The Realm of Regret Collection

Chapter 1

It was ten o’clock p.m. on Friday, July 10th, when Charlotte Pinkerton decided to leave her mother’s house and go home to visit her husband. He was supposed to come spend the weekend with her, but she thought it would be fun to surprise him. She texted him several times that day to make sure that he was still coming on Saturday, so that he wouldn’t wreck her surprise by leaving out on Friday and arriving at an empty house.

Charlotte and Greg were living apart and attempting to salvage their marriage, if it was at all possible. It had been three months since she threw in the towel and called it quits. She had run as fast as she could with only her children and a week’s worth of clothes for them to use interchangeably. Charlotte loved him so much but thought that her love for him was not enough to keep her alive. Greg was a monster when his switch was tripped and your best friend with the best advice and jokes you could ask for when it was not.

One day after Greg had come home from work, she had no idea what was on his mind, but she decided to ask as a loving wife who detected something wrong would do. It was a simple query. If it was nothing, he only needed to say so. Heck, if it was something, he only needed to say that, too! Yet, with Greg, it was not that simple. She remembered asking him about what was bothering him and, he attacked her as his response.

He turned into The Incredible Greg. His chest began to rise and swell right before her eyes and his pupils seemed to turn from brown to an evil, coal-colored black. He raised his hand, converted it into a fist, and slammed it first down on the table then to her face. Since Charlotte was used to his inconsistencies, her reflexes had become pretty impressive. Maybe he shouldn’t have hit the table first, sending off the warning signal, because she ducked to avoid the blow. To some that would have been a miniature victory, but to her, it was the start of the end. His miss infuriated him, prompting him to lunge and choke her. He relocated the confrontation to the top of the stairs, with his hands planted securely around her throat and pushed her down.

Charlotte was wearing her house shoes and loungewear, she was not dressed to fight or be outside. He not only pushed her down the stairs, but in the direction of the second level of stairs, so she went down the stairs a few steps then tumbled over the banister to finish off the rest of the flight. As she lay crumpled up at the bottom, she found out what she did wrong. He stood over her and kicked her as he screamed at her about how he goes out working all day and all night to keep a roof over their head, while she stayed home going through his things while calling people and co-workers in his phone to embarrass him.

Charlotte had pissed him off, because she had taken his phone one day to sync it to her computer so that she could get his numbers off of it and text everyone to meet up at the bowling alley for his surprise birthday party. Apparently, someone had no idea of the meaning of the word surprise, because the fact that she emphasized it meant nothing to that person. She thought it was either that or maybe the way she worded the text was offensive. It read:

Hello, this is Greg’s wife. I am contacting you to invite you to his SURPRISE birthday celebration on May 15th @ 7:00pm

Brunswood Bowling Alley

Archer/Pulaski Rd.

Free food w/cash bar please join us as we celebrate his 35th birthday!

Her girlfriends later told her that one of those phone book entries under the single/double letters, must have been a girl she text, who called back to give him grief about either not knowing he was married, him not being able to spend his birthday with her or how the heck did his wife get her phone number? The audacity of his wife to text her phone! Greg would have to make up for that.

While crumpled up on the floor, Charlotte was caught up to speed on what she had done that put her in that position. Greg towered over her, angrily shouting obscenities at her about how she should stay off of his phone bothering people, whom he claimed to not know. He said that he did not like other people in his business, so when she contacted people in his phone, she texted people whom he may not have actually knew anymore; people from his job or from his past who he chose to separate himself from. By going through his phone and telling these people his where-abouts, she was waking problems that he had put to sleep long ago and would have a time putting things back to normal.

She knew not to say a word to him while he went on his rant. If she said anything, she was susceptible to push him over the edge of insanity, so quietly, she tried to unwind and pull herself together. After she was able to restore her body to an upright position, she crawled to the nearest corner to lick her wounds and evaluate her injuries. He didn’t go on very long, which she was grateful for, so after he wrapped up his speech and finished waving his fist, she took mental note of the time. It was one hour left until she needed to pick up the girls from school. As usual, he retreated to the den to engulf himself in football and Sports center while she devised a plan.

Charlotte was sore and her wrist was very tender from the fall but not broken. She bruised easily, so she rose and began to gather her makeup bag and her wrist bandage to provide reinforcements, because she knew she would need that to make the pain bearable. Moving around slowly and quietly, she packed two gym bags and left the house en route to the kids’ school a little early. It wasn’t until she had driven completely off of the block that she felt comfortable picking up her phone to call her mother and confirm that she still had an extra room available.

This was not the first time that Charlotte and the girls had to stay with her and her mother knew that as long as she kept going back to Greg, it would not be the last. She would always keep the room available for them to stay in as long as they needed to. She hated Greg for the very same reason that she hated her own ex-husband. However, as an adult, Charlotte knew she would have to make her own waves and make judgment calls that worked best for her and her family. In the meantime, she would always be there to support them and pray for their safety.

Charlotte picked up the twins after school and stayed with her mother for a while. At first, Greg became irate when he realized that she had gone and had not planned to return home. He cursed at her and called her every name under the sun. Then, he suggested to her that she stay where she was since he no longer needed her services.

After a couple weeks, his switch had changed and he had begun to talk of how he loved her, but still played the blame game, to make her feel as though, none of that would have ever happened if she would’ve just minded her own business and stayed out of his phone. He claimed that he preferred to go to the alley as a family without the extra folks to bowl that day. He went on a few weeks longer with different versions of that before he finally chose to drop it and focus only on apologizing, missing them and wanting his family back.

Chapter 2

After some time, Charlotte missed being at home and loving him too, so she was feeling good and decided to take the girls and head over to stay with him for the weekend. She went late and knew that by the time she got there it would be bed time for them all and just might have some much needed bed time fun of her own for once. She parked in the garage and instructed the girls to be quiet as she always did, when they traveled in the early or late hours of the day. She hated the neighbors and knew that they watched when she came and went all of the time. She also reminded them that it was late and after their one- hour drive, to go to bed when they had gotten in the house, which they did when she let them in the back door.

The girls went up the stairs to their room, while Charlotte proceeded to head into the living room, where she expected Greg to be laid out on the couch, half sleep in front of the TV, as he always was after getting off of work. She was pleasantly surprised that he finally listened to her and had gotten up for once to go to bed, when she found the couches empty. The room wasn’t neat, which didn’t surprise her at all, so she threw her things on top of a pile of clothes on the couch and headed to the den to see if he’d gone to sleep there before she went to the bedroom. She was still skeptical about him being smart enough to do the right thing and go directly to bed.

Sure enough, her second guess was right. He laid there on the sectional sleep in front of the TV on low. He hadn’t noticed that whatever program that he was watching had gone off and the credits had taken over the screen.

She smiled in response to his smile that she saw, as he turned his head to the left, showing her the side of his face now as he slept, with his hand still behind his head. She stood there at the door just smiling at him and contemplating on taking off her clothes quickly to wake him from his good dream to see such a beautiful goddess standing there whispering his name in the nude. As the thought began to manifest into action, her nipples began to grow hard and her panties became wet with anticipation of his response.

In the TV’s glow, she looked around the room for a good spot to place her clothes, when she noticed movement out of the corner of