Unhappily Ever After Bk. 01 Ch. 02-03

"There might be an opening coming up in the southwest corner of the city shortly if you know anyone who might be interested in doing a bit of gap-filling.

"It should be safe enough to return to get your cars once you finish those beers. And don't forget you have an appointment at ten o'clock tonight. I recommend you call an order in if you're planning on stopping to pick up Chinese on the way home. I suggest you get enough for two. My man Friday will be hungry, not having eaten since lunchtime.

"Oh, and two other things. First, your place is safe. And second, we don't have to send anyone on any cruises. Those videos you sent to your cloud account leave nothing to the imagination.

"I appreciate the urgency of this call," he said, "but next time, text."

I thanked Brad for the beer before telling him that it was safe for us to return to pick up our cars.

"Apparently, I panicked unnecessarily," I said. "Still, better to be safe... and all that jazz."

"Yeah, right," Brad said. "Aaron Bourke panicked. I'll believe that when.... Hang on. I can't even think of a scenario when I'd imagine you panicking."

"I guess I'm just getting a bit skittish now that I'm getting on in years," I said as we left the pub and headed back to retrieve our cars. "I may still feel ten-foot-tall, but I've come to realise that I'm no longer bulletproof."

"Sure," Brad responded. "Maybe you'll tell me the truth one day."

---oooBJSooo---

I was only a few minutes late arriving home.

After leaving, Brad, I'd called through an order to the Chinese restaurant that was located in the last suburb before leaving the city's built-up area. They had good food, and it was reasonably priced. There had been a time when Sam or I would call through an order to them on our way home if we were both running late.

I stopped the car at one point to send a cryptic text to Jim Freeman from my burner phone. "Heads-up appreciated," it said. "Nature abhors a vacuum. Opportunity knocks 225 degrees from your position.YKW." He was a smart man and would have no trouble understanding the meaning of my message. He would immediately know that a hole had opened up in the city's southwest corner and that he had been presented with a chance to expand his own 'area of influence'.

---oooBJSooo---

A big surprise awaited me at my front gate. Tommy's 'Man Friday' turned out to be a woman.

I couldn't get a good look at her in the harsh glare of my headlights, but as she lifted her backside from the rear of the charcoal-grey Porsche 718 Coupé that was parked in the bay beside my property entrance, I saw her silhouette. She stood about one-hundred and seventy-five centimetres (5'-10") tall and appeared to have an athletic figure.

She joined me as I exited my Chrysler and walked over to unlock the chains I'd set when I'd left. With me in the shadows and her in the light, I was able to get a better look at her. She was wearing a pair of cargo shorts and a polo shirt. Her feet were tucked into a pair of light hiking boots, but her shapely legs were bare.

She had wide hips, which narrowed to a thin waist. She then widened out, giving her an hourglass figure. From what I could see, she had firm, medium-sized breasts and a flat stomach. Everything I saw reinforced my first impression of athleticism.

It was her face that drew my attention, though. She wore very little makeup and was pretty rather than beautiful. But her lips were eminently kissable, her nose was straight and well-proportioned, and I felt sparks coming from her dark eyes. I couldn't tell their colour in this light, but her brown shoulder-length hair suggested they might also be brown.

She introduced herself as Charlotte Brown.

"But everyone calls me Charlie," she said. "...for obvious reasons."

"I'm Aaron Bourke," I replied, taking her extended hand. "But it appears I am known as Dumb and Dusted, a name I guess I've earned over the past eight or nine years."

"Not according to Tommy," she said as she released my hand. "According to him, you walk on water."

"I should have married him, then," I laughed.

I asked her to follow me up to the house and to run her car into Sam's old space in the garage. That would prevent us from being observed when, after we'd eaten and she'd completed her scan of the house, we could check the vehicles.

That plan changed when she stopped me before we made our way through the mudroom into the kitchen.

"When we get into the house," she whispered into my ear after pulling me down as if to give me a kiss. "I'll ask if I can use the powder room to tidy up. You tell me to use the one furthest from the kitchen. While you're unpacking the food, I'll conduct a quick scan of the kitchen, dining and living room.

