David: Survival and Adventure

I tried calling David's cell phone only to find out that his cell number was no longer in service. I called his mother and father and struck out there. His dad refused to talk to me only saying that David had left and that I could go-to-hell.

I looked around the apartment again and saw that most of David's things were gone. The furniture was all there but I noticed that his closet was empty, some books from the shelf in the spare bedroom were gone, and there was a couple of black trash bags in the kitchen. When I opened them, I saw that it was things of David's that he clearly decided that he didn't need.

I had no idea what to do. I sat at the table and it seemed like my life had evaporated before my eyes. I had fucked-up big. I decided that I would go see his family tomorrow and try and sort out this mess that I had gotten myself in.

I tried calling a couple of his friends but struck-out there. All they could tell me was that they thought he was busy at the hospital and that they hadn't seen him for a few weeks. There was no answer at his brother's house and I didn't have any cell phone numbers for them. Fuck!

I went to the refrigerator and found a half-bottle of wine and poured it into a glass. I sat at the table looking at the note and my husband's wedding ring, thinking that I was so stupid, and trying to think of some way to fix this. Whatever the fix was going to be it wasn't going to be without pain on my part. I had fucked-up, big.

**********

David

I didn't actually travel very far that first night. It was almost 10 o'clock at night when I watched my wife run from the Hilton Hotel and get in a taxi. She thought that I was at work in the ER and would be there until tomorrow. She figured that she would have plenty of time to spend with her boyfriend and then go home and get cleaned up.

I hit the starter on the bike and it immediately came to life. The Africa Twin is a DCT. That means it has a programmable 6-speed automatic transmission. That also means that on long rides there is a lot less rider fatigue. The bike is a beast at 1000cc and it can go for days at high speed and carry me and all my gear. I don't have a death-wish so I'm always very careful when I ride and am looking at everything around me and anticipating what cars and trucks are going to do. Situational awareness is really critical to riding safely. I've seen lots of kids hauled in to the ER that were going way too fast on a crotch-rocket and generally were not good riders to start with. That usually spells disaster. I've seen kids die from doing stupid things on a motorcycle and many others end up permanently crippled. Not a nice end.

Right now, my destination was only a few minutes away. It was east of the river at a Holiday Inn Express, just off the highway. I was exhausted, physically and mentally, and I wanted some food, a hot shower and a good night's sleep. I got checked in and realized that a hotel was the scene of the end of my marriage. Now here I was at a hotel starting my new adventure. How fitting. How ironic.

**********

Diane

I got out of the apartment early and drove to David's parents' house and rang the doorbell. I noticed that David's car was parked in front of the garage, maybe he was here. Miriam, his mother came to the door and when she opened it and saw it was me, she closed it right back in my face. I pressed the doorbell button again and waited. I kept pressing the button until the door opened a few minutes later and this time it was John, David's father. He was nothing if not to the point.

"What the hell do you want?'

"Please John, I need to talk to David. Please, I have to see him. Ask him to come out."

John scowled at me, "You're too late. He left Albany last night. I don't know where he is and quite frankly, if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"John, I need to talk to him and explain. If he will just listen to me, I know we can work through this."

"What the hell! You have a long-term affair, with another man and expect your husband to just say 'oh, don't worry Honey, it's okay.' Like fuck he will! Take your cheating ass off my front step and we do not want to see you around here again."

With that he slammed the door. I sat on the step for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. I rang the doorbell again. I kept ringing it until John opened it. Before he could say anything, I blurted out, "Please. Give him a message for me. Tell him that I'm desperate to talk to him. Just ask him to call me. Please."

I turned and walked back to my car and sat for a few minutes, hoping that John might tell me how to contact David, or if he was in the house he might come out, but he didn't. He had closed the door and that was it. Nothing more.

