Phoenix Rises from the Ashes

PHOENIX ARISES RISES FROM THE ASHES OF A MARRIAGE

This story is about a family's love thrown away and then found by them again. There is no sex in this story.

The story is a complete work of fiction and not based on any real persons, events or organisations.

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PART 1 -- MARRIAGE BLAST OFF

As I watched the space shuttle blast off from the launch pad with my wife on board headed to the ISS, or International Space Station, it should have been a really proud moment. Instead I knew I was watching my marriage blast off in flames into outer space. Looking back with hindsight, I could see that the seeds of destruction had been unknowingly sown long ago.

My wife Sally and I (Andy) had met at university in the library where we literally ran into each other while on our phones messaging and not paying attention. I was studying engineering and she medical science.

She was a gorgeous vivacious blond and I had been smitten on first sight.

I persuaded her, with some difficulty, to go with me for a coffee. She told me she had recently parted with her boyfriend. He sounded like a 'jock' type, those arrogant smarmy pricks whom I loathe. She said she usually dated those sort of guys because they were fun, but she realized now they were all assholes and she had enough of them. She was now looking for someone different.

I was an introvert and definitely not a jock type or the life of the party like her previous boyfriends, or probably her for that matter. But she seemed interested in me. After meeting a few time for coffee and lunch, she told me that I was the good solid dependable settling down material she was looking for.

To cut a long story short we started dating and got serious. It didn't stop her love for partying where I had to endure the company of a lot of her asshole friends. I also soon realized she was strong willed, selfish, and liked getting her own way. However, I subconsciously pushed these concerns aside as she was so fantastic in bed. She had a huge sexual appetite and liked a lot of variety. I was floating around in permanent sexual heaven. In hindsight it was a big mistake to let lust over-ride my commonsense.

We married a year after graduation.

Both of us had good jobs which were reasonably well paid, me as a software engineer with a large firm and her at a university research institute. We soon bought a house in a nice area of Sydney which was more expensive than I wanted, but she was insistent and as usual got her way.

She was very ambitious at work and keen to climb the professional ladder quickly. Her career plans were interrupted when she became unexpectedly pregnant. We had a gorgeous daughter Amy nine months later. Motherhood did not slow her down as she returned to work after three months leaving baby during the day with either me or the grandparents. Emma came along unplanned as well two years later.

Along the way over the next 12 years in between having and raising kids and rising in the corporate ladder, Sally also did her doctorate on the effect of prolonged weightless on the human body, under a grant from the Pan American Space Agency.

In truth, I did most of the child raising as Sally was always either working, studying or away at conferences. I was fortunate that I could a lot of my work from my home. Needless to say, our once fantastic sex life had long ago dwindled away. I was lucky to get a mercy fuck once a week during which she seemed bored and just waiting for it to be over.

The crunch came when Sally came home from work one day beaming and said, "guess what ... I have been offered a job in Houston for 1 year working on a weightlessness research experiment which will be deployed on the International Space station. I start there in four weeks." She had obviously accepted the offer without even asking me.

I wanted to stay in Sydney and look after the girls to avoid disruption to their lives, but after many arguments, I caved in as usual and agreed to go there for a year with her and bring the girls, who were by then 14 and 12.

My employer was pretty good offering to let me do work remotely, but at a lower salary. So we uprooted the family and moved to America and found a house to rent in Houston. It wasn't so bad though I missed my home and life in Sydney.

She was working very hard on her project with late nights and weekends and often away from home at meeting in various places. As she had done back in Sydney, she missed the key events like school concerts, birthdays, school presentation nights, etc. Hell, she wasn't even aware she was missing them most of the time. When at home she was always too tired to spend quality time with me or the girls. She did try at times to keep up a relationship with her girls, but she had been an absent mum for most of their lives and was sort of fading into irrelevance for them...and for me.

The girls and I, on the other hand, had become very close, me being both the mum and dad.