"With that area cleared, we can eat and talk in peace. I'll do the rest of the house when we've finished dinner. Okay?"

All I could do was nod my head in agreement.

I had trouble regaining my balance when I stood to my full height after she released me. The blend of her personal scent and whatever perfume she wore had my head spinning. It wasn't strong. But it stimulated my senses beyond anything I'd ever experienced before.

I tried to rationalise it as being the result of having gone without the closeness of a woman for so long - it had been almost two months since I'd last slept with Sam; and much longer before that - but I had to admit it wasn't something I'd ever experienced, even with her.

After entering the house and deactivating the security system, I chattered away while I decanted the meal into bowls and placed them and a few plates on the kitchen bench. As we'd arranged, Charlie asked for directions to the bathroom.

While I took my time in the kitchen, she used her wand to search for any bugs. She didn't find any in the service and living areas, which was both a relief and a surprise. Perhaps I'd moved too fast for them. Maybe they thought they'd have plenty of time to set everything up after the coming-out party. Who knows?

After we'd eaten, I told her that the first thing she should check out was the surviving Chinese vase in the foyer at the front of the house. I had a sneaking suspicion that the destruction of one of the vases might have been a distraction. Bingo!

Obviously, toy-boy-cop had slipped a listening device into the second vase when Sam's act of wanton destruction had drawn my eyes away from him for the split second it took to drop the bug into the mouth of the second urn. Finding that bug had been based merely on supposition. But I knew what we would find when we checked out the master bedroom.

That they were only now starting to plant surveillance devices told me they were reacting to my moves. They hadn't seen the need to take a proactive approach before Friday night, thinking I would lie down and take whatever they decided to dish out. Now, however, they were playing catch-up.

In addition to those devices we found in the house, I had no doubt we'd find a GPS tracker on my car. I'd have to get Charlie to do a sweep on Brad's car, as well. I didn't want them targeting him. I made a mental note to talk to her about it.

For now, though, it was time to start stirring the possum.

"Follow my lead?" I whispered in her ear as we looked at the remains of the destroyed vase spread across the foyer's tiled floor. I hadn't bothered cleaning it up before heading into town.

She smiled and nodded her head.

I turned on my phone's voice recorder application.

"Now the slut is gone," I said in a conversational tone, "we no longer have to hide our relationship. You can stay over whenever you want to without us having to worry about her coming home early from one of her fuck-fests and catching us."

"Didn't she come back today, though?" Charlie asked.

"Yes, but that was the last time, and it was with a court order. She wanted to get her grubby little paws on her jewellery before I melted it all down; or that's what she told the fuckwit judge who issued the warrant. She brought a toy-boy cop with her to make it all legal."

"Did she break your beautiful vase while she was here? That surprises me. I'd have thought that if she wanted to maximise her take from you, she'd have been a little more protective of such a valuable piece."

"You'd have thought so, wouldn't you. Perhaps she didn't realise that a pair of Ching Dynasty vases in that condition was worth close to two hundred thousand dollars; maybe considerably more, the way the Chinese are currently buying back their national treasures.

"The thing is that they were made in pairs. That's their appeal. Only God knows what she's done to the value of the surviving one. My guess is that it's only worth a few thousand. That's a hell of a devaluation resulting from the sweeping arm of a vindictive corporate prostitute. I wonder if her fuck meister will see the funny side of it.

"But you never know. Perhaps Chinese vases are like postage stamps. The fewer there are in circulation, the more valuable they are to the right collector. Wouldn't it be funny if it turns out she's done me a favour? I wonder how she'd feel to know that her little temper tantrum has potentially turned a pair of vases valued at a couple of hundred thousand dollars into half a million.

I made a sweeping pantomime, which Charlie immediately picked up on.

"I'll get the broom and clean up the mess she's left behind," she said.

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing about doing it or leaving it, I agreed to let her have her own way. While retrieving the broom and a dustpan, I dug around in the cupboard and found a large glass beer jug.

As she swept up the debris, I kept warning her to keep away from the pedestal on the other side of the foyer.

