It's Safe Now!

Last week was kind of rough for me, emotionally, and it might have shown through just a little bit in my Flash Fiction Friday woffering. I took Tom’s (from Three Spelling Mistakes) advice and had a drink… or several. Say, does anybody know if Advizor54 ever came back after high-tailing it out of here?

As readers who have been with me from the beginning know, I go through periods where my coping mechanisms just get overwhelmed. I guess that’s what happened last week, and in spades! I started the week already on a low side, and it just kept avalanching throughout the week. In real life that just meant I snapped at people a little more quickly, and I wasn’t the calm, collected driver that I’ve been trying really hard (and mostly succeeding) to be.

So no, I wasn’t on the edge of a breakdown or anything. Well, I wasn’t any closer than usual. But writing is an outlet I do have that I can mostly use without repercussion (at least on this blog), so I took my shot. I apologize for the darkness of the story, but writing it helped. That and drinking a fair amount of alcohol Friday and Saturday night (thanks again, Tom!) Some of you indicated that you liked the story even with its darkness, and that it was well-written. I thank you all very much for that; I strive to write well, or to at least be readable, and I love praise.

This week is starting a good bit better, and we’ll see how the rest of the week goes. I’ve already written this week’s FFF and I promise it’s much less dark than last weeks. In fact… well, you’ll see for yourself.

Weekend Update

Happy Monday, everyone. There’s truly not much to talk about this weekend; we did our chores, watched playoff football, had some drinks, etc.  We did get a new mattress topper for the spare room’s bed, which makes it a lot more comfortable. Oh, and there was no sex.

This is what my marriage is coming to; I sleep more and more often in the spare room. At first it was just the room I would go to on those nights that I feel asleep before the wife and my snoring was too bad for her to sleep. She’d wake me up, send me on my way, and I’d stumble sleepily into the spare room (the guest room is being used by the niece for now) so we’d both get some sleep.

But I’ve noticed I sleep better in there if only because I’m not concerned about my snoring waking her up. She has always assured me that once she gets to sleep, especially with ear plugs in, it won’t matter how much I snore I won’t disturb her. But that hasn’t always proven to be the case; I have woken her up on occasion. So I’m more aware of it, and find myself sleeping fitfully because I start snoring and wake myself up so I don’t wake her up. If I’m in the spare room, I don’t worry about it and can sleep more soundly.

Oh, and the no sex thing isn’t that big a deal. Honestly, I’m happy when she’s on her period and I can jerk off without having to worry about not having anything left for her later. Of course that’s usually not a problem anyway, because she doesn’t even think about getting in bed until she’s done playing all her games, and by then it’s too late. Every once in a while she’s horny enough to want something, though, and I have enough trouble getting aroused when I haven’t masturbated earlier in the day.

Not that I have any problems getting aroused, for like masturbation or with others (Hi Simplicity!) I guess it’s not unusual to be not as excited about fucking the woman I’ve been married to for 20+ years, but I think it’s more than that. It’s just hard to get excited about the same sex over and over. I know generally that, if she gives me head, it’ll be for a minute or two. And that would be fine, really, but I also know that she isn’t going to let me go down on her. On the exceedingly rare occasions that she does let me eat her, it’s for 30 seconds tops, and I know she’s not getting anything out of it. She treats it more as a chore than anything.

Now maybe my skills just aren’t where I think they are, but I do have it on good authority that I’m pretty good at it (Hi Simplicity!) The truth is the wife just doesn’t like to spend much time on foreplay. She wants to fuck, have me cum as soon as possible (she hates when I try to last longer) and then she gets hers with the vibrator (maybe) and we’re done. If the whole thing takes more than 15 minutes (and it’s really not even near that) I consider myself lucky.

