From the Ashes

Thanks to WAA01 for the edits.

******

"Thank you for agreeing to do this interview," the female reporter from Music Insider said, as her delicate fingers set the recording device on the coffee table of Magnus Condon's Montana home. "I'm Sophie Dale, but you can call me Saffi," she said, extending her hand. Noticing while his grip was light, yet it was strong and firm, something she liked. She hated those limped wristed handshakes she had experienced from a lot of the male members of society.

"Not a problem," Magnus said, keeping his nerves in check. Ever since he was ten and read his first issue of the magazine he knew he wanted to be a rock star. Yet doesn't everyone? Nevertheless, few ever achieve that goal. His shoulder length, raven hair was a far cry from his former look. The trimmed but full beard was a new addition to the once clean cut man that had died so long ago. His deep blue eyes looked at the woman before him with indifference. Oh, he's had women -- namely teenagers throwing themselves at him since he's been on tour with Straža Smrti (Death Watch in English), the Latin name just sounds cooler, or that's what Haleema had told him when she offered him the job.

"So tell our readers: what's it like being the lead guitarist in a Death Metal band?" Saffi asked, flipping open her small notepad to make her own quick notes while they talked. Her skirt slid up the thigh of her left leg as it rested on her right knee. Her black stockings clung to her shapely leg as the clip of her garter belt peeked out as the hem of her skirt rose up higher.

"Everything I could have hoped for when I was ten," Magnus chuckled.

"Oh?! So, you wanted to be in the music business that young?" Saffi asked, her soft pink painted lips curved into a warm yet seductive smile. Her brown eyes lustered in the soft lights of the room. Her brunette hair was freshly styled and down framing her face oh so perfectly. Ever since her editor gave her this assignment she had dug into his life from the moment he signed onto the band. So, she knew he wasn't dating anyone at least not that she could find out. She did love being fucked by musicians.

"Doesn't everyone?" Magnus asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Good point." Now it was her turn to chuckle. "I've done a bit of background..."

"I know," Magnus said, offhandedly.

"You... read my work?" Saffi asked, stunned. Every musician she had interviewed man or woman barely knew of the magazine. It was only because of their handlers whispering in their ears that they weren't totally befuddled when she showed up at their dressing room doors.

"Yeah..."

"I do hope you enjoy the articles," Saffi said, feeling her cheeks heat.

"They're quite insightful," Magnus nodded.

"Thank you, for that," Saffi said, brushing a strand of her hair behind her right ear. "So, take us back to the day that brought you into the world of Straža Smrti."

"Umm... do we have to go back that far?" Magnus asked, knowing it was a very dark time for him.

"Yes, I believe we do," Saffi nodded, her pen lightly tapped her notepad as she saw a change in his eyes. She knew all about his soon-to-be ex-wife. She had even done a quick interview with her before setting this one up just so she could have all the information she needed before the main event. So, she knew all about the woman's infidelity. "I know you're ongoing divorce spurred you into this..."

"You've talked to my ex-wife?" Magnus asked accusingly, as his eyes narrowed.

"Yes, I told you, and if you do truly read my work, then you know I go deep into my subject's background. While I'm not sorry for that, I am sorry if it makes you uncomfortable."

"Whatever," Magnus said, looking to his right as he waved her off. "Iona is no longer my concern. Whatever happens to her is of her own making. I stopped caring a long time ago," he said, coldly.

"My... I can feel the temperature dropping in here," Saffi said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Well... if you talked to her then you know the reason," Magnus said, bitterly.

"But it was because of that, that it brought you here, is that not the case?" Saffi asked, lowering her leg to the floor flashing her bare cunt as she lifted her right leg to rest it on top of her left knee. "Why don't you take us back to that day?"

"You're readers really want to know this?" Magnus asked. He really didn't want to relive the past. He had spent the past year trying to forget his whore of a soon-to-be ex-wife. Sighing loudly when Saffi gave him an 'Mmmhmm' and a nod. "Fine, but I won't sugarcoat it."

"Wouldn't want you to," Saffi said, flashing him another stunning smile.

