Damned Truck

For years I lived an active life. Really active. Hiked, swam, rode a bicycle and a motorcycle, did some SCUBA diving, some surfing and loved going dancing with my wife and friends. My wife didn't do all the active things I did, but some.

It changed on July the fourth 2006. I was on my Harley XLCH headed home after working the graveyard shift. It was seven-twenty in the morning and I was sliding along the uncrowded freeway at about sixty-five. I was in the third lane getting ready to move into the fourth and then transition onto a different freeway. Already in the fourth lane was an eighteen-wheel truck with his blinker on saying he was transitioning too. I got a good look at the logo on the side of the truck. I let off the gas and was just about to slide over behind the truck when the outside tire on the next to back axel of the truck exploded. Pieces of tire flew all over.

Unfortunately one of those chunks of tread and steel belt slammed into my leg, knocking my Harley and I down and ripping a hole in my leg. The truck didn't even stop! He transitioned onto the other freeway and left me and my bike lying on the warm pavement. Three cars honked as they flew past me, but they didn't stop. I think I passed out because the next thing I remember was being lifted into the back of an ambulance.

When my wife got the call telling her what happened she called two of my friends to get the bike and bring it home. She called my sister and told her I'd been hurt. Then she came to the hospital. She got there an hour before I came out of surgery.

"He'll keep the leg," the surgeon told her, "but he may limp some. The muscles were badly torn and the femur was broken in three places." She found out I'd be in the hospital three weeks and off work three months. A lawyer visited me in the hospital. He was pretty sure we had a good case against the trucking company. He took the case on contingency. If we won, he got a big chunk of the settlement. If it went nowhere, he got nothing and so did I.

When I woke up she was right there. She stayed by my bed all the rest of that day and then she visited every other day. She always left when I went to physical therapy. She saw just one session and cried. After that, when they came to get me for therapy, she went home. I worked hard and instead of being off work three months I was off six weeks. I needed a cane for balance, but I was up and back to life.

The day I came home she made a great dinner and when it was about nine o'clock we went to bed. She had never peeked under the bandages at my leg. Never reached in and groped me to see if it still worked. That night when we got in bed she said she was afraid. She shut off all the lights and we groped in the dark. She found out the tire had missed my equipment. She found out my equipment worked and that I could still give her great orgasms. Over the next month we tested my range of motion and stamina, always in the dark. The best I could do was twice in twenty-four hours and as many oral orgasms as she wanted. Laura never once looked at my scarred leg. Hell, I had trouble looking at it too. The scar started an inch and a half below the crease where leg meets torso and goes all the way down to the knee. At the widest it is about eight inches wide. When I first came home the scars were still red and angry looking. Six months later they were still red but they had changed enough that I didn't think of them as angry scars anymore.

The stress of my work aggravated the injury area and made it ache almost all the time. The doctor said it was some kind of nerve damage and that short of cutting the nerve and taking all the feeling out of my leg, I could take painkillers.

I never got back on the bike. I originally bought the bike because we both loved riding together and going with friends to gatherings and camping trips. When I sold the bike Laura was pissed. She said she understood but I had trouble believing her. The longer I continued to limp and need the cane the less she wanted to go places together. She said everything was fine and she always had a reason why she didn't want to go with me. I felt she was ashamed of me.

On the days or nights I needed painkillers our sex life wasn't possible. She kept telling me it wasn't a problem. I wanted to believe her.

Some of the other things we used to love doing together changed or died too. At a dance I could manage three slow dances before my leg hurt so bad I wanted to cry, even with the painkillers. I knew Laura loved to dance so I told her to dance with any of our friends. I nursed a beer and watched. She seemed to have a good time and she checked on me between songs. I was invited to go SCUBA diving with four other couples and I knew the swim would be good for me and the leg. Laura wouldn't go. Even when the other wives told her how they stay on the boat and play while the boys dive, she refused to go. I decided the therapy was important and I went. It was good for me and the leg. I went two weeks without any painkillers.

