Chapter 1

I huddled myself tighter into the fur lined parka, as I watched the unbroken vista of gleaming snow pass beneath the wings of the small airplane. It wasn't as if the cabin was cold, but the mere thought of the bitter barrenness that unfolded beneath my semi-focused gaze it was enough to stipple Goosebumps all over my body. If only Matthew had been faithful!

Sadly, I audited the wreckage of my life. Here I am, twenty three years old. No family, very few friends and because of a car wreck, I will never have any children. My whole world had revolved around my lover. Ok, so he wasn't handsome, not in the conventional sense, nor was he rich and powerful. He wasn't even a particularly good lover. My knowledge in this area was previously limited to a furtive, drunken, coupling with a barely known teenager on my fourteenth birthday. From what I heard from the girls at work, my sex life was also fairly dull and conventional. Certainly if their giggled tales of sexual gymnastics were to be believed.

He wasn't even a man's man, but he made my laugh. He could tease delighted shrieks of merriment from my even with the most mundane aspects of my life. What few friends we did have couldn't believe how happy we seemed, always laughing and constantly contriving to touch each other. Seeking reassurance that our wonderful, wonderful partner did indeed exist.

My world was shattered when I paid a surprise visit to his office. I caught him with her, it was not as though the girl was especially beautiful. In fact the more I thought of her the uglier she became. Granted I had a nice body, nicer than most. I acknowledged rightfully, and I have a cute face and very shapely body. But anyone, certainly any woman, could see that she was a predator. The big hair, the tight clothes, the short skirt that somehow, but only just, managed to stay on the right side of the line between erotic and obscene.

The signs were all there to see. She was a man hunter, a shark; perfectly at ease on the seamier side of the corporate jungle that she had made her home. And Matt fell for her, hook, line and sinker. She had carefully snared her prey, Matt just become another pelt on the vixen's bedpost when new pastures beckoned.

Looking back it was the brutal surprise of it all that caused me to over react. Weeping, I had stumbled from the office, with the pitying stares of Matt's colleagues piercing my back like barbed arrows. I drove for hours trying to piece together the shattered puzzle of my life. It was as if some malevolent god had noted that I was becoming too happy, and then decided to crush my spirit in one brutal act.

I took to a room in a mean hotel and only surfaced occasionally to grab a quick snack before disappearing again to confront my misery. It was on one of these forays that I decided to pick up a local paper, to help take my mind off of my loss with the parochial scribbling of a small town rag. From that point on my life executed a series of jumps, like a movie slipping from the projector's sprockets. I saw the job ads. One in particular grabbed my attention. It seemed to be just what I needed. I applied, I was interviewed, and I was accepted. Just like that! Oh I had to get a physical and fill out tons of paper, but it was a done deal for a six-month live in job for a Gas company way up in the Alaskan backcountry.

So I went back to our apartment to get a bag full of clothes. Matt clearly hadn't been home. This pierced my heart and honed my resolve to get far away from him and his whore. With my head held high and my backed straight, I walked out of my old life and into my new. Which is why I found myself gazing out at hundreds of miles of white, frozen, desert as the plane snored deeper into the wastes of Northern Alaska. I looked around the small cabin of the plane noting, the strapped down boxes of supplies and the three empty seats. The flight crew had informed my that this was probably going to be the last flight that winter, before the weather descended and socked the airfield in tight. I cuddled deeper and tried to sleep as the arctic sun prescribed its low, autumn, parabola and slowly disappeared from view.

When we arrived the wash of the propellers threw stinging clouds of snow at my as I wobbled down the aircraft steps. The bitter cold, felt even through my fur-lined clothing, felt like a million stinging needles on its way down into my lungs. I was so wrapped up in reaching the sanctuary of the huddle of buildings, hunkered down and barely visible in the snow that I almost failed to notice the small figure that was being guided out to the aircraft.

The size and build, discerned even through the layers of swaddling, indicated it was that of a woman. My predecessor evidently I raised a mitten in salute but the girl stumbled blindly towards the aircraft. I tried to call out but the bitter wind tore my words to pieces scattering them, in a million unconnected fragments, over the bleak wasteland. I was about to turn and shout again but I noticed a figure, dark against the gleam of the ice, beckoning my furiously towards the larger of the buildings. So I hurried, as best I could across the snow-covered ground, towards the haven within the building.

