Confessions of a Trophy Wife
by
Vandemonium1
Another story of someone regretting the choices they made. This one has been independently rated at 3.5/5 pickaxe handles. There is little sex in it.
You can thank the followers of our blog for reviewing it, particularly Norman, and CTC for her usual highly skilled final edit.
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Susan Cathcart, Susie to her friends, picked up her bag of purchases from the passenger side of the car, shut the door, and headed inside through the internal door in the garage to the house. Just as she reached it she looked back, in thought.
After two years of shit decisions, you finally made a couple of good ones, girl.
The first decision in question was to take the Porsche 911 to the shops to get her supplies. The second decision was deciding to drive herself rather than getting Jeeves to chauffeur her as was her usual want. Jeeves had made it quite obvious he was peeved at her decision. His suck-lemon face being a dead giveaway. He considered the collection of cars, consisting of the Bentley, Mercedes, Porsche, Range Rover, and vintage Mustang, as his private property, which he occasionally allowed other people to ride around in the back of. Susie knew he was hovering somewhere, ready to leap out with polishing cloth and vacuum cleaner as soon as she was out of sight. Heaven forbid so much as a hair from her head be left behind to sully the pristine cleanliness of the Porsche.
Susie's heart was still racing from her outing. After driving quite responsibly into town and making her purchases she'd then headed in the direction of home at the same sedate pace, the Porsche like a stallion being reined in, before an urge became too strong to resist. Taking a right, then another right, she'd headed all the way across town to the neighbourhood she'd grown up in. The one on the 'other side' of the tracks.
What a buzz it had been driving down streets in a car worth more than the houses she was passing. Wearing a designer outfit that probably cost more than the entire wardrobe of the women pushing prams along the sidewalk. That had been her. But no longer. She'd escaped. By hard work and determination, she'd improved her situation to the point she could sneer at her old neighbours.
Now, despite the adrenalin still pumping through her veins, she accepted it was a mistake to drive down her old street but, at the time, her hands on the steering wheel had seemed to be on autopilot.
She recalled how she'd smiled with fond memories when she'd had to stop while the game of street cricket being played on the road by some scruffy ten-year-olds was temporarily disbanded so she could pass. That meant she'd been going quite slowly when she passed her old house. She'd only glanced at it briefly before feeling an overwhelming urge to get home as quickly as she could. She'd stopped only long enough to make some more purchases, before heading back to the mansion. Once past the city limit, she'd opened the powerful engine up as quickly as she'd dared and relied on the car's legendary road handling to arrive home alive.
Susie made a brief diversion into the servants' wing of the house to tell Jenny, their cook, '
No,
' Susan corrected herself, '
My cook
,' what she wanted for dinner, before heading to the formal side of the mansion. Walking past the library, pretty much sealed since her husband's death, she went into her favourite sitting room. It was the smallest of the sitting rooms, the others being too big for her when she felt lonesome as she did tonight.
She took her latest purchases to the bar at the end of the tastefully decorated room and removed the not so tastefully wrapped bottles from their brown paper bags, tequila and Cointreau, and proceeded to make herself a very large margarita. Noticing there was no ice in the fridge, Susan was about to ring for the butler to bring her some before remembering it was his day off. She decided she'd do without and carried her drink to an overstuffed couch and did what she'd done for the last two nights; sat and wondered what to do with her evening.
Three days ago, she'd sat in the very same spot and given her last two friends their marching orders. They'd been the last of her old friends, the last two that hadn't abandoned her. Susan had been perfectly sober at the time while her friends were drunk on her expensive champagne, after going out to the most expensive restaurant in town. That, too, on her coin. Looking at them, giggling and slurring their words, Susan had had a sudden revelation. Neither of them was her friend. Not really. Not true friends. In her old life, they'd been mere acquaintances and had only been promoted to friend status when the others had slowly or otherwise drifted off. Curled up on the couch, much the same as she was now, Susan had realised they were users, only hanging around for the things she could provide them with.
After that revelation, Susan had acted decisively and they were unfriended. They'd said some pretty hurtful things on the way out, reinforcing to Susan that they'd been pretending friendship and that she'd made the right decision in ousting them.
The rightness of her decision hadn't stopped her feeling incredibly lonely the rest of that night and the following one. Susan had never been one for self-doubt and philosophy. She'd never been sentimental but she now realised the one thing her millions would never buy her was a friend.
Deep in thought, Susan lifted her glass only to realise it was empty. Sighing, she rose and made herself another. Less lemon soda in this one, she had a figure to maintain, after all. Susan estimated it would take three of them to blot out her error of judgement of the previous night.
The error where she'd resolved not to spend another night alone and had put on her finery and hit a couple of bars near the centre of town. In the words of her old vernacular she'd, 'tied one on'. It was no great surprise to her when she'd been awoken the next morning by her bedmate attempting to sneak out of her bedroom. Turned out he was no better at escaping than he was at screwing. He tripped over something and cursed loudly enough to wake her. Through half-closed lids, he'd looked to Susan to be less than half her forty-five years and mustn't have liked what he'd woken next to. Certainly not enough to stick around for some morning delight with her. She hadn't cared enough to confront him and, after turning on her side, she'd drifted off to sleep again and so never knew whether he'd emptied her purse of all notes before or after he woke her with his clumsiness.
Susan's hand froze mid-movement with the sudden thought that she'd never really be sure if a guy was interested in her out of love or just after her for the money and lifestyle. The realisation triggered the deepest loneliness in Susan she'd ever experienced.
'
Hah, love'
, thought Susan, '
Who could ever love you
?