Parted.

Abstract

:

Insurance defense attorney Mike’s life takes an out-of-control tailspin when he meets beautiful young real estate agent, Janie, and buys a studio apartment.

Author's Note

: Hi,

Vix

here *

waves

*. This is an April Fool's Day story, but it’s a dark story. It is NOT a story about pranks, or puns or practical jokes. This is a story about a man who is a fool, and due to his own tomfoolery, his life goes completely awry. There's a slow but necessary build up of the plot at the beginning before the action topples to a crash ending, and there's a slow but necessary burn before the sex scenes too. The story has unfunny twists and an unfunny ending, and, in most respects, a rather unlikeable protagonist. There is also a sex scene with reluctance and dubious consent. Nonetheless, I hope that if you’ll give this story a whirl, even if it doesn’t entertain you, it will leave an impression.

This is fiction. All characters in sex scenes are over eighteen. All sex acts described are consensual, however, some scenes describe some reluctance. All rights are reserved.

_____________________

Parted.

by Vix Giovanni

At the time, it felt like the first time in his forty-six years that anything had ever happened to Mike Yarns…. But, in retrospect, really, everything about the experience happened quite normally. And as cliché as it may sound—as cliché as it was—it all began with a regular day….

________

Mike woke, rolled on his back, stretched and scratched his balls as early morning sunlight filtered into the master bedroom of his Roslyn, New York mid-century cottage. The home’s architect must have been a trickster because the room’s orientation was precisely northeast; the exact angle to harbor a brooding darkness all hours of the day except sunrise, when for a few minutes just after six a.m., invariably and blindingly, the bright blessed sun shone directly into Mike’s face and bounced off the room’s horridly papered walls.

The insufferable light brought out the nauseating pinks and yellows of that muted floral wallpaper. Of course, “pink” and “yellow” weren’t what his wife, Jennifer, had called those God-awful colors. She’d pointedly referred to them as

reveree and puce tones

.

“They should be called ‘ugly’ and ‘uglier’,” Mike fussed when she brought home samples to hang twelve years ago, “Who in their right mind would want to look at

that

everyday?” They’d gone back and forth about it until Jennifer shook her head, her shoulders slumped in defeat, and said, “Fine, Mike,” and “Just forget it,” and then—the clencher—“The wallpaper is probably too expensive anyways.”

Jennifer always knew how to cut him to the core: the insinuation that they couldn’t afford it had undone him.

And so, now, as he had been everyday since caving to Jennifer’s decision, Mike was stuck living an impression of life that began, day in and day out, with opening his eyes first to the tormenting assault of the sun’s rays and then adjusting to walls plastered in

puce

and

reveree

cabbage roses. Once he’d been so accosted by color and light, and primed for a mood of grimace and complaint, his eyes roamed and took in everything that was faded and dated, from the wallpaper, to the overly-washed knock-off Ralph Lauren bedding, to the stained and spotted beige carpeting. The only thing that wasn’t faded was the high, unnatural polish of Raymour & Flanigan cherry-veneered furniture; and in its own way, its artificial lustre was an equal assault on Mike’s senses.

Consciously, he couldn’t put his finger on the source of his frustration and depression, but subconsciously, he understood that his domain, his little slice of earth, was a repository of faux refinement. His cottage, a bric-brac of things that looked posh on their surface and possibly valuable, but really were no more than the airs of regency far beyond the Yarns’ family’s means.

Mike squinted as his tired, puffy eyes roamed the bedroom quickly and mindlessly, and he eased himself into the reluctant acceptance of another pending workday. Jennifer lay on her side with the covers pulled around her torso and her forearm under her pillow. She had one of those “policies” against electronics in the bedroom, and so, like every other morning, Mike debated whether to rise in search of his iPhone and Apple Watch or simply check the time on the room’s old-fashioned radio alarm clock. The clock was on Jennifer’s nightstand, mainly to keep Mike from turning it off during its first ring, as he was wont to do in mid-sleep.

But invariably, as it happened every morning that Mike glanced in the clock’s direction, the early morning sun’s glow reflected directly off the mirror above the bedroom suite’s chest of drawers and painfully into his eyes.

Every fucking morning!

