Devil In The Waters, DIGEST: Chapter 2, Ajax

Time for the next chapter of Devil In The Waters!

Things are a little hectic for me right now, and damn am I chasing down the end of Separate Schools #3. It's a complicated doozy, but I sure am hoping we'll see it go live this coming week!

But for now, let's get back to Josh and Kimmy and Devin . . . 

***

Josh passing out in the car was a blessing she didn’t deserve. The horrible, detestable thing she’d done to the man she loved . . . 

With Josh comatose next to her, she was able to cry. Off and on, and when the tears came she cried as quiet as she was able next to her husband. It was a battle the whole way back to Ajax.

Why had they gone to the stupid reunion?

She didn’t even want to go. It was Karina who’d convinced her, Karina saying Amy would be there, and they hadn’t been in Amy’s company a long time—almost ten years. Did she really need to catch up on what everyone from Dalton had been up to since graduating? No, she didn’t. They should have done the reunion at the most, stayed at a hotel and met up for one more visit with Amy today before she headed back to London. Go to a restaurant and have a meal like normal twenty-eight year olds, not some lakeside rager like they were still a bunch of kids.

And certainly not Devin Stone. Fucking Devin Stone . . . Just the interior mention of his name had her palms beating up and down in quiet anger on the steering wheel—not too loud because she didn’t want to wake up Josh. Devin fucking Stone . . . 

The reunion party at Dalton had been fine. It was a blast to be with Amy again. Since Amy’d gone to Scotland for university they’d fallen out of touch because of the distance. The occasional email was about it these days since Amy had moved to London after graduating with an MBA. But it was Amy’s idea to go to Tiffany’s cottage party. Though Karina and Josh were just as guilty. Amy and Tiffany had been pretty good friends back in high school, though their friendship was a lot of wishful thinking on Amy’s part in her opinion. Tiffany only hung with girls whose parents drove BMWs or Mercedes. Tiff hung with Amy because Amy was pretty and kind of cool, but mostly because Amy tutored Tiff in math. Their friendship wasn’t exactly one for the ages, as they say, and she doubted they ever did more than comment on each other’s facebook posts since college.

Since she wasn’t a drinker, they should have just gone to the function, had the dinner, and skipped the house party. Who would have anticipated it would be so wild, and that these people ten years removed from high school would revert to juvenile drinking games and dumbass shenanigans? Why did grown-ups think they could drink so much? Fucking Josh. Why did he drink? Leaving her all alone all night with a bunch of drunk people.

Devin Stone wasn’t drunk either . . . 

Now she beat on the wheel again. No, Devin Stone liked to be in control. Devin Stone didn’t like to have his wits dampened by spirit. He told you that—whether you wanted to know about it or not. Devin Stone loved his philosophies. Loved how those philosophies delivered success. Piece of privileged shit starting off life on third base, now acting like it was all his philosophies that led to the great wonder and spectacle of the fabulous life he was living. Not fucking likely. She fucking hated Devin Stone. Fucking a-one hated him all through high school. Never thought of him once in college. Never thought of him after college. Never thought of them since she was married . . . 

Then how did this happen, Kimmy?

Amy and Karina were impressed, goggling like a bunch of teenagers. Impressed by his business travel, his adventure travel . . . all show-off shit she figured her cynical friends would see through, especially so far-removed from high school. The fact any of them knew Devin’d just bought a two-million dollar house was a sign Devin Stone was a bigmouth bastard. Dropping prices on everyone so they knew how much money he must be making. How could anyone fall for that—be impressed by that gross display? God, but she wasn’t.

How she ended up in this predicament she would never figure out. But she was hip deep, and that was for sure . . . 

* * *

Josh still slept when they pulled into the parking lot of their apartment building, and she considered not rousing him, maybe just cracking a window open and slipping inside. They were on the second floor and the balcony looked down over the vehicle. She would just let him sleep, let him have this peace, keep an eye on him. But what would the neighbors think seeing her husband asleep midday Sunday in the passenger seat of their car? Oh, look who has a drinking problem . . . 

With reluctance, she shook his arm. When he came to, she stroked his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

He made to answer but his lips stuck together. She thumbed his earlobe but couldn’t look in his eyes; instead she watched for his lips to move.

“Mm, mm-okay,” he said.

“We’re home,” she told him.

A look of happiness lightened his face. “We are?”

“You slept the whole way, baby.”

“Good,” he said, and rubbed at his forehead.

“Headache?”

