My Mid-life Crisis

It's hard for me to remember the first signs that my marriage was irretrievably fucked, and just about to go belly up. There was no actual defining moment when I realised that this was it, the point of no return had been reached, and there was no going back. The end sort of snuck up on me. All that I knew was that it was some time ago, and I was careful to not make a fuss about it, I had other plans.

It had begun so well for Chantal and I, we were in love. It wasn't just us that knew it, our friends told us that they could see how much we loved each other, even our parents commented on it. After a suitably long engagement the moment arrived when we were at last a unit, husband and wife as one. We had everything that we wanted, a nice new house in a nice new housing development with nice new neighbours. I had an almost new car and Jenny had my almost old car. We both had good jobs and had our mortgage covered comfortably. We had no plans to start a family straight away.

But that was now almost a thing of the past, I had reached the conclusion that a conscious un-coupling, at least for my part, was in order. I had also reached the conclusion that it was best that the almost ex should not be told of my decision. Like all good cowards I chose to sneak off like a thief in the night. Actually that isn't quite true, I was going to slip away during the day.

My planning complete, it was now time to put it into action. I had resigned from my job a week ago, not that she knew that, arranged for my salary and entitlements to be paid into a new account that I had set up. To confuse her, if she should try to find me, I sold my latest almost new car, took the money and paid cash for an almost old camper van from a private sale on the internet. I had money left over from this transaction, so didn't need to touch my bank account for some time.

Thus equipped, I sallied forth into the wild blue yonder. An hour into day one I briefly had second thoughts about my actions, briefly. I wondered if she would even miss the fact that I had not come home from work. Having dismissed these thoughts, I kept driving, taking my time and staying off the major highways, choosing instead to travel the B roads, the road less travelled.

One of the beauties of driving a camper van is that, due to its inherent instability, one tends to drive at a speed that allows one to enjoy the scenery. I was in no great hurry to reach my destination, wherever that was. The sun was shining, it was a warm day and all was well with my world, what more could I want?

I had just reached, the van panting from the effort, the crest of a particularly long hill on the Princes Highway, which is one in name only in this part of the world, when a blur blasted past me, a red sports car in a hurry. "What a fool." I thought to myself, "There are three possible consequences to his speeding, He could cop a fine for speeding, and at the speed at which he was travelling, he would have his expensive toy confiscated, or he could lose control and wrap himself around a large tree, or he could arrive at his destination a couple of minutes early.

Some little time later I had crossed the river (Murray) and pulled into a service station cum truck stop at Tailem Bend to refuel my camper and myself. I had the nozzle down the hole and was pumping diesel into the van when a voice behind me made me stop. "Nice van." I turned slowly, to be confronted by a woman. Not just any woman, a very pretty woman. "I noticed you back down the road as the idiot blasted past you."

"Were you in that, what is it, a Ferrari?"

"Yes."

"He must have more money than sense to be driving at that speed."

"Tell me about it, scared me shitless he did. Do you mind if I take a look inside?"

"No, help yourself."

She opened the side door and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.

I finished refuelling and walked inside to pay for the fuel and get myself some nibbles and a drink. As I walked out to the van I notice a man standing next to the Ferrari looking around. "You wouldn't have seen a woman get out of my car would you?" He asked as I walked by him.

I gave him a technically correct answer. "No, sorry." Well it was no lie, I didn't actually see her get out of the car, did I?

He stormed into the restaurant looking for her. I slid into the driver's seat. "You can come out now."

"I think I'll wait until you're down the road a bit."

"Suit yourself, I have nibbles here if you're interested." I heard her climb down the ladder from the over-cab bedroom, climb between the seats and slide into the passenger's seat.

On second sight she looked even better. "Now where are these goodies? I left breakfast on the side of the road back there a bit." I opened the lid of the centre console and pointed to the bag of jelly snakes. "I must say you've spared no expense on me."

"I wasn't thinking of you when I bought this stuff. How was I to know that you were going to do a runner on your mate?"

