Devil In The Waters, Book 6, Chapter 2 (complete)

 Sorry, folks, for my absentia. Just going through a health thing right now (no need to worry!) and I'm just not finding time or ability to do my duties (it's not poop-related). I'm still writing though, like all the time practically, so that's not going to falter.

Anyways, here be Chapter 2 . . . 

***

There was a path that led from the back patio, a groomed and landscaped pool in a courtyard way off on the left, a common area for all the villas to share, and they strolled along the manicured gravel between Caribbean evergreens, out on to rocky sand. He thought to complain about the beach’s texture, but bit his tongue instead. There were heavy duty beach chairs there, and they each sat in one, while the waves lapped at the shore near their bare feet.

It was incredible to think of this enormous boon they were enjoying together. Incredible to think of the value of this woman at his side. This amazing, smart, funny, sensuous woman. Tall, long-legged, a brilliant mind; disciplined, hard-working, and so fucking caring. He set down his glass between his feet, rubbed his face again. He owed to her the real story.

Kimmy worked her chair closer, but failed with her light body weight, having to stand up and drag it until the armrests touched. She laughed at how the weight of the chair outclassed her, then sat down again, light and soft and feminine and receptive. He hoisted up his glass, touched hers, said, “I think I like sugary drinks better than whiskey.”

“To each their own,” she said, smiling, squinting against the sun. It was hazy and hot, but the colors still bright enough to make both of them slit their eyes. He took a swig, enjoyed the high octane sugar alcohol mixture. He sniffled, rubbed his hands together. She said, “Go ahead, I want to hear everything.”

He shuffled his feet in the sand. “First,” he said, wanting to set things straight, “I have to say . . .”

He faced her, showed her a crooked smile. She waited.

“I couldn’t be more proud of you. You earned this,” he said, gesturing a hand out to the bay. The Caribbean Sea. The ocean. It didn’t matter. It was beautiful, and someone paid her on top of her salary with this wonderful gesture of vacation that she wouldn’t take without her husband. “You’re amazing. You’re my hero. You make me proud. Every time I walk in a room with you, I can’t wait to say that you’re the person that I came in with. People probably wouldn’t believe it. It’s not just that you’re beautiful, I know that. That’s obvious. It’s the things you can do. It’s your heart.”

Now she was sniffling, touching her eye, sniffling louder. “Thank you, Josh,” she said.

“I know how hard you work. And this is amazing that Devlin would send you here. What I’m about to tell you has nothing to do with you, with your work for Devlin, or with coming to Cayman. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said nodding.

“You asked me once if Devlin beat me up.”

“Did he?”

“He had Johnny rumbled do it. It was worse than what I already told you. And there were some other kids, too, and I’ve forgotten their names. But that was a long time ago. Grade 6. Just jocks that he hung out with. But it was in Grade 7 that he really started taunting me.”

“I’m with you,” she said, preparing herself.

His head leaned heavily to one side, not able to look her in the eye now. “Look, he thought it would be real funny to call me gay.”

“That’s typical right? I mean guy stuff.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but Devlin had a reason that gave it leverage.”

“What was the leverage?”

He let out an exasperated sound, rolled his eyes up to look at the sky, a pelican flying above. This was just about the best place to talk about something so stupid, but that had been so terrible for him at one time. “Like, okay . . . in Grade 7, you know, when everybody’s changing . . .”

Kimmy filled his pause. “In the locker room?”

“No, I mean changing, Kimmy. Changing-changing.”

“Puberty.”

“The beginnings.”

“I know about it.”

“Devlin was one of the first, okay?”

“To change. Okay.”

“And it’s not like this meant anything, but he caught me, like, a couple times in the shower—”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘oh.’”

She turned up her nose.

“Not like jerking off or anything, you know, like . . .”

“What were you doing?—Like, looking . . .?” She furrowed her eyebrows and it made him smile despite the chagrin.

“Right. But just because I wasn’t changing yet. And don’t get me . . . don’t get it wrong, it’s not like I’m the only guy Devlin did this to. It’s not like I was some lone creep who was in the shower and I couldn’t wait to check him out.”

“I don’t think you would be like that.”

“Well, given the things I’ve been saying recently . . .”

“It’s all part and parcel, Josh. I think I got it without having to get it. And I don’t think you were like that—lecherous, checking him out—I wouldn’t believe that for a second. None of what you’re saying surprises me.”

