It was a couple of hours later that Cathy finished for the night. Laura had not yet reappeared from her evening out, and as there were still some pots left over in the sink I decide to do them myself. After all, what excuse could I give Laura for Cathy not having the time to do them? My thoughts drifted away to our recent session. Cathy had been wild, clawing at my back, despite my protests. How could I explain scratch marks to Laura? It had been worth it, though. Cathy really was something else this time. In the past she had followed my lead perfectly. This time, though, she had been in control from the start. She had scratched, clawed, bit, and stabbed me with her heels while we fucked, spurring me on the drive into her harder and faster. I certainly couldn’t keep up with that every night. She had said one thing that had completely thrown me, too. She said that she intended to fuck both Laura and me at the same time. Thoughts of the two women in bed, kissing and fucking each other, had raced through my mind, powering my ejaculation. Afterwards I had asked her again about that statement. Did she really want to fuck us both? Cathy had laughed, and said that she was definitely going to fuck us both, good and proper. I had a niggling feeling that there were other things going on in Cathy’s head that she wasn’t telling me. I asked her if she wanted me to go about setting up a threesome with Laura. She had declined that offer, saying that it was all in hand, then laughed again at some private joke.
Whatever, it was some tale to tell the guys at the building site tomorrow. They were as jealous as hell anyway, what with me living with a sexy looking woman like Laura, then having another on the side. I was always careful to keep such information from Laura, of course. Once or twice in the past I had felt that she had strayed from the marital bed, but as she had a lot more money than I did, I had always turned a blind eye. I didn’t want to test the strength of our marriage from the other direction, though. I was sure that Laura would erupt like a volcano if she caught me playing around – especially with the cleaner.
I sunk my hands into the hot washing-up water, like Pilate washing his hands at the sentencing of Jesus. The guilt on my soul about the affair was as hard to wash off as Pilate’s must have been, I concluded. As I started on the pots I heard the door open and close as Laura came home. She tramped immediately upstairs, shouting a brief ‘I’m home.’ I heard her banging around upstairs for a while, then a long silence. I mentally thought back to how Cathy and I had left the bed. Yes, tidy and as Laura had left it that morning. I was convinced my guilt would show on my face, but I was getting better at hiding it. I heard Laura come back downstairs after a little while. “Have a nice night?” I asked her, my back to her as I finished the pots, hoping she wouldn’t ask me why they hadn’t been done earlier. “I’ve had a great night,” she replied, “have you?” Before I could turn to answer I heard the sound of her movements, then a blinding pain exploded in my head as something heavy and metal crashed into my skull…
There was a sharp pain in my right shoulder and the mattress that I was lying on was cold and hard. It was definitely time we bought a new bed. “Get up, you lousy bastard,” I heard Laura say, sounding as if she was shouting down a long, echoing tunnel. I mumbled about the time, feeling as though it was still very early in the morning. The sharp pain dug into my shoulder again, and Laura again demanded that I get up. It began to dawn on me that this was no bed that I was laying on, but cold, hard tiles. I felt another digging pain in my neck, and more of my surroundings and reality began to take hold. “Come on, Lover boy, get up. Or have you already been ‘up’?” I could hear Laura calling, and slowly her voice was clarifying into something more understandable. I moaned in agony as I moved my head. The pounding in my head was one hell of a headache, that was for sure.
I then felt myself being rolled over, but not delicately. I was propelled around with the help of a woman’s shoe. As I came to my senses, my eyes fluttering open, blinking at the bright light of the kitchen, I was aware of a woman standing on me. Her weight was heavy against my chest, not helped by the fact that she was still wearing stiletto shoes that jabbed into my skin. I gasped for her to get off, as I couldn’t breathe, and I heard the sound of Laura laughing. “Can’t breathe? What’s the problem,” she said, “has the evening been too tiresome for you?” With a final push, her heels sinking harder into my chest, she climbed off me. I pulled myself into a sitting position on the floor, still trying to collect myself. I sat back against the cupboards to help keep me upright. My head was still spinning and pounding. Eventually I managed to look up, squinting at the lights, to see Laura standing over me. “What is going on?” I asked her. “What did you hit me with?” Laura smiled. “You’re always going on about how I should use the frying pan more in the kitchen, so I did,” she said. I rubbed the back of my head again, wondering what my next move should be. I was now seething with rage, her smug attitude after nearly caving my skull in, too much to bear. “You fucking bitch!” I roared, making a grab for her. As I moved, though, so did she. She swung her arm down, and at the last minute I saw a hefty rolling pin in her long fingers. It crashed into the side of my head, knocking stars and fireworks exploding together in my sight. I fell back against the cupboards as she hit me again, the wooden weapon connecting against my head again. “I believe,” she said, “that you’re the one that’s been fucking, not me. I’m just a bitch.”