I don’t know if there’s any turning this around at this point or not. I’m not going to leave her, and I know she won’t leave me (though I truly wish she’d find someone else, fall in love, and ask for a divorce) so I guess I’m stuck here. I really don’t mind that much, I guess; as long as I can enjoy the occasional fling (Hi Simplicity!) to add some spark, I can live with the other day-to-day drudgery. It may not be fair to the wife, but I do think it’s better than leaving her.

Joke of the Week

This year's first Joke of the Week is cute, and my boss is Scottish (though he's now an American citizen) so I heard this in his voice. Y'all have a good weekend.

A Scottish tourist attended his first baseball game in the US and after a base hit he hears the fans roaring "Run....Run!" The next batter connects heavily with the ball and the Scotsman stands up and roars with the crowd in his thick accent: "R-r-run ya bahstard, r-run will ya!"

A third batter hits a slam and again the Scotsman, obviously pleased with his knowledge of the game, screams "R-r-run ya bahstard, r-r-run will ya!"

The next batter steadfastly holds his swing four times and as the ump calls a walk the Scotsman stands up and yells "R-r-run ya bahstard, r-r-run!"

All the surrounding fans giggle quietly and he sits down confused. A friendly fan, sensing his embarrassment, whispers to the Scotsman, "He doesn't have to run, he's got four balls."

After this explanation the Scotsman stands up in disbelief and screams, "Walk with pr-r-ride man! Walk with pr-r-ride!!!!"

FFF - So it Goes - 1/10

Character limit 2014 without spaces; according to Microsoft Word I’m well under that. I can’t format this the way I’d like to, or include the image, because I’m finishing this from work and have to transfer it to my phone to post it. My phonedoesn’t play well with the blogger site, and the app I use, Bloggeroid, is hit and miss.

I warn you: this is a dark story. I couldn’t do funny or sexy this week; all I had was… well, this. Please don’t read too much into it (if you’re so inclined) or be concerned; this is just a manifestation of my desire sometimes to “burn it all down”, figuratively speaking.

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Paul was exhausted, sweating and breathing heavily, but still thrummed with energy fueled by his anger. He surveyed the damage in the basement; broken glass, shattered wood, bent and damaged metal. Mostly there were just keep-sakes down here; all the real damage was upstairs.

He’d started in the top floor, room by room, breaking and tearing and twisting everything he could get his hands on; furniture, appliances, pictures, dishware, etc. The careful, systematic destruction belied the rage behind the act, and he burned with excitement knowing there would be no repercussions. For years he’d kept his emotions under control, no matter what abuse Karen heaped on him, until it felt like he would burst. But every man has his breaking point, and when Paul finally got to his all hell cut loose; by the time he was done, nothing in the house remained untouched.

He was about to go upstairs for the grand finale when he noticed it in the corner; the crystal ball that was Karen’s pride and joy. He thought of the ridiculous rituals she went through before scrying; the chants, the “cleansing”, the nudity (he didn’t mind that part, at first.) He smiled maliciously as he picked it up and hefted its satisfying weight.

He considered his options as he returned upstairs, barely noticing the cuts on his feet from the broken debris that left bloody footprints in his wake. Finally, he decided on subtlety; he would leave the one item she cherished undamaged (assuming it didn’t melt) and let them figure out the significance if they could. He placed it almost lovingly in her lifeless hands.

The gas can from the shed was half full (still the optimist), but with all the wood and paper scattered throughout the house, he thought the fire would spread quickly and hotly enough. The concrete walls of the basement wouldn’t burn, but when the floors collapsed everything except the foundation should go up.

Paul lay in the middle of the floor, the fumes from the gas stinging his eyes. This part was going to be painful, but it would be over soon. He struck the match and dropped it.

Return to "Normalcy"

As I alluded to yesterday, L is messing around with TOG again. When he’s “in the area” he’s still several hours away, so they haven’t been able to meet up for sex, but they’ve texted, exchanged pictures, and she even got on Skype with him from her phone while at work last week. (She said she was in the bathroom stall giving him a little show, and I have to admit that I’m jealous that she hasn’t done that for me.) They talked about finding a way to meet somewhere half-way between them this past Saturday, but he bailed out Friday saying he couldn’t make it. L didn’t say it directly, but I get the feeling that if he hadn’t bailed out, she might have.