“Well, thank you,” he said, using a dramatic tone for comedic effect. “But, like, Devlin’s body was changing and mine wasn’t yet, so when I’m in the shower . . .”

“You’re looking over to see what other boys have going on.”

“Right, but Devlin’s an asshole—I don’t know if you know that.”

“You’ve told me.”

“But you know he is,” he chided good-naturedly.

“He’s not always the nicest person.”

He grumbled, her response bothering him for some reason. He said, “Anyway, Devlin was pretty pleased with his body’s early progress, if you know what I’m saying.”

“I know. It’s not dissimilar for girls.”

“And so he had no problems flaunting it. It. Practically making you look—you know I’m saying?”

“I do.”

“But then, when you would look, he would scold you for it. Get everybody to join in, and then . . . humiliate you. Right? Like, taunt what you have, and when you’re that age, that’s a lot to have to take.”

“It sure is, Josh,” she said, being sympathetic, showing him a soft and caring wifely face that he liked to see.

***

It was awkward and uncomfortable to reveal to your wife one of the weirdest and probably most damaging aspects of your youth. A secret you’d kept hidden. Even from yourself it’d been hidden for a long time. That weird moment of adolescent envy—of raw penile covetousness—had forged a future for him dictated by bully Devlin and his ilk Forever the inferior. Forever the lesser. He was put on his heels by it. So afraid of being called gay in front of other boys—or worse, maybe, girls—that he’d shied away from most social interaction, lest one of Devlin and his crew show up and refer to him as Devlin’s girlfriend. Being gay wasn’t even the problem. There were guys who were gay in their class. It was this strange feeling of being secretly closeted. Like he was almost embarrassed denying he was gay. Like some of the other students pitied him because he didn’t have the courage to come out. But he wasn’t gay. And it situated him in this dark but shallow place he had trouble hiding in. And that was all he wanted sometimes was just a good place to hide.

He told her all of this, laughing as he went along so as to alleviate any discomfort Kimmy might feel hearing her husband’s truths being divulged. She chuckled with him, but was polite. He finalized his description of Devlin’s homosexual framing of his youth by saying: “Yet here I am on a beach with the woman I love. If you told me any day I might spill to someone my tortured guts, the last place I figured I’d be doing it is on a beautiful beach in the Caribbean. I figured more like some dismal couch in some doctor’s office, some office in a medical complex in Scarborough.

“You’re welcome,” she said. It was pleasant, but he couldn’t help feeling put in his place. It was indeed her doing, her abilities bringing them to this perfect locale. He should be grateful—yet he couldn’t escape sensing a certain unworthiness.

But her beautiful and supportive face reminded him not to be so dark. “Or that I’d be telling it to someone who mattered. Someone I’d be so lucky to have.”

“Josh,” she said, frowning, “I’m lucky to have you. We’re lucky to have each other. Stop putting me on a high pedestal. You’ve really been doing that a lot lately.”

“You’re changing.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Sure you are. I like it. You’re finding yourself. I loved who you were, but I also am pretty crazy about this new Kimmy too.”

“That’s sweet—but I’m not changing, baby.”

“Well, anyway,” he chuckled, looking out at the horizon, honestly smiling. Honestly feeling lighter. “That’s the bedrock of my position with Devlin Stone. He bullied the shit out of me. Called me gay. Wagged his junk at me, made fun of mine . . .”

“Yours is fine, Josh.”

He slumped. “I know it’s fine. Sometimes you feel like fine isn’t good enough. Sometimes you’re not sure what fine really is.”

“You’re fine,” she said sternly.

“Yeah, but . . .”

“But what?”

“What do you know about it?”

She laughed, scowling, smiling, trying to figure his meaning. “What do you mean what do I know about it?”

He had trouble articulating, not wanting to be insulting. “It’s a compliment.”

“How?” One of her eyebrow went lower, and she looked ready for friendly conflict.

“You’re not a penis expert.”

“I didn’t get my degree in penis, no.”

“You’re cute,” he said, watching her fold her arms over her narrow chest, sunlight drawing a fat luscious line of pastel along the edge of her collarbone.

“It doesn’t matter what I know. Devlin made fun of you when you were a kid, and then you grew up. I quite like what you’ve got.”

“Quite?”

Her humor faded, and she said seriously. “I love what you’ve got.”

“That’s your marital duty,” he sighed.

“I’ve . . . you’re not my . . .”

“I know I’m not your first,” he finished.

“And you’re not any different.”