I drove back to the apartment and found a letter, taped to the door. It was from David's lawyer, LeeAnn Collins, advising me that I had been removed from David's health insurance and that all financial assets had been divided equally and David's portion withdrawn from any bank accounts. As well, any life insurance policies had been amended to reflect that his parents were now the beneficiaries.

The letter further advised that David Walters wished to not have any further or future contact with Diane Walters and thus any correspondence that Diane Walters might want to send to David Walters should be in writing and forwarded to his lawyer. Any correspondence will be held until such time as David Walters advised that he wished to receive it.

The letter went on to say that Diane Walters was entitled, under New York State family law, to seek a Dissolution of Marriage, based on abandonment following the one-year point which would be in 365 days from this date. If Diane Walters wished to seek a Dissolution of Marriage, at any time, please have her representative contact LeeAnn Collins. Any necessary motions or filings, on behalf or David Walters, would be made at that time.

Have nice day.

Okay, that made it pretty clear that my husband was pretty much done with me. We had been together for almost eight years, married for almost four of them and that was the end. I had pretty much shit in my own bed and now I was going to have to lay in it.

All weekend I spent the time trying to call David's brother, his friends, his colleagues at the hospital. I even went to the hospital to try and find someone there that had some idea of where David might be. I met an ER nurse there; her name is Rhonda. She told me that she couldn't talk to me then because they were very busy but I was welcome to come to her house the next day and we could talk. I thanked her and left.

The next afternoon I went to the address she gave me and she actually let me in the house to talk. She offered me a drink. I asked for some ice-water. I needed a clear head. She told me that she had shared with David that she saw me in a restaurant with Darrin. She told me that he was interested to know more about this Darrin guy. Rhonda said that she told him everything that she knew about him, which wasn't actually that much, but that he was married and had a family and his company had done some landscaping work in her backyard. Beyond that, there wasn't much to tell.

She looked at me with a mixture of amazement and pity. I'm sure that she figured that I was a stupid idiot and had fucked up my marriage with a married man, no less. Her kids were running in and out of the kitchen as we talked and she shouted the occasional command at them and returned her attention to me.

After a few more questions, I thanked her for her time and got up to leave. As I was going out the front door, she mentioned that it was widely known around the hospital that David wouldn't be back to work for some time. She watched me as I got in my car and drove off.

**********

One month later

David

Newfoundland is a beautiful province. The scenery is majestic and people are really nice. I had been on the island for over a week and toured many of the back roads and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery, the people and the food.

As I got to the Avalon peninsula, I had a close call with a moose that decided to come up on the road to see who I was. I managed to avoid the giant and stopped to watch it for a few minutes while it decided that maybe the road was not the place for it to be. Good thing for it and any unlucky motorist that might hit it. I was cautioned that there were a lot of moose along the highways and so I only traveled during the day.

I was in a place called Petty Harbour, having an ice cream cone after visiting the most easterly part of North America, Cape Spear and had a flat on the bike; four different people offered to help. You won't find that in Albany. I called the auto club, CAA in Canada, and they sent a truck out to load the bike onto it and take me to a repair shop. The repair shop was in the city of St. John's, a fairly large city and it had a good selection of places to stay and great restaurants. I got a room in a small hotel in the downtown and set about walking the city while my bike was being repaired and tuned up. It was a good place to take a few days away from riding, do some laundry and recharge my batteries. The room at the hotel was clean and comfortable and the place even had a small bar and restaurant.

I stopped back at the motorcycle repair shop, to get them to make a modification for me and while I was there happened to meet a woman that was also traveling the country on a motorcycle. She was from Germany and on her way to Morocco. She had driven Canada and was now headed for Africa to start a trip around the continent. She was getting her bike ready to be shipped from St Johns in a sea container. She would fly to Casablanca via Lisbon and retrieve her bike once she got there. The ship was going to take about a week to get her motorcycle to Morocco.