I decided to feign some ignorance as to what she was talking about. Laura laughed at my pathetic reasoning. “You don’t know what I’m talking about? I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. I’m talking about finding Cathy’s calling card on my bloody pillow, that’s what I’m talking about.” As she spoke, I could sees she was getting even angrier, and managed to just protect myself as she again launched the rolling pin down towards my head. It cracked against my wrist, nearly breaking the small bones inside. I wailed with pain, trying to dodge another blow that came raining down as quickly as the last. I backed myself into the corner, my hands up, trying to ward off her fury. “How could you, you cheating bastard?” she screamed at me, “in my own bloody bed!- Another crunching blow came down, slamming into my knuckles. Either that or a fractured skull, I reasoned calmly as the storm whipped up around me. “I haven’t done anything!” I shouted, “I know what you’re accusing me of, but I haven’t done anything. Honestly!” I wailed, still not knowing what she meant by “Cathy’s calling card.”
The storm died down suddenly as Laura stopped her battering of me. We were both breathing heavily, and my hands, head and shoulders throbbed agonisingly where she had hit me. “I can’t believe how you can sit there and lie,” she said, tapping the rolling pin in her hands. “I found her panties on my bloody pillow. Just laying there for me to find.” I gulped. I couldn’t believe that Cathy had forgotten to put them on. Stupid bitch! “She probably left them there as a joke,” I explained, “or maybe she was trying to get me into trouble.” “In that case, she succeeded, didn’t she?” said Laura, the tone of her voice almost light and friendly. “Can you explain the used condom that was alongside her panties, then?” she asked. I felt my mouth open and close soundlessly, like a gulping fish.
Cathy had told me that she had got rid of all the evidence. “Or,” continued Laura, “the little note she left tending her resignation from the job, now that she had fucked you?” I suddenly felt sick, and could feel the blood drain from my face. I almost felt like fainting. What fucking game was the girl playing? She had been so careful for so long. And she desperately wanted to keep the job, after all. “Well?” prompted Laura, sitting down on a high kitchen stool. “Is it all a big misunderstanding?” I opened my mouth to speak, but she held her hand up to stop me. “Before you say anything,” she warned me, “think carefully about what you say. I’d rather hear the truth. It might just keep this marriage together. If you lie, and I’ll know if you are, you’ll be out of here and divorced before you can beg for mercy. Understand?” I nodded. I hastily had a rethink as to what I was going to say. I decided to trust Laura. Many people had affairs, I reasoned, and it didn’t always result in the break-up of the marriage. Besides, 1 could blame most of it on Cathy, and how she had led me on. I took a deep breath before beginning.
“Laura,” I began, keeping my voice sheepish and pleading, “I’m so sorry. Yes, 1 slept with Cathy. It was just the once, though. You saw how she flirted around me. She just tried it on too much tonight…” Laura sniffed disapprovingly. “So,” she concluded, “it’s all conveniently Cathy’s fault, is it? She led you on, and there was nothing you could do about it? Hold a gun to your head, did she?” Shit, I thought, this wasn’t going as planned already.
I needed another line of defence. I thought quickly. “She blamed it on you, you know,” I said, switching the argument around. “She said it was because of the way you treated her that she decided to get her own back.” “Really?” asked Laura, her tone condescending. “So you went along with the whole thing on those principles. So our marriage means less to you than some stupid servant’s gripes, does it? Maybe you’d rather leave this comfortable house and go back to where I found you then. In a dump of a flat with no job? After all, you only got the job with my Daddy’s building company because of me. You are willing to give up a lot, aren’t you?” I was shaking my head, desperately trying to convince her that it wasn’t like that, while at the same time trying to think of some other way around this argument. “No, no, it’s not like that. Really. She told me all this afterwards,” I explained, hoping my lies were not evident in my face. Laura was sat nodding her head understandingly. “So in the cosy after glow of love-making, you uncovered all your feelings did you? On my bed? What about all the other times you fucked that Cathy mentioned in her letter? What did you talk about then?”
I was truly backed into a corner. If I had the time, I could start coming up with excuses and explanations, but time was something I didn’t have. Cathy had told her everything. And I was the fall guy, or so it seemed. There was only one way out now. I looked up at Laura, who was staring down at me like I was something that had come in stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “Laura, I’ve nothing to say but sorry. I know that’s not enough. Please, it was the first time I’ve strayed. It won’t happen again…” I snivelled, hoping that she would accept my blubbering apology. “You’re right,” she sniffed, “it’s not enough. Do you really think that a sad apology like that is going to make it all right?” I shook my head. “No, no, of course not,” I replied, almost convincing myself. “I have to make it up to you. Anything you want. This marriage means more to me than anything.” In fact, it was the job that meant a lot to me. Laura’s father had built up a good business, and as his only child, Laura would be worth plenty when the old sod kicked the bucket. And I intended to be a beneficiary, too. After all, Laura was a bitch to live with, and there had to be a reward at the end to make it all worthwhile.
