AUTHOR'S NOTE
Vandemonium1 and CreativityTakesCourage have collaborated again. As per both our natural leanings there are consequences for the wrongdoer, but please be warned if you are a hardcore BTBer you will probably be left wanting. Sorry! Maybe next time!
We hope you will sit back, relax, maybe have a drink, and enjoy a little escapism with us.
++++++
CHAPTER ONE
PENELOPE, OR PENNY as I've always called her, and I have been married for twenty-eight years. Our twenty-eighth year marked an ending but also a beginning. It was the year our third and youngest child started college. We'd just dropped her off. That made us officially empty-nesters.
I wanted to use the opportunity to try to rekindle Penny's and my love life which had waned during the marriage, due mostly to lack of energy and privacy. As working-class people, we have a small house with thin walls, not a huge mansion with nannies and maids.
I thought all was on track for my plan to succeed. As soon as we arrived home, I carried Penny upstairs and, despite her protests of, "Mike! My ass is sore from the trip", and "Let me have a shower first", fucked the shit out of her. She seemed to enjoy it and I hoped it was a foretaste of things to come. After all this time I still loved my wife with a passion, and still lusted after her like a pervert. At forty-eight, she was still a dish.
After I rode her until she came, with my following suit shortly after, we lay back to get our breath. My plan was to recover a little then go again. Show her what our love life could be like now that we had the house to ourselves. I wanted to encourage her to want it near as often as when we first met. Penny, however, was not on the same page and used the opportunity to press her idea of our immediate future.
Penny is a nurse and had been training as such when we met. With time taken off to have babies, then time and money constraints arising from raising them, Penny had remained a general nurse. Over the years she'd seen and commented on many occasions about younger nurses coming in, fresh out of school, doing some basic courses and being promoted away, or even worse, promoted over her. To say she resented it was like saying the Pope was a little Catholic.
In the aftermath of some pretty spectacular sex, I was introduced to what was obviously a well thought out plan on her part.
According to Penny, there was a looming chronic shortage of paediatric nurses at the hospital where she worked. An intense, six-month training course would put Penny in a good position to stay at the same hospital. She knew for a fact that the head nurse in the same department at the town's other hospital was retiring in two-years' time and she'd be in the running for that vacancy.
That, in turn, would put Penny in the prime position to take over from the matron of her current hospital when she was due for retirement in five years. That was the ultimate prize Penny had her eyes on.
She'd done her research and found she could be paid while doing the six-months of training so wouldn't be a burden on my modest income, then her enhanced salary would help us toward our goal of retiring at sixty with a comfortable bank account.
I looked at Penny, marvelling at this new-found ambition on her part. It was like seeing her for the first time; scary and exciting. I realised my wife was still able to surprise me.
And scare me.
With evidence that much thought had gone into it, I wondered why I was only hearing about it for the first time right now. Why hadn't she used me as a sounding board? Asked my help? Why had she kept these hopes, dreams, and plans from me? Hadn't I always encouraged her?
Even now, with a kernel of concern growing in my gut, I leaned toward encouraging her dream. That is, until the reason for her reticence was revealed. The only place Penny could do the course was in another state, an hour and $250 flight away.
"Six months. That's a long time, Pen. Is there nothing closer? Do they offer an online course?"
"No, they don't and it's not that long a time. It will fly by. In times of war couples did it all the time. Hell, they went years with only letters to sustain them. And surely we can afford for you to fly up once a month?"
I remained silent, running questions and answers through my mind.
Before I could voice any objections, or even ask more questions, Penny snapped at me, "Christ, Mike, don't be such a chauvinist."
That got my hackles up; I'd never been a chauvinist. Not with her, and not with our daughters. I was so offended I almost missed the rest of her outcry.
"If this was about you and your career, I would be expected by the whole damn world to support and encourage you but because I'm a woman, you're making out I'm being selfish for wanting you to support me in my dream."
Selfish? When had I even had the chance to make such an accusation? I'd hardly had a chance to put a word in. I took a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm. Getting angry wasn't going to get either of us anywhere.
