Devil In The Waters, Book 6, Chapter 3 (complete)

Josh had been to hell and back. Literally.

Now he was on the villa’s back patio, reclining on a sun bed, the things he’d purchased in Hell arranged on his bare chest.

Since Kimmy had her meeting this morning with Stone Brokerage’s Cayman Island lawyer—he was pretty sure what that would indicate—his sweet and loving wife had arranged for him a way to pass the time while she was engaged with work. A thing that she wouldn’t have done with him, or at least could have spared missing while she was in Grand Cayman, arranging for a car to pick him up and take him out sightseeing. The villa had a rental car, and Kimmy had taken that into George Town. This afternoon, the two of them were going to a museum, then they were going to the beach, then they were going to have an awesome dinner by candlelight.

But this morning his wife had sent him to Hell.

Hell was a geological formation up here in the West Bay. A terrible burned out geosphere that looked ravaged and ruined by hellfire. Truth was it was just a limestone field, but a special kind of algae coats it, the algae goes black and spurred, and generally looks quite frightening—but a good story sells.

Tourists aren’t allowed to go and walk on the jagged rocks, but you could walk the perimeter, admire the hellish spectacle. He’d spent over an hour in Hell, but most of it was touring the shops. Hell had an official post office there, and he’d sent postcards to his family. Even one to Meyer and Sophie, hoping Sophie wouldn’t be frightened by the nightmarish postcard arriving from Hell. On that postcard he refrained from signing off as Satan. There was a gift shop filled with all sorts of satanic double entendres and it was there he had a veritable field day.

Hell’s gift shop was a wood shack painted vibrant burning red. A sign over yellow painted flames said Welcome to Hell on the side. Of all the things Kimmy could have found for him to do in Grand Cayman, she picked the most perfect thing for his solo time. She knew him well.

So in the gift shop, he bought himself a T-shirt, Kimmy a T-shirt, T-shirts for Sophie and Meyer, and some other devilish trinkets. But on his chest now there were globs of polished obsidian. Hell, Grand Cayman was a geological destination. And while the obsidian wasn’t from here (the shopkeeper told him it was from Brazil), it did fit the theme of the location. On its gold chain, he strung up now the necklace he’d bought for Kimi. The pendant was a gleaming but un-smooth hunk of obsidian, almond-shaped, with a natural bright red dot imperfection in its belly. The little note card on the jewelry case called it The Devil’s All-Seeing Eye. It was $175, but there was no way he wasn’t buying it. The young lady at the counter still ran her sales pitch, putting the necklace on herself, showing how the pendant was smoothed on one side so it sat flat against her chest, the red pupil looking outward, all-seeing. He told her he was already buying it and she didn’t have to work so hard, laughing, and she wrapped it up and put in a box. But when he got home, he couldn’t wait to look at it again. So now here he was, laying here and waiting, aching for Kimmy to return home.

Whenever he’d pictured ever revealing all the things he’d revealed last night to somebody—though he never imagined he really would—he wondered if he would feel better in the aftermath. He’d divulged 95% of his suffering to his wife last night. But she’d somehow trumped him.

Not that her story was worse, but that there he was spilling it all out and he’d never anticipated the love of his life would also have been put under thumb so terribly by Devlin. Only Kimmy didn’t see it that way. He didn’t confront her on it, but wasn’t that what it was? Wasn’t she also bullied?

The worst part for him was the inescapable thoughts of what she told him. The dirty thoughts. The thoughts that shouldn’t be happening. The worst thing he could do was sexualize Kimmy’s suffering. But how could he not be aroused by some of those thoughts? Amy tricking Kimmy into coming to Devlin’s house, bringing her down into his big superstar basement. Probably with a home gym and a sauna and a big home theater or some shit, Kimmy all timid. Then the real reason they tricked her there. Join us in a threesome. Now as he was looking into this devilish eye, hearing some Hammer movie occult chant: “One with us, one with us, one with us . . .”

And his Kimmy had fled.