"You're forgiven." She said as she passed a snake over to me. "I didn't even know I was going to leave him, but you looked safe enough, so I made the most of the opportunity that presented itself."

"You won't hear me complaining."

"Don't get any ideas mate, I've had enough of testosterone fuelled men's ideas for one day. He thought that by driving at breakneck speed he would somehow get into my pants. I have news for him, slow and steady wins the race." I slowed down. "Not that slow, we need to be long gone before he comes looking for us."

I had chucked a left onto the Mallee Highway, it was hardly a highway, when I noticed a tree lined gravel road to the left. I turned off the bitumen and drove slowly for about a kilometre along the road, being careful not to raise too much dust in the process. I stopped at a place where we could not be seen by the casual speeding motorist looking for his lost woman. "Come." I unbuckled my seatbelt and clambered back into the camper. I took a kettle out, filled it and plugged it in. "Tea or coffee?"

"Coffee thanks."

"How do you take it?"

"White, with no sugar."

"Sweet enough, is that it?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out."

"I'll look forward to that." You will probably think that this banter is totally banal, and not befitting two mature adults. My excuse is that I have problems interacting with other people, particularly women, beautiful women, on first meeting them. This was no exception.

We sat in silence facing each other across the small table. "Let's get down to tin tacks. I'm Kate, and as you will have gathered I'm running away from a man, two men in fact. The first is my bastard of a husband, and the second you know about. He, I succumbed to in a moment of alcohol induced weakness last night, and accepted his invitation to go on a picnic today. Both of these decisions I am now regretting. But it is not all bad. I have met, and found myself throwing myself on the tender mercies of a total stranger. Normally I would do none of these things, except that is, the running away from the bastard. What's your story?"

"I'm Phil, and I too, am running away, as far as possible from my former loving wife. She, it appears, no longer loves me."

"It appears as if you're running away because it appears that she no longer loves you. Do you have proof of that?"

"To use legal jargon, the evidence is purely circumstantial. I strongly suspect it to be the case, but I have not actually caught her at it. The signs have been there for some time, the evening meetings, many out of work hours with the same bloke, that now go on much longer than before, the hidden pre-paid mobile phone that I found, with regular calls from the same few numbers, none of which are her business contacts or shared friends. I decided some weeks ago that I would fly the coop. I have planned it so that she will have some difficulty in finding me, that is of course, if she even bothers looking."

"I take it that there's no looking back for either of us."

"You've got it in one, it's the road ahead for us, and the rear vision mirrors no longer exist."

So it was that I found myself in the company of a woman. I tried not to dwell on the fact that she was the only woman, apart from the little wifey, that I had ever been alone in the company of, on a non-business level, for literally yonks. She was so very different from the aforementioned little wifey in that she spoke openly and honestly about her life up to now. I learnt from her that the disaster that she was walking away from was just that, a disaster.

"I realise now that I should never have married Sebastian. What I took to be his self-confidence turned out to be a massive ego. Everything was about him, I had virtually no say in our lives. Our first house was in a posh suburb full of Jones's that had to be kept up with. We could barely afford the mortgage, let alone the new flash car that we just had to have. I found myself working my arse off to help pay for his every whim. Just when we were getting on top of our finances, he had to buy a new improved house, so we were back behind the financial eight-ball yet again. The final straw came just last week when he arrived home and announced that he had traded his not very old luxury car on a new Jaguar XKR. And then, while I was doing the accounts to see where he managed to find the money for this latest purchase, I discovered that I had contributed substantially to it. Then I found that he had been fiddling with the accounts and been paying money into an offshore account through some law firm called Mossack Fonseca. I gather that I will not see any of that in a divorce settlement."

"So you had a hissy fit and walked out on him."

"No, I said nothing, just packed up a few personal items and checked into a hotel. That was where I met the boy racer. I can't seem to get away from boys with their big toys."

"I would hardly call this a big toy."

"I was about to say present company excepted. You don't seem to be the type that would go into huge debt just to satisfy his whim. This is hardly what I would call a luxury car."

