I Pushed Her Off A Bridge

By StartledEgg

When CC finds he's getting jealous, he pushes his wife off a bridge. From that point, life is never the same again as he enters of world of those jumping from bridges and those trying to stop them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: StartledEgg
• Release date: Apr 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224031849

Book preview

Table of Contents

I Pushed Her Off A Bridge

The Bearded Man: Yes!

Central Character: No?

RIVER:

RIVER:

BRIDGE:

Central Character: Why?

Central Character: No.

Central Character: No.

The Bearded Man: You...

RIVER:

Central Character: No.

LAST BRIDGE:

IT MAY SURPRISE SOME PEOPLE to read | this but not everyone who jumps from The Bridge actually dies. Two have survived.

Soundproofing would have saved her life.

‘The food here is exceptional. The service is remarkable.’

‘Remarkable?’ a young male voice replied.

‘Why yes. Can’t you see? My favourite shrimped sausage, in the most gorgeous sauce that I’ve ever tasted, presented with the flourish of a craftsman. Fine wine, fine coffee, fine dessert. And fine you—’ (Whispers. For seconds it all went to whispers.) ‘So you understand then? These are the numbers you’ll need. Think of them as access codes—to me.’

After that, the background clinks and chatter consumed CC’s listening right ear that he had put to the side of the cubicle. The toilet wall was surprisingly thin. It might have been thick, possibly, CC, that’s our Central Character, knew nothing of buildings, architecture, but whatever was true, through it, he could hear nearly all but those filthy whispered flirtations.

How many men had sat here and listened in on diners? What secrets over the years had they heard? Listening to the carnal conversations that he and his wife had, had that night, must have been the highlight of some chap’s day. ‘After all,’ he thought, ‘who has lives like ours? Everyone’s jealous of our life together.’

Jealousy.

He hardly remembered what that was. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, those feelings were so fresh and painful he could have worked with them as an acting

technique. Method acting. Emotional Memory. He could have used it to manufacture anything that required inner torment; his eyes would water, his mouth pucker ugly in rage, unable to keep eye contact. To do this CC would simply have to summon up the right moment in his life, say the bar in Brooklyn when a girlfriend had flirted to get free cannabis, or the pub in Putney when a different girlfriend had watched the England game with another man. Including penalties. But at some point all that anguish evaporated from him. Thank God! He didn’t feel that irrelevant emotion any more.

And luckily he wasn’t an actor. He was in computing.

‘One can only truly defeat the emotion of jealousy in a romantic relationship by watching your partner have sex with someone else.’ He could not remember where he had heard or read this quote but it had once felt like the summit of a distant, beautiful mountain that only the chosen few were allowed to ascend. He had hated it. Now he loved it. He had done that very thing. Over and over and over and over. Jealousy had been cudgelled. Diluted in a sea of orgies and orgasms.

So what was he feeling now? He strained a little, bending forward, ensuring his bowels were fully emptied. He composed a short poem to pass the constipated time.

From Nowhere After all this time, After all these years, Insecure teenage fears,

Snotty, fucking, ugly tears: Jealousy.

Stop it! Enough. He calmed himself. It wasn’t real. And, if he took any longer on the toilet, his wife would probably leave the restaurant without him. No, she’d never leave without him but he didn’t want her to have that

awkward, icky feeling you get when you stay somewhere a second too long. You belong in a restaurant, you’re a welcome guest. Even when you’ve finished eating you’re at ease, relaxed over a cup of coffee. Then you pay and you don’t belong any more. Get out get out get out. And anyway, there were no more conversations to be overheard with the handsome young waiter, who must by now have her phone number and her address. Their address. But more to the point, the shit on his anus was starting to dry.

‘Owwww! Fuck! Fuckty fuck fuck fuck.’ He screamed this so loud in his head he was sure fellow toilet-goers must have heard it.

The table was cleared. CC’s wife was ready. He had been at least a minute too long. ‘I left my finger in the toilet door as it closed. I held it open and then once this old man had gone in I slipped my hand away while I was looking at a painting there. But I’d not moved it far enough. I’ve never had such pain. My little finger. It’s... look.’