Her name was Emma Fischer. She was from Berlin and worked for a travel company. She was dressed in her riding gear and even though it is not the most flattering of clothing, I could tell right-off that she was gorgeous. I figured her for about 30-35 years old and she was about the same height as me. I'm 5' 11' tall standing in my bare feet. She looks like that British actress that is in the Mission Impossible movies, only with a sexy German accent.

After some more talk about travelling on a motorcycle, and some fo the things she encountered in her travel across Canada, I asked when she was leaving and it wasn't for three more days. So, I invited her out for a meal. She said 'yes.' We were staying at hotels fairly close together so we agreed to meet at the restaurant, a place called The Salty Cod. Go figure, a place with that name in Newfoundland.

We ate, we drank, we got to know each other and the next morning I woke up in my hotel bed with an arm on my chest and a mane of dark hair spread out over the pillows. She was glorious. I felt like...well, it was difficult to find the right words to tell you just how good I felt. It was the best night that I had had in a while. I felt good for the first time in long time.

We spent the next day together talking a lot about travel and the fascination of traveling the world on a motorcycle. Her smile, her voice and her eyes had me. I was immediately attracted to her. I started to get an erection just looking at her. I was in lust.

After I shared a bit of my story with her, and she hers, we talked about what we each were planning in the next few months. My plan of course was to make the loop of North America. She had already ridden almost 40,000 kilometers and was planning another 20,000 before she was going to home to Germany. Her plan was to do a loop around the coast of Africa. I thought that that might be a much more interesting trip than the one that I had planned.

For the next day, while I spent the time with Emma, I mulled over in my head the pros and cons of changing my plan. I even called my dad and talked to him to let him know that I was thinking of heading to Africa. I figured that he might think I had had a mental breakdown if I just texted him and Mum that I was off to Africa and would see them later. We talked for almost an hour. At the end of the discussion, he and Mum both said that I should do whatever it was that I wanted to do. It was my life and I had to be the one to make the decisions about the path it would take.

When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me that fathers were the place where their children's dreams came to die. I didn't really understand that until I grew up and then I always thought it as a humorous, but sadly realistic thing my father would say to me and my brother. Yes, I have a brother. He's two years older than me and he is married with three kids. He works with dad in the construction company. Paul loves to build things. He works very hard for his family and his wife shows him the respect that she has for his hard work. Marcy quit her job to raise the kids at home, and I got to tell you, I think that it has paid off for them. She is a wonderful mother and my parents love her to death. Their kids get spoiled by their grandparents. But I digress. Back to my plan.

The next night I asked Emma if she would like to have some company on her trip around Africa. I didn't know if she had a boyfriend or husband or significant other/partner that she was going to meet up with, but I gambled a little and asked anyway. He who dares, wins.

She looked at me with a smile and asked, "are you telling me that you want to come to Africa?"

She is direct. "Yes, I am."

"What happened to your plan to travel North America?"

"Well, you've opened my eyes a bit and I think that Africa might be a more interesting place to see. It's bit outside my comfort zone but I think I need to challenge myself and see how that goes. Maybe I will do fine and maybe I will do horribly. Right now, I don't know. But I think I would like to find out. I'm still too close to Albany. I need a bit more distance from my old life."

"You have a problem right away. Your motorcycle is here and needs to get to Africa."

I quickly made a call to the bike shop and asked them if there was still room in the sea container for another motorcycle. The shop owner called me back an hour later and said that if I could get over there now and sign some paperwork, he could get my bike ready to be shipped the next morning. The logistics of shipping a motorcycle are fairly straightforward but all it really takes is enough money.

Two days later I boarded a flight, with Emma, from St. John's to Toronto. From there we flew to Paris and then after a short wait on to Lisbon and Casablanca.

**********

Emma Fischer

When David started talking about wanting to join me on the Africa part of my journey, I figured that I needed to know more about him before I agreed. I made a couple calls to a friend in the office at the place I work at back home in Berlin. She has a husband with the German police and she asked if he could do a quick check on a David Walters of Albany, NY and confirm that what he told me about himself was the truth.

