DITW 15-1: Lessons from Kerouac and Caesar (Patreon)

TWELVE MONTHS LATER

Saturday, October 9

Dorchester played their encore, a rousing rendition of Holding Your Heart, around eleven o’clock. Josh and Meyer were out of the Scotiabank Arena, downtown Toronto, and ordering drinks at the Irish Embassy by eleven-twenty. The waitress escorted them to a booth for four looking out onto Yonge Street, Josh telling her they were expecting two more. Meyer ordered them Guinnesses and the waitress asked Meyer what happened to his arm. Meyer lifted his arm, bound in a cast up to his elbow, the curled tips of his puffy fingers sticking out of the end. “You wouldn’t believe it—bear attack. Up north, in the bush, thing came out of nowhere...” He shook his head and his gaze went faraway, expression grave. The waitress was attractive and Meyer tried some charm.

The waitress said, “You’re right—I don’t believe you.” Meyer had got her smiling.

Josh slid into the far side of the booth across from Meyer, leaving room for the other two who were meeting them here.

Meyer looked offended. “You don’t believe me?”

“No, offense,” she said. “You don’t strike me as the bear-fighting type.”

Meyer cocked an eyebrow. “Who said we were fighting?”

That got a laugh out of her, and Meyer relaxed into the bench, smug-smiling. 

Josh said, “Does he look like a man who could fight off a bear or does he look like a man who’d go over the handlebars of a motorcycle?”

The waitress clicked her tongue in her cheek, winking at Josh at  shooting a finger pistol. “Got it.” Then to Meyer: “Hope you were wearing a helmet.”

“What’s the point?” Josh said. “There’s no brains in there to protect.”

Meyer showed him a comical look of scrutiny, and the server laughed again. Now she turned her eye on Josh, flirting with him. Then saw his wedding ring.

“I’ll get you guys some drinks,” the woman said and trotted off, weaving through the packed pub. Josh and Meyer regarded each other then laughed, Josh leaning back on the seat-back and looking up at the pub’s high cathedral ceiling. While it was a pub now, it had long ago been one of the burgeoning city’s very first bank buildings. He fell forward again, putting his elbows on the table and shaking his head.

Meyer reached over the table and punched Josh’s shoulder, flopping back and asking him, “You still feel icky?”

“About what?”

“Taking me out—”

“On a date?”

Meyer’s joy turned to scrutiny once again. “You’re such an idiot.”

“I just took you to see your favorite band for your birthday, two dudes out watching a band like Dorchester.”

“You like Dorchester.”

“Two dudes together seeing Dorchester...? It’s suspect.”

“Come on, we’re cousins.” Then he added with theatrical indecency, “Kissing cousins,” bouncing eyebrows and blowing Josh a kiss.

Josh reacted with improvised glee, receiving the air kiss swooning with a hand held over his heart. He admitted, “Ok, it was a pretty great show.”

“Damn right it was. Dorchester’s the best, buddy.”

Josh eyed over Meyer’s shoulders, looking out the windows to the nighttime street, checking the passing pedestrians for their guests arriving. Dread seized his viscera again and his mind raced for the nearest location of his Lorazepam stashes. He put his hand over his heart again, patting the leather and feeling the hard shape of his prescription bottle poke his chest. Then the fun server was back again, two big Guinnesses on a tray, stooping and offloading them onto their table. She asked them if their company would be here soon, holding the empty tray over her bosom.

“Yeah, any minute,” Meyer told her. “They were at the same show tonight.” He thumbed over his shoulder in the vague direction of the Scotiabank Arena.

“Aw, you guys saw Dorchester?”

Josh sipped his drink, nodding, wiping the stout’s cream from his mustache. “We did.” He pointed at Meyer. “I took this guy for his birthday.”

Meyer waved to him with his broken arm. “Thanks, cuz.”

The server said, “I wish I could have got tickets. I wanted to go so bad.”

“You didn’t miss anything,” Josh said. “They were off tonight.”

Meyer eased the server’s obvious disappointment, telling her the truth. “He’s being nice. They were”—Meyer looked up to the high ceiling, searching for the right word—“Incredible. I mean, absolutely amazing. Best show I’ve seen from any band in a few years.”

Meyer and the server talked back and forth about Dorchester and Josh watched the sidewalk again waiting to recognize one of the faces bobbing by. When the server left to attend to another table, Meyer sipped his stout then wiped the foam from his smile. He said, “So what’s happening next weekend?”

Josh closed his eyes. Meyer prompted him again. “Are you going to go or not?”

Josh grumbled and rubbed his forehead. “You’re going to start asking me this now? They’ll be here any minute.”

“Are you going to go or not?” Meyer acting like it was an easy decision.

“No. I mean, yes,” Josh said, irritation overflowing. “Yes, I am going to go. Not during the day, not when anyone else is there. At night. For dinner.”

Meyer was satisfied, yet bothered. “Why didn’t you tell me already? I mean, like, was that so hard?”

Josh wagged his hands, surrendering, not wanting to talk about it, retreating from the table. Yeah, it was pretty fucking hard, Meyer.

Meyer drank, then sighed. He lowered his gaze and muttered, “Colleen’s like almost a year old.”

“Ah, Jesus,” Josh said, really getting riled, patting his prescription bottle for reassurance. “I fucking know, okay?”

Meyer smiled warmly, sympathetically. This wasn’t the first time they’d been heated over this; it was one of the supporting reasons they went away on the motorcycles.

“What about you? Are you going to go?”

“You know I’m going,” Meyer said. “I’m going for Sophie’s sake. During the day. You can come with me if you want. It might be easier that way.”

