The other shoe drops!
POV = Jesse Wright
The wife Mabel Wright sat, curled up on the couch, quietly sobbing so as to not to disturb her husband. Afraid of another berating, afraid of another beating. Afraid of being raped again. Afraid, afraid.
He was strolling around the house preparing to go out for the evening. He had a date waiting for him to swing by and pick her up. Snickering at the good fucking he had forced on his slave wife. Well, good for him anyway. She no longer had an opinion he had to consider. Jesse whistling as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully combing his hair back.
"Damn! It's Good to be the King!"
As he left, he growled at her "Bitch, don't wait up. Go to bed at ten tonight. Get your slut ass out of bed and have breakfast ready for me at seven, tomorrow morning. Go to work and see if the shop is going to open. If not, take the rest of the morning to start looking for another job. Be home by noon and fix me a hot lunch. I'll let you know about your chores for the afternoon and what I will expect for supper."
He shut the door firmly behind him without another word. She could hear him get in his truck, start it up and pull out of the driveway. Off to do whatever he wanted to do this evening. Off to do whoever he wanted to do it too this evening.
This was the next few days of numb despair and hopeless submission for Mabel Wright. Lucky for her, her husband was getting laid by somebody so he only raped her once more that week.
She endured.
What else can a woman do when the man owns her?
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POV = Mabel Wright
The ex-wife Kate Deever, had come looking for the alimony and child support owing from her missing ex-husband, Kenny Deever. Since there was no one else to accept responsibility, the Bank made it clear they would cooperate with her taking over the shop. They didn't want to have another embarrassing write-off due to their poor lending practices. She had worked there for years before she and Kenny had divorced. So Kate knew how to run the business.
There wasn't enough equity to settle the outstanding personal debts and business loans and the mortgage on the burnt house. The Insurance Company had made it clear that they refused to reward arson. What was left of Kenny Deever's house would eventually be bulldozed and the plot sold at no profit for anyone.
The shop did reopen, at least I still had a job and Kate is a competent and a fair boss. That took some of that pressure off of me. Of course this meant that I couldn't be home to fix my husband's 'hot lunches'.
Jesse just shrugged it off with a casual punch to my belly. Just to make it clear he was still the master of the house and I better not fail to prepare whatever supper he would order me to fix.
At least half the evenings I didn't even have to do that much. Jesse would call me and tell me he would not be home for supper and what time he expected me to be in bed.
Last night he came home roaring drunk. I think he had been celebrating winning a big bet in some football pool. He wanted to fuck but was too drunk to maintain his erection and of course it must be my fault. So my Loving Husband punched me around for a few minutes before exhausted he staggered to the bathroom and made a mess in there. Then he fell into bed and I had to get it all cleaned up before he awakened.
I have had one piece of good luck, one bit of peace. My precious little ones do not have to watch and listen to their mother being tormented. Jesse never even asked where they were! My Sister-in-Law Lucy and my Mother-in-Law were caring for James and Joan at Lucy's house for a while with her twins.
Lucy's husband Rodger Norris has also disappeared. He is presumed to have driven off into the sunset in a drunken stupor. Except it was just an old Nissan pickup he was last seen driving, not a Mustang.
The next morning, grumbling about his hangover, Jesse sneered at me as I cringed from him while serving his breakfast. He ordered me to go get dressed for work. I think he was going to be gloating all day, thinking of the humiliation for me having to publicly display his masculine dominance to everybody I worked with.
The other women, even Kate, commiserated with me, offering their sympathy for having to put up with my husband's abuse. The youngest girl, she was new to our town having married a local boy while they were both in the Service. She asked me why I didn't go to the Township Police.
That set off bitter laughter from all the rest of us women. "The cops here are all male and grew up together. Hell, probably most of them are related by blood or marriage to half the township. Here the police are a family business. They can't be bothered with domestic disputes."
In a small voice, Kate muttered "Sometimes, even the death of a woman at the hands of her husband will at worst, be officially recorded as an accident or suicide."
Then a couple of the women, in hushed tones, named two of the dead women they had known, who had been so callously, officially ignored.
