sudden. I just couldn't encompass it entirely. I didn't know what to think. I almost didn't notice Sunny rising to her feet. I quickly rose with her and found that I really had nothing to say. I felt inundated, overwhelmed, I just didn't know what to say. Sunny had a rather sad smile on her face. She patted me on the shoulder and murmured, "I know that this is a lot for you to chew on, Alex. I just thought that it was important that you know the reasons behind what has happened to your marriage. I...," she hesitated, shook her head slightly and then went to me, gave me a brief hug and then turned and left. She left me standing there, looking at the door closing behind her. I don't know how long I stood there. My thoughts..., hah, thoughts, what a joke. I wasn't thinking, my emotions had taken control and if any thoughts were going through my head they were chaotic and unformed. I suddenly turned and went to the window behind my desk. Without warning, I felt myself screaming silently, "SON OF A BITCH, FUCKIN', ROTTEN, ..." With an effort I regained control of myself. I was terribly conflicted. I was used to how things were between Casey and myself. I never gave any thought really as to the why of it all. I just figured that's the way she was and is. I never really tried to analyze the situation. I never tried to talk to her about it. Wait...wait. I did, I did try to talk to her about it. She shot me down, oh boy, did she shoot me down. So firmly that I never again made the effort. I...never...made... another... effort. Who could blame me? I never thought that she would be receptive. I just retreated...that's what she wanted, didn't she? WHAT THE FUCK!!!! What the fuck am I doing. I'm going nuts. I'm standing here arguing with myself. The next thing I'll see is the men in white coats coming to take me away. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. Too much...too much information. I'm not going to do anything right now. As Sunny said, I have a lot to chew on. Is any of this going to make a difference? You wanna know the truth - I didn't think so. Too much damage had been inflicted. The Incident Ch. 02 February 19th 1998, one year later, dawned another hot sunny day. By nine o'clock the house was done, she had showered carefully after lightly shaving her pubic area with Tom's electric razor, and powdered herself lightly all over, followed by a light deodorant spray. Nails were neatly pruned and painted, brownish blonde hair brushed until it shone. Her feet were soft from several weeks of nightly oiling and the tan was as perfect as she could get it. Not a dark brown, but a light golden brown. Today, she selected a simple, loose fitting white strapless sundress, in the same style as her usual sunfrock but more flattering against her tan, stepped into it and tightened the drawstring into a bow. She found the gold cord-like belt and tied it around her waist. She could feel her nipples pressing into the cotton as her breasts flowed into the material. Then she found her very elegant sandals with the golden cord ties and slipped them on. Two squirts with the mouth freshener and her toilet was complete. Mandy gathered up a heavy rug, the largest beach umbrella she could find, a hold all which contained insect repellent, two beach towels, hand lotion and tissues and placed them in the trailer that she had attached to the four wheeler the night before. Her excitement was intense and drove every action, feeling a youthful vigour coursing through her veins. She had hardly slept a wink the night before in anticipation of this day. David had telephoned three weeks ago to say that his parents had gone on holiday as usual and that he was on his own. He proposed to visit the stream again about 10.00am on February the 19th. No question about whether she would come or not, no comment about their last meeting -- just a simple statement of fact. Apart from acknowledging who she was, she never said a word. At first she was fairly neutral about the information, having got over all the peculiar feelings she had the first time she had sex again with Tom, and the intensity of the memory of that wonderful encounter a year earlier having gradually faded. She had quickly reconciled herself to the fact that since it had not been planned, it was just an accident of circumstance; the sooner put behind her the better. There was no question of falling in love or threatening her relationship with Tom and in fact, if it had done anything, it had reaffirmed her love for Tom and how important their relationship really was. Just the same, even though she had no intention of going to the stream that day she was quietly pleased that he remembered the day, just as she had. Bloody silly idea anyway, he's just a boy. In fact I'm old enough to be his mother and should have known better. I wonder what he told his friends? 'Got this sex starved married woman, you know. What a knockout in the long grass! No, I'm not telling you her name in case you try to get in on the act.' Actually, he's probably not like that at all, she mused. He was twenty-six, she had discovered by asking around discretely, and she was surprised by his unusual sensitivity and maturity for that age. Well, it was a nice idea to think about and secretly very pleased that he might want to see her again, as up till then, she had absolutely no idea how he felt about her or about what had happened. As the intervening days passed, Mandy found that she was thinking increasingly of that moment of intense excitement that he had given her, of that lean body and how it had satisfied the sensual longings that had been plaguing her. Until the phone call, the tanning process had gone on without much incident, but she began to feel the butterflies again each time she slipped her sun-frock off, especially after the call. Nevertheless, she had determined that she would ignore the opportunity that he seemed to be suggesting. Her resolve was somewhat shaken two days earlier when she had taken a rug out into a paddock, so that she could lie down and more easily tan all four sides. As she lay on her front, a lump in the ground pressed firmly into her pelvic area and really began to generate some sexual tension that did not leave her. By the next day, she found that she had quite unconsciously begun to think what she would like to do if she went and realised that she would never be content unless she did. It was a wonderful experience last time and no harm had come from it. Chances of it happening again in the future were not great, as he would probably leave the district and marry some lucky young woman. Once she had accepted that she had really made the decision in her mind, she was open to the delicious sensation of anticipation and the excitement of plotting what she might do. She hopped on the bike and drove purposefully to the end of the farm. By now, her excitement was so intense that she wondered if she might have an orgasm on the way. How would they meet? What would they do? Stand and stare at each other? Converse normally? Immediately engage in a mad frenzy? The scenarios were legion. Throw themselves into an embrace of kissing from which clothes were ripped off, or should she start where it all began, by arriving early and being in the pool as on the first occasion. This was probably the safest option. Of course, he may be just unsure enough of how he stood with her that he needed some sort of a signal. Surely just being there was enough? She arrived at the gate a few minutes before ten and climbed over the fence and stood at the top of the bank. Her heart leaped -- he was already there, stark naked, standing in water up to his knees. There were no white patches this time! His lean evenly tanned body glistened as the water dripped off it and she could see his thigh muscles rippling as he moved to get a better purchase on the stones. Well, that ruined all her plans! He saw her arrive and waved and she waved back, then she turned and walked back to the fence to get the rug, umbrella and towels. She carried these back to the nearest flat area and he watched as she rammed the umbrella into the ground, opened it up and spread the rug. As he suspected, David had been haunted by her image throughout the year. It hadn't driven him crazy because there had been at various times, two lovely young students who had distracted him wonderfully. He kept wondering if it was real or whether he had simply built up some fantasy. There was no way he was going to go out of his way to see her -- that would be fatal to his resolve not to interfere in her life. Discreet inquiries had suggested that she was actually in her early forties and that had really surprised him. Shocked him even. He would have been happier not knowing, because in his mind, she was ageless. However, by the time he had been back on the farm for a few weeks in December, his mind