Spirit of Agony

"No, Gina, you destroyed poor Mr Whathisface as soon as you started fucking him. His wife kicked him out, and I hope she took him to the cleaners. As an ex-officio member of the board, and in charge of group and company policies, including staff relationships, I thought I ought to tell your precious Board what had been going on and that they'd better prepare for a shit storm in the marketplace from the fallout. That was just before I resigned from the Board."

"It was a nightmare. Sacking me, promoting Giles to the job he never wanted. Did you 'out' our son too, Harry?"

"No, I never knew for certain he was gay, but I guess having a secret sex life just runs in the Tremblett family lifeline. First his father Eric fucked his fellow workers, then so did his mother, so being unmarried and secretly arse-fucking consenting males, even though some might or might not be some poor women's husbands, was at least a slight departure from only fucking his subordinates."

"Subordinate, I only fucked one subordinate."

"But not just once, though, eh, but regularly for eighteen months? How many times?"

"Probably around daily Monday to Friday, maybe four times a week on average."

"Over what ... three hundred fucks? That bloke was getting a lot more of your precious fucking arse than I was."

"He was thirty years younger than you, Harry."

"Yeah, And twenty years younger than his boss. So he was getting four times the pussy than I was, so was it you or him than decided that he could also butt in on my Saturdays? And when exactly were you planning on putting me out to grass so that you could make it with the studmuffin seven days and nights a week, huh?"

"Never, H, he would never leave his wife and family, that Saturday was just a one-off to do it in a bed instead of the couch in my office."

"Whose bed? Our bed?"

"No, a hotel bed, it really was only sex, Harry. We never loved each other."

"It was only sex for you or was he looking for romance?"

"Neither of us was looking for romance. We ... when it all started we had a team working day and night to get that contract for assembling laptops at our Romanian plant, competing against a rival assembly plant in Indonesia. We just couldn't get the wage rates down near enough to compete, when almost at the last minute Julian and his team came up with a robot assembly line in Finland that, if it worked, would undercut the costs even of the Far East. The Finnish company had extended their credit and were struggling to meet the bank payments. Julian's consultant team were called in to put the software right and his foreman on site said he'd identified the glitch and asked if we wanted to take advantage of that knowledge. We bought the plant and made it fully functioning within a week and beat the deadline for the tender to assemble the new laptops. We won it with capacity to take on more and use that plant as a model for more assembly lines."

"So you fucked him as a reward?"

"No! ... No, not really..."

"Not really? How do you define 'not really fuck'?"

"OK we did fuck. It was unplanned and just happened. We opened bottles of champagne, the team celebrated but we were all tired. We were relaxed, after so much work under tension, It was a relief to all that built-up tension, we'd saved the company and I sent everyone home happy. Julian stayed to help with the mess. We were relieved, happy it was all over, and spontaneously we embraced and kissed ... and ..."

"And you fucked, huh?"

"We fucked, but that was all it was, H, a fuck. We were ashamed, both of us were happily married and had loved ones at home."

"But it wasn't just 'A fuck' and you weren't so happily married that you wanted something on the side. It was, I presume, the first time you had fucked outside your marriage?"

"Yes."

"And so you made your husband a useless cuckold, again. And then you simply carried on and fucked him another 300 times by your own admission and are only telling me you stopped fucking him when I found out about it and kicked you to the kerb."

"I know and I am so ashamed and so sorry. I never meant to hurt you."

"But you did hurt me. You once stood beside me and swore in front of me and our families that you would forsake all others, not that you would make an exception and fuck a worker just for doing the job he was already paid well to do? Don't you have a bonus system, or do other grandmother CEOs make love to their workers like drones in a hive?"

"We didn't make love, Harry!"

"I might believe a one-off, maybe, or drunk, drugged or on the spur of the moment during the euphoria of your success, perhaps, but casually, habitually, fuck him 300 times? At the rate we were having sex at the time, that's equivalent to about six years of sex in our marriage. A survey in the US two years ago said the average first marriage lasts 8 years and divorcing couples on average consider divorce for two years before starting proceedings. So your affair had enough lovemaking in it for a full marriage and it effectively finished ours."

