In Over My Head Ch. 04

It was strange, I wouldn't normally associate with these girls but they helped through what was to me a frightening ordeal. They said they had guessed that either I or my husband had had an affair. That was the first time I really realised what I had done. How many times had I said I couldn't understand someone risking they're marriage and happiness to have an affair and that was exactly what I had done.

I sat around the house for the rest of the day crying most of the time. I was frightened Martin was going to throw me out and divorce me. If he did that where was I going to go? Before Martin and I married I had lived with my sister, but she had children now and there was no room in her little council house for me anymore. I suppose I could try and find a flat, I was on good money now.

Dam, what was I thinking, the only reason I was on good money was that Martin had convinced me I wasn't stupid like they had always said I was at school. Without Martin I was stupid, look at what I had done getting mixed up with Brian.

I didn't think anyone could cry as much as I did that day. Martin didn't come home again until nine in the evening. The dinner I'd cooked him was burnt to a crisp. He said he had eaten out and went straight into the lounge again. He poured himself a scotch and then sat in his usual chair. I stood in the door way watching him.

"Come here and stand in the middle of the carpet."

I didn't move for a moment.

"Now!" he said in a tone that I'd never heard him use to me before.

I slowly went to the middle of the room.

"Tell me what do you want? Do you want us to stay together or do you want to leave?"

"Oh please Martin. I love you. I want to stay with you, I'm so sorry I don't know what to say to convince you how sorry I am."

"Of course you're sorry. But are you sorry you did it? Or are you sorry you got caught? That's the question I'll never know the answer too, isn't it?"

"Martin I love you. I don't know why I went with him. I've got to be honest I was attracted to him. But I never thought I would. You know."

"Fuck him, is what you're trying to say. Go on say it you fucked him, you forgot about me and fucked him."

"Yes! Yes! I fucked him, but only once honestly and I don't think I really wanted to."

"Lets see shall we. Take your clothes off!"

"Pardon!"

"You heard me! Strip now!"

I didn't know what to do. Martin was staring at me, his face didn't look as angry as his voice sounded. I thought I want him to forgive me, if he wants me naked then I'd better do whatever he wants. I took my clothes off and stood there feeling embarrassed. Ah that's what he wants. He wants me to feel insecure he's going to give me the third degree. If I can get through this me might forgive me.

I tried to undress seductively, but that could have been a mistake because Martin told me to get on with it. I started crying again as Martin had always enjoyed me doing a striptease for him in the past.

When I was naked Martin sat and looked at me and then told me to turn around. After he told me to turn back again he said.

"You have trimmed your pubic hair! Did you do that for him?"

"I don't think so."

The look in Martin's eye said he didn't believe me.

"Oh, I don't really know, I do trim it now and again."

"If my memory serves me right, normally you trim it before we go to Spain. If I remember correctly you turned your nose up when I asked you to shave it all off. But you trim it up nicely for him."

I can only say, I was devastated, Martin had often asked me to shave but I had always refused.

"That mark on your breast. Did he have a good chew on your tits last night?

I looked down. Oh shit! there was a big red mark on my left breast. Then I remembered Brian had been nibbling on it when all hell broke lose, he must have bitten me as they dragged him out of the car.

"I think that happened when those men grabbed Brian."

"The arsewhole, he will only ever be referred to as the arsewhole in this house. And what about those bruises on your leg?"

I think those happened at the same time. He was – you know."

"FUCKING YOU!"

"Yes he was fucking me when they grabbed him."

"I don't ever want to see that naked body again. Well, not until I know I can get over this. If you want to stay here, you are to go to my solicitors 'Grants' next door to my office in the morning. There you will make a full statement about how this all started and what you have done with the arsewhole.

If you do anything like this again we are through, for my part I will wait and try to get over the hurt you have caused me. I love you, but I don't know if I can get over what you have done. Only time will tell."

"Can I come back to our bed?"

"No! I have a mental problem with what you have done. I must separate it from sex completely. If I find I can't live with you, I would be using you as a whore, and that would put me in the same class of person as your arsewhole lover."

