What A Turn Up

What was the point? What was there to talk about? My marriage was over – finished! They just didn't seem to have realised that yet. They imagined in their own little world that it could all be worked out.

"Do what you want to Fred," I replied steadily. "Do what you want with her --- But I'm having our main bedroom tonight, so you can do whatever you damn well want."

As I turned around to make my way sadly back up to our, sorry, my bedroom, I heard Dawn cry out. "Tom please ---please --- please try to understand."

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Half an hour later, unable to sleep, I heard the door to the spare room closing. At that moment, I neither knew nor cared whether they had gone to bed together or not. I lay awake for several hours, trying to make some sense of my present and my future.

I suddenly remembered my lovely daughter, sound asleep in the bedroom next door, unaware of quite how her world was about to be torn apart. I felt like crying, but couldn't as I was too worn out. What the hell was going to happen in the morning?

An idea!

A stupid idea. The most stupid idea in the world, but who cared?

I got up, quietly got dressed, and put a few things into an overnight bag. Then I made my way into my beautiful daughter's room, and carefully lifted her out of her bed. I grabbed a few things for her, I knew not what, and carefully crept out of the room with her in my arms. I passed the door that the other two were behind, the only sound being the soft sobbing of my wife. At least they weren't having sex!

Out of the house and to my car. Carefully start it, and drive slowly away.

Where was I going, I had no idea.

There were certainly no hotels open at that time of night around us, and I certainly couldn't wake my parents or any friends up.

But that wasn't the point of my action, not my intention at all.

I knew that my marriage with Dawn was probably finished. If she'd had some casual affair, or slipped up at a party or something, then who knows --- I might, just might have been able to forgive and forget. But she loved him! She told me that she loved him. What on earth was all that about? How could she? How long had it been going on?

No, it was finished even though I knew I still loved Dawn. I simply wasn't prepared to share her. But I did want my daughter, and though I knew I couldn't actually run off with her like that, I wanted Dawn to suffer. I wanted her to wake up in the morning and discover that I'd disappeared in the night. That would no doubt panic her, but when she found out that I'd taken Marge with me, and then she'd go absolutely barmy.

Cruel, but why not? As I said, I just wanted her to suffer. To see how it felt. She was due that.

I only drove up the road a few miles and pulled over into a lay-bye, where I parked. After checking that the little one was comfortable and warm for the night laid out on the back seat, I settled down myself to wait for the morning. I didn't expect to sleep, but I did.

I woke with the larks, and spent the next half hour peering over the back seat at my sleeping daughter, wondering what would become of us. How was I to Know?

As I expected, about seven in the morning, my mobile phone started to ring. They weren't that common back in those days and I hadn't long had it. To me, even the ring tone sounded in a panic, and I just let it ring.

I decided to wait till the little one woke up, till I answered Dawn. During the next hour or more, the phone rang constantly, and I kept turning it off.

At last Marge started to show signs of waking up, and the next time the phone rang I took the call.

"Hello Dawn," I answered.

"Where the hell are you Tom," she cried into the phone. "Where's Marge? What have you done with her?" I smiled. There was panic in her voice.

"She's OK Dawn," I answered. "She's with me."

By then Dawn was crying, as she implored me to bring her back. "Please, please Tom, bring Marge back home --- Please don't do anything silly."

"What would I do silly Marge," I demanded. "Would you do anything silly?"

At that Dawn just dissolved into floods of tears, bawling at me over the phone, though I couldn't make out what she was saying. I listened. Maybe I had made my point.

"Tom," came the voice of Fred, having obviously taken the phone over from my wife. "Stop messing about mate. Just bring the kid home will you please?"

"Course I will Fred," I responded. "I only took her for a little drive, and we're not far away." I wasn't going to let them know what or why I had really done it.

"Thanks Tom," he came back. "Come back --- We really need to talk."

"Where are we Daddy?" asked my sleepy headed daughter from the back seat.

"We've just been out for a little drive sweetheart," I answered her.

"Where's Mummy?" She asked.

"She's with Uncle Fred, I told her quite honestly.

"Oh ---OK."

Oh the innocence of childhood.

