by HC Michaels
“What are you thinking about?” asked Skye.
“Nothing.” He smiled, glad she couldn’t read his mind.
“You know you’re the greatest husband to ever walk the earth.” She grabbed at his shirt and pulled him closer. Her ample cleavage loomed in front of him, leaving him wondering if the wound from her surgery had healed yet. That hand job she’d given him when he’d asked Rin to take Amber back just hadn’t been enough. He missed fucking her when he woke up. Releasing his stress in the shower just wasn’t the same.
She sat up and pulled her camisole over her head, revealing her hot pink bra. Another gift he’d brought her from Singapore. He’d bought one cup size too small and her breasts were spilling over the edges, as the lace struggled to hold its load. She didn’t normally wear a bra to bed, unless it was for him.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t just her confidence that he’d been attracted to.
He threw his tee-shirt over his head as an urgent need built deep inside him. If it wasn’t satisfied, he’d end up in hospital himself. Death by internal combustion caused by having the hottest wife on the planet.
“I love you, babe,” he breathed.
“I love you more,” she said, before taking hold of the fire she’d lit in his groin.
Yep. He’d made the right decision, that much was for sure. Happy wife, happy—oh my fucking god.
26 Days Before The Break
“Goodbye, farewell, hasta la vista!”
Skye Manis puts cancer on notice as battle continues.
Well, give me a pair of sparkly red shoes and call me Dorothy. I’ve officially started following my chemo-bricked road and am on my way to Oz. Soon that Wicked Witch we call cancer will have melted into a puddle on the floor and I’ll be clicking my heels together and returning home.
Okay, I’ll drop the corny analogy. Cancer does that to you. It makes you regress into your childhood, causing you to think about life in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.
Chemo wasn’t at all like I was expecting. Was it confronting? Sure. Was it painful? Sort of. Was it bubbly green liquid being injected into me by men wearing hazard suits? Not at all.
It was a roomful of people sitting around with needles in their arms, talking, reading magazines or listening to music. It reminded me a bit of giving blood, only this time the nurses were putting things in instead of taking things out. I could feel the poison running through my veins, but somehow managed to distract myself from what was happening. After all, you’re not going to cure something as deadly as cancer with a glass of water.
So, all in all, it was confronting, but it wasn’t that scary. What was scary was getting home and feeling like I was Sigourney Weaver with an alien about to burst out of my stomach.
Sorry, I broke my promise. See, those movie analogies are hard to pass up once they enter your head. Next I’ll be likening my body to the arena in The Hunger Games as my cells fight to the death. Let’s hope the cancer alliance is the first to get its image projected into the night’s sky.
I did it again, didn’t I? That was the last one. I promise. I suppose it just helps to think of cancer in those kinds of terms, particularly because we know in stories the good guys always win. Dorothy melts the Wicked Witch with a bucket of water, Katniss survives not one but two Hunger Games and Sigourney finishes the alien queen off with a forklift and an ill-fitting shoe.
Listen up, cancer! You’re on notice. I’m evicting you from my body effective immediately. Once I stop throwing up, you’re definitely out of here. Goodbye. Farewell. Hasta la vista. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Actually, no. Let the door hit you. You deserve it.
Thanks everyone for your continued support. I promise my story will have a happy ending.
Love Skye xx
6.7K people like this
238 shares/980 comments
SuperMama12
Go Skye!!!! Good fo you, able to keep your sense of humor about this. Not sure I could if it was me, U R an insparation to all woman.
CarlyJane
Just remember you can cry too. You don’t always have to make us laugh. We love you anyway! Good luck with your recovery.
Julia97g
Always hated that Wicked Witch. Such a bitch. Hope you get to Oz soon.
JoJoGo
You’re on your way!! You’ll get there soon. I beat ovarian cancer 9 years ago now. Your not alone in this. Don’t listen to CarlyJane. Keep laughing. I did and it kept me sane.
CarlyJane
She can laugh. Just saying its important to cry too. No need to get personal. And by the way it’s ‘you’re’…
MarkyJohnpp
Get better soon beautiful.
JoJoGo
Not getting personal?? Just speaking from experience. Better to keep things positive than to give in and cry. Crying tells you’re body something is wrong.
MrsHappyNow
You rock Skye!!! Keep us posted as you beat this thing good. Your awesome.
Daisy21
Ummmmm, theres something wrong. She has CANCER. Derr.
BellaSwannnn
It’s like a vampire trying to suck the life out of you, only you’re stronger than that. Team Skye all the way!!!!
Cait31
I go to school with Amber. We all think you’re the best. Cancer has no chance against you xx
JoJoGo
Cancer isn’t a death sentence. Just a medical condition that Skye needs to sort out. Watch what you say here. This is her life you’re messing with.
Ferzzy
You hot. Friend me.
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Rin stood at her kitchen window and watched the builders work. She hadn’t expected them to start almost immediately. Plans normally took far longer than that to go through council, but if anyone knew how to pull strings, it was Theo.
