The Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth

Sarah was Jane's best friend and had been told the same story her mother and father had. Jane tried ringing her on Wednesday and Thursday, but the calls weren't answered. Finally, on Thursday evening, the night before the party, Jane left a message that she and her new beau would be attending. When Jane went to check for a response Friday morning, she couldn't find her phone. Peter pulled it from a crack in the sofa when he arrived home that night just before rushing off to get ready for the party and the chore of winning over Jane's friends. If she'd looked at Peter's face during the exchange, she may have deduced that he was hiding something. He'd taken Jane's phone away that day to get his IT people to install some spyware on it.

If Jane had checked the messages on it, she may have been spared the embarrassment to come.

They rushed to Sarah's place, arriving about half an hour after the usual start time. It was only two blocks, but they took Peter's Bentley. He opened the door for Jane, resplendent in her new designer dress. Nothing flash but nonetheless costing the equivalent of the clothing budget for an average family for an entire year. Jane had spent most of the day choosing it and several others with the help of Peter's credit card.

Arm in arm, they strolled past two men having a smoke outside the front door. Neither had been close to Jane and Dave, so Jane merely nodded at them before stepping into the house. As it was a cool evening, the action was in the lounge and kitchen rather than the outside entertainment area. Jane led Peter in only to be greeted by a rapidly expanding silence.

Laughter, hubbub, conversations, and smiles, all stopped in the space of about five seconds. All eyes stared at the new arrivals. John glanced towards the kitchen just as his wife, Sarah, appeared from it. Her easy smile quickly morphed into an expression of annoyance.

Quickly marching over, she hissed, "Didn't you get my text?"

"No, my phone went missing today. What's wrong?"

John stepped up beside his wife for support, as she spoke.

"John and I saw Dave in the park across from your place two days ago. He told us a totally different story to the bullshit you told me. Then I went to see your mum and dad. If you'd read the text I sent, you would know that I and everyone else here want nothing to do with a lying, traitorous bitch who would put her own needs so cruelly before those of her husband and family, who would treat him worse than a rabid dog. And all in order to trade up. We don't want you here, Jane. Please leave."

Jane was stunned. These were her friends. In shame and anger, she looked away from Sarah and around the room. Without exception, every returned gaze was filled with condemnation. She suddenly felt very, very alone. Humiliated, she turned and bolted back out the door with Peter in her footsteps.

Halfway to the gate, she stopped. Peter almost collided with her. Her whole body was trembling as rage took over her being. She turned and tersely ordered Peter to stay where he was, then stormed past smoker's corner and back through the door.

Striding two paces into the lounge, she waited until she had everyone's attention before snarling, "Fuck you all. I'll wave from my Ferrari when I pass you in the street from now on. I'm in clover from here on in, and if Dave has to suffer for me to do that then so be it. If that means I have to fake a few orgasms along the way, then that's a small price to pay."

With that bridge well and truly alight, she turned and strode back out, pushing past the two smokers crowding the doorway, before marching past a silent Peter to the car. Reaching it, she looked back and saw Peter still facing the house.

Peter was trying to assimilate what he'd just heard. As instructed, he'd stayed on the path outside while Jane said her piece and was thus out of hearing range. However, just before she stomped back out, the smoker further outside the door asked the one leaning in, "What did she say?"

"I think she just committed social suicide, and then she said something about faking orgasms with the new guy."

At that point, they'd scattered as one enraged woman stormed past them.

Peter was left wondering how to interpret the bit about faking orgasms. Apart from the obvious one, that is. But surely Jane wouldn't have meant that he failed to satisfy her sexually. She couldn't be that good an actress, could she? Maybe the men had made that bit up to have a go at him out of loyalty to Dave. Yes, that must be it.

A niggle of doubt remained, though. It joined his new distrust of Jane in working its way deep into his system. Distracted, neither spoke until they were at Jane's home, then she ran to the bedroom and wept another part of her old life away. Peter cuddled her to sleep again. Neither noticed the children quietly returning home from wherever they'd spent their Friday night.