"Like I said, I always wanted to be a rocker. Yet my parents always told me to put my dream aside and think about my future. Did that stop me from practicing for hours on my grandfather's '58 Gibson hollow body electric guitar?" Magnus looked over at the sunburst paint job on the old guitar. "No," returning his attention back to Saffi, "not that my parents took an interest in my "hobby", as they called it. Sure, I probably played too loudly a few... okay a lot of the time, sure, I wasn't all that good at first, but who is?" Magnus asked, with a pointed look. "Yet the words of my grandfather always came back to me: 'Do what you love, regardless of what anyone thinks'. He told me that the day he gave me his guitar then... well he died. So... the years went on, I got better and better, however, I never really joined a band. All the nay saying my parents were giving me kind of hurt my self-esteem. Then I met Iona when I was seventeen, it's weird what love can do to a person, isn't it?" Magnus asked, to which Saffi nodded. "So being a foolish nineteen-year-old I asked Iona to marry me. Foolish, I know. We were way too young, but I didn't care. I loved her..."

"Do you still love her?" Saffi asked, slyly flipping up the sheets of paper where she had her own notes when she had an interview with Iona.

"No," Magnus said, very coldly.

"That's some animosity you have for your estranged wife," Saffi said, noting the look of hatred in his blue eyes.

"Wouldn't you, when you found your spouse fucking someone else that wasn't you?"

"Hmm... I can't say, I've never been married," Saffi said, the butt of her pen tapped against her chin. "Why don't you tell me about it."

"Well... Iona and I dated for two years before we got married. For the first four years of it everything was great or so I thought. I went to work for my father when I got out of high school, yet I was always thought of as the black sheep since they always thought I had my head in the clouds because I wanted to be a musician compared to my brother Bill. He took after my father who was grooming him to take over the company when he retired. I on the other hand was put on the low end of the totem pole and had to work my way up the ladder. Iona went to school to be a paralegal during the day, then we both would retire to our apartment. While I was dead tired, I always made sure she was taken care of. Like I said, life was good at the time. That was until we got into the middle of our fifth year of marriage... Mind if we take this outside?" Magnus asked, glance at his pack of Marlboro's.

"Sure," Saffi said, leaning forward, her blouse opened allowing Magnus to peer down her shirt. Letting him see that she wore no bra to support her 38B breasts as she pressed the stop button on the recorder.

"You want a water or...?" Magnus asked, being polite.

"Beer if you have any," Saffi said, flashing him another smile as she elegantly rose from the leather loveseat she had been sitting on as they talked.

"I just might," Magnus muttered, his raven hair swayed and bounced lightly against his neck as he led Saffi into his grand kitchen. Opening the fridge, handing her a cold bottle once he had popped off the bottle cap.

"Thanks," Saffi cooed as the pad of her index finger ran along his as she took the bottle from him.

"No problem, but that's the only one you're getting. I can't have you driving drunk," Magnus said, over his shoulder as he led her out to the back patio.

"Caring and a nice ass," Saffi muttered to herself as she took a sip of her beer. Taking the chair across from him as she watched how his nail pushed up the lid of the pack of cigarettes. Watching how the orange-yellow flame danced along his dark hair as his hand cupped the flame. Setting the recorder onto the table pressing the record button as she watched how his lips drew a long puff on his cigarette. "So, you were speaking about the fifth year of your marriage," Saffi said, getting Magnus's mind back on track.

"Well..." Magnus blew out a cloud of smoke as his eyes gazed out at his hundred acres. "It all started the first week of November. I started to see a change in Iona. She was staying later and later at her job. Sometimes coming home at midnight or later. Always telling me that she and that ass..."

"Connor Bags, yes?" Saffi asked, quickly flipping through her notes for his name.

"You said it, that name shall never pass my lips," Magnus said, hatefully.

"I heard his wife got almost everything in the divorce," Saffi said, a little taken aback by that wicked smile of his.

"Good. I had hoped it hurt!"

"Not the turn the other cheek kind of guy are you?" Saffi asked, as his eyes flickered over to her.

"Do I look like that kind of man to you?" Magnus asked, taking another drag of his cigarette.

"No... you don't strike me as that kind of man," Saffi noted before taking another sip of her beer.

"So as I was saying... Iona and that ass always had some big case they had to work on late into the night. Now you see, I knew Iona well enough to know when she's lying, her right eye always twitches when she does. At the time I just couldn't understand why she would have to if it was all above board, you know what I mean?"

