(COMPLETE) Devil In The Waters, Chapter 5, Remote Control

The words from his bully written out on his phone’s screen chilled him. All the fear he’d experienced this weekend came rushing back to him in all its former glory. Part of him, thirty-six hours removed, had come to believe that maybe Devin in the tent had been a dream after all, that the horror wrapping itself around him was all fabricated in his own mind, woven from blades of past trauma like one of Kimmy’s baskets.

A simple friendly phrase, yet one heavy with the threat of what would come next.

how’s it going?

The query wasn’t preceded by Devin Stone’s name, but by a phone number Josh didn’t recognize. Yet he knew it wasn’t spam or a mistake, he knew it was Devin. He stared at the words a long time, opened his phone and his message app, texted a reply.

Josh: leave me alone

A reply came in a few seconds.

don’t be sore

He texted again:

Josh: leave me alone

On the TV screen his cowboy sat atop a chestnut mare, a mountain vista spread out before them. He set the controller down and rubbed his fingers against his clammy palms.

Another text:

Kimmy say I came by to talk to her today?

He grunted, disbelieving this was his reality again after he’d thought they’d moved on. His face had tightened, his brow lowered, but his shoulders slumped like they were too heavy.

Josh: fuck off

she didn’t? bad girl that Kimmy

Josh: I don’t believe you

why not?

Now he looked over his shoulder and could see his wife in the kitchen, through the pass-thru, moving around with her back to him, her black hair tied back in a tail.

Josh: go fuck with someone else

Josh just go and ask her

I didn’t fuck her if that’s what you’re thinking

His fingers tingled like he’d been sitting on them, and he felt detached from his body, watching himself from above sitting on the couch gawking at his phone, Xbox controller and fizzing Coke on the table at his knees. There was a profound feeling of unreality.

Josh: that’s good

feel better?

Josh: no go away

I mean she begged me to fuck her and I had her pants down

There was a clinking and clattering in the kitchen, Kimmy loading the dishwasher. He regarded her over his shoulder again, and the sight of her feminine form, its innocent grace, had him angry that Devin would fabricate something so horrible. The image of Kimmy begging Devin Stone to fuck her couldn’t even be formed. Fantasy was one thing, but bringing the image closer to realism was impossible.

He turned back, admired the mountain view beyond his cowboy’s horse.

Josh: you are so full of shit

Am I?

The anger tightening his neck and jaw was welcome and comforting in its way. He chuckled a confrontational sound, texted.

Josh: Big successful guy like you has nothing better to do on a Monday night than fuck around with some guy from high school? Pretty sad man

ha ha, Josh, you got me. I’m eating dinner at Harbour 60 right now so bored I gotta text my old pal Josh and make up a story how I fingered his wife today

Now he was practically growling, a low animal sound in his throat. he was too grown up to be a bully’s victim now.

Josh: you grew up to be a real piece of shit

I left you something

Josh: oh okay

Oh okay. He liked the sound of it. He smiled, betting to himself Devin hadn’t expected Josh to be so aloof this time around. But he wasn’t blitzed with bourbon, roused from a painful sleep. Now he was comfortable at home, on his own couch, recovered, well-fed and tended by the woman he loved. A woman who would never sleep with Devin Stone.

So this would be where a bully like Devin Stone was going to say something perverse and mean and belittling, and he could see it in his mind before it was even written: Left you my sloppy seconds . . . Practically followed by imagined wheezy teenage laughter. Only he and Devin were removed from school a long time now—so fuck off, Devin, you’re powerless over adults.

But it wasn’t what Devin returned.

Nice apartment you have

He stared at the statement a long time. It got him. Well played, Devin.

Josh: thanks

small, plain, there’s a picture of Taiwan in the eighties b&w on the wall facing you as you come in the door. brown leather couches in the family room, you have a wedding photo on the table against the wall...

There wasn’t much to say, so he just read, winding his neck around as he did, that helpful anger fumbling, getting into the backseat now so worry could get up and take the wheel.

nothing to say now? I told you I left you something. Go in the front hall, the table where there’s the flowers and the dish with coins and keys, open the top drawer for me

Josh: Why?