The week of the first anniversary of the accident the company I worked for downsized a hundred employees. I was on the list. More fortunate than some, I got hired by a friend to work the phones and counter at his business. In the back of my mind I still had hopes for a settlement from the trucking company, but I knew it wasn't a guarantee. It had been a year and nothing had happened.

Laura and I had pooled our money from the day we got married. We sat together on the first and fifteenth and paid the bills, together. The first time we sat down to do the bills after I started working for Stan the room was filled with tension.

We got the bills paid, but the thousand or more we had been stashing away for the future wasn't there. We got the bills paid and put three hundred in our slush fund for the next two weeks but our investment money for the future didn't happen. When we were done with the bills she said, "This sucks. You aren't pulling your weight any more."

I've been known to have a pretty fast fuse. I retorted, "So for the ten years we've been together and I was putting in two grand a month more than you, were you pulling your weight?"

"Yeah! I do a lot more than bring home a check! Who does the laundry? Who cleans the house?"

"Are you saying that what you do here at home balances the two grand a month more that I brought home?"

"I think it does."

"So, how can I balance it out with no more money coming in? Have you seen the news? Of the hundred guys who got downsized when I did I only know of three who have jobs at all. What do you want from me? Should I do the laundry? Clean the house? How do we balance it so you feel Ok?"

"You could help out more." She nodded.

"I need to know exactly what I need to do so you feel that we're back in balance. You say I'm not pulling my weight. Tell me how."

"I'll think about it. Let's talk again on the weekend."

I came away from that conversation feeling shitty. I could understand that our lives weren't like they had been. Being downsized and working for less money, hurt. Limping hurt. Not being able to dance with Laura and having to sit and watch other men hold her when I couldn't, hurt. Going on the SCUBA trip without her hurt.

When we went to bed that night Laura wore a t-shirt and panties. I noticed and figured she must have been expecting her period to start. Our usual pattern had Laura use the bathroom first and then crawl into bed. I'd do my thing in the bathroom and join her. I'd roll to her, we'd kiss and tell each other we loved each other. Once or twice a week I'd get a signal in the kiss and the sex would begin. Over the years she had trained me well in how to please her. I was a more than willing student. Training her to please me was easier. I could touch her the way she liked to be touched, fondle her and enjoy the way her body responded. She taught me just how to slide into her for maximum effect. Just about anytime she was in the mood I could give her as much lovin as she wanted, as many orgasms. When everything else smelled like shit, at least we had that.

Our sex lives were good for my ego. The night she came to bed in T-shirt and panties I made up that her period was about to arrive and I knew she hated sex when she was having a period. I didn't say anything.

We met at the table on Saturday morning. She handed me a piece of paper. On it was a computer generated list. It was a list of what I was to do. I was to keep the cars serviced, and clean. I was to vacuum the house once a week. I was to dust the house before I vacuumed. I was to do our laundry: wash, dry, fold and hang up/put away. I was to cook diner twice a week.

I read the list. Then I asked, "And this brings us into balance?"

"I think so."

"If I do all this stuff you'll feel like we're full partners again?"

"I think so."

"Ok. I'll do the best I can. I'm new at this stuff. If you see that I need a lesson or something, so I do the jobs right, don't hesitate, tell me how to improve. Ok?"

"Sure." The meeting was over. I posted the list on the inside of my closet door and went to work. I cooked that night and Monday night. I did laundry on Friday night when I got home from work. Saturday morning I cleaned her car. Saturday evening she sat across from me in the living room and said, "This isn't working very well."

"What's wrong?"

"When I got home from work last night I wanted to get dressed and go out. You were already doing laundry. So I had to sit home and watch you do the laundry. Everything you do, you do so slowly! When I said you needed to cook twice a week I meant good food! You bar-b-qued on Saturday. You must have put two thousand calories on my plate! No, this isn't working."

"OK. Teach me. I can learn damn near anything."

