And Then There Were None

Was that commission so damn important? Important enough for his wife to have a fun-filled dinner with drinks and then a fuck feast in the back of her own car? And drugs? He had never seen Jill do drugs. Or did she do it just with her clients to get them into the mood to do the contract?

His phone beeped. It was his daughter, for the third time in the evening. They were staying at his parents' house. It was spacious and had many rooms. One of them had been converted to a private ward for Jill. As per the doctors, it was rest and medication that would ultimately get Jill back on her feet. He still didn't want to see his wife's face. Was she cheating on him? He needed to collect evidence. Yes, he would confront her, but not just yet. He was still in a state of shock. He also had to think about the kids. If divorce was the only way out, then could he risk having his kids living with a drug addict?

By 4 AM, Dave was out of bed. He had hardly slept. He put on his robe, went to his children's room and sat down on Stacy's bedside, pondering his next course of action.

The restaurant! That is where it all started; he had to visit that place and see it for himself.

Dave now had a purpose to see him through the rest of the new day dawning. The day was like any other day, but Dave kept looking at his watch time and again.

It was noon when his daughter called again. Dave sighed and took the call.

"Dad," the firm voice said from the other end. Her voice was controlled and somewhat admonishing.

"How's my baby doing?" Dave asked, trying not to allow his inner turmoil come through to his daughter.

"Why aren't you here with us?"

That was his daughter, all right, straight to the point.

"Dad's a bit busy and has some important things in his hands. Some important things need closure, Stacy. I promise I will be there soon."

"Mom's not doing good, and she keeps asking for you," Stacy replied in an accusatory tone.

Dave felt his chest go heavy. "I am doing something for us, for all of us. I promise I will be there. For now, just be there for me. Can you that?"

There was a silence before his daughter replied softly, "We all miss you, Dad, and Mason just keeps silent the whole day in the house. I am frightened."

The pounding in his chest became harder, he could feel his pulse rate beat faster and faster. Hell, man, this was such a freaking mess.

"Be there for me, Stacy; can I count on your support?" Dave asked in as calm a voice as he could.

"I'll try my best, Dad, but I'm worried for Mom. She has these stupid medical tests being run on her by the medics, needles stuck in her hand and then so many different colored pills. I promise I'll do my best. We all love you, Dad. I don't know if you are responsible for Mom's condition, but even if you were, we forgive you. We all miss you, including Grandpa and Grandma, but if you take your own sweet time, then Dad, ring the doorbell as many times as you want, I'll never open the door for you," Stacy said, and disconnected.

He knew the medics were stabilizing Jill. Her body was still reacting to the drug overdose she had while having wild sex with her clients. Things were not good. Dave took off early from work. He was his own boss, after all, and his inner turmoil wouldn't let him to concentrate on anything for long. Back home, he quickly showered and dressed in evening formals. The restaurant was one of those upper class types, not far from the Ritz Hotel and had these dress codes. As he passed by the Molly Brown house, he grimly thought to himself: Denver had this iconic Titanic survivor, well, he was gonna make sure his family came out of this mess as survivors, too.

At the restaurant, he had already done a booking and was led to his table. The place was classy: soft lights with a band playing at the far end. The seating gave privacy to everyone. People were talking in a low tone, while some couples were dancing to the band's music. It was one of those old-style restaurants that still drew in a crowd. After all, Denver was one of those famous western towns, and it showed.

He had made a reservation for two, deliberately. He asked the waiter to get him a drink with some snacks while he waited for somebody. He sipped his drink and surveyed the surroundings. It was upscale, with nothing perverse or shady to it. Men were not exactly pawing their ladies openly. Or maybe he was thinking too much.

Dave ordered another drink as he mentally went thru his observations: one, this was an upscale place, secondly, guests had their privacy, and yes, they could fool around a bit in this privacy, but then only to a limit as he could see there were CCTV cameras discreetly installed.

"Well, so much for my restaurant visit hunch," Dave mused as the waiter approached his table with his next round of drink. It was another man, tall, and slimmer than the earlier one and with Italian looks. The waiter was intently looking at him with his dark eyes. He smiled politely as he put down his glass on the table, but first, carefully placing a napkin on which he placed the drink.

