Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click here
And left her in silence.
Madison walked down the path to the cabin and insistently knocked on the door while she shouted that she would simply sit outside the door until Daniel opened it. For his part Daniel said nothing, although she heard the toilet flush. The early Autumn morning passed quietly into a pleasantly warm afternoon, but then evening brought shadows, chilled autumn air and hunger pangs.
Eventually, Madison gave up the vigil and retreated to the house. She intended to eat something, put on warm clothes, and resume her place at the cabin door, but after reflection that did not seem like such a good idea. Daniel would probably just go to sleep and leave her alone in the backyard for the night. A cold night with the animals and bugs from the woods did not appeal to her. Instead, she stood in the silent kitchen to eat a lonely peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then went to her silent room and took a lonely shower.
While she dried her hair, she turned the situation over and over in her mind. Daniel couldn't refuse to talk to her ever again. Could he? The thought that maybe he could caused Madison to shiver. What could she do? She was so distracted and distraught that she almost missed the sounds that emanated from outside the cabin. Madison froze and listened intently to the sounds. She heard a piece of wood clap against another piece and at once Madison flew to the French doors, flung them open and bounded out onto the balcony. Below her in the moonlight, Daniel gathered an armload of firewood.
"Daniel!" Madison shouted at him. "Daniel!"
Daniel didn't respond. He didn't even look up.
"Daniel! Daniel, you've got to listen to me! I can explain!"
Daniel picked up another log and placed it on top of the armload. The load tottered askew, so Daniel steadied the stack before he reached for another stick of firewood.
"Daniel! Please don't ignore me like this! I need to talk to you!"
Daniel steadied the stack again and then turned to go back in the cabin.
"Daniel, please! Listen to me! Daniel! You have to listen to me!" Madison whined in an anxiously high voice.
Daniel didn't even look back. He simply went into the cabin with his armload of firewood and kicked the door shut behind him. Madison's shoulders slumped in defeat as the silence closed in on her again.
"This is bad," Madison whispered to herself.
With a lost sensation, Madison plunked down on the bed and pouted. Why wouldn't Daniel listen to her? Didn't he love her anymore? Dejectedly, Madison pulled the covers back to lie down for a while and the sight that greeted made her stomach churn. Daniel had left the picture of Steve the Oaf and Madison on his side of the bed. On it, Daniel had scrawled some words in red marker and Madison's hands shook as she lifted the picture to read the words.
"I can't go on living alone now that you're gone!
You done me wrong, so here's your song,
Now sing along baby!"
The flavor of these words chilled Madison to her core. Madison had never been one to care about the meaning behind poems and song lyrics, but she could recognize the anguish of a jilted lover. These were her first words from Daniel in days and she needed to do some research on this, her only clue, so she grabbed up her phone and searched the internet to find the source of these words. Google instantly found the song "Sing Along" by the artist Sturgill Simpson.
She didn't know the artist or the song, much like many of the artists and songs that Daniel favored. Previously, she hadn't put much thought into his taste in music because she simply didn't like the music he liked. In fact, she had once derided Daniel's taste in music as "old music for old white men" but given the silence she had recently endured any communication from Daniel was precious.
A few more scrolls and she found the song on Spotify. Raucously loud music pumped out of the blue tooth speaker on her nightstand and Madison read the lyrics in time with the music.
"Words can stab as deep as night,
And cut like razor thorn!
Bitter air and winds of spite,
Like the cold of winters scorn!
Leaves may fall on sleeping ground,
But the wind sweeps them away!
Like hurt lovers in the final round,
What once was in now decay!
I can't go on living alone now that you're gone!
A single strand of spider's weave,
Just dancing in the sun!
Please don't turn around and leave,
You are my only one!
Compromise is made out of peace,
But history is made out of violence!
After the war of words has ceased,
All that's left is the deafening silence!
I can't go on living alone now that you're gone!
You done me wrong, so here's your song,
Now sing along baby!
I know you know that you're killing me,
But it's worth it just to see you smile!
Tell 'em to carve my name in the barstool baby,
You know I'm gonna be here a while!
A single strand of spider's weave,
Just dancing in the sun!
Please don't turn around and leave,
You are my only one!