I hurried over as the wrapped figure beat his hands against the opposing upper arms, and stamped his feet, in an attempt to stave off the cold. Once within the wind shadow of the building the incessant, mournful, howl of the wind dropped enough for my to recognize the man shouting. "Hurry up. This is no place to be out playing in the snow." The wind robbed me of the sentiment in the voice but I agreed with the spirit and virtually sprinted the last few yards. As the air trap closed behind me I heard the roar of the aircraft's engines as it tore into the night sky. The man pulled off a mitten, once we were safely inside, and held out his hand. I reciprocated. "Hi I'm Bernard De'Ville and I'm the site manager, but most people call me Bud or Buddy." "Peggy White. Pleased to meet you Bud." I said He smiled. It was not a beautiful smile, but it made a homely counterpoint to the raw loneliness that I had been with for the past few hours.

"Come in, come in. Let me show you round your new home." He beckoned. "Make yourself comfortable, take that heavy coat off. We keep this place pretty warm as you will soon find out and you'll be sweating in no time if you keep that thing on." I had already noted the almost sub-tropical heat of the place. Still we didn't have a heating bill problem as we made gas here, or dug it up or whatever we did. I surmised from what I had been told, but the details escaped me. I shucked off my coat and the heavy sweater and stood clad in my checked lumberjack shirt and blue jeans. (The standard company issue) I felt a mild twinge of unease, as I noticed the site manager appraising my, but decided to suppress it, female company was probably pretty scarce around here. He indicated a chair. "Please. Sit down. Coffee?" "Love one." "Sugar, cream?" "Just cream thanks."

While he went to get their coffees I looked around. This building was obviously the mess hall where the crewmen ate and where I would be working. It was plain, functional and utilitarian. Consisting of a serried row of battered tables and a liberal scattering of chairs. I could see the small kitchen area behind the counter where I was to prepare the meals for the crew.

He came back, placed the coffee on the table, swung a chair round and sat facing me. His unwavering gaze and rigid posture again unnerved me, so I sought to relieve the tension by asking. "Where are my bags?" "Oh we've been unloaded, they will be ok." He said as he waved airily in the direction of the departed plane. He stared at me for a few seconds more but then seemed to notice my discomfiture and asked. "What'd did they say you would be doing up here for us?" he asked "Who?" I responded looking back at me he then said "The weenies that interviewed you. What did they say you would be doing up here?" I smiled and said "Oh just Cooking and stuff for the crew here, on the base." He sort of smiled and said, "Stuff! What stuff?"

I responded, "washing pans and stuff I guess. Kitchen stuff." He then changed his look and said "Nothing else?" I shook my head slowly, puzzled and mildly alarmed at his tone. He appeared to change the subject by asking; "Do you know what we call the job?" I answered "No, what?" He then said "The substitute wife. Short for substitute wife I guess." I smiled with a laugh in my voice and said "Wife?" Bud responded sharply "Yeah, wife! You'll be doing all the things a wife would do. ALL the things."

He leered suggestively. I looked at him wondering "What things?" I asked He laughed a short bark. "We didn't recruit you on the basis of your towering intellect did we? What the hell do you think I mean?" "Cooking, cleaning, maybe a little sewing and." There was a long pause. I then asked "And what?" He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Fuck girl you're dense. What else do wives do, besides cook, clean and vacuum the carpets?"

I could feel my heartbeat change it was pounding what had I gotten into here? My mouth was dry and my tongue felt so dry it was like a stick in my mouth. I had to sip the coffee before asking. "You don't mean... ?"

"Give the girl a flower." He clapped his hands slowly. "Yep good old fashioned fucking, just the thing to ease away the cares and woes of a working day." I was shock, terrified, and scared all rolled into one. "I can't do that!" I exclaimed, He shrugged and said, "I don't see you got much choice honey. You are over a thousand miles from anything remotely like civilization and there isn't any taxis round here. You're going to be here for six months making $5,000.00 a month from the company. Of course I am not counting the money you may make fucking the locals"

Chapter 2 »