"I do," Saffi nodded in agreement. She personally knew how bad it felt to be cheated on. She personally hated people like that. She was glad Iona had lost everything when it all came out.

"So... I think it was in January, when I showed up one night at her office since she so had to work late again for the third time that week. I pretty much had enough of it, yet I tried, I really did try to keep the marriage together. I didn't ask her to give up her job, just to cut back on the hours so we could be husband and wife again. Was that too much to ask?" Magnus asked, with a pointed look.

"Sounds reasonable to me."

"You and every sensible person out there," Magnus said, sweeping his arm outward to the world. "Yet not so much to Iona. Oh, how she bitched and whined that I didn't understand, blah, blah, blah," he said, his venom was clear as day. "So being the good husband, the faithful husband that I was, I showed up with dinner, thinking if we couldn't have a meal at home I could at least have one with her at her work. I nodded to the night guardsman as I walked past the front desk. Seeing how I've been there before he knew who I was. As I got to my ex-wife's desk, I arched an eyebrow when she wasn't at it. Then I heard something. I turned my head, the heat of the lasagna dinners I had picked up heated my leg before I went to investigate. How I wished I didn't," Magnus said, sadly.

"What did you see?" Saffi asked, while she felt for him, she knew this was going to sell a lot of copies once it went to print. A torrid love affair normally does, especially when it involved a rising star like Magnus.

"My wife on her back on the conference table with that bastard thrusting between her legs. Of course, they couldn't hear me or the bag falling to the floor when it slipped from my hand as I stood there in shock as I listened to her moans and that man's grunts. Thankfully, I had the wherewithal to take a couple of photos of them in my state of mind. I knew then and there that my marriage to Iona was over. I wanted nothing more to do with her. The moment she stepped out of our marriage she was done. Now I had the proof, and in Mississippi it's a fault state. So, I knew I'd take her to the cleaners. Adultery is still a crime there even if no one gets arrested for it any more. So, I turned on my heel, leaving the food on the floor as I had lost my appetite. Pulling up my contact list, pressing my wife's number, I heard her phone ringing in her desk as I walked by, naturally," Magnus spat. "The whore didn't want to be interrupted by me when she was getting fucked!"

"I'm going to assume you left a voice message for her on her phone?" Saffi inquired, keeping her smile hidden knowing all this was going to make her editor's mouth water. However, she couldn't keep herself from chuckling as Magnus rolled his eyes at her question.

"Of course, I did! When it went to her voicemail I told that two-bit whore not to bother to come home. That she could stay with her fucking lover... then I said, oh wait! He's married! How does it feel knowing you have ruined two marriages?! Telling her she could pick up her shit in the morning or I'll throw it in the garbage where it belongs along with her skanky ass! That once she did I didn't want to ever see her again! So, once I got home I tossed everything of hers in garbage bags and tossed them out onto the breezeway in front of the door. Whether or not if they were there in the morning I didn't care. It was sometime around eleven when my phone buzzed like mad. No doubt they had stopped long enough to notice the spilled lasagna or my voicemail, I don't know which. Personally, I didn't care, still don't. I didn't answer. I phoned Cary Bags instead. Telling her of what I saw that night, texting her the pictures I had taken. How I got her number?" Magnus asked, seeing the questioning look in Saffi's eyes. "She gave it to me at the very first company event that they held. Telling me the spouses had a group that gathered once a month knowing how it was with lawyers and how many hours they put in. While I never went to one, I did keep her number on hand. Why? I can't say, but I'm glad I did.

While I did hurt for her, me being the barer of bad news that her husband was nothing but a cheating bastard, she needed to know the truth. After she had calmed down she did thank me for the evidence before hanging up. Then the texts came pouring in. Turning off my phone, I had nothing to say to her nor did I want to hear whatever excuse she had prepared for the moment she had been caught. Nothing she had to say could be trusted. It didn't matter if it was one time or many, once was enough to end 'a' marriage. I could never trust her or her word ever again. Then as I began to lay down for bed, my anger slowly turning into hate. My front door burst open. Honestly, I don't know why she even bothered," Magnus said, thumbing his ashes.

"So, what did she say to try to justify her cheating?" Saffi asked, her eyes slyly running down his chest. Noting how his t-shirt clung to his pectoral muscles. Wondering how the woman could have given up such a handsome, defined man, for what, in her eyes, was nothing more than a mid-forties, balding, pot belly of a man.