"Actually this is very much a change of pace for me. My last, and previous several, cars have all had one thing in common, they are all luxury British or European cars with a couple of years on them. They have had any problems sorted under warranty, and their depreciation has gone from disastrous to stationary, so I didn't pay all that much for them."

"So why the change?"

"Part of my cunning plan to delay her finding me, should she wish to that is. I am planning on the dealer that I sold my car to not transferring the registration until it has been sold on. Unless a search is made of car yards it will not be found in a hurry."

"What is the rest of your plan?"

"The clothes that I'm wearing are all that I have taken with me. The rest are hanging in my wardrobe (closet) or folded in drawers as normal. For all intents and purposes, I have not planned my escape, just forgotten to come home."

"I have this feeling that you hope that she does miss you and wants you back."

"No. I know that she won't want me back. I just want to keep her guessing. I just want a new life, to wander the highways and byways and take life as it comes. Who knows, I might meet a gorgeous sheila who is stupid enough to want to be with me."

"Are you calling me stupid?"

"Do you want to be with me?"

"Who knows, let's put it this way, I don't find you repulsive. Does that make you feel any better?"

"A little. Let's not make any commitment just yet."

"Fair enough. Where to now?"

"I guess that he has swallowed his pride and headed back to where he came from, at least I hope he has." I gathered up the cups, rinsed them in the sink and stowed them in the cupboard, along with the kettle. We clambered back into our seats in the cabin and I cranked her up.

It was getting late when we reached the outskirts of Ouyen, a smallish country town on the Mallee Highway in North West Victoria. This town's claim to fame is the vanilla slice, not something that you'd expect out here. The vanilla slice consists of thick vanilla custard between two slabs of flaky pastry with icing on top. Each year there is a competition between bakeries in the area to see who produces the best. They apparently take this very seriously, but quite frankly I have never found anything in this delicacy to get excited about.

I found a general store that had a clothing section. Kate passed comment on my selections, causing me to change my mind on a number of occasions. I eventually settled for two pairs of jeans, a couple of shirts and a week's supply of jocks and socks. "Wouldn't your wife like something as well?" The Shop Assistant asked me as I paid for my purchases.

It sounded so good that I didn't want to correct her. "What about it Darling, do you want to splurge on new clothes while I'm in the spending mood?"

"I shouldn't, but what the hell, it's not every day that my man makes this sort of offer. Lead me to your fashion department."

My comments on her selections did not force her to change her mind in any way. She looked great in all of them, although I had to use my imagination on the lingerie, because she didn't parade those, and I told her so. She gave me a strange, almost conspirital look. Having paid for her clothes we walked arm in arm from the store. Behind us we heard one Assistant pass comment to the effect that a dirty encounter was in the offing, and that I was now on a sure thing. Kate looked at me and smiled.

The service station had a cafe attached to it so, after topping the tanks, we settled down for our first real meal together. It was standard truck stop fare, steak, large and succulent, surrounded by chips (fries) and a garden salad of tomato, lettuce, onion, cucumber and beetroot. Kate noticed me push the beetroot to one side. "You're not going to eat that, don't you like it?"

"I love it, but no matter how securely I attach it to my fork, it still manages to wriggle free and do a swan dive onto my shirt."

She reached across and took a slice from my plate. "That's how you eat beetroot. Hang propriety and convention, use your fingers and it won't hit your shirt."

"You know I never thought of that, I must have been too well brought up." I took a slice, and halfway between plate and mouth it managed to slip from my fingers and make a bee-line for my shirt. I looked down at the bright red stain on my new shirt and the front of my new jeans. "Damn!"

"Come on, you can do better than that, say it, fuck."

"Fuck. Are you happy now that I have disgraced myself in public?"

"I'm sorry." Her smile told me that she wasn't all that sorry.

We headed off along the Mallee Highway, past towns with such interesting names as Manangatang, towards the Murray River. I had planned to cross at Tooleybuc, but now that I had a travelling companion I decided to hang a right and follow the course of the river upstream and cross further up. I found a rest area on the riverbank at a place called 'Wood Wood' where we could spend our first night together. We sat and talked for some time, all the time skirting the issue of the sleeping arrangements. "I guess that it's time that we went to bed." I said. "I'll make up the single bed down here and you can have the top bed all to yourself."