That afternoon, Kate needed some paperwork from her missing husband's attorney and the lawyer sent Margie, who is a paralegal and the wife of my husband's best friend. She looked at my facial bruises and the awkward way I was walking, with horror on her face. Before she left back to her office, Maggie asked Kate if she could use her office to talk privately to me.
Marge bluntly asked "Mabel! Why the hell are letting Jesse treat you like this? Damnit, our office would give you a loan against your inheritance. You could get away, go to the Capitol, get a divorce attorney. Your husband would lose big time if you got a divorce before your Uncle dies."
Confused, I had to have her explain about my Uncles Last Will naming me his heir to all the main property he owned. He had it leased out to a neighboring rancher for an adequate annual income to pay for the hospice he is lingering in. Even the taxes and assessments were paid up.
I finally understood what she was telling me.
A faint flicker of hope went through me.
Then she dropped the Big Bomb on me. "Yeah, uh your husband and I. Uh,we, well dammitt! Jesse and I were uhmm, talking a few weeks ago and I told him about it. I thought he would have explained it to you by now?"
I stammered something out to Marge. Trying to fob her off so I could think about this news and what it meant for my situation. Realizing I needed to be alone to think, she left after urging me to come in and talk to her boss about what I could expect when my Uncle passes.
Kate was kind enough to leave me to myself in her office for the next half-hour. I quickly realized that this knowledge explained a lot! Like, why my husband hadn't kicked me out and divorced me.
Oh, we've all heard Jesse's drunken rants, just like his father, against "Cheating Wives and Girlfriends". "Once a slut cheats, she's always a cheat and never give her a break." "Women should be harshly punished for disrespecting their husbands or boyfriends."
Considering the times Jesse had stepped out on me over our marriage, how come he doesn't owe me any respect? Where's his duty to his family, his wife and children? Pretty damn low on his list of penis-driven priorities.
All that puffed up pride and swaggering Male domination, damnation? of us unworthy cunts. Yeah, his "universal" and "absolute" "moral" qualms against women accused of being unfaithful.
That hypocritical bullshit was so easily, so conveniently forgotten when there is a fortune to be seized. An inheritance to which he has no legitimate claim except through me. And only as I dispose!
But I had two immediate problems to resolve. My husband was hiding the evidence that could convict me of murder. And no one, not even the local police would protect me from him if he decided to become more violent. Even if he held our children hostage from me.
If he thought I might escape his chains, he would either expose me as a adulterous killer or beat me to death himself if he thought he would lose access to my inheritance. His ego would figure, without the inheritance there is no longer any reason to keep me around any longer.
I hope he doesn't realize that if he did kill me, my inheritance would go to our children with him as legal guardian. If he isn't already planning to do away with me. It's just a matter of time, till that horrible thought occurs to that horrible man!
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If I can drunkenly murder the man I loved...
Sober, can I murder the man I hate?
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Do I have the courage to strike before he does?
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Jesse slammed the door open as he stood there braced up against the jamb. I'd guess so he wouldn't fall down. His bloodshot eyes squinted at me and with a sneer he greeted me with a drunken slur. "Hey! There's my slut wife!"
Behind him, his two friends Brad and Stoner left him propped up, to stagger their own way back to their pickup with shouted ribald jokes about how Jesse should 'do' me. A couple of the neighbors stepped outside to see what the hell all the racket was about. Mr. Polanski shouted at the two noisy jerks to shut up! Children were trying to sleep.
They drove off with a crash of gears, a squeal of tires and a blare of horn to let all the neighbors know they don't give a fuck about their complaints.
Jesse just wavered his way in and slammed the door shut behind him. He knew better then to get into another confrontation with Polanski. Our long-time neighbor had been a lumberjack and a trucker. Now he was Union Local officer. Last time Jesse got into the big Polack's face it was Jesse whose face got rearranged.
I kinda hoped for a repeat performance but I guess my husband wasn't that drunk stupid enough yet. Pity.
He staggered over to the kitchen table and plopped himself down in his chair. Propped up from one hand on the table and his other draped over the back of the chair. Jesse gave me a glare and snarled "So killer, where the fuck is my supper!"
He laughed as I flinched at the name calling. I got his plate out of the warm oven, pulled off the aluminum foil I had covered it with and placed it in front of my husband with some utensils. He looked down and sneered and demanded "What the fuck is this slop! Gimme a beer!"