Laura looked at me disapprovingly. “Do I detect a note of begging in your voice?” she said, mocking me. “Yes, I am begging you, Laura. For another chance. Please,” I simpered. “If you were really begging,” she replied, “you’d be begging at my feet.” I could take a hint. I crawled to her feet, feeling like an idiot, frankly. Once situated at her feet, I lowered my head. “Please, Laura. It won’t happen again I promise.” I looked up at her. She was not looking to impressed with my efforts.
My mind drifted back to my fun with Cathy. I looked at
Laura’s shoes, close to my head. I pouted my lips and kissed her shoes, feeling another erotic charge. What was happening to me? Laura looked surprised, too, and not entirely displeased with my attentions. I was spurred on to try harder, and began licking and sucking at her heels with vigour. Laura began moving her foot in order to help my ministrations. As she was wearing open-toed sandals, when I licked across the top of her shoes I found myself also kissing her painted toes. Over her toes, her stockings were a fine, perfumed mesh on my tongue. I was aware of having a raging erection, my arousal intense and demanding. I could see that Laura was enjoying herself. She always did enjoy being aloof.
Laura pulled her foot away from my mouth and lifted her shoe. I followed it with my eyes until she raised it above my head. She then lowered it, pushing my head to the floor with it. I dropped my head without complaint. I would have to play her game if I were to get back in her good books. “So, what have you learned from this sordid little affair?” she asked, keeping my head pinned to the cold floor. “I told you,” I said, hoping I sounded sincere, “it won’t happen again. I know I made a mistake. Please forgive me. We can make this marriage work, if we try.” “That depends,” said Laura, sliding off her stool, “on if you’ve learned to keep your hands to yourself.” I watched as, almost in slow motion, she slid off the high stool and landed directly on my hands. I yelled as her heels nailed my hands against the tiles. I could feel the bones in my hand being ground into the floor by the long, slim heels, and it felt as though the points of the heels had driven through the bones in my palms and crucified me to the kitchen floor. A fine ending for a guilty man, I thought.
“Laura! Get oft you’re breaking my fingers!” I screamed, forgetting my role in this situation. Laura stood back off my hands, letting them recover. “Well, it might help to keep, your dirty roaming fingers off other women,” she snapped, still displeased with me.
I sat back against the cold cupboards, holding my bruised hands. Laura helped my progress by propelling me backward with her shoe.
Her heel gouged a deep scratch across my chest as she did so, and I winced at the cutting wound. “Look,” I pleaded, “I said I was sorry. What more do you want me to do? What can I do to make you believe me?” Laura pondered the question a little longer than I would have liked. A cruel smile played across her lips. It was a smile that I didn’t like one bit. “Well, now that you ask…” she began, “since you have behaved like a dog…” She never finished her sentence, but picked up a dish from the floor. It was a dog dish. I looked at her questioningly. It was still full of water, a day or so old. She put the dish down in front of me. “Have a drink on me, as a gift of peace,” she said, smiling challengingly. I looked into the unappealing water. I had visions of the dog slurping in that water. I considered my choices, then lowered my head. I took one last look at Laura and saw a grin of victory on her face. The water was not far off being lukewarm, and, as I suspected, tasted appallingly. I slurped a few mouthfuls before my stomach began to resist the liquid. I made a couple of near-retching sounds, then looked up at Laura, expecting to see some forgiveness on her face. I was wrong. “Drink it all, mongrel,” she said sternly, daring me to refuse. Again I deliberated, and again I lowered my head. If I did this one, last task, there might finally be some mercy. I began to suck and lap up more of the bitter water. I heard Laura move, then before I could react I felt her shoe on the back of my head. With no little force she pushed my head into the still full bowl of water.
I spluttered and gasped, trying to get my nose and mouth out of the water. She pushed down harder on my head, and I began flailing my arms around, trying to knock her off balance to give me some breathing space. The brief moment seemed to last forever. I could feel the water flowing up my face, splashed over my ears and hair by my frantic efforts to escape her assault, and could feel her shoe hard against the back of my head. Every second or so, when I moved, I could feel her heel scrape roughly over my scalp. Just when I thought I couldn’t last another second she lifted her foot, and I fell away from the bowl, gasping and choking. “Had enough?” she asked sweetly, as though nothing had happened. “You nearly fucking killed me!” I wheezed, struggling to get my breath and my head straight. “Hmmm,” she agreed, “nearly. Living and suffering is a more apt sentence for you, though, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t slam the door on your way out, will you?” I looked up at Laura. “What do you mean? I’m not going anywhere, am I?” I asked, confused. “You don’t think you’re living here, and that everything will be alright, do you? Even
you can’t be that stupid,” she said. “But…. but I thought….” I stammered. “That I could forgive you?” finished Laura. “You must be joking. I could never trust you again. That’s it. End of marriage. End of job. I do hope that Cathy was a good enough fuck to make it all worth it,” she added, sarcastically.
