One of the problems with a true story is that the Author has to wait for 'Real Life' to take place before she knows what the outcome of the tale is going to be. Simply making it up would be a betrayal of trust!
The author also has to get the main character involved to agree to have intimate details of her life revealed for all the world to see. That's an even more difficult thing to achieve.
I would like to thank my good friend 'Sandie' for having the courage to live through it all and for allowing me to share more of her life with you in this way.
I hope you enjoy the continued story.
***
"I miss you already," my husband told me softly.
"Have a safe trip. I love you too," I whispered into the phone before replacing the handset in its cradle.
It was a Friday morning, almost a full year after the events told in Sandie's First Swing had taken place and I was at home. My husband Tom was at work and as I wished him a safe journey to his weekend conference, I knew I would miss him terribly.
Despite this, I was feeling good; good about us, our family and about our life, in sharp contrast to the terrible condition I had been in only three months ago and from which it had been so difficult and painful to recover.
It had taken many weeks after that fateful night in Wales when my husband and I had both been seduced by our friends Lisa and Paul, but eventually we had re-established enough trust for life to return to something resembling normal. I think we both knew that our marriage could never be quite the same again but after weeks of arguments, accusations, tantrums and tears , the memories and recriminations had gradually lost their sharpness and had stopped interfering in our relationship on a day-to-day basis.
From the outside at least, we were still a normal, happily married couple.
I suspect, had it not been for the unexpected pregnancy that had followed my only infidelity; my one stupid night of unprotected sex with Paul and the terrible termination that had ensued, Tom and I might have managed to get over the incident altogether. In all our arguments since, it was this issue that had caused the most damage. Tom couldn't forgive my stupidity in having unprotected sex. I not only believed Tom had deliberately put me in that position but it was me who had to endure the considerable physical and emotional consequences of dealing with the consequences.
But that debate was pointless now; the facts were simple and undisputable: Paul had very easily seduced me; I had foolishly not even thought of contraception; I had got pregnant; had an abortion and now we had to live with it. The only question, still unanswered was whether Tom had seduced Lisa or Lisa had seduced Tom. I had accepted that, for the sake of our marriage, it would have to remain unanswered.
The tension was partly my fault; for weeks after the termination, my hormone-driven moods had been highly erratic, lurching from elation to severe guilt-driven depression without warning. My normally deep sleep had been broken every night by nightmares from which even now I was not completely free and which brought a permanent background of guilt into my previously-happy life.
Three months after the abortion, things had started to improve. The nightmares had almost ceased; we argued less and less; even our sex life had to some extent been restored, albeit at a much reduced level. For a while it looked as if life together could be tolerable or even good again and for several months it closely resembled the life we had enjoyed before 'that night', as we referred to it on the rare occasions the subject was permitted to arise. For a while we were the idyllic family again; no rows, no tantrums, no tears and a sporadic but improving love life.
As a result, on the Friday this story begins, I was very disappointed that Tom was going to London for a weekend conference. Apart from missing him, his absence left me in sole charge of the kids. I was still not sleeping well despite my current batch of pills and I wasn't looking forward to the task of taking on all the kids' complicated weekend logistics on my own.
To be fair to Tom, the conference was very important to his career and had been planned for months. His parents had offered to help out but at the time I had been in a terrible mood and had rather rudely refused. As I stood alone in the kitchen cooking the evening meal for the three of us I knew I really only had myself to blame if I was exhausted by Sunday night.
The evening had started well. Being Friday, the kids had been tired and bad tempered when they came home from school but with two school-free days ahead, it had been easy to cheer them up, though they would have preferred their Daddy to have been there too. Dinner passed uneventfully; they even helped me clear the table which was almost unheard of. Afterwards I sent them into the lounge to watch TV or to their rooms to play, leaving me alone in the kitchen.
I poured myself a glass of wine, turned on the TV set then half watched, half listened to a Soap while I washed up the saucepans and loaded the dishwasher, all the time wondering what I could do to keep the kids entertained that weekend.
Their normal Saturday routine of swimming, football and dancing lessons would certainly help fill the time and there was always homework for Sunday morning so that left two afternoons and an evening. I pondered my options, both cursing and appreciating my absent husband who would normally take charge of most of these commitments.
Tom would be in his hotel now, getting ready for the opening dinner with its speeches and those huge professional egos flying round. I had accompanied him on these events before the kids had arrived and knew just how dull they could be. The need to provide childcare gave me a very convenient excuse not to attend and I used it liberally.
I bribed the kids to get into their pyjamas by promising them an extra half hour of TV and was just drying up the last pan and putting it away when I heard a bright chime coming from somewhere in the kitchen. I recognised the sound straight away; my mobile phone receiving a text message.
I looked at the kitchen clock and smiled. It must be Tom, I thought with a grin, bored already and sending me messages to keep himself awake. I pictured him surreptitiously typing, his hands hidden under the dining table as the opening speeches droned on. Eagerly I searched in my handbag for my phone and pulled out the handset.