I left something for you

Josh: it’s not there

you didn’t check then

Josh: I don’t have to

coward

When he rose from the couch his legs were shaky. He stared a moment at the cowboy on screen waiting for his input, waiting to be lead into great and wonderful adventures. Instead he was a player on someone else’s screen, his high school bully’s, a piece in another man’s fantasy adventure.

In the kitchen, Kimmy still puttered, content and oblivious. It angered him she would be brought in on this malicious enterprise, an innocent NPC—it was the challenge to her honor that got his heart pounding again. How dare Devin say these terrible things about her. But he was stuck now, somewhere between the anger and the submission, his feet moving across the apartment floor, taking him to the front hall where he would confirm what Devin was saying wasn’t true.

The awful journey to his front hall was his bully’s joy, he was sure, sitting gleefully on the other end of this text exchange picturing dumb Josh shitting his pants in Ajax. He’d come to find the drawer empty and Devin would then say Kimmy must have found it first and got rid of it. String this game along further, drag gullible Josh out into deeper waters . . . 

Only when he made it to the front hall unspotted by Kimmy, he opened the drawer of the table with the flowers and the dish of keys and coins and found Devin was right. There on the top layer of junk, right at the far side, a crisp linen business card lay face up and staring like it had been expecting him. What took you so long, Mr. Waters it was saying. The chills and the tingles returned to him, that sinking feeling in his stomach pushing down hard on his bladder. The card read: Stone Custom Brokerage LLC, then in bolder font the cardholder’s name, Devin Stone, and, underneath in italics, Vice-President.

He never lifted the card from where it sat, left it there and quietly closed the drawer again. Kimmy still cleaned, still oblivious to the tragedy in the front hall, scooting around the kitchen in her slippers.

When he looked down there was another message waiting for him on his phone.

Kimmy’s way too much woman for you

The sinking feeling deepened, the anger liquifying and pooling around his feet.

Josh: U came here today

I did. Believe me now?

Josh: Why?

I told you you asked me to fuck Kimmy

Josh: I never asked that

You sure did

Josh: I don’t want that

You told me you did

Josh: Now I’m telling you I don’t

He stared at the screen, waiting for the response. It came.

Too late

He grumbled a pained sound, thumbs flying.

Josh: Don’t text me again don’t ever come by my apartment again and don’t talk to Kimmy

Too late for all that Josh Kimmy and I have something good going

Josh: I’m telling you to stop

You know you want it, now I want it. And Kimmy wants it too

Josh: No she doesn’t.

enjoy it man you asked for it you’re getting it

ciao

* * *

There was no way it could be true.

It had to be a ruse, but he was standing there in the front hall with all the demonstrated proof someone would need. And yet there was a surprising emptiness inside him. It was like the horror was currently buoyed on the vestiges of his disbelief.

He moved to the kitchen doorway, could see Kimmy rinsing a plate, the dishwasher open, placing it on the bottom rack. She was done now, drying her hands.

Something occurred to him. Something that had registered in his mind, but sat dormant until now. He approached her, took the towel from her hands, her smiling and watching him suspiciously. He snapped away the wet towel, then folded it and tossed it onto the counter. She asked him what was up.

He took her hands, kissed her knuckles. “Thank you for dinner.”

“I slaved away all afternoon,” she said, averting her eyes.

Now he held both her hands between them, thumbing her knuckles, caressing her wedding ring. He said, “Did your nails today, eh?”

Sure enough, the thing that had registered: Kimmy had changed her nail color. There’d been a clear coat over a base of dusty rose for the high school reunion. Hadn’t changed that yesterday, but now he could see she’d done them in black.

She took her hands away from his, looked at her nails. “Oh yeah, I did.”

“Black, huh?”

“I was bored,” she said.

“Bored?”

She shrugged, and her lack of forthcoming irked him. He said, “You weren’t busy today? Did you get a basket and and a half done?”

“No,” she said, eyes straying away again.

“You didn’t?” There was an unfinished basket on her worktable.

She said, “Just a half a basket.”

“Did you go out?”

“No . . . My hands were sore,” she said now, then shook one of them out as if it was still smarting. She made a fist, then wouldn’t look his way again.

“Are your hands sore?”

“Yeah, a little . . .” Then: “I just didn’t feel like it today. I started watching The Heirs, I lost track of time. Next thing I know, I’m making tea, I got my feet up . . . I did my fingernails.”

“While you watched Netflix?”