"I can't teach you." Her voice was sounding frustrated and almost angry. "I'm tired and I need a break." She got up and went to the bedroom. Twenty minutes later she came back out dressed for the hunt. High heels, stockings, tight little black dress and pearls. She wore the pearls I gave her for her birthday when she turned thirty-five. Eight hundred fifty six dollars and damn they looked good on her. She picked up her purse and headed for the door.

"I guess I'm not invited." I said.

"No. I want to dance and laugh and that's hard to do while I worry about you sitting at a table all night nursing a warm beer and watching to see that I don't do anything wrong." Her keys came out of her purse and she carried them out the back door.

I sat on the couch for an hour, thinking. Was dancing and laughing really what she went out for? How much trouble were we in? Was she just frustrated that our lives had changed, the money was less and I couldn't dance? How much trouble was I in? What could I do to make things better?

She'd been gone an hour when I decided to see what she was really doing. Dancing and laughing? Something didn't feel right. I got in my truck and drove to the bars we went to sometimes. I didn't go in, just scanned the parking lots looking for her car. My fourth stop was a biker bar we'd stopped going to when I got hurt. Her car was there.

I parked as far from her car as was possible and still see it. I knew if I limped into the bar either she'd see me or one of my old friends would recognize me. After half an hour I started the truck and drove by the line of bikes. I recognized three. I decided to call those three guys the next day.

I went home. I cleaned up around the house until my leg started hurting, then I popped a painkiller and went to bed.

When I woke up at seven Laura was in bed, asleep. She was in a t-shirt and I assumed panties. She didn't even move when I got up. I found her dress on the bathroom floor along with her shoes and pantyhose. No bra or panties. I picked up the dress and it smelled of cigarettes, beer and sex. I didn't have to put it near my nose to smell the odors. I picked up the pantyhose and the crotch was ripped. They smelled like sweat, beer, sex and pee. They went in the trash. The dress went in the hamper. I put her shoes in her closet. I wondered where the pearls were.

In the kitchen I made coffee and ate a bowl of cereal. Then I realized her dress was a "dry clean only" dress. I realized it because I bought her that dress. She was still sleeping so I got the dress from the hamper and took it to the dry cleaners. In my mind I hoped I was making points with Laura, being the partner she said she wanted.

When I got back she was still asleep. I went back into the garage and looked at her car. I found three empty beer cans, a bag and wrapper from Jack-in-the-box. The inside of her car smelled like beer and cigarettes. I opened the windows and backed it out of the garage so it would air out. I tossed the trash and went back inside.

The shower was running. Half an hour later she came out of the bedroom in sweats. She wandered to the coffee and poured a cup. She drank it black. The second cup she put some creamer in. She left the empty cup beside the sink and went back to bed. She didn't say anything.

I went into the garage and used my cell phone. I called the owner of the soft tail bike I'd seen the night before. As soon as I told him who I was he said he was really busy and couldn't talk. He hung up.

I called a friend who wasn't at the bar the night before. He knew Sam, the guy who was too busy to talk. "Alan, this is Nick. I want the truth!"

"God! I knew she was stupid, but doing your friends is too much."

"Talk to me."

"Laura has been coming into "The Spoke" about once a week and dancing hot with any guy with a dick. I danced with her once, about a month ago. She grabbed my dick and offered to fuck me anywhere I wanted her."

"How come you didn't call me?"

"Sam said she was a good piece of ass and if I fucked it up for him he'd cut me. I believed him."

"Call him. I called him before I called you. Tell him you think someone told me and it wasn't you."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. What can a gimpy old guy do?" The call ended. I stayed in the garage for a while, thinking.

It was five in the afternoon when she came out of the bedroom. She saw me sitting on the couch and said, "Where's my dress?"

"I took it to the cleaners."

"I wanted to wear it tonight!"

"It smelled like beer, cigarettes, sweat and other unidentified things. I thought..."

She interrupted, "No, you didn't think. You just do whatever damn thing that pops into your brain."

"I was trying to be nice to you."

"I shouldn't be mad at you. You don't know how to do a damn thing! You don't do anything the way I need things done."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You've become a house husband. No, that's not right. You've become my wife! You do all the wifely duties and I'm the man. Problem is, you're no good at the job!! Problem is, I don't want to be the husband, I want a husband!" She turned and walked out, back to our bedroom.

