My husbands secrets and lies

Episode Three: Island nightmares

I’m not going to lie, when it comes to traveling it’s nice to be filthy rich. Instead of standing in lines and being crowded, struggling to carry all your luggage and trying to keep your kids in line, we get to take a private plane. We get dropped in front of the plane along with the staff that are accommodating us on the trip, which would be the chef, two nannies and two servants.

I can’t even remember the last time we went away as a family. I think the last family vacation we took was to Disney Land. But as fun as that was for the kids, I prefer holidays like these, at a beach, where there are no distractions and no rush. Just the ocean and my family. I have never been to this family property before. Phillip said it was his mother’s beach house. He doesn’t talk about his mother a lot. She died when he was a senior in high school. They have properties all over the world and I have been to most of them. When we started dating, Phillip would often take me to one of his grandmother’s vacant vacation or business houses and so I got to travel all over the world and when she passed, he inherited all of them, including this one, I suppose.

When we had our first child, the trips and holidays became fewer and fewer until they eventually stopped. I feel excited that we are doing this again and, hopefully, this will be the start of more getaways in the future. This is exactly what our family needs. We get on the luxurious and spacious plane and take off to our destination.

Phillip sits next to me and places his hand on my knee. The kids are occupied at the back of the plane and watched by the nannies. Phillip moves his hands from my knee to my inner thigh and under my summer dress. He then takes my hand and pulls me up from the seat and leads me to the bathroom of his private plane. He locks the door, lifts me up and puts me on the basin top.

“I always wanted to join the mile-high club”, he says, and starts kissing me while simultaneously lifting my dress and removing my underwear.

“Are you really going to pretend like this is our first time on a plane? Aren’t we a bit old for this?” I asked. We would always have s*x on the plane when we dated, and he took me on trips around the world.

He puts his hand over my mouth with one hand so as to shut me up, while the other moves down and he starts to get me wet with his fingers. I place my hand in his pants and start to work him and then slip it in. I grab onto his ass as he starts to get into rhythm and, with a few hard and fast pushes, it’s all over as fast as it started. We get dressed and return to our seats. The quickie had relaxed us, so we had some drinks and admired the view from the window. The vacation is off to a good start.

After the five-hour flight, we landed on a small private strip on the island, where several SUV’s were waiting for our arrival, ready to transport us, our staff and our luggage to the beach house. We drive for a while with nothing but a long, endless road along the coastline on one side of the road, and an endless forest of palm trees and other indigenous plants on the other side. We finally pulled up to a large steel gate and then followed the driveway up to the big double-story house. After all the staff had gone inside, I followed Phillip to the door and bumped into a man;

“Good day mam. My name is Nick. I am the caretaker of the property and a retired police officer. Please let me know if I can assist with anything.” The man greeted me with a handshake and then pointed to where he lives on the premises.

“Amanda. Nice to meet you.” I greeted him and then entered the house.

It had stairs going to the second floor as you enter the house on your right side and to the left is an open hallway connecting a large, spacious family room lined with oversized couches, large Persian rugs covering the floor and in the corner of the room is a fire place. It gave a welcoming feeling. The rest of the first floor consists of an enormous kitchen, a TV room, a dining room and a study. The stairs leading to the second floor were wood and so were all the upstairs floors and I could hear the children’s loud thuds as they ran upstairs to pick out their rooms. The bedrooms had windows that faced the ocean, and each had a bathroom and balcony that faced the back yard on the other side of the house. If you stand on the balcony, you have a beautiful view of the green garden full of succulents and a lawn surrounding a swimming pool. The staff would stay in the various guest houses surrounding the main house.

The servants collect our baggage and will unpack everything for us. The kids are already on the beach, playing in the ocean under the watchful eyes of the nannies, who have joined in the fun. It’s a beautiful sunny day so I take my book to the beach and make myself comfortable on the deck chair. It is so relaxing, reading in the fresh ocean air while getting a tan. I must have dosed off while reading.

When I wake up, it is cold and dark outside. The kids are no longer at the beach. Why would nobody wake me up? I started walking towards the house. I could barely see it, because a thick mist had surrounded the entire house. I entered the house and heard music playing softly. Music that was out of time. The whole house is dark and quiet as I slowly walk in and start calling;

“Hello! Where is everybody?” But all I hear is my own voice, echoing throughout the house. Then I see a light in the dining room, and I hear people talking. When I entered the dining room, I saw a woman standing at the table that I did not recognise. When she looked up, her eyes were missing, and she let out a scream of horror.

