1. Sleep of the Guilty


    Date: 2/15/2015, Categories: Wife Lovers, Author: marlowe, Rating: 2, Source: LushStories

    on the living-room floor. After pouring two drinks he headed to the buffet table to join Sandra. As he raised his glass to his mouth he felt his shirt being pulled. “Is everything okay with Jimmy? What took you so long?” Frank questioned his brother, suspiciously. He lifted his drink to his lips and spoke into the glass. “Its heavy going dragging a lifeless body around the estate, especially in the snow,” he answered, unconvincingly. “Jimmy’s okay. We’ve put him to bed,” he added, moving away from the buffet table, trying to avoid further questions. But Frank prompted him again. “I expect you put him face down on the bed?” He lifted his shoulders and shook his head, pointing a finger at his mouth indicating that he couldn’t answer because his mouth was full of food. To avoid any further interrogation from Frank he picked up his drink and emptied the glass. It was time to go. It was just after five in the morning when he crawled into bed. And with his bloodstream fuelled with alcohol it only took a couple of minute before he was fast asleep. He wasn’t sure whether it was the calling of nature or the telephone ringing that woke him from his sleep, but he knew he had to empty his bladder. Taking the stairs two at a time, ignoring the hammer banging inside his head and the painful ring of the telephone he headed for the toilet. The telephone was still ringing when he came out of the toilet, so he picked it up. “Hello?” he barked into the mouthpiece, glancing at his watch, the ...
    timepiece telling him it was eight-thirty in the morning, an eerie silence at the other end of the phone prompting him to repeat the question. “Hello whose there…?” he enquired. “Mark, it’s me, Frank…” he answered, his voice fading into the mouthpiece. “I’m with Sandra at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Gateshead...” There was a long agonising pause before he spoke again. “Jimmy’s dead Mark... He died last night.” Frank choked back a lump in his throat before continuing. “The police are asking a lot of questions to establish if there were any suspicious circumstances surrounding his death. They know that you and Sandra were the last two people to see him alive.” There was a deathly silence again. Frank’s statement had rendered both men speechless. Struggling to think through the miasma of alcohol and sleep deprivation, sighing into the phone, his mind filling with irrational speculation, an imaginary voice inside his head telling him that Sandra must have murdered Jimmy while he slept. “What happened, Frank….? How… How did it…?” he stammered through the mouthpiece, his brain unable to function properly, his mouth opening and closing, trying to find words, but nothing was coming out. Frank’s final words held a despondent sadness. “Jimmy fell asleep on his back and died in his own vomit.” Dropping the phone into the cradle, a resounding nausea lying in the pit of his stomach, his head spinning in chaotic turmoil, his mind plagued with guilt and betrayal, climbing the creaking ...
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