“Maybe I just want to be different and . . .”

“You really do covet.”

“I guess I do.”

“That’s your problem,” she said sarcastically.

“Devlin put it in my head that what he’s got means everything, and now it’s ingrained.”

She said, “It’s not everything.”

“But it’s something.”

She rolled her eyes. “Josh, Devlin Stone is a man very focused on the things he has. You think I don’t know it? He can’t go ten minutes without letting you know about something he’s got. Something he’s going to get. Who cares if he has a huge dick?”

Hearing his wife utter those words hit him unexpectedly. So vulgar, so crude. So unlike gentle Kimmy. His heart pounded harder, his neck tightened. He had trouble swallowing for a moment. “You think it was huge?”

Now she rolled her eyes higher, tightened her folded arms. “Oh, come on, Josh, don’t do that to me.”

The mission wasn’t to go after her. Going after her was a sign of something else. Also a sign of that same something else: he’d gotten hard while talking to her about his dick compared to Devlin’s. “I’m kidding,” he said, then for some inexplicable reason: “I mean it is huge, I just mean, you know . . .”

“I know,” she said.

Know what?—that Devlin’s dick is huge. Now he was winding his neck around in his shirt collar, feeling stifled despite the lovely breeze coming off the ocean. The bay. “This makes me so uncomfortable.”

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want, Josh.”

“Don’t you want to hear this?”

“Of course, baby,” she said, rubbing his arm. “But not if it’s too tough for you.”

“I’d like it more if you needed to hear the truth from me.”

“Okay, I do need to,” she said, meeting his eye, nodding. Ready to tell him anything he wanted to hear.

This was so tough because the next part was the doozy.

***

When he was a boy, Devlin showed off what was growing between his legs, and Josh’d been curious. Totally normal. Devlin’d bullied Josh, catching him looking. Pretty straightforward. Josh told her how Devlin taunted his smaller penis size. She was unprepared to hear him reveal it, surprised by the candor, then disappointed he wasn’t more forthcoming. She knew Devlin and his friends had called Josh Double-A, though Josh didn’t know she knew that.

But maybe Josh wasn’t ashamed to tell her more details, just had to leave some of them out to keep his story moving, or maybe he’d even forgotten what they’d called him. Though she doubted that—Josh wouldn’t forget something like that. Not Josh. Being taunted for your penis size must be punishing. She’d been taunted as well; called flat-chested by some girls she didn’t like. Not having big breasts was hard for a while—she got Josh’s covetousness—but somehow, as she matured, she knew big breasts weren’t coming. Knew what to expect in her development. Josh maybe kept hoping every night that when he’d wake, his little thing’d grown larger. He probably wouldn’t be able to anticipate what his development would be like, but had seen what Devlin Stone had and probably wished his would be like that. She could get that, sympathize with it.

Then Josh is entering phase two of his tale, the sun beginning to sink toward the horizon. Phase two is more menacing. The entry of Johnny Rumble and some of Devlin’s other aggressors. There’s what happened that night after the dance where Johnny Rumble punched him in the stomach and removed his jacket. Josh tells her Karina was there and it made her wonder why Karina wasn’t in the story the first time Josh’d told it. A newfound memory or a purposeful misremember? Josh tells her of the shame he felt. The hurt. And when he’d first told her a week ago, she was inclined to remove Devlin from the lever of force. It wasn’t Devlin who punched Josh. That was all true and meaningful, Devlin wasn’t really at fault, but Josh’s pain should have been her primary concern originally. Instead, she’d centered on absolving Devlin. Whether Josh would admit it was Johnny Rumble’s discretion or not, the point was her husband had attached Devlin to that awful event permanently, so she would not challenge it. All that mattered was Devlin was part of Josh’s torment. Perceived or not, Devlin made Josh’s life more difficult. It was truly impressive that her Josh could have been so strong to begin with, not defying her interest in taking on a job offered by Devlin. When she wondered if she could, Josh was supportive (but slung around sarcasm). Didn’t stop her. It must have driven him mad, knowing now all the blackness he held in his heart for her new boss. Josh’d gritted his teeth and endured. That had her reaching out and running her hand on his back while he still spoke, knees on elbows, leaned heavily forward in the heavy lounge chair. They’d sunk into the rocks they’d sat there so long. They should make more drinks.

