Dom wasn’t sure what he’d been doing to amuse his young wife so much, but clearly he’d done something.

‘Hunky-chunk,’ she giggled, ‘…you can be such a knob.’

There was always the possibility that she was provoking him. She did that sometimes. It was one of the games she played to make his humdrum life a little more interesting. But with every game came a reward, and much as he appreciated her youthful exuberance it did rather put a strain on his heart.

‘Knob? Thank you sugar pie. Tell me, would that be the same knob that just gave you a pink, customised Mazda-MX-5 Miata for Christmas?’

Steph popped another Bendicks Bittermint into her mouth, flicked the page of ‘Celebrity Goss’ and laughed in the shrill way that reminded Dom of nails being dragged down a blackboard. Every now and then her Galaxy S4 would emit a strange blip noise and in the space of a few seconds she’d tap out a reply and have her mind back on whatever frivolous thing she was doing.

Dom chuckled to himself and turned his attention back to his laptop. A stiff Jack Daniels had anaesthetised his brain to her scatty banter. He probably shouldn’t have taken a couple of her Diazepams as well but they seemed to work nicely with the alcohol. They made him feel ‘chillaxed’ as his free spirited son would say.

Steph hummed a discordant tune while cupping a handful of chocolates for Henry, her Staffordshire terrier, to lap up. Dom tutted as he tapped away at the keyboard of his computer. Henry sniffed around his ankles and then promptly threw up a congealed, chocolatey mess before scampering through his customized doggie flap into the deep snow that had recently fallen. Seeing the look of revulsion on Dom’s face tickled Steph’s mordant sense of humour.

‘Just going to get another Bolli,’ she told him as she stretched her impressively svelte figure and plumped her recently enhanced EE breasts. Following the sound of a refreshingly resonant pop, she returned with champagne flute in her grasp and sprawled herself on the settee.

‘Looking at ‘Big Ones Russian Style’ are we squiggle-pigeon?’ she mused.

Ironically Dom had indeed been looking at ‘Big Ones’ but they were more of an Asian variety.

‘Don’t know what one means, baby-cakes,’ he declared without a trace of guilt on his face.

‘Chantelle next door showed me how to do a history search on a computer. We noticed that ‘Big Ones’ seemed to come up quite a lot.’

Dom chuckled at that. His own indiscretions were nothing compared to Steph’s.  The smug grin on her face when she came back from a weekend of note-taking for Barry Glover, her IT manager, indicated that the meeting’s minutes weren’t the only things she’d been taking down.

‘Can’t imagine what you possibly mean, snookie-pie.’

Dom and Steph did pet names. It amused them to indulge in such frivolous games. They played bigger games as well – elaborate charades that involved others and made their relationship more ‘interesting’.

Steph had recently shown interest in experimenting with a bit of dogging. The local multi-storey car park was a hotbed at three in the morning but Dom rarely did anything after midnight, and he was a little anxious about his ability to perform in front of others. Steph tried to reassure him that if he wasn’t up to it then he might find it quite exciting to watch her being shagged by some of the more enthusiastic attendees. Dom had to go along with that one; having a trophy wife came with a certain conditions. As a friend told him once, ‘…an old duffer like you can’t have a bird like that without making a few compromises.’  It was with a wry smile that Dom replied, ‘Like screwing strangers in the back of my Ford S-Max?’ And they had both laughed and went for a curry.

Dom tilted the computer screen away from her prying eyes and loosened his shirt collar a little.

‘Actually, if you must know what I’m doing, I’m just filtering out all the spam from our email account, dearest. Online shopping seems to attract such detritus like flies to…well, you know what I mean. Apparently, the son of the Governor of Lagos wants to deposit several million pounds in our bank account when he pops over from Nigeria, and to show his gratitude we can keep half of it.’

Steph flicked another page and uttered a disinterested, ‘…really?’

Dom perused a few more emails.

‘Adrianna from Poland wants to share her intimate photo album with me and a friendly chap by the name of Roland wants to sell me the secret of doubling the size of my todger.’

There was a thoughtful moment of silence.

‘Like the sound of the todger thing, honeybear,’ mumbled Steph.

Dom sighed heavily, and then he fell silent.  That made Steph suspicious.

‘Having a butchers at that foreign tart’s photos, are we?’

Dom ignored that. One of the spam messages had caught his attention.

Destiny is a game. Take control of yours. And then a cursor in the shape of a scythe appeared.

‘Be a darling and clean up the mess poochiekins has made, will you?’ whined Steph.

He looked at the mound of regurgitated chocolate on the carpet.

‘Your dog. Your mess,’ he said. And then he typed: ‘How about doing something with the bloody mutt?’

Of course, he didn’t believe for a second anything would happen, but what the heck? He did a bit of surfing for a few minutes but that made him feel weary so he rested his head back and started to nap. Hearing a distant whimper, he roused himself and looked outside. Snow was falling heavily. Through the wintry haze he could just make out what looked like Henry’s podgy legs sticking out of the snow.

‘No way,’ he chuckled, and then he topped up his Jack Daniels. A new message had appeared on his computer.

Dog sorted. What next?

   He chewed a bit of dead skin on his upper lip.

‘Any suggestions?’ he typed.

How about a fun weekend without wifey?

Dom liked that.

‘Yeah…good idea.’

The silence was suddenly broken by Justin Bieber singing ‘Baby’. Steph snatched up her phone and truncated the insufferable ring tone.

