A Beautiful Life

Dave then called everyone in their address book. No one had seen Porsche. He and his in-laws concentrated on distracting the children, nevertheless, sleep was hard to come by for everyone in the household that night.

In the morning, Dave staggered bleary-eyed to the kitchen where Pete was already halfway through a coffee. They exchanged pleasantries. Until the older man spoke his mind.

"Um, Dave, have you checked her email account yet? You do have access, right?"

"Good thinking, Dad. Unless she's changed her password I'll be able to access her account."

They went to the study and fired up the family desktop. Porsche's password worked and soon the pair were snooping. The inbox looked normal and sorting the emails by sender and a quick trip down the list showed no unfamiliar names. Pete, who was more comfortable around computers than his son-in-law next suggested they check the deleted items folder. It was empty. The older man's heart sank a little more. He suggested Dave check the sent items folder, fully expecting that to be empty as well.

It almost was.

Almost, except for a solitary email sent to 'Hardman' at just after ten on Monday night. The simple message was chilling. Be there shortly. Either Porsche hadn't bothered deleting it or it had been transmitted after she deleted the sent items folder. Dave turned his head away which brought the bottle of junior sedative from the previous night into view. A link clicked in Dave's head just as Peter followed his gaze and quickly came to the same conclusion.

"Surely she wouldn't have, Dad?"

"Got a better theory?"

Anger at his wife fought for dominance with fear. It was starting to look like Porsche had drugged her own children to meet someone on Monday night and for some reason hadn't come back.

Armed with that circumstantial evidence of foul play, Dave rang the police again. They still refused to get involved but did suggest he take the children for blood tests, which he did. He dropped them off at school late then went home. Once there he sent an email to Hardman. Just tell Porsche to come home, her children are worried. If you've harmed her, I will find you and kill you.

Wednesday night passed as slowly as the previous one. The pathology lab rang early on Thursday morning to say that quite high levels of chemicals, present in the sedatives were present in the children's blood samples. With possible evidence of a crime, the police finally took the case seriously and asked for the email address found on the computer but warned them not to get their hopes up as identifying people from an email address was iffy at best.

With nothing else to do, all three adults then sat near their phones waiting for news.

Thursday 8.01 p.m.

I stood outside my own front door, dishevelled, exhausted and terrified. I clutched my torn, slinky black dress, the same one I'd put on Monday night, to prevent it from gaping and exposing my left, unfettered, breast. I breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm myself, trying to forget the nightmare that had been the last three days. Trying not to think of the immeasurable shitstorm that was going to be the next few hours.

But the nightmare... I've been unable to escape the memories of my nightmare...

I remembered back to what seemed like years ago, to that feeling as my first orgasm abated, with a sweating Darren grunting away above me. He must have seen the look of pleasure in my eyes, and I guess as a sadist he didn't like that. He reached past my left ear and pulled something from under the pillow. It was a black leather device, looking like a cat-o-nine tails whip from the old days. It had multiple leather tassels, each with a knot at the end. He continued thrusting away into me while all the time looking in my eyes as he raised the whip. I guess my expression had already changed before the first stinging blow fell across my tender breasts. It hurt; my eyes must have shown him that, as did my muffled scream. The look on his face was sickening as he laid in with the whip. I looked down and saw the angry weals on my breasts. His repeated promises not to mark me had lasted less than five minutes. It was only then I realised what a totally helpless situation I'd put myself in.

I screamed into the gag as the tails struck again, my eyes pleading with the man above me to stop. I guess that was the moment he'd been waiting for, because with a mighty roar, he pulled his cock out and jerked his climax all over my chest. The first emission hit my neck but he adjusted the aim and the next few hit my angrily red breasts. I closed my eyes in humiliation. True humiliation, not the fantasy stuff on all the websites I'd seen.

My mind was in terror for what Darren might do next and what shape he'd leave my body in. The rank smell of cum assaulted my nostrils, triggering associated memories and I vomited. Most of it forced its way past the ball gag, I had to swallow the rest again or suffocate.

Strange noises brought me back from wherever my terror-filled mind had gone. Opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was that the look of intense pleasure was gone from Darren's face. It was replaced by a look of agony. He was gasping and clutching his chest as his face turned a sickly white colour. As I watched, he suddenly collapsed on me and twitched for perhaps half a minute, before I heard a sound I'd only read about in books. The death rattle. Suddenly unpowered lungs having the air expelled from them as gravity did its work. Unmistakable, even to someone who'd never heard it before, and terrifying.

Darren was dead.

