A nightmare to remember (part 1)

As her beautiful wife, Barbara, pulled the curtains of their bedroom, closely followed by the blinds in order to get to the window, Sandra opened her eyes and turned to look at her.

‘I thought I was going to pass out with the heat!’ Barbara said apologetically.

Sandra suddenly realised that there were four paws digging into her side as she automatically put her hand on the soft, fawn coloured fur of one of their two puggles, Iris. She knew straight away that it was Iris as Bee preferred to lay at the foot of the bed, Iris just wanted the softness of the pillow underneath her.

‘It’s a lovely morning!’ Sandra said as Barbara made her way back into bed, pecking her on the lips as if it was a routine thing to do.

‘We might get these two to the beach and give them a bath later!’ Barbara suggested.

Sandra rolled her eyes. It was her first proper Sunday off in six months. As her shifts changed last week, she said goodbye to her ‘weekend’ landing on a Wednesday and a Thursday. They, being officially changed to Sunday and Monday, meant she had at least one day with her beloved Barbara all to herself!

Sandra turned in a way that Iris was in her arms and pulled her in close, wanting to feel her breath rise and fall against the skin of her bare arms. She was such a cuddly and easy-going dog was Iris. Bee was chilled out too, but she wasn’t as cuddly as her sister!

Both women yawned in unison, their gaze fixed on each other. Sandra smiled and knew how lucky she was to have the woman of her dreams.

‘Happy Sunday my love!’ Sandra said, before kissing Barbara passionately, Iris in between them. She suddenly felt the urge to pee and got out of their nice snuggly bed before entering the bathroom.

As she was in there, she heard the distinctive ‘ping’ indicating a WhatsApp message had come through on one of their phones. She returned to the bedroom where, Barbara read out the message from her sister, Sheila:

‘Hi guys, just wondering if anyone wanted to go to the Ritz later for a ‘Sunday session’?’

The pair looked at each other and sighed…the mood had suddenly vanished! Barbara simply raised her eyebrows at Sandra, who in turn shrugged her shoulders, both indifferent as to whether they went or not.  

When Sandra crawled back into the bed, the mood returned, only two things standing in their way from making mad, passionate love…their girlies!

 

The pair spent the next two hours, Barbara on TikTok and Sandra reading the paper, both on their phones. Bee suddenly made her presence known, meaning only one thing…she needed a wee! They played rock, paper, scissors, and Sandra won, meaning she didn’t have to get out of the warm comfortable bed and brave the elements.

When Barbara returned, she had sweat on her brow, a mug of tea in one hand, a coffee in the other. Sandra graciously accepted the coffee.

‘Hot out there?’ Sandra asked as they were going through a heat wave, and Bee, being the lady that she was, insisted that she was too good to urinate in the garden! That meant they always had to put her on a lead and walk her to the green that was ten meters outside their front door before she would relieve herself.

‘You could say that!’ Barbara answered as Sandra savoured the taste of her first coffee of the day!

Sandra quickly Googled the predicted temperature the day would bring, and after little deliberation, the pair decided it to be too hot to bring their precious angels to the beach! Both relieved, they continued as they were until lunchtime, a loud rumble of thunder from Barbara’s stomach told Sandra that she should make some food.

As their two up, two down, terraced house with red bricks on the front looked in order, it was a house that was very unpredictable. One of them might decide to mix up the day and do some painting, or wallpapering, or just lounge around. It’s a house you just can’t plan your day in!

As Sandra got up to make lunch for the pair of them, her two furry sidekicks by her side, she wondered if the stairs needed another coat of varnish.

‘I’ll shout up when its ready!’ she said as she dragged her weary bones from step to step, a crack coming from here, a crunch from there! dragged her weary bones from step to step, a crack coming from here, a crunch from there!

‘Ok!’ Barbara answered, not knowing what Sandra was about to conjure up!

Sandra, who had only recently been getting into her cooking, decided she was just too hot to go near the cooker, so salad sandwiches it was! She had to make two different types, one with meat, the other without, as Barbara was a vegetarian. The girls, who sat in the middle of the kitchen floor, watched as Sandra put the ham in her salad. They frantically licked their lips and salivated as though they had never seen ham before. They knew too well that Sandra was a softy and would give in to their every whim...if Barbara let her. They were lucky because there were only two slices left after Sandra mixed the salad, and how she couldn't come up with a reason to put just two slices back. She offered the sitting dogs their kryptonite and smiled to herself, as their tails wagged whilst they wolfed down their offerings at different speeds. Bee savoured it, but Iris on the other hand, seemed to inhale it.

As the girls asked for more, Sandra shook her head and smiled as she filled some bread with each type of salad, no same utensil touched both…that was how particular Barbara was!

‘It's ready!’ Sandra shouted from the foot of the stairs and heard the floorboards of their bedroom squeak, which meant Barbara had heard her and was simply putting on her slippers.

‘What do you think of me varnishing the stairs again?’ Sandra asked as Barbara had just taken a bite of her delicious sandwich. Barbara stopped masticating her food and looked at Sandra, a plea in her eye, conveying the message that she didn’t want her to do it!

Sandra lifted her hands up, as if surrendering. When Barbara had swallowed hard, she said, ‘they’ll never dry in this heat!’

Sandra looked back at her as if she had only just realised there was a heat wave in progress for the first time, when it had been going on for ten days at that stage.

‘We could try going back to bed!’ Sandra moved her eyebrows up and down with a come-hither look.

When she heard Barbara sigh, she knew she was in no mood for love making!

Sandra looked around the place, devilment in her eye, and wondered what she could do to make her Sunday count!

