Heroine: The Husband's Cologne (22 page)

  
I turned the steering wheel sharply and slammed on the brakes. A truck barreled towards my car from behind, blasting its horns. He passed the rear end of my car - dangerously close, with brights on and brakes squealing. My car began to sway, I shot diagonally across the freeway onto the shoulder and beyond onto the dry grass hurling a cloud of dust into the air. I was shaking like leaves – it was a close call and my life would have ended. Now it became clear to me that I must have dozed off and paced diagonally across the highway. With my little Chevy I crossed the road before the truck – gratefully its driver could evade me at the last moment.

“Stupid”, I scolded myself. “The next time you drink a cup of coffee when you get up that early. Vain cow! Coffee dries out your skin … blah-blah …” I grumbled. “If the trucker hadn’t reacted so quickly burning gas would dry my skin now.” With my eye lids I squashed away some tears.

Daniel was on one of his trips again. At five in the morning his plane left from San Francisco airport to New York where he was supposed to attend important meetings for the next three days. I delivered him at his terminal at four o’clock in the very early morning so he could catch his ‘redeye’ in time. They call these early flights ‘redeye’ because they were filled with tired business people clad in gray business suits and eyes
red
from lack of sleep, he once told me. When Daniel disappeared through the doors of the terminal I was alone once again. The red eyes were now mine – as I could confirm with a look in the review mirror. But those red eyes came from tears.

Being alone made me restless. Even worse – it continuously filled me with angst. It more and more became a déjà vu of the events back in Cologne. Just another transgression, the psychologist I had wished to become, told me once.

Here in Roquetas we lived in a quiet neighborhood. The little house that we rented was furbished nicely and the neighbors were peaceful families whose breadwinners worked predominantly for local high-tech companies or for the university.

But when I had to spend the nights all by myself – as currently – then I got startled by the least bit of noise. The walls of the wooden house were thin so I could hear every sound, no matter from what distance. The sliding windows were cheap. Every idiot could open them from the outside with a cloth pin. That is why I regularly longed for being back in Cologne during Daniel’s trips. At least those apartments offered some safety. But already the next thought brought back the remembrance of the fear I’d felt then.
Which left me even more helpless.

California was beautiful.
During the day. At night it was sometimes quite frightening. The cop cars’ sirens wailed all the time and though the freeway was in some miles distance to our little house we could still hear the traffic. My friend Irene told me horror stories about robberies and burglaries almost every day. We had no incidents in our neighborhood but I had angst anyway.

Back in Cologne Norman or Erich were available almost every time when Daniel wasn’t around and when I needed somebody. Here I didn’t know where I could retreat to. The properties in our community were rather large and you couldn’t look in from the outside. Many residents have applied white-painted impenetrable wooden fences around their properties. Most lots however were separated through dense trees and bushes which formed almost real woods to our northern and eastern side.
And to the west and south two large avenues intersected.

Therefore I relied on myself when Daniel was on one of his business trips. I couldn’t count on neighborly help in case of a serious incident and the police or Bruce would take too long in case I needed help. Besides that, Bruce kept on being on business trips as well. Just like now because Bruce was in Mexico to do some research for a story.

I sighed and faced up to my fate when I drove back south on the highway during dawn, still trembling. I probably would spend the day in the shopping center of Roquetas and in the afternoon I would drive down the El Camino Real to find a place for lunch. But I needn’t appear in those places before nine o’clock in the morning.  Irene was still asleep and so I parked the car in the garage and entered the house through the side door to treat myself to a few more hours of sleep. Daniel would probably call on the phone not before afternoon when his machine had landed on the East Coast.

So I dilly-dallied through the day.  Until noon I strolled through the stores in
Roquetas then I drove down El Camino to my favorite Mexican restaurant where I had an opulent lunch. At that time I actually asked myself again why I wouldn’t get fat despite of all the food here. But so far all my clothes still fit like they were tailor-made.

Then Irene and I exchanged the latest gossip at her house until sunset and before her husband came home I drove the five blocks home to my lonely house. Should I eat something else? Perhaps later, first I wanted to get my feet up and relax a little bit.

While I sat on the couch dozing off Daniel called. He had arrived safely and already had finished his meetings for today but was terribly freezing because it was lousy cold in New York and he hadn’t brought a coat.

“
That serves him right
”, I chuckled in a thought of revenge. But I assured him that I felt great pity for him …

For how long I was asleep I didn’t remember. I had dozed off, the detective story I wanted to read rested opened on my belly. Some noise woke me up. It had come from a near distance – not those annoying noises from the highway. A humming engine noise in the drive
way to our garage had my sleep cut short.

Alarmed I jumped up and peeked through the window. A fat giant of a man climbed from a huge pickup truck. First I panicked but then I recognized him. He was Alan
Apala. It was one of the bosses at Daniel’s company. What did he want here at that time?

We had been invited to his house twice since it was customary in the company that the department heads would invite to barbecue parties. We were always more than a hundred people who gathered at his house or one of the other bosses’ domiciles. Therefore I believed that he, Alan, could only know us superficially and I was quite surprised that he knew our house. Or did he get lost on his way?

Sluggishly he got out of his car. When he stood in front of the front door which I had already opened he breathed heavily as if he had just finished a marathon run. A diet would work wonders for him, a thought that went through my head.

“Hi Mr.
Apala, how are you? You came to see Daniel?” I asked smiling friendly.

“Howdy, sure, is he here?”

“No, I took him to the airport this morning; he’s at the headquarters in New York. Do you want to leave a message for him?”

“Oh yes, sure. I’ve sent him there myself. He’s a great manager, your husband. He’s got a great career ahead of him. No, I wanted to talk to you, Julie-Anne. May I come
in?”