"Have a nice evening, Sir," he said as he continued looking at him, then left.

"Funny bugger," Dave muttered to himself as he picked up his glass. As he did so, he realized there was something written on the napkin the waiter had pointedly made sure to place properly.

He looked closely. It was a phone number with, "I was there, call me after 11PM," written in small handwriting.

Dave's heart began pounding faster. This waiter must have been serving Jill's table that evening, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, he could get something out of him. He looked at his watch. Another hour to go. It would look fishy if he continued to sit alone for another hour in this classy restaurant, drinking all by himself. Dave quickly finished his drink and left the place. He took out his Honda, drove across the street, parked in a secluded area and waited for the appointed hour.

At 11PM, he called the number. A man whispered, "Hi." It was the waiter, the second waiter.

"I'm at this vacant lot not far from your restaurant," Dave said.

"I know that place. I'll walk down and get into your car and then you better drive out quickly," the waiter replied.

A few minutes later, he saw a shadowy figure approaching him from the restaurant. The waiter was now in his normal clothes, with his hoody drawn over his ahead to cover his face. He quickly got into the back seat and Dave moved out of the lot and away from the restaurant.

Dave looked into the rearview mirror. The waiter was intently staring back, as though trying to make up his mind about something.

"You got a name?" Dave asked.

"You can call me Antonio," he said.

"Why did you give me your number, Antonio?"

"Because I was there and I saw," Antonio said nervously, perhaps still not sure if he had done the right thing by getting into Dave's car.

Dave's grip on the steering wheel hardened. What did Antonio have to tell him? he thought.

"What did you see, Antonio?" Dave asked in as neutral tone as possible.

"They had made a reservation for the evening, and I was the one serving their table. They ordered drinks and chatted a bit. Then your wife arrived. I guess they had been waiting for her. They got up to greet her and then another round was ordered. I felt lucky, as I liked your wife... I mean admired her because she had this grace and... and kinda fit into that place," Antonio said with that quick correction.

"Wait a minute, you say you admired my wife; does that mean you had seen her there before?"

"Yeah, they had been there before, at least a couple of times. They would drink, chat, dance, like generally having a nice time. I guessed they were some corporate people who come to town on business and visited our place in the evening."

Dave's mind went back to the times he had noticed his wife wearing some tight and sharp cocktail dresses in the recent past. On being asked, Jill had always said it was a business dinner with clients. He had felt uncomfortable with her new dressing sense, but there was nothing suspicious about her appearance or behavior, though she did seem hornier than usual. But now... with this new information..."

"Continue, Antonio."

"Well, this time was no different. The had drinks, they chatted and even danced a couple of times. It was when I served another round..." he stopped and bit his lip.

"Then what, Antonio," Dave asked, his eyes steadily watching Antonio thru the rearview mirror.

"After placing the drinks, as I was turning to go, I saw the thickset guy dip a small piece of paper in your wife's drink. It happened fast, and I just caught the movement with the corner of my eyes. Your wife had her head turned towards the slim fellow and so... so she didn't notice." Antonio stopped and kept looking out the window into the darkness.

"I was apprehensive, so I kept observing them. Your wife emptied her glass. By then, she seemed to have become more... more free, I suppose. First, they were touching her bare arm, and when she didn't seem to object, they would brush her breasts, in an accidental manner." He stopped again and looked at Dave's face in the rearview mirror. They were now parked in an isolated part of the city.

"When we heard about what had happened, I felt bad. Perhaps even a bit guilty for not being able to warn her. I had seen that paper being dipped into her glass time and again, and she was definitely not aware about it. So, what happened afterwards was not with her approval in the real sense of the term." Antonio kept looking into the dark night, biting his lips. He knows more than he is telling, Dave thought.

"Is that all, Antoni? How come the police found my wife totally nude and fucked up in her car parked in that lonely spot near the woods? What happened from the time of what you've told me and the Police finding my wife? Tell me all you know."

