For those that follow my work, you know I love to put together those longer pieces. This is a personal challenge to try and put a short story together in 2,025 words to herald in 2025.
I have a couple of Literoticans that give me their time to edit my works, and I'm truly thankful for their support. For this piece of work 29wordsforsnow jumped in to help me out.
In the meantime, Happy New Year to you all!
New Year. Eve's A Party
Bang! Crawling unscathed from a wrecked vehicle after being blown up by an IED in Afghanistan, afterwards,
lucky bastard
was a phrase often tossed my way. You'd have thought that would be
my big life event
everybody experiences in some way. No, karma had a trick up her sleeve, paying me back for walking away that day.
Leaving the army, I became a Regular Reserve, ex-forces personnel who sign up should our services ever be called on again. Once a year, I was released from work to go play soldiers. Unfortunately, during the last stint, the enemy went deep undercover, as in the covers of my marital bed, sabotaging my marriage. The enemy was my then neighbour, Steve, along with the traitor, my wife, Paula. She had some problem with the plumbing, so asked for his help. Help? She unfortunately took
love thy neighbour
literally and beyond any religious connotations. The plumbing he fixed happened to be her personal plumbing that was supposed to be for me to use
my
tool in, not his.
Walking in the door from the stint of being away training, she couldn't look me in the eye because of the guilt. It quickly spewed out. It wasn't supposed to happen, it was a big mistake. By coincidence, Steve's wife Eve had been away on a course, so he was at a loose end. Heβ sorted the plumbing, she cooked him dinner, opened a bottle of wine, and... you've guessed. One thing led to another, yada-yada-yada.
Angry?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
I kicked shit out of his front door, thinking he was cowering behind it. Turned out he'd hightailed it after his wife as she'd cottoned on the minute she came home, too. Back home, I ranted whilst Paula apologised, as if her life depended on it. She swore blindly it was a one-off thing, a series of events that day that aligned, let it happen. Reminding me both her and Steve's guilt instantly gave them away, she assured me it would never,
ever
happen again. Swallowing my pride, I tried, God, I really tried to put it down to a one-off. It took three weeks for the dust to settle.
The bomb... they didn't use a condom, and she was pregnant with the cunt's sprog. So, you see, the IED was tame compared to the final nuclear detonation that turned my marriage into radioactive ash in an instant. Physically, I walked away again like the time in Afghanistan. Mentally, this was a different story. I felt dead inside, so I took a leaf out of Eve's book. I didn't want to face the humiliation, made worse by the pair of them shacking up in Steve's house. So, I bolted, relocating down to the West country and severed all links unless it was through a solicitor. If I would have stayed, I'm sure the rage would've won and I'd make them pay for their misdemeanour in a physical and permanent way. No, I really don't want to rot in some prison somewhere.
Six months later, I called my sister Stella for some support. It didn't go as planned.
"Hello Stel, can you and Tony do me a favour? I need to crash for a night, I'm going to come collect my tools stored in the garage before the house sale is finalised in early Jan."
"Look what the cat's dragged in. He suddenly realises he has a big sister that he hasn't contacted for a couple of months and neglected to give her his new number. The short answer's no...unless you do it over the New Year's Day break. I'm sick of telling people I haven't a clue where you are. Get your arse here, you have a room, and we won't be entertaining any guest from Camp Slut on the night.
"Oh fuck, Stel, please don't make me, not yet."
"No show at party, no help. Simples."
That was it, I knew I had to crawl out from under my rock at some point. May as well be their New Year Eve's party.
ΫΫΫΫ
The journey was a total nightmare. An accident closed the M25 turning half of Southern England into a giant car park. I nearly turned back, but soldiered on, arriving close to ten at night. Once inside, my bag stashed in my bedroom, I joined the party. Despite my initial feelings of it being some shitshow of sympathy, it wasn't - old news I presumed. By elevenish, a fair few drinks had lubricated my soul and I needed to pee. With a queue for the downstairs bathroom, I went to use the en-suite in my bedroom. Letting the stream of warm liquid hose the inside of the toilet bowl, the sound of the bedroom door being opened caught my ear. I called out to the unknown person.
"You want the next room, this is my bedroom. All the coats are being stashed in there."
Nobody answered. After finishing my business, I walked out of the en-suite and straight into... Eve. I felt shell-shocked. Other than the cheating pair, she was the last person I'd expect to see here. We stood, silently, just looking at each other from a few feet apart. She forced a smile, then spoke.
"Hi Ross, your sister invited me. She knows we've never spoken about what happened, figured we could do with a chance to do it here. She suggested I come, in fact I'm staying here too. As soon as I heard you'd rocked up, I snuck into my room. Cold feet, wasn't sure I could face you yet."