began to focus once again on the image. He visited the stream twice, once in late December and again in mid January but the place seemed joyless and barren and evoked no new memories. His restlessness grew progressively as his uncertainty about how she later felt, grew. She might have been furious with him by the time she got home and be ready to take an axe to him the next time he was in range. Assuming, of course, that she hadn't confessed to husband Tom who would be only too happy to do it for her. For some months earlier in the year, he had half expected Tom to turn up on his doorstep breathing fire and brimstone. He had no right to presume that she would even want to acknowledge that she had ever met him. Discretion was obviously the order of the day! Then it struck him. He could make an approach that she could ignore if she wanted to. He wouldn't write, that was far too risky but he could chance a phone call about mid morning, confirm that he was talking to the right person, and simply say that he would go to the stream on the date of the anniversary. There would be no need for an answer or any awkward conversation. The day after his parents left for their holiday, he poured himself a large scotch and gave it five minutes to boost his courage, then grabbed the phone book, found the number and dialled it. He was trembling so much and his throat went so dry, that when she answered he could hardly speak. She did not sound a bit like his memory of her voice and he had to ask if it was Mandy. Assured that it was, he blurted out his message and hung up. The fat was in the fire now. Three anxious weeks to wait. Then he began to wonder what it was he was trying to do. He could scarcely claim that he loved her, as he did not know her at all. Did he really want to apologise to her for using her to satisfy his sexual needs? Get off the grass! From her perspective, he would hardly be regarded as the great lover. Slam, bam and thank you Ma'am and he had walked off without saying a word. The more he thought about it, the worse it got and the more embarrassed he felt. The reality was he could not undo the phone call! The only consolation he could find was that it might satisfy her that he had contacted her and she could now ignore him. Even peep over the fence, just to make sure that he was there, so that she could slip away without dignifying the occasion with any sort of a visible response. Worse, she might throw stones at him. Still, he deserved whatever she did. David was so impressed by his memory of her even tan that he had earlier decided he should match that if only for his own personal pride and satisfaction and he had spent every spare moment after his parents had left, getting a tan without burning. It seemed to take days before he saw any signs of change and he was tempted to give it a real burn up, but he was too frightened of skin cancer and a peeling skin. Then came the day. Trepidation almost killed any sexual urges that had been building up and he pondered on how he might meet or greet her. After rejecting umpteen ridiculous opening scenarios, he decided that he would do what he said on the phone. He would visit the stream. In fact, he would go for a swim as if it was the most natural thing to do on a hot day. You do not wear a swimsuit in your own private stream, but he would not move from the point from which he started last time in case he needed to beat a dignified retreat. He arrived well before ten and undressed on his side of the river and slipped into the water. It was lovely and warm although pretty shallow, barely covering his body when he lay down. He cursed inwardly as he heard the dying sound of an engine being cut and realised that he had not heard it approaching. He really did need to shift along a few metres to the next pool which was just a bit deeper from which he could watch events unfold. His pulse raced, had she come or was it Tom? He definitely needed deeper water! He had almost reached the next pool when he glanced up the bank and saw her standing there looking absolutely radiant in a simple white strapless dress. It wasn't Tom and she did not look angry. What a relief! He waved a greeting and was delighted to see her wave back. Then David felt sick inside as she turned away and walked out of sight. So she had only come to the river to satisfy herself that he would be there! Worse -- to suffer the indignity of being caught stark naked. (Why hadn't he moved faster to that deeper pool?) Well, he had no right to expect anything else as she had nothing to gain and everything to lose. At least she had the compassion to acknowledge his presence rather than leaving him swimming around speculating about how she felt about him. At least she must have forgiven him and was friendly to the extent of a cheery wave. That was a relief anyway! He was just about to plunge into the larger pool when he saw a movement from the corner of his eye. She had come back and was carrying a beach umbrella and a rug or something. He watched with growing interest as she rammed the umbrella pole into the ground raised the canopy. Once the umbrella was up and the rug spread out to her satisfaction, she turned to look at him. He hadn't moved as if turned to stone, but he hadn't taken his eyes off her either. Mandy took off her hat and shook her hair free, then undid, first one sandal, then the other, which she took off and placed to one side. "Hello there," he called. "When you turned back I thought you were saying 'Hi and goodbye' and I was so looking forward to seeing you again. You have no idea how relieved I was to see you reappear with that umbrella! Is it OK if I come across?" "Of course," she smiled, and slowly undid her belt which she tossed to one side, then undid the bow and pulled the drawstring loose, easing it over her rigid nipples and letting it drop to the ground. She lazily kicked the dress to one side and then bent her knees and settled down on the rug, leaning back on her elbows with her ankles crossed, watching him. Stone suddenly became flesh again as his dick became erect in an instant. It was almost more than he could bear. The real image was more breath taking than the one he had built up in his mind over the last twelve months. His stomach churned with the excitement and desire she evoked in him. He stumbled over the stones towards her until he reached the beach and walked slowly to the rug cursing the indignity of his erection and saved only by the knowledge that she had already seen him naked before. He knelt at her feet and looked at her beautiful shoulders and arms. No pressure indentations from bra straps, no changing skin colour from top to toe. He looked into her eyes. He could tell nothing from her look: he certainly could not tell that she was seething with sexual excitement as she watched this naked young male with his fine physique walk towards her: that her inward fire had been fuelled by the outward sign of his desire for her and that she kept her ankles crossed because she did not want him to see how wet she was. It was enough that her nipples were as hard as thimbles. David reached out and touched her foot, so smooth and perfect. He let his fingers stray around the soft flesh of her ankle and then grasped it and raised her foot to his lips. She was about to speak but instead gasped with the shock waves that ran up her leg and fell back onto the rug as his lips slid onto first one toe then the other, sucking each gently in turn until finally, they were all in his mouth. Mandy had never experienced this sensation before and felt as if she was on the brink of a climax until his lips moved on again, teasing the inside of each ankle and working their way up the inside of her legs as they began to part. He was fascinated by the symmetry of her heaving breasts and the prominence of the large brown nipples. He could hardly wait to swallow them. Mandy was breathing in gasps, thinking she should stop this, her arms outstretched sideways gripping handfuls of the rug. Then the impossible happened. His mouth reached her love spot and before she could move, his hands grabbed each buttock and his tongue plunged inside her. She let out a surprised yelp as a preliminary climax overtook her, then lost all sense of what was happening, as wave after wave of fiery blood surged through her body, and as his tongue sought out the magic spot inside her and his teeth loved her clitoris. Her arms tensed, her back arched and she yelled as a muscle stretching orgasm rocked her like a bomb blast. Totally disoriented, she lay there gasping not knowing how to get herself together, when she became vaguely aware of a new sensation sending darts of flame through her nervous system. His tongue was tracing a path up her navel and finally reached the object of desire as they closed over first one nipple, then the other. Nipping each lightly, sent more