He wanted to holler, “God damn it, Jennifer! Why the hell won’t you move that stupid fucking clock? And why in fucking hell can’t I have my own God damn phone and watch wherever the fuck I want to put them?” It’s cliché but true that life is short. And it infuriated Mike that he had to waste precious minutes of his by “putting up” with Jennifer’s miscellaneous routines and rituals.

Instead of screaming at the top of his lungs, however, he cursed, mildly, under his breath and rubbed his eyes, albeit with a flair of movements more appropriately responsive to eye gouging than mere light sensitivity. His fussing and writhing woke Jennifer, and she hummed softly, as she usually did when she woke, and stretched her arm over the nightstand, reaching towards the white LED glow of the alarm clock.

“Six forty-five,” she muttered, answering his unasked question. It irritated him when she did that, her uncanny way of presuming, usually correctly, that she knew what he wanted and needed even before asking. It made him feel simple, like a fool or a child. She closed her eyes, hoping to eke out a last few minutes of sleep before the ringing alarm set off the day’s responsibilities: preparing the kids for school, calling their realtor to reschedule a house showing, reviewing papers before her ten a.m. department meeting.

Mike sighed, resigned to something he couldn’t fully put into words. A feeling perhaps akin to being the backseat passenger in his own life, and a defeatist acceptance that while there was little he could do to change the course, he may as well get something out of it. He reached for Jennifer’s shoulder and tugged her into his arms in an equally questioning and forceful awkwardness. She stiffened a bit, in an involuntary way, and more at being ungraciously manhandled than any real discomfort, as she obliged and turned towards her husband. She repositioned herself in his embrace but kept her eyes closed, unwilling to give up her clinging hope for a few more minutes’ sleep. Neither said anything to each other.

Mike noticed his wife’s not-so-subtle gestures and understood them for what they were; a wordless plea for more sleep. But as he did on many more mornings than either would comfortably admit to, he simply chose to ignore his wife’s plea; his morning wood was throbbing in his boxers and needed release. He hummed under his breath as he rubbed his hand in erratic, meaningless circles over the cotton fabric of Jennifer’s thin nightshirt. He pulled her closer and groped her left breast weighing it clumsily before tweaking and twisting her nipple. She winced; the pressure was too much, too abrupt. He hummed again, his voice artificially gravelly as he reached for her small hand.

Jennifer sighed, too, but in frustration and not arousal. As she had on many prior mornings, she mentally debated with herself whether she should talk to Mike, shove him away or play dead in a last ditch attempt to get him to leave her alone. It wasn’t that Jennifer wasn’t interested in sex—God no! The opposite was true! Jennifer was a vibrant, sensual and ripe creature! Beneath her calm, considerate surface was molten passion; its heat produced a clouded lust that hung over every movement, every experience and every encounter of her days and men who sensed it fell to their knees in its wake.

But somehow, her husband was immune to it. And she was tired of making any effort towards sex with Mike: there were only so many times and ways a woman could explain to her husband—to the father of her children—that his touches were too rough, his morning breath too foul, his idea of foreplay too short and dull and his general technique too lackadaisical. And Jennifer had tried all such times and ways to explain: gently, educationally, miserably, and finally, angrily. There was little left that she was willing to say.

Mike’s hangdog expression when she’d rolled her eyes and quipped, “You know, ‘I’m so close; keep doing that’ doesn’t mean that you stop doing everything that feels good, flip me over and flop around a bit until you jizz,” was the last straw. As much as she wanted a sex life meriting her gifts and charm, Jennifer was more concerned with being a good wife and preserving her husband’s diminishing self-esteem.

And so, she lay in Mike’s prodding grip and indulged him a few moments while he rubbed with too much friction, groped with too much force and caressed with too little consistency. She’d stopped long ago trying to voice her disappointment with moans or mewling because Mike took any sound she made as praise of his lackluster skills and encouragement to continue rougher, harder and faster.

Jennifer might have tolerated it all a bit longer, but at that moment, Mike sighed, sending a rush of hot, stomach-turning air against her cheek that almost made her gag. He misinterpreted her responding lurch as a sensual, pre-orgasmic reaction to his touch, and moaned and pressed his forehead against Jennifer’s, panting in her face as he rolled over her, trapping the air between them like a Dutch oven.