The full weight of him was pressed on my chest and it felt like every time I exhaled, I didn't have the power to inflate my lungs again. I thrashed around in panic but as my arms and legs were at full stretch I couldn't get any leverage to push him off. Finally, I think it was my sweat that lubricated our body contact and Darren's body slid into a position that was more on my stomach than my chest.

His head was in my left armpit and when I looked down I could see his sightless eyes still open and staring at me. Something that smelt rank and fetid was seeping from his mouth as his stomach was slightly higher than his head. That odour battled with my own vomit.

As horrible as this experience was, it was pushed to insignificance by my terror. It was perhaps 11.30 p.m. and I was stuck here, unable to call for help because I couldn't communicate beyond a grunt or reach a wall to tap on it with any body part. I was stuck here until a maid came around to check if the room needed anything. When? Nine, ten in the morning? By that time my kids would have woken from their drugged sleep, gone into Mummy's room to wake her, and found her gone. I could imagine their terror when they found the house empty and it made me panic and thrash around some more. I got myself under control though when I thought that I might move Darren's body again to a position that was crushing my lungs. I stopped moving and cried instead.

What would my children do when they discovered themselves alone? Go next door to the neighbours? Or use the sheet of speed dial numbers next to the house phone and call who? Dave or my parents? Neither one was good. Dave would be terrified and confused and would immediately call my cell, which would ring from the table near the door at home. Then he'd ring my parents and Mum would go to the house as quickly as she could. Dad would be at work. She'd discover me gone, perhaps my phone, but missing purse and then what? Ring Dave? Ring the police? Either way, I was toast.

Unless, and here my mind was clutching at straws, the maid came in really early and I convinced her to find the handcuff keys and let me go, then promised her enough money that she wouldn't call the police immediately. I could get my hands on maybe ten grand quickly and untraceably. I could rush home as quickly as possible, hopefully wake my kids, apologise for sleeping in and take them to school. Then call the police. I could threaten them with legal action if they told the media and have it all settled by the time school was out or get Mum to pick them up. It was no big deal. Two consenting adults participating in a legal activity. One that just happened to go very badly wrong.

That was all good. Things would work out fine.

Then I remembered that I'd booked the room for three fucking days. But that was fine. The maid service still checked each room daily for fresh towels etcetera.

Then I remembered the do-not-fucking-disturb sign on the outside knob, and all my delusions collapsed. I heard myself let out a noise past the gag that was half moan and half sigh. The death rattle of my marriage and perfect life. Terminally soiled by my and Darren's bile and from the signals my bladder was saying, soon to be urine as well.

I guess I spent the next hour in an increasingly desperate attempt to remove the ball gag but the only thing I had to rub it against was Darren's cheek and it just wasn't solid enough. It got a little more promising when rigor mortis set in and I damned near rolled the ball out. What amazed me was that Darren's whiskers seemed to actually continue to grow after he was dead. Closing my eyes protected me from seeing the fearful rictus his face was becoming, but nothing could protect me from the increasingly foul stench pervading the room. Death doesn't smell pretty. Soon, the rigor passed and Darren softened again, by which time I had nothing left in my stomach to evacuate.

Daylight spilled through the tightly closed curtains, raising the temperature of the room slightly. Well enough that my shivering abated slightly. Darren's cooled body was sapping the heat from mine badly. Far worse than the danger of hypothermia and the humiliation of lying in my own urine was the problem of thirst. How long can a person go without water? I seemed to remember it was as low as two to three days; I might have known if I'd paid more attention in school, rather than spent all my efforts on making sure my clothes were better than the other girls and making sure they were revealing enough to grab the bulk of the male attention in the class. Then I got to thinking that death might be preferable to what was possibly coming my way. My legacy and memory might well be annihilated, but at least I wouldn't be around to see it.

The brightness of the curtains indicated the sun had set far enough to penetrate the narrow gap between rows of rooms in the cheap motel, reinforcing that rescue wasn't coming that day. Already, my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth and I hadn't urinated since around the middle of the day. Small blessings.

I hoped I could speak fast enough to stop the maid calling the police when she found me in the morning. With no police involved, all sorts of explanations were credible. As the night wore on, though, even I recognised some of them as fanciful delusions brought on by utter desperation and thirst. I think my last conscious thought before a crippling headache and delirium consumed me was a simple one. I'm screwed. Hero mother to zero with one stupid decision.

I never met the maid who found me, although I dearly would like to one day, when I'm armed with something deadly. My first memory was of being jolted on a gurney as they put me in the ambulance. I was attached to one of those devices that drips stuff into you. The ambos had obviously recognised my extreme dehydration and started me on fluids. They'd also stuffed my handbag beside me.

My next memory was of being wheeled into the hospital and someone trying to take my bag away. I clung to it like grim death. I would contact my family when I was ready and had half a chance of defending a credible story. Until then I WAS going to remain anonymous.

