Surviving the Death of a Old Friend

As I intensified my sucking he moaned, it was loud and so satisfying to hear. "Oh fuck, Phoebes, Jesus, don't stop."

I did stop, I peeked up into his eyes as his hands grabbed and ruffled my hair. "Do you like that, Babes?" I whispered as I kissed his bulbous head, which glistened with precum.

"Teasing bitch, you know I do."

"Good, then lay back and enjoy." I returned my mouth to his slippery cock. I sucked with a growing intensity until he was unable to stop himself. His arse cheeks clenched, his balls swelled, his hips thrust wildly and his fingers tightened in my hair as he exploded. It was a geyser, an eruption of gargantuan proportions. It squirted into my mouth, down my throat.

He kept squirting; I couldn't drink it all down. To get a breath I had to take it out of my mouth and a huge sticky streak sprayed across my face. "Oh fuck!" he groaned.

As I looked up at him with his sticky goop all over my face, he smiled, a warm knowing smile and he whispered. "Damn, I love you so much."

I wiped away his goop and a tear and kissed him, our tongues colliding, swirling. As we collapsed back on the bed spent and panting, I whispered, "I love you so much."

It was a kickstart moment, a little of our intimacy returned, but still, there was a dark cloud hanging over us. Leo's gift. There was no escaping that we owned the property, although the money was deposited in an investment account, in my name only. That was simply because Kal wasn't there to sign the documents.

There were decisions to make, and I desperately wanted to talk about them with Kal. We were already incurring costs. I don't know whether he just pushed any thought of the property away, or like me, was too scared to raise it. The costs, like electricity, property rate, insurance. They were all due. I couldn't just pay them from our joint account, not without talking to Kal.

After several nasty emails from the electric company, I waited till our schedules aligned. I cooked his favourite meal for dinner. I made sure everything was perfect, candles, soft music.

When he walked in, he sniggered. "Somebodies looking to get lucky tonight."

We sat down to eat, I poured his wine, gave him a sneaky kiss.

He looked across the table anxiously at me. "Okay, Phoebes, what's cooking? This isn't just about a nice dinner."

"Kal, we need to talk about the property. There are some bills we need to pay."

He nodded. "Well, it's simple. Let's sell it and pocket the money. It has to be worth six hundred thousand."

"Why would we sell it?"

"Because I don't want it. I am happy to donate the money to charity, because I don't want that either."

"That's ridiculous. I don't want to sell it. Leo would roll over in his grave were we to just sell it."

"Look, Phoebe, I'm never going back there. You earned that money on your back. I do not want to be reminded of that every time we go back to stay there. No, I want to sell and donate the money to charity, including the two hundred thousand. Maybe we leave it to the cancer foundation."

"No, I understand that it might bring back some unsavoury memories for you, but it must also bring back some fond ones. If we are going to have a future together, at some point you have to forgive me, and Leo. That forgiveness must also include the house."

He gave me the darkest stare. "Then perhaps we don't have a future. I have tried, Phoebe, I really have. I have my limits, though, and that is a step too far for me."

"Why, though? God, our whole family has such great memories attached to that place. I believe you aren't thinking clearly. This is an incredible gift and we would be silly to turn our noses up at it."

"You think I am overreacting, huh?" He stood up, pushing his chair back noisily on the floor. "Maybe I am, but that's my answer. We sell."

He stormed off into the living room, leaving his dinner only half eaten. I threw out all the remaining food and finished the dishes. As I worked away, I got angry. It didn't make sense. Leo was giving us something wonderful, something we had talked about for so long: our own holiday home.

There had to be something we could do, maybe that was too much. We could sell, use the money to buy something better suited.

I marched into the living room. "Okay, you don't want that place. Let's sell, use the money to buy something else."

"Phoebe, you don't seem to be listening. I don't want his money. I don't want anything from him. He was my friend, he fucked me over. If you want to try to save this marriage, then it's simple. We sell and give away all the money."

"What about the car?"

"Fuck the car, it's the same deal. It is never coming here. Sell it."

There was no moving him, I could see the set of his jaw. There would be no compromise, no negotiation.

The next day, I paid the overdue accounts, bringing everything up to scratch. I knew Kal would see the withdrawals and deposits, but it was my money, as well. The house was fully furnished, which did give me some options. I rang a local real estate agent and asked about the chances of renting it out.

"No problems. I think I can get you about three hundred and fifty a night. There are always people looking."

"Okay, can we get things moving immediately?"

Two hours later, I received some documents to sign. The agent had rented it out, as promised. The term was for two weeks, that was going to generate enough to pay the insurance: nearly five thousand dollars.

The next day when Kal got home he was in a very dark mood. "So, you paid those accounts then?"

I nodded. "I had to. Regardless of what we do with it, we still have too pay the accounts. Like it or lump it. We are responsible for it."

"Well, let's get it on the market straight away. We'll go bloody bankrupt trying to pay for it."

"Chill out, Hon, I have let it out. We will get nearly five grand deposited in our account for two weeks rental. That is going to cover the rates and insurance. That's only two weeks. The agent believes we can easily rent it out for most of the year."

He walked right up to me. "Have you not been listening? I don't want his money, I don't want anything from him."

"Kal, if we just rent it out for a while, we can make enough money so that we don't incur any costs, and then we can decide on a future."

"There is no future, not unless you commit to our marriage and my concerns."

"Kal, I'll agree to sell, but we are keeping the money. We can buy something else. What about the Marlborough Sounds? We talked about that for years. Somewhere near Picton."