Just before her planned time in Houston was due to end, I got a call from her at the Cape where she was presenting the ISS research experiment she had designed to the senior people at the Agency. She was breathless with excitement. "Guess what, they loved my research program and they have decided they want a specialist to do the actual experiments in space. THEY HAVE CHOSEN ME TO DO IT. I am going to be an astronaut." Of course my and our girl's wants and needs were of little concern to her when making the decision.

The rest of the call was a bit of a blur.

I debated taking the girls back to Sydney then and there, but they would become even more estranged from their mum. I was desperately trying to hold our marriage together as well.

The upshot was we would not be going home but staying in Houston for her to start 'fast track' astronaut training. About a year of training followed by an 11 month mission on the ISS, followed by another six to twelve months to finalize the research back in Houston. Then hopefully go home. That was the plan anyway.

Once training started she became part of the elite astronaut social circle in Houston, with plenty of parties and BBQs during their free time. Most of her colleagues were decent people, though they were all very driven and talked about little except their missions. I I got exceptionally board at these gatherings and usually just chatted to the spouses at these social events about children stuff. Eventually I avoided them where possible using girls sport, music practice etc. as an excuse. A smaller group of her colleagues, however, were typical of her old hard partying jock crowd and she was in the thick of them. I particularly disliked her upcoming mission commander, a guy also coincidentally called Andy, same name as me funnily enough. He always had a smirk on his face when I was around, He paid a lot of attention to Sally and was far too touchy feely with her for my liking. I spoke to Sally about it a few times but she attacked me viciously calling me disrespectful, a silly juvenile, untrusting, jealous, etc. etc. I was not a happy camper and for the first time I began to suspect my wife was up to no good. I found out that this other Andy was married with kids but they lived in LA.

The astronaut training year moved slowly and, as usual, she was more absent than at home spending a lot of time working late and weekends, or away training at other locations. Finally training was at and end and the mission was imminent.

She was given one week's leave at home before she launched. She was excited at the coming mission but self-absorbed as usual. She did show some token interest in me and the girls but there was little closeness or sincerity. You would have thought that we would have some decent sex, seeing as she on leave and was going to be away for 11 months, but no go, just a quick mercy fuck again. Who was this person and where was the woman I married.

On her last night at home we went out to a restaurant for a family meal together and she got a bit drunk. At one stage she excused herself and went to the ladies room. Next thing I get a text "hey big Andy, can't wait to get back to the Cape tomorrow night. I need a good fucking after a week with boring hubby and daughters." That silly drunk bitch had messaged the wrong Andy. I immediately messaged her back, "yea babe waiting for you too." I then got another message back, "ohhh yea big boy, and I can't wait to fuck you weightless on the ISS as well. Maybe I will do a conference paper on how to do zero gravity sex after we get back to earth LOL. Gotta go back to clueless hubby now. See you tomorrow lover."

In a flash, my whole world went crashing down with my worst fears well and truly confirmed. When she got back to the table, luckily, she was too drunk and too self absorbed to notice my black mood. My daughters noticed though.

I slept that night in the guest room feigning an upset stomach. I only gave Sally a perfunctory kiss on the cheek the next morning as she left. She didn't seem to notice.

After she had left dug out her laptop that she had left behind for storage. It didn't take me long to break the passcode and access her files and emails. I found quite a treasure trove of divorce material in emails, plus X rated pictures and some videos of the two of them together. I thought bizarrely that they reminded me of what things had been like with us a long time ago. Judging from some older emails, Andy wasn't her first lover either. She must have been cheating for years. I was her safe choice to make a household and raise her kids, but she had obviously always intended to maintain her exciting 'jock' boyfriends for sex fun.

I felt so stupid. All that time she spent away, no doubt fucking around, while I was the loyal dutiful clueless husband at home minding the girls and keeping house. It was obvious we had a sham of a marriage and had been really over long ago, I just hadn't known.

After a few days of my black moods the girls confronted me. I tearfully told them that I had found out Sally was having an affaire.

