Prologue

 

The bathroom was modern and spacious, stylishly appointed in a mixture of arctic white and pastels and larger than the usual en-suite.

But it belonged to only one of the two people occupying it at the time.

And it was not to the male half of the equation.

From his position between her legs, the smooth brown skin of her thighs visible to him as he knelt before her, the usual question assailed him as he prepared to do what was now required of him on a daily basis.

And on numerous occasions throughout the day.

It was by far the most debilitating and dehumanising requirement of the daily routine expected from him and one that never failed to provoke the same unspoken question in a mind, for the sake of its own preservation and sanity, becoming growingly numbed to the once unimaginable realities of his current situation.

A situation that had been ongoing for over three years now.

And the question itself?

"What would my ex-wife and two daughters say if they could see me at this moment?"

As much as he hated his treacherous ex-wife and his two ingrate adult daughters, the prospect of having them see him in such a position never failed to heighten the sense of shame that was always with him.

Growingly numbed mind or not.

The tinkling of her urine as it splashed into the water awaiting it at the bottom of the bowl played its usual tune of futility and abasement to him and his eyes flicker upwards from those smooth, if not svelte, thighs to take in the hairless labia from behind which her waste was emerging. It was a "cunt" he knew well. A word he also reserved as an internal description of its owner. "Pussy", in his view, being a term denoting some amount of intimacy and affection towards both the anatomy in question and the person to whom it belonged.

And were intimacy and affection in her regard to be found anywhere closer than the outer rings of Saturn when he thought of her, then he would be less amazed to discover it than the presence of Klingons actually having settled upon Saturn itself.

"It's a relationship, Jim, but not as we know it."

At another time and place, his internal thoughts might have brought a smile to his face but not HERE and not NOW.

As the last of her waste trickled into the bowl and the brown thighs made to rise with no effort made to reach for the tissue holder at her side, the hairless subcontinent snatch with which she had forced him to become so familiar level now with his tear-filled eyes, he knew what she required of him.

It was, they both knew, her way of reinforcing exactly what they were to each other.

The one an owner.

The other the owned.

As she snapped her fingers by way of giving him her permission to begin, he leaned forward without hesitation and slid his tongue into the hair-free groove before him and began to lap at her.

Cleaning her cunt with his tongue that it might again be pristine after her voiding.

She was, after all, and as she had laughingly told him on so many occasions, nothing if not... GREEN.

And what could be more indicative of a desire for a waste-friendly home than an economy with the use of toilet paper?

It was a joke that never seemed to get old for her and, at the same time, never seemed funny at all to the chattel on the wrong end of it.

Not for the first time, and as his nostrils were assailed by a cunt made more fragrant for having him serve it in such an ignominious way, the emasculating taste of her acrid and slightly salty, if thankfully sterile, urine upon his labouring tongue, his thoughts left the imagined thoughts of his ex-wife and daughters' reactions and, AGAIN, returned to a question to which he had yet to find a satisfactory answer and had a suspicion he never would.

HOW HAD HE ALLOWED THIS TO HAPPEN TO HIM?

 

Chapter One

Robert

 

In the space of seven months I had fallen from a place of relative happiness and contentment into a pit of stress and deep despair.

From feeling on top of the world I had gone to feeling like a piece of dog-turd at the very bottom of the pile.

First it had been my job, a mistake I made in the accounting division of a financial institution that shall remain nameless and resulted not only in my removal from the lucrative position propping up my comfortable life but ensured I would never find work in the same arena again.

Bankers tend to be quite vengeful when it comes to errors that cost them money - and especially towards those functioning at the less stellar levels of the financial world.

The second loss I suffered in my own personal whirlwind of domestic sewage was that of Erin. The love of my life who obviously hadn't, and didn't, feel the same way toward her husband of the past twenty-three years. A fact she had hidden well, given the two daughters we had created together who were, thankfully, out of the home and living in different areas of the UK following their respective professional careers. That and the long-term female lover who just happened to be a successful London solicitor and was "apart from the fact I love her", she told me, "better placed to look after me."