"Phoebe, you're killing me here. I don't want to gain from your infidelity. You fucked him. You earned that money from sex. I don't need to be reminded of that."

"Kal, you're acting like a crazy man. The gift has nothing to do with what happened. Okay, we fucked up, we did a horrible thing, but the gift was for both of us because we both helped him out. He loved you, and you know it. He was like your brother."

"Yeah, well brothers don't fuck their brother's wives, do they. Phoebe? I've tried to explain this to you. I am trying to save our marriage. I want to try and keep some memories alive. If you can't see my point of view, then I am afraid we have no future together."

We were both so angry we stopped talking. Our house felt like a tomb. I volunteered for afternoon shifts, just so we didn't have to spend time together. I cooked, I cleaned. I made sure he wanted for nothing. The intimacy, though, was gone. We stopped making love, we slept in the same bed, but contact was accidental.

The fact everything was in my name made it easier, but none the less painful. I wasn't selling. I set up my own account. I had all the money paid into it.

I knew we were headed for a confrontation; there was no avoiding it. It happened one night when we were both home together. The first time in weeks. Dinner was on the table and we were about to eat when Kal blurted out angrily. "What are we doing with that damn house? I want it off our hands."

"It's off your hands. I set up my own account and the money is being deposited in there directly. You are not profiting from it, problem solved."

"No, it bloody isn't," he snapped. "I told you what I wanted to do."

"And I told you what I wanted to do. I'm not selling, Kal. No way. Leo did a wonderful thing for us. You are just to pig-headed to see it."

"Phoebe, I'm not joking. Sell, or I am filing for divorce."

His announcement stunned me. He wasn't making any sense. He glared at me angrily. "I will give you to the end of the week. If that place isn't listed for sale by then, I'm filing."

"And then what?"

"Then we split everything down the middle and go our separate way's."

"You are serious aren't you?"

"Absolutely dead serious. It's your choice, Phoebe. I want to save our marriage, but the way things have been around here, I'm not sure it's even possible any more."

"So we sell up, and then you decide it's not working and we lose everything. That's bloody preposterous."

It took a couple of days before I was brave enough to tackle the subject again. "Kal, I want things to stay as they are. We aren't getting any money from the house. I suggest we try and work on our marriage, do counselling or whatever. If we decide we are still in love, then we sell up as you suggested. If we can't, then at least we have an extra financial safety net."

I could see he wasn't happy, but in the end he agreed. "Okay, let's try the counselling."

I jumped into his arms and we hugged like crazy. "Thank you, oh god thank you, sweetheart. We can do this. We can."

We found a counsellor we both liked. He was a nice man and we started the sessions. It was hard. Paul, our counsellor, suggested that complete honesty was required and we had to put all the facts on the table.

I knew if I was completely honest, we had no chance. The sex with Leo was good, I enjoyed it. He wasn't a better lover than Kal, but it was enjoyable. It was dirty and naughty, maybe that made it seem more exciting. Either way, I kept that to myself.

Paul could see, or at least thought he could see me holding back, and he tried to dig deeper. That's when I exploded.

"Stop it, Paul. This has gone far enough. I have told you everything. I told you about every time we had sex. God damn it, there were only a couple of occasions. It wasn't good. I did it just because I felt sorry for Leo. End of story."

"Phoebe, I'm just trying to help. I feel total honesty is the starting point. At the moment, I don't believe that is happening."

"Why, because I won't give you details? Is that what you want? You want to listen to the lurid details so you can have a wank afterwards? Fuck you, does it get you off? I think this is over." I stormed out to the car. Kal came down a few minutes later.

"Wow, now that was uncalled for, Phoebe. I think you owe him an apology."

"Like hell. He won't let us move forward. All he wants to talk about is the sex. I told you, it happened only a couple of times. I am sick of talking about it. Maybe we need a decent counsellor."

Shaking his head in disbelief he sighed. "He was your suggestion, Phoebe."

We tried, we honestly did, but there was no way back for us. I wasn't surprised when Kal turned up with divorce papers. He was more than fair in the split. He was keeping our Dunedin home, I was keeping Steven's Bay. I kept my car, and the TR6. He kept half our savings, giving me the rest. He refused to take anything from Leo's gift.

I stayed on in Dunedin for a few months, but it wasn't working for me. Work was terrible. I felt under stress the whole time. I found out Kal was dating another woman. That was it for me. I quit my job and moved to Stephen's Bay. I found a job at a local nursing home for the aged in Motueka and settled into life.

Drew came to stay over the Christmas holidays, but she had to leave to go and spend some time with her father. We did get to spend two wonderful weeks together. We raced around in the little TR6, pretending to be young and free. I guess she wasn't pretending. She was.

She did ask about what happened between Kal and me. Not sure if Kal would tell her, I decided to be honest. She wasn't surprised, but she was sad.

Life was pretty uneventful. I fell into a routine, work, home, walking on the beach. Yes, it was sad and sometimes I felt alone. I did a bad thing, and I hurt the ones I loved the most. I still felt like Kal and I weren't finished. It felt wrong. Okay, maybe I had been hard-nosed, but he made life too hard. He said he forgave me, but the truth is, he never did.

It wasn't hard to find dates. What was hard was finding love. I know from talking to friends, that Kal was dating other women, but he hasn't found anybody.

It was the same for me. Dating was fun, but I missed the element of love. Waking up in the arms of a man you love, that's what I miss.

The End