Kimmy Chang in high school was a very different Kimmy Chang than the one he married. Also the Kimmy Chang he’d married was quite different from the Kimmy Chang who’d earned this Grand Cayman treat. There were many facets to his wife, and he was watching her discover them. But Kimmy in high school was a parents’ dream. A perfect kid. Anything less than 100% on a test or report card was complete and abject failure. Extra-curricular’s up the wazoo. Smart, gracious, and decent. And Josh Waters had kissed her. And there was something there. Then . . . she went to Taiwan, she came back, that strange elusive thing they had hid from them both. He was afraid to approach her again. At least in that way that allowed their mouths to come together. They’d sat close a few times, and he’d ached to lean near her and try and get it going again. But he chickened out big time. When she came back from Taiwan that time, she was quite different. Tragedy struck. She was dealing with her mother. Though, like a good citizen, she didn’t burden her peers. But he heard through friends what was going on at home. Plus, Kimmy was hanging out a lot more with Amy back then. And Amy was starting to show those signs of a girl that was taking leaps and bounds after puberty. Amy was smart. Amy tutored a lot of Devlin’s friends. But she wasn’t a good citizen like Kimmy was. Amy’d tried to corrupt her good friend all in the name of pleasing her Lord and Master, Devlin Stone. A teenage Devlin Stone, just finding his footing at being the demon he was now. He could picture Kimmy heading over to Devlin’s house to hang with Amy and Devlin. Amy was all super-amped in those days about being seen with Devlin. About being on his arm and maybe possibly being his girlfriend. It never worked out that way. So Devlin had put the pressure on Amy, finding his perfect foil. Josh could see it now. Amy was perfect. She was a manipulator, and also a person who desired things. And would go to any length, he imagined, to obtain those things she desired. Devlin had told Amy what he wanted, and Amy procured it. I’ll get us a girl we can play in bed with. This timid straight-A student with barrettes in her hair, probably showing up at his basement that night in pressed khakis, and a buttoned up shirt. Hi guys, what’s going on? All innocent. Then they spring it on her. Assholes.

The thing his wife and told him last night he hadn’t seen coming. All he’d wanted to do was unburden himself from the things that were weighing him down. Give to his wife a perspective that she didn’t have because he’d hid it from her. Two things. Free himself. Inform his wife. He and Kimmy were on the same side. And Kimmy’d listened. He held back, gave her what she needed to hear but refrained from some of the gory details. This didn’t need to be snuff. X-rated was fine. Hell, R-rated. When she’d offered up a defense of Devlin, telling him it was probably Amy, he’d never been more deflated. Let down.

The way his mind worked, Kimmy was defending Devlin yet again. But when she broke down, God, almost crying telling him about this horrid, shameful moment she’d been subjected to, he could see it from her side. They had to be in this together. They had to work as a team. But dammit, that devilish part he had hiding in himself wouldn’t stop thinking about that threesome. What if she was lying to you? What if she climbed into bed with Devlin and Amy? Maybe she was just too afraid to tell you that part. Now thinking of her rolling around in bed, all three of them naked, exploring each other’s bodies.

He was the lowest of the low for the erection that thought provoked. But it was there. He handled it over his shorts now, chewing his cheek and wishing he wasn’t such a pervert.

But there he had it—right there in Kimmy’s past was an opportunity for who her to do the thing he feared (and feared that he wanted), sleeping with Devlin. It had been presented to her, and she’d run in the other direction like a good girl. That was the truth. As much as he’d like to fantasize about his wife as a teen, writhing in bed with some nefarious but definitely very hot partners that wasn’t the truth.

And look at Kimmy, look how she was able to get past the things that happened to her. Despite that stabbing wound in her past, she was able to work with the stabber. Able to put all that behind her, compartmentalizing, and move forward. How many times did she have to tell her husband that despite how terrible it was having to work for a horrible person she didn’t respect and who was an asshole she was doing it for them as a couple? A hundred times?—because she’d said it maybe twenty times. He hadn’t been listening. Maybe the best thing he could have done was tell her the truth last night.

One thing was for sure, and he did determine this in his mind: when they got back to Toronto, he would definitely call Devlin and arrange to meet him. He would look Devlin in the eye and tell him to stop. This wasn’t high school anymore, and whatever game he thought he was playing it was time to end it. No more texts, no more nonsense. Both of us are grown-ups now. And if that jeopardized Kimmy’s job, so be it. But he’d tell Devlin both of them knew how valuable Kimmy was to his business, and that if he wanted to keep that value, he would change his game. Because Kimmy was on his side. For too long, he’d separated himself, made himself an outsider. Maybe to protect her, and, yes, maybe so he could cherish some strange and new feelings. But that was over. He was sharing those strange new feelings with Kimmy, and now Kimmy knew the truth. Yes, he fucked up. There were things he knew beforehand that should have prompted him to intercept her employment with Devlin. Or at least presented to her as a huge barrier. But he hadn’t. And, last night, without his prompting, Kimmy’d interpreted those actions of his as nobility. And he took that on. Made that his truth now. Forget all that stuff dark stuff about getting off on the idea of Kimmy with Devlin. Truth was he loved that woman more than anything. And the idea that he would step in her way hurt him. So he hadn’t. In fact, maybe his nobility was so strong, the need to step aside from Kimmy’s path provoked a feeling within him that allowed him to enjoy some dark pleasure. It wasn’t the dark pleasure that had him allowing her to take the job. It was letting her take the job that had provoked the pleasure. It was important to keep this straight in his mind. So, first thing Monday morning—

Now there was a car door slamming from out front of the villa, and he was sitting up quick, letting the hot rocks fall from his chest and into his waiting hands. He set them aside, shrugged on his wicked 1970s looking concert T-shirt. Black with white baseball sleeves, red letters on the front saying: I WENT TO HELL AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT. Underneath that: Grand Cayman. In his hand he held one in size extra small.

