"How dare he speak to me like that," Catherine said angrily to herself. She turned onto the freeway and accelerated down the on-ramp toward the city and thought back over events of the preceding week.
Catherine and her husband John had been at logger-heads for the better part of a week. It had all started out fairly suddenly one night at dinner when John had picked on her for an apparent lack of enthusiasm to try and cook something a little different for a change. He had said he was a little tired of coming home to spaghetti or the pseudo-Thai rice dishes that she often served up and he would, just sometimes, like an occasional roast or steak, something with a bit of decent meat in it. Well, Catherine had hit the roof, and so had most of John's dinner. How dare he have a go at her for her efforts, if he could do better, she had told him, he could cook it himself if he liked; not his bloody job, he had snarled at her. And it just got worse from then on, with neither of them backing down, the petty bickering continuing for the rest of the evening.
Unbelievably, it had been their first real fight in the twelve years they had been married but it had continued to simmer and boil for the rest of the week. John had no doubt made it worse by not coming straight home from work for a couple of nights for hours, not even bothering to ring Catherine to tell her he would be late -- like he would normally.
Totally pissed, Catherine had rung an old girlfriend of hers that she hadn't seen in awhile and suggested that they catch-up for a few drinks. Catherine wanted to talk to someone; she wanted to air her grievances with a confidante and have a bitch about men in general.
John had come home from work late on Friday just as Catherine was putting on the finishing touches to her make-up and he had started on her again.
"So where do you think you're going?" he had growled at her, when he had caught her in front of their dressing-table mirror.
"Never you mind!" Catherine had retorted as she straightened up and walked toward the door.
"Catherine, you're not going anywhere dressed like that! You look like a slut! Or is that what you want to look like?"
Catherine was wearing a dress she had worn a couple of times before when they had gone out together and was shocked at John's description of her.
"You have never minded before, John, when it's been the two of us!" she said smugly as she picked up the car keys and began to head for the door.
"That was different! What are you trying to do, go out and get yourself a root or something?" John suggested crudely.
"Ha ha, I'm going out to see Pam, if you must know! Don't wait up!" she hissed back at him as she slammed the front door.
John had stood there totally stunned as he heard their only car start and back swiftly out the drive. Funny thing was, John had loved it when Catherine wore the black dress she now had on; it was short, but not too short; it was low-cut and complementary of her modest breasts, it was also partially see-thru in the right light. John had often noticed other men ogling her when they had been out together and she had worn it -- but to go out on her own in it!
Really, he had thought she had looked nice, very nice. It hadn't escaped his attention that she was also wearing a pair of stockings and high-heels and her tussled-blond hair looked as radiant as ever. She certainly had him worried.
Catherine continued to drive the little yellow Corolla at a steady one hundred kilometres an hour in the post peak-hour traffic and she guessed it would take around half an hour or so to reach the other side of the city where she was to meet Pam.
Pam was still single, too much of a workaholic to have time to settle down into the humdrum of married life. When Catherine had rung her, she had been pleased to hear from her, she had said, and Pam had quickly suggested they meet at a bar that she sometimes visited on her way home from the office. Nothing flash, just a small watering-hole that attracted various riff-raff and vagabonds, but the drinks were cheap and the food was pretty good, and parking was not a problem.
Catherine had memorised the directions fairly well and only had to stop and check the street-directory once as she neared the semi-industrialised part of the city. She very rarely ventured over 'that side of town' as she hadn't much of a need too. On the other hand, Pam had moved nearby to be a bit closer to the office of her demanding career as a marketing consultant for a multi-national beverage company.
There it was, on the corner, The Railway Inn. Catherine slowed down to check it out. "Looks a bit sleazy, Pam," she said softly to herself as she pulled over next to the kerb behind a large van that was parked opposite the pub.
Catherine turned off the ignition and sat for a moment to see if she could catch a glimpse of her friend. "Motorbikes! Oh Pam, I don't know?" she murmured when she noticed about six Harleys lined up, back-wheel to the gutter, polished chrome glistening beneath the dull street lamps.
Feeling nervous, Catherine thought about ringing her friend on her mobile to suggest they go somewhere else, but then she thought about her husband, she knew he didn't like bikers, he thought they were a bunch of wankers riding around posing and trying to act tough.
Thinking of John made her angry again, how dare he say she looked like a slut, she thought, never had she been remotely unfaithful to him after all these years. Well, that would be true; all except for one close shave once not so long back. Catherine smiled to herself as she reflected upon the memory;
Having often flirted with her husband's friends over the years, she had knowingly teased some whom had come over to swim in their pool one afternoon late last summer. Wearing just a skimpy little white bikini around John and his three friends most of the afternoon, Catherine had served them all drinks and nibbles, while they either relaxed on sun lounges or swam in the pool. It was pretty obvious to Catherine the men were ogling her whenever she was close enough, but she pretended not to notice. Funnily, her husband John, didn't seem to mind when other men checked her out, he had often said it got him excited to know his friends thought she looked hot.
Of course, Catherine hadn't ever told John what had happened to her later that same afternoon when she had been left alone with two of them, Mike and Robbo. John had decided on an impromptu barbeque, and with his other friend in tow, they had left the house to drive down to the supermarket and purchase some sausages and a couple or loaves of bread.
Catherine had known Mike for a few years, he was a work associate of John's, around their own age, and recently divorced. Robbo was new to the scene, someone Mike had only recently met since taking up learning how to skydive. Catherine thought he was quite young, maybe only in his mid twenties, with a mop of unruly hair and a devilish grin.
In the past, Mike had always been pretty quiet, but that afternoon Catherine had seen another side to him that she had found amusing for some reason, and she had tormented him most unfairly whenever she thought she could get away with it. And unwittingly giving her ammunition, John had told her that only a few months after Mike had separated from his wife, he had visited Thailand "for a holiday". This was something Catherine had stirred Mike about several times that arvo, as she pretty well knew why single men visited some of the Asian countries.