Barbara, who had seen this look too many times before, suggested she deep clean the kitchen floor, something they both had talked about doing for ages, but just didn’t have the time.

With their sandwiches gone, Sandra paid heed to Barbara’s suggestion and opened the back door. As a waft of hot air hit her, she quickly closed it again and sat back at the table. Barbara looked at her with wonderment as she took out her phone and began reading from her kindle app. Barbara smiled and restarted watching TikTok videos, and there they sat for hours, each amusing themselves!

Sandra jumped, just as she was at the pinnacle of a high intensity chapter of ‘The Shining’ when Barbara looked up at the clock and said, ‘Jesus! We only have an hour to get ready!’

Sandra put her hand to her heart and looked at Barbara. ‘You do realise that you just frightened the shite out of me!’

‘Sorry!’ Barbara said before, ‘but we need to get up off our lazy arses and shower!’

Somehow, Sandra had sex on the brain, so Barbara had to say the word ‘alone!’ as she obviously didn’t.

‘Ok, you can go first!’ Sandra sighed with disappointment and returned to her book.

Barbara disappeared upstairs, Sandra immersed in the mind of Steven King, when she jumped once more as Barbara announced, ‘we’ve to be there in ten minutes! Please, please, hurry up!’

Reluctantly, Sandra put down her phone, and placed it on charge, before she traipsed up the stairs, each step-in turn under inspection. ‘They definitely need another coat!’ she muttered when she got up to the landing.

Sandra is a very intelligent woman, one who has a high-powered tech job and an above normal IQ, but she was naturally blonde, and her actions mirrored the stereotype!

 

An hour later, they arrived at the Ritz, the rest of the family already there! Barbara looked at Sandra and rolled her eyes. They were always the late ones, the ones who were expected to turn up apologetically, and it was always because of Sandra!

‘Sorry we’re late!’ Barbara found herself saying. ‘My wife is reading ‘The Shining’!’

With that came a sigh and a nod from easily the biggest party in the pub. Sandra found herself in a world of ‘Hogans’ as she liked to call them as a collective. There were five of Barbara’s sisters there, her brother and her mother, all of whom talked over each other, laughed and joked, with a cold alcoholic beverage in front of each. Not only were Barbara’s siblings there, but those who had other halves sat next to each other, and there were a few nieces and nephews dotted throughout! Although she was used to the group, some people would likely be intimidated by it due to its pure volume! She had grown to love everyone after being married to the beautiful Barbara for six years. She also knew she wanted to sit beside John, who was Barbara’s sister Sheila’s husband. He also worked in a high-tech industry, and they loved to talk ‘shop’ together.

 

As the evening turned into night, the ‘Sunday session’ well underway, Sandra asked John in a hushed tone if he ‘had any?’ John nodded, to which Sandra smiled. The 'any' she referred to was weed! How could the two most intelligent people in the small establishment have the least amount of sense?

They both excused themselves, using the toilet to be the reason, and met each other out at the front where there was a small, secluded alleyway they went down and lit the joint! They passed it between each other in turn. They laughed and became looser as they got to the end. John nodded at her, acknowledging that he had more, and she high fived him before they returned to the group, who’s numbers had dwindled by two.

Barbara’s mum had had enough to drink, and her sister who was down from Dublin, and was staying with her, offered to bring her home. Some of the others talked about leaving when Barbara’s brother, Tim, went up to the bar and bought a round to try to encourage people to stay. Who in their right mind would say no to free alcohol?

‘Thank you, Tim!’ Sandra said as she was handed a free pint. She laughed from the effects of the weed but tried not to let it show!

Sandra went out to the alleyway with John three more times before it was just them, Barbara and Sheila, left. Sheila asked John if he was moving onto a club with Sandra, and Sandra answered for him, ‘of course he is!’ and linked his arm as she did so.

Barbara and Sheila looked at each other and rolled their eyes. They knew where exactly their spouses were going, and what they were doing there, whenever they disappeared together. As the pair were both nurses, they didn’t dabble with drugs of any kind and yet, didn’t stop Sandra and John because they knew it was their way of unwinding and, as long as they kept on the far side of the law, they weren’t really doing anything wrong…after all, it was only a bit of weed!

They got into the same taxi, Barbara being dropped off first, closely followed by Sheila, and then the two partiers of the group, and their twenty-nine-year-old nephew, Daniel, who turned up from nowhere when the taxi arrived, were dropped outside a club.

Daniel exited the taxi and went in one direction, while Sandra and John waited until he was gone and bought some cocaine off the taxi driver, who happened to be their dealer!

Sandra and John stuck out like a sore thumb as they bopped away to the thumping music, easily the eldest there. They sporadically went into the bathroom to snort a line or two, and eventually found a room in the back of the establishment with no one else in it. They were drugged out of their minds at that stage and didn’t see the harm in using that room as they got some pretty weird glances the last time they exited a toilet cubicle together, full of laughter, the youngsters thinking they had used it to have sex!

The back room, although secluded, had a video camera in it. That was their first mistake of the night! The bouncers, watched them inhale the white powder through a straw they had made out of a tightly rolled up €5 note, called the gardai and apprehended them until the authorities got there.

As they were escorted out of the building in handcuffs, they walked through the full dance floor, where John’s son Shane happened to be. He was the last person Sandra saw, before being put in a separate police car to John, Shane’s confused face as he watched the officer put his hand on top of his father's head, before being driven away, sirens blazing etched into her mind.

Sandra, who was pushed into the other car brusquely could say only one word…’shit!!’