Yeah, right. Until she hits hard times, that is. Then all bets - and vows - are off.

Not sure which surprised me most. Was it the fact Erin could jettison me so easily and without a backward glance? Or was it the knowledge she had been carrying on a lesbian affair for the past eight years of our marriage?

Talk about clueless. I mean, we hadn't had any sex to speak of for months. And still I suspected nothing.

But then we had been married long enough to have two grown-up daughters, so sex was bound to tail off a bit.

Wasn't it?

How was I to know she was getting it elsewhere?

And from which source?

Mandy and Jessica when I spoke to them were as shocked as me, but they only had one mother, I was reminded, and they would not be cutting off from her.

I hadn't asked and hadn't expected them to, but something in their tacit support and less than vehement criticism of my now former wife - at least once they had recovered from their initial surprise - had me wondering just how far away from the motherlode these particular apples had fallen.

Erin, of course, being the big-hearted former wife she now was, had generously signed over the house she'd had me buy when things were going well. Good of her, you might think, until one took into account the re-mortgages I'd taken out for the girl's education and re-location to their respective universities in Manchester and Edinburgh. If there was still twenty-thousand in equity on the property were I to sell it, I would have been surprised.

You're probably asking yourself why I didn't.

Sell it, I mean.

After all, why would I want to stay in a home with all its memories and history?

Don't think I hadn't given it some thought - at least until the decision was taken out of my hands by the Bank holding the mortgage. But the truth was I had worked hard to buy it in the first place. Selling it would simply tell the hateful bitch - which was how I saw her now, you won't be surprised to hear - I couldn't cope without her.

To hell with that!

The other problem was that I actually liked the place.

We had bought it new back in 2003. A new build. One of two houses in a small gated development we thought would give us security as well as a modicum of security and a degree of luxury into the bargain. Four bedrooms, each of them en-suite, a spacious conservatory, a dining-room I could use as a study-cum-office, and an integral garage. Situated in a two-property cul-de-sac off the high-street in the village of Eynsford in Kent, it was relatively easy for me to catch a train into Cannon Street for the walk to the Bank's City HQ and there was a healthy choice of good schools for the girls.

Our only neighbours on the development were a childless Indian couple in their mid-thirties with whom we were friendly but did not socialise. He - wouldn't you know it, and without employing racial stereotyping - owned a small chain of mini-supermarkets, while she seemed content to remain at home and take care of things there.

So much for my reasons in staying put.

Or attempting the feat.

Reasons that were made academic when my recent domestic pressures led to the mistake at the Bank and I was let go.

That I was released into an already depressed job-market and could find nothing and nobody willing to even interview me, let alone offer a position, did not brighten my mood any, though the severance package my contract obliged the Bank to give me - despite my error that cost them money - did help.

A small mercy that was soon exhausted.

It was not long before I began to miss the odd monthly mortgage payment.

And then missed some more.

And a few more after that...

Not to mention falling behind with my payments to credit-card companies and the providers of utilities such as gas and electricity.

And, in case you were wondering, I was not eating too well either.

And so there I sat. In a home empty of wife, children, and the furniture I had sold for buttons in an attempt to stave off the inevitable. In three days' time I was to be asked/forced to evict myself from the premises and, for the first time in my life, be without a home.

I was, as you may imagine, terrified.

My name is Robert Samuels. I am a man of forty-four years and, at the time of my divorce, was still in reasonably good physical condition with a thick head of only slightly greying hair.

I have also been told, and on more than one occasion, that I am nice looking.

At the time in question, I was not only a divorced father of two, but an only child (still am) with no living family, other than a wife who had discarded me, daughters who appeared uninterested, and prospects that seemed non-existent.

My home was shortly to be taken out from under me and I had no means of finding somewhere else to stay or friends or family willing to take me in.

I was not to know it, of course, but some of the above was about to change.

And not for the better.