Copyright Oggbashan December 2004
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
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I'm on the fund-raising committee for our local kids' soccer team. I've been on it for years ever since my children were the right age to play kids' soccer. Sometimes it's boring. Sometimes it feels wonderful when one of our stars goes on to better things. Usually just knowing the kids get proper training and exercise that helps them in more things that football is enough.
And sometimes it gets me into awkward situations, like that Christmas Raffle ten years ago. It didn't look like it would be a good Christmas for me. Two years earlier, two days before Christmas, a hit and run drunk driver had killed my wife as she returned from buying the last few food items for the family Christmas dinner. The previous Christmas his trial was scheduled to start in January. There was no Christmas spirit in the family that year.
We hadn't even been able to bury Marjorie because his lawyer insisted that the police autopsy was flawed and that Marjorie must have had a pre-existing condition that caused her death, not the 'slight impact' with the defendant's car. It was no 'slight impact'. I had real difficulty proving to myself that the mangled remains were what was left of my wife's much-loved body. Her wedding ring had been wrenched off and lost as she was dragged along the road under his car. I had insisted on doing the identification myself. I couldn't leave that to the children.
The following Christmas I had still felt like loading a gun to shoot that driver. He was out on bail and driving around our town. He was eventually convicted of causing death by careless driving. I felt sick. After three months he was out of prison and driving again a few months later. We buried Marjorie on a bright May morning. He'd see many more Mays. Marjorie wouldn't. He didn't show any remorse and with the help of his lawyer he wriggled out of 'dangerous driving' and a longer sentence.
Two years after Marjorie's death I wasn't in a Christmas mood. I was still grieving. My daughter was still in Saudi Arabia. My son had been offered a brilliant job in Australia for a two-year term and had taken his wife and family with him. I would be joining them in mid January but I would be wholly alone at Christmas.
I carried on as usual, including selling tickets for the raffle. The draw took place at the football club on the Saturday afternoon two weeks before Christmas. All the winners were present except one – Elaine, Mrs Owens, my next door neighbour. I agreed to deliver the prize to her because the club secretary didn't want to leave it lying around over Christmas. Elaine's prize was a litre of a good single malt whisky. I'd have liked to win that.
Elaine had asked me to call her 'Mrs Owens' in company, actually her maiden name, even though I knew she and her partner weren't married. If they wanted to pretend they were married when they weren't, who was I to object? Elaine had been divorced from a rotter years before. Not her word for him – mine. I'd known him at school. Then he'd been a liar and a cheat. He had never changed and his marriage was doomed from the start. He had told Elaine that he had a fantastic job and good career prospects. He hadn't. He was a failing double-glazing salesman, not because he didn't have the line of talk, but because he screwed his employers. Eventually their house had been repossessed when his employers fired him and he went bankrupt, taking all Elaine's money as well as his. The whole edifice of lies came tumbling down and she realised he'd never change. He didn't contest the divorce. He was already chasing a rich widow. That ended with his conviction for embezzlement.
Terry, the next 'Mr. Owens', wasn't divorced yet. Elaine told me in confidence that he would be divorced early next year and then they would have a quiet registry office wedding. I wasn't sure that they would. I thought Elaine had found another rotter, just like her first husband. I had no real proof and I shouldn't interfere. One indication was that Terry let people assume they were buying their house. I knew they were renting – from me.
I knew rather more about Elaine than she might have liked. I knew her exact age. We had been contemporaries at school. When we met up at a school reunion in our twenties I already knew that she had odd ideas about sex.
She was generally a submissive that topped from the bottom. She was 'submissive' only in her scenario. She set the scene, wrote the script, directed the action. Her submission was a fake, a fantasy play, a charade. She could and sometimes would switch into being the mistress, not the slave. Several times when were post-graduate students at university together I had enjoyed her sexual games. I think I preferred her as the mistress. As the slave everything had to be perfect. A word not in the script, an action at the wrong time could turn her from an enjoyable partner to an angry bitch.
As the mistress she was too accommodating to be genuine. She once asked me "Where would you like to be lashed next?" What a question! If she was the mistress then the slave should accept whatever she did, not discuss where the lash should land.
I knew what really hurt Elaine about her first husband's lies. She had been trying to have a baby after years of failure. Elaine had saved up for the specialist treatment for herself. His bankruptcy took that money and she no longer wanted a baby by him. That had been her last chance and now she'd never have children. Elaine could never forgive him for that.
Marjorie and I had been some of her many friends who helped support her through her husband's bankruptcy and divorce. We had let the house we owned to her because no other landlord would consider the wife of a bankrupt and convicted embezzler. We'd never had cause to regret it. I was regretting it now. Terry, her new partner, wasn't good for her. The rent payments were becoming erratic.