I offered to send her one of my pictures, just for comparison’s sake, and she surprised me by responding “Yes! Send pics!!” I sent her two recent ones (well, back last October, but they are the most recent ones) and she made the appropriate ego-satisfying comments. I told her I’d love to see what she’s sent him, but she says she deletes the pictures as soon as she sends them, but that she would keep me in mind the next time. We also teased about how we needed some “alone time” together, and soon! There’s really no good way for that to happen in the near future, but it’s (currently) on her mind at least; that’s good enough for me!

Later that evening she texted me, asking about how to send a video she’d made. She tried sending to me and to TOG, but it wouldn’t go either through email, text, or Skype. The wife was out with the niece so I was really hoping L would Skype with me, but she said she doesn’t like the way she looks on Skype and preferred to just do a video.

But she was freaking out because she wasn’t sure if the video was getting copied to different locations on her phone with all the different ways she was attempting to send it, and we’d already determined it was too long for normal means. She didn’t want to use and “cloud” based solutions because then the file is “out there” and in her mind anybody might see it. That’s not a real big danger, but it’s at least possible, so I worked with her trying to find a way. I told her if I had the file I could shrink it myself without too much problems, but that didn’t help us at the time.

Finally I told her to delete Skype from her phone until I could have time to set it up securely. When B took her back the last time she ran from S, he insisted she give him access to her phone, all passwords to her Facebook and email accounts, etc. so he could keep an eye on her. This of course makes L mad that she still has to do this now that S is dead, and that B should just trust her! I didn’t bother pointing out that the reason it’s making her mad now is because she’s messing around, which is exactly what B is concerned about.

Anywho, she wound up deleting Skype and the video because she didn’t want to take any chances. I told her she would have to make shorter videos for the time being until we could figure out something, and the next morning that’s exactly what she did. And she sent it to me! Wow, was it hot! It’s my go-to now for rubbing one out, that’s for sure! She said she’d make another one for us of her finishing, but so far she hasn’t done that; at least, not that I know of.

Wednesday, New Year’s Day, the wife and I drove down to visit with them (well, with her) for a few hours. While we were there I manufactured an excuse to look at her phone and installed Hide It Pro. I didn’t have time to configure it and show her how to use it (for hiding pictures and videos mainly) but in the week since then she’s been playing around with it and figured out a good bit of it on her own. The idea is that she can hide my pics (and I guess TOG’s too) and look at them when she wants, and if she makes a video that’s too large to send she can hide it until I can physically download it from her phone and resize it for her. We haven’t actually gotten around to doing that yet, but we’ll see how it works out.

TOG is only in the area (again, still several hours drive away) a few times a year; he lives in Utah and apparently just bought a condo in Colorado somewhere. L is desperate to get away from B for good, but she doesn’t have any money and the car she’s driving now is under his name, so she’d be screwed if she left. Unless she went right into another relationship, say with TOG.

 She has said she would go with him to Colorado if he asked (but not to Utah), and I think that would be an exceptionally bad idea. I don’t think she’d have any more luck being with him for more than a week at a time than she did with S. And considering TOG currently has a girlfriend that he would be cheating on if he and L did meet up, there’s no reason to think he would suddenly become a fan of monogamy if they got more serious. I made the mistake of trying to tell her that, and that he just didn’t strike me as someone who was looking for the same thing she was (based on what she’s said about him) and that upset her. She accused me of being jealous and not wanting her to be happy. O—kay.

So now I’m just sitting back, hoping for some pictures or videos and helping her keep her shenanigans as under wraps as possible. Meanwhile, I hope she’ll figure out on her own that TOG might be okay as an occasional fuck buddy, but he’s not going to be in her future, long-term plans.

