Devil In The Waters, Book 3, Chapter 14 (complete)

There were better ways for him to spend his evening, but this is the way it was. A lone man on his horse, wandering the digital mountainside, aimless, staring at pixel scenery. He was in the living room playing Red Dead, Kimmy alone in her Katt Basket room, mid-process of turning it into an office. They could have split the office space he already used, but Kimmy apparently wanted privacy. That room had been her basket workspace, and baskets could not have been prepared in his office because basket-making demanded too much space. They couldn’t share an office? And here’s the thing: The basket room had at one time been destined a nursery . . . 

Out of nowhere, this thing with him and Kimmy and Devlin had jumped right off the track and now rusty wheels squealed against rusty track, sparks flew, and there was a chance the whole thing would upend and his mining cart loaded with precious ore would dash below. It was funny how fast things changed—even when you did your best to make them as smooth as they could be.

So even though there were better ways to spend an evening, here was where he found himself, looking to escape.

***

Five o’clock in Ajax was nine o’clock in England. At her desk, office door closed, she listened to the phone ring. Amy picked up saying “Why haven’t you called?”

“I’m calling now.”

“I mean, I get the not texting, not wanting anything in writing, but Kimmy . . .”

She said again: “I’m calling now.” Amy’d sent over two dozen messages in the last weeks and Kimmy’d replied with Talk Laters, but never actually talked later. Until now. And Amy was right: she didn’t want to commit anything to where it could be read by unwelcome eyes. But what was the point now? She’d committed a worse sin than messaging with a friend about cheating on her husband, she had full-on sexting with her boss, including requesting and receiving an official Big Dick Pic. And making plans for what could be the real deal. The real Point of No return. Thusly she called Amy. A bad influence but a somehow welcome one.

Amy said, “Well, I hope you’re glad—you’ve got me on the edge of my seat. What the hell’s been happening?”

“Where do I start?” Kimmy rubbed her forehead, wincing, wanting to get into it, but also knowing the magnitude of this story. Amy told her to start at the beginning, so that’s what she did: telling Amy how the job came to pass and how crazy she was to work for Devlin.

It was quiet a moment, and then Amy said, “You’re going to sleep with him.”

“No, I’m not.” She hated the restrained but still apparent exuberance in her old friend’s voice.

“Kimmy, in your hallway . . .?”

“That’s not . . .” But it was futile. With resignation, she said, “I know.”

Amy made an exasperated sound, said, “Why couldn’t this be while I was still in Toronto?”

“It’s your fault,” she said. Though it wasn’t.

Amy disregarded her, saying with disbelief: “And Josh knows you’re working for Devlin?”

“Of course he does.”

“Don’t know what that says about him,” Amy said aside from her phone.

“Josh knows it’s a good opportunity.”

“I’m sure he does. How’s that been going?”

“With Josh? We’ve barely said a word today.”

“What’s going on?”

She swiveled her chair toward the door, saw the hall empty, said, “It’s getting to him. Me talking about Devlin.”

“Does he suspect anything?”

“No. I don’t think he does.”

“And nothing’s happened since your apartment?”

“With Devlin. No. Well, yeah.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Just . . . more of the same.”

Amy chuckled, the chuckle becoming an anxious groan. “Fuck, he’s so hot.” She said it in a tight, desperate way, and she could imagine Amy scratching at her own throat, reminiscing of her few times with Devlin. But what was she going to say—was she going to agree with Amy? As much as she wanted to be on the same page as Amy, it still felt so wrong to be a married woman lusting after another man.

But then why did you want to talk to Amy in the first place—the day before you were having drinks after work with Devlin . . . in a hotel bar?

“He is,” she agreed in a quiet whisper. Then: “I don’t think it’s going to happen.” Why would she call Amy if all she was going to do was lie to her? “I couldn’t do that to Josh . . .”

***

Couldn’t do what to Josh?

Outside the hall bathroom, he paused, hand on the lever and now trying to eavesdrop on his wife. Kimmy was talking to Amy. Didn’t hear Kimmy’s phone ring, but that didn’t mean Amy didn’t call. He was operating under the pretense Kimmy’d called Amy. Why would Kimmy want to call Amy?

He and Kimmy’d spent the day apart and mostly quiet, though they weren’t fighting. Avoiding each other, that was what they were doing. Not wanting to get into it.

