Devil in the Waters, Book 8, Chapter 4

Things had been fine between them since they got back from Cayman, but it seemed like they’d both been too busy for each other. No bad words exchanged, but sometimes when it was quiet in his office he’d wonder if Kimmy resented the things he’d encouraged her to do this weekend. That would make sense. What kind of wife would respect her husband harboring such strange counter-intuitive fantasies? Did Kimmy do it because they were both so turned on, but once she got back home to their apartment, started to consider how weird it had been?

From the bathroom now, she asked him, “What time is it?”

He could see her putting on eyeliner in the mirror through the half-open bathroom door as he lay on the bed with his iPad. He told her it was five-thirty.

Tonight she was going out for dinner with Hyun. A Girl’s Night, because Kimmy hadn’t had one in a long time.

“I better get moving,” she said.

“You’ve got lots of time. She lives around the corner.”

“I don’t want to be late.”

He said, “Now you’ve got your own Meyer like you wanted, you don’t want to let her down.” Kimmy had lamented to him she had no more confidantes, that her schedule conflicted with Karina’s and that she wished she had someone to talk to. He’d asked her about what, and she’d said, “The things I don’t want to tell you.” Then she’d laughed at his speechlessness.

“I’ve always liked Hyun,” she said, jabbing the eyeliner brush back in its sleeve.

“Yeah, Hyun’s cool,” he said, fingering through an iPad game where you had to shoot apples with a bow and arrow.

Kimmy appeared in the gap, leaning an arm on the doorjamb. “Why don’t you go hang out with Meyer and Sophie?”

“I told you, he’s going out to Kingston with her to visit my aunt and uncle.”

“What, you’re not welcome there?”

“I am, it just seems like a father-daughter thing.”

“You don’t want to be Uncle Third Wheel?”

“No. Why are you getting so dressed up to go out with Hyun?”

“I’m not getting dressed up. I’m not wearing anything yet.” All she wore was a baggy black tee-shirt, her long skinny legs bare below its hanging hem.

He said, “You’re putting on makeup.”

She laughed at him, disappearing inside the bathroom again, saying, “Lipstick and eyeliner, Josh, is hardly putting on makeup.”

It was closer to it than not putting on makeup. He could hear her slipping on her clothes behind the open door.

What the hell was wrong with him? He still couldn’t shake suspicious thoughts about Kimmy, even though they’d come so far since the weekend. Or at least he thought they did. The truth was, they hadn’t discussed a thing, and he’d worried she was having second thoughts about all the stuff he’d done with her. But this concern he had over her makeup had nothing to do with Hyun and everything to do with Devlin Stone. A tantalizing suspicion his wife was only telling him she was going out with Hyun, using Hyun as a decoy so she could go have dinner with Devlin. That was the heart of his dark thoughts. It was so all-consuming he had to twist even a night out with their niece’s mother as sexual.

It looked like this perversion was here to stay for a little while. Fuck, what if it was forever?

Now she appeared in the doorway wearing her outfit and he wasn’t unconvinced she was going out to fuck Devlin. It was an outfit stylish enough and easy enough to remove should she end up hooking up with his high school bully in some hotel room here in Ajax. Kimmy getting a good, deep-dick fucking, then sliding home again with stories about Hyun she’d made up.

“You look great,” he said, his cock throbbing and thickening. He raised his knees.

Kimmy looked beautiful in an oversized white sweater that hung off one shoulder; the sweater was short enough you could almost see her bare stomach. The skirt she wore was long and flowing, midnight blue, pleated, with a thin belt closed by a small gold buckle.

“With white sneakers. What do you think?”

“Amazing as usual.” She’d really upgraded her wardrobe since working for Devlin. And he wondered if she wore panties and a bra.

But of course she had. Why couldn’t these thoughts go away?

If this kink was here to stay for a while, he was going to have to convince his wife to re-engage with it. If he didn’t, it was going to wreck him. Wreck him because he could not stop thinking about it. It was a sexual obsession ever since she’d experimented with it a little in Cayman. Now he was back, he looked to chase it away for Kimmy’s sake, but the darn little gremlin wasn’t afraid of him. It would only trot away a few steps, then linger and work its way back to whisper these kinky what-ifs in his ear.

As Kimmy disappeared into their closet looking for her shoes, he shoved away the iPad and got up, adjusting his pants. He’d got erect from those what-ifs.

