Augustine and Felicity Ch. 01

My reply was quietly and simply, "wait there. I'm coming home."

When I got there I was dumfounded. I was expecting remorse. I was expected crying and pleading.

I was walking up our concrete path with her screaming at me so the whole neighborhood could hear.

"You bastard; how could you do this to me?" Then came the abuse; "you are a sneaky conniving shit." Next came a litany of misdemeanors I was supposed to have done to drive her to this. It was the same list she trotted out from time to time if she were pissed off with me about something, except this time it was spat out with a dose of venom.

I let her expend her anger then gestured her to go back inside. Somehow I managed to keep my composure.

I just said, "You are caught, there is nothing you can do about. The kids have been taken care of. You had better go to Felicity's because we both need to think this through. By the way, you are going to need a lawyer."

Through this she was soundlessly gasping. Finally she broke into sobs. "You are taking my babies, how heartless can you be."

With that I lost my composure

"Me!! Fucking heartless; I remember only too well my mother being forced away from me, I screamed for hours. I had nightmares for years. She went and I never saw her again. I love you, I still do but I hate you too because you just slutted yourself with some married guy and you have just condemned two lots of kids to what I endured. You bitch, you bitch; you are the heartless one. How could you do this to us?"

I was standing and posturing, Augie was cringing expecting the beating.

But that wasn't me.

I took a deep breath and said quietly, "I had better call Felicity. For both of our safety you can't stay here."

After she left I broke down. I was alone. I had not arranged for anyone to comfort me. I couldn't sleep; I couldn't keep still. I decided to go for a walk. I walked for miles. I found myself at Patrick's house.

He had remarried and was shocked to see me but he and his new wife were kind and invited me in. He uncorked some wine and we talked way into the evening. I credit Patrick with possibly saving my life. As I walked things were getting blacker and blacker. I never consciously decided to go to Patrick's, I was heading for the sea but I found myself passing his house and just went in.

As time went on, due process was done. The court case came up in a remarkably short time which made me think my father had something to do with it. The private investigator turned up with three Photographs with startling and horrific clarity. One had Augie being taken in her customary missionary with her legs tightly clasping the adulterer. The next was his appendage being removed from her cunt, in the throes of ejaculating as he legs sprung apart. The third was her legs spread wide and her shocked face rising from the bed with no ambiguity who had been receiving the sperm. The adulterer was turning and was facing the camera impassively. The clarity was that stark you could see the cum flowing from Augie's gaping hairy pussy.

Ben and Shirley provided witness testimony. A damning observation was that Augie and the adulterer had enjoyed an afternoon one day with Sam at home when she was sick. I remember that day. I remember she said a teacher had come around but I never thought about it. Another witness had seen them kissing on school grounds.

It was slam dunk. We had the very best lawyer and Augie lost all. The afternoon with Sam, and the kissing at school resulted in her being cast as someone unfit to care for her children. The pre-nup left her with no resources. The adulterer lost his job, lost his marriage and left town.

I called a meeting after the trial through our lawyers. Augie was bitter. She did not want to meet. We had to arrange for her access to the children. At this stage I was feeling utterly remorseful.

Augie turned up in a shift dress looking unusually unkempt for her. She seemed ill and I remarked as such but she only glared at me.

We sat across a desk from one another. The first thing she hissed was, "What are you going to do with those overseas trip tickets? Free to take your bit on the side now are you? Go on a grand tour and fuck your hussy around Europe and the Levant.

I simply replied, "I am sorry Augie, I do not know where you get this one from. You should realize from my history that would not be my style."

"Oh so it's my style is it, all my fault as usual!"

The outburst cured me of any remorse, but I resolved to continue what I had in mind.

There was a silence interrupted by my lawyer," I believe Theo you wish to make a gesture."

"Ok," I said taking an envelope out of my brief case. "I want to keep this discrete and I do not want my father knowing about this but I have here a cheque of $50,000." This was an enormous sum at this time. I had divested myself of a significant portion of my own private investments to raise the sum.

"I regret the way you have been treated in all this. But that is the system however brutal. I hope one day the system will change as it causes too much hurt, as it has us.

I still care deeply for you despite what you have done. We once made plans and although I can no longer share them with you I sincerely want you to continue with your aspirations." I probably sounded like a pompous ass but there you are.

Augie screamed," You're just trying to buy off your dirty conscience. I won't be bought!"

She threw the envelope back at me

Her lawyer laid his hand on her arm and whispered in her ear

I bent down and picked up the envelope and handed back to her, glaring at me she reluctantly took it.

Finally I said "Augustine, believe me, I am not callous like my father. I don't think you ever understood the real me. I am profoundly sorry for what has happened, if only there was a better way."

Her reply stung me and was to remain with me always

"Spare me," she hissed, "When all said and done you did not try very hard did you."

**************

We made arrangements for visitation. She kept them up for about only a couple of months before she vanished.

Through all this period the situation with the children was delicate. I had to employ home help to assist. It was always emotional when Augie came to visit the kids. Augie was not ever to take them away unsupervised. I consulted child psychologist in this time to assist with a program of adjustment.

The worst time was when Augie disappeared. I visited Felicity to find out where she was. It was the first time I had seen Felicity since she had turned up in court to support Augie. She had never been called as a witness in Augie's defense but came to give moral support.

Surprising I found Felicity warm and friendly and quite sympathetic. She offered to help with the children. This was again a surprise as I had never thought of Felicity as particularly maternal. She had no children of her own.

Felicity said she had just up and left saying she was starting a new life and she did not want anyone to know about it. That was that.

Felicity started coming around unannounced. I was feeling lonely at the time and did not object.

I had the odd function to attend so I asked her to accompany me from time to time. Felicity came from a modest back ground and was quite a fashionista. Her striking beauty put her in line as a trophy wife for some aspirant. I was kind of conservative, old money so I found her at times a little embarrassing. None the less there was some pride in walking arm and arm while watching all eyes following her. She was heavy breasted and her mane of blond hair always meticulously coiffured. She was always artistically made up and would wear designer clothes to the mall. I think Patrick must have found her too high maintenance.

I never did get her to bed. One or two of my colleagues made some smart comments which I took as jealousy. One commented, "I would not trust that woman with a barge pole, she is trouble;" that made me wonder.

I got Patrick out for a drink one night and quizzed him about Felicity.

He warned me off her, "She is one scheming bitch that woman.

I know she has wanted to get her claws into you for years in fact I heard from her friends that it was her that encouraged Augie to link up with that teacher. She got her to invite that teacher around to Felicity's flat so that they had a private place to hook up. She got them both absolutely pissed and she knew what would happen."

I wondered when that would have been and thought it may have been one week when I was in Auckland. I did ring her every night but did not detect anything untoward. I guess they must have had everything well organized, at least until they started getting careless.

Well one event happened that was devastating for me but it did give me an exit strategy with Felicity. My father died, He had an aneurysm and went quite suddenly. I had become a junior associate at the practice but the terms of the will made my position there quite different and I had no time for anything but my two girls and work. I took Felicity to dinner and just laid it out in direct terms, that I felt there was no future for her and me.

She was not happy. She did ask if she could help with the girls occasionally. I mentioned she could at times when I was busy but it never happened.

A second event created a new dawn for me. Augie's Mother Jane came out of her coma.

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