The Snow Came Down

With his target immobile and open, he simply thrust his cock into Brian's mouth, put his now free hand on the back of the helpless man's head and began pumping.

I didn't particularly want to watch but I could hear Brian gagging and hunting for breath. I wondered if he saw the similarity and irony of his situation. He'd practically mouth-raped me in comparable circumstances just hours before. Painful, uncomfortable, and humiliating, I knew exactly what Brian was going through and despite the dire circumstances, I smiled.

Mercifully, for Brian, our slimy saviour must have been even more desperate than Brian had been. All too quickly he groaned as he unloaded down Brian's virgin throat, then held a box for him to throw up into with defeated, feeble heaves. I lost interest and went and sat in the front passenger seat where it was warmer.

Brian's rapist zipped up, joined me in the front, and, with a huge smile, pulled the van onto the road and drove toward town.

Even though Brian lived closer, I asked Mr. Slimy to drop me off first, then gave him Brian's address. Between them they could get Brian inside to his wife to answer some, I suspect, difficult questions. Where have you been? Why are you so late? What's that on your chin?

Despite the heater in the old van, I could feel my strength waning so was a very relieved woman when we pulled into my driveway. I nodded at our perverted rescuer who simply muttered, "Happy Friday the thirteenth." With a last contemptuous glare at Brian, I fled toward the safety of my front porch.

I had no idea what I was going to say to Dave, but that could wait. My hands were so numb I had difficulty getting the key from my handbag, so I leaned on the doorbell. Nothing happened. I wanted to cry but couldn't. That would only spark more questions from Dave. Gritting my teeth, I went back to trying grasp the keys. When I finally managed to find and drag them from my bag I dropped them twice before succeeding in my goal. Once inside, I yelled for Dave to help me but all the lights were out. He must have gone to try and find me.

I staggered to the bathroom and with great difficulty put the plug in the bath and ran mainly hot water. I tried to undo the hook and eye clasp of my work skirt but my fingers were so numb they were nigh on useless. Crying, I fumbled the skirt around my waist until I had the zipper at the front. On my second attempt I managed to pull it down before grabbing the ends of the fabric and pulling in opposite directions. The hook and eye clasp gave way and I was free. I managed to slip my hands between my pantihose and my skin and drag them down.

The challenges continued with my wet, clingy top with its tiny pearl buttons. Hard to remove at the best of times; now impossible. In the end, I gave up and just climbed in as was. The water made my frozen muscles ache but with returning warmth came power and mobility and I was soon naked.

Lying back, knowing how close to death I'd come, a sense of euphoria enveloped me, but it must have been chemical because my next thoughts were ones of dread. How the hell could I explain all this to Dave? Not only arriving home near dead, three hours late, but forgetting his birthday as well?

Cleaning inside myself as far as I could with my middle finger, I flexed my reawakening muscles, hoping they would hold out until I'd fucked Dave to death. It would be touch and go. On the subject of birthday presents, I'd go for honesty. 'Sorry, Dave, I plum forgot.'

Relieved I was physically safe, and confident I could screw my naïve husband out of asking too many unanswerable questions, I closed my eyes and wondered what I'd buy for Dave tomorrow, happily reminisced about Brian's weak gagging of just an hour ago and pondered whether there was anything in all this Friday the thirteenth bullshit.

I knew my eyes shot open, I felt them, felt the light pierce. Knew I was sitting bolt upright by the water slopping over the lip of the bath. It WAS Friday the thirteenth. I'd known it since Dave pointed it out to me over breakfast, although immersed in planning my day with Brian, I'd paid hardly any mind to Dave.

So, what was the big deal about it being the thirteenth? Dave's birthday was on the twenty-second! Nine days away!

That begged the question; why had Dave made me think I'd forgotten his birthday? A phone call that proved to all and sundry that I was completely inattentive to my husband and had been for some time; to the point I'd forgotten when his birthday was. A phone call that started a panic reaction that led to a whole series of really bad events. Life-threatening events. Shit, I think I just answered my own question.

Leaping out of the bath, I wrapped a big towel around myself and for some reason rushed straight to the attached garage. It was empty. Dave wasn't there and neither was his car. He had been though, quite recently. There were several blobs of half melted snow around where he usually parked. A set of waterproofs hung on the wall, glistening and still wet.