He got up and went to bed. I don't know how long I stood there but it was a long time. I think I was hoping I would be able to stand there all night and he would come down and find me there in the morning. It would be a gesture but I felt he would realise that he hadn't told me I could move. Maybe he would know what I would do to keep him.

I woke up laying on the sofa still naked, there was a hot cup of coffee on the table. Martin must have put it there and then closed the door loudly enough to wake me. He left the house before I had drunk it.

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I went to the solicitors office and was shown into a room and introduced to a female solicitor Mrs Julia Murry. She asked me to sit and called in young lady to take down the statement that Martin had asked for.

"Anita, you don't mind if I call you that, do you?"

"No"

"Good you must call me Julia, and this is Sara. Now before we take this statement your husband has asked for, there are some things I've got to explain to you. First Sara and I are not from this practice. We work for a rival firm and your husband has retained us to act for you. Are you happy for me to represent you?"

"Yes, but why has he done that?"

"I'll explain later, but your husband is no fool, believe me. Shall we say he's covering his backside on this statement. I understand its part of the deal for you to stay together. But I must worn you, if you think you two are going to get divorced you would do better not to make it."

"If I don't make it he will divorce me and I don't want that. I love him."

"Ah love, I'm afraid I usually deal with people who are not in love anymore. I do think your husband loves you though, as he has employed me to act against him should things not work out for you."

"You're a divorce lawyer then."

"That, for my sins is my speciality. Now this statement, if you make it will not do us any favours in court. By getting me to take it he has clipped our wings. We won't have a leg to stand on."

"Martins no fool, I'm the idiot in our house. But I do trust him, I don't think he will be unfair to me, whatever happens. I just want us to stay together and I'll do whatever it takes."

They took my statement then Julia told me we had to go up the road to the police station as they wanted a statement from me about the incident on Wednesday night.

Yes Martin had arranged that as well and he wanted Julia their to look after my interests.

I told the police what happened, but I claimed I never saw the men's faces as it was too dark. I thought that Martin must have been concerned in it somehow, he knew what had happened and had made sure he had a good alibi. I think the police thought the same, but if they couldn't catch the men they had no link to Martin.

The police told me Brian was in a pretty bad way, but he would get over it. The guys who beat him up had hurt him a lot, but besides a couple of broken ribs there was nothing too serious. They thought that Brian wasn't going to look as pretty as he had, what with his broken nose.

There was something about the way they spoke about Brian, made me think, he wasn't the flavour of the month with them. It was a year later when I had cause to see them again, that they told me he had been the cause of a divorce of one of their colleagues.

We went back to Grants office and I signed the statement for Martin, in front of a public notary. Apparently that made it a legal document which could be used in a court of law. Martin never did use it, I knew he wouldn't, he is much too nice a person to do that.

That night when I got home I gave him a copy. He just put it in the bureau drawer and I don't think he ever looked at it. He acted as if nothing had ever happened, no that's wrong he tried to act as if nothing had happened.

He struggled, I know he struggled, I watched him slowly fall apart. Every-time I went out he would greet me with questioning looks. I know he never meant to do it. But whenever I came into the house I would feel I had to tell him where I'd been and what I'd done. He never asked, but his face said it all.

Sometimes he would fly off the handle at me, for no apparent reason. But I knew the reason. He would always apologise. But this was all my fault, he was apologising for something I had done. It was destroying him and I knew it.

At work things changed as well, I hadn't known that my boss was an old friend of Martin's. Martin had used his influence to get me the job in the first place. I had never realised that I didn't have the required GCE's to get the job. But when I challenged my boss he told me Martin had asked him to give me a try. He said that Martin had nothing to do with my promotion to the accounts department though, that he said I had earned on my own.

But I could feel that my boss had lost some respect for me and maybe out of his friendship with Martin was keeping a very close eye on me. My boss wasn't married and one of the girls who I knew had a thing for him, suddenly become very friendly and we started to go to lunch together, whenever Martin didn't meet me. I didn't take me too long to realise, I couldn't get out of that place without her.