He joined her at the closet door, Kimmy at the dresser putting things in a small black purse. A new one, Chanel. She’d told him Devlin hadn’t been to work all week, said he was out in Kingston. He had to believe her, but it seemed strange. Devlin had thought that Josh and Kimmy had been trying to engage him in a threesome, and that kind of thought in a guy like Devlin’s head would have him sniffing around Kimmy’s Toronto office on Monday morning no matter what pressing work called to him in Kingston.

What would keep him away?

Maybe he wasn’t away. Maybe Kimmy was lying.

Lying because she was fucking him? Or maybe lying because she worried her husband was going to feverishly hound her about whether she could see Devlin’s cock through his pants. Maybe she had come to her senses and wanted to avoid her husband’s kink because it freaked her out.

Kimmy said, “So what are you going to do tonight? It’s Saturday night.”

He shrugged. “Order in. Play some video games. Watch a movie.”

She avoided judging him, instead just snaking a hand around to scratch the nape of his neck while she kissed him. “Have fun,” she said.

It wasn’t the most exciting Saturday night he had planned, but he would have fun.

They walked together down the hall to the front door. She kissed him again, and he stood in the doorway as she walked down the hall to the elevators, that long skirt swishing around her legs. She waved as she stepped into the elevator. When she was gone, he closed the door and locked it.

Even though Kimmy was just going for dinner with Hyun, he was going to enjoy hanging around the apartment tonight, imagining she was out for a secret tryst with Devlin Stone.

At first their meeting seemed awkward, but once Hyun had served dinner Kimmy relaxed. Things didn’t seem so stiff once they’d both finished their first glass of wine.

Originally her night out with Hyun was supposed to be for the two of them to go see a movie, maybe go out for dinner. Two days after they made plans, Hyun had texted how she had a bunch to do on Saturday and maybe would be too tired to go out, and how about she made dinner, and they could relax and talk.

That had been fine with her. It’d be nice to relax outside of the house. It had been a very long time since she’d gone out with Karina. Their schedules conflicted. Plus, there was a certain guilt associated with Karina because Karina knew what happened at Tiffany’s party and was keeping it from Josh as a favor to her. And even now, Karina thought Kimmy had told Josh what happened. And she did, but not all the way to the truth, her curling stone skating the length of ice to land six feet out from the bull’s-eye, sitting on the outer blue ring.

So a night out with Hyun was perfect. Josh had his cronies. Guys he could talk to. What would he tell them? No way he would tell them about all his freaky predilections. But what would he tell them? Did he talk about their sex life? Probably. What would he say? What would she want him to say?

She and Hyun sat at the kitchen table in Hyun’s apartment, and it was a pleasant set up. The lights had a dimmer and were set low, flickering flame light from a half dozen candles on the table. Hyun had made some spicy kimchi jjigae, served with jasmine rice, kimchi pickled eggs, and a light and vinegary dongchimi on the side, and she kept telling Hyun how amazing the stew was. And it wasn’t lip service. It really was maybe some of the best she’d ever had.

She wiped her mouth now and a little under her eyes. The spice was getting to her in the best way, and it had them both giggling.

Bowl empty, she sipped her wine and asked, “How’s Sophie been doing?”

“Great, we went out this morning and got all her back-to-school things.”

“What grade is she starting?”

“Three.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Me neither.”

Hyun talked about how scary it was to send a child off to school, and then they shared info about their own first days of school. Kimmy made fun of her sister, saying how her sister was so frightened on the first day, she bawled and threw herself on the floor.

Hyun chuckled through her nose, then held a napkin over her mouth so she could keep laughing. She said, “Let’s hope Sophie doesn’t give me any trouble like that.”

“Something tells me Sophie is going to love going back to school.”

“I hope so,” Hyun said, picking up a scrap of cabbage and popping it in her mouth.

“How’s school going with you?”

“Good,” Hyun said. “A lot of work, but two years from now I hope to get out of night shifts. That’s where I’m at right now, dreaming of a time I can work a nine-to-five.”

Kimmy waited a beat, picked up a quarter slice of radish in her chopsticks, then waited for Hyun to look up so their eyes would meet.

She said, “What about your guy friend? How’s that going?” What was the point of having girlfriends if you couldn’t talk about guys?

Hyun look puzzled for a second, then caught on. “Oh, that. No, that’s . . . I think that’s over.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Hyun shrugged and said, “No, it was me. My decision. I think I lost interest . . .”

