Surrogate Ch. 02

byMattblackUK© and Vandemonium1

Way back in the mists of 2012 MattblackUK wrote a fine story called 'Surrogate'. Half way through reading it I thought it was going to take a different track than the one it did. Recently I approached Matt and he gave me his kind permission to change the ending. The start of the story below is Matt's work 100%. I have indicated where the new bit starts. I've kept as much of the original as I could. The following story carries both my and Matt's name as I truly believe it is a co-authored story.

Matt's original probably appealed to the 'happy enders' and left the BTBs wanting. Um, I've changed that.

Vandemonium1

This is damn good work by Vandemonium!

MattblackUK

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Chapter 1 (All Mattb's work)

He'd had that dream again, last night. He somehow knew he was near water and he could hear two people laughing at him. It was such a vague, silly dream that he had not thought to mention it to anyone, not even his wife...

***

They were already a good part of the way to their destination, when Derrick's Satnav flashed up an alert.

He glanced at it, frowned and said: "Paul. You haven't got anything better to do, have you?"

Paul, his companion on the journey, said in an amused tone of voice: "No, well, not really. Why? What's up?"

He replied: "There's been a bad smash on the motorway, two junctions ahead of us. I'll just get my satnav to work out an alternative route. If we take the next junction we should be able to take a detour and bypass the crash and get back on track. We'll be late, but at least we'll get there."

Half a minute later he groaned. "Oh, famous last words! The alternative route is also blocked. Looks like we would not be able to make it to the Northern office much before 6pm at the present rate. Instead of trying an alternative route, I'll get the next junction and re-join the southbound traffic and head back to London."

He pointed to his hands free phone in its dashboard cradle. "Paul, mate, do me a favour, please? Call the office where our appointment is and tell them what's happened. Give them my apologies, too."

Paul keyed the number in and made the call. When he terminated the call he turned to Derrick and asked: "Do you want me to phone HQ and tell them what's happened?"

"Please!" his companion responded.

But when Paul tried to dial the number, nothing happened. He frowned. "Sorry, I think I just buggered your phone up!" he said, apologetically.

"Oh, no! Not again! It's nothing you did. I keep telling our IT people there's something wrong with that bloody phone! I think there's a faulty connection, somewhere. I'll go directly to IT, after lunch. Got some errands I might as well run, before I do that. What'll you do with your unexpected time back at the office?"

"If we get back by one, I might just go straight into my wife's office and take her out to lunch! She's been working on a number of special projects, recently. I worry that she's being overdoing it, these last twelve months. She always seems so tired."

Derrick paused for a few seconds, waiting until he had passed a caravan before he replied. "Sorry about that. But caravans always make me nervous out on the road! Yeah, your wife is the PA to Gary Briggs, the company CEO. I understand that you and Beth know Gary and his wife Sally, outside work, in social settings? Doesn't that cause any problems?"

Paul replied easily: "Well, you'd think it would, that it might, but it's made no difference between us. Well, no difference so far, that is. We generally keep work and pleasure separate. We've all been friends for yonks. "

Derrick accelerated past a garishly coloured Hackney Carriage before speaking again. "You going to phone your wife to tell her that you are already on the way back?"

"I'd love to," said Paul, grinning. "But guess who left his mobile phone in his briefcase in the boot?!"

"Ah, never mind. I'll pop in to see David Banning my line manager after lunch. He can call the people up north to reschedule the meeting."

He gave Paul a fleeting glance, quickly returning his eyes to the motorway that was taking them back toward London. "What about you? Who is your line manager, now?"

"It's still Gary. He's still the person I report to."

"Oh! I wondered if there'd been a demotion for you. After all, following all your high profile projects of the last few years it must seem a bit of a comedown, with you having to sit in on sales presentations and regional office meetings like the one I had planned for today."

"It's not a demotion, though I can see why it would look like it was. It's a bit of a curious one, I have to admit. Although I am not entirely certain about this, it's just what I have surmised, it seems that Gary got a bee in his bonnet about certain people who he felt were underperforming.

"But he did not know what to do, as he was unsure if their failings were caused by them, or if they'd somehow been let down or failed in some way by the company training programme.

