Chapter 1
I stare at the pregnancy test on Janey's bathroom counter, a simple plastic stick that's torn my world in two. My fingers are cold, but there's a heat rising in my chest -- not the warmth of friendship I've felt for twenty years, but something tighter, darker, something I recognize as rage. My husband's child grows in my best friend's womb while my own remains stubbornly empty month after month. The symmetry would be poetic if it weren't happening to me.
"Loren?" Janey's voice calls from the living room. "Are you okay in there?"
Am I okay? The question is so absurd I almost laugh. I pick up the pregnancy test, positive sign mocking me, and step back into her apartment. Janey sits on the edge of her mid-century sofa, hands wringing like wet laundry.
"So," I say, my voice unnervingly steady, "you and Curt."
Her face crumples. "It was one time. After your anniversary party. We were both drunk, and--"
"And now you're pregnant with my husband's child." The words taste metallic, like I'm sucking on pennies.
Janey nods, a tear slipping down her cheek. I should feel something for her--pity, perhaps. But all I can think is how many times I've cried in doctor's offices, specialists explaining my "hostile uterine environment" while Curt squeezed my hand with the same fingers that apparently had no trouble creating life elsewhere.
"He doesn't know yet," she whispers.
I perch on the chair across from her, legs crossing automatically, a lady accepting tea rather than devastation. "No, I imagine he doesn't."
Three years of fertility treatments. Three years of temperature charts and ovulation kits and timed intercourse that felt more like a clinical procedure than lovemaking. Three years of Curt's increasingly distant support, his "It'll happen when it's meant to happen" platitudes.
And it took him one drunken night to do what we couldn't achieve in three years of trying.
"I'm keeping it," Janey says, her hand moving protectively to her still-flat stomach. "But I don't expect anything from him. From either of you."
The room seems to tilt. I grip the armrest to steady myself. "How generous."
"Loren, please--"
"I need to go." I stand, my purse clutched against my chest like armor.
She doesn't try to stop me. Perhaps that's for the best.
I drive home in a fog, muscle memory guiding me through familiar streets while my mind races ahead. What now? The conventional responses parade through my thoughts: divorce papers served at his office, belongings thrown from windows, social media declarations of betrayal. But those feel hollow, performative. Besides, a divorce would let him off too easily. Let him run to Janey and play happy family with their miracle baby.
No. I want him to hurt the way I hurt. I want something more... intimate.
The thought forms slowly as I pull into our driveway. Our house--the three-bedroom Tudor we bought with a nursery in mind--sits there like a stage set for a life I'll never have. At least not with him.
Inside, I pour myself a generous glass of the cabernet I've avoided during fertility treatments. No reason to abstain now. The television drones in the background--some documentary Curt was watching before he left for his "business dinner." I flip channels aimlessly and land on a movie scene: a woman in the throes of passion with a man while another watches from the corner.
I freeze, glass halfway to my lips.
The watching man's face is contorted with a complex emotion--jealousy, arousal, shame. Something clicks in my brain. A memory surfaces: Curt's browser history once showing porn featuring wives with other men. He'd been embarrassed when I discovered it, claiming it was just a random click, nothing he was actually into.
But I'd seen his eyes. The dilated pupils. The flush creeping up his neck.
I take a long swallow of wine, the idea taking root. What if I gave Curt exactly what he secretly wanted--but as punishment rather than reward? Make him watch me with another man. Make him see that he's not irreplaceable. Make him witness me receiving pleasure he's never been able to give me.
The thought sends an unexpected pulse between my legs.
I spend the next hour researching "cuckolding" online, each article making the idea more appealing. By the time headlights sweep across our living room wall, announcing Curt's return, I've cleared my browser history but retained every detail.
"Hey," he says, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door. His tie is loose, shirt slightly rumpled. "You're up late."
I study him in a way I haven't in years. He's still handsome at forty-two--sandy hair with distinguished touches of silver, laugh lines that once charmed me. Now I search for signs of Janey on him, as if she's left some invisible mark.
"Couldn't sleep," I reply, voice casual. "How was dinner?"
"Boring. Client stuff." He drops onto the couch beside me, reaches for my hand automatically. "You okay? You look intense."
