Mystery Meat Marriage

(Please note: This is a fictional story. The legal aspects DO NOT reflect real life.)

I ate the food that was before me. It was some crappy mystery meat stew. It tasted bland but it filled the hole in my stomach. There was another hole inside me that could not be filled.

I realised that my marriage had been a Mystery Meat Marriage. I realised that my marriage had not been made of what I thought it had been. That at the heart of it had been something inedible. A real chunk of mystery meat, if ever there was one.

I stood up, took my tray to the disposal point and left it. I left the dining hall and walked out into the courtyard. It might have been the dining hall and the courtyard back in medical school. Except when I glanced up I saw the guard towers and it came back to me that I was in prison.

How had I, Doctor Wallace Greenslade, ended up in prison? It was the fault of my wife. My loving, faithful (I had thought) wife, Debrah Greenslade, nee Porter.

Ours was a typical love story. We had met in medical school. I was just over 6 foot and an average kind of a guy, average good looks with sandy hair, average cock size, average student, averagely popular.

Debrah was five and a half feet tall, had strawberry blonde hair, was of a build that was on the gorgeous side of chunky. It was love or lust at first sight. For me, certainly and I think for her, also.

We decided to share an apartment and pooled our resources. We were good lovers, we fitted together well. Hey! That's not what I mean! Well, on second thoughts, yes, that too. We were very sexually compatible.

We got married in the Fall of 1990 and we qualified as Doctors being fairly close in our final scores in 1991. Which were, of course, average. Which we did without cheating. Well, would you want to be treated by a Doctor who had got their medical degree by cheating? No, me neither!

After all, we all know the old joke, what do you call the medical student who passes with the lowest marks of his or her class? Yes, that's right! Doctor! A sobering thought. But I digress.

After several years of doctoring in New York State (we both worked as locums) we were looking for something else. Something with a future career for both of us, working together. Something more permanent.

We saw an advert in a specialist medical journal for a medical practice in the Mid West. They needed two more Doctors, unusually, with hospital experience, to join a husband and wife partnership.

We arranged to spend a weekend visiting with them and had planned to hire a car from the airport, but they told us not to bother, they would pick us up and squire us for the weekend, showing us the sights and the sites of their town.

Mandy and Victor Marsh were a handsome couple, about ten years older than us, but there was something edgy about him that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Not a bad boy, but certainly not quite all that good, I felt. And did it turn out I was right! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Over dinner that evening at their modestly sized town's best restaurant, they explained that their life story was pretty much like ours. They'd met in medical school but unlike us, they had married just after graduation.

They had both been left modest legacies and had used their joint resources to buy a run-down practice in need of desperate TLC. The doctor who had ran it had gone off the rails when his wife had left him with his best friend.

He'd taken to drinking and one day a patient had wandered in to his office from the waiting room and had found him dead at his desk. He'd put a bullet from a .45 through his temple. Death had been instantaneous, thankfully.

His estate sold the building as a medical office and the Doctors Marsh were able to not only buy it outright they were able to do some remodelling. Well who the hell would want to work in an office where someone had offed themselves? Or seek medical treatment in such a room, for that matter?

After a couple of years they realised that the office was getting more patients than they could look after and they realised they would need to double the amount of doctors to keep up with the demand for medical services in the town.

They had several advantages, they were both extremely good doctors, getting a large number of referrals from satisfied patients and they were one of only two doctor's offices in a 100 mile radius.

When we finished the meal we went back to their medical center and continued our talk, which was aided by several pots of coffee. We were to be taken on by the center and, after regular evaluations, there was the very real possibility that we would be taken on as full partners.

They presented us with a contract and insisted that we go back home and show the contracts to our lawyer, which we did.

She gave us the all clear on the contract, so we signed it and were confirmed as being employed by the medical center and set about leaving behind our East Coast lives for our new Mid West lives.

We gave notice on our apartment cancelled all services and changed banks, as our current bank did not have any branches out in the Mid West. We hired a removal van to bring the stuff we couldn't bare to part with. There wasn't much, to be honest.

Mandy and Vic had booked us rooms at one of the two hotels in the town and they helped set up a meeting with a realtor to sort out accommodation for us.