Suddenly, it happened. Another vessel crashed to the floor. This time, however, it was the beer jug.

"Oh, my God!" I cried. "What have you done? I told you to stay well away from that other vase.

"Oh, my dear God!" I wailed as I tipped up the vase and retrieved the bug Sam and her cop had planted, dropping it on the floor. "That was going to be my get out of Dodge money, you stupid bitch. Now I've got nothing to fall back on if she decides to rape me in the divorce. I think you'd better leave."

"Please don't throw me out, my darling Aaron," Charlie played her part beautifully. "I love you. I don't care if we have to live in a hut on a beach somewhere. I'll stand by you. Just don't throw me out."

"I think you'd better go," I said. "I'll call you in a couple of days. In the meantime, give me the broom so I can clean this mess up."

"No, let me finish what I started?" she begged.

We feigned fighting over the broom until I stamped down hard on the bug.

The next thing we knew, we were in each other's arms, laughing our heads off. That devolved into a round of passionate kissing that became more intense the longer it lasted. Within minutes, we had moved from the foyer into the living room, where we were stripping each other's clothing from our bodies. While the standard processes applied to belts and zippers, little thought was given to buttons and clasps.

It was obvious that we were both hungry for the taste and feel of another body. Neither of us gave any thought to foreplay. I was as rampant as I have ever been in my life, and Charlie was wetter with her natural juices than Sam had been with a pussy full of her lover's cum.

We wasted no time. I threw her backwards over the arm of the settee. That put her at the ideal height for me to enter her without having to lift her or push her down. Because this was our first time - and because of my size - I tried to take it slowly. But Charlie was having none of that. She wrapped her legs around my hips and pulled me into her. She screamed through an intense and continuous orgasm during the whole time it took me to bury myself to the hilt.

After giving her a few minutes to adjust to my length and girth, she screamed again when I withdrew my penis from her exceedingly tight vagina. Her athleticism must have extended to her pubic muscles because she gripped me tightly all the way. I knew I wouldn't last long if she kept that up.

And I was right. It only took me five or six long slow strokes before I erupted, filling her with what felt like gallons of my sperm. That surprised even me. I didn't think I'd manage to hold out for that long. It had been a long time between drinks.

As we came down off our orgasmic high, Charlie told me it had been even longer for her. She had thrown a cheating fiancé out of her life a little over twelve months earlier. They had been in a relationship for five years, but he seemed to find it hard to take the final step. When she caught him cheating on her, she knew why. She had been so shattered after the breakup that she had sworn off sex for life.

"Tommy sent me out to do this job in the hope that it would help me gain a bit of perspective on things. When I learned what you'd been going through, my little drama seemed like a B-grade soap opera.

"A switch was thrown when I met you up at the gate, and I felt a connection with you that I'd never felt with anyone else. I thought I might play it cool for a while to see if anything came of it. You'll have noticed how well that plan worked out."

"I did notice your patience and admire your self-control," I said. "I felt that same spark and wanted to jump your bones as soon as I saw you lounging on the back of your Porsche. That's never happened to me before.

"I'd been trying to maintain the moral high ground during all this and had promised myself that I wouldn't even look longingly at another woman until this situation had played itself out. The next thing I knew, I was trying to find ways to get you to stay longer than it would take to sweep for bugs. If nothing else worked, I was even going to go out to the garage and let the air out of a couple of your tyres."

"You needn't have gone to those extremes," Charlie said. "Tommy sent me up here as your personal bodyguard. I'm with you 'til hostilities end and peace breaks out."

"You are aware that that might never happen," I responded.

"Que sera sera," she replied before pulling herself up and joining her lips to mine.

Before our passion took control again, I suggested we check for bugs in the private part of the house. I wanted to confirm that what I had seen in the master bedroom after Sam and her toy-boy cop's visit wasn't simply a dummy camera.

We both threw a minimum of clothing onto our bodies before heading for the bedroom wing. Charlie was wearing her shorts and a polo shirt that had been torn down the middle. It barely covered her permanently hard nipples, hanging as it did from her shoulders. I was wearing my trousers and had my shirt tucked in but open to the waist. It had no buttons. It appears that Charlie is not only athletic but is also quite strong.

