Take Out the Trash

Take Out the Trash

By blackrandl1968

This is a preview story for NoraFares' "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" event. If you wish to read other stories of this type, tune in on June 8 for stories by some really good authors. It's just a short bit of fun, not intended to be anything but fun. If you enjoy a short bit of fun, great. If you're looking for high drama, try something else.

Thanks to my team. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me a critical review. SBrooks103x also gives me a pre-post read. My editors are Hale1, Girlinthemoon, NoraFares, and GeorgeAnderson. I thank you all. Randi

I felt pretty good when I left the dealership. They were the proud owners of a Prius hybrid, and I was the ecstatic new owner of a new Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT. I pulled up at the stoplight and sat there, a huge goofy smile on my face. I knew what I was going to do. When the light changed, I put the accelerator on the floor and held on for dear life. The 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi howled, and I ran it up until it shifted for the fifth time. I pulled it back down to the legal limit and the smile was permanent.

When I pulled into my driveway, I didn't pull it into the garage. I was going driving again in a minute. I walked inside and I could smell something cooking. It smelled like spaghetti. I never liked spaghetti much. It was a good thing I had plans. I didn't yell, "I'm home," as I usually did. I just went upstairs, changed into my golfing clothes, grabbed my clubs out of the closet and started toward the front door. Rachael came out of the kitchen when I was headed toward the front door.

"Charles, where are you going?" she asked. "Whose car is that? Dinner's almost ready. Why are you dressed like that and why do you have your golf clubs?"

"Well, dear, I'm going golfing, that's my car, these are my golf clothes and you need clubs to play golf."

She gaped at me as if I'd lost my mind. "You didn't say anything about going golfing," she said. "What about dinner?"

"I'm eating at the country club later," I told her. "Have a nice dinner."

I heard her voice just as I was closing the door. "What do you mean, 'that's your car'?"

I had no time to answer trivial questions, so I went on my merry way. My phone began to ring, almost immediately, so I turned it off. I got to the country club, enjoyed a very nice dinner with Ralph and Pete and played nine holes. I hadn't played for a long time and it showed. I was beginning to get my swing back by the time we finished and felt good about the next time.

We made a date to play 18 on Saturday morning, had a couple of beers and I went home. I knew there was quite a thunderstorm brewing in my house. I pulled the SRT into the garage and went in. A very angry looking Rachael was sitting in her chair, watching TV.

The lightning flashed from her eyes and frizzled my eyebrows. "What the hell is wrong with you, Charles?" The thunder rolled from her lips.

"Nothing at all," I said. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

This rebellion seemed to take her aback. I must mention that I am not usually so argumentative. I'm an easygoing guy. If I don't give a shit about something, I have nothing to say about it. I don't give a damn about the color of the appliances in the kitchen. She wants stainless steel instead of black, so long as we can afford it, I couldn't care less; stainless steel it is. I felt certain she had taken my general lack of opinion as a lack of will. I was probably to blame, to some degree. Not anymore.

She stared at me in astonishment for a moment. "'What the hell is wrong with me'?" she practically hissed. "You come home, driving that monstrosity of a gas guzzler, tell me you're going to play golf, skip the dinner that I've prepared and you have the nerve to ask me what's wrong?"

I thought about it for a minute. "Yes," I said.

"'Yes'? What do you mean, 'yes'?" She was practically foaming at the mouth.

"Yes, I do have the nerve," I said.

Her face was turning blotchy and red. "Are you drunk, Charles? Are you taking drugs or something?"

"I had a couple of beers at the country club," I said. "No drugs, though. Did you have some drugs you wanted me to take?"

She seemed to be at a loss for words but quickly recovered. "Maybe I do. Maybe you need to be taking some anti-psychotic drugs!" She stalked away and opened the door off the kitchen to the garage. She must have been impressed with the SRT.

"Isn't it beautiful?" I asked.

She snorted. "Are you having some sort of midlife crisis?"

I thought about that one for a minute. "Yes," I said.

"Yes, what?" she wanted to know.

"Yes, I'm having a crisis, and I suppose 41 could be considered midlife."

"Well, what is it?" she demanded.

"What is what?" I asked. "'It,' is a pretty vague pronoun."

"What is the crisis?" She seemed very exasperated at my correction of her grammar. Most people dislike having their grammar corrected, I have discovered.

"It's a secret," I told her.

"So you're having a crisis and you're keeping it a secret from me?" She seemed to be beyond belief.

"No," I said.

"Stop being an ass," she yelled. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I'm not keeping it a secret from you," I said.

She threw up her hands. "I'm not going to waste my time," she said. "What is that stupid toy doing in our garage, and where is the Prius?"

"I traded it for the SRT," I said. "I hated it, and I love the SRT."

"We agreed that the Prius was eco-friendly and economical," she said. "It's the kind of car responsible people drive. You need to think about how you're going to look pulling that monstrosity into your parking spot at work. All the executives drive hybrids. What are they going to feel when they see you driving that dinosaur?"