We looked at several apartments but realised that we could, at the local prices, afford to buy a house and, as luck had it, one was available for purchase in the same cul de sac as Mandy and Vic lived in.

The town had a small community hospital and in order to save money, when it was designed and built some 45 years previously it was decided that the two doctor's offices in the area would provide over at the hospital.

It was actually quite interesting, though the equipment there was a little out-dated. Not dangerously old, just as I say, a little out-dated.

Four days in the week, the two doctor's offices would provide one doctor who would work at the hospital doing wellness clinics for men, woman, kids and seniors, pregnancy reviews, blood work, general surgery and the like. It was a philanthropic matter.

Not, I hasten to add, philanthropy by the doctors.

Rather it was the philanthropy of the Carter family who had had the hospital built 45 years ago. They had deep pockets so didn't mind funding the two doctor's offices to provide medical cover at the hospital. To be honest, I rather enjoyed it at times, getting to wear a white coat and a stethoscope round my neck. Just like the old times when I'd done my residency!

The one thing that irritated me a tad was that the Carters had been founder members of the NRA and were really keen on the freedom to bear arms. As far as they were concerned if you didn't bear arms, there was something wrong with you!

As a result, all doctors at the regular hospital sessions had to bear arms on their way to and from the hospital. And the Carter Foundation took care of the necessary Carry permits.

I could see no reason for this and I tried to resist, but I was shown the relevant section in the deeds of covenant and I gritted my teeth and when asked what gun I'd like to carry (ironic that I had no choice in whether or not I wanted to bear arms, but did get to chose which type of gun I could carry!).

After some thought and chatting with the local gun shop owner, I decided that I would carry a Walther TPH .25mm pistol. After a few sessions on the range behind the gun shop I became reasonably proficient, and learned all about the gun's nasty 'bite' -just Google Walther bite- but I digress...

The deal had turned out well for the patients of the doctor's offices, too. We could arrange their elective surgery and then carry out the surgery ourselves, if we were experienced and board certified.

Getting myself board certified in general surgery was one of the first things I took care of when I moved to the Mid West. This meant that I was often called in to cover shifts for the other doctors who either were not board certified in general surgery, or whose specialities and board certification were not relevant for the job in hand. After all, as good as an eye surgeon is at whipping a cataract out and whipping a replacement corrective lens in, he -or she- would not be any good with taking out an appendix.

So this was why I often had to cover not only my shifts but also those of my wife and my good friend Doctor Vic.

Yes, my good friend Doctor Vic. After we broke bread a number of times, I figured I had misread Vic and that he was, as my wife put it, an OK kind of a guy, once you got to know him.

I liked Mandy Marsh, we got on together really well and although she was notionally cute, there was no spark between us. Which was just as well, as I had no intention of cheating on Debrah as I loved her too much for that. We'd known a couple at med school, Dean and Nancy Ross, I seemed to recall, who were married. They started going to some wild swinger type parties and although they both seemed pretty cool with it, it ended up with a big mess, with Dean getting badly beaten up by noe of Nancy's lovers, it was suspected. Though the police never did discover who had done this. Though we heard they had a good idea which of Nancy's lovers had done the deed, but lacked conclusive proof.

They split up, got divorced and neither of them completed their course at our med school. Debrah and I had talked about it with our med school buddies and we all agreed that swinging could only mean trouble.

In our Mid West lives, we would sometimes go out on the town together, casual western gear for the barn and line dancing at the Silver Saddle or smart casual for the more upmarket County Club. Believe it or not it was called the County Club in honour of it's founder and first owner (long gone to his great reward) George County.

After four years of this happy lifestyle I noticed that our sex life had started to slow down. Only to be expected, right? If only it were that simple.

I discovered the dirty truth one day in the summertime.

I had somehow gotten to do a Monday shift at the hospital. It should, be rights have been Vic's turn, but he had phoned me claiming that he had a migraine that had messed with the vision on his right eye. "And that's the last thing those patients would want! A doctor with a scintillating scotoma obscuring the vision on his right eye trying to operate on them!"