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Twenty minutes later, I pulled up outside my house, and Dawn came running out. She grabbed Marge from me, and went to say something to me. She changed her mind, took two steps away back to the house, and then turned back.

"I love you Tom. I'm so sorry for trying to trick you last night, and I'm so sorry about Fred. Please believe that I love you though. Despite everything, I've never stopped loving you."

I believed her. I knew she loved me, but couldn't understand or accept her involvement with Fred. I'd thought about it while I'd been sitting there waiting for Marge to wake up, and had more or less got my thoughts in order. I didn't want to lose my daughter whatever happened. That was paramount. I didn't want to lose Dawn for that matter. She'd been my girl friend for nearly half my life. I'd take a stand! If Dawn was prepared to give Fred his marching orders, then I'd be prepared to try and work it out. It wouldn't be easy, but I'd keep my family together, and I couldn't believe that Dawn would choose Fred, rather than her real family.

What would I do about Fred? No idea, and I didn't have the capacity to worry about him.

With some confidence, feeling that I had gained the upper hand just a little, I entered my house, nodding to Fred when I saw him. I didn't have anything that I wanted to say to him at that moment, and I certainly wasn't going to make small talk with him. This was between Dawn and I, though I couldn't give a damn if he listened in.

Dawn gave our daughter her breakfast, and got her ready for school, while Fred went back to the pub and picked up his car. Without being said, it was accepted by all, that we would wait to talk till Marge had left. A friend of Dawn's arrived to pick up our daughter, it being her turn to do the run, and with Fred back, we all sat down facing one another. Dawn took great care I noticed not to favour either of us when she chose where to sit.

Dawn started. "I can't tell you honey how sorry I am for last night. I don't know what we were thinking. But I do love you dearly, and always have done. Is there some way we can make this work?"

"How long has it been going on?" I asked.

They glanced at one another, as if for confirmation before Dawn answered. "A long time Tom. I'm sorry but quite a long time."

"How long?" I repeated my question.

"Several years," was the only answer I got.

Bloody hell, that long? We'd been living a lie all that time. I saw no point in messing around any longer, and laid out my terms. That as Marge's father I had rights over her and I would never give her up. Unless Dawn was prepared to send Fred packing, then I would divorce her and apply for custody of Marge.

"Not quite that easy Tom," butted in Fred.

"I'd thank you to keep your nose out of our business Fred," I snarled at him. "This is between my wife and I, and we are discussing my daughter and our future together."

"You'd better tell him or I will have to," said Fred to Dawn with a sigh.

"I can't!" she mumbled.

"You've got to," he encouraged her. "Or I will."

"Tell me what?" I demanded, needing to know what they were talking about.

"Tom," Dawn started, then hesitated before carrying on. She looked as if she had aged ten years since last night. "Tom, it's not that straightforward --- You're not Marge's father ---- Fred is!."

Oh God NO!

-------------------

I think I collapsed. I know I was sick on the floor.

I came to my senses several hours later, but wasn't able to continue our talk till later that night.

Dawn explained how that night five years ago, when I had been thrown out of the club, Fred had indeed taken her home that night, but when she'd broken down crying half way home he'd stopped to comfort her. She was well pissed off with me, and one thing led to another. He'd consoled her, cuddled her, and that had led to a kiss of course, and before they knew it they were embracing one another passionately. Fred, both older and far more experienced with women than me, had got carried away, and seduced her. And being far more experienced than me, Dawn had loved making love to him. Compared to my pathetic efforts a couple of weeks earlier, Fred must have seemed like some incredible lover to a young girl like her. That was why she had been so cool with me for several weeks afterwards, when she was seeing Fred regularly, and he was fucking her half to death.

"We didn't mean it to happen Tom," Fred told me. "But it did and we couldn't stop it."

All Dawn could say was how sorry she was, and I was getting well pissed off with that.

"So why marry me Dawn? Why did you say the baby was mine?" I had to know

"When I missed my period I told my Mum, and she forced me into admitting that I'd had sex. She naturally assumed that it was you Tom, and in fact of course we had."

"More or less," I interjected miserably, but Dawn chose to ignore it.

