Engineer Mike Giles and wife have been unable to start a family and neither will undergo tests, fearful of being identified as the problem party. Gloria takes a lover leading Mike to suspect her motive is pregnancy. The tip off came from his wife's sister Liz. He sneakily identifies this bastard before deciding how to deal with it.
FOUR
Nancy had gone back to her cabin when I awoke to the alarm at five in the morning. She'd slept with me for most of the night and then left discretely. We pretended that no-one knows we sleep together, but of course everyone on-site knows because we are a close-knit work group.
A code exists without anyone publicizing it or enforcing it. Nancy could walk along the 2.7 mile construction site with her tits hanging out and it would be doubtful anyone would do anything but blink, as she was branded as 'Mike's girl'. Honorable men honored the code because that's how they do things whereas men who'd rather like a piece of Nancy knew if they touched her and she complained they'd have a visit from me and the result would not be pretty.
Everyone knows the stories of drunken brawlers who'd been put to bed, literally by me – often hospital beds. In the toilets of the machinery workshops is a newspaper cutting of the battered face of Big Irish MacKellar – teeth missing, cuts everywhere; MacKellar, is still in prison.
That horrible incident centered on a young administrative assistant on a project under my supervision going missing, and was found battered and sexually interfered with, although not raped. Suspicion fell on everyone but after lengthy investigation the police was stymied.
One night MacKellar, drunker than usual, mentioned the young admin assistant's name and claimed he'd "messed her up a little". No one believed him until MacKellar pulled out the missing silver clip the woman had worn around her pony-tail that day. "I couldn't fuck her, I was too drunk," bellowed MacKellar.
Fred Stockman called me.
I entered the room, dressed in a tracksuit and wearing working boots.
"Sorry boss for messing up Jenny a bit but there's nothing you can go about it – rat on me to the police and no-one in this industry will trust you to ramrod a job."
"You're going to pay for this, MacKellar," I said and space around us quickly cleared.
MacKellar looked almost twice as big as me, and knew it, grinning and licking his lips. I went in and kicked at his right kneecap, only grazing it and the big Irishman laughed bullishly and threw a looping punch to knock my head off but missed.
I kicked his other kneecap and everyone heard bone crack and MacKellar roared with pain. Then I drew from my pants pocket an assault weapon given to me by a friend who trains in martial arts. Its two eight-inch pieces of black metal are linked by a short piece of chain.
I went for him. There were five sickening cracks of metal hitting MacKellar's face, administered in almost a blur and he crashed to the ground.
"Fix it up for me boys," I said walking out through the silent throng.
The police and press were called and arrived almost together. They entered the deserted recreation room to find MacKellar unconscious, with a note pinned to his chest stating, "I'm guilty of messing up Jenny van Den Burgh."
At least thirty-five men witnessed that beating and the police questioned everyone on-site but couldn't find a single witness and everyone had an alibi.
In next morning's regional newspaper the heading on the page 3 story above the pictured beaten face of MacKellar was:
Brutal Beater Surrenders to Police After Mysterious Accident
.
That incident earned me a lot of respect but my family and friends never got to hear about it. In fact I'm not a violent man, which is why I've not tried to slap sense into Gloria to break her pulsating desire to get pregnant, a pressure within her that's threatening to blow our marriage apart.
It's now three months since she'd refused to have sex with me and now appears to have taken up with another man, supposedly to get pregnant. I groan whenever thinking about this, knowing how stupid we are.
Stupid?
Well, I think so and realize Gloria's thinks the exact opposite – that she's attempting to carry out her reason for being a reproductive female, which is to bear at least one baby and alleges my bloody-mindedness is frustrating that mission.
My restraint has been such that I did not jump on her lover the other night and beat the crap out and her as well, the treacherous bitch.
Because my work project passes hard on the boundaries of two churches, we don't work Sundays. On that free day I usually walk the 2.7 mile site looking at everything, which takes some time, and then I take a nap and go out to early dinner and get back by seven when Nancy usually arrives from spending the day with her folk. We lounge around fucking and talking and then have supper at eleven and the project crews resume at midnight and it's all on again until midnight Saturday.
At the end of every second month, a relief engineer comes in and I get a week off, and now this was my first visit home since I began on the bypass contract.
I'd called Gloria giving my ETA as I didn't want to walk in and find her humping. She sounded warm and pleased to hear from me.
"Get that little bushy box of yours all hot and ready," I said, trying to sound as normal as I could. There was no indication that her legs would open for me, but actually I wasn't too sure I wanted a hairy cunt any more. I'd gotten used to Nancy's completely bald one which meant not having to pick hair from between my teeth.