“And about what would you like to talk with me, Mr.
Apala?” I asked back slightly irritated.

“About his career.
That also concerns you, Miss. In our company we also take the spouses of our managers into our considerations when we have to make important decisions. I wanted to get to know you. May I …?” He somewhat pushed by me and entered the living room. I smelt alcohol on his breath. Totally rattled and with a bad oomph feeling in my belly I followed him.

“Does Daniel know that you are here?” I asked hesitatingly.

“Of course not. We’ve only told him so far that we would also like to talk with his spouse before a possible promotion. We want to understand if she can handle those social obligations. You are also German I suppose?”

The change of subject rattled me even more and I nodded willingly.

“Would you like something to drink?” I carried on, almost stuttering. “But let’s sit down first.”

He sat down and asked for Bourbon. We had a bar that probably also hosted a Bourbon. So far I didn’t care much about the bar, somewhat to Daniel’s dismay. But by all means I couldn’t tell my husband what would be happening if I drank alcohol.
That
drug would be effective again immediately. I would burst with sexual desires. It is incurable, Paul had told me then. It took me a while until I found the Bourbon. I filled a glass and handed it to Daniel’s boss.

“Hmmm, no ice”, he mumbled. I turned pale. This was my first faux pas. Something like that should not be happening to me if I were to be successful as a manager’s spouse. The question in my head popped up if I actually wanted that. I dismissed the question. Now I needed to help Daniel.

“I go into the kitchen quickly and get some ice”, I jumped up and ran to the refrigerator. That was a true monster and I had to search the freezer to find the bag with ice. I crushed the block of ice with a knife and threw the cubes into a cooler. Back in the living room I noticed to my amazement that Mr. Apala had finished his glass once half full with Bourbon.

“It’s alright sweetie. I prefer to have it straight just like women. Have a glass too, Julie, and then sit down beside me.”

His crude tone of intimacy shocked me and stopped me in my tracks.

“I don’t know, Mr.
Apala”, I stammered quite anxious.

“Now don’t make such a fuss. My name is Alan, not Mr.
Apala. In our company we are all one big family and we trust one another. So be good and adapt to our customs. You Europeans can be so complicated. Damned. Fuck it.”

The straightforwardness of some of our Californian friends surprised me once again. But meanwhile I’ve learned to deal with it and approached him smilingly to
take the glass from his hand.

“Another swig, Alan?”
I tried to be polite.

“Sure, I can tolerate another one, it makes talking easier. But don’t forget about yourself. And then sit down beside me and we talk a bit.”

I sat down in an armchair opposite of him and gave him his glass. I only took small sips from mine. The consequences from drinking alcohol were still very much on my mind. Having sex with this dude was the least thing on my mind.

He gulped his glass of Bourbon without thinning the gold-yellowish liquid with ice or water. If he keeps on doing that I’d have a completely plastered fatso soon lying on my couch. Just hope that he won’t throw up on my carpet! For his next drink I probably serve him some coke or coffee. I wasn’t done pondering those thoughts when he suddenly leaned forward, grasping my hand, and jerked me onto the couch beside him. Terrified I dropped my glass and screamed.

“Didn’t I tell you to sit beside me!?” His facial expression had turned hard and brutal and I felt like somebody had hit me into the pit of my stomach.

“Now I must punish you. I hate managers’ spouses who do not obey. If your husband wants to have a career at our company the women must obey. I like Daniel. Therefore I must take care that you don’t ruin his career. Let’s go.
Strip!” With one fist he pulled on my blouse and tore it while clutching my hand with his other hand.

“What do you want, Mr.
Apala?” I asked trembling with fear.

“Alan, sweetie, my name is Alan. I will spank your ass if you call me Mr.
Apala once more. C’mon, I want to know now how you look naked and see what your game is.”

He pulled on my black pants. Before he ripped those too I wanted to get rid of them. Perhaps it would be enough if he saw me just in my underwear.

“Let me go, please. Then I can get undressed”, I begged him.

“OK”. He released my hand. “And no tricks or I slap you across the face. Did you get that? I demand absolute obedience from my people.”

Slowly it dawned on me that this scumbag probably wanted to rape me. Desperately I weighed what I could possibly do but I didn’t find a solution. Thus I stood up, opened the two buttons on my blouse that were left and pulled down my pants, which I then diligently folded over a chair. I felt fortunate that I had put on my most conservative underwear this morning. White panties and a high bra. I hoped the sight of those would cool him down a bit. But his eyes got wider with lust and I knew that my hope would remain a wishful dream.

“Well, now come to papa. Let me check now if the contents of this package are actually real.”

I did a step back but he jumped up with a speed I didn’t think he was capable of, pulled me towards him and laid me across his knees. Two heavy slaps with his flat hand on my rear end burned like dickens.

“Will you obey me now? The next time I’m
gonna smack you even harder, I promise you that.” I lay trembling on his knees and didn’t dare to say anything. Then I felt his hard hand on my back. It slid slowly down ma back and then found its way inside my panties.

“Yah hello, you’re shaven down there! What a beautiful smooth pussy. Did you do that for me?”

I shook my head and burst out:

“No, I am so, I almost never shave.” At that moment I could have smacked myself.

“Fantastic. This will be a great night. But let me have a look what else you’ve got.” He pushed me away so that I stood before him between his legs. I opened my bra and dropped it. Then, with one motion, he pulled down my panties and I stood naked in front of him.

“Fantastic. Daniel does not deserve such a woman. That is only for top people like me. Now you are mine”, he whistled more than he spoke through his clenched teeth. The guy was totally plastered.