When I finally got out of bed, I had a smile on my face, and maybe just a little joy in my heart.ĭamned if she didn't pass the test. I laid there for hours, playing with options, permutations, contingencies, results. Let's see them find the humor in my 'joke'. I woke slowly, in that grey place between conscious and unconscious, and with perfect clarity found I'd selected the avenue of my revenge. I managed somehow to make it to my bed that night, my endless possibilities of a revenge joke percolating through my stewed brain. My 'loving' wife and that asshole son-of-a-bitch next door. If, and only if, she passes that damned lie-detector test, I'd start the healing. How about if the tables were turned? Let them see what it's like to be on the receiving end of a 'joke'. I was well into my fourth scotch, feeling no pain, not even from my aching wrists. Sure, it was over the top, but hell, it was only a joke, right? Get over it, they'd say.
The unfeeling bastard who left his wife over a stupid joke. I knew that if I did leave her, many people would view me as the cad. If only my wife hadn't gotten such a kick out of his damned stupid pranks. If only Roger had never come into our lives. I didn't want to spend the waning years of my life alone and bitter. I'm not young where will I ever find someone I loved as much as my wife of 23 years? The, possibly, faithful mother of my children. The third scotch had me whining at myself. Please don't think I lack a sense of humor, but this was not a joke, and it was anything but funny. Even if they hadn't had sex, how much had they done? Did they get naked? Play with each other? Use the joke as an excuse to get intimate? I know that sound, my wife's gradual excitement, the whispered need, the moaned keening that signaled her impending explosion. How could I ever trust her again? And Roger? The stupid smirks, the pranks, so often at my expense. Making a cuckold of me, even as a joke was too much.
Yet she not only continued, she escalated things. My emotions were in turmoil.Įven if my wife and the asshole hadn't had sex, where was the respect? The trust? I had told her, and told her, it would lead to something like this. 2, a Texan's Ending.Īfter my baby girl left, I found one drink wasn't enough. With no further ado, I give you, A Joke, Ch. It's also a little long, but I think if you give it a chance you might enjoy it. It's not for the faint of heart or for the reconciliation-at-all-cost crowd. I hope you enjoy this offering and that some of you will get a little more satisfaction over the way our protagonist handled the whole thing. This is my first effort at working with someone else's characters and storyline, and I hope I didn't take it too far off-track.
I did play around with her past just a little, and added some elements of the prank that made everything go haywire, which weren't necessarily there in Agena's version, but didn't go against the evidence reported. I wanted to stay true to the characters, including Flo, the wife's, response to her husband at reconciliation. I borrowed several lines and paragraphs from Agena's second chapter. I have a very different take on what I thought should happen, and wrote this little dark tale about a joke taken too far, a man pushed to his limits and revenge. If you're going to read this, you should read the original first.Īgena states that he thought that some other authors might continue the story, and he provided his own ending in chapter 2. The protagonist, Jim was injured and humiliated, and kicked the wife out of his life. The jokes were over the top, until the last was far more than any decent human could consider a joke. Agena wrote an intriguing story called "A Joke." Chapter one dealt with a man and his wife who had a very irritating habit of teaming up with a neighbor to play practical jokes on him.
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