"And as he had a big part in designing and implementing the training programme himself, he wanted to make sure everyone got a fair shake before appropriating any blame."

Derrick said "Yes... I see. I suppose that makes sense. Still, doesn't seem to be a good use of your skills. Unless he has an idea to somehow identify the root cause of the problem and get you to create a director-led programme to deal with it?"

Paul nodded, saying: "You could well be right, though he has said nothing about anything like that."

They then began to talk of non-work related matters, the chances of Aston Villa or Chelsea to win the cup, or the contenders in the Grand National, and other such topics men talk about on long, boring car journeys.

They got back to the North London suburban HQ of their employer, just before 1pm. Derrick parked the car and walked out of the car park to a nearby parade of shops, whilst Paul, briefcase in hand, entered the vast complex that made up the Hyperology Corporation.

There were several clusters of office buildings and a modest factory floor area where trial versions of the company's products were built for testing and for the designs to be finalised before they were to be constructed in the main manufacturing plant just outside Cheadle Hulme, near Manchester.

Paul dropped his briefcase in his office, noting that his attractive secretary Rhonda was already at lunch. Pity, he mused. She could have booked him and his wife, Beth, a table at one of the nearby restaurants. Still, no matter. There was a Wetherspoons in the High Street. No need to book there, he told himself.

Besides, lunch with Beth would be good, even if it was a case of popping into the local Aldi store, grabbing some bread and cheeses and some of those dinky little bottles of wine with the screw caps and dining alfresco in the nearby park. That would still be magical, as far as Paul was concerned.

The offices of the senior executives of the Hyperology Corporation were all on the first floor. So it was a fairly short walk from Paul's office to the offices of his wife, Beth and of their boss, Gary. Gary and Beth had offices that were side by side, with a connecting door between them.

Paul walked into the outer office of Beth's assistant, Gill. When Gill saw Paul, she froze. He failed to notice the stricken expression on her face. "Afternoon, Gill!" He said breezily, as he opened the door into Beth's office.

"Please don't go in Paul..." bleated Gill, but it was far too late. As Paul opened the door, he froze, as he saw Gary fucking his wife Beth on her desk. They were talking, or rather, shouting at each other as they fucked. "Does your pathetic husband fuck you like this?" "No, Gary! He doesn't! Only you fuck me this well!" "Whose cunt is this?" "It's yours, my love, my handsome lover! Yours! All yours!"

Their heads both snapped round at the same instant as they realised they weren't alone. Gill said, in a quiet voice, "Beth! Your husband... is... you... I..." she stopped; suddenly realising she was talking utter bollocks.

Paul looked, but he did not look at the errant lovers, rather, he looked through them and beyond them. They returned his glassy-eyed stare, horror etched into their features, caught as they were in mid copulation.

Paul turned and lurched away. Nothing was said by anyone as he passed Gill without seeming to acknowledge her existence.

Presently, Rhonda returned to her office and she noticed that the door to Paul's office was open. She wondered who could have been in his office in her absence. Then she saw Paul, sitting in his chair, it was up against the corner wall, far back from his large desk.

"He looked so poorly that at first I thought he'd had a heart attack," she confided in a friend, later that day.

"Mr Augustine? Paul? Are you alright?"

She approached him and she noticed that he was staring blankly into space, and shivering so badly that his teeth were chattering.

She touched his neck to find his pulse. It was weak and rapid, his skin felt clammy and cold, she noticed that his breathing was rapid and shallow, his lips were blue.

She had worked as a nurse for several years before deciding to go into the corporate world and she had kept up her First Aid training so she knew that Paul wasn't actually suffering from a heart attack, as she'd first surmised. "Shock?" she thought to herself.

"Paul! Paul! Are you OK?" she asked, an edge of concern in her voice.

He slowly looked toward her, he answered haltingly, "No, Rhonda. I am not. I just found out that my marriage is over. I found out in the worst way possible."

The next several hours were a blur for Paul. Somehow Rhonda had managed to get him to drink a cup of hot, sweet tea ("how terribly fucking British!" he had thought) but the tea had, like all the books on old wives tales said, somehow helped him to feel better physically. But mentally? Not so much.