My friend called me back very quickly and told me that he was the 'real-deal' as they say. He was a doctor in the emergency department at the main Albany Hospital and was on sabbatical leave for three months, with a possible extension to six months. He comes from a well-known Albany family and is currently separated from his wife, of almost four years. It seems that she was having an affair with a married man. He graduated near the top of his class at medical school and does not have any children. It's amazing what the police can dig up with little effort. I even got a photo of him to confirm that it was actually the same David Walters that I was inquiring about. It was him, good.

With that information tucked away I was happy to travel with David. That he was a doctor was nice to know should we have an accident and need medical care, but at the same time, I realized that he must have been very hurt by his wife's infidelity to take off for this long and just travel by himself. I used to have a long-term partner, a man, and can tell you that being deceived, by your partner, is not a thing that you can tolerate for very long. I ended my relationship by throwing all of his things over the balcony of our apartment. He got the message.

I can tell you that travel by yourself is different. You can go where you want whenever you want. But it does get lonely. I've been on this trip for several months now, and travelled over 30,000 kilometers, so far. My plan is to write a book about motorcycle travel from the perspective of a woman travelling by herself. I've been taking photos and video on every part of this trip, along with a detailed written journal, and it will likely take me several months to edit it all and make it into something that will sell. It might be exciting for me to do all this, but it has to be sufficiently interesting to others for them to pay money to read about my adventures. I have a friend back home who is encouraging me to post some of my video online, maybe on YouTube, or some other social media platform.

David has a lot to learn about hardcore, long distance, motorcycle travel and the first task is to get him equipped with better gear than he has. I called ahead to a motorcycle dealer in Casablanca and they have most of what he will need and they know of other shops and outfitters in the area that can provide more things that he will need.

This should be fun travelling with Dr. David. I hope I can be a good guide.

**********

Diane

David's mother and father have made it abundantly clear that they don't want to have anything to do with me, anymore. They refuse to talk to me and have refused to tell me where David is. I don't know what to do about my marriage. It's becoming obvious that it's over between David and me, so what do I do? He hasn't started any divorce yet and I'm not sure if I want to be the one to apply for the divorce first. I mean, what if he comes back and has changed his mind and is willing to try and put our marriage back together? What will I do if he will give me another chance? What will I do then? Will he ever trust me again?

I'm very lonely since Darrin told me that we can't see each other anymore. His wife was getting suspicious and he was afraid that she might have hired an investigator to get evidence of his affair, with me, that she can use to punish him in a divorce. So that is done. As well, he was afraid that David might have told his wife that he was fucking me.

My social life is very low-key, almost to the point of non-existent. But I can't take much more of that. I need to get out. I need to see people and socialize. The people at work frequently go out on Fridays after work. I'm going to start going with them. The apartment walls are starting to close-in; I really need a change of scenery.

**********

David

Casablanca is a marvelous place. Casablanca, in Arabic Al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, or Dar al-Beïda, is the principal port of Morocco, on the North African Atlantic seaboard. The city has about 4 million people and an interesting mix of the very old and the very new and modern. I got us a cheap hotel room to stay in while we waited for the ship to arrive with our motorcycles.

Emma took me to a few places to purchase some necessary gear that I would need and we played tourist walking around the city, eating the food and learning some of the history and culture.

We learned that the ship was delayed by two days due to rough weather, on the Atlantic, so we ended up staying in Casablanca for eight nights. Some of those nights were the best nights of my life. The rest were not far behind.

**********

Diane

Almost two months and not one word from David. I need to start to figure out what I need to do. I guess he was serious about getting rid of me. What did I do that was so bad? He was, after all, never here for me. That damn hospital was the only thing that he cared about. There's only one of me and he should have been around to take care of my needs, too. I do love him, but with his schedule and my schedule, we spent very little time together. I have needs, too.