Author's note: I have always wanted to write a true revenge fantasy, where a man takes forceful action against a person that's wronged him. The civilized world, of course, frowns on such action, but there is an elemental part of everyone that often likes to see scores settled in such a decisive way.
I think I have found a vehicle for my little revenge fantasy in the form of the recently released story "Tricia," by the prolific Just Plain Bob.
If you are a regular reader, you probably have an opinion about JPB, as he is known. Personally, I find him to be a bit of a guilty pleasure. He is certainly a talented writer, and I generally find him to be entertaining, even if I sometimes agree with his many critics that he often writes stories about very unsympathetic characters who do extremely maddening things.
In "Tricia," Bob tells the story of a couple that builds a cabin in the mountains, next to a semi-retired black fellow that the husband and his two sons come to befriend, but whom the wife loathes.
One weekend, the husband – we'll call him Rob – takes his sons for a hike up into the high country overlooking the cabin. Rob stops to look down on the cabin, where his wife – Tricia – is sunbathing. While he's watching through binoculars, the neighbor, Archie, comes over and proceeds to rape Tricia right out in the open.
At some point, however, Tricia goes from victim to willing participant, then on ensuing days engages Archie in sexual trysts while Rob and the boys are away from the cabin. Rob is fully aware of what's going on, and as the story ends, he is headed back to the cabin for a confrontation with his wife.
Here is what I think should have happened next. Remember, this is a work of fiction, so don't go thinking that it's acceptable to really do the things that are done in this story.
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I was lost in thought as I drove the familiar route to the mountain cabin that afternoon in late spring. It was Memorial Day weekend, school had just gotten out for the summer and we were getting away from the city.
It was our first trip back since that fateful weekend the previous October when the events occurred that I detailed in my earlier tale, and it was likely to be one of the last.
I had already called ahead to meet with a realtor about putting the cabin on the market for sale, and she had agreed to meet me the next morning to appraise the property.
I couldn't enjoy the place any more, not after what had happened on our previous visit. So much had changed since then, and none of it for the better.
I looked over at my older son, Charlie, sitting in the passenger seat next to me. He was staring out the window with the earphones from the MP3 player blasting out some industrial strength rock. He hadn't wanted to come, because he had somehow figured out that the breakup of his parents' marriage had started there that weekend at the cabin.
But I needed him to be there, both to help me around the cabin and as an alibi. He and his brother – who was still mostly unaware of what had happened the time before – were there to make sure I didn't do anything that could be seen as violent toward Archie, the neighbor who had started the whole thing.
He had raped Tricia, no question about it, but then he had somehow tapped into my ex-wife's latent slut, a side of her I never knew existed, and she had welcomed him into her lush body on two subsequent occasions.
I still remember every little detail of that Sunday afternoon, as I accompanied the boys back from our hike, where I had observed the cabin from a high overlook. I had watched Archie leaving after an hour inside, then saw Tricia standing in the doorway naked, sending him off with a wave.
I knew I was going to confront her with what I'd seen that weekend, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. I didn't want to cause a scene, especially with the boys around. They were quite close with their mother, and I didn't want them hearing about what a slut she'd been that weekend.
I finally decided that I would wait until we got home that evening to have the critical talk with Tricia, when we could be alone, in private.
I could see no reason to draw this thing out, and I wasn't one to beat around the bush. I'm a pretty direct person, and when I make a decision, it's done.
I just couldn't see myself living with – never mind sleeping with and having sex with – a woman who had so completely disrespected me the way Tricia had that weekend. Every chance she had that weekend, she let that black bastard come over and fuck her, and she had turned me away that first night.
In the space of three days, she had forced me to question the whole 17 years of our relationship, the two years of courtship and the 15 years of marriage. I had to wonder if that had been an isolated incident, or the manifestation of behavior she'd exhibited on other occasions, in other places.
And it really didn't matter. She'd cheated on me, more than once that weekend, and I couldn't abide that kind of behavior from my wife and the mother of my sons.
Tricia's hair was damp when we returned to the cabin, as if she'd stepped out of the shower not long before. The sheets had all been stripped from the beds and the dirty linens had been stuffed in a laundry bag in preparation for the return home.
I was tempted to fish around for the sheet that had covered our bed, to see if there were any telltale stains. But I didn't. I didn't have to, because I already knew what they'd been up to.
She gave me a greeting when I stepped in the cabin, but all I did was nod in her direction as I trudged back to the bedroom to change. I felt her gaze on me, but then her attention was diverted by the boys clamoring in the door.
"You guys hurry up and get your stuff packed away," I said. "I want to be out of here in an hour."
Tricia came in while I was changing from my jeans and hiking boots to my shorts and topsiders. I noticed she had on a turtleneck sweater and jeans, even though the temperature was unseasonably warm.
"How was the hike?" she said finally, when it became obvious that I wasn't going to initiate a conversation.
"It was OK," I said. "The boys had fun."
Her eyes kind of narrowed as she looked at me, but I just turned away and began to begin getting everything pulled together to go. I had no desire to linger, and I was pretty sharp with the boys about getting their stuff ready to go.
Once we were packed up, with the van loaded and the cabin locked up, we drove off, and as we passed Archie's place, he was sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair drinking a beer. I just stared at him as we passed. I was already working through ways that I could make him pay for what he'd done to Tricia.
It didn't take long for a solution to present itself.
