Chapter 3

Bob hugged his daughter "Take care, Kat." and, watched as she drove off.

He sighed, "Well, I better take care of things. I've put them off too long." He entered the house and went to his home office. An hour later and he had cancelled his wife's credit cards, her mobile phone and her online bank accounts. He'd also made an appointment to have the house listed and taken care of a few other things.

He looked down at his list, checked off everything that was completed and headed out to take care of the next items on the list.

Bob spent the next hour at the bank, closing out his, his wife's and their joint accounts. He removed the contents of his safe deposit box, packed everything into his briefcase and walked across the street to open new accounts in his name.

His next stop was Crazy Eddie's Used Car Emporium. He'd had his eye on a grey Ford pick up that was on the lot. He and Eddie dickered for a bit and they finally agreed on a price. Paperwork was filed, Bob shook Eddie's hand, Eddie made a big deal of checking to see that all his fingers were still attached, he passed Bob the keys to the pickup and took possession of Maddy's Volvo. As Bob drove off the lot, he smiled. He'd never liked his wife's car...

Once home he poured two fingers of dark rum into a glass, topped it up with coke, ice cubes and a slice of lemon, sat down in front of his computer and began cruising the darknet. Three hours, a home delivery pizza and another rum and coke later, his shopping spree was finished. Bob was careful to leave no tracks, paying everything off in bitcoins, routing all downloads through a untraceable VPN and sending all of his physical purchases to a secure mail dropbox.

Done with his day, he climbed the stairs, took a shower, laid on his bed, stared up at the darkness and cried...

The next day, Bob was up bright and early. Today he was going to toss all of Maddy's things. He started on the closet, stripping her dresses off the hangars and stuffing them into plastic garbage bags. He started in on her shoes.

"What's this?"

He opened the shoe box to discover a collection of CD's and DVD's. He opened another box and another. They were full of paperbacks-erotic porn, romances, bodice rippers, softcore...

"Maddy, you've been holding out on me!" he exclaimed.

In a frenzy Bob began sorting through boxes, tossing the shoes in a pile and stacking up the CD's, DVD's and books. Finished, he sat there and looked at a veritable treasure trove of feminine porn. "Bloody hypocrite!" he muttered. "Too shy to talk about her needs!" He angrily knocked the stack over.

His anger stoked Bob grimly worked at bagging up his wife's belongings. Shoes, clothes and accessories were bagged up and taken to the truck. Other surprises, like her stash of toys, was added to the pile of porn.

Twice the phone rang while he worked, both times he let it go to call voice mail. He was just too angry to deal with callers. So, it was a surprise when he walked out carrying the last bags of stuff to see a woman dressed in a distinctive yellow blazer.

"Mr Forrestal?" she asked "I'm Connie MacRae. I'm sorry, is this a bad time? I called earlier..."

"No, no it's quite alright." Bob replied "I've been a bit busy and wasn't answering the phone." He paused, "You're here about the house, right?"

"Yes, I'd like to take a walk through. If you don't mind, that is." she said.

"Very well," Bob replied "things are currently a bit of a mess..."

"I understand," Connie replied "I just need to get an idea of the layout so we can plan the listing format."

Bob took her on a quick tour of the house, pointing out the pool and hot tub outside, his home office, the kitchen and other amenities. He started upstairs by showing her the spacious bathroom, the guest room, his daughter's room and paused before the door to the master bedroom. "Let's skip the master bedroom, it's a real mess."

"I'd really like to see it." Connie said and pushed on by him. As she stepped inside she was confronted with the pile of garbage bags holding Maddy's clothes and other personal items. "Ooooh!" She looked apologetically at Bob "I'm so sorry ... I didn't realize..." She paused "it ... does get better."

Tears unexpectedly welled in Bob's eyes. He thought that he'd gotten control of his grief-buried it beneath the anger he felt. It was like a cut, held together by a band-aid that was much too small. He stood there, trying to get his emotions under control as Connie looked at him.

"It ... does get better." she said as she led him to sit on the bed "Do ... do you want to talk about it? she asked. And as Bob haltingly poured out his story she held him in his grief, shared in his anger. And somehow, somewhen they wound up having sex. It wasn't making love, it wasn't fucking, it was something they both needed.