I let him hold my hand, noting how easily the lies come to him. How natural his concern seems. I wonder if he touched Janey with this same gentle pressure, if he whispered the same sweet reassurances into her ear as he moved inside her.
"Just thinking," I say.
"About?"
About how I'm going to make you watch while another man does what you couldn't. About how I'm going to find someone who will make me forget your name.
"Nothing important," I lie, matching his ease.
He kisses my temple and stands. "I'm going to shower."
As he walks away, I allow myself to imagine it: Curt bound to a chair perhaps, or simply commanded to stay still. Me with someone else--someone bigger, stronger, more virile. Someone who could give me what Curt couldn't. The image is startlingly arousing.
For the first time since finding out about the betrayal, I feel something other than pain. Power. Control.
Later, in bed, Curt reaches for me. His touch is familiar--too familiar. I know exactly how this will go: the same foreplay, the same positions, the same disappointed little sigh when it's over and we haven't made a baby.
"Not tonight," I say, turning away. "Headache."
He doesn't protest, just rolls to his side. Within minutes, his breathing evens out in sleep.
I lie awake, planning. I need the right man for this--someone who would intimidate Curt, someone completely different from him. I need someone who would make Curt feel utterly inadequate. The more I think about it, the clearer the image becomes: a black man. The taboo excites me in ways I never expected, the imagined contrast of dark skin against mine sending a thrill through my body.
By morning, my decision is made. I will have my revenge. I will find a well-endowed black man, and I will make my husband watch as another man claims what should have been his alone. And perhaps--the thought comes unbidden but is instantly, wickedly appealing--perhaps this man will give me what three years of trying with Curt couldn't.
A baby.
I smile into the darkness, my body humming with anticipation. For the first time in months, I feel alive.
Chapter 2
I lie in our bed while Curt showers for work, my fingers tracing idle patterns on my stomach. In my mind, those fingers aren't mine -- they're larger, darker, belonging to a man I haven't met yet but can see with perfect clarity. My skin prickles with goosebumps beneath this imaginary touch, my breathing shallow with anticipation. The ultimate revenge fantasy has taken root in my mind, unfurling like smoke into every corner of my consciousness.
The shower shuts off. I withdraw my hand and pretend to sleep as Curt moves around the bedroom, the familiar domestic rustling of a man getting dressed. When the front door finally closes, I exhale and reach for my laptop.
My search history would scandalize our friends -- those same friends who sent us fertility crystals and baby-making playlists, who've watched our struggle with pitying eyes. They wouldn't recognize me now, consumed by visions of another man's hands on my body while my husband watches, unable to intervene.
Not just any man. A black man. The image is so specific in my mind I could paint it: dark hands splayed against my pale thighs, muscles rippling under ebony skin, the stark visual contrast making it impossible for Curt to ignore what's happening.
I click through images, my breath catching at certain ones. Men with bodies sculpted like classical statues, but with a power that makes Greek marble seem bloodless by comparison. Men who look nothing like Curt with his accountant's build and cautious love-making.
The taboo thrills me in ways I hadn't anticipated when this idea first formed. There's something primal about it that goes beyond revenge. I've never been with a black man before. The thought of crossing that boundary, of experiencing something Curt has never been able to give me -- it's intoxicating.
Later, at the grocery store, I find myself studying men in a way I never have before. A tall black man reaches past me for cereal, his arm extending into my space with an easy confidence. I linger, pretending to compare nutrition labels while actually noting the breadth of his shoulders, the way his shirt stretches across his chest. When he catches me looking, I don't avert my eyes immediately as I might have before. Instead, I hold his gaze for an extra beat, pleased when his expression shifts from polite disinterest to something more curious.
I don't approach him -- he's not the one. But the interaction leaves me feeling powerful, awakened.
At home, I run a bath and sink into the hot water, closing my eyes. In my mind, I'm with a faceless black man, his hands exploring my body with possessive assurance. Curt sits in the corner, eyes wide, forced to witness what he's lost. The fantasy evolves as my fingers drift between my legs: the man whispering in my ear about how he's going to fill me, plant his seed where Curt's couldn't take root.