My eldest Amy immediately said "it's with that guy Andy, isn't it?"

I was thunderstruck. I was so clueless that even my daughter knew before me.

Amy said tearfully, "remember that BBQ a month ago at the Collin's place. I went looking for the bathroom and accidently found mum and him in a bedroom. They were kissing and he had his hands inside her top and she had her hands down his shorts. I am so sorry dad, I wanted to tell you but I was too scared."

"Don't blame yourself Amy, it's not your fault at all, it is all your mum's."

"What will you do dad?"

"Well I have thought about it these last few days. As hard as it is for me, I want to try to keep our marriage together in name only, at least until you both turn 18, for your sake."

"NO WAY," was their response in unison. "She has always been so selfish and has disrespected to you. She couldn't care less about us either. You are the only one we care about and we don't want her around anymore."

I was surprised at how angry they were. They had been observing a lot more than I had realized. I know I should not have been, but I was truly amazed how my two lovely daughters had grown up so much right under my nose without me noticing?

"Well in that case, damn living here and waiting for her any more, let's go home girls."

Amy and Emma shrieked with delight doing a big dance around the room dragging me in too. I guess I had not fully understood the impact of everything on them.

As a good engineer I would plan my next moves carefully. For me, it was long past time to start looking after myself for a change and I was intending to take no prisoners in the divorce.

The next weeks were a flurry of activity, quietly arranging plane tickets, getting the tenants out of our Sydney house, arranging shipping of our stuff home and storage of my wife's stuff in Houston, and of course a divorce lawyer.

I had calmed down a bit and decided, for the girl's sake, not to go nuclear unless there wasn't another option. I was determined though to make it hard and vicious. I would wait until she was as far away as possible to put her at a disadvantage, say perhaps in outer space.

The plan was that we were supposed to all travel to the Cape in two weeks to say goodbye to Sally and watch the launch. None of us wanted to go so we concocted a plan. The morning we were supposed to depart I called Sally and told her both the girls had been vomiting overnight and couldn't travel for the next few days. Also, that it wasn't a good idea to bring them to see her in case they had a virus which she could catch. So we would sadly miss watching the launch. The girls also spoke to her to say goodbye feigning sick weak voices and pretending to be sad at her leaving them. Sally was real pissed as it was supposed to be her big moment when we would watch her in awe, but so what.

We did watch the launch together on television, partly in sadness as it represented the end, but also with a bit of elation that we were going to get on with our life as we wanted it to be for a change.

Sally could communicate privately to home on the ISS via email. She could also phone us and occasionally do video calls. She had set up the first video call with me and the girls after about 2 weeks aboard the ISS when the shuttle had departed back to earth. The girls and I agreed this was the perfect time to drop the bomb on our marriage. They would stay out of the call but listened in from the next room.

She opened the call with an elated grin "hey Andy, how are you and the girls, all great, missing me?"

"Actually Sally we are really really good, fantastic actually. Are you enjoying being on the ISS?"

"I thought you would be missing me more," she pouted, but then proceeded to prattle on for five minutes about how great it was in space etc."

"So Sally I have a burning question, is weightless sex easy or hard? Is it fun to float around and fuck watching the world go by in the viewing module?"

Of course she went straight into attack mode "how dare you say that, what sort of a moron are you, etc etc. Why would you even think that?"

"Well funny you should ask that dear. You see, the reason I think that is you sent me a phone message the night before you left for the Cape that was intended for Commander Andy. You should really be more careful not to get your two Andys mixed up my dear. Do you remember what it said?" A quick wave of confusion and concern appeared on her face quickly replaced by the usual attack dog look. "That's complete bullshit Andy."

"Well dear, you did have a bit to drink so maybe you have forgotten. Let me refresh your memory - hey big Andy, can't wait to get back to the Cape tomorrow night. I need a good fucking after a week with boring hubby and daughters." For the first time ever in our marriage she was at an immediate loss for words. "And your follow on message was "ohhh yea big boy, and I can't wait to fuck you weightless on the ISS as well. Maybe I will do a conference paper on how to do zero gravity sex after we get back to earth LOL. Gotta go back to clueless hubby now. See you tomorrow lover." See Sally here it is still on my phone dear."