“Ohhh, you like

that

, huh, baby? That get you turned on…? Come on, baby, give daddy some sugar.” Mike pressed his lips, which were oddly dry chapped and sticky-slick at the same time, to Jennifer’s and slid his thick, pungent tongue against them to pry them open. The rancid smell of his morning breath clung to her skin. In response, her lips pressed tighter together and she wriggled out from under him.

Mike was surprised, and then irritated. First Jennifer was into it, and now, she was suddenly pushing away? He could never understand the mercurial turns of his wife’s behavior, or what had turned her into such a prude!

They used to fuck like rabbits. When they were in college and later while he was in law school, there were days when he had to all but pry Jennifer off his dick. Maybe it was true what they say about middle age and kids; perhaps those changes of life completely drained the sex drive out of a woman.

Mike tried hard to be understanding. He wanted to be a considerate and loving husband. But he was also tired of living in a sexless, unfulfilled marriage.

Jennifer wiped Mike’s slobber from her face, rolled to her side of the bed and hopped to her feet. She grabbed her robe and muttered to Mike as she threw it on, “I need to make sure the kids are up. Why don’t you….” She waved her hand in an aimless gesture and shrugged, hoping to make a break for it while still letting Mike save face.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” He flopped back against the pillows and stared at the awful floral wallpaper as Jennifer left the room. He knew what his wife meant:

why don’t you just jack yourself off

? Once upon a time, Jennifer’s mouth would shock him with not only the terms she knew for sex organs and sex acts but also the ways her lips and tongue would execute on those dirty definitions. Now, she was even reluctant to describe it.

In humiliating and frustrating, but nonetheless nagging, need, Mike freed his throbbing dick from his loose boxers. He stroked himself with the quick, uncomplicated movements that pleased him best. He grunted, not so much because he was close, but in annoyance at Jennifer and her stupid “no electronics in the bedroom” policy: what he really wanted was Pornhub. Or at least Girlsinyogapants. Instead, he had to rely on his imagination while he yanked it. He flipped through his mental spank bank:

Small breasted Asian lesbian teens fucking each other with dildos. Spy cams of large breasted MILFs trying on bras and panties in Victoria Secret. Jettisons of cum distorting the facial features of smiling blue-eyed blondes.

But Mike settled, as he usually did, into an old but reliable fantasy. It’s storyline wasn’t provocative, dirty or hardcore, but it got the job done every time without fail. He stroked his dick a bit slower and with a tighter grip, imagining himself buried deep inside a buxom young brunette woman. They weren’t fucking; they were making love. And she needed his dick, needed it for her happiness, needed it for life to make sense. As cliché as it seems, she needed it like she needed air to breathe. Riding the crest of passionate waves moving through her, she could barely catch her gasping breath as her hips rose and fell to meet Mike’s thrusts.

“You like that, baby girl,” he grunted into her soft, shiny hair as she moaned.

“Oh fuck, oh yes, daddy! So good! You’re so good to me! Gimme your cock, daddy!”

Wordlessly, they understood how to maximize each other’s pleasure. She reached clumsily for his hands and her soft pink lips made a perfect, soundless “oh” as she closed her eyes and arched her back under him. “I love you,” she whispered in his ear as her orgasm rocked her, and her tight, wet pussy fluttered as Mike roared and shot his spunk deep inside of her.

He panted and groaned, catching his breath as his orgasm subsided. And coming down from the thrilling rush of his daydream, he could hear banging and water running and the TV changing channels and the shrill-edged cadence of his wife and children’s voices as they scrambled around the house. Mike reached for the Kleenex box on his nightstand but the box was empty. He couldn’t help cursing and grimacing under his breath then; why the fuck did Jennifer tell him to jack himself off if she hadn’t restocked the fucking tissues? Mike carefully scooped as much of his gelatinous cum off his soft belly and pubes as he could, and padded carefully into the master bathroom to take a shower.

He came downstairs fifteen minutes later after finishing the ablutions of his quick toilet. As it was most days, his hair, thin at the crown and graying at the temples, was parted to a side comb-over, and the bit of stubble that had given some definition to his soft jaw and chin were shaved away. Jennifer was standing at the kitchen island behind Emily, their youngest child, and watching Emily finish her math homework. Jennifer glanced up at Mike and smiled softly as she looked him over.

