A Simple Conversation 05: Bonnie

This one is another shorty, 2,130 words. There is no sex in it and it's mostly dialogue.

My thanks to CTC, once again, for the edit.

Please join me in thanking Charlie. He came up with the lightning and smoke alarm ideas.

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THE SCENE: Peter and Bonnie Bunting, having been shown into the office of relationship counsellor, Gail, and introductions made.

"Okay, Bonnie, Peter, who wants to start and tell me why we're all here today?"

The couple looked at each other, then Bonnie nodded, meaning for her husband to go first. With her twenty years of experience, Gail knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"I... I cheated on my wife."

'Oh, fuck, another one,' Gail thought to herself. She was already rehearsing the well-tried action plan she'd developed in these circumstances. Get the husband to genuinely apologise; get the wife past her external outrage, which was actually a manifestation of her internal thoughts of failure as a woman.

Later, she would realise just how wrong she was and just how different this case turned out to be. At that moment, though, she was on autopilot.

They were all suddenly startled by a crash off to the side. Gail, mildly so, but the other two almost jumped out of their skins as the blood drained from their faces. Bonnie closed her eyes and breathed, "Oh, god, he's here."

"Now, don't overreact people. It was just a book falling off a shelf. I looked at it this morning and mustn't have put it back properly."

That's what the counsellor said, but inwardly she was a little excited. Most of her days were spent re-hashing the same old angst. These people were clearly terrified, and it promised to be an exciting case.

"I think you'd better start from the start, don't you?"

This time it was Bonnie that won the nodding contest.

"I'd been married to Dave for twenty-three years and our two kids had flown the nest when I met Pete two years ago. He was a widower. I don't know what happened, but we just fell in love. You know how it is when you recognise someone as your complete soulmate, well, that's what happened between us.

"I knew it was wrong, and so did Pete, but we ended up in bed together one day and that was that. We both knew we were made for each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, but there was a problem."

Bonnie stopped talking, obviously embarrassed by her admissions. Gail decided to help a little.

"You were already married."

"Yes."

There followed a long pause.

"It would have been easy if Dave had been a bad husband or abusive, but he wasn't. Far from it. He was an exemplary partner. Attentive, loving, romantic, loyal... you name it. It wasn't until I met Pete that I realised that I'd fallen out of love with Dave.

"We, I mean, Pete and I, spent weeks trying to think of a way of telling Dave gently, but we drew blanks. I know I pretty much cut Dave off, you know, in the um, bedroom, after things with Pete became physical, but Dave never pressed for anything.

"Then, one day I came home from work late. Actually, I'd stopped at Pete's place for a quickie on the way home. It was just before seven and it was obvious I'd forgotten our wedding anniversary. Dave had a nice meal cooked, candlelit, the whole works. I was so ashamed.

"After the meal, he took me in his arms and, well, it was fairly obvious where he wanted the evening to head. I just couldn't. Not only would it have felt like cheating on Peter, but I was still, er, full of him from our afternoon romp."

Bonnie looked extremely embarrassed having to say all this. She knew how it made her look. The counsellor's face gave nothing judgmental away.

"I still wasn't ready for this moment, but the idea of fobbing him off with some lame excuse, like having a headache, just felt disrespectful. So, I just blurted out that I wanted a divorce because I'd met someone else."

Bonnie lapsed into silence as she remembered the pain of that moment. Not hers; Dave's. The ticking of the wall clock seemed to slow and completely fill the room. Gail offered a rare opinion.

"Gosh, I expect that took the wind from your husband's sails. He wanted to celebrate your anniversary properly and you terminated the marriage."

Bonnie had tears streaming down her cheeks. Peter reached over and grabbed her hand for a squeeze. Struggling to reign in her empathy for Dave, the counsellor elected not to put her foot further in it by remaining mute. Eventually.

"To this day, I don't know why I said what I did next. I think it was to head any arguments off at the pass, to deny any hope Dave may have had that we had a future."

Gail knew whatever was coming was bad after that intro. She waited.

"I told him I'd been sleeping with Peter for months, and... god..., I may have even said the sex was better than with him, Dave."

Knowing they were cruel and unjustifiable things to say to an ambushed man, Bonnie went on quickly.

"It was a very stressful situation and I wasn't thinking clearly. Of course, if I had my time over again, I'd be gentler, but it is what it is."

Gail utilised every ounce of her professionalism to mask her feelings at that point. Articulating, 'what a fucking bitch,' at that moment would be unhelpful. Bonnie's crying increased.

"What did your ex-husband do, Bonnie?"

Gail knew the answer was going to be big, by the stricken look on Bonnie's face. Whatever happened had obviously seriously affected her psyche. Knowing she was in dangerous territory the counsellor allowed the anguished woman to go at her own pace. Finally...

"He turned his back to me. His shoulders slumped and I could see them shaking. I'm pretty sure he was crying. He... he was such a strong man... I don't just mean physically, even though he was, tall, muscled and with a big black beard..."

Gail watched the crying, disturbed woman shake her head as she realised she'd gotten off track, but remained silent to allow her to re-compose herself. Which took about half a minute.

"I just couldn't face that I'd hurt him so much."

Gail allowed the stricken woman to sob quietly until a glance at the clock showed she had to move things along a bit.

"What happened then, Bonnie? Did Dave leave you?"

