4 Gone. Conclusion?

Well, dear readers, I'll admit it, you bitch slapped me in the comments with my last story "April's Fool? Not Bloody Likely!" The fool, it seems, was me.

It feels like some of you simply look at stories as if they are docusoaps or a court case presented to you, to pass judgement as to the moral values around the characters within the story, and comment accordingly. Don't get me wrong, if you see stories in that way, it's not a bad thing, it shows you've brought into the world the writer created.

When I wrote the primary story I decided to add a second version, how I perceived it would have played out in 'real life', should it have been real. The problem was I looked at it through my humorous eyes, not thinking that you would see it as more than a joke version. It was still an unrealistic version of what I would see as a perceived outcome. Had I treated it seriously, I would have written an ending along the lines of the comment made by onlythelonelylove.

Like that story, this story has two version, it starts with the story from my pile of notes, followed by my own vision of how the scenario would play out, if the core element of the story was real trying to look at it as a serious scenario. The second version is written in italic text, hopefully will help those that like to skip quickly through! It's actually fun to try and re-write something in a similar vein, hopefully someone out there will enjoy looking at the two perspectives too.

I'm a Brit, this one is very Brit in the way the first one's written. A Gooner is the name of a particular type of football (Soccer!) fan. Lastly, being Easter at the point of release, there are some Easter eggs in the form of references to the silver screen, and between certain characters. Can you find them? There you go, another bonus 😊

Irrespective of your Religion, happy holidays, should you wish to celebrate them.

<<<<4 Gone, Conclusion>>>>

"Hiya mate....Shit......hold on.......just....give me a.....moment to get my breath.......back........I can.....tell...phew!....by your.....expression...you're surprised.....to....see....me jogging...in the park. Oh shit!...there's a bench....over...there, come sit, let me....warn you....don't make the...same fucking.....mistake as me...or your...your......missus....will be gone too!"

"Ahh, that's better now I'm sitting. Sorry about the sweat dripping, it's gotta be done. Open those ears buddy, don't take this tale lightly. Now, it all started months back, at Christmas......"

I really enjoyed our Christmas tradition. It started twenty years ago, when the last of our little quartet brought their house. Every Christmas eve, we would take turns to host, have a large meal, drink, play some games and open presents with our little gang of eight. You know my friends, right? They were at the barbie that you came to last summer.

Zep, now he's married to Kelly, yep the hot tall blonde, your smirk says it all. Then there's Harp, his missus is Jill. Damn right, draw your breath in, she's that curvy brunette that any dress struggles to contain. You met Grouch at football, tall black guy and his stunning missus, Kris. She's gotta have the longest legs in town! Then of course me, Chic, but heck, you know me, we work in the same office block, and you, like the rest of the wolves there, know I'm married to the real life red-headed Jessica rabbit, Sabrina.

"What's that, the odd names? We picked them up when we met years ago in Sunday league football. It started off as 'Zip', because he was always playing with a bloody cigarette lighter, but everyone thought we were calling him 'Zep', so it stuck. 'Harp', every time he got anywhere near the goal he'd fall at the slightest touch and "harp" on that it was a penalty. 'Grouch', pretty obvious, Kris has always worn the shortest of skirts, so wouldn't you be grouchy with every bloke that ogled your other half's legs. And me, I loved my trendy clothes so I ended up with the name 'Chic'.

You're wondering how we all married such stunning women, and how we've managed to keep them? That's why you need to listen, because me and my mates didn't listen, until it was too late! Let me carry on with this sorry tale..."

So, for years we've had out Christmas shin-dig, we usually buy some decent gifts, plus something fun, for each other to open. Well, this year the girls got me, and the boys, gifts from each of them to us. As we opened them, we looked at each other, then fell about laughing. They'd brought us each a six-month membership for the local health club. Looking at the brochure, it showed all the really fit and health people doing, what, health and fit people like to do. Stay that way. Are they going to use a picture of a fat bloke in his forties sweating his knackers off as an advert? Of course they're bloody not!