I can't go on living alone now that you're gone!
You done me wrong, so here's your song
Now sing along!"
The music ended without warning, and Madison shuddered. All those song lyrics and poems and quotes Daniel had written to her had been Daniel's attempts to express his emotions and she had been too lazy or too selfish to try and figure out what he meant. She thought of the hints and clues he had dropped over their time together that she carelessly dismissed. All his little notes were his calls to her that she had ignored.
Now Daniel gave her these lyrics that were obviously a tortured howl of pain. Daniel, her sweet, kind Daniel, was in pain, deep pain that he could not express, but that was not all. What really was at issue was how careless Madison had been with Daniel's heart and because of that carelessness, Daniel had now reached the conclusion that Madison did not care about him and would leave him. The lyrics also told her that her epiphany might have come too late and that, as a result of her foolishness, her relationship with Daniel might be damaged beyond repair.
"Oh no!" Madison whimpered through her hand into the silence.
*****
How had it come to this?
Madison wondered that thought in front of the rain darkened French doors and silently wept out at the night beyond. Streaks of rain on the outside of the window matched the streaks of tears on her reflected face. Momentarily she focused on her reflection and took stock. It wasn't a pretty picture. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were puffy and red from forty-eight hours of weepy sleep deprivation. When she sighed at the sight, her voice rasped.
With a sniffle she turned away from the window and surveyed the bedroom. It was a cavernous space, yet it had a cozy feel with a fireplace faced by two easy chairs, and walls of dark wood paneling. Her king-sized canopy bed dominated one corner of the room. She recalled how excited she was when the bed was delivered and set up. It was exactly what she had wanted.
In fact, the whole room was decorated exactly how Madison had dreamed her bedroom would look when she had been a little girl, right down to the large walk-in closet and its adjoining shoe closet. Her husband had been so patient and generous while she fussed and worried and fretted about every detail until she had everything exactly the way she wanted it. He spared no expense from the handmade oriental rug under the bed, to the polished hardwood floors to the wallpaper boarder that ran around the room just below the tray ceiling.
The thought of her husband brought her eyes to the large picture of them taken at their wedding. Madison, with raven hair that spilled onto her white wedding dress, beamed a smile that would rival the lights of Times Square, and posed with her newly minted husband, Daniel. He was slightly behind her, tall, lean, and dark in his black tuxedo. That day had gone exactly how she had planned it and she had been thrilled with every bit of it. Her husband played his part with quiet dignity, and he saw to the intimate details, such as her family's accommodations and transportation to the wedding ceremony and had recited the vows Madison had chosen in his smooth, baritone voice. Hot buttered auto mechanic is how her mother had described Daniel's voice.
Madison had everything she could have hoped that day; a pretty home, a high value man and a marriage with a future as bright as a spring sunrise. She was the luckiest girl in the world and all her jealous girlfriends had told her so. She had been well on her way to realizing the "Mrs. Somebody" dream, until she had carelessly savaged it, like a foolish child with a butcher's knife. A fresh sob of misery came from her lips.
Her eyes turned back to the window and stared out into the rain. Thick yellow light oozed around the curtains of the cabin windows and lit little patches of the night around the cabin. A trickle of smoke emanated from the chimney as Daniel stoked the fire to keep the early fall chill out.
He was in that cabin. Madison's husband was there in the cabin just yards away from where she stood, but he might has well have been on another continent as far as she was concerned. Madison turned from the window and decided to prepare for bed.
As she brushed her teeth, she had a sudden flash of boss bitch energy. Daniel had to crack eventually. Maybe even tonight. After days of despair a little hope from anywhere was welcome and soon she had talked herself into the idea that Daniel would, in fact, come to her. He couldn't keep this up forever. Eventually Daniel would be persuaded by her pleas, and their problems would vanish in a welter of tangled sheets. This thought cheered her. All she really had to do was be available. After all, when she asked her friends about the situation, they had been unanimous in their assessment that a man's need for sex would eventually overwhelm his anger. It was just a matter of time now. Once he laid eyes on her after enough time had passed, this little bump in the road would be behind them.