“Yes,” she said, unsmiling, then adding, “My toes, too,” looking down at her feet though she wore slippers in the house.

He said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, posture slumping. “I’m okay . . .” She leaned on the counter and crossed her arms.

“Anybody come by today?”

Though she made no reaction at all, somehow that was a weird indication by itself. Kimmy stone-faced him. Gave him her lawyer face. When she wanted to, she could keep you out—it was part of what she practiced, never letting your opponent know what you’ve got. She said, “No . . . why?”

He shrugged, looked away. “Just wondering.”

There was a beat of quiet, then: “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, like Amy or something. Maybe you guys went out . . .”

“I said I didn’t go out.”

“Well, it’s just . . .”

She stared at him a long while with her lips parted, an expression somewhere between concern and anger. She said finally: “Why would you ask me that?”

“I said I don’t know. It’s weird coming home to you like this.”

“Like what?—I ordered your favorite dinner, Josh, you played video games, we ate together . . . What’s wrong with that?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Kimmy,” he said and put up his hands. “Look,” he said backing away, not wanting to be a part of this conversation at all anymore. “You’re being weird, so I’m asking you questions.”

“Your questions are weird, Josh, like you sound like you’re accusing me of something.”

“You’re acting like you’re guilty, I’m asking questions. I’m not chasing you, I’m following you . . .”

Her eyes darted over his, she softened then, raised her eyebrows. “Sorry,” she said, and now he was the guilty one.

He went to her, saying, “It’s okay . . . I don’t mean to bug you. It’s just . . .”

“What—because I was I won’t tell you about . . .” She left the sentence unfinished. The argument at the party.

“Yeah, I don’t know . . .”

“It’s nothing, Josh, don’t make it into something.”

“You’re making into something by being so tightlipped.”

She studied him again, eyes going over his, weighing and measuring.

He said, “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” she said softly.

“All right,” he said, backing away again. I’m going to be in my office . . .”

* * *

In his office Josh found himself obsessed with disproving Devin’s texted taunts, searching Facebook now for proof. It was convenient escape from dwelling on the almost-confrontation with Kimmy. It would be a mistake to let Devin get in his head, infect his marriage. Not without confirmation.

Disbelief—wondrous and welcome disbelief—had begun to leak again into his mind. You couldn’t trust Devin. What Devin accused Kimmy of was ridiculous. Why would he take for granted the words texted to him from a malicious man who’d made his youth precarious? It was a magic trick, was all. Now he just had to figure the trick, learn the sleight of hand.

So now he was operating on the presumption that Devin’s description of his apartment, while accurate, was a distraction. It was meant to bolster his belief in stage two of Devin’s trick: the business card.

Devin’s description of his apartment sounded contrived when Josh replayed it in his head, and now he was checking his and Kimmy’s Facebook photos for instances Devin could have gleaned; shots from Josh and Kimmy’s married life that showed the inside of their apartment. While he scoured, proof still eluded him; there were no definitive images that showed the front hall, though there were other pictures of the apartment that showed the family room and the brown leather couches. The description still stuck funny in his mind-ear: superficial, paint-by-numbers, as though Devin was never in the apartment but had seen a photo or had been given a second-hand description.

He had to consider that Devin may not be alone in this particular campaign of domination. The act of humiliation was best with an audience, and back at high school Devin always had compatriots’s faces leering nearby to join in on the vicious hilarity.

Here was the thing about the business card: If Devin wanted to drop a big whammy and he was so fucking smart he would have left a note, maybe a message, something with his name . . . Just a business card? Come on, that was low grade for a bully like Devin Stone—what, he was going to pass up the opportunity to write a note like Kimmy’s pussy is so tight, right on the card? Some real low blow knife-stab . . . 

What if it wasn’t Devin at all he’d been texting with? Like Steve was fucking with him after their talk today. Only how would Steve get Devin Stone’s business card? Shit, what’s wrong with you, Josh? It might not even be Stone’s business card, anybody could do a business card up on a computer and print it out. Steve, maybe, arranging some prank with Kimmy even. It was far-fetched, but so was Devin coming by here today and fingering Kimmy. Shit, Steve wouldn’t have the guts to text those dirty things on the messages about Kimmy, even as a joke, he could never type out that he’d fingered Kimmy—it would creep him out . . . 