CHAPTER 5

Peter knew how important friends were to women, they were definitely the more social half of the human race. He spent the next morning arranging for all his friends to attend an afternoon barbecue at his house. He had to pay a premium for short-notice caterers, but it was done. Jane perked up a little at the news. She'd met a couple of Peter's friends, but her upbeat mood didn't last for long. Attempts to get the kids interested failed as they all had plans for the day already.

They drove to the mansion and while Peter checked all the arrangements, Jane eagerly explored the vast house again. She sat on the huge, overstuffed leather lounge suite in the vast, opulent entertainment room, with the almost cinema screen-sized TV and sighed in contentment. Pulling her handbag toward herself, she extracted from her wallet the two cards Peter had given her that morning, a platinum credit card and a debit card to his main household account. Dreams of what these represented almost made her forget the trail of bodies behind her. Almost.

Peter's friends and their wives began arriving. Jane was a little self-conscious, partly because most of the wives spoke with a much classier accent than she did, and partly because, while the dress she was wearing was more expensive than she'd ever bought before, it paled next to most of the others. Peter introduced her as the love of his life, and the other women seemed excited to welcome her into the circle. Just about all of them asked for her number and promised to invite her to this or that, while ignoring the fact their husbands were trying to look down her cleavage. She politely bent the truth when questioning became personal.

The caterers did a mighty job, and the food was first class. The champagne and wine flowed in rivers. As usual at parties, once everyone was there, they segregated into the sexes. Jane was mildly bored with the inanity of the conversations in the women's group. How she longed for the deep and meaningful conversations she used to have with Sarah. They'd share a bottle of wine and put the world to rights. That caused her smile to fade. Sarah was going to be hard to replace.

Jane subtly eavesdropped on the men's conversation, but it was no more interesting. Perhaps even less as it was all business. By three hours in, she'd identified three or four of the women she might try to pursue a friendship with.

Peter, still feeling off-balance by his niggling doubts and troubled by his conscience, drank more than he usually did. He reached that magic point where his befuddled mind thought he would have even more fun drinking further still. He was loudly holding court among his friends, too far away for Jane to hear what he was saying. She became aware of several members of his audience turning to look at her. Some of the wives noticed this as well and drifted toward him, curious to discover what he was saying.

As soon as was polite, Jane wandered over as well. She was just in time to hear, "I tell you, the loser didn't deserve someone of Jane's quality. Once she'd dumped him, do you know what the fucking no-hoper did? Became a tramp. I'm not kidding. A tramp. Just gave up. I guess the old saying is true. Sloth is the key to poverty." Peter laughed. "Jane's a good girl, though, she didn't go running back to him out of pity, she stuck with me. She knows which side of her bread is buttered. It was kind of amusing though this week. While he was rooting through the bins in a park, looking for his next meal, I was rooting his wife in a five-star resort in Thailand."

Peter's laughter was met with silence. It seemed to expand and finally got through Peter's buzzing brain. He looked around until he spotted Jane standing like a statue, with a look of utter devastation on her face. He sobered up instantly as a replay of his recent words scrolled across his brain.

Jane looked from him to his audience. She saw the increasingly condemning looks, particularly from the women. While some had made compromises to ensure their comfortable existences, none of them had wreaked such devastation doing it. Those that weren't staring at Jane were giving Peter equally sour looks.

Jane turned and bolted. Peter gave chase and dragged her into a cloakroom near the front door. Jane ripped into him along the lines of, you've won, why humiliate the guy even further? She was starting to realise what an insensitive prick her new partner was capable of being; how friendless her immediate future was; and, not for the first time, thought she may have made an enormous mistake.

Her new 'friends' never did call her.

Peter had to remain for his own damage control but failed to convince Jane to stay. When he was sure he hadn't ruined their relationship, he gave her the keys to his top-of-the-range BMW SUV and promised to meet her on Sunday. They'd agreed for her to bring her children to the mansion to attempt to seduce them with his wealth. He'd arranged for his children to be there as well. Fiona with her husband, Mike, and eight-month-old baby girl, and Brent. Mike was another high-flying business executive and Fiona had chosen to give up her career to be a stay-at-home mum. Getting Brent to attend was a simple matter of asking him to be awake by midday.