waves through an otherwise ravaged system and she found that she was building up to another climax. This time there was an urgency in his approach, his kiss was fierce when he reached her lips and he was able to slip his dick into her so that she scarcely noticed. But as he pressed it to its full depth, his own built up tension became so uncontrollable, that he gave three deep thrusts and had an orgasm that he thought would blind him. White lights flashed before his eyes, his whole pelvis seemed to be in exquisite pain as his juice of life jetted from him. Mandy was once again in a high state of tension, this time from her clitoris which had been heavily massaged three times, and when she felt his orgasm begin, it triggered another breathtaking climax of her own, shorter but more intense than the first, if that was possible. They lay together absolutely spent and breathless, each enjoying the pleasure of the ripples of after-shocks that coursed through their bodies and in the knowledge that was no hurry this time. He rolled onto his back pulling her over on top of him and locked his legs around hers, clamping her vagina tightly onto his now flexible dick. Her breasts swayed gently above him, and her still erect nipples brushed through the hair on his chest. He pulled her head down and kissed her gently letting his tongue explore her mouth, run over her teeth and tangle with her tongue. They had never had time to do anything as leisurely as that before! What an experience, she thought as she began her own exploration of his lips and tongue. Two orgasms within five minutes! Her skin was alive with nerve endings tingling from the pressure of his skin wherever it touched, which was pretty well everywhere, since they were pressed together like dried flowers in a book. His fingers kneaded her bottom and brushed the skin on her back as their lips played with each other. Almost at the same instant, they realised that neither had spoken a word and each started to speak. "Go on," he said. "I was going to say that for a young man, you are a remarkable lover," she breathed. "Just seeing you again drove me crazy," he replied truthfully. She sat back, astride him, drawing her knees up on each side of him and wriggled her pelvis just to remind him that he was still inside her. She could feel his juice running out onto the rug but at this moment she could not have cared about anything. She tried contracting her inner muscles a few times and thought that she was getting some reaction. Young men could recover astonishingly quickly she thought. So she wriggled and squirmed and moved up and down a bit just to tease him and was certain that he was beginning to swell again. "I wasn't going to come here today, you know -- when you first phoned!" "What changed your mind then?" "I'm not sure exactly, because you need to understand that I regarded our first meeting and all that followed as a ......, as an aberration; when a peculiar set of circumstances -- you know? -- how I was feeling and how I slipped on the stones -- allowed an otherwise happily married woman, to do what I did. Occasionally I become sexually aroused in a mild sort of way, just pottering around the farm, but, my fantasies do not include other real men and never one night stands!" David stroked her back as he pondered on how close he had come to giving her a real problem with her own standards of behaviour and her conscience. " Even though it was one of the most incredible experiences that I have ever had, later on I was really quite worried about the effect that it might have had on your relationship with your husband. I must say I wasn't thinking of anything like that at the time -- just that you were the most desirable creature that I had ever seen. And it was OK for me, because I had no commitments and was able to ride off into the sun. I think that it was not knowing that made me phone again in the hope that I would get some reassurance that you were alright." She leant forward and ran the palms of her hands up his chest and kissed him gently, her breasts pressing into his chest. " You are a very sweet and considerate young man," she offered, "and to answer your first question, I must say that I was touched by the fact that you let me know that you remembered the anniversary in a way that didn't compel me to make any decision at the time. I thought that was nice of him, and put it out of my mind. The only trouble was, that after a few days, I realised that it kept slipping back into my mind increasingly frequently - especially if anybody mentioned 'the river' or if I had to go down to that end of the farm. He tried to raise his head so that he could kiss her nipples but could not reach while he was still inside her so he cupped her breasts in his hands and twisted her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Still sensitive from their previous excitement, they responded immediately by stiffening and she felt a stirring of within herself. As she leaned forward, she gained added stimulation since her clitoris was pressing on his pelvic area. Mandy began to contract her vaginal muscles rhythmically and massage his dick and, as she began to feel it grow within her, she began to rise up and down on it. If she could have two climaxes, so must he! The silky feeling of her muscles in her vagina stroking and squeezing him, aroused him quite rapidly and he found himself handling her breasts in a very vigorous fashion, plying them first one way, then another, then clamping her nipples between his finger nails. Mandy had always been very responsive to breast stimulation and she now found that what had just been mild arousal was beginning to sweep her into a sudden frenzy. " I think . . . that it must have been . . . the thought of this . . . that finally tipped me over," she gasped as she leaned more firmly into his hands. She only thrust herself up and down on him with four long strokes, when her own orgasm suddenly overtook her and left her clawing his chest with her fingers as she shuddered and moaned. By now fully erect, the stimulation and the excitement she had induced in him with her own orgasm, brought on his own climax, an uncontrollable reflex thrusting his pelvis upward as if to enter her completely. His whole lower body was suffused with a sharp tingling sensation as the involuntary muscle spasm began to relax and he lay there as if stunned. She slumped forward on to his chest, emotionally spent and oblivious to the world around her, conscious only of a detached lightness in her head. The Incident Ch. 02 After a few minutes of complete immobility, he began to gently stroke the back of her neck and fondle the hair around her ears. She was so still that he thought she must have gone to sleep and was himself, now so drained and comfortable, that he was struggling to stay awake. "I think I am beginning to understand the meaning of unbridled passion," he murmured as he kissed her eyelids and tugged on her earlobes. After about ten minutes, Mandy finally got her senses back to the present, and became very conscious of how hot and sticky she was, even in the shade of the umbrella. Where her skin was pressed against his, it felt red-hot and she could feel the seminal fluid spreading between them. She stirred lazily in his arms and declared that she was going for a swim. Getting groggily to her feet. She wandered off to the deepest pool that she could find and slowly immersed herself. After a few more minutes, he roused himself and joined her in the pool. Although quite warm, the water refreshed him and he found himself admiring the contour of her breasts, which were now buoyant in the water, the depth being such that she was kneeling on the bottom with her head and shoulders out of the water. He knelt in front of her and as he kissed her, he reached between her legs, slowly inserting first one, then several fingers inside her as he began to explore her. She stood up and leaned back against the bank with her eyes closed and her legs splayed as she basked in the intimacy of his touch and the pleasure points that he discovered. "You sure know how to turn a girl on!" she giggled as she enjoyed the electric pulses caused by his finger as it found and ran around her cervix, and the tingling sensation when he kneaded the point on the underside her clitoris. He withdrew his fingers and raising her slightly higher out of the water, thrust his tongue into her. She marvelled at how stimulating it felt, and after a few minutes, she slipped back into the water. As she went down again she grasped his dick and pulled him gently to the surface where she placed her lips over its head. This was a new experience for David and he sucked in his breath and made as if the move out of range. Undeterred, she held on more firmly and drew him right into her mouth. This was a new experience for her also and she found his somewhat