“Tylenol worked,” he said. “Mm, but my back’s sore.” He sat up now, unclipping his seatbelt, his features pinched in pain, eyes squinted against the light.

“Why don’t you go inside? I’ll get the bags.”

“No, I’ll get them.”

She rubbed his shoulder, saying, “Baby, just go inside and have a nap. Let me get the things in. There’s not much, two trips tops.” He nodded, leaned toward her like a kid and she kissed his hairline. “Go on upstairs,” she whispered.

She watched her husband lumber out of their vehicle, slam shut the door, then shuffle across the parking lot; she fought more tears. Devin fucking Stone. That good-looking loudmouth piece of shit, him and all his stupid football buddies, him and all those cheerleader sluts. Most of those girls made her life miserable. How did she end up like this?

The tears came, and she let them now she was alone. She covered her face in her hands so the neighbors wouldn’t see. A drunk husband sleeping it off in the car was bad, and a crying wife was no better. Fucking gossip factory, this damn building. So she sniffed, snatched napkins out of the glove compartment to dry her eyes and blow her nose.

It took two trips like she’d said, and she unloaded the car by herself not seeing Josh once, knowing he’d slipped into the bedroom to catch some more Zs.

When she was settled, she went to the bathroom and stripped off what she wore. Stupid cardigan, her tight jeans. Had she given off signals? Sure, the cardigan covered it all, but were her jeans too short?

Why would she blame herself for this?

Because of what you did . . . 

Oh yeah, right. But she didn’t lead him on, she didn’t . . . 

Her hands were shaking when she opened the mirrored vanity and brought out the digital thermometer. She greased the tip with petroleum jelly, stripped off her panties and put the thermometer in her rectum. It was an uncomfortable and awkward moment just her and her reflection. She looked in her own eyes, shaking her head, standing on her tiptoes, one hand on the sink, one shoulder cranked back with her hand holding the thermometer situated in her rectum.

“Please, please, please, oh, please . . . ”

The monitor beeped, she pushed with her stomach, tugged and winced, took a deep breath in preparation then looked at the readout.

“Shit.” Almost ninety-nine degrees.

There was a good chance she was ovulating.

The thermometer bounced and clattered in the sink and she threw herself down to sit her bare ass on the toilet seat and cried into her hands, gulping and choking back her sounds so she wouldn’t alert Josh to what she’d done.

* * *

The guest room of their apartment was her workspace. She was the figurehead of the sole proprietorship commonly doing business as Katt Basket. And, yes, most people online thought her name was Katt Basket. Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Katherine, yes, Katherine Basket, that’s right. 

She’d been pregnant last year and took time off work. The pregnancy turned out a no-go. In the meantime, she’d been puttering around, had this idea for an Etsy store. Granny Chang had been a masterful basket weaver, and when she was little and would spend some weekends with her grandmother they would bake, watch soap operas, and weave baskets. Granny Chang immigrated from Taiwan to Canada when she was first married, and had grown up in a Beitou mountain village, learning home making skills like rush-weaving. So Kimmy’d earned some mad weaving skills, though not as advanced as her mother’s mother. Enough she could weave out a large basket a day, throw a snappy oblong cushion inside, and sell it online as a cat bed for twenty or so over two-hundred dollars, depending. It was just fun at first but then her shop took off and she was doing a basket a day for weeks in a row, five days a week, maybe a little extra on the weekend if Josh was out with his buddies. Ahead of her were seventy-eight orders, and more came in regularly, one every other day, then sometimes four in a day. It was nice to be at home, but her hands were sore these days and she could hide in the apartment and pretend that was okay but soon she knew she’d have to get back to work at her real job. Or get pregnant again, if she could . . . 

She set the bundled grass down, and stared across the room. Even busy work couldn’t settle her mind. Her mouth slimmed and she felt a tremble in her jaw.

That opinionated piece of shit.

The audacity . . . and the mouth on him . . . 

One second they’re arguing, she’s raising her voice, he’s sneering; he had her so riled she wanted to claw his face. She put up a hand—not to lay it on him in any way but just to signify how close she was to throttling him. He grabbed her wrist. When she pulled it away he didn’t let go. They struggled. She brought up the other hand to swat at him. He’d grabbed that one too. Both her hands in his control, he kissed her fully on the mouth. She tried to knee him, tried to elbow him, but he put his weight against her. Her heart had pounded with rage, but the fight in her diverted . . . and it was unexpected.