Josh shook his head no, then caught a familiar face walking right to left behind Meyer, out on the midnight sidewalk. “They’re here,” he told Meyer, a sign for them to drop the personal talk and get into character.

Meyer’s last words were, “Don’t be an asshole,” and it could apply to the situation next weekend, or the one right now.

Steve and his new girlfriend came into the busy pub through the double doors and looked around. Meyer raised a hand and waved until he had their attention. Steve nodded his chin their way, grinning and putting a hand on his girlfriend’s back, walking her through the throng toward the booth. His girlfriend was a black woman, a Nigerian, which he knew through Steve, back when he wasn’t pissed at him.

Meyer whispered, “Shit, what’s her name again?”

Josh covered his mouth and hissed aside, “Mariam,” then Steve and Mariam were at the table. Meyer patted the seat next to him for Mariam to come sit at his side, standing then shaking Steve’s hand. Josh rose languidly.

Steve said to his girlfriend, “This is Josh. He used to work at Swanson with me.”

Josh half-smiled and shook Mariam’s hand. Mariam had a killer smile; long braids, dazzling eyes, and big thighs.

“Pleased to meet you, Josh,” she said, in an English accent. “Steven talks about you well.”

Steve introduced Meyer as a friend and Josh’s cousin, and they all sat down, Steve beside Josh, Mariam across the table next to Meyer.

First topic of order was the Dorchester show; Steve and Mariam had floor seats, while Josh got him and Meyer lower bowl seats, in the 120s; he was still recovering financially from the road trip while unemployed. Soon the waitress was there, taking their order—four more Guinnesses—and she was back fast, the former flirting now a thing of the past. Something he was sure she did with every table.

When Mariam and Meyer broke off into their own discussion, Josh shrank from the table. Steve listened in to Meyer and Mariam for awhile but soon retreated and offloaded his attention to Josh. Josh and the divide between them. Steve grew sullen for a moment. Took a few sips of his beer. 

Then he brightened and said to Josh, “Hey, man, we really miss you around the shop.”

“That’s good I guess,” Josh said.

“Sure it is. Harjeet talks about you. When you know what’s what, I think a lot of us would want to see you come back. Big time.”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t know about anything anymore.”

“You been looking?”

“For work? No, not yet. . . . I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

There was an long, awkward silence on one side of the table. Meyer and Mariam were yucking it up on the other side, laughing about something. Mariam looked like a real hoot. But she’d renamed Steve “Steven” and that was probably a bad sign. That’s how it started.

Steve blubbered his lips, looking around, and Josh knew it was coming. He’d already forgiven Steve via text. And the whole thing seemed petty in retrospect.

Steve leaned closer, not looking at Josh, saying aside, “I really am sorry, eh?”

“I know. I told you it’s okay.”

“I know. I know you told me. I appreciate that. I mean, listen . . . I’d done it before I even thought about it. You know? As soon as I sent it I sat back and was, like, oh, maybe that wasn’t a good idea.”

“I get it,” Josh said and sipped his Guinness.

Steve waited for Josh to look over, then said, “I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I mean it.”

“I know,” Josh said, slimming his lips and nodding like a madman, not wanting to talk about it, not wanting it in his mind anymore.

Mariam had their attention now, saying “That must have been an amazing trip,” Meyer nodding alongside her, enjoying her company. Meyer agreed it was. 

Josh said yeah, it was a great trip, then in the silence after, felt awkward enough to elaborate. “It was good for both of us,” looking to Meyer.

Steve said to Mariam, “They have an apartment together.” Her eyes flicked to Josh’s wedding ring, and he instinctively put his hand over it.

“Yeah,” Meyer said, “but we just cleared our schedules and hit the road on some dirt bikes for two weeks. Trails and the wild, all the way down to South America.”

Steve said, “British Columbia to Argentina.”

Meyer nodded more and Josh’s heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. He touched the prescription bottle like an addict. He muttered, “Yup, two weeks.”

Or at least it was supposed to be two weeks.

He wanted to blurt that out. Say to Mariam, well, it was supposed to be two weeks but your stupid boyfriend sent me that goddamn picture. The one Meyer now called the $14,000 photograph.

Bad luck. Bad juju. A transcontinental curse sent via local and international networks; a jinxy data packet opened on a phone five-thousand miles from home. It had ruined the trip. Meyer blamed his broken arm on Steve’s ill-conceived forwarding of that photo he’d seen in the news. Not the news; the Lifestyle section. Ooh-la-fucking-la.

“Hey, you excuse me for a sec?” Josh nudged Steve to let him out of the booth and told everyone he was going to the can. He had a Lorazepam shaken into his palm by the time he shouldered open the men’s room door, situating it under his tongue where it would dissolve in about five minutes. Twenty minutes from now he’d feel it kick in. A Lorazepam, two Guinnesses, maybe three, maybe four, plus whiskey shots for the table, and maybe then he could smile for Steve and Mariam. Mariam. Mariam from Nigeria. Maybe two years ago in another more peaceable universe, a lawyer he knew had helped Mariam immigrate to Canada.

He emptied his bladder into the urinal, jabbed the old style flusher with his leather elbow and went to the mirror. His fucking reflection was awful. Dark circles under watery eyes, long hair, beard. Gaunt. A Bohemian benzo addict and drunk with a broken heart. 

Goddamn that fucking beautiful picture of Kimmy.





DITW 15-2: Panic Attacks in Rome (Patreon)
That fucking picture.

The picture that swooped in from out of nowhere. No warning he would receive it, and no warning that the photo’s content could even be a possibility.