He knew he should speak with Beth, and with her lover and with his wife, Sally. Christ! That was going to be awkward! How to tell Sally that he and she were being cheated on?

Rhonda and someone else, a man, maybe Phil from Accounts, he couldn't be sure, had managed to get him home. They'd asked if he wanted them to stay, but he had politely waved them off. He wasn't sure what they knew and didn't want to risk breaking down in front of them.

He sat in his lounge, wondering what to do next. He wanted to phone his wife but found that he had not got his head around what he would be able to say to her, after what he had witnessed.

Twenty two years of marriage? And all gone in an instant!

Then he became angry that Beth had not bothered to come to his office to see how he was feeling. Had not even bothered to phone him, let alone come home to check up on how he was. He believed that this told him this was because she really didn't care a fuck about him.

She and Gary were probably together, laughing at him! That dream... could they have already really been laughing at him, together? Mocking him? Had he somehow read their thoughts? Seen into their dirty minds?

Although he wasn't one for drinking, he suddenly felt the urge for a drink. He looked in the drinks cabinet and noticed, right at the back, a litre bottle of vodka that someone --he couldn't recall who- had brought back with them on a holiday from Eastern Europe. Neither he nor Beth particularly liked vodka so it had languished there for a couple of years.

He reached in and got the bottle out, snagging a tumbler at the same time. As he broke the paper seal on the bottle's neck he had another idea. A darker, nastier idea. He remembered something he'd read about in a school history lesson. It was what Sir Walter Raleigh had said as he had fondled the sharp blade of the axe that would take his life when he was executed: "'Tis a sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills."

He left the bottle and glass on the coffee table in the lounge and walked into the kitchen. He opened the drawer that they'd dubbed the medicine drawer, where all prescription and over-the-counter medicines were placed. He rummaged around in it until he found what he was looking for.

Out of force of habit he closed the drawer and walked back into the lounge. He stared at the bottle on the coffee table, then looked at the two packets, one in his left hand, the other in his right.

"The cure for all ills" he said out loud. He filled the tumbler with vodka and opened both packets. Good. They were full. They'd serve his purpose. Be the sure remedy for all his ills.

He had a savage feeling of vengeance within him. He imagined what would happen. The two lovers would slink into the house. Then, they'd find his cold, dead body in the lounge. Bastards! That would teach them!

In his left hand, the super strong opiate painkillers Beth had been given when she had hurt her back and in his right hand, the sleeping tablets she'd also been prescribed. But she had used neither.

He took a painkiller, then a good swallow of vodka. Then he took one of the sleeping tablets and another even bigger swallow of vodka. He took another painkiller, popped it in his mouth and reached for the vodka.

Chapter 2 (All Mattb's work)

Meanwhile, three very unhappy people were sitting in the dining room of the mansion-like house of Gary and Sally Briggs at 12, Damson Glade.

Sally spoke first. "Oh, you stupid, silly little shits! Of all the fucked up fucking things to do, you had to let him catch you together, screwing each other's brains out! Jesus Christ! What the hell was going on in your minds? As for you, Gary, you are the CEO of your own highly successful company, supposedly of superior intelligence, and yet you let your dick do your thinking for you and you allowed our very dear friend Paul to see you and his wife fucking!"

Gary shrugged and swallowed a finger of Scotch before speaking. "Well, Sal, I know it sounds bad, but, well, it IS bad, but we were trying to be discrete about it, you know, but we kind of..."

"Completely buggered the whole thing up! Bloody hell! If your idea of discretion is fucking your lover on her desk with the door unlocked, then you have no chance! You do realise this will be all over the company by now?"

"Oh, Christ! Really?" asked Beth.

"Yes, really!" responded Sally, her voice a little cross. "When we started this whole thing off, didn't we agree that we would not want or allow Paul to know anything about what was happening? To protect him?

"You... we... we all knew he'd never be OK with the idea of you two being fuck buddies; that we had to keep him out of the loop in order to keep him happy. And what do you two do? Out yourselves to him in the most callous, horrible, public way possible!

"You humiliated him publicly and you broke his fucking heart, you idiots! You do realise he may never get over this? May never forgive us? Have either of you spoken with him?"

