Right lads!
A short little tale, with little character build up, and no follow through, so if you chose to read on, then please don't complain about that.
No graphic sex ---- You've been warned.
Simply a little window into the lives of a couple and how one guy chose to deal with a problem he had.
Please read on ---- Please enjoy.
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"You all right Bill?"
It was my best mate Joe enquiring after my wellbeing, and deep down I knew he had reason to. It's just that I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Not even to him.
"Yes Joe. I'm OK. Just a bit run down maybe."
"You're sure are you Bill?" He carried on with a concerned look. "You've not been acting yourself lately, and you seem to be down in the dumps all the time."
"I'm OK. Nothing wrong with me Joe that a few pints won't put right?" and with that I beckoned the landlord over and ordered another two pints of frothing ale.
My problem could wait till another time, especially since the Arsenal match was about to start on the pub telly, and my other mates from work were beginning to filter in to see the game.
Couple of hours and a good few pints later, the Gunners had put five past the Aston Villa goalkeeper, and for the rest of the evening my worries would be forgotten.
Not gone away you understand ---- Just postponed.
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It was the following Thursday night, and Joe and I were having another pint in yet another pub, just down from the plant hire business were we both worked as mechanics. We'd been friends from our school days and had done our apprenticeships together, so it seemed natural that we'd ended up working alongside one another some sixteen years on.
"You still seem low mate," he started on at me again before we'd even downed the first pint. "It's not like you Bill --- Not like you at all."
"It's nothing Joe," I dismissed him.
"Come on Bill," he continued to press me. "You're not ill or anything are you?"
"No, it's nothing like that Joe," I assured him. "I'm physically well enough."
"You've got a problem then Bill. Is that it?"
"Not so much that I've got a problem Joe," I started to open up. "It's more that I'm worried that I might have a problem."
"Blimey mate," he smiled at me. "Bit deep all that sort of stuff for guys like us. You sure you're not worrying about nothing?"
"Probably," I agreed. "But ......?" I ended with sigh.
"Come on Bill. I can't help you if you won't talk to me about it. We are best mates after all."
"OK OK," I relented holding up my hands in defeat. "I suppose I've got to talk to someone or I'll go barmy."
"So what's the problem?" Joe pressed.
"Jean."
"Oh No. She's not ill or anything is she?" Joe reacted, having known my wife just about as long as I had. In fact we'd been together when I'd first met her nine years ago. I ended up with the pretty, slim little blonde with the nice legs, and Joe had got off with her friend with the rather odd red hair and huge tits. Joe had loved her and left her as it were, changing his women at that time nearly as often as he changed his shirt.
But not me!
I'd courted Jean for nearly two years, stealing her virginity somewhere along the way, and ended up marrying her. Joe was best man of course, and that very day pulled Anne, one of the bridesmaids, fell head over heels for her, and a year later I found myself returning the favour for him at the very same local church. Crafty sod that Joe though, and the fact that Anne, pretty though she undoubtedly was, came from a rich family by our meagre standards, may or may not have had anything to do with his earlier than anticipated domestication.
So there you are --- The potted history.
"No she's not ill or anything like that Joe," I carried on to him. "I don't really know how to put it to be honest. It sounds so unlikely."
"Try me mate," Joe encouraged me.
I pulled a face. This was not something that was easy to talk about, but I knew it had to be done.
"I think Jean may be ....... Well, you know Joe."
"No idea mate," he came back. "May be what?"
"Well you know," I mumbled into my pint.
"What she's pregnant?" Guessed Joe wrongly.
"No for Christ's sake," I croaked. "It's not that Joe. She's doing things."
"Doing what Bill," he demanded. "What the fuck are you on about mate?"
"Stepping out on me," I put it as delicately as I could.
"Stepping out Bill," Joe looked at me with an uncomfortable expression. "You mean ..... You mean she's playing the field. Playing away from home. Cheating on you?"
"I'm not sure Joe," I went on. "I've got no evidence as such, and she's no less loving or anything, but that's half the problem."
"How can that be a problem Bill?"
"Well, it's as if she's trying too hard all the time. Almost trying to act loving and normal. She backs off from arguments and she's never been like that before. Never ever refuses sex when I suggest it, and that certainly isn't normal."
"I think you might be jumping to conclusions here Bill," Joe advised me. "There could be all sorts of reasons."
"I know Joe," I agreed. "But I've just got this suspicion and it won't go away."
"Christ, that's difficult Bill. Have you tried to talk to her?"
"Tried to. Well sort of, but Jean simply changes the subject."
The two of us sat there nursing our pints, both with our own thoughts. I knew a bit more than I'd admitted, but even to Joe, I wasn't ready to open up that far yet.
"What you going to do mate?" Joe asked at length.
"Don't know," I confessed. "If I thought it was just a little fling or something, a one off, then I might, and I do mean might, learn to live with it. I couldn't let her know that I knew though, and she'd have to stop it herself and not just because I confronted her."
"Maybe she will stop Bill," Joe put in. "If she's actually doing anything that is of course."
"That's my problem Joe," I confessed. "How the hell do I warn her to stop, without her knowing that I know about it?"
"No idea Bill ---- No idea."
"Could Anne have a word with her do you think?" I asked. "You know put the frighteners on a bit. Tell her that she thinks I'm getting suspicious."
"Christ mate I doubt it. Them two are as thick as thieves."