He could see it in his mind’s eye as he stared up at the ceiling in the hotel room he’d booked for Meyer’s birthday. He could see it with his eyes closed, too. So he lay sleepless and staring, hands behind his head, gawping at ghosts floating above him on the eggshell white ceiling cum movie screen while Meyer snored hard enough to swallow his own tongue. The the way things were. The way they were now. All that could have been. All that could be.

Kimmy Chang. Her name right in the newspaper. Print edition. Saturday special. Not Kimmy Waters. Kimmy Chang. Six-foot tall supermodel Kimmy Chang in a Santorini-blue satin dress, big V cutout on the chest, straps over lean shoulders, her little titties cupped in the shimmering blue bustier, the photographer’s light casting shadows in the cups and edges of her collarbones and long, swanlike neck. Hair pulled back. Her glistening skin. Pampered. She looked pampered.

And that fucking million-dollar smile?

He brought his knees together in a clamp and crunched his stomach against the existential pain coursing through his veins, his heart just a pulsatile pain machine, sending hurt-poison into every part of his being. 

Why did it fucking hurt so much?

Because she was yours, dipshit. She was yours and now she’s not.

How bad would this night be without the benzo and the beer and the Irish good-stuff? Insufferable. Insupportable.

Five miles outside Cabo, ten o’clock at night, exhausted after an amazing day blatting across the baked landscape and he’s getting into his tent, ready for forty winks, but wanted to check his messages. What a mistake. A message from Steve.

The fucking man Kimmy was with in the picture. How? Like really, fucking how?

Thank god for Lorazepam. Thank god for tonight’s drinks. The hurt and dread were rarer now. And thank god for Meyer. Thank god for the times with Sophie when she’d stay with him and Meyer.

Sophie insinuated there were nights where Aunt Kimmy cried and closed herself in Hyun’s bedroom. It was clear Sophie didn’t want to spill the beans, that someone, probably Kimmy, had told Sophie not to talk about it. Kimmy was gone from Stone. She hadn’t lied about that.

Josh growled from sleepless frustration and whipped down the covers, laying bare-chested in the nighttime city light. His mind raced, but at least the fight or flight only simmered under the wonderful wooly weight of the benzo. His hand searched to the side table, looking for the familiar shape of his phone, Meyer sputtering away in the next bed over. Swiped open, right to screenshots he’d snapped of the texts with Kimmy from back in the day. Wonderful little snippets of things she’d texted him in her departure’s aftermath. Statements he’d often ponder.  

The time he’d first heard Sophie drop a vague remark about her Aunt Kimmy crying, he’d texted Kimmy, and, not wanting to rat out his adorable little niece as a tattle-tale, he’d offered up the blanket reminder that no matter what had happened between them, he would always be there for her. He’d told her that if she ever needed help he would do whatever he could to make things right for her.

She’d texted him back.

Kimmy: Stay away, Josh. I hope it won’t be forever. But it should be for a while. I want to earn you back.

Yeah, right. She wanted to earn him back. Uh-huh.

One time she’d texted she was irredeemable. Another time she texted she wanted redemption.

And poor Sophie. Sophie told not to talk about Kimmy’s mental state, Kimmy with no job, all alone, then moved in with Hyun—just like he knew she would. Sophie saying cryptic things around her other-week men because she wanted reassurance from her dad and from her Uncle Josh that everything would be okay with her Aunt Kimmy. Then total radio silence from Kimmy. Sophie said Kimmy wasn’t living with Hyun anymore, she’d got an apartment downtown. He’d texted her. In those weeks, Kimmy had been a mess. Emotional and sensitive. Their text-based convos were sometimes heated. He could tell she was afraid. He encouraged her to get professional help, but he didn’t think she ever went. 

Josh: I don’t want to find any happiness in your suffering.

Kimmy: I deserve it.

Then more radio silence. Longer. But who gave a fuck? By then he was in Rome and crushing it. At least for a while he was. Then came the times where it was difficult to swallow. He’d passed it off as an infection. Then he was home, and—hell, yeah—he dated. 

“Fuck,” he sighed, wishing he could just sleep. Instead, he was huddled under the cover to block out the light of his phone so he wouldn’t disrupt Meyer’s snoring.

Yeah, that was what set it off. It wasn’t an infection, it was his whole body tightening with a fight-or-flight response. Smack dab in the middle of the day he’d have these attacks where his body was convinced fucking Michael Myers was tracking him down with a machete. He’d be at work shitting-his-pants afraid, hands shaking, guts twisting, but with no reason. The reason took some time to figure out. It wasn’t an irrational fear of fictional Michael Myers and his machete, it was Devlin Stone with his erect horse cock. 

But that was still irrational.

And in time, he also came to understand that it wasn’t even Devlin anymore. It was Kimmy. It was lies and it was betrayal.

It was too much.

When Kimmy was giving birth to Colleen at St. Joseph’s in the city, he was seven-thousand clicks away curled up on a Rome hotel room floor, heart racing out of control. He was far from home, all alone, scared out of his mind by imaginary threats. He’d even gone mute. Gabrielle knocked on his door in the morning, tried to help him present himself, but he couldn’t even talk. She said, “You’re a dad, Josh.” Gabrielle had sent flowers to Kimmy in his name.

“Turn off your phone, dickhead.”

The snoring had stopped and Meyer saw he was pining, as Meyer called it. It wasn’t pining. Who knew what you would call it. For fun one time, he’d plotted revenge. Other times he swore he’d move on, that living a grand life would be the best revenge. But that kind of serenity took months of sifting to find at last. “I was checking the weather,” he said, slipping the cover down, turning his phone off and returning it to the side table.

“Stop picking at scabs.”

He said, “Stop fucking snoring. How about that?”