The girls weren't amused that we found the notion of going to a health club hilarious. They made jibes about spare tyres, they were supposed to be in the boot of the car, not carried around our waist, blah, blah, blah and rattled on about we were letting ourselves go. We honestly thought it was all a gag, at our expense. Now us boys, we had our heads screwed on. What hot woman don't like a little sexy lingerie for Christmas, right? But come to think of it, this year was different, the girls rolled their eyes and tutted. We always pulled a prank like this, but looking back, I think they, for the first time ever, weren't impressed.

Now Christmas, well its Christmas! I did what most of us do, I revert to our long forgotten ancestral way of life, and I foraged. Tins of biscuits, mince pies, tubs of chocolates, Christmas cake, all the weird and wonderful cheese truckles, pickled onions, hot and cold meats, sweets and, of course, beer. And to round it off, even more beer. It's a god given right to pig out like that over the Christmas holiday!

Did it bother me if I put on an extra few pounds? Nah, it always seemed to fall away over the first couple of months after Christmas. But, to be honest, as I got older, an odd pound may have taken up residence in my body beyond those couple of months and now it seemed that around five of the cheeky buggers outstayed their welcome each year, after Christmas. Ah well, even they must have rights to a good home, right?

Well, the girls moaned and whined about us four. They all bitched about the effort that they make to stay in shape for us. Over time, they had all put on a pound or two here and there, especially after having children. But a bit of extra meat in the derriere and bigger tits were a plus as far as we boys were concerned. Mind you it never came cheap, they always followed whatever the latest keep fit fad was. Forever doing classes or buying keep fit gismo's galore left, right and centre; Zumba, Zimba, Thighmaster, Prancercise, Shake Weight, Tae Bo, Bodyblade, Slendertone, Aqua-something-or other, they tried it all until they settled on gym membership a couple of years back. They are all still going, regular as clockwork, to this day. Oh god, the thought of them in the gym's giving me palpitations, give me a second to calm back down!

Basically, they nagged the pants off us about starting to go. Then Grouch discovered something - it had a bar! That meant we could get an extra night of drinking in. But it all went south quite quickly when Jill asked Harp how many reps he was doing down the gym. Being a salesman, he got into a tizz with Jill, he told her he wasn't gay, he didn't know if there were any gay reps down at the gym, so they had a bit of a barney. He was a bit sheepish when he found out she meant repetitions as, reps in exercise, not reps, as in sales representatives. That scuppered a bonus night of drinking.

Then the sex stuff started. I came home from work one day and Sabrina wasn't in the kitchen, where I'd expect her to be making dinner. I called her, and she didn't respond, so I started to go upstairs. Halfway up, I heard her talking to someone quietly in our bedroom. I crept the rest of the way upstairs, and stood outside. She was talking about taking it easy as it was his first time, she'd show him the ropes, what she likes, and he wasn't to be shy, she knew he would be able to go for hours, unlike her husband. I gently nudged the door open, she had the covers pulled over her and her lover. I was angry, crept up and grabbed the cover, yanking it off the bed. She was dressed, on her own talking to a vibrator that was still in the packaging. She said;

'Hello Chic, meet little Chic, he's here to help where you get out of breath in the sack so quickly these days.'

You can imagine, I wasn't impressed, stomped downstairs, grabbed my coat and stormed off to the pub. Well, I got halfway, then I was out of breath so had to stop, but I was lucky. As I was catching my breath, Zep pulled up in a taxi and gave me a lift for the last quarter mile. Of course, all four of us turned up, and we had all been embarrassed in the same way. Dunno why, but Grouch kept harping on about Kris's eight inch vibrator she had, not the five inch one the rest of the girls had purchased.

We had a think and Harp came up with an idea. If we booked ourselves into a health farm, with extras for a week then they may cut short this game they're intent on playing, if they think we're being serious. Of course, we played our own game. Oh yes, we found somewhere alright, a five-star spa and health resort that just happened to have the "extras" we were looking for. A top-rated golf course! All we had to do was drop our clubs down the pub a few days out, pick them up after we left home to drive there and, bingo! A week of beer 'n golf, top nosh and they ladies believing we were working our arses off losing weight. Zep found these tummy busters for blokes that we could wear home, so it would look like we'd given some excess baggage the heave-ho during the week. Looked like women's corsets if you ask me, got them off Wish. Still the plan was a win-win as far as we were concerned.