I commiserated with him. I told my wife what had happened. "Oh, poor Vic! I have a uncle who suffers from migraines. Never gets any of the visual stuff, though. Just the pain and the nausea. Still, I expect Mandy will tend to him. One of the advantages of being married to a doctor! Oh, I just remembered, Mandy is out of town, this afternoon."

I told her "Well, if it gets too bad, maybe you could treat him?" I thought I saw a flash of something in her eyes, but I wasn't sure. I wonder if I am seeing things with the benefit of hindsight?

Wonderful stuff, hindsight...

I kissed her goodbye, grabbed my doctor's bag (which had a side pocket to house my .25 pistol) and headed to the hospital.

It was a pretty routine day, with run-of-the-mill general surgical operations to be dealt with. The anaesthetist was one of the doctors from the other doctor's office, Pat Lang. She was a no nonsense woman in her late 40s who smoked and swore like a sailor. She hadn't aged particularly well, though she was still sexy with her short pixy style haircut and her, well, what could one say? Rugged good looks? She was single, though she still dated a good deal.

At 2pm there was an amusing incident that actually caused a lot of heartache, in the long run. The Doctor who was following on from me was a tall, lanky fellow by the name of Lee Parings. He and his wife are a wonderful couple and though she's a great nurse and he is a great doctor, they have a reputation for being a bit klutzy. This was why he arrived at the hospital to start his shift two hours early.

They'd spent their two week vacation in California. Due to a problem with a plane with an engine fault, their flight from San Francisco was a day late, so they arrived home on the day Lee was supposed to be at work and not, as they'd planned, the day before.

California is two hours behind us. And when they were flying back it looks like Lee had accidentally set his watch forward by four hours, not two! Which was why he had turned up at the hospital two hours early.

We laughed about it and he said: "Well, tell you what. I'll start work now, two hours early. And you can leave two hours early!"

"I owe you one, buddy!" I said to him.

"Don't be so silly!" he said, grinning. "Just pay it forward. Do someone else a favour, some day."

And that was how come I arrived home two hours early and found my marriage to be over.

I walked up to the master bedroom. We kept our doctor's bags in a locked cabinet in the bottom of our more than capacious built-in wardrobe. Why locked up? We kept some drugs in our bags. Plus I had the .25 to put away.

I opened the bedroom door just in time to see Vic, naked, clambering off my wife. His cock was erect and looked wet, and I glanced towards my wife who was on the bed, also naked. Naked. But not for me. And on our marital bed, too.

Her legs were open wide and I could see his sperm leaking from her cunt. Yes. It was her cunt. Ladies and female patients had vaginas. My wife was a cunt. Had a cunt, I mean. Oh, well, let it pass.

My wife looked startled and ashamed. Vic made a mistake that nearly cost him his life. He smirked. But neither of them said anything.

I knew what I would do. What I had to do. I placed my doctor's bag on the bedroom floor, grabbed the .25 TPH pistol out of the bag's side pocket. I aimed the gun at them.

Debrah said: "No! Please, Wally! It's not what you think!"

I released the safety and fired one shot at Vic. Fuck. I am a doctor. And I just shot a man. That guff about doctors signing the Hippocratic oath? A load of baloney. But we are supposed to be healers. And I had shot a man. A friend. Well, a former friend. Who had been fucking the woman who used to by my wife. Used to be? Yes. I knew in an instant that my marriage was over.

Vic shrieked with pain as his hand went down to his groin. "You shot me!"

Debrah shrieked out: "Please! Wally! Please don't kill us!"

I looked at her. I shook my head. "You are a doctor. Your lover is wounded. Treat him. And then call 911. I'll be waiting for the police on the lawn. I'll empty my gun before they arrive. Don't want any accidents, now do we?" I don't know what, if anything, Debrah said. I didn't give enough of a shit to listen to it.

I made sure the bullet in the chamber was ejected and took the cartridge out and left them on the dresser. I took the gun with me and placed it on the hood of my car and sat down on the lawn, awaiting the police.

Within two minutes an ambulance and a Sheriff's car arrived. Sheriff Floyd Patterson stepped out. His gun wasn't drawn but from his demeanour it was obvious he could have it in his hands in seconds. He was a stocky man with sandy hair, widowed a few years now, having lost his wife to cancer.

