martinsmithstories

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Richard woke early. Relieved to not find a rabbit next to him in bed—for Ester was not there—he donned his robe and staggered to his en suite to relieve himself. He pushed against the door, but it resisted.

‘Occupied,’ a male voice said from within.

‘Sorry,’ Richard said. Sorry? Why was he apologising? It was his en suite. For heaven’s sake, there were six other toilets available in the house.

Richard knocked on the door. ‘Excuse me.’

Thuds and giggles came from the other side. The toilet flushed, and the door opened, and Ester’s parents hopped out of the en suite, flushed-faced and panting.

Good God! His in-laws in his en suite. Bunny bonking.

A dozen kits greeted Richard’s arrival in the kitchen, hopping about on the table or hiding behind the kettle or nestling within an overturned Corn Flakes box or shivering inside the vegetable crisper of the open fridge. Honourable sister-in-law sat slumped at the table with her buck teeth resting on the rim of a glass filled with pulpy carrot juice.

‘Morning, honourable brother-in-law,’ his honourable sister-in-law said as she yawned. Below her bloodshot eyes hung black bags. ‘Me big night. Me sorry about mess. You look after new honourable nephews and nieces. Me something need do.’

Before he could answer, his sister-in-law disappeared with a hobble. Richard eyed his nephews and nieces. They ignored his guardianship. Coffee, that’s what he needed. He flicked the kettle switch and opened the coffee canister. Inside, a bug-eyed kit looked up and hiccupped.

He abandoned his kitsitting and coffee making and headed towards his study, hoping for solitude and silence. When he walked into the room, he found his post-partum sister-in-law wrapped in an amorous embrace with his flushed-faced brother-in-law. Richard shook his head and said, ‘Un-frigging-believable.’ He went from room to room to seek refuge but found every room occupied by Ester’s relations locked in a concupiscent frenzy. It was a bunny bonkfest. First cousins bunny-bonked on his dining table, and second cousins bunny-bonked on his reading chair, and ex-husband No. 1 bunny-bonked an aunt-in-law in the observatory. He even found Ester’s grandmother locked in an amorous tryst with ex-husband No.2 in the laundry in a basket of Richard’s separated whites. It was a madhouse, and sanctuary and sanity lay outside, so Richard sought refuge in his garden shed. He slammed the shed door behind him, rested his back against the door and savoured the silence and darkness.

‘There you are,’ a frail voice said in the dark. ‘At last. Me thought you never come.’

Richard flicked the light switch, and there on his workbench lay honourable great-grandmother. Naked.

Richard rushed from the shed and shouted, ‘Ester!’

He stormed through the back door and into the kitchen and shouted, ‘Ester!’

He charged down the hallway until he saw the front door open. A smiling Ester appeared, carrying yet another online-shopping delivery.

‘Ester!’

‘Yes, honourable husband?’

Richard recoiled at the daylight sight of his wife’s buck teeth and coarse hair.

‘Honourable husband want hanky-panky?’

‘No. What I want is them, your family, out. Now.’

‘Out?’

‘Yes. I don’t want them here. Tell them to leave. All of them.’

‘Back to China?’

‘Yes.’

‘No family. No hanky-panky. Go bathroom. Lock door.’

‘No, you will not. Because if you do and don’t get rid of your family, I’ll wrap you in that egg packaging you came in and send you back to China.’

She eyed her husband. He returned a steely gaze.

‘O … O … OK, honourable husband. They go. But you pay tickets to China.’

‘If it gets rid of them, then, yes, I will.’

‘Business Class.’

Richard’s face reddened, and his fists clenched. ‘What? All forty-five of them?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’

‘No, not forty-five. Forty-seven. Honourable sister make honourable nephew and honourable niece just now.’

‘What? I only just saw her in the study, fornicating with her husband.’

‘She multitask. You buy business class. Family go.’

‘But I can’t afford that.’

‘No pay business class, no go home, no hanky-panky.’

Richard looked out the lounge window and saw a bunny orgy in full swing in and around the pool.

‘I suppose I could mortgage the house.’

***

When Richard returned to his car at the airport a week later, he slumped in the driver’s seat and released a sigh of relief. Ester’s family were in the air and on their way back to China. Earlier, at the departure gate, he headcounted and made sure 47 bunnies—most carrying duty-free paid by him—passed through the boarding gate on the way to the business class seats he’d booked for them. As the plane barrelled down the runway and rose in the air, he turned to Ester and read her the riot act: no more family visits, no more excessive expenditure on online shopping and no more temper tantrums and locking herself in the bathroom when she didn’t get what she wanted.