"By the time I found out that the doctor had confirmed that I was pregnant, it was too late. My parents had already talked to your Mum and Dad, and they'd already decided the best thing was for us to get married as quickly as possible."

I nodded my head. I remembered it well.

"Remember how young we both were then Tom. I didn't have the nerve to tell my parents that their sweet teenage daughter had been having sex with two different guys. It would have killed them. So, I just went with the flow. It was easier, and besides Tom, I really did love you, whereas at the time, I only wanted Fred for the sex he gave me."

"But you're sure Fred was Marge's father." I appealed to her, hoping for the impossible.

Dawn smiled at me as if I was a child myself. "Tom, be sensible. You'd been inside me once for a few seconds, and had hardly penetrated me, and worn a condom. Fred had been screwing me ten, twenty times a week for two or three weeks, never used protection, the bloody fool, and filled me up with cum so many times I could have floated off in it."

It's not really what I wanted to hear.

"Besides," added Fred. "Marge is the spitting image of my mother."

"What about a blood test?" I was still hanging on for all I was worth.

They both shook their heads. They had long since covered that possibility.

Oh shit!

"I didn't know anything about it till it was announced you were getting married," Fred took up the story. "I just assumed you'd been having sex with Dawn all along. She didn't seem to be able to get enough at the time."

"Fred," interrupted Dawn. "It's difficult enough for Tom as it is. Don't rub it in."

"Sorry Tom," he continued. "Didn't want to belittle your abilities, but as I said, at the time I was happy to be out of it. Had my fun and dodged the bullet as it were."

"And I got your bullet then," I sighed unhappily.

"So when did you two take up again," I queried. I was hurt enough already and felt I might as well get it over with.

The two of them looked long at one another, making it obvious that what I was about to hear, wasn't going to be good. Dawn put her head in her hands, and started sobbing again, and waved at Fred to carry on.

"Oh hell Tom, I hate telling you this," he at last spitted out. "Sorry mate I feel awful about it, but when Dawn was out on her hen night, the night before you got married, I bumped into them all at a pub in town, and .... Well .... Well we went out to my car."

He simply shrugged his shoulders, unable to tell me the rest.

"It was supposed to be a final goodbye fuck," Dawn chipped in between sobs. "You and I had made love several times by then, and you had got better, but you weren't like Fred. I just needed his cock one more time before I settled down with you Tom."

"Now who's rubbing it in Dawn," Fred added.

"Sorry Tom, but that's the way it was. You have got much better, much better, nearly as good as Fred here. But at the time ...?"

"Thanks a bundle for the vote of confidence," was all I could get out.

"That's when Dawn told me that the baby was mine," continued Fred. "Once Marge was born, then I had to see her, and once I held her, then I knew I had to be part of her life, and became Uncle Fred."

"And my wife's regular lover," I finished for him.

They both looked sadly at me, not having to confirm what I had said.

"What are you going to do Tom," asked my wife. "Can you forgive me --- forgive both of us? Is there any way we can work this out between us Tom. I still love you dearly, but now I have feelings for Tom, and ... well .... He is Marge's real father."

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There wasn't any way of course.

I was too hurt and humiliated to even try. Dawn didn't dare make the offer to sleep with me that night, and I didn't care to ask. She naturally went off to bed with Fred, who seemed to have taken up permanent and principal residence.

I still loved Marge, and even Dawn for that matter, but too much had happened. Too much water under the bridge. I took Marge for one last play around the local park the next morning, and it broke my heart, her so happy and playful, and me knowing that it would be the last time that I would be playing the part of her father. I told her that I would be going away for a while, but promised her that I would come back and play a big part in her life some time in the future. But of course she had no idea what I was talking about. She just giggled and cuddled up to me, asking me to swing her one more time.

I took her back to her mother and new father, told them I forgave both of them, and left. I never went back to work, and I suppose Fred told them I wouldn't be back. I never even picked up my last wage packet, and hoped that somehow Dawn would get it.

The house was rented, and I took a few hundred pounds from our savings and left the rest for her. I never even took the car, old that it was, but packed a small bag, a bit more sensibly this time, and walked out of the door. I declined to kiss Dawn goodbye when she tried to, not for any reason other than I couldn't face the heartbreak. She was upset. Very upset, and cried all the morning. I'm not sure that it helped.