Kimmy snuck up on him while he was lost in a Facebook wormhole, his monitor faced away from the door, so he could see her in the hall, on her way to the bedroom. She stopped in the doorway, resting a hand, then her forehead on the frame.

“Hey,” he said.

“I’m going to go to bed,” she said.

“You are?”

She nodded, head still on the frame, bending one knee so she could plant her toes on the floor and wag her calf side to side.

“It’s not even nine.”

She shrugged, said, “Good night, baby,” slunk away from the frame and lingered a second before resuming her path down the hall. But she came back.

His hand rolled the mouse around in a circle, his cursor going in concentric lines on the monitor, peering over top to see what she would say. Kimmy slunk against the frame again, and showed an uncomfortable aura of guilt. It showed in the bowing of her eyebrows, the slump of her shoulders. Kimmy didn’t know Devin had sent him taunts over messaging, but she did know her husband had questioned her in a way he’d never done before. If she were innocent she would be mad, perplexed; if she were guilty, what then? . . . 

Kimmy said, “Can you come to bed with me?”

And the sight of her this way made him the guilty one, thinking of her the way he’d been thinking, allowing another man to control him, manipulate him, ruin what he had with his Kimmy. Below the wide cuff of her cotton capris her ankles were slender; the string straps of her feathery tank top drew thin lines on her graceful shoulders; her black hair hung shaggy around her angular but sweet and innocent face, her black eyes watching him, bright and wet.

If she’d had sex with Devin today would she really want you in the bed right now? Would she want more sex? Wouldn’t she be worn out?

Come on, the whole thing’s ludicrous . . . Plus, searching Facebook was futile; a picture of their apartment could be on someone else’s page, not his or Kimmy’s. They’d had parties here before, so maybe someone posted a pic and Devin’d seen it . . . 

He said, “I’m coming.”

* * *

He followed her down the hall to their bedroom, Kimmy closing the door behind them and leaving the lights off. He stood in the quiet, turned, felt her body up against his. Kimmy kissed his neck and put her arms around his waist. He said, “I’m sorry for before.”

She said nothing, continued kissing his neck, her nails drawing circles on his lower back now. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t bring him in here for conversation, so he better smarten up. And, before he knew it, her hand was groping his junk over his sweatpants, right hand squeezing and kneading his penis and testicles over the cotton while her mouth sought his. He kissed her. She whispered, “I had a nap today . . .”

“That’s good.”

“You told me to nap so I’d be rested.”

“So you rested?” Wow, some dirty talker, Josh.

“Are you going to fuck me, baby?”

Hearing his wife say something so harsh was unexpected and he flinched at her dirty language. He whispered, “Yeah.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Make love to you . . .”

“Yeah? . . . How?” Now she ran her thigh up his knee, getting a foot right off the floor. She squeezed his balls, lifted them up taking his sweatpants along and flossing him a wedgie. Kimmy was horned up in a way he couldn’t remember before. Maybe back in early college, or, shoot, in high school when they first started doing it and jumped at any chance, going from 0-60 in seconds, teenage hormones in hyper-drive. But in their adult life his Kimmy wasn’t ever so forward. It was intimidating . . . 

“I don’t know . . .”

“Tell me, Josh, tell me what you’re going to do to me . . .”

Her hand kneaded his genitals more eagerly, and she went on her toes so she could hook an arm around his neck and kiss his mouth. He put his hands on her finally, and they moved like they were timid, touching her back, caressing, being kind and polite. Fuck, just like in high school and it was the first time they were together . . . 

And now it was in his head. Kimmy’s way too much woman for you. Was it true? As she matured, Kimmy was undeniably acquiring a powerful sexiness. The shaggy bangs, the full raven head of hair framing her intelligent face. The slim smile lines around her perfect pouting mouth. Those sexy brown eyes in their narrow almond shapes. Could she do better? You don’t deserve Kimmy—that’s what Devin was saying. And if another man came for her and he had to compete, what really was it he could offer a woman like Kimmy? Their legacy? Even Steve saying today he couldn’t imagine what Kimmy saw in him. Just joking around—he was sure of it—but now with everything else going on it provoked amazing insecurity. It was just like back in high school, when they first started going out together, he didn’t know if it was a real thing or not. He crushed on Kimmy Chang so hard, and when she agreed to go out he feared the whole night she thought it was just as friends. And he was too worried to make a move, worried he would offend her. But she was his wife now, they’d got past all of the act, and so his hands grew bolder, squeezing at her ribs, moving down to cup her ass cheeks. Kimmy complied right away, sighing into his mouth and parting her legs wider. He slipped a hand down the back of her cotton pants, right underneath her panties. He found his wife warm and wet already, his two middle fingers sliding along her slick groove already well-oiled and hungry.