***

Later on the couch, with the dishwasher running, the candles put out and new ones lit on the family room coffee table, they drank the wine she brought.

Hyun had something weighing on her. She would go to take a drink, then change her mind and rest the goblet in her lap.

They sat close together on the sofa, and at last Kimmy said, “What is it?”

Hyun looked caught, her mouth paused open a moment. Then it closed, and her brow furrowed. She sipped her wine and set it down on the coffee table and pulled back her hair—still styled the way Kimmy had done it for her a few weeks ago. Then she let it down and stared off at a point on the floor a dozen feet out. “Earlier you said . . . You asked about my guy friend at school.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not a guy.” Hyun didn’t look up, eyes still lowered to the floor. She leaned forward, collected her glass and held it in her lap again, swirled it nervously, the wine spinning in the glass’s bowl.

It seemed so obvious, but it took two or three seconds for it to sink in. At last, Kimmy said, “Oh, ho . . . Okay.”

“I haven’t told anybody that I know.”

“You haven’t told anyone?”

“Yeah,” she said, smirking and rolling her eyes up to the ceiling.

“Really? I’m the first one you told?”

“Obviously some people know,” she said, indicating women Hyun had been with.

“Oh,” Kimmy said again now, voice lower, her understanding of the whole thing deepening. “Does Meyer know?”

Hyun didn’t answer, but shook her head.

“Is that what happened between you two?”

Hyun looked up, but not at Kimmy, off to the side. “Meyer didn’t think I was . . . passionate.”

“And you weren’t passionate because . . .”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess it had something to do with it. But . . . It’s not as though I didn’t like Meyer. I loved Meyer. I guess I still do in a way.”

“And he still doesn’t know?”

Hyun looked exasperated—not at Kimmy, like at the situation—and sagged into the couch’s corner and looked up at the ceiling again. She said, “Meyer thought I was having an affair.”

“He did?”

“You hadn’t heard that before?”

Kimmy said no.

“I wondered if he told Josh.”

“If Meyer told Josh, Josh would’ve told me.”

“Not that it matters, anyway, I guess,” Hyun said, and took a long drink of wine.

Kimmy drank as well, her heart rate picking up a little. Josh had Meyer and Steve to confide in. People he could look to for advice and angles in situations that affected him. She had no one. Only Josh. There were things she couldn’t tell Karina. She wouldn’t talk to her sister, she couldn’t trust Amy. . . . Who else did she have? And she needed someone.

“You can tell me about it,” she said.

Hyun chewed the inside of her cheek for a second, put her wineglass on the coffee table. She sat upright again, tying her hair behind her head. She folded her arms and lay back in the corner. She said, “I didn’t really have an affair.”

“But kind of an affair?” She smiled, making it sly, wanting Hyun to know she could have a confidant. Kimmy would be Hyun’s confidant, because she wanted Hyun to be one for her as well.

“It was . . . I don’t know, I guess you’d call it, like, from here,” she said, tapping between her breasts with her two middle fingers, then re-folding her arms. She wore no bra under her white three-button top, and in the light cast from the candles, Kimmy could see her nipples. It felt very tragic and yet inspiring. Hyun was beautiful. She had perfect skin, a cherub’s face, and the most beautiful eyes. The way she sat, with her bare legs and feet under her, made her look young and innocent. Hyun was troubled by her own actions. Kimmy was troubled by her own actions. They were two of the same, though their circumstances differed.

“You can tell me,” she said again, wanting to be a source of comfort for Hyun.

Hyun looked her way, still chewing her cheek. She said, “I think I fell in love with someone. A woman . . .”

“But nothing ever happened?”

“Nothing ever happened,” Hyun said. “This woman doesn’t even know.”

“But once you and Meyer divorced, you didn’t pursue her?”

“I don’t think she feels the same. Plus, she’s with someone.”

“A man?”

Hyun nodded.

“Oh,” Kimmy said. “That’s too bad.”

“I know it is,” Hyun said. “But anyway, nothing ever happened.”

Kimmy sipped her wine, contemplating if she could ever divulge her own misdeeds. Her own affair. Hers not of the heart at all, but lower and baser. Dirtier.

“Nothing ever happened,” Hyun said. “But I wanted it to.”

“Even though she was with someone?”

“I wouldn’t have told,” Hyun said.