Maybe we didn't have a storybook romance, and I suppose that's what always bothered me. Now I was sleeping with his coworker, cultivating drama. Was it on purpose, my attraction to Luke? That was an unsettling thought.
I found Mark standing in the kitchen, sipping coffee and reading the paper.
He put the paper down and watched me grab a mug and pour the coffee he made—always strong like I liked it.
"I fell asleep in the living room," he said.
"I noticed."
He came over and put his hands on either side of me, so that I could only retreat into the counter.
"I married you because I had to, you know that. It was the same for you. We never loved each other, no. We didn't have to, and we still don't have to. But we are friends, in spite of what you say. We have an amazing sex life. You could have anything you want—and you get whatever you want. My bank account always assures me of that." He wrapped his fingers around a lock of my hair and pulled. "What the fuck were you looking for last night? Want me to woo you? Do you want me to be sappy and artificial? Because you know I can be. I can be whatever you want. But I've never been anything but myself with you, and I think that's pretty fucking decent."
He put his hand between my thighs. "I love this. I love fucking you. But no, that's not all, and if you think that then you're more out of touch with reality than I think you are."
Mark backed away from me and straightened his tie. He picked up his briefcase and gave me a piercing gaze, one that made me shudder.
"Whatever is going on with you, whatever has you so itchy and weird... fix it. Get rid of it. Burn it. Forget it. It ends here. I don't care what it is. I don't even want to know what it is." He shook his head when I didn't answer. "Do you understand me?"
"Yes," I whispered, and then he was gone.
___________________________
It poured for a bit after Mark left. I drank coffee and watched the sky spasm with lightning and bursts of rain and wind. It didn't matter how much it stormed; I would go to Patricia's regardless. The sun came out as I packed up and grabbed my keys. I felt like it mocked me, burning down on me so intensely that beads of sweat collected at the tip of my hairline.
I drove my car slowly, as if by catching every red light I could somehow avoid the confrontation surely coming. And I thought about Mark, about what he said. Was our life really so bad?
At yet another red light, stretching almost long enough to make me impatient, I wondered idly if he'd ever been unfaithful. We'd been married nearly seven years. I remember somewhere around the four year mark being suspicious, but I'd accepted the ring on my finger along with the life my husband belonged to. Everyone cheated and lied.
It didn't alleviate my guilt, or excuse what I'd done, but it comforted me to know—or hope—that perhaps Mark experienced torment for a few days, months, years. Did he ever feel guilty? If he had, he'd buried it down with any other emotion that could tear him open and make him bleed like the rest of us.
And this guilt I felt, that ached heavily in my chest and made me want to cry merely because I was reminded of it every time I inhaled, wasn't because I fucked another man other than my husband. Or only that, at least. It was that I'd sunk down to their level. I'd let lust run my life for a man who I really knew nothing about. And it wasn't any fault of Mark's, and it wouldn't be any fault of Luke's. Why was everyone always so concerned with fault? Who gives a shit about fault?
But yes, it was my fault and I owned it. It was mine, this fault, this horrific decision to spread my legs for someone who didn't own me in any way. How terrible I was to sniff at my bank account with disdain, to begrudge my husband his inability to make me feel like a real companion even though he had sex with me regularly. It was downright unforgivable of me to hyperventilate when faced with a future I thought I knew so well, to have a life crisis, to crave human affection and conversation, to wonder if I'd really made all the right choices, to look to another person in hopes they'd be my salvation. Remember, I wasn't a person or a man or even a woman—I was a wife.
I thought about the two men in my life. Mark treated me like a shiny trophy and he made no bones about owning to it. Luke fucked me and he had every capacity to say no. I had glared down at the dazzling diamond on my left finger when I met him and had decided to take the path most dangerous, and also most traveled.
The pain that life wasn't what it promised to be, what I'd wanted, and that I'd gone along with it with eyes wide open was far more terrifying. And interesting. I could turn around and fuck another man and feel only a faint burn of regret that Mark would finally have proof I could be a villain, too. What did that say about any of us?
When I parked my car in front of Patricia's perfect house, I realized I was doing just what Mark accused me of—I was forcing him into the role of the villain, blaming him for fucking some faceless woman he'd never love, either. Someone I didn't envy, if she did exist, because I'm sure she loved him, the gilded illusion he was. She probably figured he was displeased with me, that he turned to her because of carnal need rather than boredom, and maybe she even let herself hope he'd leave me for her. How happy she'd be in this life, she probably dreamt.
The sprinklers on Patricia's lawn turned on, jerking me from my fanciful imagination.
The door was unlocked. I let myself in when no one answered. I walked out towards the back and saw her sprawled out, two martinis on the patio table next to her.
I joined her. She had to have heard me open the sliding door, my heels on her stoned path, the loud pull of the seat against the ground, but she ignored me. We lounged under the sun for at least an hour before she spoke.
"I won't tell, you know."
I touched the martini glass to my lips. "Why not?"
"Because I want something from you, and you need something from me."
She smeared some tanning oil over her arms.
"If he found out, he probably wouldn't divorce you, you know."
I looked over at her but she hadn't bothered to turn towards me, or to take her sunglasses off. "I know."
"He'll probably just make the rest of your life as miserable as possible. He'll fuck all of us, probably in front of you if he can manage it. He'll encourage all the men to come on to you. He'll make you feel like you're no more than just a pussy after a while." Then a corner of her lip lifted. "I know from experience. Bruce caught me with someone, a guy you never met."
"Why stay with him?" I asked, mildly curious. I had a disgusting idea where this was headed.