“Well, you sure look dapper, mister. You have a client meeting today?”

Mike nodded as he poured himself a travel mug of coffee. “An inspection. A slip and fall on Coney Island.”

“Oh geez. On the actual boardwalk?”

“No. An employee’s fall in a store.”

“Oh, that should be a piece of cake. Especially for you!”

Mike took a sip of the strong coffee and then grinned at Jennifer. She was an insurance adjuster herself, and one aspect he’d always loved about their marriage was that he could discuss work with her. Or rather, that he could tell her about his work and she understood and was impressed. “I’m running late though. The building inspector is going to meet me at ten-thirty.”

Jennifer looked at the kitchen clock. “Oh geez, well hurry! It takes nearly two hours to get to Brighton Beach this time of morning, doesn’t it?” Mike nodded and kissed her quickly.

And although she noticed that Mike had, technically, showered and brushed his teeth, Jennifer winced, realizing that he was off to meet with clients and his freshness left quite a bit to be desired. She debated giving him some warning, but decided against it since he was already cutting it close on time; all her warning could do was make him self-conscious, and Jennifer knew that feeling would make Mike defensive too. She didn’t say anything, and Mike kissed their daughters on the tops of their heads and muttered goodbye again as he rushed out the door.

Two hours of a rough commute later, he stood at the corner of Ocean Parkway and Beach Side Avenue, tapping his foot and waiting. It was ten forty-five, and he hummed under his breath as he scrolled his Blackberry. He was frustrated; the Blackberry’s screen wasn’t nearly as sensitive as his own personal iPhone. Its search function wasn’t half as good and neither was its map.

“3119 Ocean Parkway,” he mumbled slowly, reading the search result for “Gastronom Russya Deli”, and glancing again at the street sign on the corner and the numbers on the awning over his head. Maybe the deli’s owner, Ygor Bygazkya, had misunderstood that today was the insurance company’s inspection? Mike certainly wouldn’t put it past him; Mr. Bygazkya’s English was possibly better under convivial circumstances, but unfortunately, Mike would have no way of knowing that because every conversation he’d had with the old man had been related to litigation.

Mike had tried unsuccessfully on multiple occasions to explain to Mr. Bygazkya that he

represented

him—that he was the man’s own attorney, had been hired to advocate for his business’ interests in the pending lawsuit, and the deli’s commercial insurance policy would cover all of the litigation costs—but Mr. Bygazkya remained quailing and suspicious.

The lawsuit was just a simple, straight forward slip-and-fall case. A deli employee alleged that she injured herself falling down stairs on descent into the storage basement. There was no indication that the stairs were damaged or that there was any foreign substance on them. In other words, there was nothing to indicate the employee fell for any other reason than her own clumsiness. And her injuries weren’t severe; just a sprained ankle and questionable fall on her backside.

In any other jurisdiction, the case would have settled ages ago. But the Gastronom Russya Deli was a mom and pop squarely situated at the corner of Ocean Parkway, the intersection of historic Coney Island and burgeoning Brighton Beach, placing the lawsuit in Brooklyn, Kings County: America’s slip and fall capital. The last issue that needed to be addressed to dot all the i's and cross all the t's was an inspection of the basement stairs.

Mr. Bygazkya had finally agreed that he would allow Mike, his private investigator and his building inspector onto the property. But it was the day of the inspection, and Mike was standing alone, the only person who’d shown up for the walk-through. And not only was he the only one there: the lights were out, the CLOSED sign was in the front window and the metal security gate was still lowered and locked over the deli’s storefront!

Mike felt like he’d been waiting for hours in what was really only a few, irritating and uncomfortable, minutes. The late March weather was fluctuating between spring chill and summer city humidity. Mike’s polyester-blend beige suit was holding heat in against his skin making the humid day feel even hotter.

He fiddled with the Blackberry again, opening and refreshing his email account multiple times. This wouldn’t be the first time that his emails had been batched and botched since his firm, Mavis McNulty Martin Martin Smith Scott & Thomas PC, went over to Enterprise, in alignment with the security overhauls at the commercial insurance companies. And sure enough, after six or seven attempts, Mike’s inbox finally refreshed itself with a thread of new emails. Apparently, the inbox hadn’t refreshed at all since the previous evening!