I took her on a tour of the bedrooms, pointing out that the guest room would be hers for the duration of her stay. It was the room with its own ensuite. Not the one with the shared bathroom that Sam had been using.

"It has a lock on the door, just in case you're afraid of being raped and pillaged while you sleep," I told her.

"And what if I want to be raped and pillaged, and no one comes to do the job?" she asked.

"My bedroom is straight across the hall," I answered. "And now that Sam is gone, my door is never locked. Rape and pillage have suddenly gone to the top of my wishlist."

After getting a negative reading from all the other rooms, I took the bug detector from Charlie's hand and, after signalling for her to remain in the hallway, entered the master bedroom. I knew my audio-video cube would show up, so I went straight to it and, using sleight of hand, swapped out the data card while pretending I was checking to see that they hadn't removed it.

Knowing where they had located their camera, I ignored it and went in search of their transmitting unit. I knew it couldn't be too far away.

I found it in Sam's walk-in wardrobe. They had set up a small battery-powered WiFi modem on the floor beneath her shoe rack. After turning it off, I returned to the bedroom, where I removed and pocketed their camera's data card. I then took their cube to the kitchen and pulverised it with a meat tenderiser.

Charlie saw me smiling as I swung the mallet.

"You look like I imagine Wile E. Coyote would look if she ever caught the Road Runner," she said. "What have you done now?"

"I've just poked another stick into their hornet's nest," I answered.

I then told her about letting them see that their actions earlier in the day had been recorded on a device I had set up before making a production of discovering their bug.

"They now know I have evidence of the existence of the DVDs. "They're not going to like that and will want to retrieve the card they think is still in my surveillance camera." As I was talking, I removed my data card from my pocket and put it into the plastic case that had held the replacement card. I then added their card to the case. I planned on dropping both cards off with Tommy when I next saw him.

"Oh, and by the way, Wile E. Coyote is a 'he', not a 'she'.

"I beg to differ," Charlie said. "Only a real bitch could be conniving enough to come up with the stuff she does."

"That may be true," I said. "But only a male could be stupid enough to try the same thing time and time again and expect a better outcome.

"You might be closer than you think when you refer to me as Wile E. Coyote, though. I might end up with an anvil on my head - or tied to my feet - before this little campaign is ended."

We fell into each other's arms as we laughed at what was, at best, a mediocre joke. Mediocre or not, however, I had never had this same rapport with Sam. Charlie and I had proven that we were on the same wavelength when we played the scene in the foyer. That fact was reinforced by the ease with which we could pick up on each other's repartee.

I could feel our bodies responding to our closeness and had to push her away before we proceeded down our earlier path. There were jobs that still needed to be done before we could relax.

"Back off, woman," I said, pushing her away from me. "You're like a cat on heat. I've only got to look at you with lust in my heart, and you start purring.

"How about you go out to the garage to get your bag while I get some coffee on the go. We've got a few things to talk about before we settle down for the night.

"Oh, and while you're about it," I added, throwing her my car's electronic door lock, "you might like to run your magic wand over my car to see if anyone has fitted it with a locator. If they had any brains, I'm sure this afternoon's would-be assassins would have ensured they could find me if they failed."

"Wait!" Charlie exclaimed. "What would-be assassins?"

"That's something I want to talk to you about before you become too deeply bogged down in the mire that is my life at the moment," I said. "We'll talk about it over coffee once you're finished in the garage."

It took me only a moment to get the water on the boil and coffee in the plunger. In another couple of minutes, I had two mugs, a sugar bowl and a jug of milk on a tray, ready to take into the living room.

With everything ready, I pulled out my burner phone and texted Tommy. "You're a bastard," it said. "But thank you, Bro. Charlie is just what I needed." I ended with an idiot-faced emoji and three hearts.

"You're welcome," his response came back almost immediately. "You're a matched set. But I didn't expect the fireworks to start so soon."

"The fireworks started as soon as I met her at the gate," I answered. "But our behaviour remained appropriate for about an hour. After that... well?"