Then Josh tells her about the party at Tiffany’s and her heart’s beginning to beat faster, and she’s worried where this will go. Does Josh know the truth and he wants to face it with her? Maybe that wouldn’t be terrible. How terrible could it be if he’s still sitting here at her side? For a second she could picture Josh holding her hands and saying he could forgive her, but if only she left Stone Brokerage . . . 

But his story is not about what someone told him had happened there at Tiffany’s. No, his story’s about a dream he had. Saying maybe it wasn’t a dream, maybe it was real. Then, tears in his eyes, saying no it was definitely a dream. She asked him about the dream, either her hand shaking on his back, or his back shaking under her palm. He can barely tell her. He’s ashamed. Embarrassed. But Josh was right. She needed to hear. Josh says he woke up with Devlin in his tent. Devlin says he fucked her. Now it’s definitely her hand trembling. She says it’s ridiculous and Josh agrees. “I know it is,” he says. “It was very real to me.”

“Why would he say that?”

“He’d think it was funny. He’d know it would hurt me, and that would be the part that was funny.”

“He’s not like that,” she said, and then winced.

Josh was mad, exhaling, shaking his head. Her hand still smoothed. He thumbed a hard circle on his palm. She thought of when Devlin could have done that. But he didn’t. It was stupid. Ludicrous.

“So you had a crazy dream,” she said.

“In my dream . . . Devlin said . . .”

Now her fingers went cold. Knew this was going to get worse.

He put his hands over his face, thumbs along his jawline, pinkies pressed together, like he was praying into his hands. “Devlin said I asked him to do it.”

It wasn’t what she’d expected—nowhere near as bad. Almost a letdown after the heights of the story’s beginning. She’d been almost terrorized waiting to hear what Josh knew. What this possibly-real Devlin had told him inside their tent.

Josh let it soak in for a second and she didn’t know how to take it. She’d been expecting much worse—and what he’d said now made it all the more likely he’d dreamt this. Then Josh was quick with a follow up: “Which is why I think it was a dream. because there’s no way I’d say that to him. No way that I’d even think that, so . . .”

She rubbed his back still, mind racing.

“It’s just a dream, Josh.”

Now he peeped her way and she tried to smile though her neck and face muscles felt too tight to work.

“He said you guys had sex at Tiffany’s party while I was sleeping. While I was drunk. That you kept getting interrupted . . .” He’d tried to keep her eyes, but weakened and had to look away. Which was a relief because it took every bit of control not to crumble. Dream Devlin had told him the truth. Could Devlin really do that? Josh wanted to say more, but all she wanted to do right now was storm back to the villa and call Devlin. Demand the truth.

Josh was trying to make sense of his story still. “Maybe I imagined it, maybe I knew something, saw something and then my dream became . . .”

“Saw what?”

“You two. Maybe Devlin messing with you.”

“And you mean you were drunk?”

“Like hazy. I saw it and maybe . . . because you didn’t have . . . you didn’t with Devlin . . .?”

The proper reaction would be anger. He’d just questioned her fidelity. An innocent wife would be furious. But she had cheated. Or at least almost cheated. But even an innocent wife would also recognize her husband’s torment and maybe not want to fight. She didn’t know how to react.

“Josh, I told you what happened.” Her mouth was sticky dry. Every thought she had sought to rectify Josh’s dream with reality. Had he seen something? Maybe he’d seen something and then dreamed the rest. It was more likely than Devlin confronting him. But then . . . Devlin definitely got off on being the outside man, giving Josh’s wife the big huge cock he knew Josh didn’t have . . . 

Josh groaned and slumped. “I know, I know. I told myself I was crazy, but then the text I got . . .”

Was the text real or a fabrication? For the first time in a week she could entertain again the idea that Josh’s unfounded claim of a nasty text from Devlin was true. But she’d sequestered that idea, relegated it to the box of notions that Josh was having second thoughts about her working for Devlin and his worries had riled an anxiety in him that made up some falsity that Devlin had taunted him. Or that Josh’d been testing her. Pretty vain thought . . . and then from those twists came a clarity: She could see Amy in her mind’s eye that night at Tiffany’s. The two of them tittering, enjoying seeing each other again after a long break. Amy’s helping her get Josh to bed but Josh is drunk and they have to walk him. Josh has to pee. She pulls out his penis—Amy’s not supposed to be looking—and finds Josh has an erection. She has difficulty aiming his erection so he wouldn’t get pee on himself or on her. Amy takes a peep. Then proceeds to make fun of Josh’s penis. Lamenting his small size. Paired with a new knowledge that maybe Amy’s relationship with Devlin had been damaged by her inability to procure a third for their bed, she could see a path now where Devlin was right: Amy could have sent the text. Devlin said she was a psycho.