"Look, I don't want any trouble. As it is, I am risking my job by telling you all this."

"I promise you will not have any problems, Antonio. I have friends on the force, and if you risk losing your job there, then trust me, you'll get a better one within 48 hours."

That seemed to help, and Antonio opened up further. "They, they were freely touching her, roaming their hands all over her. You have seen how our tables are set to give a certain degree of privacy. Well, they were taking as many liberties with your wife as they could. And... and from what I could see she seemed to be enjoying it. The slim guy dipped his fingers into his whisky and rubbed them on your wife's cleavage... and... and began licking the whisky from her breasts. I saw your wife admonish him playfully, but not really stopping him. Then the big fella's hand went under the table. I could see he had managed to part your wife's legs. His fingers were inside your wife's panties, and I could see his hand moving as he shoved his fingers inside her. This, this went on for some minutes. The thin guy was repeatedly dipping his fingers in his whisky, rubbing your wife's breasts with them and then licking while the thick big fella was finger fucking her and pushing his tongue inside her mouth."

Dave felt sick. What the fucking hell was going on? This sex-crazy slut was not his wife.

Antonio continued monotonously, "Then they called for the bill. I took it to them. The big fella paid with his card, and at same time the thin fella opened your wife's purse and took out her car keys. A photo dropped out and I picked it up. It was a family pic, and... and that's how I recognized you when you walked in."

"They walked out to the parking lot. The big fella, I heard the thin guy call him Jake, he got into his car while the thin fella put your wife in the back seat of her car, and he drove her car. My guess is that they both took her to that lonely place in the Jefferson Park neighborhood and then, then... well you know what happened."

"Mr. Dave, I'm sure that thing that was mixed in your wife's drink had something to do with this all. Like I said, I had seen them come a couple of times and all those times nothing of this sort had happened. Had she been in her right mind, I'm sure she would have rebuffed their amorous advances. She is not that kind of a woman, that much I am sure of."

The two of them sat in silence as Dave digested what he had heard. Was it really like that? Did those bastards drug his wife? There was enough substance in her to give her a heart attack. In fact, the medics had informed him that they were lucky to have reached her in time. Another hour or so later would have been fatal.

Or was Jill regularly into this drug scene, just that this time Jill had taken a high dose and passed out during their threesome fuck session? What was the truth? Could he believe this Antonio? Was his wife an innocent victim?

"Antonio, why are you telling me all this and not to the police?"

He heard Antonio breathing heavily.

"Mr. Dave, I'm an ordinary guy. My parents worked in a factory. I had a sweetheart in high school. She, too, came from a similar background. We couldn't afford to go to college after high school. So, after graduating, me and Sally started living together. I worked at the petrol pump while she was a waitress. The idea was to save enough money for at least one of us to enroll in a college. Sally, my Sally, was the more intelligent one and I wanted her to go to college."

Antonio's voice was becoming heavy with emotions. He paused for a while before continuing.

"One evening I returned home, but Sally wasn't at home. She usually came home before me. I waited, called her cell, but there was no response. I went to the place where she worked. They told me she had left at her usual time. Fearing for the worst, I went to the police station."

By then, tears were rolling down his cheeks. "They found her the next morning near the highway. I was asked to come to the hospital. The police asked me what kind of drugs Sally used. I told them neither of us had touched anything like that.

"They didn't believe me. The medics told me she had high level of drugs in her blood... and semen in her vagina, semen from different men. As per them, it was a gangbang gone wrong. I protested. I had full faith in my Sally. She would never have done such a thing.

"They didn't believe me. They sneered at me. 'We know you kids love doing this. Gives for some great orgasms.' I protested. But who was I? A nobody in their eyes, just a school dropout, with no connections. They closed the case with a strict warning to us."

By now Antonio was openly sobbing.

"I took Sally home. Took care of her. Whatever money we had saved was now almost gone in buying her medicines. Sally then told me that that day their diner's owner had his business partners over. She served them drinks. She noticed one of them was keenly looking her over, staring at her breasts, patting her, touching her innocuously. All this time they kept praising her, like how good she looked, how well she was serving and all that. Then they asked her to join them for a couple of quick drinks. As they were her boss's business associates, she complied. They had some drinks... and then she knew nothing. The next she remembered was coming around in the hospital.