CHAPTER 6

Peter was a little non-plussed when Jane and the children arrived in her old station wagon rather than the BMW. Jane looked miserable, and the children were very reluctant to get out of the car. Peter greeted them all and explained to the kids where the pool was. They sauntered off. Peter looked askance at Jane, who buried her head in his shoulder, sobbing. When she quieted down, Peter questioned where the Beamer was.

"Oh, Peter, it was awful. I offered to let Bart drive over here on his L-plates and said that you might buy him one like it for his eighteenth birthday, like you suggested. He... he said, 'He may have bought you, Mother, but it will be a cold day in hell when I let him buy me.' Then he and the others went and sat in the station wagon. I'm scared stiff that I've lost them forever. Can't we get the restraining and freeze orders removed and let Dave see the kids?"

"I'll think about it," Peter said, knowing he was deflecting. He had no intention of softening his stance. The situation would just have to be toughed out.

It wasn't a disastrous start to the day. Jane's kids loosened up a little around the pool and the baby. Brent showed up but didn't interact. Fiona stayed for the catered dinner, but Mike had to leave early; something about a meeting. Fiona's eyes followed her husband out the door, her expression strange enough to draw Peter's attention. He sidled up to her, asking what was on her mind. She told her father that this was the third Sunday in a row her husband claimed he had a meeting, which, with other abnormal behaviours, made her suspect he might be having an affair.

Mike had been a business colleague of Peter's before he introduced him to Fiona. Although Mike was ten years her senior, Peter had endorsed the match. He couldn't believe, or possibly couldn't allow himself to believe, that Mike was doing the dirty on his daughter and granddaughter. In a quiet huddle, he asked Fiona if she and Mike had shared find-a-phone apps on each other's cells. Cursing herself for not thinking of that, Fiona admitted they had and handed her phone, unlocked, to her father; eyes pleading for him to prove her gut feeling wrong.

When he whispered his plan to Jane, she asked to accompany him and, welcoming all the alone time with her he could get, he agreed. Fiona was happy to look after Jane's tribe as they frolicked in the pool. Peter and Jane jumped in her station wagon, much less conspicuous than his Bentley, and raced off.

The directions the app gave them were only halfway across town, and Peter's heart sank as they got closer and closer to the area of cheap motels near the airport. The function finally told them they'd reached their destination when they were outside one of them. Peter asked Jane to pull into the carpark around the back. There was Mike's car, large as life, outside room 120. Jane backed into a vacant spot on the opposite side of the quad, just as a little Renault, a car Peter thought of as a pregnant roller-skate, pulled in beside Mike's.

Peter's stomach knotted when a young woman, who he recognised as Mike's PA, stepped out, and walked straight to the door of room 120. She paused, taking a moment to adjust her cleavage. Jane flinched. She'd performed the same action many times during her affair with Peter. Bosom now high and proud, the PA raised her hand and knocked. Peter and Jane were halfway out of the car before the room door opened. They both had a good view of Mike kissing the new arrival and not in a 'they're-just-friends' way either.

Peter was livid. Jane held back at the car as Peter strode toward the embracing couple. The latter sprang apart at Peter's roar across half the carpark.

"You back-stabbing, unfaithful little cunt. How could you treat my daughter like this? When she's given you nothing but love and the greatest little girl in history."

Jane decided to chase after him for no other reason than to stop Peter from ending up in gaol for assault. He was clearly that angry. Mike broke his embrace when he heard the shout and stepped between his PA and the irate advancing man. His mind immediately jumped into crisis mode.

With no response from his target, Peter kept talking. "And you, Melissa, didn't you get married last year? What would your husband say if he knew his slut wife was meeting this shithead in a sleazy motel, huh? Would he be happy if he found out?"

Peter stopped three paces away from the boldly standing Mike and his cowering assistant, waiting for an answer to his questions. Mike had always found attack the best means of defence. His response came just as Jane caught up with her partner.

"You should know, Dad. Was your slut's husband happy when he found out you were boning her?" Mike indicated Jane with a flick of his head. "You're not really in a position to lecture me on morality, are you?"

Jane was stunned as the accuracy of those questions brought home her own situation. She had been outraged along with Peter when she saw Mike's PA arrive, dressed to fuck. Fiona would be devastated by the news. But Mike's simple words had thrown in her face the fact that she'd been the cause of her own outrage not that long ago. Sure, Dave hadn't caught her like this, but her betrayal of him was as obvious as that in front of her now. Once again, she caught the tiniest glimpse of what she'd done, and it severely dented her self-image as a decent person.