I challenged her over it and she told me the boss had asked her to keep an eye on me. She was just doing what she had been asked to do. I felt like a criminal and went in to challenge the boss. That's when I found out he was Martins old school chum. He told me that Martin hadn't asked him to spy on me, he was just trying to look after a good friends interests.

I quit my job. It was silly I know, like cutting off your nose to spite your face. But I didn't know who else there knew what a fool I'd been.

Quitting my job was a very big mistake, whilst I was in the office Martin knew where I was. Now he had no idea what I was doing during the day. He started to call me at odd times. He would come home unexpectedly. I think it was driving him crazy. In the end it led to us having a big row about it. He said he couldn't help it, he kept on wondering what I was doing.

I think we both realised that it wasn't going to work. He didn't trust me anymore and although I still felt I loved him. I couldn't live looking over my shoulder all the time.

In the end I left him. In my heart I didn't want to. But I couldn't live with the man I had made.

I was silly and stubborn when I left. I wouldn't take any money off of him or out of our joint accounts. Do you want to know what kind of man Martin is, the credit card company still send me a debit card on our old account. He has never closed it, I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't still using that account himself. But I have never taken any money out of it. He spent more money on me than I have ever put in there.

I didn't have a job so for a couple of weeks I slept on my sisters sofa. I needed money so I went to see Mrs Saunders. She was very pleased to see me, until I told her the story, then she called me all the names under the sun and wiped the floor with me. Speaks her mind does Mrs Saunders. I felt smaller with her going of at me than with anyone, except Martin. Anyway, after she had wiped the floor with me, she offered me a job in the cashiers office. It was nothing like the money I had been earning, but it was a job.

One night a couple of months later, I was walking home form work and who should I run into but Brian. I told him to fuck off, and keep away from me, but he kept on saying he just wanted to talk. So like the bloody fool I am, I went to the pub with him.

You've got to remember at this time, I still hadn't realised how he had set out to seduce me in the first place. Although Martin had said Brian had slept with other women, he never told me anything else about Brian. After that first couple of days, Martin had never tried to rub my face in it, and I really didn't want to think that Brian and I, were anything other than two people who made a silly mistake and just got carried away. Christ, I must be the dumbest kid on the block.

In the pub, I didn't realise it but Brian still had a hold over me. He somehow managed to convince me that the two guys who beat him up had mistaken him for someone else. It's easy for you to laugh, but thick bitch I am, I believed him. He said that his wife had thrown him out over the incident.

Now, that shows you how much of a hold on me he had. He had told me he was single when we first met and I didn't bat an eyelid at the revelation he was married. He poured out the story of how I had ruined his life, buy having an affair with him. He had me crying over his broken marriage, the bastard.

Well to cut a long story short. Now I did the stupidest thing I think I've every done in my life, if cheating on Martin with Brian wasn't bad enough. Now, during a bout of what I can only say now, was insanity, I finished up moving in with Brian. He had me under some kind of spell. Whatever that arsewhole told me, I believed.

I had been living with Brian for about six weeks when suddenly my eyes were opened. I was sat in the office at work one day, when I saw one of the guys who beaten up Brian through the spy window. He was pushing a shopping trolley and who should he be with but Samantha, the girl on the accounts course who spoke Spanish.

Finally the wheels in my head started turning and I saw the light. That's how Brian knew that I wanted to learn Spanish. Brian had seduced Samantha before he seduced me and I had never been aware that he had done it. I did tell you he was a clever bastard.

I was out of the office in an instant. I ran through the store and grabbed Samantha by the arm. I had to know if I was right. I asked her if she would talk to me, she looked at her husband and he just nodded, then I took her into the office and she told me that Brian had seduced her and one of the other girls on the course. She didn't say how they're husbands had found out, but she did remember talking to Brian about speaking Spanish and she told him that I was thinking of learning it. It could be that she had told her husband all this and her husband worked out that Brian had used that information in trapping me. I assume that's why he let her talk to me.