"No, No. What you and I had was lovemaking. With Julian at work it was just sex, just like having a workout in the middle of the day to get the endorphins going."

"Oh, that's all right then, because in reality that's all we really did at home, we just had sex at the weekends, we never made love, Gina. I was just a much better actor than you or Julian."

"What do you mean, Harry, you were acting like you loved me?"

"Of course. You were just a piece of arse, Gina, that's all you ever were. I ... never ... loved ... you ... do you get that? At no time during our almost thirty years of marriage did I ever love you."

"No!" she screamed.

"At first you were just a cute bit of arse I had to fuck on a regular basis to maintain my luxury lifestyle."

"No, Honey, I know you really loved me."

"Do you think I'm stupid? No, Gina, I was just living a lie, just like you were, getting a few endorphins to make the weekend go by until I could have some peace and quiet at home while you were at work. It was OK while it lasted, but when it ended? Well, I found I never really missed fucking your saggy old arse, not one little bit. And I thought when the marriage was finally over, I was more upset about Villa losing the game than I was about ending our farce of a relationship. 'Hey!' I thought, 'So what, it was no biggie'."

"No biggie ... no fucking biggie!" Gina exploded.

"So what are you complaining about, Ex? You and me, at the time, we were absolutely made for each other. I lied to you for years, you've lied to me for years, so we're even. Like I said, it was no biggie for me when we parted company and I was delighted that I didn't have to touch your skank arse any longer."

"What the?" Her mouth spluttered open and closed. I could see she was confused.

"Look, let's be adult about this, we're both tired tonight. All this arguing by two old farts over a few meaningless fucks here or there that didn't really mean anything in the scheme of things. You take the bed for tonight, Gina. I'll sleep in the armchair and in the cold light of the morning, you can leave here with your suitcase and go back to your life of luxury. We can continue with our happy, truthful, completely separate lives for ever and ever, and never ever see each other again, the end. A fairy tale ending where it all ends up right with the world."

"But..."

"Look. You took what you wanted from our marriage while it lasted, Gina. I took what I wanted while it lasted, so we're even-stevens. And, hey, if you want to slum it and visit me here again, you know, give us a chance to chew the fat, by all means come back in the summer, stay for the whole day. There's pleasure boats on the canal passing through the lock all the time. You might even spot a likely randy skipper or two, maybe you could flutter your eyelids and go on a fucking naughty nautical cruise together."

"You never ... loved me, really Harry? Is that what you're saying?"

"Wasn't it obvious, Gina? I'm a salesman, a very good one, so in this instance I sold myself. Did very well out of it I must say, for a while I lived in a nice house, I had a big garage for my Roller, you even bought me a new Roller for our 25th anniversary."

"It's still at home in the garage."

"See, it all worked out amicable. I didn't need the other Roller, I had one in my name already, it was clearly just a salve for you're conscience. You got to save your family business, started a new family consisting of a pair of selfish kids who couldn't give a shit about their old man, and I got a bit of free pussy for nearly thirty years. It wasn't as exclusive a free pussy as I thought it was, but, on balance, it was win, fucking win, all round I think. So no harm done."

"No, that's not possible..."

"What can I say? I guess I deserved an Oscar for my performance and all I got was the Spirit of Ecstasy."

"No. I can't believe it. You really never loved me, Harry?"

"Never. Look, babe, you offered your arse to me on a platter back then, so I took it, thank you very much. I mean, what an opportunity? You were really cute back then, so mostly, it was all a bit of fun on my part."

"So that was all it was to you? Our marriage? A bit of fun?"

"Yes, fucking fun. Imagine if I took it seriously, I might have ended up with a broken heart, but luckily you were just easy pussy. I guess I got complacent. I suppose I thought I'd be able to dupe you right to the end, but you got me good and I wasn't really expecting you to start fucking somebody else, not when you were in your sagging sixties. So, I have to admit that I had had a bit of a hissy fit when it all ended and I heard you had taken a younger rival lover—"

"Julian was never, I repeat, never ever my lover."