They shook their heads, saying nothing, like naughty children before the headmistress.

"Oh, really!" now the anger in her voice was palpable. "Beth, you at the very least should have made sure he was feeling OK... or at least asked him how he was feeling! Where is he now?"

Beth spoke up: "He is at home. Or at least I think he is. I got my secretary, Gill, to check. Apparently Rhonda his secretary and some man from accounts helped to get him home."

"Well, that's something, I suppose! Do you want to phone him, now?"

Beth shook her head. "No, I can't really think of anything to say to him."

Sally shot her a dirty look. "How about: "I'm sorry? How about that?"

Beth said: "But sorry for what? Sorry I am helping you and Gary out? No, I can't say I am sorry for that. Sorry I hurt him? Well, of course, yes, to that. But I feel too ashamed to phone him, yet."

Gary pulled out his mobile and made a call. He spoke into it: "Hi, Paul. This is Gary, here. Listen mate, what you saw... although what you saw must have been a terrible shock to you, please, you must believe me when I say we never intended to hurt you like that. And what you saw might... well, if you let me, us, explain to you what it was all about, I think it will answer some questions that you must have. Please don't think this has in any way harmed your marriage. Because it hasn't. Not really, not if you don't want it to.

"Please come to our house at ten am tomorrow and we will all have a decent, civilised chat about the situation. We do need to explain some stuff to you and speaking quite frankly, you do deserve an explanation."

The call had gone straight to the answerphone service of Paul's mobile.

Whilst Gary was speaking, Paul had been busily and almost mechanically keeping to the routine that he had set himself: left hand, painkiller, swallow vodka, right hand, sleeping pill, swallow vodka, then repeat...

Vandemonium1 starts making major changes to MattblackUK's original text.

Chapter 3 (All inserted by Van1)

As Rhonda and Phil from accounts, were returning from dropping Paul off, they used the opportunity to talk.

"Far out Rhonda. I have never seen a man more devastated than that and I hope to never see it again. What do you think caused it?"

"You're kidding aren't you? Everyone knows that shithead Gary is bending Paul's wife over the desk just about every day. Are you serious? Have you been living in a cave for the last year? The whole bloody company knows about it."

"No, I didn't know Rhonda. You know they call accounts the mushroom department. Keep 'em in the dark and feed them bullshit."

"Well, believe me, it's been happening. The sad thing was that everyone thought Paul and Gary were into wife swapping and Paul was cool with it. I think today we discovered it was a one way deal."

"What a pair of pricks."

Rhonda was being troubled by her own conscience. Why hadn't she quietly sounded her boss out on if he was cool with the situation between his wife and Gary? She could only agree with Phil: what a pair of pricks. In common with many people, Rhonda responded to guilt by taking it out on other people. On returning to the office she stormed into Gill's work space.

"Did you know that Paul was kept in the dark about what Beth and Gary were up to?"

Gill's reply came in the form of casting her eyes to the floor.

"Well that makes you just as bad as that pair of assholes doesn't it?"

"I had to keep it quiet Rhonda. Beth threatened to fire me if I told a soul. What could I do? Mick and I just bought a house and neither one of us can afford to lose our jobs."

"So every day you sat here guarding the door while the boss screwed Paul's wife over his or her desk and it didn't occur to you that the decent thing to do was to let the poor cuckolded prick know somehow?"

"Ahem."

Both girls turned to see the Operations Manager, Bruce Cullen standing in the doorway. He stood there looking at them in turn. After stepping in the room, he closed the door.

"Am I right in assuming from this conversation that the CEO of this company is being accused of having sex, in the office, with the wife of one of our other employees?"

"There's nothing, 'accused' about it sir", said Rhonda, "It's been happening for ages and I think today poor Mr Augustine finally found out about it."

"Is that true Gill?"

"Yes sir. Paul, I mean Mr Augustine walked into his wife's office today and caught her with Mr Briggs."

"Did you witness any sexual act Gill?"

"Yes sir."

"Have you ever witnessed it before Gill?"

"No sir, but I...I know it has been going on for about a year, sir."

Bruce Cullen just shook his head. He asked Rhonda to leave so he could talk privately to Gill. Rhonda welcomed the opportunity to escape.