My car came to a stop below the front of the house and I just sat there. It had been a long day and I was tired and not ready for the chaos I would find inside. Instead I sat there in the car and lay my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes for five minutes of peace.
A year ago I would have been hurrying inside, however hard my day had been. But a year ago Nick would have been there, already home or on his way. Now my house, our dream house, sometimes seemed more like a burden than a place to escape the worries of the world. Four dogs and both halves of the mortgage had a lot to do with it, but mostly it was the loss of Nick. The man I had shared my life with.
I sighed and forced myself to get out of the car. Unloaded the shopping from the boot and opening the gate I climbed the steep path to the back door. The dogs exploded to greet me and I wondered briefly why I hadn't come straight up.
Basically because I was tired and the next day was more of the same.
I dumped the shopping in the kitchen next to the fridge and filled a glass with water and drank it as I looked about. The last time I had been well fucked had been on the kitchen bench, over twelve months before. Me wrapping my legs around Nick's waist as he pumped his thick cock up my ass in long deep strokes and I moaned and urged him on, harder and deeper. Even thinking about it now after everything that had happened since made my dick twitch. And if I hadn't been so tired I might have done something about it, but then again if I remembered Nick and his fucking too well I usually started to remember the rest.
Things happen. Nick had been working on some big advertising programme that took him to Sri Lanka a couple of times close together. Then he began talking about open relationships, we started using condoms and he went back to deal with some "unfinished business." And in between I was left with keeping the business we had gone into together going on my own.
A week later he called me from Colombo, and after an emotional conversation, I said no, he wasn't moving his new friend into our house. And eight years of being as good as married, which I had thought was perfect, was over.
I went and cried on Andrew's shoulder, and he reminded me of the clauses he had added to our business agreement, though I hadn't thought they were necessary, and the other agreement he had drawn up for us when we had built the dream house together. I had said all that mattered was that I was shattered and Nick didn't love me any more.
Two months later when Nick had managed to get him into the country, I had been introduced to Sardi and was told I wasn't needed any more and that Sardi was taking over training Cute as Nails staff from me. I had been shocked totally but also able to say to Nick. Hold on. You can't sack me, this is my business as well as yours. He had been fuming, but his lawyer must have been happy with what Andrew had added. Nick had to buy me out or I was a business partner with a guaranteed job for ever. And Cute as Nails had taken off. We had franchises in all major east coast cities now. Cute as Nails was too good for Nick to walk away from, but it was still new and too hard to borrow the money to buy each other out as I found out. Now I had an idea Nick hoped I would eventually walk away from it.
So there we were, stuck. Sardi pouted, and I had as little to do with the two of them as was possible in the circumstances.
Sardi, I had discovered when we met, was twenty, had big round black eyes the size of saucers and eyelashes so thick and long a drag queen would kill for them. Add that to perfect deep-golden skin, a lithe but muscular body, and a way of moving his ass that invited exploration, and I could see what Nick liked about him.
I wasn't bad but I was thirty-two, looked like I worked twelve hour days, and Nick had explored my ass so often I figured it didn't hold any surprises for him any more. But I doubted Sardi would be any good at training Cute as Nails staff; for one thing he didn't like dogs.
Nick handled the advertising and signing up of franchisees, as well as still keeping in with the advertising agency he had been working for when we had first met. Nowadays he seemed to spend most of his time having coffee and driving around in his BMW with Sardi beside him. Meanwhile, I had both halves of the house, and the four dogs he used to call his kids but had happily left behind for an apartment in town and Sardi.
Nick was a natural salesman. Our business would not have existed without him I knew. He was worth his share.
As I was putting the shopping away and fending off excited pets, the phone rang.
"Dinner," Andrew said, "This Friday, at my place. OK? 7.30."
"OK," I replied, too tired to chat.
The call was unexpected and I wondered what the occasion was.
Andrew was my friend from long ago. He was a solicitor and a good one. Nick had never really taken to him and certainly didn't like him now. That business of the small additions Andrew had added to the complicated business agreement we had both signed when we started franchising Cute as Nails, the dog clipping, dying, and styling centre that also painted their nails, had seen to that.
I arrived late for dinner, hardly surprising after the day I had had, and a quick trip home to feed the four "kids" there and change.
I made my apologies and felt a bit out of place. I was the twelfth guest, and the others, including Andrew and his partner, George, were smartly dressed and all looked fresh. I still had some dog hair in my crotch that was itching, and I had thrown on something casual. I had assumed it would be the small private dinner we sometimes had together, just the three of us. Occasionally another couple or Andrew's sister.