Author's note.
First, I would like to thank all those who left feedback about the first and to be honest what was going to be the only, part of this tale. There were lots of people who said that there was no retribution for Jeremy and the others in the close, and many said that the MC waited far too long to pull the trigger and that the police should have been involved after the drugging etc.
I will say this. In my mind, the MC's prime and indeed only consideration was extracting himself and his wife from the situation. He waited until he did because he wanted Cheryl to make the decision either to accept the lifestyle of the community or to reject it. He wanted her to do so with all the information. I started the tale with the idea about each of them writing their answers on paper in my mind, but even then, I wasn't sure which way it was going to go. My characters sometimes surprise even me.
I make no apologies for the way that story worked out. It was my story and I told it. If you didn't or don't like it, then I'll refund you the money you spent on reading it and you can take your business elsewhere.
That being said, the more I read your comments, the more I thought that there was more to be told about this particular community and so I decided to write part 2.
I would like to thank and make mention of the member Opinionated1, whose comment triggered the idea that gave birth to this instalment. I would also like to mention and thank Miket0422 for his work on editing, without which I'm sure the story would be far less readable.
I make no promises about the way this story works out. Even now, although I have an idea of what I want. I find that sometimes the story has its own ideas, and I can only follow along.
I would also like to say that all sexist, racist, homophobic, or bigoted comments that any of my characters may use are theirs and not mine. I got a huge amount of flack for a word used by the MC of my story 'The Counsellor' from people that maintained that was a reflection of my personal values. It wasn't and isn't.
My final comment is that if there is any sex in this story (and I am not sure if there will be) will be between adults aged at least 18. There are children in the story but they will not be taking part in, nor observing, any sexual activity of any shape or form.
And so to my story.....
It was almost midnight when the knock on the door disturbed me from my reading. As a criminal prosecutor I often burned the midnight oil on cases, and my husband Gary had already gone to bed. From my office in what used to be a guest bedroom, I could hear him snoring gently. I found the sound soothing.
Just so we are all on the same page and to avoid, or probably, increase confusion. My name is Garry. Note the 2 r's and yes I am gay. Gary my husband, spelled with 1 r is a social worker. We met about 6 years ago when I was prosecuting a case of child neglect and he was giving evidence.
Gary is very obviously gay. In fact, he couldn't be more obvious if he ran around in a pink tutu and wore fairy wings, but he is mine and I love him, and I am his and he loves me. We are not one of those couples that fool around with others, although neither of us was innocent when we got together.
I call him my husband although we never really took the legal step of getting married. We made promises to each other, and as a lawyer, I set up everything so that legally we each had virtually the same rights as if we were legally married. It was just something that we never really needed. We knew that we would be together forever, we didn't need anything more. Also, Gary's parents were very old-fashioned, religious, and massive homophobes and would have freaked out and disowned him.
Even after 6 years they still maintained the fiction that we were just buddies co-habiting for convenience. It made them happy; Gary could maintain a relationship with his family, whom he loved dearly, and I didn't care either way. I had met his parents several times and they were genuinely lovely people, just with a very, very warped view. As long as they thought of me as Gary's friend rather than his lover, we could be on good terms.
So, as I said Gary and I had been together for 6 years, four of which we have lived in this house.
I loved our house. It was a four-bedroom house in a quiet, 4 home, cul-de-sac that had been turned into a gated community. We had a large back garden, in which was an outdoor pool and deck area we loved to spend time on.
The neighbours we found to be friendly if a little distant, although we were invited to a get-together every few months where there would be a barbecue and beers. I often felt at these events that the other neighbours got together far more often but I just put it down to my natural paranoia and left it at that.
Our neighbours, Bob and Sheila had twin girls that were about 11 when we moved in, and for the first couple of years would come over and use our pool, with their mother Sheila supervising. This tailed off after the first couple of years as teen girls obviously found more exciting things to do than swim and now, they only came over occasionally, and when it was our turn to host the quarterly barbeque.
The last time we had seen the girls, maybe a week ago, they were no longer little girls. Aged about 15 but dressed about 21 they were filling out and with their flaming red hair and green eyes, I knew that they would cause some poor boy, or girl, some major heartache in the not-too-distant future.
Since I am telling you about the neighbours, I'll introduce our nearest neighbours, Dave and Tracey. Dave is a contractor and has done some work for us on the house. The previous owners had an office in the bedroom I was using for an office, but only by virtue of putting a desk in there. I wanted something more definitive, and he built in a desk and bookcases and turned it into a proper office. He does good work. Tracey is a stay-at-home mum, with a son, Davey, aged 2, a lively little fellow with bright red hair and a stubborn streak.
Finally, there is Jeremy and Beth. An older couple who live in the biggest house at the closed end of the cul-de-sac. Jeremy is a tax accountant and Beth is a trophy wife. I got the impression that Jeremy viewed the community as his personal domain, as he could stand on his porch and look down on all the other, slightly smaller houses in the close. I had no interest in getting into a pissing contest with this guy. If he wanted to play Mr. I am, I would let him. My dick is plenty big enough for what Gary needs so I'm not going to get into a measuring contest with someone who doesn't matter to me. As long as he doesn't start to try and pull some HOA bullshit on me, and telling me what to do we will co-exist in comfortable peace.
To be honest though, despite my first impression of Jeremy, I didn't had any issues with him. He was always polite and amiable if a little distant when we spoke or met at the BBQs, and I had no reason to have any other contact with him.
So, back to the knock on the door.
I sighed as I placed the case file I had been working on into my desk drawer and locked it. I never left paperwork unsecured it was a particular pet peeve of mine.
When I opened the door, I found Bob standing on our porch. He looked terrible. He was very drunk, and he looked like he hadn't slept in days. He was also crying.
"Bob? What happened, are you ok?" I asked, surprised.
"Help me!" he said before pitching forward and landing flat on his face, out cold.
I woke Gary up and we picked up the unconscious Bob and moved him to the bed in our second guest bedroom. I initially thought to call Sheila and find out what was going on, but, paranoia, remember, so I thought I would let him sleep off whatever it was and then speak to him in the morning.
Gary did suggest that we should undress him for bed, but I declined, saying that we didn't want him thinking that we had taken advantage of a drunk man. If he woke up fully dressed, he would have less cause to feel we had done anything to him while he was out of it.
It was nearly 10 am the next morning, Bob emerged from the guest room. I was working from home, continuing to review my case file in preparation for an appeal later in the month. Gary was out at work.
Locking the file away again, I emerged from the office and guided him into the kitchen.
He still looked like hell; honestly, he didn't smell much better.
I made him some coffee and sat him down at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Meanwhile, I went into our bedroom and dug out some sweatpants and a t-shirt. I was slightly taller than Bob, but they would fit fine.