‘Yes…yes…no. Oh no…oh no. I’ll be there Saturday.’ And then she tossed the phone onto the sofa and muttered a few choice words.

Dom peered over his glasses. She glared back.

‘Alright, sugar-dumpling?’

‘Dad’s had another fall,’ she moaned. The emphasis was on ‘another’. ‘He’s dislocated his bloody hip. Mum can’t cope. I’m going to have to go up this weekend.’

‘Well you won’t have to worry about me, baby doll. I’ll cope.’

That drew a cynical laugh from Steph.

‘You’ll get pissed and watch porn more like,’ she scoffed, and then begrudgingly, ‘…do what you bloody like, I don’t care anyway.’

The booze and drugs were really starting to affect Dom’s concentration. The words went in but where they went after that was anybody’s guess.

‘Thank you, sweet-cheeks,’ he muttered nonchalantly, ‘I’ll do just that.’

‘Steph’s sorted,’ he typed, ‘…so what about the entertainment?’

Within seconds a new message appeared.

   Hi, I’m Belinda. I’m open-minded, adventurous and looking for fun. Stress relief is my speciality. Make a booking if you’re interested.

He thought about that one for all of sixty seconds.

‘You free this Saturday?’ he typed. Just a few minutes later a reply came.

No problem honey. Text me when and where and I’ll be there.

Now Dom was really fired up.

He was slipping into Jack Daniels overdrive.

   ‘Anything else?’

He thought about that.

‘Bit of cash would be nice.’

That one took a few minutes, but in Dom’s inebriated world, time had become inconsequential.

   ‘Derek’s Delight, Newmarket 3:30.’ came the reply.

He had about ten minutes to get a bet on. No problem. Within a minute he was logged onto Paddy Power and £50 each way was duly placed. Twenty minutes later and Derek’s Delight had come in second. He was £186.00 better off.  Probably enough to pay for Belinda’s services.

Steph tossed her magazine onto the floor and looked outside for Henry. Several glasses of Bollinger had made the world a blurry place. All she could see was an empty garden and a curious little mound of snow that hadn’t been there before.

‘You okay cheese-ball? There’s lots of tap, tap, tapping going on that little computer of yours.’

Dom looked up.

‘Nothing to worry your pretty head about, monkey-buns.’

‘Go and open another Bolli for me will you, cherub?’ and then she started frantically texting again. Dom was just about to be a dutiful husband when another message appeared on his computer.

‘How about a bit of body improvement?’

Whether it was coincidence or not, Steph stopped texting just prior to him receiving the message. And now she seemed to be paying particularly intense attention to her mobile. Somewhere in his hazy head an alarm bell sounded.

‘Let me think about that one.’ he replied.

Dom prised himself from the armchair. ‘Just popping out for a ciggie, dearest.’ he said. It was freezing outside, but the chill air cleared his head a little. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Steph was ensconced in another magazine so he walked over to Henry’s little frozen body and gave it a hefty kick. Just as he thought, an upturned table disguised to look like a dead mutt. The plot thickened when he noticed snow covered footsteps leading away from the nefarious scene.

‘Barry,’ he muttered.

He gave Steph a disgruntled glance as he returned to his chair.

‘What?’ she said. The way she avoided eye contact was a dead giveaway.

‘Nothing,’ replied Dom calmly. ‘Absolutely nothing, my little sugar plum.’

Games were afoot and Dom suspected that Barry, or ‘the digital iTwat’ as he liked to call him, had something to do with it.

‘What do you want next?’ suddenly appeared on his laptop.

Steph was obviously waiting for a reply. She could barely take her eyes off her mobile.

‘There is something,’ he typed. ‘I’ve always wanted a bigger todger to impress the girls with. The old winkle’s always been a bit on the small side. Something about the size of a Wall’s premium banger would be nice. Something to put a satisfied grin on the old girl’s face.’

A few moments later and Steph burst into a fit of laughter. Champagne and mobile phone flew across the room.

Dom found his attention drawn to his computer screen.

   ‘Granted, Big Boy!’ flickered before his eyes.

The words burned onto the screen and then melted away. The animation was particularly impressive; the digital iTwat must have worked overtime on that one.

Steph lit up cigarette. ‘You really are the most hilariously gullible knob, darling,’ she chuckled.

‘Well, I suppose I have to be glad your old pooch is all right,’ he muttered. ‘It’s a shame about my date with Belinda though. She sounded like fun.’

Steph moved closer and snuggled up next to him.

‘That was a lucky punt with the gee-gees though. You almost had me fooled with that one.’

She pressed her breasts against his generous belly and grinned cheekily back.

‘You want a filthy little whore, baby, then you only have to ask.’ That really amused him. The thought of her being a filthy little whore made him feel horny.

‘Well, if my last wish comes true then it’s not just me that’s in for a good time, is it, Princess?’

She looked confused.

‘The todger thing… a pecker like a prime pork sausage?’ he elucidated.

She still looked confused.

‘I asked for a bigger tally-whacker darling, and you said wish granted.’

‘I know what you asked for, but I didn’t get chance to reply to that one.’

They stared into each other’s eyes.

Something wasn’t right.

Steph lifted up the front of his trousers and peered down.

‘Bloody hell, Dom,’ she gasped. ‘I’m thinking premium Bratwurst.’

END

Gary Power asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work