"That she was doing it for us, that it didn't mean anything, that it was just sex etc. etc.," Magnus said, stamping out his cigarette. His fingers ran through his beard as he felt himself trembling in anger. Then again, that always happened when he thought about Iona. "I told her to shove that shit up her whorish cunt! That nothing I had done warranted her cheating on me. That she was nothing more than a selfish bitch who was only thinking about herself, not caring that her actions would be the downfall of our marriage. How I took joy in the horrified look on her face when I said that. So, I told her to get her shit, and get her whorish ass out of my apartment seeing how it was my name on the lease. Oh, she ran crying out the door, not that I cared. Okay, maybe a little, I mean I did just give that woman seven years of my life only for it to go to waste.

I hunted for a good lawyer to take my case for the next week. Went to the bank took out half of our savings and checking; there was no way I was going to let that bitch have access to my money. Then went to another and created an account in my name only. We had been saving to buy a house, thank God we didn't. I didn't want to be stuck in a house that reminded me of her, and thankfully we never had kids, I so didn't have to deal with her if something happened to them. Where Iona was staying I didn't know, and I didn't care. She could have been dead in a ditch somewhere and I wouldn't care. That was until I saw my mother's car pulling into my apartment complex. Ever since I had brought her home to meet my folks my parents took a liking to Iona. Treating her like she was their own daughter, given that Iona was a ward of the state until she reached the age of eighteen. When I told them we were getting married they were ecstatic. Then came a pounding on my door. My mother's voice filtering through the door demanding that I open it. Mind you, I hadn't been to work all week. So you can believe how upset they were with me for that. Then again, what came next I'm glad I didn't," Magnus said, taking out another cigarette from the pack to calm his nerves.

"'Magnus! Open up!' My mother yelled. I sighed heavily, knowing I was going to have to tell them sooner, rather than later, that Iona and I were divorcing. As the door opened there my mother stood, with an angry look on her face, and behind her stood Iona. Her head was bowed, she wouldn't even look at me. Then again, she was caught red handed. Then my mother laid into me about how foolish I was being. That Iona made a mistake, a very stupid mistake, and that we could work it out if only I would stop being stupid and just listen to her..."

"Your own mother was actually taking your wife's side?!" Saffi asked, a little surprised and shocked.

"I know, shocking," Magnus said, sarcastically. "You would have thought my own parents would have been on my side for once in my life, but no they chose her over their own son."

"So what happened next?"

"I stood there in my doorway quite shocked, as you can believe. I think anyone would be when your own parents took the side of the lying, cheating slut over their own flesh and blood. I asked her to clarify if she was actually taking Iona's side over mine. She fumbled with her words for a bit muttering how she was only trying to save my marriage, but I was being pig headed and not allowing Iona to explain herself, then her insistence that I let them in, so they didn't air our dirty laundry for all to hear. I personally didn't care if they knew or not. I knew the people beside me and below me had heard quite a lot when I found out about my cheating wife, so what if they heard a little more? I had heard enough. I leaned in looking my mother in the eye and said very plainly: 'No. If you can't be on my side when that whore...' The slap came out of nowhere; that was the first time my mother ever raised a hand to me. She seethed at me telling me never to call a woman that. I countered with, 'if she can't keep her legs closed like some two dollar hooker then she shouldn't be surprised when she gets called one.' So I continued: 'lies to me, cheats on me, destroys everything we had worked for. Then I don't want to be your son any more. Since you care so fucking much about her why doesn't she be your daughter since you, and I'm guessing my sperm donor, are bending over backwards for that slut; and I'll just go about my merry way.' Clearly my mother didn't think I would dare say that to her, how wrong she was. Stating that I didn't know what I was saying that I was letting my anger get the best of me. Now I'm not quick to anger but when I am I'm like a storm destroying anything and everyone that stands in my way.

So I told my mother... let me clarify, my birth giver since I don't have parents any more. That I was very serious and to tell my sperm donor that as of that moment I quit then I slammed the door in their faces. Whatever my wife had to say I never found out. And so, three weeks passed, and my lawyer had informed me that my wife had officially been served. Little did I know at the time that my birth givers were financing my wife's lawyer," Magnus said, looking out at the vast expanse of his land.