"She was never the same after that. She stopped going to work. She would keep telling me that she did not cheat on me, that she never knew how she ended up in that bush area on the highway, she didn't remember having sex with anyone.

"I believed her. She was my Sally and she was hurt, not just physically, but traumatized from inside, as well.

"I reassured her that all would be well and once she was okay, we would leave this town and start afresh. She would then smile at me, caress my cheeks.

"Then she was gone. One day, I returned to our apartment to find that she had left with some of her belongings. There was a note on the table. She wrote she couldn't bear it anymore, somehow blaming herself for failing us. She felt she had broken our love for each other by having sex with different men. She left the town and asked me to forgive and forget her.

"Dave, I was beside myself. There was nothing to forgive and, and I have never forgotten her"

Antonio opened his wallet and took out a pic. It was a pic taken at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Two young kids, with their life ahead of them, smilingly happily into the camera.

"I am again saving money to travel, then I will find her. I will find my Sally. I believe in her innocence and I will bring her back and we'll live happily together in another place."

"Don't... don't let what happened to you and your family become happened with us. I... I believe her, always will."

Antonio opened the door and walked into the darkness.

Dave sat there in his car, thinking, rewinding and running in his mind what Antonio just told him.

Antonio believed in his Sally; he believed her.

Could he believe what Antonio just said about his wife, Jill?

He drove home and walked into the silent living room. He didn't feel like eating. There was some leftover pizza in the fridge, which he downed with a shot of whisky.

Later that night, he had a dream. He had come home and opened his garage. Jill's car was there with the doors open. She was naked on the back seat with a powerfully built man on top of her, holding her legs up, thrusting inside her vagina. She was sloppy and grunting, making funny sounds. Another scrawny guy was rubbing his pencil thin penis, touching it to her lips and holding some drink in his other hand.

"You wanna drink baby, you wanna drink?" the scrawny bald guy said, and laughed.

His wife's eyes opened wide. They were big and red. "Yes, yes I want my drink, gimme my drink," she wailed.

The wailing grew stronger... and stronger and then her fuck hungry face was suddenly replaced with the face he saw in the hospital... and the wailing kept getting louder...

Dave sat up with a start. He was sweating profusely.

Yes, he believed her. He believed his Jill, the woman he married, the mother of his kids.

*****

GUILT

The revelations by the waiter fueled his anger. His wife, his soulmate, had been brutally violated and taken advantage of!

He had failed as a man in protecting his family, his woman. He was a perfect asshole. All along he had been frowning on Jill's dressing sense, perhaps feeling insecure with her rise in the corporate world, meeting men of power and position.

Then to add insult to injury, in his anger about his wife's sexual escapades, he had forced his family to move to his parents' house. What a fool he had been to not to trust his wife, the mother of his children. Guilt engulfed him and left him morose throughout the day. In the evening, he drank drink enough whisky to numb and deactivate his brain for the night.

Next morning, he got up early and made himself human. He had to see Jill and his family first. The medics had done a good job in converting one of the rooms in his parents' house into a private wardroom. Jill was stable, though she needed rest a lot, and the drugs being administered were keeping her foggy for most of the time she was awake. His daughter had also given him an ultimatum that ended today.

He needn't have bothered to ring the doorbell, as Stacy had seen him drive in. She opened the door and rushed out to hug her dad with relief written large all over her face.

For Dave, it was like seeing a younger version of his wife coming towards him with her arms thrown wide open, with a smile that could launch a hundred ships.

"Oh, Dad, I'm glad you're here with us," Stacy said as she continued talking a mile a minute. She grabbed him by his arm and took him to her mother's room.

He could hardly recognize her. She had grown thin, so thin. There were dark circles around her eyes. The marks and bruises were still there, though now fading. Jill had her eyes closed and was breathing thru the oxygen mask attached to her face.