So off we went. At the hotel we met this guy, Toby, some sort of high-flying solicitor type in London, looked more like a dodgy car salesman to us. He was a big bloke too. Looking back, he was big, as in muscled up, not fat, like us. Even though hie was big, the women seemed to flock around him like flies to shit. They were throwing themselves at him on the Friday night, mainly this group of middle-aged women. They all looked reasonable enough, but not a patch on our wives back home.

'Ole Toby joined us for golf Saturday, and we offered to be his Saturday night wingmen, if he was going to be hanging with the bunch of women that had been all over him Friday. Now, don't misunderstand, we didn't want to do anything improper with them, other than dance, drink and have some female company during the evening. None of us are cheaters, don't think we'd step out on our girls, ever. Turned out Toby said he had some prime pussy signed, sealed and just about ready to deliver after dinner Saturday, so we were on our own.

So, Saturday we hit the golf course again and, in the evening, we watched this stunning goddess of a woman rock up, have dinner with this Toby, then they disappeared. Guess he was collecting on his special delivery. If he could waltz of with a goddess, surely, we could bag a few dances with a bunch of women that couldn't hold a candle to our girls back home?

We had a few more drinks and looked across at the group of Hyenas, disguised as women, as the cackled and drank. I drew the short straw, and was first up. I took a deep breath, held my gut in and sauntered over. I asked if any of them wanted a dance, and they fell about laughing. As I walked away, there was some sarky comment about bouncy castles not being listed as an activity. I knew exactly what they were implying about me. When the others found out what reception I'd received, that was enough to scare the rest of the boys off going over, so we did what we do best. Drink more beer.

By time we got home, the girls were pleased to see us, but wondered if we were ill when we came back all reddish and sweating a bit, short of breath and having difficulty sitting down. Before we'd left the hotel, we'd helped each other get into those bloody corsets and I swear, all it did was cut circulation from the top, to the bottom of our bodies. The girls were impressed in that we seemed to have a lost some weight, but it fell apart as soon as we all asked to get undressed in the dark, when we went to go to bed later that evening. We hadn't thought it through properly, not one of us ever got undressed in the dark, our deception failed miserably. To say the girls were pissed was an understatement.

It wasn't long before the highlight of the year came along. FA Cup Saturday. I think the Yanks treat Superbowl in the same way. It was a mega-day, full on London derby, and being Gooners, we knew that Arsenal were gonna stuff Tottenham, let's face it, they always do.

It was my turn to host, I picked up several cases of beer, snacks galore, and the weather forecast said it was going to be decent, so I picked up a ton of meat to barbeque. We started at eleven am, and were well on the way to being hammered, before the match started at three pm. It was a great game, and sat one minute into penalty time when we stuffed one in the back of net. We went mad, jumping around, launching beer, snacks, chicken wings, ribs, plates, you name it, if it was near us it, it went flying.

Once we stopped crying tears of joy, we knew the game was in the bag. I looked around at the carnage we had created. Chicken wings, ribs, crisp, knocked over beer cans, this wasn't gonna be good it if the girls saw it. They had all gone out to the shopping outlet. Realising we'd all cop it, we drunkenly chipped in to get square.

I was on my hands and knees, trying to pick up the chicken wings and ribs we'd trod into the carpet, when the girls walked into the room. Yeah, they were unimpressed alright. I puffed and panted, as I tried to get up. Do you know what the bitch said? She said that's exactly how I sounded these days when I performed my husbandly duties, sorry, or more to the point, tried too! The clowns all tittered, thinking it was hilarious. Once the girls joined in with a verbal beasting for them over their own recent lack of sexual prowess too, they felt as small as me.

When they walked out the room, I told the boys not to be bothered they were pissed. I mean what would they do? They'd love us, irrespective of how much weight we may have put on or slightly out of shape we'd got. I said they wouldn't dream of going elsewhere as we were married, and we had, on more than one occasion, all discussed how none of us tolerate cheaters, stepping out wasn't on anyone's agenda. If anything, it was the girls that had pushed it, so I told the boys to calm down, nothing was going to happen. It turned out, I was so fucking wrong.