Hmmmm, I thought. Sounds like you no longer find your wife desirable? That rattled me, I was close to making a definitive judgment and wasn't sure I was ready for it, mainly because I still have no proof that Gloria is having sex with this Mercer bastard for fun or really is attempting to have him impregnate her.
I thought about that one deeply and the light bulb popped alight over my brain and an idea was born. I'd need Liz's cooperation; that could be given unselfishly, or perhaps it may require taking her out to lunch while Gloria was working as marketing manager for J B Homewares.
FIVE
Gloria came running out to meet me as I rounded the rear of my 2002 Chevy Silverado 4WD, its black metallic paint and matching tonneau cover looking travel weary, not having been washed for a fortnight.
"Your truck's filthy," was her greeting.
She looked a litter thinner, a little stressed which was something. I kissed her, grabbing an ass cheek in one hand and a thrusting in the other to secure a boob, just to show her I still cared.
"Let's go inside; the neighbors," she said.
It hadn't always been like that; until the past year we'd practically be ripping clothes off on the driveway if we'd been apart for even two or three days.
"Are you pregnant?" I grinned, again to show that I cared.
Her face turned scarlet and she turned, saying come in as she had coffee ready. I noticed she'd not answered the question and remained silent just to let her know I was waiting for an answer, which should have been something like, "However could I be? You're been away."
Thirty minutes later Gloria kissed me goodbye, saying she had to be back at work. Her last words to me were unwifely: "Remember, no sex until you get tested re our unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant."
"Have you had yours?" I called, but she drove off waving.
Last night Nancy had refused to have sex, saying she wanted to send me home with a full load. She was, I must concede, a smart girl. But what a waste that had been, or was it?
I phoned Liz but there was no reply from her home. She'd ended up with the house in the divorce settlement whereas he landed the car, boat and very valuable beach site down at the 'narrows'.
I spent an hour looking round for signs of Mr James Henry Mercer (43), company director and my wife's lover. The sheets were freshly laundered so my check for male hairs was fruitless.
I checked the phone bills and there were a many calls to a number I didn't recognize – I looked up my notebook and found the number matched the business number I'd taken off James Henry Mercer's business card. Well, I suppose if you are all alone at home and feeling lonely you'd either phone you husband or your lover, wouldn't you? I did not require my calculator to work out that asshole Mercer was getting at least two calls from the Giles's phone to every one I got up country. Oh yeah, it's devastating to find that you are no as popular as you'd thought, I grinned sourly.
Thinking about sex and more particularly about my wife having sex without me, made my balls feel rather tight. I was thinking about masturbating when I thought of Jacqui Jones, a cute redhead potter who my randy father used to fuck until mom found out about her and placed her off limits. I'd gone to lunch with Jacqui and dad a few times and we went sailing together one weekend.
Sex with Jacqui? The thought rattled my mind – she was only six years older that me so why not, if she brought it up? But my interest in her was she'd been a nurse and then a private midwife before she took up potting fulltime.
I called and she sounded really pleased to hear from me and she yes, come around now and she'd have beers on the table waiting and added, excitedly, what a wonderful way to spend an afternoon – "Are you still as handsome as you were?"
Rather immodestly I replied "Of course", but managed to button my lip and not comment about her tits. Dad once told me she had the nicest knockers of any woman he'd bonked. He preferred that word to fucked.
Figuring I was at last about to get somewhere with this problem with Gloria, I went across city to the river where Jacqui lived, just above flood level, half wondering about how she could help me intellectually or at least as a practical counselor and half hoping she'd exposed her tits.
When dad had mentioned her knockers to me – were quite drunk at the time – he did say she loved to...how did he put it? Yeah, to flaunt them. I'd thought at the time that's my kind of woman, and right now I knew she really was. It would just be my luck to find she was remarried or had some fucker sitting with her, arm around her, and grinning at me.
I parked on the street and walked down the very steep driveway down the ancient riverbank – over centuries the river had lowered itself by some fifty feet. I rehearsed how to behave politely by not looking at her tits and to smile and say what a pleasant afternoon it was. I remembered dad had taught her to greet people saying in his ex-Pommy voice, "Good afternoon, how do you do?" I used to practice it as well.
Jacqui was reading on a sun loafer under the trees when I approached. She saw me, the book went flying and she rushed me. She smashed those tits against me and kissed me, flush on the lips and gushed, "I'm so happy to see you again, my sweet boy." And then she stepped back, straightening her hair; that magic moment was over, or so I thought.
Rather stupidly,or so it seemed at that moment, I grinned and said, "Good afternoon, how do you do?" in what dad calls Best Royal Accent. Jacqui's mouth fell open, she screamed with laughter and came against me and held up her face to be kissed. And did we kiss.