But then the night dragged on, and Madison went to the kitchen for another peek. Nothing had changed. Daniel stayed quietly ensconced in the cabin, so she ate a lonely, cold supper in front of the television. While she washed her dishes, she again peeked out towards the cabin and saw the lights were on and smoke billowed from the chimney. Still nothing. After a cool wait in the living room with the television until midnight, she took one more peek out the kitchen door and saw no changes. Daniel still had not budged and she felt defeated as she trudged up the stairs alone. Again.
Once in bed she noted that there was no fire in the fireplace and Madison's heart skipped a beat. Normally on cool fall evenings Daniel would light a fire and sit in one of the easy chairs and read quietly while she prepared for bed. While she sat in bed and applied cream to keep her hands and feet soft and supple, he would finish his chapter and then come to bed and lie down between her and the door. He always placed himself between her and whatever might be outside, but tonight he was not there, and as dark rain pattered on the roof and windows, she felt his absence very keenly.
Madison missed everything about Daniel. She missed his scent, his quiet and stoic presence, the feel of his solid and sinewy body, gentle touch of his hands on her hips, the way his lips tasted on hers and the way his fingers ran through her hair, the feel of his skin on hers and the sensation of connection as his body merged into her in a shared mix of lust and love. At that memory, she felt slick between her thighs and was immediately ashamed of herself for that thought. A boss bitch didn't cave in just for sex.
She tried to steel herself against the night tide of loneliness and cold with these thoughts, but as she lay alone in her cold bed Madison visualized Daniel, physically just a few yards away in the cabin in the back yard but thousands of miles away and, for the first time in Madison's memory, boss bitch Madison cracked under the pressure. Fresh tears wet her cheeks and In her lonely bed under the dark rain, a cold and ugly possibility of truth began to coalesce in the back of Madison's mind.
Maybe this was all her fault.
Maybe Madison made this mess in the first place. Maybe she had opened the gulf that yawned between her and Daniel, and now she was alone in a cold bed. Maybe, just maybe, boss bitch Madison was the reason it had come to this and, worse, it was entirely probably that she she had no earthly idea how to clean that kind of a mess up.
"This can't get any worse."
*****
However, it did get worse and in the most unanticipated and unwanted way. Three days later, Madison sat in a lawyer's office with a handful of wrinkled divorce papers, which she had crumpled up and thrown away more than once. She didn't even like to touch them, as if contact with them somehow made the possibility of a divorce more tangible and real. When the polite woman, who turned out to be a process server, knocked on the door and handed Madison the handful of divorce papers, Madison literally could not believe her eyes and insisted that the process server had the wrong address. The process server simply shook her head at Madison who burst into miserable tears, slammed the door and launched into frantic activity.
First, Madison flew out to the cabin with the divorce papers in hand and pounded on the door determined to put an immediate stop to this divorce business. Yet all the screams and cries and tears got her the same result as every other attempt to speak to Daniel since the party. Stony silence.
Madison's next reaction was to sit at the kitchen table and bawl her eyes out in frustration and disbelief. The reality that Daniel initiated a divorce against her was completely unbelievable. Everyone knew that high-value wives initiated divorces and high value ex-husbands paid alimony and child support. Lots of alimony and child support for that matter. The idea that a husband might file a divorce against his wife wasn't even a consideration, but that was all secondary to the fact that didn't want a divorce. She loved Daniel and wanted to be his wife. Unfortunately, the divorce papers indicated that Daniel might not want to be her husband anymore.
After a good cry, the next thing she did was call her girlfriends for support. They were all sympathetic and unanimously agreed that the thing to do was fight and fight hard. Ivy urged Madison to speak to a lawyer to determine what her rights were, and Adalina recommended a particular lawyer who she called "The She-Dragon." Everyone agreed that this lawyer would know exactly what to do.
Madison considered that a good thing, because she wanted to nip this divorce madness in the bud. She didn't want a divorce and a good lawyer could probably help her prevent it. However, as soon as Madison sat down in the lawyer's office to discuss the situation, it rapidly became clear that Madison's goal wouldn't line up with the advice she got from the lawyer.
"But I don't want a divorce!" Madison asserted with a thump of her fist on the lawyer's desk. "Don't we have to go to marriage counseling first?"