In only a few days the shed had really started to take shape. There was still quite a bit of work to do, but it’d be quite an asset to their home when it was finished.
It would be so good to have Amber home with her again. It wasn’t right for a child to sleep under a different roof to her mother.
Every night before she went to sleep, she’d lie awake and picture Amber in her bed in that Malvern mansion. Amber had snuck Rin in there once when Theo and Skye weren’t home to show her where she lived. She’d felt like a naughty teenager tiptoeing into the house. A giant marble statue of a goddess stood in the entrance hall. Rin had been certain it was glaring at her. It’d given her the creeps and she’d almost turned back. But Amber had taken her by the hand and led her through the rest of the house. She’d stopped short of going into Theo and Skye’s bedroom, though. That was too much of an invasion of privacy. She’d die if she ever found out Theo had been in the bedroom she shared with Jeff.
The house was beautiful. Very white. But beautiful. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live in a place like that. It was no wonder Amber had wanted to move in. She couldn’t deny her that opportunity.
Besides, Amber loved her father. She doted on him in a way he didn’t deserve. Jeff had tried so hard to be a good stepfather, yet his efforts always went unnoticed. Amber had been reeled in by Theo’s shiny charisma, just as she herself had been in the early days. Sensible Jeff was no competition with his receding hairline and chino pants. Well, no competition in Amber’s eyes. He was more than satisfactory competition in her own eyes.
She hadn’t had to try to trap him into loving her like she had with Theo. That seemed like another lifetime ago. She was amazed she’d not only thought she could trap Theo by having a baby, but that she’d wanted to trap him at all.
Skye hadn’t had to trap Theo. From what Rin knew about their relationship Theo had been the one to trap her.
It was a shock when she first found out he was dating Skye. She’d actually been a fan of hers, following the story of how she’d lost her first husband in that terrible car accident, relating to it not as a widow but as a woman who’d
also had her marriage taken from her against her will.
Sometimes she thought having your husband leave you was far more painful than having him die. Both were experiences of loss, yet only one of them came with an overwhelming sense of rejection and betrayal.
She’d read with interest as Skye re-entered the dating scene, again relating to how she’d felt when she’d first started seeing Jeff. Then Skye had gotten more liberal with her details about Theo and things had started to fall into place. The coincidences were too great. Skye was dating her ex-husband.
Once Rin realised that, she stopped considering herself a fan of Skye’s and started thinking of herself more as a ... rival? No, rival wasn’t quite the right word. That implied they were on the same playing field when they quite clearly weren’t. They weren’t even playing for the same prize. Arch enemy was probably closer to the truth.
No matter what any woman says, there’s no way anyone would be happy for their ex to end up with a woman like Skye. Toothpick legs up to her armpits, boobs the size of rock melons and blonde hair that reached all the way to her choirboy behind.
Loyal Jeff always claimed to find Skye highly unattractive, saying he hoped Theo didn’t light a match near her as she’d probably melt. He didn’t like plastic women. Rin was never sure if she believed him, yet still these comments made her love him even more.
At least Skye wouldn’t be able to have children with Theo now. That had always been a worry of Rin’s—that Theo would get the son he’d always wanted and lose interest in Amber, filing his feelings for her away with yesterday’s news.
She saw the builders nod to each other, their signal to lay down the tools for lunch.
It was time to put on the kettle. She liked looking after tradesmen who worked on her house. They always did a better job that way. It would be hard to take a shortcut on your work after being fed with coffee and cake all day.
She took an apple cake out of the oven. Amber said Skye loved to bake. She wasn’t the only one. She might have exclusivity over Theo, but she didn’t have exclusivity over that.
“Would you like a coffee?” she called out the open window.
The builders smiled and gave her a thumbs up.
“Thanks, love,” they called out.
“No, thank you,” she muttered as she took out three mugs. They were doing a very important job. They were helping her to bring her daughter home where she belonged.
22 Days Before The Break
Linda went into the ensuite and grimaced. She hated cleaning other people’s bathrooms. It was bad enough having to clean her own.
Not long ago she’d been in Skye’s position, spending her days shopping or having coffee with the girls while someone less fortunate cleaned her husband’s piss off their toilet seat. But that life was eons ago. It almost felt like it happened to someone else.
She sprayed the surface of the basin with disinfectant and ran the hot tap, staring mindlessly as one of Skye’s blonde hairs swirled in the water before escaping down the plughole. She’d been finding a lot of Skye’s hair lately. It was strange. Usually it was Theo’s dark hair she had to pull from the sink.
There’d been hair on her pillow, in the shower and stuck to the back of the couch. Maybe Skye was sick? She was spending more time in bed than usual and she’d been barely touching her food. And she had gone in for that surgery recently, but surely if it was anything more serious than one of her usual cosmetic procedures, she’d have mentioned it. But then again, maybe she wouldn’t.
It would take at least an hour to clean this already clean bathroom. It was four times the size of hers, its gleaming Italian marble tiles teasing her with their opulence. The walk-in double shower could fit a whole football team in there.