“I wasn’t snoring.” Meyer rolled over to face the wall.

Josh chuckled and tried closing his eyes again, seeking sleep.

Yeah, he would go next week. Hard as it was, he would go. If only just to show Kimmy he didn’t care about her anymore. Nothing she could do now would ever hurt him. He would find enormous glory in seeing her rendered powerless over him. The thought of her trying and failing raced his heart and even brought a little smile that tickled his lips with bristly beard hair. He rubbed a hand down his facial pelt. It should go. The beard should be shorn before his visit. Although Kimmy should see him as a stranger to who she knew, a man who’d moved on—and he was. Sometimes. Other times, like when you were having a blast in Mexico and some fucking guy you used to work with shoots you a picture of your wife at some gala on another man’s arm, maybe not so much. 

And what about the showstopper, Joshy, my boy? What about the one thing in that picture—despite how hot your wife looked in it—that stole all your attention?

He rolled his head on the crisp hotel pillow, some despondency leaking through the Lorazepam’s armor. His eyes opened and roamed the room’s gray stillness.

Say it.

He mouthed the words: “She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring.”

  * 

Meyer said, “If I showed up at work with the guys I work with, and I got a hundred dollar haircut...? Jesus fucking Christ, Josh, the nicknames...? The abuse I would receive? I’d rather have a hundred dollars and my dignity. You go ahead, though. You were always the pretty one.”

Josh elbowed him surreptitiously, two men almost thirty acting like a couple of teenagers in this upscale city salon with it’s marble floors and haughty reception and ten-foot ceilings.

“I told you, I just want to get cleaned up.”

“You can get cleaned up at a barber in Ajax. Barber’s like fifteen-twenty bucks.”

“I’m not making you get one.”

“Buy me one. For my birthday.”

“I spent almost a thousand dollars on your birthday already.”

Meyer nodded his chin, “Hey, here’s your guy,” both of them regarding now a tall dude, a stylish Filipino wearing an undershirt and a skirt, combat boots, hoop earrings and an Errol Flynn mustache. The guy said, “Where’s Josh?”

“That’s me.”

Rory was his hairdresser, a funny and charming guy, and real earnest about Josh’s look.

“This jacket is amazing,” Rory said, running fingers on the wicked vintage motocross jacket he’d bought at a flea market in Pickering. Beaten to shit for decades and still dusty from Mexico, he’d hung it up behind his salon chair, not wanting to leave it in the lobby, even with Meyer watching. Then Rory was running fingers through Josh’s hair, checking out the length, wondering what he would do with such a mess.

Josh said, “I want it all gone. I’m going back to work soon.”

“What do you do?”

“Ah, just an executive.”

“You look like a writer. Or an artist, maybe.”

“Nah. Spreadsheets and projections,” he said, then regretted it, preferring to live in Rory’s imagination of who he was. That sounded like a much better Josh. “I want a good presentable haircut for work. Take off the beard, too.”

Rory looked perplexed, running his nails through Josh’s beard, watching in the mirror, then stooping to get eyes on the actual thing. “You have a great suntan.”

“Thanks.”

“Were you on vacation? Where did you go?”

“Kind of a vacation. A guy’s trip. We rode enduro bikes down to Cabo San Lucas.”

Rory had stood up to lift a sprayer but wheeled when he heard about the bikes. “Really? Amazing. How many?”

“Guys?” Josh shrugged. “A dozen of us.”

Rory’s eyebrows kept creeping up, wowed by this tale of transcontinental two-wheel glory. Then he was close again, standing behind him, touching his hair and his beard. “You look good like this. It suits you.”

“It does?”

Hands on beard again. “If I take the beard I’m afraid your cheeks will be white.”

“Ew. That’s not good.”

Rory began spraying Josh’s hair, getting it wet, combing it, studying it.

Josh played with his wedding ring, looking at his reflection, seeing his face again with his hair combed back. The beard looked good. And, frankly, the weight loss looked good, too.

A writer. Or an artist, maybe.

He said, “I want to look good. I haven’t seen someone in a long time.”

Rory loved the story’s presentation. Engaged right away. “Oh, who is it?”

A long beat. “My wife.”

Rory looked puzzled.

“Yeah. Crazy, huh? I haven’t seen her in a year.”

Rory clipped a little, lost in thought, trying to figure the best way to ask a whole series of questions. “Why are you seeing her now?”

“She’s moved on, Rory. Moved on. Bought herself a house.”

Rory stopped clipping and put a hand on his hip. “A house. Bought herself a house?”

“I suppose it’s our money, but, yeah, we haven’t really figured that out yet. We have a kid.”

Rory went back to clipping. “This is getting complicated.”

“Tell me about it.”

More clipping, Rory formulating the best approach to get more info from him and maintain the natural charm he had.

“You’re right about that, though,” Josh said, seeing his face emerging, getting tidied but keeping the roguish raconteur with a broken heart who’d rode a motorcycle from Vancouver to Mexico and watched the sun set in Baja drinking a Corona, sun on his brow and cheeks.

“Right about what?”

“I look good like this. It suits me.”










DITW 15-3: Chargogagogmanchogagogcharbunagunggamog (Patreon)

The benzo sank in and removed his dread on the Unionville Main Street. The Qashqai’s nav screen showed a right turn was imminent.

Fucking Unionville. That’s where she bought a house. Quaint, historical; ancient trees with the yellowed fall leaves. White picket fences, brick Victorian houses, lawns, porches. Like a fuckin’ Lifetime movie set. Unreal. He drove north on Main from 7, leaves fluttering, flashing their bright color on a sunny October day. So many times he and Kimmy had come here to eat lunch, back when they were young, happy, and in love. It was their Gilmore Girls era, when they binged the show and realized Stars Hollow wasn’t really in Connecticut, it was a short drive from Ajax to the historic village in Unionville.

