Vernon’s Valentines

The music stopped while the band flipped over their music sheets. All the dancers stood their ground, while several other couples walked on to take their places on the floor. It was a little more crowded. Teri dropped her voice even more as the music resumed.

"One day while he was in the shower, leaving me on the living room floor with a black eye and bleeding lip, I used his phone to call Mum, to tell her as best I could describe, where I was. Mum watched the flat for a day or two until she knew the lie of the land and the pimp's regular habits, so one morning as he opened the front door, she kicked him back into the room and beat him with my Dad's old cricket bat. When she saw the state of me and what he had done to me, I hadn't been able to leave the flat for days, she carried on beating him to death. We collected every evidence of my existence, wiped everything down and left that flat with no regrets. No-one ever caught up with us in the last nine and a bit years, and me and Josie still live quietly with Mum. But someone must've known who I was, someone who lived here and recognized my Mum and me recently. I've never said this story to anyone, Vern, but you're not just anyone. You won't say anything about what Mum did will you?"

"We've never had this conversation, Teri. I know your Mum as a straight stickler to the rules."

"Well, she was ex-military too, trains hard and can stick up for herself."

"Well, you and your Mum don't need to worry, Teri, with what I have on Harry Cox and the Mayor, it is in everyone's interest in keeping everyone's secrets."

The music was just ending again. The band leader announced that they were taking a break while the main meal was being served.

"Do you want to go to the room now, Vern?"

"No, let's enjoy the meal and, well, I'd love to dance with you some more."

"We just need to be careful how much we drink so you can drive home after you storm out."

They started the walk back to the table arm in arm.

"I have booked another room here, Teri, it's smaller than the one Cox booked but it's comfortable and no-one to spy on whatever we do or don't do. I dropped my overnight bag in there when I first arrived."

"So you knew this was a set-up?"

"I guessed. Look at me, Teri, nobody sends an old guy like me Valentine's Day cards or invites me to a ball and bedroom with all expenses paid and benefits thrown in."

"Don't sell yourself short, Vern, any girl would be grateful to have you, especially tonight, you look like James Bond, you smell so nice, and you have an air of confidence in how handsome you look without a hint of arrogance about you."

"And you seem more confident too," Vernon chuckled, "but I guess you could feel while we were dancing how I feel about you, so I apologise for that."

She giggled, "No need to be sorry, Vern, it is a great compliment and, even considering the awkward circumstances, I think I am going to enjoy tonight." She stopped him short of the edge of the dance floor and put her arms around his neck and ruffled the hair on the back of his head, kissed his smooth cheek and whispered in his ear, "I like what they did to your hair, Hon, so sexy. Is your room a double and would you like company later, whether it is a double or not?"

"Yes and yes." Vernon smiled, kissing her softly on the lips.

XXX

Aftermath

Vernon had suspicions for some time that he had a rival for his wife's affections. He was even more concerned when she was so distracted while he attempted to make love to her on Christmas Eve.

Then, during Christmas and New Year, a quiet time for Councillors, the trumped-up weekend course in London that she announced was too ridiculous for words. He started checking her appointments, scheduled council meetings and attendances being a matter of public record.

Looking to identify his rival was more difficult. He had his suspicions and a possible motive in Harry Cox, recognizing that while others in his department had been bribable, Vernon was adamant that he would never stoop so low. He had no way to find evidence until Denise announced her Valentine's weekend trip to London. Research online led him to the fish eye lens and he found it simple to fit the application and the device to her overnight bag. He just had to rely on luck of positioning or fall back on the microphone to provide the proof he needed to confront his wife and use her desire to cling to her public life reputation with a quiet uncontested divorce.

Denise knew nothing about the Valentine's cards, the cameras in Vernon's hotel room, or the blackmailed girl. When Denise told Harry Cox that it was all over between them that Saturday night, Cox told her exactly how much he had invested in both keeping her as a lover and attempting to retain Vernon as a puppet that he could pull the planning strings on, that she smacked him in the face.