"So what? Look, I was probably angry on that Saturday when I found out. And because Villa had just lost at home, I was miserable and I didn't want to speak to you, but you kept ringing me and I didn't want to talk, so I threw the phone away ... while on the motorway. I've never even replaced it. In fact I still use the same Finnish laptop you gave me the Christmas before, and I never knew that the gift was either ironic or a subliminal message of your cheating with the mastermind behind the Finnish factory."

"I never even thought ... the company were proud of that laptop, we gave a load of them away that Christmas. There was nothing subliminal about it, honey, honestly."

"Honestly? Life's a bitch when you find out that your partner never really loved you, though isn't it? Well, I wouldn't know anything about that, of course, because it only happened with Mavis, but I can imagine it would be. You knew what it was like though, because you went through it with Eric, but when you got over it I was his ready and willing replacement to do with what Eric did to you. Was this a sort of revenge on me because you couldn't get back at Eric?"

"No! Absolutely not. Revenge had nothing to do with it. I was just a stupid, irrational woman who did a really stupid thing and it quickly became a dumb habit. I wasn't in love with Julian, I was ... I am ... still in love with you."

"Mrs Whatshername said she was in love with Whatusface too, and it hit her right where it hurts when she found out she was sharing hubby with his antique boss."

"You spoke with Jennifer?"

"Jennifer?"

"Julian's wife, Jennifer?"

"I don't remember names, something about my age I guess, the old memory banks are full and they don't make new grey cells in Finland by robots, ready to hand out free to simpletons like me, not yet anyway. We spoke on and off, me and your Mr Whatshisface's missus, but mostly we were too breathless for talking much. The experience of meeting me in person for revenge sex on a regular basis was apparently cathartic for her."

"Cathartic or not, she took him back."

"She did?" I asked. "I'm surprised."

"They reconciled after a couple of months apart, I think. For the children's sake. I hear they are still together and he's very successful as the CEO of one of our rival companies. We should never have let him go."

"Did YOU ever let him go, Gina?"

"Yes, immediately, of course."

"Then I think I do know how he feels, I was clearly let go, eighteen months before I even realised. It won't happen again. I'm off that treadmill for good."

"I was never going to let you go, Harry. You left me and I want you back. I want you to come home. And I promise I will never let you go again."

"And now you're trying to entice me back into your sticky web? No thanks, I'm already home. I've had ten years of freedom from interfering younger women. I make exception for Mrs Whathisname, of course, she can interfere with me any time she likes."

"I told you, they're still married, they're still together."

"That's probably why she stopped coming round quite so often then, except..."

"Except?"

"Yes, the first time she came over, she dropped her three sprogs off at her sister's for the week. You know, the youngest was only six months old, the others only four and two? Your lover boy was a walking baby maker, so you were lucky, or maybe you were just safe? ... anyway, Mrs Whatshername spent the whole week here, she certainly didn't complain about the sleeping arrangements, not that there was much sleep going on. I even missed going to one particular match, Villa v Stoke, I think, while I first took her virgin arse. She was still carrying a bit of weight from the third child, but that's only to be expected. She was a little unfit and a bit soggy round the middle, and her tits were full of milk, but she was eager to lay the ghost of her cheating husband. I was glad she went home in the end, though we were running out of tea, fresh food, blue pills..."

All the while Gina was standing in front of me shaking her head in disbelief. "No..."

"Oh yes, now Mrs Whatshername only comes over twice a year, on my birthday and as for the other day she says she would never miss each anniversary of our first anal fuck."

"You ... you bastard!" She slapped me as hard as she could, turned and ran to the bedroom, slamming the door after her.

"Want a cup of tea ... love?" I shouted after her. "Just putting on the kettle and making some sandwiches for tea, I don't like eating too late in the evening."

All I heard was a muffled, "Fuck you!"

That's the trouble with cheats and liars, they are so caught up in their own fantasy weaving to justify their cheating arses that they can no longer differentiate truth from a complete fucking pack of lies.

So I put the kettle on and looked out the tea pot from among the cupboards, especially searching those areas where the seldom used utensils were kept. I usually make tea for one in the cup but, having company round the house for the first time since I moved here ten years back, called for a proper tea pot and I knew I had one stashed away somewhere. The Farmer supplied the place partly furnished, by whoever rented it before me. I could keep what I wanted and dump the rest. I remembered there was a teapot. I found it by torchlight at the back of a cupboard.