He turned right after passing the United church with it’s tall gray spire, heading down a side street off Main, a quiet cul-de-sac shy of the village. And then, there it was. Kimmy’s house. A farm-style with wraparound porch; a cute Victorian with bay windows and dove-colored siding, cedar shakes up on the gables, the whole plot buffered with yellow maple canopy, gardens, and fat, billowy shrubs only beginning to go bare for the winter.

Two million dollars, easy. More. Ten grand a year in property taxes. One of the nicest main streets in all of the Toronto region. Maybe all of Ontario. The best of schools, the best of restaurants and activities and cafes and little shops. Beautiful. Heart-sinkingly beautiful. If she hadn’t fucked Devlin, if she hadn’t bought those ridiculous clothes and the shoes and that suit for him, if, if, if... This house was better than anything they’d dreamed of.

But then, there was the man in the photo.

A young guy in black pants and white shirt was closing up a Sprinter van in the driveway, the catering company packed up and ready to go. Josh left room for the truck to head out before he drove into the driveway and took the spot. He wondered if Meyer had enjoyed the food. Since he’d set his phone to Airplane, he wouldn’t know. He didn’t want Meyer in his head before he began the hardest moment of his life. Meyer could say the wrong thing and he might take off out of here so fast he’d leave black streaks on Kimmy’s driveway.

It had been too long. Way too long. There was a baby involved and that baby just might be his.

With that, he grabbed the little gift bag from his passenger seat and stretched a leg out of the car. Rose then to stand, but hated the colorful gift bag. He removed the gifts and tucked them inside his motocross jacket instead.

The front door seemed a mile away.

  *

Thank god it was Sophie who answered the door.

“Hey, kid. Long time no see.”

“Uncle Josh!” Sophie grabbed his hand. “Come and see my room.” He wasn’t even in the foyer yet and Sophie was amped. He felt a sick jealousy that it was Kimmy who’d provided her with a living space so exciting she acted this way. Usually the little girl was a little more reserved.

“Did you eat all the desserts or something?” he joked, stumbling into the foyer. A vacuum ran somewhere deeper inside the house.

And what a house.

“Wow,” he whispered, mouth tucked in a glum line. The place was sleek despite the historical aspect; minimalist, maple flooring, ochre-painted walls, modern furniture.

“You have to take your boots off, Uncle Josh,” Sophie instructed him, showing him by pointing to an assembly of fine footwear along the wall. Sophie was all dressed up for today’s event. Someone had done her hair up in a pretty style, cute little pigtails. She wore a black dress and white socks and black slippers.

As he leaned on the wall and toed off his boots, Sophie poked him in his fat stomach. “What’s in there?”

Not a fat stomach, it was the gifts he’d brought. He told her, “Gifts, Sophie.”

“For me?”

“I get you gifts all the time,” he said and booped her nose.

“Okay,” she said, grabbing his hand again now that his boots were off. “Come and see my room.”

A far too familiar voice from a side room adjoining the hall beyond the foyer: “Give him a minute, Sophie.” Kimmy Chang, calm and assured; instructive.

Josh looked to the left and saw her. The sight was like a jab in the stomach.

Kimmy stood in the center of a home office; tall and impossibly thin; glamorous yet subdued. Fucking beautiful face with those dark, sly eyes, her hair pulled back. She dressed all in black; black skirt, black turtleneck, long thin legs clad in black leggings.

They stared but didn’t speak. Neither showed an expression.

Kimmy said to Sophie, “Let him sit. After we’re done you can take him to show him your room.”

“Okay,” Sophie said, slump-shouldered and dispirited. But there was another little girl her Uncle Josh was here to see today.

“I can’t wait to see your room,” Josh said, placing a hand on Sophie’s tiny shoulder.

God, she was such a good little girl; all Meyer’s, a human his stupid-ass cousin could live his life for.

Sophie showed him a goofy grin and then she was trotting off deeper into the house, headed toward wherever the vacuum was working.

Then there were two.

And he wished the vacuum would shut the fuck up.

Kimmy crossed her arms over her slender chest, and for the first time ever he felt robbed of seeing her carrying a child; seeing her long frame host another being planted deep inside her, her belly expanding into a taut melon ready to crack its rind as it ripened. When she’d lost their baby in the spring she’d had the smallest paunch. He longed for those days of harrowing failure when everything was so simple because there were only the two of them. Maybe a deep-planted seed had better opportunity to grow.

He stopped the dread. His hands sweated, turned to fists, and his teeth squeaked as he clenched his jaw against betrayal and hurt and the sharpest knife anyone had sunk into him.

Kimmy raised her chin, eyeing him. “I’m so happy you came, Josh.”

He nodded, looked around, not knowing what to do with himself. It would be so fucking easy to toss his gifts for this baby that was supposed to be his onto the desk with the computer, then skedaddle the fuck out of here, get the fuck out of hoity-toity Unionville, blast home and get into sweatpants, play some Xbox with Meyer and order a pizza. Just check the fuck out.

He sighed like a man enduring a hardship. “How was your housewarming?”

Kimmy nodded, appraising her afternoon. “It was good. Thank you.”

“All your renos done on time?”

Kimmy looked around the room, shrugging. “It went well, Josh. And, yes, we got everything done on time.”

“Sophie tells me what’s going on.”

Kimmy smiled and the sight hurt his heart. He didn’t show it. “I know she does.”

But now he stood silent, not wanting to compliment her on her new house, not wanting to give her any satisfaction for moving on so well without him.