"Pen, I'm not being selfish, nor accusing you of it. I'm just trying to get my head around it all. You've clearly given this a great deal of thought over an extended period of time whereas I've had all of ten minutes."
Penny immediately looked contrite. Her tone went from strident to neutral as she explained things further.
By staying in student nurse digs and working at the teaching hospital, the drain on our retirement funds would be minimised. Penny flying home within the six months was probably impractical, given how busy she would be, but it wasn't unreasonable that I could fly up every month or so to spend the weekend together.
It all sounded so reasonable, but I have to say, the divide between my plans for the near future and Penny's threw me and, I think, in hindsight, made me vulnerable. Penny began nibbling my ear, initiating a welcome round two, and effectively silenced any questions I might still have.
Ask any sex-starved bloke. They'll say yes to just about anything in those circumstances. I said yes to Penny attending the next course.
The last bombshell came when she climbed on board for a gallop; the course commenced the following week.
In the aftermath, my well-thought out questions meant nothing; I'd already agreed, remember? I felt manipulated.
Penny departed after a flurry of activity. She was like a kid heading off to their first camp. She was so excited she barely remembered to kiss me goodbye.
I'm embarrassed to say I struggled to establish a new routine. I hadn't needed to think about what I would be doing in my leisure time for years. I was guilty of leaving the planning of our social lives to Penny. As long as she allocated time for my side of the family, I was happy for her to take charge of that aspect of our life. I wasn't alone in that. I knew the same applied to most of the guys I worked with. Between Penny and the kids most evenings and weekends had been filled with things Penny had organised and committed us to, or my getting on with the have-to's of life like mowing lawns, washing cars, and running kids to and from sporting events.
Now, from six in the evening when I got home from work, to ten or eleven at night, I was lonely and bored. It wasn't that I was used to going out all the time, because we'd certainly never been like that, but now there was no one to comment to when the newsreader informed us of yet another stupid mistake made by one of our politicians or to hold hands and laugh with as we watched one of our favourite shows. I even missed giving Penny's feet a rub.
The first week Penny was gone we spoke nightly for about thirty minutes. I must admit to wondering if she'd factored our escalating phone bill into all her planning and budgeting. I must also confess to feeling jealous. She was clearly busy and enjoying the new challenge. She dominated our conversations with all her news. Her excitement was palpable. Names of people I didn't know got thrown nonchalantly in. It made me feel excluded; like I had no place in this phase of her life.
Having said that, our conversations always ended quite lovey-dovey and gave me hope. Perhaps, absence would make our hearts fonder so that when she returned we could go with my plans about rekindling our sex life.
As early as the second week, our thirty-minute nightly calls reduced to twenty minutes duration because Penny said she needed to study and our conversations got her out of her nursing mindset. That hurt. I was now relegated to an intrusion. I tried to always end our calls on a loving note but by the end of the week it felt somewhat one-sided. Regardless, I tried to remain encouraging and supportive, keeping my frustrations and loneliness to myself.
By the third week she asked that we only call each other every second night and, oddly, suggested she be the one to call me, not the other way around. That way, she said, I wouldn't be interrupting her at inconvenient times.
By the fourth week I received only two calls. I tried to be understanding; she had her first major assignment due and was on evening shift, but it was hard. I was grateful that come the weekend I'd be flying up to see her. I missed her. I missed us.
Fate had other ideas. My planned trip had to be cancelled at the last moment as Penny said there'd been a flu outbreak and the hospital was overrun with patients. It was all able bodies to the coal face at the teaching hospital.
That weekend did pay some dividend though. While fuelling up, I ran into an old mate of mine who I'd drifted away from over the years. He, and a bunch of his mates, played poker at a local pub every Saturday night. He invited me to join them and considering I was sick of being at a loose end and forgotten by my wife, I went along. They were a nice group. We played a few friendly hands in the back room, then retired to the bar for some relaxing ales.