A minute later I opened the door to the bedroom and she was standing with her back to me, nude. "Get out and close the door!" She yelled. I didn't move. I'd seen a bruise on the right cheek of her ass. When I didn't close the door she turned and I saw three hickies on her tits.

"New dance? One where your dance partner lowers your dress and sucks on your tits?"

She sneered and said, "Yes! And each one was applied by a different man! One that can dance all night without limping! One's that take what they want. I'll bet none of the men I was with last night have ever vacuumed or done the dishes. They are real men."

I backed out of the bedroom. In the doorway I said, "I'll contact a lawyer on Monday."

"No, you won't. You said you wanted to carry your weight around here. Ok. Here's how. You'll take care of the house, my car and the yard. We'll still pool our money and live together, only you'll be in the guest room. I don't want a divorce and you can't afford to leave. I like you cleaning and cooking and being my pussy of a wife. From now on I'll sleep with whomever I want, whenever I want and wherever I want. This is now my bedroom and I'll invite men in here to fuck me the way I want to be fucked. Now get out of here and let me get dressed. I'm going out and when I come back I won't be alone!"

I turned and walked out, all the way out. I got in my truck and drove to a park. I thought about what she said. That semi had done more than screw up my leg. It had started the process that showed me that Laura didn't love me. She loved our lifestyle. She loved that we pooled our money, when I was filling the deep end of the pool. She liked doing all the things she loved to do, but as I thought about it she never went with me to things she didn't like. She didn't even dress for me. I remembered telling her years ago that I didn't like red clothes on her. She had five red dresses in her closet bought after I said that. I remembered asking her to shave her pussy as a birthday gift to me. I think she quit shaving anything for at least a month. When I wanted to go out SCUBA diving and have her go along so it would be five couples enjoying the ocean and a weekend on a boat, she wouldn't go. She got into flowers and I dug up three large flower beds for her roses and other flowers. I don't care for flowers. I did it because she wanted it and I thought that's how a man shows a woman he loves her. He does things she likes. I even believed that women did the things their man liked, when she loved him.

When I went home an hour later her car was gone. The back door was wide open. I backed out and drove to a cheap but clean motel I knew of. I might have been the first man to ever stay there alone.

The next morning I went to work, talked to my boss and told him my sad tale. I took a vacation day. I went to the bank and withdrew every cent we had. I went to the post office and mailed a package full of money to me at my sister's address. From a pay phone I called her and told her the package was coming and I wanted her to hide it. She only lived thirty miles away so I told her I'd come by Friday night and we'd have dinner.

I had my truck serviced and used our joint credit card to pay for it. While I waited for my truck my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number. When I answered it was the lawyer I'd hired over a year ago. He said the trucking company had settled. They had written me a check for three million. We agreed to meet at the bank. I got my truck, drove to the bank, opened a new account in my name only and deposited my one point two million. I drove home smiling.

The inside of the house was a mess. Laura had brought more than one man home. Without touching anything I counted nine beer cans and about six condoms in her trash can. I called the cops. I started the call by saying, "I think someone broke into my house."

Half an hour later two police officers knocked on the front door. I showed them the house and the receipt from the motel where I stayed. They asked if my wife had stayed in the house. I said I didn't know.

I gave them her phone number and one of the officers called her using my phone on speaker. She must have seen the number was mine because when she answered she said, "Since you're at home, you can clean up the mess my men and I made last night. And, get some more beer in the house, they were pissed that we ran out. Oh yes, wash the sheets off my bed too. Someone shot a lot of cum on the bed."

The officer said, "This is officer McIvan from the city police. From what you've said I take it your house was not broken into. Correct?"

"No. Did my limping husband call you?"

"Yes. He found the house a mess and the back door standing open. I can see now that this is a personal matter between the two of you. Thank you." He hung up.

"Pardon my saying so, but your wife's a bitch!" I nodded my agreement. The two police officers left.