The kitchen seems so much smaller at night. During the day, the sun fills the room. It's bursting with laughter and life, the center of a happy home. But tonight, it's empty and dark.
Well, empty except for my husband and I.
"How fucking could you?" he asks for what feels like the hundredth time.
"I'm sorry." I sigh, again. My eyes are puffy from tears, and I keep fighting back the urge to sniffle.
"Just..." He runs his hands over the smooth wood table, like he's looking for something to touch that isn't me.
"Just tell me what happened. I deserve to know that much."
The clock ticks on the wall, loudly. We'd bought it together at an antique mall one sun-lit Saturday in June. It was a cat, with eyes and a tale that ticked away the seconds, back and forth, over and over. Of course, that all happened a long time ago. When we still had a chance to be happy. Before I cheated on John.
"I...." I try to begin. But how do you tell a story that you know will destroy someone? How do you cut someone to the core? Take their soul and crush it underfoot?
Tick tock, Debra. Tick tock.
"I don't know where to start."
John drums his fingers against the table, rhythmic with frustration. I can see the vein at his temple that stands up when he's angry.
"Let's try the beginning."
I look down at the papers in front of me. A packet of cheap photocopies, dumped from a manila sleeve. D-I-V-O-R-C-E spelled out in bold, black ink.
"Ok...." I swallow hard. "The beginning."
I gather myself for the tale. For the story I never thought I'd tell.
"It started last year. When your company was downsizing."
John's eyebrows go up in confusion, and I get a sense of how little he really knows.
"Why does my company downsizing matter at all?"
"Oh, John." I give a little laugh. "You don't know anything do you?"
He sits and waits, the darkness around us holding us apart from the world. There's only this moment.
"I got a call. From your boss." I expect for the words to land like a hammer, and they do.
"Marcus?"
"Yeah, Marcus." A laugh escapes again. "You were working late every day, trying to keep your job. And Marcus asked me to dinner. I...thought it was strange. But you'd been distant. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe it was the attention of a handsome man. Maybe I thought I could put in a good word and help you keep your job. And that would...fix things."
I look around, no escape evident. There's only the story.
"So...I went to dinner with him. I wore a dress. A pretty one, with pearls. And John, he noticed." I feel myself blush.
"I know it sounds silly, but he noticed. You never noticed anymore. But as soon as I walked in, he told me how beautiful I looked... wait, no. Sexy. He told me I looked sexy."
The color is draining from John's face. He's trapped between a freight train and cliff.
"Anyway, dinner was fine. But Marcus was...something else. He was funny. And he was so commanding. I don't know what else to call it. He just knew what he wanted, all the time. Wine, food, whatever. He got the waitress's number while I was sitting there. Just told her to give it to him and she did. I guess I saw why he was the boss."
I knot my hands in my lap, nervous to begin the next chapter.
"Then he made me an offer. Well, I guess you could call it that. Like I said, he sort of just told me he wanted it. I guess I could have said no, but if I'm honest, the thought didn't cross my mind."
"What...What did he tell you?"
"He told me...He told me that I was going to belong to him after that night. He told me that I was going to go back to his apartment. And I was going to do anything he told me to. And that if I did that...if I kept doing that. That you'd keep your job, you'd even get a raise. But John, do you know why I did it? Why I watched him pay and followed him out to the taxi? While I didn't take my hand away when he put it on his thigh? Why I practically gave him a handjob in that car?"
"Why?" John's voice is softer now, more unsure. Even scared.
"Because I wanted to, John. I wanted to so bad. I can't tell you why. Some primal part of my brain, or years of pent up neglect. I don't have a clue. But when he put my hand on his cock, and John, that's what it was. A COCK." I hold up my hands in a rough approximation of ten inches. "I knew I'd do anything he told me to from then on out."
Somehow the confession is releasing the fear and tension inside me. "When we got back to his place, I had practically soaked through my panties. He fingered me a little in the car, but he mostly teased me. Asked me if I'd been fucked by a cock that big. Asked me if I wanted to see it. When the front door closed, I was already on my knees. He just laughed at me and told me to strip first."