In the spot where my car was normally parked was a strange little tableau. Firstly, there was a bright yellow bag with 'Smith' stencilled on it. Smith was Brian's surname. Incongruously, lying next to the bag was a log; freshly broken and oddly familiar.

On top of the bag were four thick, plastic-coated wires; yellow at both ends and blue for the rest of their length. Again, they looked vaguely familiar.

I walked around the odd pile and saw something I would have missed if not for my circuit. It was a small ceramic bowl, and there was something in it. Arranged in a circle around the bowl were three wheel nuts.

Picking the bowl up, I saw it contained Dave's wedding ring. The bowl itself was chillingly familiar. It was the twin of the one that sat on my desk at work. An aunt of mine had given the set to us as a wedding gift all those years ago. The one before me had resided in a cupboard here at home. The other, the one at work, I used for exactly two things, one harmless, the other... chilling. Usually, it held my car keys after I arrived at work. For the last year, however, it had been used for another purpose... it commonly held my engagement and wedding rings. Somehow, the thought of being with my lover while wearing my wedding rings just seemed wrong. Maybe, it was as simple as me feeling like I wasn't married when I took them off.

I now knew what the expression, 'blood turning to ice in your veins', was all about. Wave after wave of chills re-invaded my recently warmed body. Memories of a time, approximately six weeks prior, when I'd returned from an afternoon tryst with Brian to be told by the receptionist that my husband had called in at lunchtime, waited in my office for a few minutes, before leaving without a word.

The fact he'd seen my rings was evidenced by the sight of his wedding ring in an identical bowl on our garage floor. The fact that he'd guessed the significance of my putting them there was attested to by the rest of the pile and recent history. The sequence of my downfall was suddenly clear to me.

The discovery that I'd left the office at lunchtime with my boss but had left my rings behind would have aroused pretty strong suspicions in my trusting but not stupid husband. My best guess was that Dave had probably then installed a find-a-phone app on my cell. If it wasn't a sodden hunk of scrap, I could probably prove that theory.

I'd been extraordinarily careful not to use any kind of electronic means of communication with Brian; I knew Dave discovering my affair would both devastate him and end my marriage, which would, in turn, devastate me. I'd considered leaving my phone along with my rings when going out with Brian but didn't. It seemed like phones were a part of you these days and, besides, considering the roads to the cabin, what if I'd gotten a flat tyre?

I could imagine Dave remotely following me to the cabin on the lake and seeing Brian's car. Part of our security arrangement was that we never left the office together. After more than twenty-five years together, I could almost feel how crushed Dave must have felt at that. His emergency trip away a month and a half ago suddenly took on a whole new connotation.

Then would have come the watching of my every move. Following Brian and I to the cabin after lunch today. Looking at the sky and maybe the weather forecast. Had he seen the storm as the gods blessing his intended actions? Using that highly intelligent brain of his and a lifetime with me to predict the future and how I would respond to a fabricated stressful situation.

Opening two cars that Brian and I had felt secure enough to leave unlocked. The removal of the bright yellow emergency bag from Brian's car and the vital wires from mine. Oh yes, I recognised them now from when Dave showed me how to check the oil and water in my car. I think he called them spark plug leads. Removing the wheel nuts from one of Brian's wheels, maybe loosening the remaining ones. Then waiting for the inevitable phone call from me, coming up with a vaguely plausible reason to put me into a panic; the idea that I'd forgotten his birthday.

Driving ahead of us on our panicked return journey and stopping above one of the switchback corners. Throwing the heavy log from above to smash through the windscreen of the crawling car. Having a spare in case the first one failed. We could have been killed! Had he thought of that? Had he wanted that?

Then what? Coming home to move out? Or was he already packed before he followed me? For as sure as I was that the sun would rise on the morrow, I knew he was gone and we were finished. I would need to find someone else to travel Europe with. It wouldn't be Dave in the gondola in Venice with me, dipping his hand in the Trevi fountain, or reassuring me as we took in the dizzying view from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

I knew devastation would come soon and I used the calm before the storm to hope like hell that Dave, out of respect of all our good years together, would leave me comfortably well off in the divorce. Would not be vindictive in the separation. Would leave me some dignity by being vague when telling the children why we were no longer together.