Weekend Update

My first weekend update for 2014 isn’t what I would have wanted it to be about, but we don’t always get to decide the different paths our lives take. We can only adjust and make do as well as possible with the new direction, and try (but not too hard) to make the ride as comfortable as possible.

We said our goodbyes to my sister on Saturday. As you can probably imagine, it was a rough week for the family, but I think (I hope) the worst of it is behind us. The middle sister and her family came into town Thursday (and left Sunday) and I’m really glad she and I had a chance to reconnect in a way we haven’t in years. Unfortunately, there will be no meeting between her and L anytime in the foreseeable future, and that saddens me, but I can’t let that become the wedge between us that it was between the older sister and me.

The service was nice, I guess. I’m not a religious person by any means, so all the “God this…” and “Jesus  that…” parts are just word salad to me. The minister, who is married to my mother’s cousin, must have caught on that I’m not a believer because after the service he handed me some pamphlet about being saved, or some such nonsense. I’m sure he assumes that I’m not reallyan atheist, that I’m just mad at God or want to sin or whatever, and a few flowery words about how “Jesus died for your sins” will make me see the light. Sorry, Padre, I ain’t that kind of Atheist.

I was really impressed with the number of people who came to the service. We have a pretty large extended family as it is, but the number of friends who came pushed the attendees to over 180. Counting the people who came during visitation but left before the service, the funeral home guy said he thought it was close to 250 people all told.

I’d considered getting up and speaking about my sister during the service (the floor was opened to anyone who wanted to say something) but decided against it. I would have only been repeating the things I’d talked about with my mother, the middle sister, even the niece; there just didn’t seem to be any point. Besides, I tend to keep my emotions, or at least my negative emotions, to myself (this blog notwithstanding.)

I have to say the hardest part of the week was that the wife was off all week too. I barely had 10 minutes to myself on any particular day. The only time I got to shake myself loose from her was when the middle sister and I went to lunch together for some much needed bonding time. And even then she was texting every 10 or 15 minutes to find out when we’d be done, where we were going after, etc. She was with all the nieces, and they later picked up the B-i-L, so it wasn’t she was stuck with nothing to do; she simply couldn’t stand the thought of me doing something without her that I might be enjoying! (I know that’s not entirely fair, but it sure feels that way sometimes.)

But it’s done now, and hopefully I can start getting back to my normal life. “Normal” being a relative term, of course; new shenanigans are afoot with L and TOG (The Other Guy) whom I’ve written about before. I’m getting residual benefits from it for the time being that could turn into more or get cut off cold. I’ll go more into that later.

Moving Ahead

Happy New Year everyone. The wife and I did celebrate Tuesday night with a few friends, quietly here at home. I haven't had the opportunity to write like I'd wanted to this week; the wife was able to get bereavement leave as well, so I haven't had a good stretch of time alone to gather my thoughts. This is the first morning I've been up early enough before her that I have some time, but I have to work in time to jerk off too so I won't be writing a lot.

But I do want to catch everyone up on things: the family is still going through rough times, of course, but we're getting through it. My sister's youngest daughter, who is 13, has had it the worst of all of us I guess. Her oldest daughter, the niece who's been living with us, has been very strong for her brothers and her sister, and I can't tell you how proud I am of her and the way she's handled this all. My mother will be fine as well.

My middle sister and her family will be coming in from Kentucky later this evening, so we'll get to spend some time with them. I'll be glad to have her here; sharing past stories with the niece and other family members has helped, but nobody will understand like she will. I don't know if it's selfish on my part, but I really hope she and I can get a couple of hours to ourselves. I haven't cried yet, and I don't know if I will, but she's really the only person I think I could do it in front of and not feel too self-conscious.

The upshot is it's rough for the family right now, but we'll get through this together. I'll give more updates over the next few days when I can, and will write more extensively later next week when I'll have some time at work (after getting caught up on everything.)