Now I knew that the bastard had set out to seduce me. That night when I got back to the flat we were living in, I flew at him and told him what I thought of him. Then he did what no man has ever done to me before. He hit me, not once but many times. He just lost it and beat me to a pulp, I was screaming and the last thing I heard were the police sirens.

I for days I was in and out of consciousness, I was having strange dreams and visions. Sometimes I would think I could see Martin, sometimes my sister or Mrs Saunders and even the girl Teresa from my old office who followed me around. Then there was this other woman. She would sit there with a concerned look on her face, but I had never seen her in my life before.

I was vaguely aware of the nurses sticking needles in me whilst a strong hand held mine. I new that hand, I was sure it belonged to Martin.

Then finally I opened my eyes and there was my sister. On the other side of the bed was the woman I didn't know. She got up and called the nurse, who came in to check me.

"Are you back with us now. Don't try to speak with that tube in you throat unfortunately we wont be able to take it out for a little while as your jaw is wired up. Just squeeze my hand once for yes twice for no. OK.

I squeezed once.

"Good, you know, you had us worried there for a bit. You have been very ill. Your sister and Jean are here, can you see them all right?"

One squeeze. The woman I didn't know who was evidently Jean said.

"She doesn't know me, we've never met before." The woman said.

"Don't talk to me honey, you can talk to Anita now, she's back with us." The nurse replied.

"Anita this Jean, Brian's wife." My sister informed me.

'Christ, this was a turn up for the book what the hell is she doing here?' I thought.

"Jean feels responsible for what happened top you. Brian beat her up as well although not as bad. Jean feels that if she had pressed charges against Brian he would have been in jail a long time ago and wouldn't have been able to attack you.

Martin and I have tried to tell her that's a silly way to feel, but she has insisted on being with you every day for the last fortnight. She has been taking her shift along with the rest of us."

What could I do, this kind woman whose marriage I'd helped to destroy had sat by my sick bed and watched me while I was unconscious. I managed to reach my right hand out to her. She took it and smiled at me.

So, I had been here for at least two weeks, I wanted to ask about Martin But I couldn't speak. My sister started talking again and I found I had to concentrate very hard to understand what she was saying to me.

She told me that there had been someone at my bedside twenty four hours a day. I had seen all the people I had dreamed about and there had been a few others I hadn't seen. Samantha and her husband two name just two. Martin had been there all-night every-night. I started crying when she mentioned Martin and she stopped talking after that.

The nurse came back with a doctor who said all the normal doctor type things and told me how lucky I'd been. He said that they have to take me to the operating theatre to remove the dam tube in my mouth and throat as they were going to have to wire my broken jaw up again. They were going to wait until they were happy I wasn't going to lose conciseness again. Apparently I had some swelling of the brain that was worrying them.

Later in the day I heard Martin's voice in the corridor, but he didn't come in the room whilst I was awake. Shortly after I heard him, the nurse came in and did something to the drip in my arm. Then it was morning and my sister was back, the nurse must have given me something to make me sleep.

It was another week before they took the tube out, I knew that Martin was around because I heard him, but he never came in when I was awake. Once I was out of any danger my sister told me he wasn't coming back anymore, he had told her he had done his duty. I couldn't blame him, after all my assurances that I loved him and not Brian, I had set up home with the arsewhole. What must have Martin have felt like, how could I have been such a bloody stupid bitch.

Whatever happened in the future I was sure, that by moving in with Brian I had put pay to any hopes I had of getting back together with Martin again in the future. When I had first left Martin I had thought sometime apart could help to repair the damage I'd done to our relationship. You know the old saying 'absence make's the heart grow fonder'. Well, I'd stuffed that idea up for sure, didn't I?

I was in hospital for five weeks, when I came out I stayed with my sister for a while, but that wasn't going to work out. So I found this little bed-sit, I couldn't afford a flat, unless I used some of Martin's money. I'd insulted that man enough, so I couldn't do that to him. Now I would lye in the bed, I had made for myself.