soft and pliable member rather exciting to suck on. She let her teeth drag across the skin, then used her tongue to shift it around in her mouth as she might a lollypop. Ooh, this was nice she thought. David was a bit non-plussed by this turn of events at first, but reassured by her obvious enthusiasm for her task and thoroughly enjoying the sensation, placed his cupped hands over her ears and moved her head backwards and forwards in a steady rhythm. At first nothing happened, but a slight swelling began after a few minutes to be followed by a definite tumescence. David groaned with pleasure, "I don't think I can do it again." At that point, she sat him down in the water, and straddling his legs with hers, guided his dick inside her. "Of course you can," she said as she put her arms around his neck and locked her legs around his waist. With the water nearly up to her armpits, there was sufficient buoyancy for her to feel as light as a feather on him and it took only slight effort with his hands on her waist, to have her slip up and down on him. The sensation was doubly pleasurable as he could also feel her nipples rubbing on his chest and getting harder. He was also tantalised by the response he could feel and the build up of excitement that was being generated within him again. Mandy was amazed at how exciting she found this movement. Having already had three orgasms she did not seriously expect to have a fourth, but the stimulation of her breasts as he pressed into her and the feel of his stiffening dick began to arouse her yet again. Imperceptibly at first, then with gathering momentum, pleasurable shock waves began to course through her body as David increased the tempo of the rhythm. She grasped his shoulders and leant back on outstretched arms so that she could add her vigour to the rhythm. Then it came out of the blue as if a physical force had struck her. The impact made her lose her grip and she felt mentally numb with the shock. Every nerve ending screamed and she moaned loudly and uncontrollably several times as wave after wave engulfed her. She was desperate for everything to stop so that she could get herself together. Like a roller coaster at the top of the slope, nothing could stop David's progression to his own climax. He could feel it coming from the distance and he knew that it only needed that little extra, that little extra -- what was it? He had nothing to left offer but to bounce her up and down even more vigorously. By now she was leaning back thrusting her pelvis into him and using her legs to assist the rhythm. As she began to moan, he knew she could not sustain this any longer when suddenly his whole body jack-knifed backwards, as a cataclysmic orgasm assaulted him and his juice of life spurted from him. The only thing holding them together were her legs around his waist and his dick clamped inside her. For a moment both went under water until they twisted sideways and clawed their way to shallower water. His legs refused to work and trailed along helplessly behind him. Once in shallow water they both flopped face down on the stones like beached whales, panting helplessly. After some minutes he told her somewhat ruefully, that he had only intended to kiss her! "Well," she gasped, "if that was the outcome of an intended kiss, I'm very glad that you didn't have anything more serious on your mind!" David dragged himself to his feet and put his arms under her and heaved her upright. She felt absolutely leaden and leaned on him as they walked back to the rug. Without bothering to dry herself, she just sprawled onto the rug and cradled her head in her arm. David could see that she was quite exhausted. So he picked up a towel and having roughly dried his own hair and body, bent down and used that towel to tie around her hair, then using the other towel, gently began to dry her all over. "You know Mandy, every nerve ending in my body will want to repeat this over and over again, but I hear that you have a great husband and a lovely family, so this is not fair on you or on them over time, so I'll promise to keep out of your way from now on. But I'll also promise you this though, I will never ever forget this magic moment." "Thank you David, neither will I," she breathed. "I really am a one-man woman but you are a hell of a temptation, and it will be a lot easier not to be tempted! When he had finished drying her, it seemed the right time to leave without any silly good-byes, so he just bent down and brushed her lips with his and whispered that she was absolutely gorgeous and walked away to collect his clothes. So are you, she said to his retreating form as she rolled on to her back to watch his lithe body disappearing. The Incident Ch. 02 In any event, as before, events made the question moot. ******************** I did spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about what Sunny had told me. That's it, I just spent time thinking about it. I never really took any action, I never attempted to further the relationship we had, but I guess that I was seeing Casey in a different light, viewing her now more as a victim. Damn it, I found myself actually feeling a bit sorry for her, what a fucked up childhood. As the weeks and months went by, I became...shit, what did I become? Was I more tolerant, more sympathetic? I don't know. I did notice that I was spending more time in her company. We were talking a bit more, and not always about the children. Emily had skipped a grade and now both kids were in college. I also began noticing that she was keeping herself in pretty good shape. I knew how old she was and despite the fact that the big 40 wasn't too far down the road, she had managed to keep her figure. Was she running, I wondered? Did my early morning runs inspire her? Whatever she was doing, it was working. I guess I was a bit surprised, I really hadn't noticed, but she was still a gorgeous woman, and then a strange and unfamiliar feeling of regret went through me. I realized how long it had been since we made love. I shut that down quickly, nothing down that road but pain. Oh, don't get the wrong idea. There wasn't a tectonic shift in our relationship. We still related more or less as we had for the past years. If anything, maybe there was a bit of a warming. We didn't avoid each other as diligently as we had, perhaps. I don't know...maybe I'm just spinning my wheels here, but I found that I wasn't as angry and bitter as I had been. Foolish me. We had our mild ups and downs, although most of the time you couldn't tell what was up and what was down. For example: that night she came home quite late from work, marched right by me with a pinched expression on her face, hurried up the stairs, into her room and I then heard the lock engage. Strange, she hadn't locked her door in ages. I remember just shrugging and going back to what I was doing. I slept well that night and made sure that I awoke early. I washed, dressed and was out of the house without waking Casey. It all turned to shit the day after Casey's strange behavior the evening before. I was stopped in the hall at work by none other than Laura Ingram "Alex, I hope that you can free up some time this afternoon. We have something very important to discuss. Please make sure that you're available." She then turned and flounced off. (Is flounce a word?) I stood there looking after her. "Hello, what the hell was that all about? She spoke to me as if I were worked for her. Where did that arrogance come from? Immediately my suspicions were arroused. That bitch felt pretty confident and I had a creepy, crawly feeling that she was going to try fucking me, figuratively of course. I walked quickly to my office and checked the equipment. Yeah, you can guess what equipment I'm referring to. Voice activated tape recorders as well as a small video camera which was situated so that it covered the chairs in front of my desk. I had that equipment installed when a vendor a few years ago had offered me a payoff. I put him off at the time and quickly, with the approval of Ray Fowler, had the surveillance equipment installed. It wasn't terribly expensive and it did the trick. That vendor became toast, and it looked like my little toys might pay off again. You think I was being paranoid? You never met Laura Ingram or you wouldn't think that. My office door is rarely closed all the way and I heard Laura instruct, yep, that's the word, instruct my secretary that we were not to be disturbed. "No calls," she instructed. Sonofabitch, what balls. She appeared in my doorway carrying a manila envelop and pushed the door shut behind her. I had already started up the equipment. Gotta tell you the truth. I was enjoying myself, that is until she dropped a bomb on me. A bomb that blew my life apart. She walked confidently to my desk and dropped into a chair, looking at me with a smile that was almost a