This is the fourth part of a five part story and it could be read as a stand alone. I would suggest that you read part's One through Three first though. There is no sex to speak of. So if you are looking the stroke stuff? Click the back button now!
My thanks go to Techscan and LadyCibelle for their kind assistance with the editing of this story and correcting the usual clangers that keep my critics so happily amused. But I'm sure you'll find something you don't like in the story somewhere.
I would like to point out that my editors do not necessarily agree with my interpretation of the characters or the events portrayed. Any flack should be directed at me. This is a work of fiction and comes solely from my somewhat demented mind.
Part 4 – Anita's Story
I push the stiff door open, stagger inside, collapse onto the scruffy old bed, put my head in my hands and have my nightly cry. How had I brought myself to this, living in this tatty little bed-sit on my own. I had a good life, a nice house with a gentle loving husband who had given more than I ever wanted. But I had thrown all that away.
I had turned that good man into monster, who would find fault in everything I did. Who would drive me insane with his constant unspoken questions, about where I'd been and who I'd been with. In the end I couldn't stand it anymore and felt forced to leave him. But it was I who had turned him into the man he is now.
You will never believe how it started. One of the girls in the accounts department where I work, had got pregnant and decided she wasn't coming back after she had the baby, she was going to be a stay at home mum.
My boss told me that if I went to night classes and learnt how to use the accounts software they were using, I could have her job.
It was more money and I thought it would be much better than the work I was doing, so I looked into what courses the local college was running. They had a ten week course starting in a couple of weeks later, it was just what I needed and the timing was perfect.
When I got home from work that night I told my husband Martin about the job offer and the night school course. He as always, was very enthusiastic and encouraged me to go for it. That was Martin all over back then, he was always so supportive of anything I've ever wanted to do.
When I think of all the hare brained things I have done over the years, I don't think he ever once put up an objection. He encouraged me when I wanted to start horse ridding again, and even offered to buy me a horse. Then there was the ballroom dancing classes, I know he hated it, but he took me every week for months until I lost interest and there had been many other short lasting hobbies.
When I first met Martin, I was working on the tills at the local supermarket. He started coming in two or three times a day. Often buying no more than a can of soft drink and he always came to my till. He appeared very shy, in the beginning he would just smile as he paid me, after a while he started just saying hallow and asking how I was, then we would have a little chat
Mrs Sanders the supervisor, started telling me off, as he would be at my till for some time, keeping me occupied whilst other customers were waiting. But I told her, I couldn't be rude to him. One day she asked me if I liked him, I said that I did, but I didn't think he had the nerve to ask me out.
"Well, we'll soon see about that!" she replied, "You are here to serve our customers, not talk to your admirers."
The next time Martin came in I could see her watching him through the office spy window. Martin got his can of Coke and walked over to the cash tills. The other two till lines were empty, but he came and stood behind the customer that I was serving.
As I finished serving the lady, out of the corner of my eye I saw Mrs Saunders come out of the office. She came striding down the store like she was on a mission; I was worried and wondered what she was going to say to Martin.
"Excuse me young man". She almost bellowed at him. Martin was taken by surprise and spun around to look at her. "Would you mind telling me your name?"
"Martin, Martin Shaw." He answered, looking very nervous and somewhat taken aback.
"Well, Mr Martin Shaw, this young lady is Miss Anita Thomas. There! Now you've been introduced, so you can get on and ask her to go out with you, and after she has said yes, you can leave her alone to get on with her job." Then in a much softer voice. "Oh by the way, she's off shift at seven, perhaps you can meet her and go for a drink or something.
With that, she stormed off again. Martin turned back to me his face had turned beetroot red.
"Anita, would you like to go for a drink?" He sheepishly asked.
Of course I said yes and the next thing I knew, we were going steady. I had always taken Mrs Saunders to be a bit of an old cow, but I think she really had a heart of gold.
Mrs Saunders would always ask after Martin, and six months later when I showed her my engagement ring she was very happy for me. The funniest thing she ever did was at our wedding, we were stood in the reception line, when Mrs Saunders's got to Martin she gave him a bill for a can of Coke. Martin and both looked at her confused, and she told us that Martin and I hadn't realised that he had never paid for his can of Coke that day.