I took a cold Pabst out for him and set it in front of him. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me close as I stammered "Tha, that's what you told me this morning to fix you. Pot roast and potatoes. Just how you like'em."
I scrunched up my face in pain from the way he was twisting my wrist. He enjoyed my look of pain and fear when he wanted to hurt me. But I didn't dare say anything. Complaining would setoff his hair-trigger temper even worse. On a drunken whim I guess he just shoved me away. I barely kept from falling down by ramming my hip into the counter and desperately hanging on.
My husband laughed as he watched me limp away, rubbing the bruises on my wrist. Sucking down the beer between a couple of mouthfuls of meat and potatoes. Then he just shoved the plate away, tossed the can into the trash and got up to get himself another Pabst out of the refrigerator.
Wandering into the living room. He threw himself on the couch and started flipping through the TV channels. I went to recover his plate with the foil and set it in the refrigerator.
I followed him into the living room and as he didn't seem to be fixated on any of the shows, in a timid voice I asked if he wanted something else to eat?
"Stupid bitch. Get me a bag of chips."
I got down a large bag of the extra-spicy barbecue chips he likes and opened it before I took it too him. I was cleaning up the kitchen when I heard him yell for me.
"Get your fat ass in here, slut!"
I rushed in, just in time to have him throw the empty beer can at me bouncing it off my left boob. He thought that was a funny joke. "Get me another, stupid."
I brought in another beer, he was still chortling and I doubt if it was whatever TV show was on that was setting off his funny-bone. I could hear him loudly chewing on the chips.
Back in the kitchen I stopped and steadied myself against the sink counter. I could see a faint reflection of my face in the night-darken window over the sink. I looked at myself and realized my chance has come. Make myself take back my life or I'll never have the courage to free myself from his cruelty.
My hands had been shaking, in fear, anxiety, I guess? But the shivers stopped, I held them out and they were almost steady. As steady as my newfound resolve.
I opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a bottle of bourbon whiskey and left it on the counter by the sink.
With a deep breath, I turned and walked back into the living room. This time I pretended to cringe and duck as the can he threw came right at my face. Just as I had expected. He about fell off the couch laughing at my pretense of fear, spilling chips all over.
I turned and went back to the kitchen and opened another can of beer, then pored some into a plastic cup I set aside for later use. Using a long-neck funnel so it'll go deep into the can I then poured in a shot of whiskey and swirled it around.
After taking it out to Jesse, he just drank it with mouthfuls of the spicy chips. Far as I could tell, he didn't even notice the change in flavor from the added bourbon. He'd have a good laugh every time he hit me with a can. Each time I replaced one, I added a good shot of the bourbon.
He was barely able to focus his eyes when I sat down on the couch with him. Now for the really dangerous part. Trying to trick my husband into revealing where my lover was buried. With the evidence that could convict me of Kenny Deever's murder.
Jesse started roughly pawing at me, barely able to control himself, muttering about giving me the 'good whore fucking' I deserved.
I started whispering how strong and manly and how clever he was to dominate a bitch like me. I rubbed his crotch telling him what a super stud he is and how all the other women want to take him away from me because his cock is so big and he's the boss cocksman of the town.
I continued to whisper "You knew how to get the job done and could beat the crap out of any wimp who crosses you. I'm just a stupid whore to have told him where Deever's body is hidden and Jesse would always own my ass and cunt and mouth."
'Yeah, you stupid whore, just a coupl'a miles past the railroad crossing to the Four and up the creek."
That was the most coherent sentence I could get out of him. Two more beers, each with another shot of whiskey and he finally passed out. Now I had to make a decision. Did I learn enough? That bit about " the Four and up the creek", I've heard that before. I think, no I'm sure I have! And I don't think it was the night I went crazy and killed Kenny. From some time before that terrible night. I was wracking my brain for a dim memory.
I watched my husband sprawled across the couch, drooling like a pig on a pillow. Fuck! I jumped up and away as his bladder let go and he pissed his pants. Looking down at him brought up the memory of his asshole father laid out in his well-deserved coffin. Like father, like son? A whispered prayer from my mouth to God's ear!