Josh was still going: “And it said he was at Harbor 60 and—”

“Who?”

He looked cross at her, like she hadn’t been paying attention. Maybe she hadn’t. “Devlin.”

“The text?”

“He said he was at Harbor 60 and he fingered you—”

“At Harbor 60?”

“At our apartment, Kimmy.” Josh scowled.

Now her scalp tingled, Devlin had fingered her in their apartment. The day he’d suggested a job opportunity. “What else did it say?”

“That he came by the apartment and he and you messed around. That he left me a card in the front hall to prove it.”

“That’s crazy,” she said, whispering in incredulity.

“But it happened.”

The blood drained from her face and she cupped a hand over her mouth, eyes boring into the sheets of crystal water cascading in slow pulses up the rocky beach near their feet. “But that’s not true.”

“Why would he send me that?”

“Why would you never tell me that? Why would you . . .” Why would he ever let her work for Devlin if he believed this was true? How could he do that?

Now his eyes got teary again. He was ashamed.

“Why, Josh?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t want to get in your way of a good thing.”

“But if he texted we were messing around . . .”

“I don’t believe it for a second,” he said, firm, jaw muscles flexing.

Seeing his defiance in the face of awful taunting—all because of how he believed in her—riled her heart. Reminded her why she fell in love with the guy in the first place. She ran her hand on his back again, going in big circles. “None of it was true, Josh, and I don’t think . . .”

“It’s not true, but his intent—”

“I don’t even think it’s him, Josh.”

It was supposed to be good news, but instead Josh blanched and his expression deflated. She could see in his eyes—an immediate response—that he’d been wounded.

Quiet, he said, “Of course you’d fucking say that.”

“What—why, Josh? . . .”

He shrugged away from her hand, stood and walked to put his feet in the water. “I can’t believe you’d defend him.”

“I’m not . . .”

“You’d let him do anything.”

“That’s stupid, Josh, don’t say that, I’m not . . .”

“Right, stupid,” he said, bucking for a fight. She shut up. He shook his head, then didn’t know what to do anymore. Then he hiked around and walked behind his chair, heading up the small beach to the path.

“Hey, Josh, don’t . . .” She called after him: “I just mean it might’ve been Amy.”

But Josh wasn’t hearing, disappearing now under the canopy of small trees and evergreens.

She crossed her arms, crossed a leg, shaking her head at him and grinding her teeth. How would she explain the thing with Amy if she didn’t say she’d talked to Devlin about this?

***

At last, the bedroom door unlatched and she rose from the back of the chair she’d been sitting on. Josh looked at her sheepishly from the open bedroom doorway, scratching the back of his head. “I’m an asshole.”

She said, “No you’re not. I could’ve been more careful. More supportive.”

“You were supportive. I let Devlin manipulate my actions again.”

“You let me know some of the hardest things you endured as a kid and I was careless.”

“You endured worse than me, and I feel selfish.”

“My mom?” She shrugged. “Everyone’s got their baggage.”

Josh said, “I’m not special.” Magnanimous and far-seeing. Another reason she’d always had a crush on him.

“Still . . . I won’t defend Devlin anymore,” she assured him.

“Do what you need to do. I’m a big boy.”

“Can you come here?” She put out her arms at waist height. Josh came to her and they embraced. Near his ear, she said, “We can go home if you want. If you think this place is Devlin’s . . .”

“No, it’s ours,” he said. “I want to be here with you.”

“I want to be here, too,” she said, snaking her arms around him tighter.

“I’m glad I told you those things,” he said.

“Me too. And I love your perfect dick.” He stiffened and she chuckled, hugged him harder till he relaxed. “I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

It felt good to be in his arms. Felt good to be away from home and in this amazing paradise with him. She hadn’t been kidding. All she wanted to do was couples stuff. Devlin gave her what she wanted on Wednesday, fucking her good on his new bed. But this was how she wanted to spend her weekend. With her buddy. Her husband. Though not like this. Not with this existential weight on them still. Maybe it’d be a blessing he’d divulged his hurt to her.

But she’d have to explain the thing about Amy. Explain it before her husband’s dark and anxious mind began to work on the reasons why she’d defend Devlin and try to foist the text on her friend.

“Baby, can I explain about Amy? . . .”