“Ohh, Josh,” she murmured, and he probed them inside. She raised her knee higher, hooked the inside of her thigh on his hipbone, desperate for him to penetrate her. He slid his fingers deeper and she whispered, “Tell me what you’re going to do to me . . .”

“I don’t know, Kimmy . . .”

“You had all day . . . what did you fantasize?”

It was true—the weird thing was he hadn’t really thought about it. He’d warned her this morning to be prepared, and selfish Josh only thought about himself all day . . . What did his wife do at the party? What was the fight about? Was it something I did? Was it something I said? Did I embarrass her? Me, me, me . . . But Kimmy wanted him. And wanted him now.

But his mind was poisoned.

She whispered, “Tell me something dirty . . . Tell me something you want to do to me . . .”

He froze, his mouth open, words eager to come out but frightened, hiding like timid voles in their tunnel. What would anything he said come out like? And the most frightening thing: he wasn’t even really hard yet. She’d fondled him, squeezed him, kissed his neck, was eager and vocal—but now her arms were around him scratching and caressing, and he could feel only a meager arousal in his underwear. Another replay of last night—oh no . . . 

“Tell me, Josh, tell me something dirty . . .”

“I don’t know, Kimmy . . . let’s move to the bed . . .”

Kimmy made a disappointed sound and let him go. He couldn’t see her in the dark, but now was imagining her impatient, disappointed. It sunk him. His erection completely dwindled, he put his hands out to find her. She was gone. He could hear her getting on the bed now, and he was quick to join her, wanting to show her it wasn’t over.

* * *

Only he didn’t find her laying in bed. The silhouette of his wife loomed on his right hand side, Kimmy sitting on the edge of the bed. The act of sitting disheartened him. Not laying in bed looking for a second attempt at lovemaking, but sitting . . . and sitting was the position where you talked rather than made love.

He scooted to join her, both of them looking out the bedroom windows at the starlight sky. She asked him what was wrong.

“Nothing’s wrong, Kimmy, I swear nothing’s wrong.”

“Don’t you want to . . .?” She looked his way, and he could see her concerned face bathed by the outdoor light.

“Of course I do. How could I not want to? . . . It’s not that at all. I just felt . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Is it me?”

“No. It’s a lot of pressure, I don’t . . .”

“I’m putting pressure on you?”

“I’m sorry.”

She hung her head, said, “I’m sorry too. I mean, Josh, it’s . . . it’s just sex. Don’t you want to fuck me?”

“It’s a lot,” he said, wishing he’d just grow up and lay her back and make love to her the way he wanted—shit, the way she wanted. But his arousal had evaporated, so he was useless right now anyway. So he said, “It’s a lot, telling me to tell you what I’m going to do.”

“I’m sorry, Josh, can we start over?”

And now he felt guilty as well as limp. He said, “No, don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault at all. I told you I was going to make things right tonight, but I don’t know . . . When we came in here, and you started saying those things . . .”

“I thought you might like that.”

“I do,” he said—and, what the fuck, of course he did . . . Why would he be challenged by her dirty talk? It was all because of Devin Stone, this other guy getting in his head. All of it lies, all of it meant to hurt Josh remotely. That smug fuck sitting in a steakhouse manipulating loser Josh all the way in Ajax. Now the way he pictured it, it was Devin and all those cronies from high school, guys from all the sports teams, them grown up now wearing suits and laughing at what cool guy Devin was doing to this nerd. How could he let someone get in his head like that? It was impossible to think what Devin said was true.