"That's not what you really want, is it?"

"No, but I am not going to impose my wants on you."

"What if that's what I want as well?"

"Last one in bed's a rotten egg."

"Not so fast buster." She caught my disappointed look. "I don't know about you, but I need to clean my pearly whites, and does this thing have a shower, or will you have to turn your back while I have a sponge bath using the kitchen sink?"

"There's a shower, but I don't know how much hot water there is, if any."

"Just so long as there is enough there for me. You mate, can have a cold shower to depress your carnal desires."

"Spoils sport." I'll give her this, she was quick. The almost ex had never spent less than twenty minutes under the shower. She emerged with my best and only towel wrapped around her breasts and hanging just below her arse.

"There's still some hot water left if you're quick. You'd better make the most of it right now because I don't want to tempt you to peek up my skirt as I climb this ladder."

"Spoils sport again."

"I'll toss the towel on the table, you should be able to reach it without revealing your pride and joy to me."

I turned on the shower and quickly soaped myself and rinsed it off before the hot water had disappeared. I opened the door and reached for the towel. I heard her chuckle to herself. What could she be thinking?

I emerged, also wrapped in the towel, and no, it wasn't hanging down below the hem. "Spoil sport." I heard her. I looked up as she raised herself, exposing her naked breasts to my surprised gaze.

"Two can play that game." I said as I removed the towel and draped it over the table. I stood there, revealing my full frontal image to her.

"Don't just stand there, if it got any colder I'd never find it." She held the sheet up in a provocative invitation to me. I had no time for an acceptance speech as I climbed the ladder and snuggled against her warm body.

The downside to our sleeping arrangements was that it restricted us pretty much to sleeping. There was barely enough room for missionary sex, and certainly not enough for the more adventurous varieties. Having said that, we did manage to consummate our newfound relationship, although I lost count of the number of times my arse hit the roof. "I have to say that this was way more satisfactory than the past year with the almost ex." I whispered to her.

"I have to admit that it has been an improvement on my recent experience. I would suggest that, in the interests of variety, we find a more suitable place for our carnal adventures."

"We could try the single bed down stairs. It might be a tight squeeze laterally, but at least I'll be able to work up a rhythm without bruising my arse."

"That's a relief." She said.

I was puzzled by this. "What do you mean?"

"I thought that it was something that I was doing wrong, you kept on flinching."

"I was enjoying myself and didn't want to let excruciating pain put me off my stroke."

"My hero." She kissed me. My God, how I missed this contact with a woman. "I have to tell you that this is the first time that I have actually had a real orgasm in I don't know how long. It's hard for you blokes to fake, and satisfying you requires a certain amount of timing, arriving at a conclusion too soon leaves your ego deflated, while holding off too long deflates it even further, because you are thinking that there is something wrong when you can't get me off, and I have to fake it. The past year hasn't been a problem for me, because as long as he comes, he's happy."

"I know what you're talking about. I had a problem just getting it up, then I had to get her interested, and once she was interested, she had to come. I would have to have the most creative fingers in the world."

"Ooh goody, here I was thinking that I'd have to make idle chit chat until he was ready to go again. Show me how good your fingers are. And then when he's ready we can try for another perfect screw." We both agreed on the perfection of the next one. It was a sort of reverse missionary fuck in that she was on top of me, my cock inside her pussy, and she slid up and down creating wonderful sensations on my cock, and her nipples were hardened by the contact with my chest hairs. We finished at roughly the same time, we kissed, we cuddled, and we both fell into a deep and contented sleep.

For the first time in I don't know how long, I rolled over in bed and touched someone who didn't say, "Do you mind, I'm trying to sleep." This morning it was, "Good morning Darling, what are your plans for this morning? Hint, hint." As she tried, successfully I might add, to stir him into life. She rolled on top of me and began where she had left off last night.