sneer. Despite the contempt I felt for her I had to admit that she was a looker. Short, dark hair, curled around her face and a flawless complection. Not tall, average height, but put together very nicely. Good body, firm and tight despite her age which I figured was well into her 40s. Today she was clad in a rather filmy, clingy kind of dress. It showed off her assets very nicely and strangely enough, one could not see any bra or panty line. Okay, okay, I despised her, but I was still human. She was a bit of a bombshell, but feeling about her as I did, I wouldn't fuck her with your dick. Great body, but rotten to the core. I sat back and waited. It was obvious that she was very pleased about something, something that was not going to make me happy. I figured I'd wait and see what she had. She shifted in her chair, still not saying anything. The large manila envelope she had been carrying now rested on my desk, in front of her. She then did something, which I admit, surprised the hell out of me. She crossed her legs. Not as a woman usually does, but as a man does. You know, ankle of one leg on the thigh of the other. Can you imagine what that did? Her dress just slid up to her crotch. I blinked...what the f... Laura," I said quietly. "What do you think you're doing. Let's demonstrate a bit of modesty." Shit, I was as cool as 007. She smirked and lifted the skirt of her dress a bit higher. Her upper thighs were now visible as well as her crotch. No panties. Gotta admit, she had a nice snatch. She obviously trimmed her pubic hair and shaved the lips of her pussy. Despite my loathing for this broad, I have to admit I felt more than a bit of a stirring in my...ah...groin? I did grin to myself though, I was getting this all on tape. I almost laughed out loud. "Not bad, huh, Alex. You could have had some of this whenever you wanted, you know," she said, smiling broadly. She reached down with a finger and stroked the lips of her labia. I just sat there, rather fascinated. I almost felt hypnotized by this snake before me. I blinked again, now noticing that she was actually starting to lubricate, a drop of wetness glistening between those bare lips. I gathered myself together suddenly, trying to figure just what the hell was going on. "Okay, Laura. You can stop the seduction crap now, I'm not interested. What do you want?" I asked brusquely. The damn broad actually giggled. I couldn't believe it. I think that was the first time I saw, or rather heard, her do that in all the years we'd been here. I then saw her insert a finger into her vagina and then pull it out. What the hell was going on, I wondered. She examined her finger, then to my astonishment, put it in her mouth and licked it clean. Oh, shit. I remember thinking that I was getting out of my depth. Then suddenly, Laura pulled her skirt down and sat up. The smile she had been wearing turned bitter. "Okay, Alex. Play time is over. I've wanted to pull your chain like that for years, but you always ignored whatever signal I sent your way. Well, fuck you now. Your opportunity at me has passed. You could have fucked me, but you didn't. Now..." and her smile broadened. "Now," she repeated, "I get to fuck you," and damned if she didn't giggle again. "You thought that little Laura would just take being passed over that easily? You know damn well that this job should have gone to me. I had the seniority, I was here longer than you. My numbers were just as good, but I wasn't in the good old boys club, was I? So Laura gets a pat on the ass and a "better luck next time" explanation. What the fuck, she's only a broad, right, Alex? And you joined in the laughter, I bet. I bet you just laughed your ass off." I sat there, dumbfounded at her bitterness, at the hatred that she finally exposed, that had been bottled up for who knows how long. She didn't even give me a chance to reply. "Here's what you're going to do, Alex honey. By the end of the day tomorrow, you're going to hand in your resignation. Oh yes, you're going to resign. But that's not the only thing you'll do. In your letter of resignation you're going to strongly, let me repeat that, strongly recommend me for your position." I looked at her. Had she finally flipped, was she having a nervous breakdown? I remember wondering if I should call the paramedics. Is she going to become dangerous? I tried to reason with her. "Now Laura...let's just calm down a bit. There's no need to get too excited. We need to..." "Shut the fuck up, Seagill. Don't patronize me. You'll do exactly what I just told you, or else..." she spat, her voice dripping with vitriol. I was getting just a little pissed now. "Or else what?" I snapped. "Or else copies of these will be sent to every single person you and your slut know in this town. Her relatives, your relatives, your church, your friends... everybody, Seagill. Everybody." She then opened the manila envelope and shook out a bunch of 5" x 8" photos. "Looks like she's really enjoying it, doesn't she, sweetie. By the way, you can't see his face, but that's my hubby with her. He's her boss. Isn't that a riot, she gets a job at my husband's agency. Talk about poetic justice," she laughed. I froze. I felt a constriction in my chest and I found it hard to breathe. There was a ringing in my ears and, so help me, for a moment I felt light-headed and I thought I was going to pass out. I couldn't touch them, I just stared at photographs of my wife being fucked - that's what the top two photos, which had separated from the other 4, showed. There was no mistaking it. It showed Casey lying there, her eyes closed, while some guy was plundering her. "Ta ta, sweetie pie. Remember, tomorrow, by the end of the day. Your resignation and recommendation, or else," she hissed, then turned and left. What astonished me, after I had the time and mental equilibrium to think about it, was my first emotion. It wasn't rage or contempt, as you would imagine. It was...I guess the simplest word would be... hurt. I just sat there feeling terribly saddened. I admit it, my eyes had teared up. I couldn't believe that she would do that, that Casey would cheat on me, that she would actually have an affair. All of my indifference, all my talk about not caring, all of the bullshit I had fed myself over the past years, went poof, vanished. I just sat there and felt terribly hurt...disappointed...yeah, and feeling sorry for myself. I felt a bitter grimace twist my lips; it looked like Casey had finally gotten over her horror of infidelity. I don't know how long I sat there. At first any thoughts I had were disjointed, unformed. I felt the tears start. Shit, that shouldn't be happening, it's not like there had been much of a marriage. Strangely, my mind drifted back to the early years of our marriage. It had all been so good, so perfect. Paradise lost. It had all turned to shit and the final load had just been delivered. No one disturbed me, my phone didn't ring. You know, you can sit and feel sorry for yourself for only so long. It didn't take an inordinate amount of time for a shift in my emotions. I finally sucked it up and accepted the fact that Casey had, very effectively, ended our excuse of a marriage. I tamped down my hurt, my disappointment. I ignored the hollowness that had started to develop within me. Another emotion was helping me do that. I started to get mad. No, not just mad. I felt an icy cold rage that I welcomed within me. I shaped it, nurtured it and tucked it away to feed my revenge. What a stupid bitch. Oh, Laura, you think you're going to fuck me? I'm going to make you wish that you had never set eyes on me. I'm going to destroy you and your asshole of a husband. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost 5 pm. I quickly buzzed my secretary and instructed her to call my house and leave a message that I would be away overnight on business. I just didn't want to see Casey. I was afraid that I would lose it. I then left a message for Ray Fowler telling him that I needed to see him first thing in the morning. ******************** "Damn it, Reggie," I complained as we bounced along in his ancient Morris Minor. "I don't understand how this heap of yours still runs. You've got to have a million miles on it." "Don't be daft, laddie. Old Minnie here is just reaching maturity. I got her in 1970 and I don't know how many miles she's reached - the odometer shut down years ago. In any event, I love the old gal and I'm betting that I go before she does." I had to chuckle, old Reg surely did baby the wreck. We were on our way to the island's premier resort for a leisurely lunch. Reggie insisted that it was his turn and I didn't argue with him. The ride wasn't a long one and I had to hide my laughter at the expression on the valet's face as we pulled up to the front entrance. Then again, it was no different than we had seen the other times we had eaten there. For some reason it was difficult for them to hide their distaste for Reg's old clunker. It wasn't crowded, thank goodness, and we were able to dine on the outdoor patio, not far from the beach. Afer lunch, we just relaxed with our iced tea. I beat him to the punch... "So Reg, you did promise to give me more details of your relationship with your Margaret. The sketch you related was just that - a sketch. How about being a bit more specific, especially how your relationship developed throughout the years." Reg seemed a bit startled at my words. He looked at me and then smiled a bit wryly. "Fine, Alex. We'll trade tales today, but let's take a nice stroll on the beach. The weather is fine and there's a nice breeze." I agreed and we walked down the short flight of stairs to the sand below. We both donned sunglasses for the glare off the sand and the water was fierce. It wasn't long before Reggie began. "You're very perceptive, Alex. I can understand why you were so successful in sales. You know how to "read" people, I believe is the phrase," he said quietly. "There really isn't a lot to tell. What I hadn't told you was something that happened about 25 years into our marriage. We were both in our 50s and I had kept my vow. I certainly had no desire to lose Margaret over any foolishness on my part. I'm not sure if I had mentioned it, but I was a solicitor in London. I had moved up nicely in the firm and at the time had to travel a bit, engaging in various legal work for clients in other parts of the UK. I really was never away more than one or two nights, so it wasn't a major concern. Margaret was a nurse and was engaged in private practice. She would be sent to various sites to assist mainly with patients just coming out of hospital. She enjoyed the work and it gave her the flexibility to work or not as she desired. Well, our "problem", as I delicately put it, began when my firm took on a chain of perfumeries. They were in the process of acquiring another smaller chain and we were to take care of the legalities. Unfortunately, their headquarters, and I use the term loosely, was located in Liverpool, necessitating overnight trips. They had their administrative offices right in the factory itself and each time I came home from one of my visits there, I guess I stank of the various fragrances. "Now, I never gave it a second thought. I would just arrive home, shed my garments and take a shower, but little did I know what was going through Margaret's mind. She was certain that I had slipped again and was having an affair. One would think that she would confirm her suspicions by sharing them with me, wouldn't one? She did not, she had already convinced herself. I guess you can imagine what action she took." I shook my head. I was really engrossed in Reggie's tale, and I truthfully could not imagine what action Margaret took, but I did have a question. "Reg, didn't she know that you were working in a perfume factory? Didn't you discuss your work?" "Nae, laddie. We seldom discussed our professional duties. We tended to leave work behind at the end of the day. I never even thought to tell her anything about the clients that I visited." "So what action did she take? What did she do," I asked. Reggie looked at me as we continued to stroll. He had an expression of pity at my "youthful innocence", as he put it. He was quiet for awhile before he continued. "Margaret was quite a woman, laddie. Despite her age, she kept herself in fine form. She was quite into health and exercise, that sort of rot and she took her own advice so thoroughly that although in her 50s she appeared no older than a women in her early 40s, I would say - perhaps even younger. "Well, where was I? Oh yes, what action did she take? She had taken a lover, Alex. She decided to really teach me a lesson; wanted me to know the pain of infidelity." Reggie shook his head ruefully and was quiet again for a bit. "Well, it was a bit of a mess for quite awhile. I discovered her affair and confronted her. She wasn't the least bit apologetic or contrite - asked me, in fact, how it felt. Told me that now I knew the pain. I, of course, was highly indignant, outraged at her accusation and her adultery. I immediately packed my things and left our home. I filed for divorce in anger and pique at my wife's behavior. "It didn't take Margaret long to learn that she had been mistaken, but I was adamant. I had the high moral ground and in my arrogance had no intention of relinquishing it. She pleaded for forgiveness and I turned a cold shoulder to her. After all, I was the one who had been faithful for years. I had given up my philandering and had been true. She was the one who had so little faith in me - so little faith that she wouldn't even come to me and voice her concerns or suspicions. "We were apart for almost two years. The divorce went through without contest and we were no longer married. It took that long for me to come to my senses, to realize what an utter fool I had been. Missing my Margaret began not long after I left my home, but after months apart the ache became almost unbearable, but still, in my arrogance, I wouldn't give in to it. That would only show weakness, it would mean that I condoned her behavior. "As I slowly started to come to my senses, I made small overtures to Margaret. A telephone call now and then asking how she was. She was polite, but cool. I sent her flowers on her birthday, but the thank you card was always most formal. Then, after a bit I thought that I could detect a certain warming and the hope that we could put this whole thing aside and get back together became strong." Reggie stopped, took a breath and looked about him. We had retraced our steps and were now back in front of the resort where we had lunch. He saw some chairs and headed for them, sagging into one. It was obvious that he was in emotional pain and I suggested a drink. He shook his head in refusal. "She died, laddie. Margaret had a sudden heart attack and died. I couldn't believe it. She was always so careful about how we both ate and would stress the importance of exercise. She died before I could..., before I..." Reggie stopped, it was obvious that he couldn't continue. Despite his refusal, I ran into the resort and got a couple of gin and tonics. Returning to his side, I forced one into his hand and made him sip it. Reggie finally took a deep breath and I saw the muscles in his neck relax a bit. "Quite a tale, isn't it, Alex," he murmured. " I carried on for awhile, but my heart wasn't really in it. I had made quite a bit of money during my working years and had saved quite a bit. My Margaret had a will, laddie. I didn't even know that. She left everything to me, including an inheritance from an aunt. It wasn't a king's ransom, but it was significant. I just gave it up, liquidated everything and moved here." The Incident Ch. 02 Reggie sighed, leaned back in his chair, and took a healthy swallow of his drink. Looking at his watch, he then suggested that it was time to leave. I asked him to be my guest for dinner later in the week and he slapped my back and said that he'd be delighted. I felt nervous and agitated, not exactly sure why Reggie's tale bothered me so much. I liked Reggie and felt sorry for him, but shit happens. Don't I know that - into every life a little rain must fall. Ain't that the truth. Sitting on my little porch that evening, I couldn't keep my mind off Reggie and the tragedy that had befallen him. The poor sod (one of his favorite labels) really didn't deserve anything so tragic. My heart went out to him. The scotch was going down very smoothly and it wasn't long before my glass was empty. I debated getting up and refilling my glass, but decided it required too much effort. The sun was well down below the horizon and I found myself still amazed at the number and clarity of the stars in the sky. It almost felt as if one could reach out and touch them. I felt comfortable, comfortable in the setting, the warm feeling in my belly from the scotch and the warm breeze of the evening. My thoughts began to drift... ******************** "For God's sake, Alex. Has she gone crazy? What the fuck is going on?" Ray sputtered after I finished telling him of my little "meeting" with Laura. "Knock it off, Ray. Here's the audio cassette and the video tape. They'll bear out what I just told you," and I threw them on his desk. The photos I kept to myself. Ray heaved himself out of his chair and told Suzy that we weren't to be disturbed for anything. He then pulled over the cart with the video player on it and played the tape. A few minutes later he shut it down and I did notice that his color wasn't too good. "Crissake," he whispered. "She has finally gone over the edge." He sat for just a moment before turning to me. "Alex, stay still, I've got to get George up here," and he snatched up the phone. The George he was