Now he softened, looking at his wife’s face, and she could see the change in him. They both smiled at each other, honest smiles, and then their mouths came together and they kissed. He played with her ear lobe, her hair, caressed her neck. She put her tongue in his mouth; soon her hand was back in his lap. It went to his knee, came up the inside of his thigh, began to squeeze and knead his manhood again. The fact he wasn’t hard began to play at his weaknesses. Boy, imagine if Kimmy had been with Devin today, what a difference . . . Her husband with a smaller penis that didn’t even work right. Devin’s text had said he fingered Kimmy, got her pants down. Now while he kissed her, the image came to him unbidden of his wife here in this bedroom, maybe up against the wall, right up against the apartment window where maybe the neighbors could see, submitting to this tall rich handsome fucking asshole. He could picture Devin with his hands down her pants, Kimmy with her mouth hanging open, her eyes locked onto Devin’s eyes, Devin’s hand jacking inside her pants, slick wet sounds filling his room. His cheating wife . . . 

Kimmy made an appreciative catlike sound—he realized he’d achieved full throbbing hardness, and she appreciated his earnest renewal. He had to strike while the iron was hot, leaning toward her now, Kimmy going to her back, him getting over top of her. She pushed his pants down and stroked his erection while they kissed.

His mind was stuck still, swirling around the idea of his wife at home while he was at work, a visitor comes by, a guy they all hate, but nobody would deny his appeal. It was the man that was objectionable, the package itself screamed success. And the fact that Kimmy, who’d never been charmed by men like that, would let Devin put his hand in her pants had his cock aching to be inside her.

They shimmied higher onto the bed, Kimmy pushing her pants down. And he couldn’t even wait for her top to come off, already shoving a knee between her legs, spreading them wider, Kimmy raising her knees and him getting between her legs. He thumbed his erection downward, found her opening easily, and slipped inside her. That thrilling entry into her body was poisoned by the notion of how she would be dominated by a man with Devin’s manhood. How would Kimmy react with Devin? Now he could picture Kimmy like those overacting girls he watched in porn. Mewling little cats squirming all over the bed saying crazy shit for muscular jerk-off guys with big dicks. Pictured his beloved smart and capable woman behaving that way. Her legs open, eager for another man . . . 

He stabbed and stabbed, the bed creaking, Kimmy making soft barely audible gasps in reaction to his thrusts. “Fuck, mm, fuck,” he grunted, trying to shake away the thought of Kimmy with Devin, but the fear that without it he would lose his arousal, coaxing him to ride it out just a little longer . . . 

He could picture Kimmy sinking to her knees, doing down Devin’s zipper, then that thing Josh had seen in the tent beginning to protrude through the opening, inch after glorious inch, Kimmy’s eyes widening as the hugest manhood imaginable was presented to her—Kimmy worshiping it, studying it, using her fingertips to caress it’s hard ridged totem shapes. Then her mouth kissing it, her tongue caressing, sucking . . . 

“Shit, oh shit . . .”

“Oh Josh,” Kimmy squeaked, and she hugged him tighter, one step ahead of him knowing he was going to come before he even realized.

He spurted slippery lubrication inside her while conjuring terrible horrible frightening images of his wife with a man he hated—a man she hated—and the phantasmagoric movie in his mind’s eye so powerful it triggered his system into powerful orgasm. He dug his elbows into the mattress over her shoulders, hunched his body, stabbed himself deep (aware at the moment of his orgasm she was taking everything he had right now, and how Devin had a lot more) . . . He let that badness swirl like a dust devil ripping through the warehouse behind his eyes while throbbing waves of pleasure undulated through his body. His cock flexed and pulsed inside his wife, launching off a complete, copious, and powerful load inside her, Kimmy cooing and writhing, making light feathery circles on his back knowing her husband was ejaculating. 

Shame rose, a sickly wool feeling up his back, his eyes widening, looking at her, seeing her beautiful hair spread out on the sheets they’d picked out together at the Jysk in Whitby. The terrible things he’d thought of her while encouraging his hardness and orgasm . . . That man putting those images in his head.

Screw you, Devin, because your little trick backfired . . . 

Only, while he’d been successful, his pleasure achieved, it didn’t exactly run the sexual gauntlet for Kimmy. She lay there and let her husband thrust into her for a couple minutes—was she supposed to be grateful that he could come? Wow, how great for Kimmy.

Now the happiness faded, and he was already remorseful. “Sorry,” he whispered, the endurance of his lovemaking an obvious failure.

“I’m glad you came,” she said.

“I can go again.”

