"DAMMIT!" Eve screamed as she saw flashing amber lights ahead.
The rain was coming down in torrents and she could see the small river had flooded over the road. There was a road crew waving her off as she gripped the wheel of her Lincoln Navigator and drove around them. She could just barely make out the yells that they were closing the roads and that she had to stop. She knew her husband was at his house and it was time to get him back. The water was halfway up her wheels when she started to lose traction. She heard sounds as the automatic traction control started to do its thing. She almost lost it but was able to make it through and up the county road headed to her husband's house.
For the umpteenth thousand time she kicked herself for listening to that ass hat Greg. Yes, she was bored but why didn't she volunteer or start a hobby or literally anything else. The sex with Greg was great the first two times. The next eight times it sucked as the guilt was wracking her to the point she couldn't enjoy anything. Doug, her wonderful and caring husband, had no clue because he trusted her completely. So why did she do it? Boredom and the fact that she was a selfish cunt. The therapist had put it in kinder words but that's really what it boiled down to in the end.
"I love him so damn much! I didn't realize how much until I saw the look in his eyes when he got the letter," she said to herself as she slowed down to make sure she didn't miss the turn.
Now how was she going to convince him of that? The first was the recorded conversation that she had cut it off with Greg. The second was the clean bill of health from the clinic. The underwear from Victoria's secrets along with the assorted sex toys and lube was another part it. Thankfully she had never done anything with Greg that she hadn't done with Doug. The plan was to let Doug use her body any way he saw fit. The girl at the sex shop that sold her the riding crop had been adamant that she would feel pain if her husband wanted her to. She had a small thrill at the thought of being completely helpless if that was what he wanted. She stamped that feeling down, all that mattered was Doug's enjoyment. He could use some of that writer's imagination and put her through the paces.
She thought back to her confrontation with Greg last week. Although it was embarrassing, she brought the cops along with a lawyer and laid down the law. She would not press charges for blackmail and invasion of privacy if he kept his mouth shut. Those videos were taken without her consent and she would make his life hell if he showed them. She didn't think she could have any less respect for Greg until she saw him almost start crying. He told her that her husband had put his lawyers and PR people on his tail, and he was sorry he ever tried to do anything that would hurt them.
On the one hand she was happy that her husband had stood up to the attempted extortion but she cursed herself for not getting to Greg faster so she could have another line of evidence that she was trying to make things right.
"I'm gonna let him do it," she whispered to herself as she turned up the driveway. "I fucked ten times outside of our marriage, I am going to give him 15 free passes if he wants."
The fact that she was hurt and chilled to the bone at the very thought of Doug being with another woman hit her hard. She couldn't imagine what it must be like to have pictures. What a stupid, selfish cunt!
"Good, he's still here," she thought as she saw his car parked in the carriage house.
She pulled in tight behind his beat-up Prius. Even the damn car was making her tear up. She had negotiated a contract for him worth almost 3 million dollars over the course of the next two years. His latest best seller had sparked a new interest in his earlier works, so the royalty checks were huge. Yet here he was driving a beat-up Prius while she had a brand new, fully decked out Navigator simply because she mentioned in passing that she thought they were cool. She shut the engine off and critically examined her parking job. She had parked at an angle so he couldn't escape. She was playing for keeps. Thankfully there were no other vehicles, he should be here alone. If he was here with someone, she would deal with it.
The house freaked her out. This had been the summer house for logging baron James Cunningham back in the 1800's. At the time the town of Cunningham was one of the bigger sties in the state. James owned both the sawmill and most of the surrounding land. He was also invested heavily in the railroad which had a spur that ended in town. He made money on the logging, processing, and transport of the lumber from the valley. In fact, most of the lumber for the state house came from this valley.
That is why it was such a scandal when Mrs. Cunningham was found stabbed to death along with her lover in the house. The rumors flew that she had many boy toys and refused to give them up. A trial was brought, and James was found not guilty, to the surprise of everyone. After the trial he stepped back from the public view and retired to the summer house with only a few servants. The servants found him dead of a heart attack in the same bedroom his wife and her paramour had met their demise.
All his assets were split between his business partners except for the house. The house and twenty acres were in a separate trust left to the servants. After the last of the servant's kin died the house and acreage eventually went to the county where it was in limbo for years. It had changed hands many times until it came up for auction a few years ago. By the time it had gotten to auction it had the reputation of being haunted. Kids told tales of breaking windows only to have them repaired the next day. It was a local make out spot for a while until one of the girls may not have been as willing as the boy thought. After that every time anyone would enter the house, they got the chills and a sense of dread. As the town dried up over the last century the house was abandoned and forgotten.
Doug had bought the house with his first big royalty check after everything else had been paid. He fell in love with the place and the fact that it had a history spoke to his creative side as a writer. He had slowly been putting money into the place trying to restore it as authentically as possible. He had no other hobbies, when he wasn't writing or vacationing with Eve, he was organizing work to be done on the house.
Eve hated the house. It always had a dark and gloomy feel, also she could never seem to get warm when she was in it. Doug loved the place and talked about retiring to the country. If he asked she would quit her job right now and do it. She HAD to find a way to make Doug understand that she loved him and just made a terrible mistake.
As she entered the house, a familiar sense of gloom enveloped her. She shrugged it off and went looking for her husband.
==================================
Doug rolled over as he thought he heard the door downstairs open. He wasn't drunk or even hungover yet, he was just depressed. He had spent four grand on this awesome bed and right now he never wanted to leave it. He decided he didn't care enough to get up and investigate. The house had all types of noises that he chalked up to the ghosts in the house.
Doug was a writer and fantasy was what paid the bills. No one wanted to read about an accountant who went to work and did his job, then came home and talked to his wife before settling in to watch "Survivor" and then hitting the sack. People wanted to red about detectives who had keen insight, or blue-eyed dashing rogues that were always able to pull victory from the jaws of defeat at the last second. Those fantasies paid the bills, but they also left him with a little different view on life.
His respect for science was immense but he learned early on to keep his mouth shut about his personal views. He didn't think that science could explain everything. There was always going to be some mystery or some phenomenon that defied explanation. So, he was willing to accept that a house could be haunted. This house had a history that lent itself to just that. He had recently come across the journal of James Cunningham that James had apparently started after being found not guilty. It chronicled the pain his wife had put him through with the various affairs, the last one in which she fucked her paramour on their marriage bed After her lover had beat him up.