* * *

Kimmy was in her studio making baskets he figured because he heard her music. He was face down in bed, eyes closed. He took inventory. Neck and shoulders a little stiff. Throbbing headache gone, pounding white sheets that had been flashing behind his eyes also gone. Nausea zero. He did however feel like he’d been run over by a Mack truck. Another item in his inventory: an erection throbbing at 110%. He squeezed his hips, pushed it into the mattress. Pee boner. He had to get to the can.

He drew in a long breath, happy when his mind and stomach didn’t do a somersault. The hangover had passed. It was 7:22 according to the bedside clock. He’d slept for nine hours, right through the worst of his bourbon punishment. Thank God. But soon the shameful feelings of regret began to wash over him. What had he said last night? What had he done? And . . . “Oh fuck, right . . . ”

His stomach sank.

That whole thing with Devin.

He’d slept through the day and missed all that hurt but now it was ready and waiting for him, one leg crossed over the other, sitting at the foot of his bed holding a pistol like a Bond villain ready to torment him.

He groaned, rolled over, the sudden humiliation slapping him cold in the face. All those things that Devin had said. How he’d had sex with Kimmy. It was ludicrous though. There was no way on earth he could be telling the truth. Devin was fucking with him. God damn ten years out of high school and that piece of shit still thought it was funny to fuck with some easy-going ‘lesser’ guy. Once an asshole always an asshole. There was just no way what he’d said was true. Kimmy hated Devin and all those guys all through high school. Kimmy was smart. She spoke four languages; before her mat leave she was an immigration lawyer. She didn’t fall for shit. She was cynical and tough with a heart of gold.

Now he was kind of mad. Just the fact that Devin would make a joke like that—make a joke he’d put his hands on Kimmy, let alone put his penis inside her . . . it tightened his stomach into a hard node of anger.

“Mother fucker,” he said to the quiet room. Kimmy got in a fight with Devin, that was it. Politics, for sure. You could see that one a mile away. So things got a little heated, things were said . . . that made sense. Kimmy must’ve got the better of him, and that snide privileged fuck slipped into the tent to poison her husband’s mind and turn him against her. There was no way he asked Devin to sleep with Kimmy. It had never even occurred to him, why would he ask for that?

A worry began to tighten him. It was possible that Devin had also worked some insinuation into Kimmy, or maybe Kimmy’s friends. Taking advantage of their fight, cupping his hand and whispering into everyone else’s ears. What if he told other people that Josh asked him to fuck Kimmy?

Shame reddened his cheeks. The girls at the party surrounding Kimmy this morning, ameliorating, telling him it was just girl stuff and not to worry . . . had Devon told them Josh’d asked him to sleep with Kimmy—was that the cause of the kerfuffle? Did Devin whisper that nonsense in Kimmy’s ear? Amy’s?

“Just girl stuff, Josh . . . ” Amy was nice, and that would be exactly what she would say to him in the wake of some shocking blow-out . . . could that be what Kimmy fought with Devin over? Devin laying a move on her saying Josh wanted him to, and that’s how the fight started? . . . but he had to consider the possibility, however remote, that the lie worked on Kimmy and she’d said, Well, okay, if Josh insists . . . he groaned and chuckled at the idea. Too crazy. Not Kimmy, no way.

Both hands covered his stomach. It growled. He was starving. His right hand lowered, slipped under his briefs, thumb-jabbed the topside of his erection and pushed it downward tenting out the front of his underwear.

Now he pictured being drunk last night, Amy and Kimmy helping him to the tent, stopping for a pee break. Kimmy fishing his dick out and it was hard like this. Unsteady on his feet, Amy supported him, and being a girl and having girl curiosities, even knowing she shouldn’t, she took a peep while Kimmy managed his pee stream. This is what she saw. He peeled back the front of his shorts and looked at what he had. Not bad. No complaints. The idea of Amy taking a peep was so fucking arousing his muscles tightened, his cock throbbing harder with the prospect of being spied by another girl.

But there were better-equipped men like Devin Stone out there. When Devin’d pushed out the front of his sweatpants to fan what he claimed was Kimmy’s sex smell off of his genitals, Josh looked. Other girls, a lot of girls from his high school, had been with that. The thing looked to be twice the size of his own (but that was an illusion, it couldn’t be twice the size). How does one guy get born into money with a face like that, a body like that, and a dick like that? If Josh had been born into it, he was sure he wouldn’t be the toxic piece of shit Devin was. Imagine being with Kimmy and you had all that . . . Imagine being with Kimmy and you had a couple nice cars in the driveway of your couple million dollar house. You made money, everybody was nice to you, wanted to be your friend (or at least kissed your ass), and when you got your sweet Kimmy in bed at night, she couldn’t wait to get on her back and open her legs for you . . . 