“I got what I wanted,” she said.

“Can we try again?”

She nodded, but her eyes were closed. He raised above her on straightened arms, his wife laying there with her top still on, her hair fanned around her angel face. He kissed her chin, and she patted his cheek.

The way her face was closed off left him with the idea she was concentrating on the seed he’d planted inside her body. That should make him happy, but still all he could think about was his disappointment. A man like Devin would’ve ended the session much differently. He could picture Kimmy left sweating, a devastated mess after a long pounding session with Devin. That’s what girls said in high school. Had Kimmy ever heard that? Probably. So if she knew that, then she knew that what Josh’d just done wasn’t good enough.

The earlier fears chased after him again: You’re not good enough for Kimmy.

So much venom coursing through his system, he eased himself out from inside her, stood at the side of the bed. His pants were around his ankles, and he stooped to pick them up, kissed Kimmy’s knee, but she didn’t notice, raising her legs now, getting herself straighter on the bed and curling up on her back with her thighs hugged to her chest.

He backed away from her, saying, “I’m just gonna be a minute,” and went to the bathroom.

* * *

The worry’d been Josh had seen something on Facebook. Why else would he come at her like that, insinuating that she wasn’t forthcoming about her activities today? Josh was never that way, had never questioned her or treated her like a liar. It’d made her think the rumors had started, people were talking, and soon everyone would know what Kimmy and Devin had got up to at the party. They’d never understand. And the hurt to Josh was unconscionable.

Only now it was worse than yesterday.

With her toes spread on the bathroom floor, seated on the toilet, Josh’s seed spilling from her, she twirled fingers through her folds, pulling back on her hood and mushing down on her clit, chasing down something she wanted very bad but had escaped her in the bedroom with Josh. Her husband had left her sopping and while he went to the bathroom in their bedroom she’d scurried out to the guest bathroom in the hall not sure why she wanted out of the bedroom so bad. But now it was apparent it was about finishing herself off in case Josh reneged on a round two after he came out of the bathroom, or wasn’t able to get it up again.

The pad of her middle finger took over now, slipping inside herself while curling her clit against her palm at the same time. Her legs trembled as the orgasm finally told her it was on its way, and she pulled over a clean hand towel and bit it to stifle any sounds she wouldn’t want Josh to hear.

The way she’d betrayed her husband today was a sin. It would never happen again because she just wasn’t that kind of woman—but the events of the last few days were exhilarating in a way she couldn’t even comprehend. And as the freight train of an orgasm rumbled down her tracks looking to pull into the station she found herself thinking of another man. Thinking of his hands, how large they were, how masculine. Thought of how despite their size and strength they had remarkable well-groomed grace. She chomped the towel harder thinking of the way his black arm hair furred over the crisp razor edge of his expensive dress shirt, a shirt with French cuffs and gold links to hold them in place.

“Ah, mm, ah,” she panted into the dampening cotton of the hand towel, seizing her eyes shut. But there in the darkness once again it wasn’t her husband who loomed, it was another man. That man’s hand touched her stomach, it went down under her pants and into her underwear and she let him, stood there dumbly wondering what his fingers would feel like inside her pussy.

“Mm, mm,” she moaned into the towel as the orgasm came finally, roiling over the inside curve of her skull like a thundercloud pregnant with hot rain. Her toes pushed right up and she pressed her thighs together crushing her own hand against her pussy, her strangled cries swallowed up by the towel in her mouth. She snorted through her nose, catching her breath, two fingers pulsing against her button as the passion subsided. Now she could think of Josh, now she could picture him again, his pleasant face subsuming the face of the other man.

Blood thundered in her ears, and she could hear the hoarse whisper of her breath in her lungs. And now she was sure there was someone on the other side of the door.

Josh called her name, and she went still saying, “Just had to pee, Josh, I’ll be right out.”

“Okay.”

Then she was sure he stood a long moment before returning to the bedroom. She whispered fuck and lightly thumped the heel of her fist against the cushioned curve of the toilet paper. If only she’d had the courage to tell Josh the truth. If only she’d not run from it. Maybe it wouldn’t have been made worse today. She’d thought to spare her husband, but her silence only made everything worse. The other thing she could’ve done was tell Devin there was nothing to talk about. Instead, she agreed to meet him . . .