I cut a couple of plates of homemade jam sandwiches, all I had available for tea really, put them on a small tray with a couple of mugs of strong tea and kicked open the bedroom door. The last of the dying rays of the sunset were tinged orange on the snow-covered trees and evergreens outside the bedroom windows opposite the bridle path, but my east facing bedroom was quite dark inside at dusk. I set the tray down on the bedside table that I had made from old lumber found in the shed outside and switched on the lamp.

"Go away, H, you're a beast!"

"Look, I've brought tea, drink it while it's hot because now the sun's gone down the temperature in here will drop like a stone. There's no central heating in these cottages, and they didn't put in much insulation in the 1780s, in fact we know for a fact that they didn't put in any, not even a damp course, and there's just the wood burner that I installed in the parlour for heat."

"There's an electric fire in the grate, I noticed it when I came in but it doesn't work."

"No, it works, I just can't afford to run up the electric bill on it. I took the fuse out a decade ago and put it in one of the drawers somewhere, I forget which one. So, armchair in the parlour next to the warm stove, or bed in an ice cold bedroom? Your choice, but make it quick because I want to shower before it gets too cold and I always go to bed early in the winter."

"I'll take the armchair next to the wood-burner, then." She sat up and made herself comfortable, pulling the other pillows up behind her and accepting the hot mug of tea.

"Why, if you say you never have guests staying, other than your fictitious anal fan club, do you have four pillows?"

"Not that it is any of your business, my dear ex-wife—"

"Wife. As far as I am aware you have not divorced me and I have certainly never divorced you."

"In that case, my dear second wife in an as yet undetermined series of unhappily failed marriages, when I rented this cottage—"

"Rented! Why are you renting? We could buy this place with pocket change."

"You could afford to buy this place, if it was ever up for sale of course, but I certainly couldn't afford it. So, just so as we're straight, if I do peg out tonight due to the utter depression in my once-stable mental state and wellbeing, brought about by your premature visit, there's an old 1950s cocoa tin in a kitchen cupboard that has all my worldly wealth in it. Half's yours I guess, if we are still married, just split the rest among the five ungrateful kids. Mind you, there more coppers than notes in that tin. And don't spend it all, remember the pension's paid two weeks in advance and you have to pay back the unused days and the Department for Works and Pensions always go for the spouse first. You should've divorced me when you had the chance. Oh, and most mornings, Junkie Joe next door usually drops off a few eggs and a basket of milk; don't let him charge you for them, because they're gratis from the Farmer. Joe gets the 'munchies' a lot and visits the farm shop at least a couple of times a day. He brings back extra milk for the cat lady too, the Farmer reckons her fifty cats keeps the harvest mice population down."

"You can afford the electric. You've got your pension from work."

"Yes, I've got that as a drawdown pension, I just take out enough to keep me below the tax threshold with my state pension. According to the last statement, it should keep me in the manner to which I have become accustomed until I'm 146. Details in the top drawer of the sideboard in the parlour under all those unread letters from Sophie Elizabeth, in case I don't make that long and leave a residue; again, half for you, split the rest with the kids, after you've paid the exorbitant 40% tax on the residue. As for the luxury of my four pillows, when I rented the place it was unfurnished but full of junk. The farmer said anything in here I could use was mine, and/or burn the rest. This old iron bedspread was in pieces stacked against the wall. I rubbed off all the rust, repainted and assembled it, bought a mattress, sheets, blankets and two pillows. You know I like to sleep on two pillows, so I was hunky dory. After about five or six years though, the pillows got lumpy and wouldn't plump up any more, so I bought two new pillows and put them on top of the other two for symmetry. Happy with the pillow arrangements now?"

"Yes, I suppose so." She tentatively bit into one of the jam sandwiches. "This is nice, blackberry jam?"

"Blackberry and autumn raspberries, I find all blackberry is too strong, they grow like weeds around here."

"You make your own jam?"

"I do and, because I keep bees, I use honey instead of sugar, to keep the cost down, with a pinch of bicarb to counter the acidity. The Farmer sells my honey and jam in the farm shop, it pays for a few luxuries."