Terry drove an expensive car. She had a rusty little hatchback. I knew she was earning more than he was. He spent more than he earned and Elaine was subsidising him. It wouldn't be long before something drastic happened. I was glad that I'd refused to make Terry a joint tenant. I knew Elaine and trusted her. I didn't trust him. Elaine was cool towards me for weeks after I refused to change the contract. I'd ensured that he was only a tenant by her permission and had no rights. If she said 'Go' Terry had to go.
I was reluctant to deliver the raffle prize to Elaine. I wasn't sure she had fully forgiven me for my refusal to include Terry on the rental agreement. I thought her continued coolness might be because I'd forced her to look seriously about where their relationship was going. Some of our mutual friends had told me that Elaine's attitude to Terry had been changing even before I refused to make him a joint tenant. I didn't have any expectations of replacing Terry as her partner. Elaine was a friend that I had been close to years ago. I still had fond memories of her. That was all they were. They were faintly enduring memories of a long gone past.
I couldn't let the club secretary down. If I refused he would ask why. I couldn't give a rational answer. I just wanted to stay clear of Mr and Mrs Owens. I sensed that there would be a break-up soon. I didn't want to be the cause or even an irritant that might spark a row.
I had walked to and from the football club. It was about a mile and good exercise on that chilly day. The walk back in the dark was less enjoyable. The bottle in its plastic carrier bag had been a nuisance. I would be glad to be rid of it and rid of the dread I had about approaching Elaine. Would she still be cool or would she be reasonable again?
I saw that his and her cars were on the drive. Would that be good or bad? I didn't know. The Christmas tree in the front window wasn't lit. I walked by the side of their house towards their back door. Our town is like that. Front doors are for formal calls from the Vicar or for weddings and funerals. Everything and everybody else went to the back door. As I passed their front window I was aware that the television was turned up louder than usual.
I knocked at the obscure glass of the back door. No answer. The kitchen window was too high for me to see in. I tried the door handle. It moved. I opened the door wide, shouting "Mrs Owens! Mr Owens!". No response. I walked in. There was some light from the hall but the kitchen itself was in unlit and comparatively dark until my eyes adjusted.
I saw the outline of Elaine spread-eagled on her back on the kitchen table. I turned the kitchen lights on. Her wrists and ankles were lashed to the table's legs. Her breasts, pointing at the ceiling, strained the tight skinny top. Even in the dim light I could see that her breasts were as shapely as my memory of them. Her head was hanging over the far side of the table. Her long brunette hair nearly touched the floor.
I could see a dark blue scarf tied tightly across her lower face. That was unusual. Elaine wanted to talk during the games, to direct, to pretend to plead. She hadn't liked being gagged. Maybe she had changed her scenario? Even if she had it wasn't my concern. I would have retreated hurriedly, embarrassed at interrupting one of her sexual role-plays, even when she writhed frantically and muffled grunts came past her gag, until I noticed something else. I put the whisky bottle down hurriedly.
Elaine had wet herself. There was urine staining her white slacks between her thighs and a pool on the floor. She would never have let herself do that when we had played similar games. I couldn't think that she had changed that much. I moved to her head. Her eyes stared up at me, pleading.
I carefully untied the scarf and removed it. Under it was a ball-gag with the ties biting into her cheeks. It was a struggle to undo that because I was wearing gloves. I hadn't taken them off because I thought this might be a crime scene. I didn't want my prints everywhere. I wouldn't have put it past Terry to blackmail me for interfering with his so-called wife.
Elaine worked her lips. She couldn't lift her head. That showed me how tired she must be.
"Shall I release you?" I asked.
"Yes." Elaine said faintly.
"It will take some time. The cords are buried in your skin." I said.
"Cut them!" She was insistent even if she couldn't speak loudly.
There was a block of kitchen knives on the work surface. I took a small one and cut her free. I had to lift her from the table. She couldn't stand. I hugged her briefly before putting her down on a kitchen stool. I massaged her cramped leg muscles while she rubbed her wrists. When she asked I brought her a glass of water. She swallowed some gingerly and then tossed off the rest.
"Bastard!" she said distinctly.
"Who?"
"Terry. He left me here for hours."
"For hours? What was he playing at?"
"He wasn't playing. Yesterday he wanted me to sign some cheques for him. I refused because they would bounce. I haven't got that much in my account. I thought that was it. This morning when he suggested some games I had forgotten about the cheques. Once he had me tied up he forced that ball-gag in my mouth and then wound the scarf over it. He said he wouldn't let me free until I agreed to sign the cheques for him. He left me. After an hour I would have agreed to anything but he never came back. All I could hear was the television."