Kimmy’s smile faded, and she assumed a more serious expression. “This is a big day.”

“I know,” he said. It had nothing to do with the house, it had everything to do with a tiny human who Kimmy hosted in her belly for a little over nine months. His hand slipped inside his leather jacket and pulled out his present. He waggled it for Kimmy.

The sight of the teddy bear made her smile and her eyes went glossy. She approached him and he fought the urge to run out of the house. She took the teddy bear and looked it over.

“Alpaca,” he said. “It’s made from alpaca fur. He’s wearing a, a charro outfit. A horse rider. I bought it in Baja.”

Kimmy held it to her chest, smiling, eyes looking sad and watery, tucking down her chin to clamp the big teddy bear to her. “It’s perfect, Josh,” she said.

He slipped a hand into his jacket and produced another item: a handmade maraca.

Kimmy took it, the beans shaking inside the shell and producing the familiar sound. Kimmy shook her head, trying to clear the sadness from her eyes. “Great, Josh,” she said, overwhelmed, passing them back to him. “You can give them to her yourself.”

And suddenly it got very hard to breathe. His knees jellied and the room wobbled. Kimmy passed the gifts back to him and he tucked them back into his jacket. Maybe eh wouldn’t even take the jacket off. Maybe he would just do this part and then leave. The knot bloomed in his throat again and he couldn’t swallow. No words came and all he could do was nod.

Kimmy frowned and held his upper arm. “Are you okay?”

His body seized and he was hyper-aware of her hand on him. “Fine,” he said, tight and hard, but it was better than muteness.

“I’m really glad you came,” she said and let her hand fall from his arm.

Josh pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering, “It’s like a dream. I feel... I feel like I’m dreaming.”

“Come to the kitchen. We can get you some water.”

He shook his head and took a deep breath, hating the dread and anxiety robbing him of masculinity in this powerful moment. 

“Come with me,” Kimmy said, walking past him, smiling kindly, still hugging herself, padding the hardwood hallway of her home in slipper-feet. The vacuum was off now, and when they entered the kitchen Hyun was there with Sophie. Sophie was sliding the vacuum into a broom closet, Hyun wore yellow rubber gloves, wiping down the counters. Her eyes dashed up to meet his.

And he recognized the look on hyun’s face. It was the expression he’d seen when he looked at his mirror reflection in a hotel room in Rome, wondering what the fuck was wrong with him. Dread, fear, worry. He was no threat to Hyun. Unless...

He and Meyer had joked together late at night playing video games having a few brewskis, saying how Kimmy and Hyun made a good couple. They would keep a good house, they’d joke. Meyer would never say it outright but would always insinuate that Hyun had a crush on Kimmy. They would laugh at their own predicament, saying those two women of ours running an efficient household and here’s you and me—and then they would snicker about the state of their apartment with the beer cans and the pizza boxes and the game controllers and remote controls. But now it was really happening.

And here was the deadbeat dad, come to be the hero; Hyun was the one who stayed with Colleen during the day when Kimmy went to work. In Hyun’s eyes the once valorous young man married to Kimmy had been reduced to a bum. And maybe a threat.

He nodded in recognition, wanly smiling. “Hi, Hyun.”

Hyun smiled like all was well. “Hi, Josh. So glad you made it.”

Kimmy asked Hyun to get him a glass of water, but Sophie interjected. “I’ll get it!” All three watched Sophie get a glass from a cupboard using a chair, then going to the fridge’s water dispenser to fill it. She brought it around the island, saying, “Can I make Uncle Josh my ice cream for dessert?”

Kimmy smiled, watching Sophie, her face downturned, the long tendon in her neck standing out against her tawny skin. He knew what it felt like to kiss her there.

Hyun said, “She has an ice cream maker.”

Josh accepted the glass Sophie handed him, surprised now to feel the dread had eased. He smiled too, saying, “She’s told me all about the ice cream maker.”

Kimmy held Sophie against her side, rubbing her shoulder. “I’ve also told her a hundred times today she can make you ice cream.”

Sophie said, “Maple and coffee and walnut. All your favorites.”

Josh sipped the water, then drank half the glass all at once. He put the glass on the island counter. “I can’t wait, Sophie.”

Kimmy said, “Do you want something else? Something stronger? I think the caterer left some beer.” She looked to Hyun and Hyun made like she was ready to go check if Josh wished it.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, feeling guilty his wife thought he might want alcohol to get him through this monumental moment. “No, I don’t need beer.”

Kimmy looked around, no one else saying anything. “Okay. Come sit in the other room with me, Josh.”

She left Sophie, turned and headed out the other side of the kitchen, to a large family room at the back of the house that looked out over the small backyard. The lawn was mowed, the gardens clipped and trimmed; someone had bundled up the more vulnerable trees with burlap to protect them from the oncoming winter. 

Kimmy gestured to a spotless ivory leather couch and he sat down in the corner. Kimmy sat catty corner in a matching padded chair.

Josh’s heart pounded a hundred miles an hour. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his knees. “I should have come before.”

“It’s okay, Josh,” Kimmy said. “You should have. But you’re here now.”

He took a few breaths to steady himself, proud of the strength he conjured to endure this moment.

Kimmy said, “Do you think you’re ready?”

He nodded.

Kimmy reached over and held his hand. Her touch was warm and gentle and he felt his eyes swell with emotion. He looked down to regard their combined hands and noticed for the first time since he arrived that she wore her wedding ring. He thumbed it. Held her hand a little tighter.

Kimmy called out to Hyun over her shoulder. “Hyun, can you bring in Colleen?”








