Happenstance Ch. 04

I suppose I should thank you for your call telling me about your plans to extend your current Cairns fuckfest. It saved me from having to arrange to get you out of our home on the day of my departure. It also saved me from having to trot Clarence out for one last ride. That wasn't something I was looking forward to. In fact, even without the pills I had been taking to kill my libido, I probably wouldn't have been able to accomplish the task.

Despite your sustained betrayal, I still believe we had a few good years together before you began straying, which is the only reason I'm not coming after you with guns blazing. That and the fact that you are the mother of my children; a fact I felt the need to confirm after discovering your predilection for sharing. As for your fuckbuddies, though... well, let's just say their story will have a different ending.

But enough talk of the good old days. It's time for me to put the past behind me and to start looking forward to a less complicated life.

Goodbye, Ms Horseman. I won't wish you well because I wouldn't want to lie to you. I do, however, wish that you live a long life and that what you have done frequently comes back to haunt you while you travel down the path you have chosen to follow.

Oh, and I should add a PS. While you have received the surprise I promised in our last phone conversation, I still have to deliver those I promised for your fuckbuddies. Please tell them they haven't been forgotten. I don't know when I will be able to deliver them, but deliver them I will. But a surprise isn't a surprise unless it is delivered when least expected.

I didn't bother adding my signature. Shelley might be a slut, but she was a smart slut. She'd know who had written it. After all, how many other husbands had she betrayed?

I have no idea what impact my letter had on Shelley. We've had no contact since then. In fact, apart from the one call telling me she was extending her stay in Cairns, we've had no contact since she left to undertake what was to be her final assignment for the year.

That one call allowed me to cancel the planned spa day. It also meant I wouldn't have to juggle the final stages of my disappearing act around her daily comings and goings. I'd be out of the place and settled into my new home well before her scheduled Sunday afternoon return.

Despite not calling me while she'd been away, I knew it would be the first thing she'd want to do as soon as she found the departure gift I had left for her. She would be hard-pressed to do so, however. After transferring my address book and data card to my new phone, I had removed the battery and destroyed the SIM card. I left the phone and its battery sitting beside my wedding ring on top of the envelope containing my farewell gift.

'Am I running away without giving her a chance to defend her actions?' I asked myself as I did a final sweep of the house before leaving it for the final time. I didn't believe so, although I was sure that would be an accusation Shelley would level at me.

But she'd be wrong. I wasn't running. I was withdrawing from a battlefield not of my choosing in a war that, until recently, I didn't even know I was fighting. Our marriage had been on life support from the day - or night - Shelley climbed into bed with her first extra-marital lover, and I was simply pulling the plug on something that was already dead; a marriage that I suspected had begun to wither the first time she had slow danced with Dan, or Geoff, or Harry, or any of her other partners while away on assignment.

So far as not giving her an opportunity to defend her actions goes, how does one go about defending the indefensible? I wasn't about to sit and listen to the lies and bullshit excuses for her behaviour I knew she'd throw at me. It wouldn't have changed anything anyway. There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I would stay married to a woman who couldn't remain faithful to the man she professed to love. Nor, as I'd told her in my letter, would I ever forgive her for her betrayal.

As I pulled the front door of the house we'd shared for almost seven years shut behind me, I wondered whether she'd understand the significance of the gift I'd had made for her when she opened it on Christmas morning; assuming she waited that long. It was a fourteen-carat gold necklace with two jagged-edged halves of a heart - each engraved with one of our names - suspended from it. I'd also had the jeweller put a small spacer between them to prevent them from being joined.

---oooBJSooo---

Assuming she followed her normal routine, Shelley would arrive home from her Cairns trip late on Sunday afternoon. That would coincide with the time I was loading a meal-sized fillet of Murray Cod onto my charcoal-fuelled barbecue grill plate. I'd had an enjoyable day exploring the lake that fronted my bungalow, catching and releasing half-a-dozen fish as I tested a few likely spots. By the time I called it quits, I had a couple of keepers in the ice box.

My dinner would be followed by the news, a movie, and an early night. Having set up my office, I wanted to start work on finishing the novel I'd set aside while 'Americanizing' my previous three books. I also had another story bubbling away in the background, but that would have to wait until I had finished the current project.

When, six months later, I considered it safe to travel overseas, my fourth novel was in my publisher's hands, with both the Australian and US releases scheduled for November. That fitted in nicely with my travel plans as, by then, I would have had time to fly to the Caribbean to visit my Cayman Island banker and, hopefully, would have found a place to set up my new home-away-from-home.

The second story - my fifth book - was well advanced by the time I left Australia. Although it was a change from my usual genre, it was progressing much faster than I had thought it would, and I was looking forward to finishing it once I was settled in the Caribbean. I had discussed it with my US publisher while passing through New York, and he had expressed a desire to look at it when I had finished the first draft.

Despite it being a change from my normal fare, he liked it. That novel - a story of love, lust and betrayal - would be slotted into the romance genre and published under the authorship of one M. Monarch. It was due for release in late 2022. Because the book would be aimed at female readers, it was decided to use a non-gender-specific pseudonym. The 'M' stood for Mattea, the Italian feminine version of Matthew. Monarch was a replacement for King.

Shelley wasn't a fan of romantic novels, but it might ring a few bells if she ever read it.

By the time I visited New York for the second time that year - this time in October - I was well into my next novel. I was finding the going slow, however. The expatriate community in the British Virgin Islands - where I was renting a small villa while deciding on my future - was a socially active crowd, and as both a new arrival and single, I was invited to all their soirees.

Many of the people I met at those gatherings were rich, and quite a few were either famous or had once been famous. Despite being neither, I found that, in the main, they were a decent group of people, and I enjoyed the time I spent with them. They, in turn, appeared to enjoy my company. The greatest danger, I quickly recognised, was the number of widows and divorcees in the group who saw me as new meat.

But that was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it meant that I didn't lack for female company. On the other, some of them were looking for their next husband. I had to make it very clear from the outset that while I had no objection to satisfying their baser needs, I had no intention of being caught in the marriage trap again.

Like women the world over, though, they crossed their fingers while nodding their heads in agreement to my terms, taking me up on the first part of my offer - with enthusiasm, I might add - while ignoring the latter. Two ladies, in particular, had their sights set on me, and I could tell they had their branding irons in the fire, ready to use should they manage to get a rope on me. The trouble was that they were both very attractive and very energetic women in their mid-forties, and while neither was particularly looking for a marriage partner, they were willing to work hard - separately and together - to ensure I gave them my full attention.

The main problem, however, was that while the socialising and sex provided me with a great cure for what ailed me, those activities took their toll on both my creativity and productivity. During a reflective moment, I realised that my time in this tropical paradise would be limited. I knew that if I stayed for too long, I would become just like them. It would be very easy to settle into a life of fun, sun and fornication that appeared to be the focus of those living in this part of the world.

---oooBJSooo---

Continues: Chapter Five.