referring to was George Freeman, house counsel and a pretty damn good attorney. Minutes later George was sitting with us, watching the tape. He then turned to me and asked if this was the only copy. "So far, George. Why do you ask?" I replied. "Well, I think we should make a couple of copies at least. One for you, Alex. One for us and one for an assistant DA I know." I smiled. This was going just as I anticipated. George turned to Ray. "It's not complicated, Ray. It's pretty cut and dried- a blatant violation of the penal code. It's extortion and we have the evidence. Laura Ingram and her husband could spend up to four years in prison with the "right" judge as well as having to pay a pretty significant financial penalty." "What about those photographs, George. I'm pretty sure that the bitch will do as she threatened. I don't want that. Can we get them?" I was truly concerned. George nodded. "I'll see the assistant DA this morning and he'll get the appropriate warrants. Police will be swarming all over their house, her husband's agency and her office before the day is over. Alex, I really don't think you have to worry about that. This guy is tenacious, he'll have them all confiscated quickly." I didn't realize that I had moved up in my seat, stiff with tension. I breathed a sigh of relief and sank back. George then gathered up the tapes and left to do as he promised. I looked after him, praying that everything would go as planned. "Ray, I need to get away. I desperately need a vacation, a long one," I was almost pleading. "Of course, Alex. Believe me, I understand. Take a couple of weeks, get away, relax, take it easy," he said with a undertone of understanding. "No, buddy, you don't understand. I don't need two weeks. I need to get away for awhile. I don't know how long...it could be a long time. I just don't know," I said softly, hesitated and then continued. "Ray, listen to me - just listen. I'm tired, I'm tired to death. I'm in my 40s and I have shit for a personal life. My kids are out of the house and my sad excuse for a marriage has finally ended. Casey's not been a wife for years and now I find she's been having an affair. I've worked my ass off for years and I need to get away. I just want to get away from all the crap and vegetate. I want to sit in the sun, drink and do nothing for awhile. Can you understand what I'm saying?" Ray nodded reluctantly. "Okay, Alex. I think I understand. Just take whatever time you need. Your job will always be here. The company knows how valuable you are, they'll go along with whatever I suggest. Go, take some time off. Come back whenever you feel like it." Two hours later I sat in the law offices of Burns and Schroeder. I'd known Jerry Burns for years and he's the guy who I wanted to take care of things for me. "Okay, I think I understand, Alex. Based on what you've shown me, you've socked away quite a bit of money in joint accounts and it's your desire to let Casey have it all, is that right?" I nodded. "Look, Jerry. I'll say it again. I don't want to get caught up in a messy divorce right now and I'm pretty sure that Casey won't contest it. Just give her everything: the house, all that's in it, the cars and all of the money we hold jointly. I don't want anything. I just want to get the hell out of here and not have any concerns about anything back home. I'm giving you power of attorney, you take care of anything that comes up. Draw up divorce papers and have them served. Use irreconcilable differences, that's the flavor of the day, isn't it? Do what has to be done. I'll be in touch in case there are problems. Okay? Understood?" Jerry shook his head. "No, not understood, but I'll do what you want. Just make sure that you keep in touch. This is really nutty, but I'll go along with it. Good luck, buddy." We stood, shook hands and I walked out of that part of my life. ******************** I awoke early, as usual. Striding to the front door in my sleeping shorts, I opened it wide and took a deep breath. Ahhh, hot and steamy, even this early in the morning. I quickly changed into my running outfit and made my way to the beach. About 40 minutes later, sweat streaming down my body, I took my sneaks off and then turned into the surf. I swam out about 50 feet and then stroked parallel to the shore for another 15 minutes. Exhausted now, I slowly made my way back to the beach and collapsed on the sand. The sun was above the horizon and it foretold another brilliant, hot day ahead. I closed my eyes for a long moment and then quickly rose and walked slowly home. A shower, shave, etc. had me feeling fairly human and I walked into the kitchen, wondering what I should make for my breakfast. I chuckled, a cook I am not. Screw it, I thought, I'll grab a bite out. Yeah, you guessed it, I strolled to Rick's. Rick's is open from early morning to the wee hours. The place seemed almost deserted with a few couples in the restaurant having breakfast. I walked out onto the patio and the only one there, sitting at a table with a mug of coffee in front of him was Charley Coombs himself. He looked up and saw me. "Alex, come join me. I need some company," he yelled in a basso profundo. Charley's voice was so deep that sometimes it was difficult to understand him. Well, it certainly matched his bulk. He was fat, but it was hard fat, which a few had discovered to their dismay. I pulled up a chair and gave my breakfast order to Agnes, one of the early morning gals. "What, what?" exclaimed Charley. "You on some kind of crazy diet? Two scrambled eggs, toast and coffee. Whatsamatter, Alex. You sick or something?" I laughed. "Charley, I need a lot less than you do," and I reached over and poked him in the belly. Yep, hard fat alright. He laughed in return, but it was more of a low rumble. He picked up his mug of coffee, sipped it and eyed me speculatively. "You famous or something, Alex? You're not a writer or politician or something, are you?" I looked at him in surprise. "Huh? What are you yammering about, Charley? Do I look famous?" He smiled and put his cup down. "It's just that a guy was here a few days ago asking questions about you. You know, how long you been here, where you're from, that kind of stuff." My eyebrows rose a bit. "And you didn't tell me about that?" Charley waved his hand. "Sorry, Alex. Totally forgot about it until just now, seeing you walk in. I get busy and I forget. I haven't seen him again. Sorry, buddy." I wondered for a moment and shrugged. "Well, I'll know soon enough if it's trouble. Until then, screw it." I muttered as my breakfast arrived. Charley rose ponderously to his feet. "Atta boy, Alex. Enjoy that snack you call a breakfast," he laughed and lumbered off. I finished a leisurely meal, sat back with my coffee and considered my schedule for the day. Let's see: I could wander through the town, inspect the few tourists there, wander down by the dock and admire the cruise ships, if any were in, or I could sit on my porch and get just a little drunk. I wondered to myself - have I been here too long? I saw Reggie strolling by on the beach and I waved and got his attention. Yippee, rescued from my musings. "C'mon, Reg. Have a cup of coffee with me, I need the company." He laughed gently. "Be glad to, Alex," he replied as I waved to Agnes and held up my cup and pointed to Reggie. So we sat and shot the shit for awhile. I finally turned to him and asked, "Reg, let me ask you something. You've been on the island a few years now. Haven't you gotten bored? What they hell do you do here? We never really talked about that." He smiled gently before replying. "Alex, Alex. We have talked about that. Most of the time you were really not listening. I had told you, I golf a bit, I deep sea fish a bit and I write. I've finished my second book recently and it will be published soon. Now I have to start thinking up ideas for my next novel." I sat there dumbfounded. "For pity's sake, Reg. You say that you told me about that? Was I drunk or something?" He laughed, "No, laddie. You had other things on your mind and I didn't push. You needed the time to resolve your problems and you didn't have room in your consciousness for extraneous information." "Jeez, Reg. Quit that, I hate when you talk like a dictionary. Don't forget, you're dealing with a dumb Yank here," I pouted. He let out a guffaw. "Oh no you don't. Don't try getting me to believe that you're stupid. You're far from that. But one thing I do know, Alex. You're terribly conflicted," he concluded quietly. "Alex. Why don't you tell me the end of your tale. I know that there's not much more. We have the time, let me hear it now." So I caught Reggie up on my soap opera of a life. I gave him the details of my conversation with Sunny about what had happened to Casey as a child. I again noticed his eyebrows go up and then I ended it with the scene with Laura Ingram and how I toasted her