Then I started to remember from years ago, a barbecue at his parent's trailer home. The men, standing around the glowing kettle in the graveled yard. Drinking and smoking dope as usual. Bullshitting as usual. I was sitting in a lawn chair next to the door stoop. It was a lot cooler out here then inside the doublewide.
I had to get out of the crowd of women and children inside. I think I was like six or seven months pregnant with Joan at the time. The heat of the crowd and the cigarette smoke and noise of everyone chattering at once was making me feel sick.
Suddenly Jesse and his father started loudly arguing over a hunt they'd been on a few years previous. Must'a been the liquor talking, they kept interrupting each other just to wind up repeating what the other man already had said. Stupid drunk talk! What the hell else could you expect from those two?
A few years before this time, the two of them had been hunting on some ranch land and a sudden storm caught Jesse and his father, by surprise. They found shelter in an abandoned mine tunnel. It was in the Rockyhills, a creek ran down from it to County Road Four. A couple of miles past a railroad crossing.
Okay, now I was confident that I could find the secret grave.
Now it was time to kill my husband.
I don't know how much he'd had to drink before his buddies brought him home. I do know he's had another eight or nine beers and I'd guess about a half-dozen shots of bourbon, since he got here.
On top of about half a bag of chips. All that spicy, salty, oily crap can't be any good for him.
Gathering my courage I went into the bathroom and got out a children's enema kit, took out the bag and soft plastic hose with a contoured insertion point so as not to damage the child's anus. And I hoped it wouldn't leave any marks down Jesse's throat?
I went back in to the kitchen and emptied the rest of the bottle of bourbon into the bag. Then I slathered the inserter and the tube with olive oil. This, with a small wooden spoon, I took into the living room.
Kneeling down next to my snorting, snoring husband, I dripped some whiskey on his lips to get him to open and start suckling at the tip of the inserter. That triggered an automatic response, he opened his mouth enough to get the big end of the spoon in to hold his teeth apart.
I began to feed the tube in, trying to time each push between his breaths to get it down his gullet and not into his lungs. He barely moved except for jerky shudders of his limbs. He was sweating like crazy and his breathing seemed to be getting erratic.
Once I figured I had the tube in as far as it could reach, I opened the spigot and with slow squeezes, fed the rest of that bottle of 90 proof right down into Jesse's stomach. If the info I read on a pamphlet at the Pediatrician's office was correct, this should be enough extra alcohol to kill my husband. Or, if somehow he did survive, it'd do him enough damage that he'll no longer be able to hurt me.
One last squeeze of the bag and I pulled the tube out, then the wooden spoon. Already his skin was turning a sort of greenish-blue and his breathing was coming in fits and starts. I checked the tube had no teeth marks.
I had to hurry now. I rinsed out the enema kit and then put the bag and tube back into its box, then squashed it down and stuffed it into my sack purse for later disposal.
The beer cans I rinsed out and then swilled with some left over unadulterated beer from the cup of excess beer I had saved earlier. I doubt if the cops would even check but I can't raise my babies in prison. So I had to be methodical destroying evidence.
The cans and the empty whiskey bottle I made sure I got Jesse's fingerprints all over them. Forcing the sprout of the bottle into his mouth for whatever residue that would leave for evidence. Dropped a couple of cans on the coffee table, scattering the rest of the cans and the empty bourbon bottle on the floor by the couch. I left all the lights and the TV on.
Jesse was looking pretty peaked. His breathing was slow and harsh, he was gulping for air. Sweat was pouring off of him, his arms and legs were no longer moving except for some faint twitching like he'd been shocked.
The spoon I rinsed off, slapped myself hard in the face with it right above my right eye and then threw it out the back door into the children's sandbox.
I had my sack purse ready to go with all I thought I would need. That's when I started to shout and yell and scream. I knocked a lamp over and with a rag in my hand to smudge my finger prints, threw a heavy ceramic ashtray at the wall. Leaving a big gouge and shattered ceramic all over. I tore at my blouse and deliberately ran myself into a shelf to leave more bruises then the earlier ones he'd given me.