"I like money. I like this life. What does it matter? But I know how much better you think you are than all of us. How you like to sit around at parties and smirk to yourself when you hear us talking, how you look at us when you think we're not paying attention. God, you have no idea how finding you in that staircase made my fucking day."
I talked myself out of punching her in the nose. "How do you know I don't want Mark to find out? How do you know I don't want a divorce?"
She snorted and finally turned her head towards me, whipping her sunglasses off. "You're an idiot. What the fuck else would you be if you weren't Mark's wife? Think about it. Divorced, and penniless because I'm sure Mark had you sign a prenup as soon as that little pregnancy test showed its plus sign. What the fuck would you do, go 'find yourself'?"
"What do you want?"
"I want you to know that when it comes right the fuck down to it, you're no better than I am. Than Denise is. Than any of us are. You're actually worse because you walk around all fucking snarky and you think you're something special because everyone wants to fuck you. They want to fuck us all, you snotty bitch, but you're the most tempting because you are the best actress I've ever seen. I'll give you that." She laughed. "They think you're special. Mark probably even thinks you're special. And deep down inside in that little superior piece of shit heart of yours, you think you are, too."
I put the martini glass down. "Is that it? You want to rant and rave and put me in my place? And me listening is guaranteeing your silence? Fabulous."
Her lip-glossed lips sucked in a deep breath. "Bruce wants to jerk off onto your tits. Maybe get a blow job, I don't know. He couldn't make up his mind. Definitely wants to cum on you, though. He's gonna get such a kick out of marking Mark's wife." She snorted again and I wanted to shove my glass into her nose. "Doesn't want to fuck you, though. The novelty's worn off, and between you and me? I think he's a little disappointed in you for stalking after the unavailable, and the inevitable."
I fought off my nausea at the thought of Bruce—corpulent, sweaty, leery Bruce—over my body. "What do you mean 'unavailable'? It's not like Luke's married, too."
Patricia almost looked sorry for me. "You don't know?"
The heat was making me dizzy. "Know what?"
"He's engaged. To some girl back in Boston. He started dating her a little before he moved here and apparently they kept it long distance. Probably doesn't hurt that her father and his father are best buds. He'd marry into exactly what he was meant to. He's moving back out there, actually, I think before the year's over. Told the firm about a month ago. Don't know why he bothered coming here in the first place. All he did was stir shit up, but maybe he's the type to like that."
I could hear her pool's filter humming. Somewhere in the distance kids played and shrieked, and a dog barked along with them. Wind scattered leftover raindrops from the trees. I swear I could hear every insect winding its way through the earth below us.
And then someone was touching my shoulder, steering my body to the right. I was confronted with a dick—literally. Bruce stood there, business slacks puddled around his ankles, and jacked off. He must've run home for lunch. For me.
His heavy breathing and wheezing drowned out the rest of the sounds of the world. His cock was hairy and thick, and surprisingly long, too. Somewhere inside me I couldn't believe I had the presence of mind to notice such detail.
He pushed himself closer to me. I got the hint that he wanted me to blow him, but my mouth didn't move. He moved the spongy head against my lips. My eyes flicked up to his and his lips turned upwards in an open-mouthed smile. A piece of spittle dripped from his lower lip.
"Open, slut."
My life flashed before my eyes. Clichéd saying, perhaps, but it did. I know they say it happens to you before you die, or you almost die, and here I was merely confronted with a blackmail blow job. I wasn't facing death; I was facing a fate far worse than death. I was facing life as a ghost. I'd die right here, my heart torn and burned by getting just what I deserved, and I would face the future as a war trophy, a sex machine. A Stepford Wife. This was meant to be my indoctrination, I realized, or perhaps that was my first dinner with Luke.
And Luke had lied, or left things out. Something shifted. I wasn't worth it, the decimation of his career wasn't worth it. Maybe he'd never had anything more in mind than having sex with me. And telling me about his mother, his last fiancée Ramona. What was a lie and what was a truth? He was a hurricane, a torpedo. Maybe it was as Patricia said, that he enjoyed fucking with people and watching the chaos. Or maybe he was oblivious to what he did. Somehow that was worse.
So I was sex to him. Easy sex. Needful sex. Sex with a side of just the right amount of illicitness to tip over the edge of ecstasy. It wasn't a surprise to the rational part of my brain, who knew this train wreck was coming some day.
As my life flashed before my eyes, I saw myself as a little girl imagining the great things I'd do with my life. I saw myself as a teenager who played harder than she worked. I saw myself as a scared college student, pregnant and suddenly engaged to a stiff, cold rich guy who resented me.
Then I saw myself as I was for the past seven years, and I really didn't like the woman I'd become. It was as if I didn't learn anything at all from past experiences—and I guess you could say I hadn't. I could also see myself as the woman I'd become if I accepted Bruce's cock into my mouth and I hated her even more.
I wasn't aware of punching Bruce in the nuts. It just happened. His cock was ripped from sight as he fell to his knees, cursing and moaning. I stared down at my outstretched left fist, my wedding ring glinting in the sunlight. Patricia gasped beside me.
"Don't you ever, ever do that to me again."
Patricia spoke up. "He won't have to. We're telling. We're telling Mark today." Her tone was hysterical, and that gave me the strength to stand.
I got myself together and picked up my keys. I can't say I was indifferent to the news. My knees shook, my heartbeat sped and my breath fell short. But he'd have to be told, and I'd have to face what I'd done.
"Go fuck yourselves," I said, before letting myself out.