"Envious," I said.

"We agreed on the Prius," she snapped.

"No, I never agreed," I said. "I just went along because it made you happy."

"It still does," she said sternly. "Do you not care anymore about my happiness? You're going to take it back tomorrow and get the Prius back."

"No," I said.

She acted as if she had no idea what the word "no" meant. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"No to both," I said.

She pondered for a moment, trying to think of what the first question had been. She got her hurt look on her face. Three days ago, I would have cared. "What's wrong with you, Charles?" she asked.

"I've decided I like being called Chuck," I said. "You should call me Chuck from now on."

Her mouth hung open and she seemed bereft of speech. I appreciated that. I went upstairs to shower and get ready for bed. When I came out into the bedroom, there was a pillow and a blanket on the foot of the bed.

"You're sleeping in the spare bedroom," she said. "You're acting like a petulant child and you don't need to think you're going to sleep with me."

I considered it for a moment and turned back the covers. Her eyes bugged out when I started getting in. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Going to bed," I told her.

"I told you that you're not sleeping here," she said.

"Yes, I heard you," I said. "There's nothing wrong with my hearing. You don't tell me where I can sleep. This is my half of the bed. You own that half. I won't come over on your half. It's only fair to tell you that you aren't to come on mine, either."

She rolled defiantly onto my half. I jerked the covers out of her grip and sat down on her before lying on top of her. She struggled fiercely to push me off. I weighed 210 pounds. She weighed 120. She was unsuccessful. "Get off me, you idiot!" She tried to slap me, but I caught her hand.

"This is my side," I told her. "Your side is over there. You aren't welcome on my side." I lifted up a bit and she rolled over to her side. Then she began to cry.

"What's wrong with you, Charles?" she sobbed. "What's happened to you? Why are you treating me like this?"

"There is no 'Charles'," I told her, "only Chuck. I told you I like to be called Chuck."

"I thought you liked to be called Charles," she wept.

"No, you liked for me to be called Charles," I said. "I never liked it. I just went along with it because I wanted to make you happy."

"Why don't you still want me to be happy?" she asked.

"I don't think you respect me," I said. "I think the reason that you don't is that I've spent all my time trying to make you happy. I'm done with that. Now, I'm going to make me happy. If you're happy because I'm happy, that's great. If not, tough titty."

She made a little wailing sound. "What happened? One day you were the world's best husband. The next day you're a son-of-a-bitch to me."

"It actually took three days, not one day," I said.

She gaped at me. It pretty much looked like one of those baby birds, waiting for its mother to feed it. "I don't have any worms," I told her.

She stared at me as if an alien had taken over my body. "Worms? What the hell is wrong with you? Are you sick?"

"The answer to the first question is complicated," I said after a moment's thought. "The answer to the second question is yes."

She thought for a minute. "You're sick?"

"Yes," I said.

"What's wrong with you? What kind of illness causes someone to trade their nice car for some monster gas-guzzler? What kind of sick are you if you can go play golf and drink beer?"

"It's a heart problem," I told her.

She looked confused. "Do you have clogged arteries or irregular heartbeat? How does any of the way you've been acting have any relation to heart disease?"

"It isn't a disease," I said. "I had a change of heart, sort of like a transplant."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" she asked.

"I found out three days ago that you're a cheating slut," I said. "All that love in my heart died, and it's been replaced by the same sort of heart you have. Now, I'm looking out for myself, and I no longer give a damn about you,"

"What did you call me?" she demanded.

"Maybe you should think about having your hearing checked," I said. "Did I stutter?"

"No, you were very clear," she said. "I don't know what kind of bug you have up your ass, but you better get it figured out. You just accused your wife of being a cheating slut!"

"I don't like to look at it as an accusation; it's more like a statement of fact," I explained.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she practically screamed.

"No need to yell; I'm right here," I said. "I'm talking about your little hotel rendezvous with Allen and Marci Baker."

Her face lost all color. "What... how... I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Do you know who the president is? What day is it?" I asked her.

She just gaped at me. "Someone with your alarming short-term memory loss may have suffered a stroke," I said.

I took out my phone and opened Snapchat. They were saved in the chat and in my camera roll. I wasn't going to tell her where else they were saved. There were the pictures, big as life. Rachael, between the two of them, going into the door of room 177 of the Dorchester. She was kissing Marci, and Allen had his hand on her ass.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

"Maklin sent it to me," I said. "I'm pretty sure he sent one to Lani, too. They're pretty pissed off." Maklin is our son, and Lani is our daughter.

She gasped. "Maklin? He saw... you're lying! You got those somewhere!"

I showed her the snap was from Maklin. "No, he was there dropping off a client when he saw you go in. He just wanted to say hi. Imagine his surprise at your little tryst. I love that word, don't you?"