“Who are you?” I asked as I looked around to make sure I was in the right house. But it’s the only house on the beach. Suddenly, the woman screams while her body starts to burn, like a body would burn if acid is thrown on it. Slowly, her flesh starts to incinerate, until she vanishes completely.

“Mommy! MOM! Mrs Barclay!!” I hear my daughters and the nannies scream and suddenly find myself standing in the deep ocean when I wake up. As I turned around to face them, a large wave hit me, and I struggled to get out.

Phillip, who has heard the commotion, comes running from the house and helps me to get out of the waves;

“What are you doing?” Phillip asked, out of breath.

“I fell asleep while I was reading and had a nightmare. I must have been sleep walking.” I tell him while trying to make sense of why I would just walk into the ocean.

“Mrs. Barclay, are you OK? You just got up from the chair and walked into the ocean, we kept calling you, but you did not respond and just kept going deeper and deeper.” Kaylie, one of the nannies, says.

“I’m sorry I scared you and the children, it must be the wine I had on the flight that has made me tired and confused. I think I’m going to take a shower. That will probably wake me up.”

I then went back inside the house. I go to the main bedroom and get in the shower. The glass begins to steam up and I can see a figure entering the bathroom and feel someone’s presence, but when I open the door and peek my head out to see who it is, the space is clear. As soon as I close the door again, there is the outline of a human again! I check for a second time and still find nobody there and when I re-enter, the outline is no longer there. Am I seeing things? My mind must be over tired from the long trip and the afternoon in the sun. I continue to wash my hair and body. I jump as someone’s hand touches my shoulder and, to my relief, find Phillip standing behind me.

“What games are you playing? You almost gave me a heart attack, don’t do that!” I said, figuring that it was him that I saw.

“I’m not playing games; I just want to continue with what we started on the flight this morning.” He says as he turns me around facing the wall, my hands pressed against the wall, he takes me from behind and we enjoy another few minutes of hot and steamy shower s*x. We haven’t had this much s*x since before the kids were born. This is what we came to do, to spend time with each other and save our marriage.

Afterwards, we join the kids for dinner, sending the nannies to their accommodations for the night. After dinner, we play some board games and watch TV before putting the girls to bed. We then enjoy a glass of wine out on the balcony in the cool ocean breeze before going to bed. It’s been a long day and we both fell asleep in seconds.

I wake up in the middle of the night pinned down against the bed by an invisible force and I can feel the pressure on me as though someone is sitting on my chest. I struggled to breathe as I tried to shout to Phillip, who I could see sleeping next to me. But no sound leaves my mouth. The pressure becomes heavier as I start to feel more and more panicked. I struggle to get air or to scream.

Suddenly, I take a deep breath as I gasp for air and jump upright when I realise it was only a dream. Phillip is still sleeping next to me as I pant like a dog from being out of breath and damp from sweating profusely. What is going on with me today? The anxiety of the unfamiliar must be catching up on me or something. When I go to sleep again, I have horrible nightmares for the rest of the night.

The next morning when I woke up, Phillip was already gone. I checked the time and realised that I had slept in. The window was open as well as the balcony doors, and the fresh ocean air was a nice way to wake up. I could hear the children in the garden outside and I walked over to the balcony. I see them having breakfast on the deck and when Phillip sees me, he shouts:

“Come down and join us!”

“I’ll be right down!” I replied.

I put on a robe and joined my family for some much-needed coffee and breakfast;

“I arranged for us to go out on the sailboat today, so after breakfast everyone should get dressed and ready. There is a dock walking distance from here with my sailboat ready to go”, Phillip says.

I watch him as he smiles at the girls and can’t help but think that I am glad we decided to give our marriage another try. For the first time in years, he is starting to act like the man I fell in love with.

The next few days were filled with fun boat trips, playing on the beach and doing family activities with the children. We also had plenty of alone time to make love all over the house and even on the boat at times. It was like a dream holiday…

Except for the nights. Each night after going to bed, I experience the pressure on top of me, struggling to breathe or scream and then waking up, breathless and covered in sweat, followed by the repeating nightmares of being chased and bloody images flashing nonstop. It started to catch up with me after a few days, even sleeping pills did not help and I started sleeping more and more during the day.