The lawyer shrugged apologetically.
"I'm sorry, but we live in a no-fault state," the lawyer re-informed Madison. "All one party has to do is say they don't want to be married anymore and, well...."
Madison huffed and adjusted her seat to account for the cold hollow pit that settled in her stomach with the service of the accursed divorce papers.
"I can't believe this," Madison sniveled into a Kleenex.
The lawyer did her best to look sympathetic, but Madison could tell it was practiced professionalism and not genuine empathy. Madison decided it was true that all lawyers had their souls removed in law school.
"I know it's difficult to accept," the lawyer intoned in her best professionally sympathetic voice. "But the best thing you can do right now is prepare yourself and look to secure your financial future. Your husband is a wealthy man and you...."
"My financial future? My financial future!" Madison interrupted indignantly while she slid forward in her chair. "I don't want a divorce! Don't you understand? If I lose Daniel, my life is over!"
"No, no it isn't," the lawyer intoned patiently. "I'm sure it feels that way in the heat of the moment, but now is the time for clear-sighted rationality, which is why you hire someone like me. Now to that point, there are enough marital assets to ensure you live comfortably until...."
"Goddamn it!" shouted Madison. "Why won't you listen to me? I don't want a divorce!"
The lawyer looked steadily at Madison and blinked slowly and implacably. A professional didn't get emotional.
"I can see you're upset, and I really understand, Madison, but I'm a lawyer, not a therapist. My job would be to look out for your best interests in the divorce, not to reconcile you and your husband."
"Forget that!" Madison huffed indignantly. "What I want is for you to help me stop this! They said you were one of the best divorce lawyers in the state!"
The lawyer shrugged like an animatronic doll.
"Be that as it may, from a purely legal standpoint, you can't stop it," she said flatly. "In a no-fault state if your spouse doesn't want to be married anymore...."
Madison threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Yeah, yeah, they only have to allege that they want a divorce to get a divorce. I heard you the first time."
The lawyer flat lined another professional shrug at Madison and Madison sat back with a frustrated huff. With a professional nod the lawyer stood, and Madison took that as the sign that her free initial consultation was at an end, from a legal point of view. Madison stood and shook the offered hand. It was cold.
"Thank you for your time."
"Whether it's me or another attorney, I strongly recommend that you hire counsel to represent you in this matter. This is going to be the most important financial decision of your life. It is dangerous to make it without professional assistance."
Madison nodded but refused to relent.
"I understand you, but what you fail to understand is that I'm not about to get divorced. I'll fight this thing all the way down to the ground. I love my husband and I'll do whatever it takes to stop this."
For an unguarded moment, the woman behind the lawyer facade slipped out.
"Maybe you should tell him that instead of me." Then the professional lawyer returned. "Good day, Madison."
With another indignant huff, Madison marched out of the lawyer's office, climbed into her car, and sobbed her eyes out for half an hour. While she sobbed away that half an hour, three separate passers-by stopped, tapped on the window, and asked Madison if she was all right, but she waved them all away with an irritated backhand. Did no one understand that her heart was broken, and her world had just crashed down around her ears? Daniel wanted a divorce! Her heart and mind simply could not accept that fact, so she sobbed inconsolably until the fourth and final tap of concerned inquiry got Madison to pull herself together and drive home.
Home to her empty, quiet house.
As she tripped up the walkway in her black business pumps, she recalled what the lawyer said and turned to the cabin. Daniel was in there and wouldn't talk to her, but nothing prevented her from talking to him. Full of determination, she tripped down to the cabin door, removed her right shoe and pounded the heel on the door.
"I'll never give you a divorce, Daniel!" Madison shouted vehemently. "I'll fight this with every fiber of my being! I want to stay married, and I love you! Do you hear me? I! Will! Not! Divorce! You!"
Madison listened for a moment. Part of her had hoped that Daniel would open the door and smile at her and let her in and kiss her and make love to her, but the rest of her knew that would not happen. That didn't mollify her disappointment when it didn't happen. Long quiet moments passed and finally Madison gave up the wait, took off her left shoe because her feet hurt, and barefooted back to the house vexed by silence.