I quieted down, I wanted the neighbors to note we'd had a fight at about this time but not enough for anyone to come over and interfere. Then I grabbed my big purse and went out the back door, leaving it wide open. For my finale, I threw myself off the top step to the small cement slab below to mess up my hands and arms and skin my knees.
Groaning, I slowly got to my feet and staggered around the house to the front. I limped four blocks north and two blocks east. Along the way, I dropped the squashed enema box into a trash can.
By now I was staggering as I got to Linda Chafee's house and weakly knocked on her screen door. She opened it and barely choked down a scream when she saw the state I was in. She was a Public Health RN I've known since grade school.
I was bawling hysterically, telling her my husband was drunk and beat me up and then threw me out of the back door. She anxiously asked where my kids were. She was relieved to hear they were safely with my Sister-in-Law, Lucy.
Linda thoroughly checked that I hadn't any apparent broken bones. Then she cleaned off the wounds and scrapes and applied an antiseptic cream with topical pain reliever and covered with gauze. Smelling my breath made it clear I had not been drinking, no matter how stinky my clothes were, she gave me a pill to relax me. I finally fell asleep in her guest room.
In the morning she called Lucy's and talked to Jesse's mother about why I wound up at Linda's. After that not-so-pleasant conversation, she called my boss Kate and told her the same thing.
Oh don't get my mother-in-law wrong, she wasn't mad at me for fighting with her dolt of a son. She was mad at me cause I've stayed with him through all the abuse he has heaped on me.
She was mad, cause she was mad at herself for putting up with Jesse's father for all those years. She was mad cause in her cowardice she had allowed the old bastard to raise their son to be the same type of bully as himself.
My MIL wanted me to take my children and run away somewhere and raise James to grow up to be a real man and not a monster as his father and grandfather. To raise Joan strong enough to stand up for herself and not just meekly accept abuse from the men in her life.
When I could finally crawl out of bed, Linda helped me to the toilet, then gave me a quick spitz bath. After a small breakfast, Linda told me she had also called a friend of hers for help. A 'special' friend, Aaron Miles.
He would escort us back to my house and keep Jesse from bothering me as I picked up some of my clothes and personal items. Lucy and my MIL wanted me to come stay with them and the children. Safety in numbers you know.
In walks this really big man. No, let's see how to put this. He wasn't much taller then me but he was wide. Not fat or muscle-bound like you see in the steroid abusing crowd. Aaron's chest and shoulders were wide and his arms were long. He had a large craggy head he kept shaved. Think of an almost hairless Silverback Gorilla and you'd be close.
Aaron was a Marine, he'd been a Drill Instructor for many years, specializing in hand-to-hand instruction. Now he was semi-retired on partial disability from wounds sustained in Iraq. He ran the Marine Corps recruiting station over in Kaleyard.
He had been friends with Linda for many years, they grew up on neighboring farms. And he'd known her husband in Iraq. Franklin Chafee been a Navy Medical Corpsman before his death in Afghanistan.
The first question Aaron had about Jesse is "Does he have any firearms?"
"Oh God, I'm sorry I didn't think about that. Yes, he has a couple each of rifles and revolvers and a shotgun. But last year we caught the kids playing with a box of ammunition. Since then it's all kept locked up in a trunk with two heavy-duty padlocks. We each separately carry one of the keys. Both keys are needed to open both locks."
"Sensible. Do you have your key with you?"
"Oh jeez, you're going to think I'm an idiot. When I grabbed my purse last night and ran, I forgot to take my set of house keys from the kitchen hook where I hang them." That even sounded believable to me.
"Hmmm. Okay then, I'll just have to play it by ear."
I went with Linda in her SUV and Aaron followed in a pickup truck he had borrowed from a friend of his. In case there was extra stuff I wanted to take with me to Linda's. We parked on the street in front of our house. My husband's truck was now in the driveway.
I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. How in the hell did that get here? His friends had dropped him off last night cause he was too drunk to drive it home.
That's when Rose Polanski came over and told us that a couple of hours ago those idiots from last night had driven up in both trucks. I guess to return Jesse's truck from whatever bar he'd left it at. Must have been Brad and Stoner again. They started knocking and then banging on the front door, yelling for Jesse to let them in.
