A Tale of Immorality Ch. 07

Chapter Seven: A Stroke Of Consequence

I am George. I like to walk in the rain.

Especially when it's dark. I love to watch the slick shine of the wet asphalt. I like the yellow streetlamps highlighting every splashing raindrop. I push my hands deep into my pockets.

And I walk.

Whenever I need to think, I walk. Rain or shine. Rain and shine, today. The leaves over my head are heavy with water. The drops accumulate and splash onto my skull. They are wet and cold. They are welcome.

Today I walk.

But today there are no thoughts. Oh, there are thoughts. A multitude of them. One more horrid than the other. But they are not allowed into the shelter of my brain. They must stay outside. Let them huddle under that carport over there. Or at the bus stop. Get lost, you damn thoughts and nightmares.

Leave me to the dark little kingdom of my misery.

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My name doesn't matter. Call me George. Call her Anne. Or call her a slut, if you like. Call me a clown. I don't care.

What she did doesn't need much explanation. It happened to a billion men before me. And another billion after me will see it happen to them. Unless the world decides to call it a day and puts an end to our collective misery.

You won't need much explanation about what I did, either. It's over. I severed all the ties we had. All of them. The strong ties and the delicate ones. It made the blood flow. The sweet and pulsing blood of the heart.

Mine mostly, I guess.

I don't know about her. Did she bleed? I can't say. I really don't know a lot about her anymore. Maybe I never did. But I know I shall end up a walking ghost, an anemic skeleton.

I'll bleed to the last pint.

I guess the first thing to do is to stop this self-pity. But I can't. Not yet.

I am entitled to some self-pity, am I not? For God's sake, it has been an hour now. Leave me some slack, will you? Please, for a minute hold back your damned advice on how a real man should act. Fuck you. I don't even believe you have a wife yourself. So stuff your easy shit talk.

I should hate her, you say.

But what shabby hate is that? What's the value of it? You don't even know what love is. Be honest. Do you really? I don't think so. I loved her, man. I still love her, dammit. And now look! Watch how my heart twitches in my hands. It is bleeding to death.

Look!

Ah yes. Now your real men's eyes look away, eh? Why do you look away? Are you afraid of some blood?

Or are you disgusted with a man showing his feelings?

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Anne and I have been married for almost nine years.

I guess it is a cliché to say they were the best years of my life. But they were. They were magical and yet so very common. There was the simple ease of being together. The understanding. There was the warm, uncomplicated shelter of her love. The sex too. Sex has always been important to us. Anne was like this delicately tuned instrument. A Stradivarius violin, say. Or a Bechstein piano.

Just playing her took my breath away. Oh yes, I did love to play her. Did. (Have to get used to this past tense. I'll learn, don't worry.)

But Anne was gorgeous in so many other ways. It was a party to simply sit with her at the end of a working day. Just discussing what happened, the little things. Knowing that she'd listen and hear whatever was important to me.

And for me to sit and listen to her common sense, her witty responses.

In the second year of our marriage it became apparent that I could not give her children. It was a cruel blow. I know Anne wanted them. I'd have loved them too.

I considered adoption. She did not want that. She talked about finding a donor. I could not live with that idea. I guess I am a jealous man, after all. (Ha! But you know that by now.)

We stopped talking about it.

I knew it hurt her. It was a sneaking hurt. It was like mourning after a death. I guess that's when Anne decided to make a career for herself. Maybe even a life.

She did the marketing and PR for a fast growing chain of delicatessen shops and catering facilities. She was working hard and doing well. But more than making money she enjoyed working with creative and adventurous people, she said. Adventurous.

It was such a contrast to my job.

I am head of sales at the local branch of a large national insurance company. It is where I started after college. I never saw a reason to leave. It only took me a few years to rise through the ranks to my present position. The only thing that worried me was that my next step might involve moving to headquarters. It would force Anne to give up her precious job.

Ah well...another dilemma solved, I guess.

Did I ever see a reason to suspect Anne? In hindsight, I guess I might have.

These last months have been...strange. One weekend she came back from a business trip. At the airport I told her that I would be fine with her getting an in vitro pregnancy. Even with the seed of another man. She cried. So did I. I think we were never as close as we were in the months after that. We were hardly ever apart anymore. And we made love almost every night.

Then she started acting weird.

One night she fucked me like an animal. She was aggressive. She controlled me. And she rode my cock to tatters. Then she came like a volcano. I have never heard her scream like she did. She lost consciousness and slid off my fast shrinking penis.

I just went limp. I never came.

So was this reason to doubt her faithfulness? That she fucked me too hard? That she had an incredible orgasm with me? No, of course not.

I think it would have been unreasonable to expect me to have seen it coming.

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They say that shocking events "open your eyes."

Seeing what I saw an hour ago surely qualifies as shocking. But I'd say they grow you a new set. New eyes that were especially made to see things differently. In the final analysis, however, I guess they are just as biased as the old ones.

The old eyes saw and judged Anne in a halo of unconditional love. The new ones see her in the stark and naked glare of betrayal.

