This is my entry for the competition
APRIL FOOLS 21
, so if you read and like it, please vote. I have put it in the Loving Wives category as I feel that is where it fits best, even if technically nobody involved is actually a wife at the time of the events depicted. There is some sex, but you will have to read through quite a bit to get there (or skip of course!).
It goes without saying that all the characters engaged in sexual activities are over eighteen, this is of course a work of fiction, and the copyright is reserved by me, N. S. Carter, and I forbid its use, in whole or in part, without my explicit permission.
Schrodinger's Bedroom
My name is Felix Schrodinger and I can't take a joke. I have a sense of humour but I can't take a joke. At least those that have a victim, and especially if I am the victim.
And by the way I do have a cat, and like all cats she loves to get into boxes, and in fact all kinds of containers and confined spaces. I have no idea why. It just seems to be a cat thing.
As far as I know I am not related to the famous Schrodinger, that is Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrodinger, but it is a bit hazy since my grandfather escaped to England from Nazi-occupied Austria and he died before I was born, so I never had a chance to ask him about our family history.
I guess that you might have heard about Schrodinger's Cat, though you might be a bit uncertain about what it means. Schrodinger (the famous one, not me or my grandfather), was a physicist. He gave his name to a thought experiment, or Gedankenexperiment as it is called in German, in which he placed an imaginary cat in a box with a mechanism that might or might not kill the cat, depending on a random subatomic event. We only know if the cat is alive or dead by opening the box. Until then the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. How you interpret this thought experiment leads to deciding whether we live in a multiverse or not, so at least in terms of physics it is quite a big deal.
Of course, if you have a cat you will immediately spot the inherent problem. Put a cat in a box against its will and it will make a lot of noise. If it does not make a noise, then you know it is dead without having to open the box. I guess Erwin did not have a cat.
The 'joke' is so often a cover for aggression. When the perpetrator gets called out on it then you will hear:
"Can't you take a joke?"
"I was only joking."
"Lost your sense of humour?"
And many other variations on this theme.
I was the bloke who worked hard at university because he knew his parents were struggling to help him with his fees, while the other guys were having fun, and so I became the focus of practical jokes from the rich kids who saw my dedication as some kind of coded criticism.
This to some degree explains my allergy to April Fool's Day. So often they are the worst of them all. Someone trying too hard, and completely lacking inspiration, perpetrates a 'joke' which on any other day would be seen as an invitation to get punched, but on that day they have a free pass, and if you object, that means 'you can't take a joke'.
OK. Mini-rant over and on to my tale.
Nowadays it is quite possible you have heard of me, but at the time these events happened I was an up-and-coming biotech entrepreneur. I had already done well enough to have a house of my own in a decent part of London. I still had a mortgage, but it was one an ordinary mortal could afford.
It was the first day of April and one month earlier you might have said everything seemed perfect. My girlfriend Sarah had moved in with me and my friends mostly said that she was perfect for me. I admit I have a tendency to be a little intense, to try and plan everything, and can find it hard to 'let my hair down', but then that is also part of the reason why I had the house in London when I was not yet thirty. They saw Sarah as helping me to not take things too seriously. She was fun.
I had been working pretty hard because we had the chance to sign a huge deal with a major pharmaceuticals concern to provide them with the important precursors to a whole range of drugs at a fraction of the normal price. This was because we had come up with a different method for their production. I knew that if we got the deal I would be set for life, and I was the kind of guy who would only propose to his girlfriend when confident that he could support her and the family he hoped to have. I had already bought the ring but was waiting with the proposal.
Sadly, Sarah did not seem to get this. Fun was important to her, and as far as she was concerned, I was not being as much fun as before. And then her university friend, Mark, got chucked out of his flat and she insisted that we let him stay in the spare room, saying that it would only be a couple of days.
On April the first he had been there two weeks and he seemed to be quite comfortable. Which is kind of logical since he was not paying rent and was yet to take the course on how to load or unload the dishwasher. When he arrived I had not asked him for anything since it was to be only 'a couple of days'.
Funnily enough, while he irritated me immensely, I did not see him as competition in the romantic sense. No ambition. Immature. Lacking in manners. Uncultured. Proud of his ignorance.
Hopefully, you get the picture.
On top of that Sarah had assured me they had never had a relationship, and to be fair I am pretty sure she was not lying.
It was done. The contract was signed, dated Friday the first of April, and I could move on with our plans. For the first time in a while, I was leaving work at four. I told my secretary, Gail, that I was leaving. She asked me if I was heading home, which in retrospect was odd as she would never normally ask me that, but I did not pay it any heed at the time.
I had a picture of the evening. I had plans and they definitely did not include Mark. He could spend the time like every other evening watching mindless reality TV. We would go out to a fancy restaurant. And at some point I would get out a little box, I would go down on one knee and pop the question.
This was how I saw the evening, but as some famous German general said, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Items of intimate clothing in the hall and on the stairs. Sounds coming from above me. Sarah's voice crying out in ecstasy. Marks voice grunting then saying,
"That's it. Take it slut."
Sarah crying out,
"Fuck me, Mark, Just like that."
There were eleven steps, and each of them seemed a metre high. I reached the top. And was facing our bedroom door. All I had to do was reach out my hand and open it.
"Fuck me, you stud."
I vomited. Quietly and without warning. And suddenly I could think.
I turned around and walked down the stairs. Strangely it seemed to have gone quiet upstairs, even though I was pretty sure they could not have heard me.
In the kitchen I wrote a brief note.
'When I get back Mark had better be gone, otherwise his next accommodation will be a hospital ward. You will also need to find yourself somewhere else to live.'
I walked out, got in my car and drove to the Venus Bar.
I parked, went in and ordered myself a diet coke. I only drink alcohol when I am happy, and never when I need to think.
The Venus Bar caters mostly to the dregs of humanity, or so it seems. Strangely it is in quite a smart part of London, but you would not know that from the interior, or from the people you see there. That is why I go there in times of trouble. It gives me perspective.
After a few minutes I was beginning to see the positives. On some level I knew something was wrong. That's why I had not proposed before. At least we were not married.
Strangely the thing that revolted me most at that moment was not the infidelity, nor the disrespect, but the stupidity. Did she really think she would not get caught?
Also, I was wondering at what the hell she could see in Mark. I know I was looking at him with a man's eyes, but I did not think he was particularly handsome. He did not keep himself in shape the way I did, despite my workload, and he certainly was not a snappy dresser, and he had nothing in the way of prospects.
These were my thoughts as I sat there.
Then she walked into the bar. Gorgeous. Dressed elegant sexy. High black heels. What I was pretty sure were stockings and not tights. Totally out of place in the Venus Bar and knowing it.
All the sleazy guys in there turned their heads, like crocodiles on the riverbank, about to slide into the water, grab the tempting calf and drag it under.
She held her phone to her ear and was talking with low venom into it.
"A joke? April Fool? I can't believe you'd do that to me, knowing how I feel about it."
There were evidently tears about to flow.
"You'll be here in half an hour? What am I supposed to do? I don't even have any money or cards on me since you took them out of my purse?"
Now her voice turned incredulous.
"Get someone to buy me a drink? In here?"
At this point she cracked and ended the call. Now she just stood there, unsure what to do.
Until I did it, I was not aware that I was going to intervene.
"Excuse me?"