I soon found out Martin was not the shy man I had taken him for, it appeared that it was only me he was shy with. Well, until he got to know me, and he got to know me very intimately, very quickly, if you know what I mean.
Martin and I were marred a year after we met. Martin unlike me, was very cleaver and had a really good job in his fathers business. Well, it had been the family business but his father had sold out to some big organisation. Martin was on a very good salary and it appeared he was able to work when he liked. It was only later that I discovered he was a kind of figure head. He had a great chunk of the companies stock and could really do just as he liked.
I think he liked being what was the equivalent of the boss and being in on the negotiations for new contracts and things, I don't think he really needed to be there, but he claimed the people the company dealt with, like to meet a 'Shaw' when they did business. We or should I say Martin, (I never had any money until I married him) bought a great big detached house just off the high street for us to live in.
Unfortunately we were soon to find out that I couldn't have children. I thought that Martin would get upset about it, as he had said that he was looking forward to having lots of children. But he was wonderful about it and never showed his disappointment. I was very upset when the doctors told me the news and got very depressed, but Martin was my rock and helped me get over it.
He persuaded me to leave the shop and get an office job with more sociable hours. I didn't think I was cleaver enough, but he assured me that I was. I'm glad he did, as I soon found I was just as cleaver as all the other girls. Martin and I had ten wonderful years together until I started that bloody training course.
There were nine girls and three men on it and after the first week nearly all of us started going over to the pub for a drink after the class. That's when the bastard who ruined my marriage laid a trap for me. But I never realised what he was up to at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I can look back now and see every step he took.
His name was Brian, he was about six foot and quite handsome. He never made a pass at any of the girls or anything, that I was aware of. He just acted like everyone else and pretended to discuss the course. It was only later that I realised, during those chats in the pub, he was never saying he didn't understand this or that. It was Brian who was answering everyone's questions, putting us all straight. I know now he didn't need to be on the course; he was on a fishing trip and I was just one of the stupid fish he caught. But God he was cleaver about it, he never showed favouritism in who he helped, he was just helpful and friendly to everyone.
You know it was just like being back at school, we were all friends together, a nice little gang. We all got on very well with the course, I think mainly due to Brian's help and the tutor was very pleased with us.
Towards the end of the ten weeks we were all quite proud of ourselves and as we were getting on so well, we didn't have to study so hard. The conversations in the pub had started to move away from the course and on to more everyday subjects.
One evening one of the girls, Samantha, let on she spoke Spanish. I speak Spanish a little as Martin and I go there on holiday every year, and I said it would be nice to be able to be fluent in it. Brian hadn't been sitting near us and I had no reason to believe he heard me say about improving my Spanish.
On the last week of the course I saw Brian studying a brochure of the colleges courses and I asked him if he was going to do some other courses. He said that he was planning of doing the Spanish course that started in a week or so's time, that went on for twenty weeks.
Christ! I was so naive, now I realise he was playing the fish, but I never saw it back then. I just said, I wouldn't mind doing the course as well. Well that was it, he had me and but I didn't have a clew about it, or what he was up too.
Martin as he always did, encouraged me to do the Spanish course, I only wish now he hadn't been so bloody supportive of everything I wanted to do
The first evening of the Spanish course was very different to the little accounts course, there were about thirty people on it. Mostly youngsters in their late teens and early twenties, with a few retired people. The only person I knew there was Brian and we naturally teamed up straight off, and as before we went over the pub for a drink after the class. But this time, instead of a whole gang of us going, there was just Brian and me.
I didn't take any notice as by now it had become a habit to go and have a quiet drink and a chat. I didn't notice that now we were talking about each other and our lives. I didn't register that the little complements he had started throwing my way, were making me feel good. Like telling me how nice I looked and how well I was picking up Spanish. But it was all having a subtle effect on me.
If I had taken notice of how his attitude had changed, I might have had a chance of understanding what he was up to. God, when I worked on the tills I'd learnt how to deal with wolves. But then, they weren't dressed in sheep's clothing!