Of course new eyes make you see different things. They help you remember moments from the past. Like how she hadn't been home one night. Or how she forgot to call me twice, while away. Another time someone at a party asked her how she had liked the newly- opened restaurant downtown. We had not yet visited it at the time. Of course, she might have gone there with a client or a colleague, but now my new eyes helped me remember that she had blushed.

There are a million things to see, once you allow yourself to look. Things you once innocently parked within the cozy margins of trust and good faith. And to be honest: I would love to do that again.

But my new eyes say, no.

Anyway, it's all immaterial now, isn't it?

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It was by accident the way I found out. I guess it always is.

I should have been a thousand miles away. Wish I had been, but I wasn't. The director of sales at headquarters had asked me to come visit for a talk. My heart raced. It must have been for the expected (feared?) promotion.

I told Anne the night before leaving. I would take a plane the next late afternoon.

But the man called me next morning at the office. He phoned from the airport. He suddenly had to be at our branch office anyway, so he'd meet me as soon as he arrived, this afternoon. Would save me a flight.

I tried to reach Anne to tell her about the change of plans. She wasn't at her office. And she didn't answer her phone.

I'd try again later.

I picked up the visitor. It was already past six when he finally got his luggage. I was still unable to reach Anne. As it was too late to go to the office, I told him I'd take him to his hotel.

On the way we decided to have our talk over dinner.

Well, as it happened, Anne was in the dining room of the same hotel. I saw her from a distance. Her back was towards me. For a second I thought it might be nice to walk up to her and introduce her to my colleague.

Then she kissed the man opposite her.

It was a kiss I knew. Up 'til then I'd even thought it was a kiss only I knew. I was proven wrong, obviously.

I stood frozen. It felt as if my heart had been plunged into a bucket of ice water. From a far distance a voice asked me if I were all right. How silly we are. Life seems to have this urge to push us on. My head slowly nodded. I smiled at my guest and showed him to our table. We sat down.

And still the kiss went on.

A few huge plants half hid us from their table. It was easy for me to watch them. Ha, easy. I had a good look at the guy. He was about my age, maybe a bit older. The tall and handsome kind, I gather.

I knew Anne had taste.

His hand was wrapped around hers. Their eyes never left each other's. And there was a lot to laugh about.

The constant buzz in my ears made it hard to hear what my table companion said. I knew when to nod and when to grumble something encouraging. I am a trained salesman.

But my eyes were always at the distant table.

It seemed they were spooning dessert, sharing little bites in a perfectly pink setting of lovey-dovey intimacy. Her hand touched his face when she fed him a spoonful. Then they kissed again.

My stomach turned.

I excused myself and went to find the men's room. I took care not to be noticed.

The tiles were cool against my forehead. The heaving of my stomach subsided. I threw some water in my face and left again. I was right in time to see them walk by.

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There was no need to worry that they might see me.

Anne had both arms around his waist. Her head was against his chest. His one hand was on her ass, the other in her hair. They went to the elevators. When the doors closed on them I saw his hand slide into the low top of her dress.

She giggled.

The ancient elevators showed huge lighted numbers where they stopped. I took the stairs two and three steps at a time, reaching the third floor. I saw them walk into a corridor, their back to me. They were almost like a single four-legged creature.

They went into the fourth door, using an old- fashioned hotel key.

My heart calmed down. So did my breathing. Only my brain kept racing. Pictures flooded in. Horrible pictures that I tried to push out. The kissing. The obscene giggles as a huge hand grabbed a white tit.

I knew that I should not go in. I knew. But I had to.

The door looked strong. I put my ear to it, but there were no sounds. I walked down the corridor. Around a corner stood a heavy vacuum cleaner. I pushed it to the door. My back groaned when I lifted it. I stumbled forward and crashed through the entrance.

The momentum took me right through the tiny hall. I stopped in front of the bed. Anne sat on her knees. Her dress hung around her waist. Her mouth hovered over a hard, swollen cock.

Both Anne and her lover crawled back on the bed. They tried to cover their faces in defense.

I just stood there.

I held the metal tube of the cleaner in my hand. Then I swung it and hit the guy's head.

His hand was too slow. He dropped in front of Anne. She screamed and tried to get out of reach.

I grabbed her hair and pulled her towards me. Her face was very close now.

"You whore."

I didn't hiss the word, nor scream. It sounded clipped, matter of fact.

Then I hit her face and hit it again.

A hand slapped me. The guy. He came on to me. There was blood on his face. I had to retire to the tiny desk. It held a marble lamp. I grabbed it. It was heavy, but I lifted it over my head and crashed it on his protecting arm.

There was a sickening, splintering sound. He screamed.

I just swung again, hitting his skull. Another crunching sound. He stopped screaming. Anne did not. She called my name and crawled forward to stop me. She shouldn't have.

There was blood everywhere. Lots of blood.

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Walk, George. Keep walking.

Bury your bloody hands deep. Let the rain clean you. Let it clean your splattered face, your bloodied soul.

Walk on. They'll get you. But not yet.

Hear the train whistle?

Can't be far.

Walk.

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