I saw it all in slow motion. Funny how the mind works. I was flying backwards, falling. I saw a blurry figure, then the roof, then my feet and roof at the same time I hit, landing on my upper back first. Terrible pain. A crunch and blackness. What a damn nightmare.
I groggily awoke. My head throbbed, My whole torso hurt. I had no idea where I was. I laid there for few seconds before attempting to open my eyes. I squinted, seeing only a fluorescent light fixture. Ceiling tiles. I closed my eyes again. My body was a mass of pain, each breath agony. I felt like crying out but laid there trying to take stock of what was happening. The first attempt to turn my head told me that movement of any sort was not wise. An electric shock of pain shot down my spine. I tried to look sideways without moving. Even that minimal movement hurt. Then I heard the voices. Was that what woke me up?.
"Is he going to live, doctor?" asked first voice. Yes. "When do you think he will wake up?"
"That is the question. He was showing signs of coming around earlier then passed out again. We just need to be patient." said voice two, who I assumed was the Doctor. "He's a lucky man if you consider what happened. The MRI showed no cranial bleeding but there is already a little swelling. He is certainly concussed. We'll have to keep an eye on the possibility of his brain swelling further. His left arm is broken. At one spot, both the radius and ulna and at another, the humerus. From the way his back looks, he hit the stairs at shoulder blade level then slid the rest of the way. His back is badly bruised. His suit coat kept him from being scraped raw but still. Probably a good thing he was tilted towards his left or the gun he was carrying might have added to the damage. He might fractured his sacrum or his hip. He came to rest after hitting the back of his head. It is scraped and bled a lot. No stitches required. We cleaned the wound and bandaged it. I understand he stopped with his feet still up the stairs. He basically body-surfed down until his head and shoulders hit the bottom." Voice one affirmed that. "How he kept from tumbling, I have no idea. I'm guessing he went most of the way down in midair."
"It was about eight or ten steps." said voice one. "I didn't count but I will need it for my report. So no idea when we might talk with him?" Pause. "Okay, well, we have the woman getting checked out. She was pitching a fit about not wanting to be examined, but I saw some blood on her fingers and I wanted to collect any evidence before it got washed away. Oh, yeah, that brings up another point. The victim had three long gouges on his right forearm. Can you tell me which direction they were made? From hand towards the elbow or the other way around."
I closed my eyes and tried to calm my breathing. The monitor was still beeping faster than normal but did not accelerate. I heard the curtain pulled back. I felt somebody fiddle with the tape on my arm. After a bit of poking..... "From hand towards the elbow, for sure." the doctor said. "Which makes no sense if you consider the direction of his fall."
"Makes perfect sense if you think about it from a different perspective." said voice one. "His right coat sleeve was pushed up and bunched at his elbow. But I'll need to confirm with forensics. Hey! Do you think I can get a cup of coffee while we wait and I make a few phone calls?"
"We have a pot at the nurse's station. Sue, can you get the officer some coffee? Ahh, better make it two. It seems his partner is here." I heard the curtain pulled back into its original position.
"So what do you have?" asked asked the new person from the other side of the curtain. Voice one told the other man what the doctor had said about me.
"Well, we got both the man and woman downtown." said the second cop. "Their stories coincide, but I don't believe it. It does not match what the witnesses say. How lucky is it we happened to be a couple blocks away about to eat when the call came in? The responding officers were barely there when we pulled up. I'm glad they could check the vic out and leave us to look at a fresh scene."
"Yeah." voice one. "Did you see the video?" VIDEO? "The girl in the apartment across the landing was showing her folks her new apartment when all the shouting started. They opened the door with their cell phones out and recording to see a big naked man and a naked woman standing on the landing. The man yells 'That'll show you your place you fucking cuck!' They couldn't see what the two were looking at down the stairs, but they got that part clear as day. I mean it was graphic. The two had obviously just been fucking. The man's dick was still wet and you could see cum and fluids running down the woman's thighs."
"Yeah, lucky the witnesses saw who was there." said second voice. "One of them called 911. The young neighbor was squatting next to the victim when the first unit arrived. She pointed and said 'He is the guy who pushed this one. Don't let him get away. The guy was dressed and coming downstairs. He was running. The woman was standing at the top of the stairs wearing a little robe and bawling. They both told bullshit stores with no mention of their being naked and having sex. According them they were innocently visiting and the vic came in and attacked them, then ran out and fell over his own feet." Both men laughed.
I laid there thinking about what I had just heard. As much as I hurt at least my brain was functioning. Maybe I could turn this around a bit. Would I be wrong to lie? To add a little to the story? Fuck the bastard. He pushed me down the stairs. I could have died. Hell, I could still be majorly fucked up.
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Let me go back three weeks to where it began. Well, not when it began but when I became aware something out of the ordinary was going on. My wife Judy was in the shower. She'd left her phone on her make up table. It pinged and lit up. I looked at it. "Hey Sweetcheeks' it began. Then the screen went dark. I tapped in her log in code and checked her recent messages. "Hey Sweetcheeks. I want some of that hot pussy. How about tomorrow afternoon?" The message was from Judy's boss, Mark Danvers.
Mark was the broker who owned the real estate franchise where my wife worked as a sale agent. This was not the first time my wife had received an inappropriate text from the asshole. Just a month prior Judy was sitting on the couch when her phone pinged and she opened the text. Unseen by her, I walked up behind to bring her a glass of wine. "You looked FINE this morning. I want some of that pussy as soon as we can get it on," it read. I about dropped the wine as I read that over her shoulder. I bristled.
Judy neatly covered. She giggled, "I bet he was texting his wife again. You know her name is Julie. Right next to mine in his contact list. He has messed up and sent me texts meant for her before." Her neck had turned bright red as she tapped a couple icons. 'Hey stupid! Robert (pronouncing it Row-Bear) just walked up as you sent me the text you meant for your wife. If you are gonna flirt with her via text, make sure who you are sending it to, okay? No, YOU tell him." She put it on speaker.
"Hey Dude, I'm so sorry." Mark said. "I'm trying to spice things up with my wife a bit, ya know? I sure did not mean to send that to Judy. Judy, thanks for not getting pissed I messed up." I was relieved.