DITW 15-4: Colleen (Patreon)
While they waited for Hyun to return with the baby, Kimmy got up and crossed the room. For a moment he feared she would leave through the room’s other doorway, but instead she fetched a box of tissue and returned to place it on the table at his side.

A door squeaked, a knock sounding down the hall, and an enormous jangle of fear and dread had him shaking in the couch. Those sounds were Hyun collecting the baby to bring to him. His baby, Kimmy claimed. She’d sent him pictures and he’d looked at them and he’d put them in a folder on his phone and never looked at them again. It had been this way for months. Now the time was here. The urge to flee never came. It was a blessing.

Out in the hall a shadow passed across the wall and he drew in a deep, preparatory breath. 

This was really happening.

And then Hyun filled the doorway, passing into the family room at the back of Kimmy’s new house, holding a blanket-bundled baby at her chest. He wiped his eyes with his knuckles and waited.

Hyun passed the baby into Kimmy’s arms and Kimmy—god damn it, motherly Kimmy, holding a baby—held Colleen for a moment, waiting for Hyun to leave. “Thank you, Hyun,” she said aside, and Hyun nodded as she left, though Kimmy didn’t see it.

With the baby in her arms, Kimmy brushed the curled fold of a blanket away from the baby’s sleeping face so Josh could see her. Kimmy smiled and he could see the pride she held for this thing she’d created. Maybe with another man.

“She’s Colleen,” Kimmy said. “Colleen Waters.”

Josh had to pull away; emotion soared through him like a katabatic wind cutting through a canyon. When he looked away, all he saw was the pale puff of a readied tissue; he snatched it from the box and pushed it into his eyes.

Kimmy said, “I want you to hold her.”

He moaned in his throat, cleared his eyes, returned his gaze to Kimmy and Colleen. Kimmy rose and stepped closer, stooping to present him with his daughter. He accepted the bundle, tears blinking in his eyelashes, his back heaving with hidden sobs. He gritted his teeth and looked at the baby through wet-warbled eyes.

She was just a tiny innocent thing; eyes closed to the world, unknowing of her own existence and place in the world. Her slim lips were pursed into a pinky little turtle’s beak. His hands trembled with her feathery weight in them. 

Then he jumped when Kimmy touched him. She stroked his hair above his ear, then ran the backs of her fingers down his bearded cheek. “I’m going to leave you alone for a few minutes with your daughter. Is that okay?”

It was hard to speak, but he managed to squeak out a thank-you.

Kimmy turned and left the room, pausing at the door for one more moment. He turned his attention to Colleen. Colleen Waters.

  *

The last image of Josh as she left the room would stay with her forever. Josh with Colleen on his lap, the sun on the garden behind them, Josh’s tender pose. It would be a beautiful image to memorialize. But she had to leave him, had to give him time with Colleen.

A few steps down the hall, she paused, frozen in place, suspended in a neutral zone where two poles tugged in opposites, wanting to return and witness Colleen reveal truths to her father, knowing she would let him have his moment without her adulteration, and that Hyun would convey her to the kitchen.

She crossed hands over her chest, leaning her back on the wall, listening for any sounds from Josh. She hugged herself tighter, rolling away, hurting nipples crushed under her forearms.

Before the kitchen, she straightened her clothing, checked her reflection in the hallway mirror, then padded into the kitchen. Hyun stood at the fridge with the door open, eyes blank, unmoving.

“Where’s Sophie?”

Hyun blinked and stepped back to close the fridge door. “She’s reading.”

Both of them looked around the kitchen, the moment bloated and uncertain. Kimmy went to Hyun and Hyun leaned into her. She folded arms around Hyun and Hyun rested her cheek on Kimmy’s collar. She held her in silence, soon swaying with her in comfort.

Hyun said, “He looks good.”

Kimmy nodded and rested her chin point on the crown of Hyun’s head.

  *

Fragrant, blissful and blameless.

The baby woke in slow increments, sensing a disturbance in its familiar world. Eyes twitching, nose wrinkling, the mouth opened and closed. Colleen was a perfect thing. Red-faced and curious, comically perturbed, hands moving under the blanket. He parted the folds and she raised little moving fists.

And then the eyes. God, the eyes!

Colleen woke and regarded him with kind eyes the color of dark honey.

“Oh my god. Oh my god,” he whispered. His mother’s eyes.

A wild vertigo swooned his brumy mind, breath and heartbeat stolen from him.

Then it returned all at once, the vertigo gone and replaced with sudden, infinite resolution. His heart pounded the strangest joy he’d ever felt in his entire existence. His temples sounded off like booming taiko drums; he chugged sweet air. Held Colleen close to him, felt her skin on his cheek.

But she gripped a tiny fistful of beard hair.

“Ow, ow,” he said, chuckling, holding her tighter.

God, she smelled like blueberries.

Her lips smacked near his ear. She mewled. He kissed her brow, held her back to regard her again. And she regarded him. Those familiar eyes looked deep into him, and he opened the door wider, wanting her to step inside.

“I wasn’t ready,” he pleaded, tears on his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Colleen. I’m so, so sorry.”

Colleen’s face scrunched up, she blinked, and looked like she would cry but changed her mind. She squirmed and grunted, little hand out and searching. He gave her his finger and she squeezed.

  *

Fifteen minutes ticked by at the same mucky pace the last seven months passed. Every second battened on dread and drama. 

Fifteen minutes would be enough time. Enough time for Josh to look at Colleen and make his decision. He could run. But maybe he would stay.

The sun was setting off in the west, the sunny sky high above the trees shading a deep starry blue, the horizon washed in the color of lemon-cream. She’d changed clothes. She’d got comfortable. Now in her bedroom she moisturized her wrists and hands and stared at the sky.