What I didn't know was that Sabrina had gone and picked up the vacuum cleaner when I made my little speech to the boys, and stood outside the door, listening. After I finished, she walked in and almost threw the damn thing at me!

A few days later I came home from work and, yet again, no dinner on the table. But I could hear them upstairs, I recognised her voice. She was fucking somebody and she was moaning loudly! I ran, actually walked quickly, upstairs. I almost kicked the door off its hinges, but I was out of breath and couldn't quite get my leg high enough, so it sorta gently opened. She was sitting on the bed, watching the TV on the wall. She was playing a movie I'd recorded a few years back when I first got an Iphone. Being a typical bloke, the first thing I wanted to do was shoot some homemade porn of me and her. She had logged onto the cloud, and was looking at the movie from ten years ago. I must admit, I was impressed, she was taking it large!

She asked me if I remembered it and I said of course. She looked sad and told she wanted that man back, that's all she wanted. Again, I wasn't impressed at her attack on my ego, and stormed off down the pub. This time, I had to catch my breath at the end of the drive, but luckily Harp and Grouch pulled up in the taxi they had. Seemed the girls had, yet again, orchestrated an attack on our manliness. After a double burger, double fries and copious beer to stem our anger, it was time for action. We all agreed to go to the gym Saturday morning, but not tell them.

Saturday came and I told Sabrina I was going for a game of golf with the boys and left. We met up at the burger van on the business park, and after a wicked breakfast bap, took one car, as it isn't the biggest car park at the gym. It was a depressing eye opener, I can tell you that. We were given a guided tour, and it was full of mainly young blokes, fuelled by an excess of testosterone, working out like mad. We all jumped on a treadmill and started off with a brisk walk, but had to slow it down in less than a minute. Harp ended up pushing the button to speed it up, and not down, and added to our group embarrassment as he fell, then was spat off the back of the machine into a heap on the floor. We knew that was a sign from the gods. Four overweight blokes in their forties, do not belong in the gym. We made our way to the bar, and ordered some beers.

Before we left, we peeked through the window into the main gym. There were some real beauties using the machines, we couldn't quite see them as the testosterone fuelled gym junkies seemed to have gravitated over to and around the machines they were using. Then we saw who the women were, laughing and flirting with these guys. Our four wives. That's when the depression set in, so we headed back up to the bar and had some more beer.

The girls figured it out and knew we'd gone to the gym. The gym bunnies gave an account to them of four overweight, sweaty guys in their forties spending all of five minutes in the gym, before one was spat off a treadmill and they all skulked off to the bar.

We usually met up after work Fridays, for a few beers before we went home to a well earnt dinner after a week of work. But it was different that Friday. There was no dinner. Thinking this was another stupid game, I went upstairs. There, dressed to the nines in a short black dress, looking like she was off out on a date, was Sabrina. As I was walking up the stairs, my phone was pinging with messages but I didn't look at them until I saw Sabrina. A quick glance at those messages showed she wasn't the only one getting dolled up.

I asked her what was going on, her reply was that, since we like to go out for a drink on Fridays after work, then the girls were going to start going out too, so we would start to need to fend for ourselves on Friday evenings. Of course, I bitched and moaned about it, she said not a problem, she'd stay in if I agreed to no more pub sessions with the boys. No, I couldn't do that, it was sacrilegious, she couldn't expect that to stop. And that was it, off she went with the other three wives.

Of course, we were all suspicious. We checked for hidden new lingerie, underwear for tell-tale stains of an affair, sniffing them when they came home for unknown bloke's perfumes and keeping an eye out for anything that said they were stepping out. There were no signs of it, but they upped the ante, going out mid-week too, and they were getting back later and later. Then it happened, the first crushing blow hit me like a bullet to the heart.

She started to spend a lot of time looking at her phone, the girls were always yakking and messaging, but it seemed more intense than usual. When she went out the room, I thought I'd have a look at her messages. The phone was pin coded! All the time she'd had a phone, she had never put a code on. Now I was really suspicious. A bit later, we were watching some TV when her phone rang. Instead of answering it, she said she'd go and make a cuppa, and took her phone with her, answering it as she left the room. Nope, it wasn't right, so I sneaked out into the hallway and listened just outside the kitchen.