Peter stood rooted to the spot with his mouth opening and closing. The knowledge that he'd surrendered any moral high ground he ever had robbed him of the power of speech. He turned toward Jane, desperate for some reassurance that he was a fundamentally nice guy, but her head was hung low. She had her own demons to fight. By the time he turned again, Mike and his assistant had disappeared behind the closed motel door.

Peter and Jane were lost in their own thoughts on the drive back to his place. On arrival, Jane quietly rounded up her kids and left. Peter braced himself to tell his daughter the bad news. He was still consoling her at 9:00 p.m. when two child services officers knocked on the door with an order to temporarily remove the baby to a foster home. Mike had launched a coordinated attack, obviously pre-planned, with the goal of getting custody of his daughter. He'd accused Fiona of being an unfit mother. Only the intervention of her father's powerful legal team stopped disaster that night. It did distract them long enough, though, for Mike to complete the wrapping up of their joint finances and obtaining restraining orders, preventing Fiona from going home.

Like many people subject to such an assault, Fiona felt violated. She was learning and having to assimilate all sorts of new stuff, while her husband had obviously been thinking about them long and hard for some time and was well prepared.

Peter never did see the irony of the situation. Mike had done to Fiona, pretty much exactly what Peter himself had done to Jane's husband. In fact, Mike had drawn some of his inspiration from his father-in-law's example.

Whatever, it was after 11:00 p.m. that Peter was able to text Jane that until it was all sorted out, he would stay in his house with his daughter, for support. Peter's lawyers had stressed how important it was for Jane to remain resident in the family home, so it seemed they would be forced apart for the foreseeable future.

Jane did recognise the similarity in situations between Fiona and her David and hoped Peter's daughter didn't suffer the same mental collapse as her husband did. There was an element of selfishness in her hope. Certainly, she didn't wish that level of anguish on anyone, but Fiona's need would keep Jane away from her only source of emotional support. None was coming from her children. And definitely none from her parents or former friends. No one. No one except Peter. She tried to put the growing resentment of Fiona aside to allow sleep. She was on the brink of succeeding after two hours when the sound of the garage roll-a-door going up and down three times made her scream into her pillow. She'd had the damn thing re-programmed, for fuck's sake.

Consequently, when Peter visited the next day and saw what a state she was in, and with the best of intentions, suggested they all move into his place that night, Jane snapped his head off. She railed at him for putting her eventual custody of her children at risk, just so he could stay with his precious daughter, who was old enough to look after herself. It was a shrewish side of Jane that Peter had never seen, and it shocked him to the quick. He did love her, though, and after Jane's wheedling to him for over an hour on the phone that night, she was sure they were back on track.

CHAPTER 7

Fiona would eventually win her legal battle, but it was many weeks of distraction for Peter. Weeks where Jane had to fend for herself. Peter had managers to run most aspects of his business and spent the bulk of his free time with Fiona. For her part, Fiona had negative associations with Jane. She didn't want to be reminded that her precious father was capable of the same level of deceit and ruthlessness as her estranged husband. Consequently, she resisted most of her father's attempts to either invite Jane around or all go out together.

Peter took to ringing Jane on her home phone every few hours to check she was where she was supposed to be. He still refused to have a PI set on her. When she didn't answer the phone during the school day, he'd ring her cell. She was usually at some boutique or other, doing a little retail therapy with the aid of his credit card. Sometimes, he'd casually ask where she was and then surprise her with a visit. Or just pop in and observe her shopping on her own. Once, he arrived just in time to see her leaving a fashion clothing shop. Next door was a café with outdoor seating. Two women were seated at the table nearest to the boutique's entry. He saw recognition dawn on their faces when they saw Jane. He couldn't hear what they said but assumed it was a snide joke by the looks on their faces and their laughter. Peter turned his gaze to Jane and saw her glance at them, then put her head down and march off with the bags containing her new purchases banging against her legs, such was the force of her swinging arms. Hiding her devastation at being a woman without a friend behind layers of new clothes.