‘I’ve paid. We can go.’ Did she just dismiss that? Did she? He breathed hard, trying to be nice about her lack of sympathy, but it just made him seem more dramatic. More dramatic equalled even less sympathy. His wife smiled, looked at his little finger, kissed it and then started to hum an oft-heard, in their home, Culture Club lyric, ‘Victims we know so well!’ He’d been having a nice night but now the evening was getting a little bloody cloudy. Rain was heading in. Had he had too much wine? Was he tired? Or was she starting to piss him off for good reason? Then there was the jealousy, this feeling he’d felt on the loo alongside the constipation. His head was swelling with the mess of it. It wasn’t like him. It wasn’t like them. This wasn’t them at all. He had to sort it out.

He decided to test her. See if this renewed jealousy was justified. Curse that thought— ‘Jealousy justified.’ Curse it. His early adult life had been spent battling

jealousy, swatting it away or living under its swarm. It was never a thrill to feel it and he had never thought it helpful to have it. Some fly girl once told him that midges have their place too but he’d never believed that either. Jealousy was good for nothing. Never had he said ‘justified’. Until now. Without the phrase, ‘jealousy justified’, playing in his head, none of what was about to happen would have happened. But it did.

The test was simple. If she told him about The Waiter, the date he heard her make with him, it would all be fine. And no, not just a date, but their address. Not a date at all but a straight shag. If she didn’t tell him in the next thirty minutes then everything between them was different. And probably over.

29 minutes

You see, they were swingers. Sexually liberated, promiscuous, polyamorous, wife swappers, sport fuckers, hedonists. He was a cuckold. His wife had been a rare Unicorn and now she was a Hot Wife. He hated the term ‘swinger’ but hadn’t found anything better; well ‘polyamorous’ sounded good but no one understood it, so he had to say ‘swinger’ in the end anyway.

So there was no way he should feel jealous if she should see someone else.

But there was a rule. They shared everything. Told each other everything. It was the difference to it all being a bit of fun and to having an affair, which would have been deceitful and cruel. Shared plans, shared details, shared partners (if you’re lucky). So she should have told him. She really should.

27 minutes

She left a tip. Larger than normal: noted. Coats on.

Walk to the door.

She looked for The Waiter, smiled, said goodnight.

He was barely twenty. CC would have loved that normally. To his annoyance he did love it. He even got excited and it started stirring, right there, as he pushed open the doors. She’d tell him now, CC was sure.

25 minutes

The perfect moment missed.

She wasn’t going to tell him. The bitch wouldn’t tell him now, would she? The word ‘bitch’ was a shock. But then he was now walking under the heavy blanket of his old foe. The steps were harder. They were walking home and it was going to be a long way. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. He played the word round in his mind. Maybe that’s what he’d say to her in twenty-four minutes time. Checked his watch.

23 minutes

Yes, that is exactly what would ventilate from him. Something had to give when the time was up. When her time was up. And it might as well be an unsaid, nasty, base, vile, misogynistic, hateful term. It might as well be bitch.

22 minutes

She took his hand, as routine demanded. Home was nearly an hour away but the walk was by woods, through playing fields, over a river and down many little alleys and paths. They enjoyed walking long, quiet distances together. An hour. They didn’t have an hour, they had:

21 minutes

It would all be over before they even reached home. Maybe one of them wouldn’t even be going home. Maybe one of them would be searching for alternative lodgings that night after a big, bitter, very public row. CC hated seeing other people perform their personal attacks on each other in public. It was crass and very much below him to do the same thing but in this moment he couldn’t see any

other way.

18 minutes

He started to think about exactly where the moment might come. When would the thirty minutes be up? By the old oak with the fairy-tale door? No one had ever explained the door to them so they liked to pretend it was real. Maybe if the confrontation came there, they would disappear into it. She would stomp off straight into the tree like Alice and he’d follow. A great adventure out of a great disaster. She’d already be many hours and miles ahead in that magical world and the journey to find each other would lead to a deepening of their romance. Perhaps even an alternative to this swinging stuff, of which all sorts of doubts were beginning to emerge.

12 minutes

The door came too soon. They were already past it and he couldn’t slow her down enough to make it even close. No fairy-tale. Another spot then. The best he could hope for now was that it would happen somewhere quiet and easy to hide from the world. Still in the woods, fingers crossed.

10 minutes

The woods were gone. Okay, perhaps an alleyway somewhere. An alleyway where they could be hidden, even if their voices carried up to the sleeping babies and angry parents. The shouts