With heat packs and the IV, then small sips of water, I physically recovered enough by the afternoon to start thinking lucidly again. Planning was interrupted when the police interviewed me. I stuck to the truth and reminded them about their duty of discretion, threatening them with legal action, personally, if the media found out about my story. The sergeant gave me a look as he left which seemed to be a confusing mix of amusement and pity.

I had a credible story by mid-afternoon but I won't bore you with it. Much of it hinged on my family being so relieved by my sudden reappearance that they wouldn't ask too many searching questions.

The staff doctor finally released me during his evening rounds just before 7 p.m. and I quickly donned my torn dress. I asked the nurse on the way out if there were any clothes shops nearby open at this time of night and received an abrupt and rather cold, "No."

She did deign to call me a cab though and I sat in the hospital entrance waiting for it, quietly confident, despite my apparel. There was a television in the reception area, tuned to the seven o'clock news and it ended my confidence and my life.

The top story was all about little old me. There were photos of me lying on the motel bed under a dead Darren, obviously taken by the maid and sold to the media. My face was blacked out, I suppose for legal reasons. It was a scene under the control of the coroner after all. No such courtesy was afforded by the television cameras though. How they'd beaten the ambulance leaving I'll never know, but they had. My face was clearly recognisable as the gurney was trundled up to the ambulance. They even showed one of the handcuffs still attached to my wrists.

I collapsed mentally and must have been almost carried to the taxi when it arrived. Who gave the driver my address is a mystery but the next memory I have is of standing right here, right now, facing the door out to the execution yard, devoid of hope or even the will to fight.

Monday 11 a.m.

Any delusions I may have harboured lasted about 300 milliseconds after my husband opened the door. Over his shoulder I could see the television and it was tuned to the station I'd so recently seen myself on. He looked deep into my eyes with an eyebrow raised in question. This was it. My moment of truth. My opportunity to say I was kidnapped, handcuffed to a bed, and abused for three days. That I was worthy of his pity, not his contempt. Then I looked at my phone, still on the table next to the door, the handbag in my hand, then down at what I was wearing. Any fight left in me drained away with that last glance.

I sank to my knees in shame and defeat; Dave didn't have to say a word.

As if that wasn't enough, I heard a high-pitched voice ask from somewhere behind him. "Really, Porsche, drugging your own children?"

It was my own mother's voice. If my mother was sure enough to condemn me I knew I would be well and truly written off in my father's eyes. He loved Dave, as the son he never had, almost as much as he did me.

I don't know how long it was after the door slammed in my face that I heard a voice behind me, asking me to confirm my name. It was the police. I was arrested, cuffed, taken to the station, and charged. When presented with the evidence of my fingerprints on the bottle of sedatives, my absence from the family home and blood tests from the children, I saw no point in denying anything.

The media went into a frenzy of course. High profile mother drugging her children so she could attend a tryst with her lover; and not just any sort of lover. Her Dominant. And then said lover croaking it while she's tied to the bed and is trapped for three days. The BDSM angle just added fuel to the flame. I challenge you to write a more emotive story.

After four nights in gaol, when it became obvious that no one was going to post bail, the state released me on my own recognisance. Someone must have tipped off the media as they were all waiting for me outside the gaol, and it was the longest walk of my life until they finally gave up on me.

I reviewed my options when my feet took me to the main street of town. Did I say hero to zero before? I meant, hero to negative several million.

My shallow society friends would never have anything to do with me ever again, or risk being smeared with my poison. My children were old enough to understand I'd risked and betrayed them in just about the worst way a mother can. Besides, they had a doting dad and two close grandparents, they didn't need me. If I stuck around, I'd be laughed and spat at until the memory of my behaviour faded, then just shunned until I died.

I looked in my purse to see how much cash I had. Less than $200. I spied a cash machine across the street and decided to see if any of my cards still worked. It was a fifty-fifty chance in my judgement, but we all know how bad my judgement of late had proven to be. If any of my cards worked I would turn left toward the bus station. If they didn't, I would turn right. Toward the bridge over the long drop to the river.

I pushed the first card in and held my breath...

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE

My friend, Ian, has pointed out that whiskers don't grow after you're dead. Apparently, the skin contracts from around them giving the illusion they're growing. Crikey, you're never too old to learn are ya?

Now lighten the f%$# up.

I can do no better than to quote the talented Julie Brown, comedienne and philosopher. Google her hilarious songs, 'The Home Coming Queen's Got a Gun', and 'Cause I'm Blonde'.

"I took an IQ test and flunked it of course, I can't spell VW but I've got a Porsche, cos I'm blonde."