"It wasn't... oh, God, it... what are you going to do, Charles?"

"Charles isn't going to do anything," I said. "Chuck is already on the case. He's already arranged fatal accidents for the three of you."

She looked at me fearfully for a minute. I guess she thought I wasn't joking.

"Really, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing," I said. "I've hired some of my friends in low places to do everything. Allen and Marci die tomorrow. I'm waiting until next Wednesday for you. I believe that as Allen and Marci are going to work tomorrow, their airbags are going to malfunction. They will trigger, causing the car to crash. Of course, by then the airbags will have deflated. Mario is certain that the crash will be fatal. Those Priuses are well known not to do well in crash tests. That's why I got rid of mine."

She stared at me with her mouth open for a minute. It wasn't an attractive look. She gathered her composure as best she could after this sinister revelation. Strangely, she seemed unconcerned with the probable demise of her fuck buddies. Just selfish, I thought.

"What about us?" she managed to get out.

"Oh, well, there is no us," I said. "I'm divorcing you, of course. You should be served at work tomorrow. Do you think the company will mind? Three of their employees involved in a tryst? God, I love that word. The tryst leading to a divorce and serving of the papers at work might make things a little bit awkward around there. I doubt Colton Fisk will admire that drama, him being big in the Church and all. I wonder if Allen and Marci will still get to have a church funeral?"

This produced a strange garbled wail from Rachael, sounding eerily like some of those peacocks at the zoo. I turned out my light. "Goodnight, Rachael," I said. "I wonder if I'll get both halves of the bed in the divorce?"

She threw herself onto my half of the bed and clutched onto my back like a leech. "I don't want a divorce, Charles," she sobbed into my back. I didn't respond.

"Charles?" She clutched me tighter. "Charles, I don't want a divorce." Nothing from me.

She peeked over my shoulder. "Charles?"

I looked at her. "There is no Charles," I told her, "and you're on my half of the bed."

"Dammit, Chuck, then. Chuck, I don't want a divorce."

I rolled toward her. "I didn't want a cheating slut for a wife, either," I said. "I got one, in spite of not wanting one. Funny how that works, huh?"

She seemed not to have the same curiosity about phenomena that I did. "Cha... Chuck, I'm so sorry," she said. "It was just something I wanted to try. I was curious about what being with another woman would be like."

"That makes two of us," I said. "Who knew we were so alike? I was also under the impression that Allen was male. Does anyone else know he's non-cisgendered?"

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "It was a threesome. I didn't have sex with him, though, just Marci."

"He sat in a chair and watched?" I asked. "A non-cisgendered voyeur! Kinky."

"He did Marci while she was doing me," she admitted.

"Do you know how ridiculous this conversation is?" I asked. "What possible quirk of your imagination could cause you, in your wildest dreams, to think that this is helping your case?"

She stammered around for a bit, but couldn't seem to come up with anything plausible. "I was going to... going to give you the same thing," she finally managed.

"The same thing? What does that mean?" I inquired.

"A threesome with me and Marci," she said. "You told me just a minute ago that you were curious about being with another woman."

"Marci wasn't one of those women," I said. "I was thinking one who hasn't fucked her way through half the men in town."

"Who were you thinking of?" she asked.

What the hell? Chuck was on a roll. I might as well play with her mind. "Well, Lilly has always been high on the list of my fantasies," I confessed.

"My sister?" she screeched.

"You did ask," I reminded her. Lilly was hot as fuck. Rachael was a walking wet dream. Lilly was all that, but more. Blonde, brown eyes, a few freckles on the cutest little nose imaginable, and that body! She had the most beautiful shape: it was that sort of shape that made your tongue hard, not to mention other parts, just by looking at her. Her tits were big, round and firm, and she had the most delicious ass on the planet.

She oozed sensuality from every pore and caused men to do stupid things when she was around. She was five years younger than Rachael and I, had been briefly married in her late twenties to an NFL prospect but dumped the bum when he washed out, started drinking and couldn't keep a job.

When Rachael and I were dating, back when we were in college and Lilly was still in high school, she had a crush on me. It was amusing, and I loved the hell out of her, but I had never even done anything but lust, nor would I have if given the opportunity. I wondered if Rachael would actually go for it, and more importantly, Lilly would.

It wouldn't matter; Rachael was gone, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up. I could see the wheels spinning in Rachael's head. "I'm not doing a threesome with my sister," she finally said.

I shrugged and went to sleep.

*****

The divorce went as smoothly as such things can. Rachael fought it tooth and nail, but divorces can't be dragged out like they once could. Most people know what happens in a divorce, and it wasn't fun, but Chuck was enjoying life. How do you leave your lover? Just take out the trash. Sometimes the trash objects to being taken out, but hey, sometimes it be like that.

I never did get that threesome with Lilly. I'm pretty happy with the twosome, though. The lush body of that sweetheart being the little spoon beside me keeps me from even dreaming about threesomes.