I sat, open mouthed, against the kitchen cupboards. I looked at the dog bowl in front of me. The humiliation that I had just gone through filled my mind. “You bitch!” I snarled, “you fucking, lying bitch!” I began to get up. I wanted to hit her, punch her, hurt her as she had me. She was too quick, however, and was obviously ready for this situation. While I was still off-balance in getting up, she turned to me, the rolling pin back in her hand. I raised my arm, but it wasn’t fast enough. All the suns and stars in the universe exploded in my head, and I welcomed the relieving darkness that followed…
I waited a good three weeks after I heard about the divorce before I met Laura again. I had followed the progress of the divorce proceedings through he courts with the help of bits of information garnered from friends and acquaintances. followed Laura one night as she left work. She had taken up the habit of going straight to a nearby bar on her way home from work. It suited my purpose perfectly. I needed somewhere public for the last episode. She was sat forlornly at the bar, nursing a gin and tonic when I entered the premises after her. I knew it would be the first of many drinks she took that night. I walked up close to her at the bar. At first she wasn’t even aware of me. It gave me a few seconds to study my adversary. Laura, as hard as it was for me to admit it, had always looked spectacular. However, she now looked drained, tired, worn out. There were lines on her face that I had not seen before.
She turned and glanced my way, then a startled look flashed across her face. She was clearly shocked to see me there. “Hello, Laura. How are you doing?” I asked her, my voice friendly before the knockout blow. “Cathy!” she exclaimed, still surprised at my appearance. We stared at each other in silence for a moment or two, and I could tell that she didn’t know what to say.
I did, though. “I heard about your divorce from James,” I said, lightly. “Anything to do with me?” I asked her, feigning ignorance. Laura’s shocked expression clouded over. “What do you think, you scheming bitch?” she Laura said nothing but glared at me. “You sly whore,” she slurred after a while, “coming into my house, to fuck my husband, on my bed. You fucking had it planned right from the start, didn’t you?” I did not answer her question. “I bet you got a shock, though,” she carried on, “I bet you thought that it was his business, and his money. I left that cheating dog with nothing, though. How is he doing, anyway? Cheated on you yet?” she smiled, thinking that she had got one over on me. I smiled back. “I’m not with him,” I told her. “I never saw him again after I left your place. I had absolutely no interest in James. But I do know that he didn’t leave without anything. From what I heard, he had quite a big pay off from your daddy so that he wouldn’t take his sacking to a tribunal. Cost quite a bit, from my understanding.”
Laura observed me quietly and carefully. “You cost me my marriage, and a whole lot more besides,” she said, her voice low and vengeful, “so how can you say you had no interest in James. Why sleep with the bastard, if that’s the case?” I smiled at her, coming to my final victory. “Because,” I said, “you cost me my marriage, and a whole lot more besides. You never met me, Laura, but I understand you met my husband, Robert, many times. In hotels, on business trips, working late….” I let the sentence hang in the air. Laura stared back, shocked again. “Cathy? You’re Robert’s Cathy?” she gasped, disbelieving. I smiled again, but this time there was some sadness there. “Yes, I was Robert’s Cathy. Until you started on him. Once he left me, however, you didn’t even want him anymore. From what I understand, it’s not the first time you’ve destroyed a marriage. This time, though, you picked on the wrong woman. I think we’re evens, now, don’t you?” I asked her. Laura looked white and sickly, as if the room was spinning. I left her standing at the bar, still nursing that gin and tonic. Was there any satisfaction in that final result? It is a question I often ask myself, but then I remember my suffering at the hands of Laura, and the guilt is washed away. There was, of course, the matter of James. The fall-guy. The almost innocent party who got unwittingly caught up in a war that he didn’t even know was going on. Do I feel bad for him? Not really. He knew the score when we went upstairs that day, and he was a willing participant then. There are not many games where everyone loses, but this, I suppose, was one. There are two things that I remember most about the whole affair. The first is the feeling I had when I stepped out into the fresh air after talking to Laura in the bar. I felt as though I had finally closed a long, painful chapter of my life. The feeling of release, of freedom, was overwhelming. Revenge is the sweetest thing. And the second thing? That came back to me the other night, as I fucked my new boyfriend. I made him grovel at my feet before I let him fuck me, and those feelings that I experienced with James came back. Power. Superiority. Control. Indeed, not everything that I learned in that chapter was bad. Some of what I learned just made me that way…