Vernon's fish eye lens recorded the beating and vicious kicking that Cox meted out on poor Denise. As the recording of that short incident was included with his divorce papers, Denise was able to press charges, for which Cox received a sentence of three years at Her Majesty's Pleasure for GBH.

And it is a well-known fact that prisoners, and the screws which watch over them, do not approve of the casual beating up of females.

Cox's misery continued when Larry and Vernon's previous boss in the Borough Planning Department were each brought to trial for corruption, and building inspections on all Cox's buildings brought further charges for restitution and fines which bankrupted him and his business, shortly after Cox's ex-wife had taken him to the cleaners. Some of his building practices were so scandalous in ignoring statutory duties of care to users, purchasers and third parties, that another decade was added to his prison sentence, to run concurrently.

Denise lost her Borough Council seat in a landslide that May, so she never served a second term as Mayor. Her party also suffered from the collateral fallout, losing the comfortable majority they had held on the Council for many years. She miraculously held onto her Parish Council seat by a single vote, even after four nervous recounts; however, four years on, her party have removed her from the party ticket and she's uncertain whether she could afford to stand as an independent in the forthcoming Parish elections in May, especially as she was still estranged from any support from her daughters and ex-husband.

Cox's sworn testimony did prompt the Metropolitan Police to reopen an old murder case, but as there was no recorded proof that Teri ever spent any time in London, that Josie's DNA was a 0% match for either the deceased pimp or Cox, Hilda's cast-iron alibi that the week's holiday she took nine years earlier was spent with an ex-Army colleague in the Outer Hebrides, and that Cox was clearly a convicted cheat and liar, the old case was closed again just as swiftly as it was opened.

XXX

EPILOGUE

14 February five years later

"Ohh! Pretty pink envelope, Vern," Teri said, as she leaned over Vernon, who was sitting at his usual desk in the Planning Office, with her hands squeezing both his shoulders and her proud breasts nudging his back, "that's got to be a Valentine card. Surprised you've resisted the temptation this long to open it, sweetheart."

"You know I always wait until you're here so we can open my card together, Teri, my love, however late you are," Vernon smiled as he turned the unopened object over in his hands. "I'm ready to open it now you're here."

He looked around first, "Where's Jack, left him in your Mum's office?"

"Josie's got him in reception, he was getting fractious with his teething. I left him surrounded by a gaggle of all the girls from the office making a fuss of him."

"I wondered why the girls in this office disappeared together a few moments ago."

"Met them and, as usual, high-fived them on my way up the stairs."

Vernon opened the card, flowery with roses on the front, a loving message from his "Secret Loving Admirer" inside and noting the familiar three Xs on the back of the card. A voucher from a certain local Gentleman's Hairdresser fell out onto his desk as it opened.

"Thank you, Mrs Teri Harrison, I love you so much." He turned his chair and Teri plonked herself with a practised move smoothly onto his lap, put her arms around his neck and gave him a long, blistering kiss.

"Your hair's over the back of your collar, Hon, it's time you got it cut properly. Thank you for my anonymous Valentine's card this morning, you darling man, a full-treatment spa voucher for two. Josie was beside herself and took the morning off school."

"She's a teenager now, so is ready to appreciate the benefits of being a beautiful daughter of a beautiful Mum."

"Well, she got you a card, too." She rummaged in her bag and pulled out an envelope in a pastel shade.

He opened it. It was a sweet little card, featuring roses and a big heart. The printed card had been modified by hand to read, "[Thanks for] Be[ing] My [Mum's] Valentine" and had too many "X's" to possibly count. He couldn't help but smile and kiss his wife once more.

"Hurry home after work, my lovely." she breathed into his ear, "Jack and Josie are sleeping over with their grandmother, because my Valentine is going to get so lucky tonight!"

The end