Pence Free was slime. You could tell he was slime from the way he looked – asparagus-thin, dandruffy, with watery British eyes; from the way he lived – sponging off his wife, Ines, one of the most prominent eye surgeons on the country; and, lastly, from how he got his kicks – preying on the lonely female salespeople at his wife’s medical conventions.
Pence had a weakness for women in heels, so much so that he carried a pair with him when he went on the prowl. Now, some of the women were too young to be fucking in heels and some were too old, and they all should have known better, but Pence would wheedle and cajole, selling all manner of snake oil and alternative medicines to get them to follow him to his room. And they followed.
People often wondered how and why Ines was still married to Pence. The fact of the matter was Ines had fallen out of love with Pence a long time ago, but she took him along to the conventions because she had an allowance of up to thirty thousand dollars per year that she would never spend, and Ines was always one for sharing.
If Ines were to be honest, and I mean truly honest, she would be forced to admit that she kept Pence around because she felt guilty. Long before Pence discovered that he had a way with women and long before their marriage finally turned to shit, Ines had been getting her end in with the tide of Subcontinental doctors that came to Australia to study. They were a well-fed, paunchy lot, and they looked like upside down samovars, but they were, to a man, a better kind of human being than was Pence Free.
Written on Tuesday, 8 November 2011