She ran her cleaning rag over the basin, removing any signs of anyone having used it any time in the last century. It could be worse, she reminded herself. Skye and Theo were fastidiously neat, which meant she only had to clean, not tidy. She’d hate having to pick up Theo’s dirty underpants from the floor. The humiliation would be too much.
If only this house wasn’t so damn white, then maybe it would be easier to clean. Every single speck of dirt showed up in this place, making cleaning even more of a chore. Her favourite rooms were Amber’s. At least they had some personality.
Her favourite person was Amber, too, now that she thought of it. She was the only person in this place who treated her with any respect.
It was a grand house, even larger than the one she’d once lived in only a few streets away. It took her forty hours a week to keep it sparkling to the kind of standard Skye was happy with. This included doing all the laundry, grocery shopping, cooking and errands such as transporting the never-ending stream of dry cleaning. Cleaning the staircase was her most hated task. It had a wrought iron balustrade (painted white, of course) with intricate patterns that doubled as magnets for dust. She’d lost almost five kilos since taking this job. The white cotton dresses Skye liked her to wear had started hanging off her.
This was Linda’s first housekeeping job. Her first of any kind of job in over thirty years.
When she’d met Tony, he promised she’d never have to work again. That was the first of many lies he told her. She didn’t mind his lies so much. They were far preferable to his truths, especially when he told her about his affair with Sandra.
She hadn’t wanted him to confess. She already knew. She wasn’t an idiot. He was the idiot who hadn’t realised she was turning a blind eye to his infidelities. She didn’t really mind who he slept with, as long as it wasn’t her.
Skye reminded her of Sandra. Another bimbo second wife. Actually, bimbo was probably harsh. Skye was a fairly intelligent woman, she just looked like she should be a bimbo. Maybe she’d find herself cleaning houses one day when Theo upgraded her with an even younger model. He might get himself a real bimbo next time.
Linda finished cleaning the basin and wandered out into the master suite, not able to resist poking her head into Skye’s dressing room.
One wall was lined with racks of clothes, hanging in their dry-cleaning cling film wrappers. Coats and jackets on the top left rack with pants and skirts hanging below. Dresses in a separate section to the right and shirts located in the middle. All enclosed by mirrored doors to hide the hideous mess of the perfectly pressed and organised clothes.
The other side of the room was dedicated to accessories. There was an enormous shelving unit, housing over a hundred pairs of shoes, drawers filled with neatly folded active wear, lingerie, stockings, silk pyjamas, camisoles, hats and scarves and an entire dresser bursting with velvet-lined trays of jewellery.
In the middle of the room, sitting delicately on the plush white carpet was a white leather chaise longue. Skye would sit there as she fastened her shoes or took a break from the overwhelming exhaustion she must experience at deciding which outfit to wear for the day. Should she wear the Saint Laurent baby doll dress or the Dolce and Gabbana pencil skirt? And would it look better with the Christian Louboutin heels she favoured, or should she mix it up with her Manolo Blahnik pumps? It was a wonder she managed to cope with the stress.
Once, Linda had caught Amber in there and had to pretend she didn’t notice, hoping she wouldn’t get the blame for whatever it was she was up to. It was no wonder. What teenage girl would be able to resist the treasures and temptations contained within that room? It was like a grown-up woman’s Disneyland.
Linda noticed it was unusually messy today. A large pile of leather-bound books was scattered on the floor, the full-length mirrors magnifying the scale of their untidiness.
As curious as she was, she didn’t dare touch them. They looked like diaries and Skye was an intensely private person. Linda used to read Skye’s articles online until they became as dull as the colour scheme in this house. The diaries were probably just extended versions of that.
She’d not only lost interest in Skye’s life, she’d also lost her internet connection when she failed to pay her bill. G
oing online now required her to make a trip to her local cafe that had free wifi and overpriced coffee. It was a trip she rarely made. She was too exhausted most of the time to even think about such a luxury as sitting in a cafe. Besides, she’d lived without the internet for most of her life. It wouldn’t kill her to live without it again.
But as she looked at the diaries now, she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she might feature in any of them. Now that would be interesting. A chance to find out what Skye really thought of her.
“Don’t be a fool,” she told herself. There’s no way Skye would write about the hired help. She was no more important to Skye than a t-shirt at a nudist colony.
Linda wished she’d treated her own former housekeepers with more respect. She’d never really stopped to wonder about their lives or the fact that when they went home, they still had their own houses to clean.
That was one of the problems with life. You never really knew how fortunate you were until it was all taken away.
She turned from the dressing room, knowing if she got caught snooping, her job would be lost. This job was the one thing keeping her afloat. Tony had really stitched her up with the divorce settlement and she’d been foolish with the little she’d ended up with. After so many years of not having to worry about money, it took her years to figure out she’d have to paint her nails herself and cancel her overpriced membership at the health club. The money slowly whittled away and with no more coming in, she soon lost her house along with her pride.