Mr. Polanski hadn't left for work yet, he went tearing over yelling at them to shut the fuck up! As soon as they seen him crossing the street, they both jumped into Brad's truck and raced off. The keys were still in the ignition for Jesse's truck.
I tried not to show my relief of my fear that somehow Jesse had been up and about. I think I hide it well with an outburst of tears, trying to apologize for disrupting the neighborhood. Everybody thought I was mortified at the behavior of my husband's friends. Aaron got the keys from the truck but Jesse carries his truck and house keys separately.
So I led Aaron and Linda and Rose and a couple of other of the more nosey neighbors around the house to the backdoor. It was still wide open as I had left it last night. We could hear the TV blaring. I hesitated at the steps. Slowly I climbed, dreading what we would find. Trying to guess how to act if Jesse is dead. Or worse, if he wasn't.
"Jesse? Jesse are you up?"
No reply, so Aaron followed me into the kitchen. Linda kept everybody else back in case there was trouble. But she wanted them present as witnesses in case Jesse started making threats or tried to attack me.
Then the two of us walked through. What was an unpleasant smell in the kitchen, was an overwhelming stench in the living room. I covered my mouth and nose and let out a screech as we saw my husband covered with vomit and having voided his bowels adding to the barroom stink.
Aaron grabbed me and pulled me back through the kitchen and outside the door where I proceeded to vomit against some straggly bush.
He told Linda to go check Jesse and then he asked Rose to take care of me and keep me company until the Fire Department medics could respond.
Linda came back out, her face pale and strained. She gave a small shake of her head towards Aaron whose was on his cell phone with our township emergency dispatcher. He frowned and sighed and told the dispatcher that there was a dead man in the house. So to send the police and coroner instead.
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Readers are always asking what happens after a story ends. So, for those folks, this is my epilogue for "Does Two Wrights - Repercussions. I hope everyone will find this addition too their satisfaction.
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After the police gave her permission, Lois had all the living room furniture and their bed hauled away and sold Jesse's truck. There was also some money received from his job life insurance, the part he couldn't borrow against. The insurance the Bank had made him carry, paid off the mortgage. So what she earned from her job was just enough to live off of. As her SIL and MIL weren't charging her for childcare.
After Jesse's sparsely attended funeral, Lois went to her crazy Uncle's lawyer and had him explain what the estate would consist of. He gave her a County Survey map, with the six square miles of property outlined.
She could see it was shaped sort like a rhomboid between the Railroad property to the south, County Road Four to the west, the Forked Lightning Ranch to the northwest, the Rockyhills State Park to the northeast and the State Highway and neighboring town of Kaleyard to the east by southeast.
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A couple of years later, Mabel inherits her Uncle's property. She explores several parts of it and finally discovers the spot where her drunken husband had given her vague directions to find the mine shaft.
She notices that there had been a fairly recent slide, the rock faces were fresh sheared compared to the eroded boulder fields. The rest of the hill was overgrown with scraggly brush and weeds but not here. She assumed her BIL Rodger had used his experience with explosives to seal up the mine.
Over the next few days, she spent some hours carefully searching the entire hill, that there was no other way to get into the mine. She was surprised there weren't even air vents. She didn't know it had just been a small cave converted into a fake mine tunnel to swindle some gullible investors.
Of the six square miles that had been left to her. The State Highway Department had been wanting to run an extension connecting RailRoad Road to the State Highway. That would improve Main Street through the neighboring town of Kaleyard, expanding their business district. Plus, Mabel gifted the town 80 acres for a Town Park and a couple of new schools in exchange for her being allowed to develop the remaining 400 acres with homes and a shopping center and a medical business complex.
Two square miles of what was the best of the grazing land, Mabel sold to the neighboring Forked Lightning Ranch, a family corporation. At a very reasonable price in exchange for their assistance with setting up and staffing the Rocking W Dude Ranch on a section Mabel had reserved. This was bordered right next to the Rocky creek Resort lease.
The remaining three square miles {including the hills with the sealed mineshaft} would be traded to the State Park system, almost tripling the size of the old Rocky hills State Park. In exchange for forgiving the inheritance taxes owing to the state and a one hundred year lease, including road access, on a section around the hidden mine, where Mabel would have the Rocky creek Resort built.