ass as well as her husbands. Oh, yes. I may have mentioned Casey's infidelity. "That's it, Reg. You've got it all now. Hey, how about turning it into a novel. Plenty of stuff there, Reg. Oh, oh, wait. Not much sex, Reggie. Guess that it won't sell without a lot of sex. Sorry, buddy, not much sex at all." Reg ignored my feeble attempt at humor. "Did you give any serious thought to what...what was her name, oh yes, Sunny had told you? I should imagine that Casey's trauma as a child would explain quite a bit about why her whole persona changed so dramatically." "Yeah, I thought about it...didn't do much though. Maybe I became a bit less aloof, I don't know. I don't know, Reg," I said quietly. "Alex, why did you stay? At first, when your children were small, I could understand you wanted to be with them. But as they became older and more independent, I'm sure that your presence was not a major factor any longer. You yourself mentioned that they were trying out their wings, so to speak. You probably could have ended you relationship with your wife without too much trauma." He looked piercingly at me. "Why did you continue to stay, even after your kids left for university?" I sat for a bit. The sun was well up in the sky now and it was getting decidedly hot. I noticed that I was sweating. I wiped my brow with a napkin and avoided looking at Reggie. He sat still, gazing at me, waiting. "I don't know, Reg. Okay, I don't know. How about inertia. You know, stationary object tend to remain stationary." My voice had risen and I tried to gain control of myself. He held his hands up defensively. "Okay, laddie. Rest easy, time to calm down." I was embarrassed and I felt flushed. "Sorry, Reg. Really, bud. I'm sorry. I guess sometimes I get angry at my own stupidity. That's a good question, but I really don't know why. Guess I was just too lazy to make the break. That's as good a reason as any." He nodded, as if in understanding, but I wasn't too sure of that. We sat in companionable silence for a bit which gave me the opportunity to catch my breath figurately. "Well, Alex. Since it's getting late in the morning and the greens won't be too crowded, how about being my guest for a round of golf. I have an extra set and it would do my ego much good for me to trounce your American arse. I laughed, "Reg, I haven't played in awhile, but even without the practice, I'll probably be able to give you odds." ******************** So the next few days went by rather peacefully, as had all of the days since I had been here on the island. Reggie had gotten my ass moving a bit and I had gotten my game back a bit, although I never did beat Reggie. He also took me out deep sea fishing, something I had never done before. I found it quite a bit of fun. And so the time passed. She appeared one morning. I had finished my morning run, had showered and dressed and had just finished brewing a fresh pot of coffee when there was a knock on the door. I opened it and there stood Casey. I stood there, staring at her. "Are you going to invite me in, Alex?" she asked softly. I pulled open the door and stood back as she brushed by me. She looked about at the small living room. The kitchen was open to the room and she saw the pot of coffee on the counter. "Coffee?" she asked. I nodded and went to fill two cups. Casey had seated herself on the sofa, tucking her skirt around her legs. I looked at her as I poured the coffee. She still looked good, trim, well groomed, but that was all not unusual. She always kept herself in good shape. "This is quite a surprise, Casey. I'm not sure what to say. I guess I should ask why you're here. Wait, I really should ask how on earth you found me. Did the kids tell you?" She smiled a bit. "No, Alex. They didn't betray your confidence. It's simple. I hired a private detective. Cost a bundle too, but it was worth it. He found you and here I am." "Why, Casey? Why are you here? I should have thought that our breakup would have been a relief for you. You know as well as I do that we hadn't had much of a marriage for years." She nodded thoughtfully. "You're right, Alex. I'm not here to argue that. What I would like to do first of all is apologize..." I interrupted her harshly. "Your affair, you mean? That hurt, I admit it, that did hurt..." "Alex, please." She spoke quietly. "Let me finish a sentence. That was no affair. I was raped. I was fed what I was told was either GHB or rohypnol, I had never even heard of those drugs." I again interrupted. "Raped? You were raped?...I....I...." I stuttered. "Please, Alex. Will you please let me tell you. I spent quite a bit of time with Sam Bagnol, an assistant district attorney. It seems that the police raided Bob Ingram's office, home as well as his wife's office at your headquarters. They found large quantities of those drugs as well as others. There were also pictures of other women who had been taken advantage of as well as some video tapes. "That particular day I had accompanied Bob Ingram to lunch with a client. It appears that they conspired to rape me. I was drugged, taken to a room, raped and photographed. All of the evidence was most incriminating and with my testimony, as well as some of the other women, Bob and Laura Ingram are both serving lengthy prison terms. I only wish you had been available so that you could have learned what happened." I sat there, gaping at her. All of this was a bit difficult to take in. I must have looked unconvinced. "You can check, Alex. Call Sam or call George, your company's attorney. Call anyone you want. I'm telling the truth," she said simply. I shook my head. "No...no, that's not necessary. It's just that this is quite..., ah.... I'm sorry, Casey. I really don't know what to say. I am just a bit puzzled though. You seem rather calm about what should have been a horrific time for you. That confuses me a bit." Casey's smile was sad, perhaps a bit bitter. She sighed, "I've been in therapy, Alex. Again. It's helping. I imagine I will continue with my doctor for quite awhile. I needed help and I'm getting it. Sunny was...well, she..." she hesitated. I waved my hand. "Yeah, she was there, I wasn't," I said flatly. "Please, Alex. I didn't come here to accuse you, I came to apologize. I truly am sorry for what I put you through. I was sick and I didn't have the courage to recognize that and if, at times, I did suspect that I wasn't rational, I didn't get help. You didn't deserve the unhappiness I created. You put up with so much more than any man could have or should have. "I really needed to see you and tell you that. I'm truly sorry, Alex. I know that being sorry isn't very much, but you had to know that. Everything that happened, everything that destroyed our marriage was my fault and I'm truly, truly sorry." She couldn't continue. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and her sobs were catching in her throat. I sat there like a bump on a log. I didn't know what to do. I then shook my head slowly, sighed and went to her. I guess the bitterness in me wasn't all that deep and her tears seemed to wash that away. I held her until she was cried out. She clung to me for long moments. Finally she was able to compose herself. She rose, I showed her to the bathroom where she freshened up, and then she returned to her seat beside me. We spent the rest of the day talking, having lunch and talking, taking a long walk along the beach, and talking. You get the idea. We went to dinner and sat by the beach and talked. Long after darkness had fallen, we parted and she went up to her room at the hotel. ******************** I was seated with Reggie and Charley at a table on the patio. I had gotten to the part of my tale where I left Casey at the hotel. "Well, well, well?" they urged almost in unison. I looked at them in some amusement. I suddenly realized that I would truly miss them. "Well, it was an interesting day. We put old animosities aside, she unburdened herself and I accepted her apologies. I also apologized. I guess, in some small part, I also contributed to our unhappiness, although she poo pood that. At the end of the day we both realized that there had been too much pain in our relationship. Whatever we had felt for each other had died a long time ago. There really wasn't much left. We hugged and parted as friends." I looked past my two friends at the sea. The sun was setting, painting the scattered clouds in vivid colors. I would miss this place, but it was time to leave. I still had a job, thank goodness, a job that I enjoyed. I would return. I wanted to see my kids. Ooops, they weren't kids any longer, but young adults. I wanted to be part of their lives. I sat quietly for a moment. Reg and Charley respected my silence. I wondered, would I ever see them again? Would I ever return to this paradise? I realized that I didn't know, but that's okay. Who knows what the future will bring.