I did however shake hands with Fred, and told him to look after my family. He broke down as well, and I only managed to hold back my tears till I'd turned the corner at the end of my street. I'd still have to let my parents know what was happening, but that was for some time later, and I was sure that Dawn would give them some suitable story, and wouldn't stop them from seeing Marge, who they obviously loved.

They were recruiting Bricklayers for Germany, which was booming at the time, and I went for an interview in North London. My papers were acceptable, and they put me, like all the others to a test, to prove that I could really lay bricks. I'd only laid twenty or so, when they stopped me and said they'd seen enough, and indicated that that they'd take me. The other five guys there were still busy on their practice walls when I'd packed up my stuff and left, and I never saw any of them in Germany.

Germany was hard work but fun, and I gradually came back into the world of the living, not forgetting my lost family, but trying to find other things to replace the huge whole they had left. Most of the women I went with were prostitutes, hardly having time available to seek out single women. Then one night after about three or four years I met Helga. I'd paid for her of course, and paid well, Helga being a beautiful twenty-one year old, who was quite up market compared to most of the women me and my new mates normally went with.

Helga took a liking to me, and I never had to pay again. In fact I never paid for any women again, and I do mean never. Though younger than me, Helga taught me how to please a woman while she pleased me, and we stayed together as a couple of sorts for a couple of years. Me going off to my building site every morning, and her going to check who she was booked to have sex with that day.

Well it worked for me!

Then Helga, bless her, struck lucky, and one of her rich clients fell in love with her. It happens! Helga couldn't miss the opportunity to marry such a rich man, even really quite liking him, and I couldn't begrudge her, her freedom.

We parted friends, and I decided that I was at last ready to go back to the UK permanently, not being able to face up to the prospect of going and finding a new hooker that I fancied.

Of course I'd saved a packet during that time, my living expenses in Germany being very low, and my pay very high. I arrived back in the UK, wondering what I would do with the rest of my life. A couple of years previously, when back in the UK, I'd arranged to see young Marge. As I suspected, Dawn and Tom had allowed my Mum and Dad enfettered access to her, and they were still just like another set of Grandparents to her, so I didn't lack news of what was going on. The meeting took place at my parents, but when I arrived, both Dawn and Fred were there. It was the first time I'd seen either of them since the day I'd walked out of the house. Dawn came up as if to kiss me, but I pulled back. I hadn't done it on purpose, and it was simply a normal reaction. It upset her however, and we never spoke another word to one another during my visit. They allowed me to take Marge, then perhaps seven years old, round to the park where we had last played with one another.

"When are you coming home Daddy?" She asked me innocently.

"I'm not your Daddy now sweetheart," I told her, fighting to keep the tears back.

"Yes you are my Daddy," She insisted. "Mummy and Daddy always tell me that you will always be my other Daddy."

Oh God --- I couldn't stand it!

The rest of the visit passed in a whirl, and when I took her back to my parent's place, Dawn had gone home upset, unable to face me again. As I left, I shook Fred's hand and wished them all well, and told him to look after Dawn and Marge. His eyes were misty when I left, and I think he knew that I'd decided never to see any of them again. It was just too difficult. Too emotionally hurtful. I decided then and there that I had my own life to lead, and involving myself in there's would get me nowhere.

So, when I returned to good old Blighty, I was a free agent, and I soon found myself working on a large construction contract up near Doncaster, where I got a job as a foremen bricklayer.

Then I met someone who was to change my life!

No it wasn't a woman, but a man, and don't jump to the wrong conclusions. Mick was a young highly qualified Civil engineer, a year or so younger than I was, and we became the best of friends. Mick was a guy with a burning ambition to move up in the world. He'd come from a working class family, and his background was probably even poorer than mine was. But his family had encouraged him through his university studies and beyond, and on our site; he was a bundle of energy.

I ended up sharing digs with him, sharing numerous beers with him, and indeed even women with him. We became really the best of friends. At the end of that contract we were both offered jobs elsewhere with the company, but out of the blue Mick regally informed me of what he and I were going to do.