Ester gave him an uneasy smile, and without looking Richard in the eye, she said, ‘Yes, honourable husband.’

They drove home in silence, and once home, they went their separate ways: he to his study and she to the bedroom.

Richard sat at his desk and mulled as he looked out the study window. His anger subsided to annoyance, then to irritation and finally to guilt. He’d been harsh on Ester, too harsh, and he thought he’d best apologise. After all, her family misbehaved, not her; she filled her days with needless online shopping only because of the boredom of being alone all day, and his inflexibility and inability to compromise caused her to deny him her body and hide in the bathroom. No, he’d wronged Ester, his beautiful bride, and he needed to apologise.

With his contrite speech prepared, Richard knocked and opened the bedroom door, ready to seek forgiveness, but he gasped, for there, before him on his bed, in a twine of legs and arms and bunny tails, he saw Ester engaged in love-making of such intensity and dexterity that she was oblivious to her husband and his gaping mouth.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Richard said.

Ester untangled herself and sat and released a giggle. And two bucks, spent and short of breath, lay on the bed and munched on a shared carrot. Honourable ex-husband No.1 and honourable ex-husband No.2.

***

Richard sat at his study desk and fumed. Ester’s excuse was no excuse. Even if his sister-in-law had popped out another two kits on the way to the airport, resulting in a shortfall of two seats on the plane back to China, that did not excuse Ester’s infidelity and betrayal. How could she! After all he had done for her: purchasing her wedding dress, shoes and bouquet, indulging her online shopping addiction and tolerating her torrid temper tantrums. And now he was broke. Her seductive charms had drained him of his fortune—a house mortgaged to the hilt, a share portfolio liquidated, credit cards maxed out and a savings account reduced to nil. He’d not a single cent to his name. All because of that bloody egg and its duplicitous yolk.

Richard looked up and saw Ester in his vegetable garden, scurrying about the trampled patch.

‘I want my old life back, you deceitful doe,’ he whispered.

Ester paused and pulled out a carrot and sat on her haunches and nibbled it.

‘I need to get rid of you, you cheating coney.’

Ester looked over and saw him through the window. He forced a smile towards her when she batted her eyelashes.

‘But how to rid myself of you, you home-wrecking hare?’

He blew her a pouty kiss as she wiggled her bunny tail.

‘That’s it! I’ll hire an exterminator to butcher, box, burn and bury you, you conniving cottontail.’

He returned Ester’s cutesy wave.

‘But how am I going to pay for you to be exterminated, you bunny bitch?’

Richard simulated a hug as Ester ran her paws up and down and over her svelte pelt.

‘Of course! I’ll pawn some of my teeth. There must be a fortune in there!’

He reached for the phone and booked an appointment with his dentist for the next day.

That night, Ester cuddled up to Richard in bed and said, ‘You want hanky-panky?’

‘No, thank you, not tonight,’ Richard said. ‘I’m afraid I … I … I have a headache.’

‘Honourable husband no love me!’

‘No, it’s not that, Ester. I’m a tad tired tonight and could do with a bit of a break.’

‘Hmm!’ Ester huffed and rolled over and pulled more than her share of the blanket over her shoulders.

Richard reached over and turned off his bedside lamp. He snuggled under what little of the blanket remained and with his back to Ester.

‘Goodnight, Ester.’

Silence came from the other side of the bed. Richard settled and stared out into the dark and smiled. This time tomorrow night he’d be bride-free with her side of the bed empty and his nightmare over.

***

When Richard stirred the next day, a bright stream of sunlight beamed into his bedroom. Sunlight! He’d slept in. Worse than that, he had another toothache. Not one of those isolated throbs that had plagued him over recent years, but an acute, searing pain that stabbed along his jaws.

He sat and ran his tongue along his top gum. It felt gummy and rutted. He repeated his tongue sweep along his lower gum. It also felt gummy and rutted. He placed his index finger inside his mouth and felt about. His teeth were missing! All of them! He rushed to his en suite and stared open-mouthed into the mirror. A gappy mess of torn and bloody flesh had replaced his golden grin of yesteryears.

And then Richard Roe saw the note, written on a double sheet of toilet paper and penned with his green Sudoku pen:

Honourable husband. I leave you. You no fun. You no rich. You ugly no teeth. I go real man. Mista Tooth Fairy. He lots fun. He lots money. He lots handsome with lots good teeth. And he take lots care my family. I take money he leave you. Bye little dick.