The front of his underwear was pushed down his thighs to expose his naked arousal. Still held upright, he examined it. Maybe half of what Devin had in total volume—Devin was thicker and many inches longer. His other hand faffed around on the bed, reached for the night table and retrieved his phone. He pushed it against the dorsal side of his rock hard erection. Not much longer than an iPhone. It was possible Devin could be two iPhones . . . 

He squeezed his thighs together, wondering what it would be like to have that, show it to Kimmy, lay her down and put it inside her . . . 

His hand teased, stroked; he closed his eyes. Now he was thinking about walking in on that fight in the kitchen. Amy saying Hey, you know what, just let Kimmy and Devin work it out . . . what if when Devin lied to Kimmy about her husband’s request, he’d done the same thing he’d done to Josh, exposed his wicked arousal to her. What would Kimmy do seeing that thing? He humped his hand, hating this line of thinking despite the wildness shivering through him while he masturbated. The thought of his wife enraged but turned on hurt his stomach in an unexpected way.

What if Devin wasn’t kidding when he’d said he’d fucked her, and he’d been with Kimmy as Amy walked in . . . in the bathroom, Kimmy up on the counter, Devin trying to put that huge thing inside her and Amy walks in . . . 

It was ludicrous, but he pictured it anyway. Kimmy’s face as that thing went inside her . . . Amy witnessing that . . . 

The hardness in his bladder lessened as his penis began to consider new function. Urination was put on the back burner despite its urgency, and now he was steadily jerking himself under the covers freight-training to an orgasm. He tried to picture in his hand was what Devin had, and his hand was Kimmy’s tight insides as it pushed in and out of her, and Kimmy gasped and cried with pleasure . . . 

“Shit, mm, shit,” he hissed as he came, squeezing himself, thighs pressed together, grunting and bucking and trying to preserve the bedsheets from being dirtied.

The unexpected session left him gasping in the sheets, bewildered at the dark fantasy that had tickled him. Fucking Devin Stone. In his tent this morning, not a dream, but a reality. A devil full of lies, and now his poison worked through his victim’s bloodstream.

Then he was hunched over quick-stepping to their bathroom, cleaning off his hands, wiping himself down, escaping the guilt of what he’d just imagined.

That was wild. Why would that be arousing? And if you thought it was arousing now, was it even the tiniest bit possible while loaded on bourbon he could have presented this idea to perhaps one of the guys he most hated in his entire life? He looked at his reflection in the mirror, the bags under his eyes, the heaviness in his expression. Eyes dipped down, he looked at his meager arousal poked out between his legs, fading from 100% down to 75, and feeling very inadequate. You couldn’t even get her pregnant right.

Shower taps on hot, lever yanked over, he stepped under the shower’s spray.

* * *

What on earth was so arousing about ruining her life? Here she was, back in the bathroom again wearing only a T-shirt, naked from the waist down, sitting on the toilet, calves flexing, feet bent up onto tiptoes, fast but gentle-jacking on her clit. She squinted her eyes, grimaced at the pleasure. Her pussy was alive right now, every touch she delivered racing through her system like greasy electricity.

The toilet tank’s lid clunked and rattled as she humped her own hand, probing two bound fingers inside herself, feeling the slosh of her excitement, the dew in her tangled pelt. Then she gasped a shocked sound as the two fingers mashed on the swollen bulb of her clit again. Her feet cramped; her thighs shook; her ass muscles seized like cables.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she whimpered, hoping the sound was subdued by the humming bathroom fan. Pipes in the wall hummed behind her; Josh was awake, getting into the shower.

Hand slapped over her mouth to stifle her crying, she orgasmed. Her two middle fingers zipped in a blur over her clit, shoulder muscles cramping, tricep muscles bulging, stomach tightened like a cord as the orgasm went on and on.

And when it was done it left her sobbing again.

“What is wrong with me?” she cried into her hands. “Why, why did I do that?”

That was the real question. She hated Devin Stone. Everyone knew it. Now she cried harder, thinking of Josh's broken heart. It would come out. This wasn't a secret. The drive home to Ajax had been her march to the electric chair. Electric truth was going to light up her body soon. Four people knew. By tomorrow what would that number be?