It was hard to hear his wife over the pounding of his heart. As soon as he’d detected Kimmy was talking in hushed tones, and then hearing her utter his name, his pulse was racing out of control. His palm sweated so fast his grip on the bathroom door lever slackened and slipped. He wiped his hand on his stomach, still trying to listen in to Kimmy’s conversation with Amy.

For almost a minute, Kimmy spoke so quietly into her phone he couldn’t make out what she said. Just the soft sibilance of her S sounds. While he didn’t want to be that kind of guy, he knew he was that kind of guy—and now he was crossing on tiptoes the four extra steps to make it to the doorway.

Kimmy still spoke low, but he could make out her end of the conversation, Kimmy saying to Amy now: “No, not like that . . . just one other time . . . Yeah . . . Tell me about it . . . No, I can’t believe it, it’s so . . . right . . . Just hands . . . Hands and, you know, mouth . . .”

Hands and mouth?

It didn’t take much imagination for his dirty mind to figure what was being said. If that’s what she was saying. In his twisted version Kimmy was telling Amy how she’d been doing hands and mouth stuff with Devlin. He put a fist over his sternum, pressed it hard. Forced himself to breathe low and quiet, and strained to listen.

“Yeah, no, you’re not kidding . . . Was it like that? . . . Yeah . . . No, but . . . uh-huh . . . But you never . . . Is it ever a lot?”

Is what a lot?

“Stop laughing . . . I’m serious . . . Like what? . . . Yeah, like that . . . Well, not like that . . . A little like that . . . Yeah, down my legs . . . I don’t think it’s funny . . .”

What was down her legs? Her skirt? Her panties? What wasn’t funny?

Kimmy asked Amy: “That’s never happened to you?”

A long pause.

“Very funny . . . Just me then . . . Why do I tell you anything?”

Kimmy’s chair squeaked and his heart completely stopped beating. He went statuesque, stuck with his back against the wall, knowing Kimmy had just got up from her office chair. She was coming out here. Coming out to the hall. Going to continue her conversation with Amy in the kitchen, maybe put on a kettle . . . 

Now he loosened, tried to stand casual like he wasn’t eavesdropping, just walking down the hall, even posing now mid-stride so when she came around the corner he would pretend to stop short so they wouldn’t collide. Say: “Ho, whoah, hey, sorry,” put his hands on her shoulders, sidestepping, then head on into the bedroom.

Her shadow came near the door, and those missed heartbeats came back now all at once. Just a sudden drum solo in his chest. Vision warbling and shaking—and how the hell was he going to pretend nothing was going on when his cheeks were probably blazing red right now . . .?

He chickened out, put himself back up against the wall, not having the guts to put on the fake-act for her, preferring to be caught like the dirty sneak he was . . . 

Kimmy appeared in the doorway, just her shoulder, not her face at all. But he could tell she held the phone to her cheek, and was looking down the hall from where he came. Shoot, if he’d been standing in the hall posed mid-stride she would’ve spotted him—but now she didn’t. She stepped back and closed the door.

Every urge he had to go to the kitchen, grab a drinking glass, return and put it up to the door as a crude listening device were forced away. He couldn’t be like that. What had he done to himself right now? Potentially embarrassed himself bottomlessly. What would it have looked like her finding him eavesdropping on her phone conversation? Yeah, the guy that got bullied, and now he was sneaking around trying to listen in on the things she said to her friends. Not a good look. Not a good look when she went to work every day for Devlin Stone in his expensive car, his expensive clothes, tall and good-looking . . . 

He rubbed his cheeks, went on the pads of his feet softly to the bathroom and closed himself in. But he couldn’t pee now. Just like that night at Tiffany’s, it’d be hard to pee when his dick was thundering upright.

He palmed his erection, rubbed his hand in a circle over it and getting some pleasure. Didn’t make sense to be hard listening to your wife maybe talk about using her hands and her mouth on Devlin Stone. But for whatever reason, as much as that hurt him deep, his body responded in an unexpected way.

“Shit,” he said, turning and sitting on the toilet seat.

He’d have to wait out the erection. He unzipped it, pulled it out, thought about jerking off and getting rid of it that way . . . Then hated the idea of sitting in the bathroom by himself in a fight with Kimmy, her talking to Amy, him imagining their conversation was about Devlin, then doing that? . . . Jerking off to that?

What if he told her more?

What if you took the honesty thing a little more seriously, Josh? What if you told her just a little bit more . . .