Bonnie let out a scream, jumped up and headed for the door. Peter made to follow her, but Bonnie put a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed hard enough for him to fall over backwards. She escaped past the bewildered receptionist. Peter picked himself up off the floor and slumped back into his chair.

"Yes, Dave did leave her. In the worst possible way. He jumped in his car and took off. He only made it as far as the highway, about ten minutes from their house. The coroner concluded that he went through a red light and was T-boned by a log truck. He was dead on arrival."

Gail was shocked by the monstrous amount of guilt Bonnie must be carrying around.

"That's awful!"

"And only the half of it. He was on the phone to their eldest daughter at the moment the truck hit. He told her what her mum had done. The daughter is still in counselling from the shock. Neither she nor their son will have anything to with us, they blame Bonnie for their father's death."

Gail thanked the gods she wasn't the daughter's counsellor. Being on the phone, hearing your father die... well, she could imagine worse, but it would take some effort. They lapsed into silence, each keeping their own thoughts until Gail snapped out of it.

"So, what has that all got to do with why you've come to marriage guidance?"

Peter squirmed under the renewed spotlight on his bad behaviour.

"According to Bonnie, as Dave was leaving the house, he paused in the doorway. She wasn't certain of what he said, but it was something like, 'remember this moment, Bonnie', then he walked out.

"Bonnie was at my place crying her eyeballs out when the police rang to inform her that Dave was dead. She identified the body and everything. His parents took over all the funeral arrangements and asked her not to even attend. That hurt, I can tell you."

"I'm sure it did."

"Well, Bonnie was upset for a long time after that, as you can imagine. We, er, we didn't have sex for at least six months, for one reason or another. I finally tried to snap her out of her funk by proposing. She accepted. None of her family would come and she'd lost most of her old friends after the Dave incident, so she suggested a simple registry office affair with the minimum two witnesses.

"I splashed out on a flash place in Hawaii for our honeymoon, hoping to reconnect, if you know what I'm saying. She still wouldn't let me near her for the first couple of nights. On the third night, I deliberately got her drunk before taking her to bed. After a heap of foreplay, she finally begged me to enter her. I lined up and was just about to push in, when out of nowhere, a lightning bolt struck a tree outside the bedroom window. Scared the fuck out of us, if you'll pardon my French, and completely ruined the mood.

"The next night I got her drunk again and at about the same point there was an earth tremor. We were just recovering from that when there was a terrific banging on the door. We were told to evacuate due to a high possibility of a volcanic eruption. They finally let us back two days later.

"The following night, all the fire alarms went off at the critical moment.

"The next night, Bonnie told me not to try to get her drunk. She woke later from a nightmare, screaming, 'I'm sorry, Dave.' We didn't end up having sex on our honeymoon. In fact, we haven't had sex since. Bonnie just pushes me away when I suggest it. She believes Dave is haunting us."

His glance at the bookcase told Gail that Bonnie wasn't the only one that believed in ghosts.

"Anyway, long story short, I took to hiring hookers when she was away visiting her folks or travelling for work. That fell in a heap when she came home a day early once because she missed me. Caught me inflagranti delicto, as they say. I insisted that as she wouldn't give me my conjugal rights, I had a right to go elsewhere and at least I was unlikely to fall in love with a hooker. She disagreed and so here we are."

"Wow, that's quite a story. I don't know how much I'll be able to help. Maybe a sex therapist might serve you better. It depends, I suppose, on whether or not you or Bonnie actually believe you're being haunted or not. I can certainly refer you to..."

"No! Enough is enough. Just forget it. Apparently, I can get an annulment and end this farce without losing my shirt. Thanks for your time."

He strode out of the room and out of the building, muttering to himself, 'Of course I don't believe it; the whole thing is in her fucking head'.

He rang Bonnie's cell but there was no answer. When she wasn't waiting at the car and still not picking up, he decided to just go home.

He was travelling at the posted speed limit, five minutes later, when a tall, muscled man, with a big black beard stepped out from between two parked cars into his path. Cursing, Peter jerked the wheel to the right.

EPILOGUE

Excerpt from the Herald Sun newspaper, 3^rd June 2018.

The Victorian coroner's office released the report yesterday, on the death of local businessman, Peter Samson, last August. The cause of Mr. Samson suddenly veering off the road is unknown, stated Justice Smith, but that caused him to strike another car while travelling sideways. Death resulted from a broken neck. The side airbag on the vehicle failed to deploy. It is understood that the device had a known defect, the result of a safety recall, but Mr. Samson had failed to address the issue.

This newspaper understands that his wife is still receiving psychiatric treatment while under the guardianship of the state after...

THE END.

p.s. I've been using this series to explore the boundary of infidelity and to showcase small ideas that I thought weren't worth building big stories around. This is currently the last one I have and I sincerely hope you've enjoyed them. I wish you all luck during this current crisis.

A reminder. I answer all emails, but my feedback via the 'Contact' page on my profile doesn't work. You can contact me via the SemperAmare profile though.

Now lighten up.

I LOOK AT PEOPLE AND SOMETIMES THINK..

"REALLY? THAT'S THE SPERM THAT WON?"

If you need another laugh, you may not know I have a humorous essay here called 'Frostbitten in a Sunburnt Country' that I think is good for a chuckle.