All these were possible, but then it struck me. My husband; the one who had sworn to honour and protect me, did not give a damn if I lived or died. Some of his actions earlier, whether the explosive destruction of Brian's windscreen or losing a wheel on a narrow road with near vertical edges in places, or being stuck in a blizzard, could have caused my death. I knew with dread certainty that all Dave's love for me had morphed into hatred and no mercy would be shown. Hatred, after all, was the flipside of the coin to love.

I sank to my knees on the cold garage floor and wept the first of a bath-load of tears for a life and love lost.

EPILOGUE

The following morning when a semblance of rational thought had returned it occurred to me that Dave, for all his cleverness, had left himself open to prosecution for tampering with both Brian's and my vehicles. He could even be done for attempted murder. I raced to the garage only to find the evidence had disappeared. Everything. The log, the emergency bag, the wheel nuts. Everything. When I checked the kitchen cupboard the bowl was back to where it had always resided. I had no proof. Nothing.

By Saturday night all three of my children had rung to tell me exactly what they thought of me. It turned out Dave had some footage of Brian and I taken through a crack in the cabin curtains as well as the circumstantial evidence of seeing my rings in the bowl on my desk at work. More than enough to hang me with our kids.

All attempts to communicate with Dave failed. "This number is no longer available,", "This email was undeliverable." I just wanted him to leave me some of my life.

The HR manager at work met me in reception on Monday morning, telling me that Brian had had some sort of mental breakdown and was insisting I be suspended. It turned out his wife knew all about us and had ambushed him on Saturday. She'd heard the doorbell on Friday night and opened the door to find Brian unconscious on the step. The ambulance was quick, and he was well enough by Saturday evening to fully understand just how fucked he was by a well-informed, well prepared, and extremely vindictive wife.

I waited for Brian in the office carpark on the Monday evening, but as soon as he saw me, he went ashen and threw up, before stumbling away. I guess I reminded him of the episode in the van. The company lawyer and I negotiated a small severance package for me over the next week.

It turned out that the instruction he gave to HR to fire me was one of his last orders as company CEO. It came out that the company was actually started by his wife's father and he was just an employee like the rest of us. On the Tuesday morning, all staff were informed Brian no longer worked there. Not wanting to rely on the video evidence, her lawyer quietly offered me ten grand for a deposition attesting to an affair with Brian. I didn't think it would make much difference and boy did I need the money. I jumped at it.

Brian glared at me during the custody hearing for his kids. I believe he got to see his children once every two weeks or so until they told him they didn't like the crappy little apartment on the bad side of town which was all he could afford.

I was totally unsurprised when my phone call to Dave's company revealed he'd sold it the previous week, rumour had it, for fifteen million. I now regretted signing the pre-nup his father had advised we have. So much for my cleverness and precautions. I wasn't clever enough to keep my legs shut.

I was surprised, however, when an eviction notice from the house was enforced. I'd lived in Dave's late parent's house since before we were married and it felt like I was a spaceman on an extra vehicular activity and someone cut the tether. Having no cash for a defence as Dave had pretty much drained all the accounts, I couldn't fight it. Sure, he'd have to reimburse me for my half of our savings account, but he could draw that out. In the interim, I was penniless.

After the eviction, each of the kids allowed me to stay at their places for a week, then they clubbed together to make up the shortfall for the deposit on a small apartment, the repayments of which took most of my wage as a waitress. With a five-year gap in my resume, and having been terminated with the words, "I wouldn't use us as a reference if I were you", I was pretty much unemployable for anything else.

Things with my children began to thaw by the time Christmas came around the corner and I was invited to my eldest son's place for the feast. I was in the kitchen, helping my daughter-in-law with cooking when I noticed the postcard held on the fridge by a magnet. It was a picture of the famous Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence outlined by a beautiful sunset. I idly picked it up and turned it over.

I recognised Dave's scrawl immediately. "Merry Christmas. Rome, Venice, Milan, and Florence all fantastic. Off to see the rest of Tuscany. Staying at the house of a lady friend I met. Will be bringing her to meet you all in February or March. Love you. Dad."

I don't know if I screamed in frustration before I collapsed or not.

*****

Now lighten the fuck up!

The owner of a golf course on the Gold Coast was confused about paying an invoice, so he decided to ask his secretary for some mathematical help. He called her into his office and said, "You graduated from university and I need some help. If I were to give you $20,000, minus 14%, how much would you take off?"

The secretary thought a moment, and then replied, "Everything but my earrings.