Ex-Terminator Life After Marriage Read Online Free PDF

never figured him for marriage.
    “We stole away to Vegas and became man and wife. We had four absolutely fabulous days there. What I didn’t know was that when the honeymoon ended, which I thought could have lasted a lifetime, so did the marriage. I was so enamored with the idea that I had finally found my soul mate, my true love, that I never saw the signs that were there from the very beginning.”
    Rachel paused again, trying to build up confidence and the will to continue her story. Marvin was no longer a concern, only the desire to purge the demon that made her a prisoner in her own body.
    “I was so blind, a year passed before it became clear to me that the man I married was using me. I provided the roof over his head, the food he ate, the clothes on his back. I was his drug dealer, I was his whore. I gave him everything he asked for without ever questioning him with the where, what, when and especially the why. And when I didn’t comply—” Rachel looked down at the floor, then looked up into each person’s face in turn—“he beat the hell out of me. The sad thing is I allowed it to happen.”
    There was a gasp from the group—each person covering their mouth, except Marvin, with their hand.
    Rachel coughed and scratched her head. “Do you mind if I sit down? I’ve got to get this out now that the iceberg has melted.”
     
    Sylvia pulled up a chair, and Rachel fell into it. She crossed her legs and leaned to one side, caressing the arm of the chair.
    “I didn’t know Reuben at all. I should have known that birds of a feather flock together. Didn’t I meet him in the company of my second ex, Charles? I only went to Christmas dinner because my girlfriend Sherry, Charles’ new girlfriend, had begged me to come. Reuben and Charles probably belonged to the ‘men who abuse women’ society.
    “When we got married, all the dinners, flowers and movies ceased to exist. I was so stupid and naïve that I wasn’t aware that Reuben neither owned nor rented the place he was living in—he was house-sitting for a friend in the military who was stationed in Germany. I never even thought about it until the divorce, when he had to tell the truth about his assets—or lack thereof. It never occurred to me that when we married and Reuben moved into my house that I was supporting a freeloading, didn’t-have-a-job junkie.
    “I don’t know where the courage to leave Reuben came from. Someone somewhere was praying for me. I never shared any of this with my parents because they were done with me. They said I was wasting my life on the first two husbands, and time proved them right. And now I know it was best that they didn’t know about number three.
    “It was a rainy day in September. I had a terrible cold and left work early so that I could go home and nurse myself back to health. I remember when I drove up in the driveway, there were a couple of strange cars parked in front of the house. I cursed because not only did I have a terrible cold, but a migraine was threatening, too. The last thing I wanted to deal with were Reuben’s freeloading friends up in my house.
    “Woooo,” Rachel sighed. “The key was barely in the lock when the front door flew open. Some crazy lunatic rushed past me. I looked on in horror because in the middle of my living room floor on my expensive Chinese rug were these three women and three men bouncing around on each other like monkeys…”
    “You mean they were having sex?” Ashley gasped.
    “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” Rachel said, a little annoyed. “Only they were all twisted and tangled up…you know…an orgy.”
    “Eewwww,” Ashley, Mona and Claudette chorused. Ashley crinkled up her nose in disgust. Marvin looked at Rachel longingly.
    Rachel pointed her toes straight ahead. She dropped her elbows to her knees and rested her head in the palms of her hands.
    “And Reuben, well, he was sitting in a corner with a high-as-a-kite eighteen-year-old freebasing like they