"Umm ...errr...umm, Andy, we...we were just joking around, really. We say stupid stuff like that to each other all the time. It isn't real and we aren't doing anything like that, trust me. How could you possibly think I was serious."

"Well Sally that's what I first thought the explanation must be, but I decided to do some checking to confirm it. You know my dear you should really improve the security on your laptop, it was really easy to unlock the password, I am a software engineer remember. Can you guess what I found honey?" She was looking ashen faced now and just started mouthing words with no sound coming out.

"Your emails were most educational tracing you affair with Commander fuck-face Andy and even some guys before him as well. The pictures and videos I found with you in a starring role were also very instructional. They reminded me of what we used to get up to when we were first married, but sadly has been denied to me for many years now. I am hoping you will send me soon a video of weightless bonking for my further education." I just smiled looking back at her saying nothing more.

After a pause she just started babbling the usual stuff like, "honey it was just sex, I love you so much, it didn't mean anything really, etc. etc."

I held up my hand to stop the verbal diarrhea, "ENOUGH CRAP SALLY."

"This is how it is going to go down now Sally, you are going to instruct your lawyer to file for divorce with mutual agreement on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. We will only say publically that: the marriage broke down over a long period due to the stress, long hours and absences required by your work and preparing for your mission. We will continue to co-parent our two daughters amicably. We decided to wait until the mission was underway to announce our decision to avoid distraction from the mission launch.

Financially, you will offer to give me all the equity in our house and contents in Sydney as a home for the girls in lieu of child support payments, we will split savings 50:50, keep our own individual retirement funds, and pay no alimony.

I will also have custody of the girls until they are 18. You are never around anyway so that won't impact you.

This is a good deal for you Sally I urge to take it."

"WAIT, can we PLEASE wait talk this through when I get home next year, please Andy. We can make this work. I will make it up to you. I don't want to divorce you, especially when I am away on the ISS. I don't want our family to split up. Please Andy."

"Sally listen to me very carefully, if my lawyer has not received the divorce paperwork from your lawyer by Friday next week I will serve you with my divorce plea on the grounds of adultery on the following Monday. I will submit all the emails, photographs and videos I found as evidence and some of this may inadvertently leak out if you know what I mean. You know what would happen if the press wget hold of this. I would prefer that the girls didn't suffer the fallout and it also won't be good for you, your lover, or his wife and kids. I can just see the television news headlines: ISS BONKATHON -- new secret research project revealed to be underway on board the ISS testing how to fuck in outer space. Commander Andy and Mission Specialist Sally spent the past 12 months in hard training are now doing the deed daily in weightlessness. This information will be needed for those future long haul missions to Mars where sex among the crew will be a daily requirement to cure boredom.

What will the Agency's bosses, not to mention the general public and your families think of all this. Your careers will be trashed."

"I have seen enough on your computer and put up for years with your indifference and selfishness to tell me I never had a real marriage with you. I have no interest in waiting another 11 months while you screw your fuck-face on the ISS, then come home and try kiss and make up with me.

Sally, we can do it quickly and quietly the easy way or drag it out the hard way with all the fallout and publicity but the result will be exactly same in the end, divorce. I want to move on with my life now and there next is no room for negotiation."

Is your fuckbuddy Andy there? Call him to the screen right now. When he appeared I said, "listen motherfucker, I just made an offer to my soon to be ex-wife to avoid exposing your space fuckathon to the world. If I were you I would persuade her to accept."

Sally, you have until next Friday. Oh, and if you are by some minute chance worried about the impact on the Girls of our divorce, don't worry. You were so indiscreet that they knew you two bozos were fucking around before I found out and they are really happy I am divorcing you. You will need to figure out how you can do some serious repair work on what's left of your relationship with your daughters.