There was no message. That was strange; I was sure I had heard the beep. Wait! There is was again, a second, reminder beep. But it hadn't come from the phone in my hand; it seemed to have come from the door behind which a couple of coats were hanging.
I crossed the room, rummaged in the coats and pulled a second phone, almost identical to mine, from one of the outside pockets. It was Tom's private phone. Like many of us, my husband had two phones; a 'work' one which could be left behind when he didn't want work calls to disturb him, and a 'private' phone for family and other personal calls which he always carried.
That was odd; he should have had both phones with him. Then I remembered he had taken the dog for a walk before breakfast and must have slipped it into his pocket. That was odd too; why would he want his personal phone on a half-hour dog walk?
I shrugged and was just planning sending a cheeky message to let him know where he had left it when my finger clipped a button on the front and the screen sprang to life.
A message flashed up which, though short, was to change our lives forever.
'I'm upstairs ready. Room 218. Want you. L xx'
An icy cold feeling grew in my stomach. Before the message could fade I saw the sender's name clearly above the text.
'Lisa Private'
I felt dizzy, reached out a trembling hand for one of the kitchen chairs, dragged it across the tiles and flopped down, stunned. My husband Tom was about to meet someone called Lisa, right now, in her hotel bedroom.
My head span and my stomach heaved. There could of course only be one 'Lisa' and only one reason for the two of them being in a hotel room together. I felt sick; almost unable to believe my eyes.
Lisa! My former Best Friend!
Lisa! The woman my husband had seduced, or who had seduced him, on the last night of our holiday in Wales; the night when, stunned at having seen them having sex in the cottage's lounge, I had allowed myself to be seduced and comprehensively fucked by her husband Paul in their bedroom, with all the kids asleep upstairs.
Lisa! The woman who had started it all; her night of passion with my husband, my one and only act of infidelity; the single long night that had led to my unwanted pregnancy, the even more unwanted termination; the months of guilt and anguish that had nearly wrecked my marriage.
And Tom! How could he do this after all we had said and done to repair the damage? Ok, our sex life hadn't been great since the abortion but he knew the reasons and had at least pretended to understand and said he felt guilty about it himself.
Had that all just been a lie? Were there other lies too?
Tears of hurt mixed with anger began to run down my cheeks as if burning my flesh. I felt paralysed, then wanted to hit something - no, somebody. I wanted to scream; to smash things, to hurt myself; to hurt my husband; to hurt Lisa; to hurt Paul...
Paul... I had to let him know what was going on under his eyes.
Paul... the only man to have fucked me since my marriage.
Paul... the father of my aborted baby.
I had to let him know what kind of wife he had and I had to do it now!
***
The journey across town with a car full of complaining children was unpleasant but I closed my ears to their moaning, my mind focussed on the task ahead. Still in their pyjamas, I had almost dragged them from in front of the TV and marched them to the car, the same idea running over and over in my mind.
'Tell Paul... let him know what a slut his wife is... hurt Lisa... hurt Tom... hurt Paul...'
My hands were shaking as I turned the car into his driveway, shuddered to a halt then violently pulled on the handbrake.
"Wait here!" I yelled at the kids who had immediately recognised the house and were getting excited at the prospect of seeing their friends for the first time in months.
"Are we staying? Please can we stay? Why can't we stay?"
"Just wait here quietly," I snapped angrily.
Before they could assail my ears with more pleading I slammed the car door and strode up to the house where I leaned on the bell, letting it ring for a long time, my feet stamping impatiently on the mat as I waited.
"Sandie! What a surprise!"
The door was suddenly opened and there was Paul on the threshold. It was the first time in months I had been this close to him and for a moment I was taken aback. Clearly just out of the shower, his hair was still wet and, although he had hastily pulled on a pair of close-fitting jeans and a tight white T-shirt, he had not dried himself properly first and there were damp patches all over him. Even in my anger I was rendered half speechless by how amazingly good he looked.
"It's great to see you," he continued. I have to say he did look genuinely pleased which annoyed me a little. "Come in! What's brought you here?"
"I can't come in; the children are in the car."
"Then bring them in too. Please! Our kids will be over the moon to see them. It's been so long!"
His calm tone of voice was disarming me rapidly and I didn't want to be disarmed; I wanted to be angry.
"Please Paul!" I stopped him cold, "I don't want to come in. I need to tell you something and I need to tell you now."
His face became immediately serious.
"Ok, if it's that important, you have my full attention."
Now that the time had come, my nerves began to fail and for the life of me I couldn't recall the words I had carefully chosen to break this terrible news. Paul's extraordinarily good looks and his warm greeting had fuddled my mind, making me angry with myself for my weakness.
"Is Lisa home?" I asked, desperate for some way of beginning.