"What's going on, Doc? He asked me, a concerned expression on his face. "Just got word someone got shot, here. Accidentally, of course?

I looked up at him. "Sorry, Floyd, not an accident. I caught Vic screwing my wife, so I shot him."

A look of pain creased his face. "How is he? Alive?"

I turned to the ambulance crew: "Don't worry, guys! Just go straight on up. Master bedroom's just on the right of the stairs. My wife's working on the piece of shit now. She's a doctor, the same as him."

I turned back to the Floyd. "Floyd, the gun is on the hood of the car over there and the bullets are on the dresser in the bedroom. And yes, Vic is alive. I just shot him in his guts. Only a .25 bullet, so he'll probably live. Though he doesn't deserve that."

"Come on, Doc. Just stand up, I'll read your your rights and though it doesn't seem right, I'll have to cuff you."

"Floyd, you are a good man, just doing your duty. Always knew there must be a reason why it's a rare day when people stand against you for election as sheriff. Now I know."

As he cuffed me, he was blushing from my sincere praise. He was also tearing up a little.

After he read me my rights and gently pushed my head down as I got into the rear of his sheriff's car he said: "Damn it all to Hell! Doc, you are a better man than me! If I'd caught my Mabel, God rest her sainted soul!, in bed with another man, I think I'd have shot the both of them! Dead! And with a fucking .45!"

I was booked in at the sheriff's office which was an extension to the town's civic buildings, which consisted of the town hall, the library and the combined volunteer ambulance and fire station and the sheriff's office.

I was processed (valuables, belt, shoe laces etc, put into a locker and I was placed in one of the holding cells at the rear of the building.

Floyd himself had overseen my booking process. "Doc, I am so sorry to have to be doing this to you. It gives me no pleasure at all. No sir!"

"It's not your fault, Floyd. I did a bad thing, and you had your duty to do. I shouldn't have shot him."

Later that day my wife came to make bail for me. I declined bail. I declined to see her, too.

One of the deputy sheriffs, a younger woman with a uniform just a shade to tight for her, but which looked good on her, was speaking to me. "You don't want bail? You don't want to see your wife? Why?"

"I caught my wife and her lover in bed together. And I shot him. I no longer consider I have a home to be bailed out to and I no longer have a wife. As far as I see it, she's Vic's concern now, nothing to do with me, now."

She tried a different tack. "But if you don't get bail, you can't stay here. You'll be sent to the county jail probably tomorrow or the day after."

I shrugged. "I am going to end up in jail for what I did in any case. Might as well start now, and get used to the idea."

That evening, Floyd came back to see me. "You'll need some food, Doc. We don't cook here for prisoners no more. We ain't got the facilities. But we can get you something from the town hall canteen during the day, or whatever fast food we can rustle up."

I looked at him and shook my head. "That's real kind of you, Floyd. But I'm not hungry."

He looked at me, hard: "You ain't on hunger strike, are you?"

"Hell, no! But every time I think of food, I just get a mind picture of them fucking in our bed and I get so sick I don't feel like eating."

He squeezed my shoulder. "Look, Doc... you're in a bad place, emotionally and mentally. I don't have a clue what your going through, but whatever it is, I know it has to be bad."

He left me and the lights went out and I tried to sleep. Difficult when you keep dreaming of your wife fucking your best friend.

The next morning I was allowed to have a shower and a shave with a disposable razor and I was taken through a connecting door into the small court room in the civic buildings.

My wife was there, as was Vic's wife. Vic, of course, was in hospital, recovering from what was no more than a flesh wound.

The judge looked down at me and said: "you are Doctor Wallace Greenslade, you are charged with wounding. I am not going to ask for a plea today, that will happen at a future hearing. Today is, essentially a bail hearing. I will set bail at $50,000 and arrange for you to..."

I interrupted him. "You honor, if it pleases the court to hear me, I don't want bail."

His halfmoon glasses fell down his nose. He sputtered: "You don't want bail? Why? If you can't afford it, there's one bailbondsman in town, he'll arrange it for you."