Now he hustled through the villa, hot sticky bare feet squeaking on air-conditioned tile, the weight of the devil’s eye bouncing in his pocket and banging his testicles. He slowed his pace, flicked open Kimmy’s shirt, holding it by the shoulders so he could show it to her as she walked up from the rental.

In the open doorway, he stood smiling, seeing his wife now standing beside the white BMW crossover. Her back was to him. She stood at the passenger side of the car. Someone else was in the car, getting out now. It was Devlin Stone, standing up on the driver side, saying something to Kimmy, both of them laughing.

Devlin closed the car door, and their eyes met. No wave, no smile. Devlin looked to Kimmy, and nodded his head toward the front door. Kimmy turned, and he saw that look on her face that he knew so well. All pleasant smiles upfront, but he could measure in those dark pupils her tension. But how on earth had this happened? How did she leave here three hours ago, in Grand Cayman, and return now with the guy they’d fought and cried about last night?

Everything in him sunk, his heart thudding low and heavy, stomach sagging into his guts. The devil’s eye burned against his leg. Josh wasn’t Taiwanese, not raised in an Asian family, had no ability to manufacture a face with joy and grace. His emotions showed. Practically scowling at Kimmy now, his eyes screaming at her: How the fuck is this happening?

Both of them came around the front of the BMW and into the bluish shade of the front garden. “Hey, baby,” Kimmy said, “look who I found.”

It took everything in him not to say What the fuck is he doing here? But now, the closer Kimmy got to him, the more he pulled from her strength. He straightened, remembered everything he’d learned last night. So he said what he wanted, but he said it nicely. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Even stepping forward, and putting out a hand to shake. Devlin strode the distance, looming now so much taller than him, taking the offered hand, his big warm grip dwarfing his own.

“Hey, Josh, bet you’re glad to see me.”

“Ecstatic,” he said, and he found the more honest he was with this, the easier it was to smile—and appear gracious, even. Just two old pals busting balls, old high school chums giving each other the stick. But he wouldn’t dare grip Devlin’s hand too hard lest the guy return it double. Devlin nodded his chin toward Josh’s chest. “So what’s this—some band?”

Now he held up Kimmy’s shirt by the shoulder points to show her. She moved her head rearward, smiling, eyes scanning the phrase on the front. He said, “That one’s for you,” and tossed it to her.

She caught it, slung over her shoulder then leaned in for a kiss. “How was it?”

He kissed her in return, liking doing it right in front of Devlin, thumbing her jaw. He said, “It was the best. Thank you.” 

Devlin asked what it was he’d done and Kimmy told him. “I sent Josh to hell.”

Josh laughed with Kimmy, held her hand, swinging it between them. Devlin was outside of the joke, and boy did that feel good. He said, “Kimmy sent me to this geological formation called Hell, here on West Bay. For when she went to the meeting . . .”

Devlin raised his eyebrows and his chin up, getting it now. “You’re too good to this guy, Mrs. Chang.”

Waters was on his lips, but he bit his tongue.

Kimmy said, “Devlin just came for part of the meeting.”

josh said, “Why didn’t you fly in on the plane with us?”

I wasn’t really here for the meeting, I’m here for a different meeting. But since I was in the neighborhood, I swung by Rathburn’s office.”

“What was the other meeting?”

“I had to go . . . Long story—a bank and a different lawyer. Don’t want to bore you.”

“That’s all right.”

Kimmy said, “I told Devlin to come by for a drink,” then she said to Devlin, “Josh and I are spending the afternoon together. He’s taking me out to dinner,” looping her arm under his. The two of them side-by-side.

“Good,” Devlin said. “I really don’t want to bug you. Kimmy practically made me come.”

Kimmy scoffed. “I didn’t make you come.”

The double entendre had his stomach fluttering. He said to Kimmy, “How was the meeting?”

“It was just formality,” she said, “I went through simple paperwork. It’s all just to put my name on the logs, make sure that I came here and spoke to Rathburn. It’s all for this,” she said, opening up her palms like it was raining, looking at beautiful Cayman all around them. Right. The perk. Tax avoidance. Audit preparedness. All the methods of a guy who had two lawyers and a bank in Cayman.

“Anyway,” Devlin said, raising his left hand holding a bundle of folded fabric. Kimmy said we’d go for a swim. I brought my things.”

Josh said, “You brought your things to the lawyers office?”

Kimmy said, “No . . .”

Devlin looked him in the eye and said, “We swung past my motel room before we got here . . .”