Satin robe, satin pants, buttoned shirt.

Fifteen minutes passed and she closed the blinds and headed downstairs.

  *

Colleen craned her head to the side to see her mother coming in.

“She’s here,” Josh whispered. He thumbed Colleen’s soft cheek, and brushed her wispy fair-haired lock away from her brow. Fair-haired!

Kimmy had changed. Standing now like she was ready for bed; satin pajamas, an expensive robe that swept the floor. Her makeup had been cleaned away, her hair untied and hanging around her shoulders. The expression on her face showed a sickly anxiousness, and she shuffled around to the leather chair again. She sat down without making a sound, her eyes falling on him, roaming the sight of him holding their daughter. She rested a cheek in her hand, looking tired and drawn.

He returned his attention to Colleen, bouncing her in his lap, still humming away with syrupy relief, a rumble in his chest. Colleen’s weight in his hands tingled his fingertips like magic.

Kimmy said, “I have the paperwork.”

He didn’t think she’d meant for that to sting, but it did. His assumption was the paperwork she referred to would be a paternity test, and it was a reminder he’d been away from his own daughter her whole life and it was his own decision.

A decision forged in heartbreak and fear.

He shook his head and stroked a thumb on Colleen’s delicate brow. She became disgruntled, scrunching her face up and showing her toothless grimace.

“I don’t need the paperwork,” he said.

Kimmy was silent, and Colleen mewled. Kimmy leaned to the side and snatched a tissue. He looked up and saw she was crying. She covered her eyes with a hand balling the tissue. “I have proof. That’s all. I have proof.”

“I don’t want to see it,” he muttered, eyes turning down to his daughter. Maybe if Kimmy had showed him proof he’d have been here sooner. “You could have told me.”

Colleen squealed and bawled now, hands reaching up in the air, her red face reddening. She had a delicate cry. 

“I think she wants her mother,” he said, offering the swaddled bundle back to Kimmy.

“She’s probably just hungry,” Kimmy said, slipping off the seat and taking Colleen in her arms. Josh took the chance to get a fresh tissue for his own eyes. Kimmy returned to the deep cushioned chair and reclined this time. She soothed Colleen, bouncing her gently in her arms, shushing her with gentle whispering. She unbuttoned her satin pajama shirt. “You don’t mind?”

He shook his head no, hypnotized by the sight of his wife this way. Nothing like how she was when they parted. Yet she was the same woman.

Kimmy parted the shirt, Colleen complaining. Her bared breast was plumped, tumid, the nipple changed, swollen in size for its new function. He should have looked away, but he didn’t. Colleen searched and found the nipple, and the crying ceased as she fed from Kimmy. The only sound now was the wet suction of his beautiful daughter nursing from her beautiful mother.

Kimmy whimpered with the discomfort from Colleen’s need, her expression tightening. Yet her eyes stayed on Colleen, watching her with love. After a long mesmerizing moment, Kimmy turned her face to his. “I could have told you. But I . . . I would have robbed you of this moment. I wanted you to see it with your own eyes, unswayed by anything I might tell you beforehand.”

Shame burned his cheeks and he knew he’d gone as red as Colleen’s little face. “I should have come already.”

“No, Josh. Whatever time you needed, you took it. I don’t blame you. I wished you were here, but you weren’t. You’re here now.”

He nodded, wiping his eyes with the tissue. “She has my . . . Has my mother’s eyes.”

Kimmy smiled, regarding Colleen, still suckling. “She has beautiful eyes.”

He reclined in the couch, that golden moment of time he’d just spent with a life he created beginning to lose it glow, the emotion fading; fading or pushed away by the horrors of the past; all the bad that brought them to this solitary quasar of possibilities, a man with a wife and daughter, a wife with another man, a home. A whole life that had moved on without him in it. He stared at the ceiling listening to the bizarre sound of his daughter suckling from her mother, feeling a thousand miles distant from the point in time he most identified with: the time his wife betrayed him and lied to him and cheated on him, tormented him and sought his destruction. His heart increased with rapid weight and he felt himself wanting to sink through the couch, into the basement if Kimmy’s house had one, down into the realms below where torment such as this was normal.

Kimmy said, “Are you ready for some dinner?”

He thought she’d said it to Colleen, but he tilted his head downward, seeing his daughter satiated, eyes closed again, peaceful, Kimmy’s shirt closed over her bare breast but not buttoned.

He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. We should . . . We should talk.”

















DITW 15-5: Twelve Crops of Fruit (Patreon)

Josh asked her if it was them dining alone and she told him it was.

“We need to talk,” she said.

Josh agreed with her. “Right. We do.”

Hyun had set the table for them. A place setting for two, Kimmy at the head of the table, Josh’s place setting at her side. The sun set fast in October, and while it was early, the brighter outside light had faded from the windows, leaving the dull reflective squares in the color of unwashed denim.

She had never been more nervous in her life. Josh sat at her new dining room table, a long washed-oak handcrafted table she and Hyun had bought in Guelph and had delivered. Josh.

A man it had taken a whole year to prepare for. So much had to be in place before she would ever be able to receive Josh as a guest in her home. Really, in their home. She had used their money as a down payment and Josh had never even asked her why the money was gone.

The beard was an amazing contribution. Josh hid behind it (and she had no idea his beard would be so thick), but also projected a masculinity that surprised her.

Their dinner was a buffet style, the servings presented under covers on the table’s center, congregated to one end. She removed the closest lid covering the pottery casserole dish, saying, “I made dumplings.”

She watched Josh’s thickly bearded face, looking for a smile. He showed a reluctant one, a mildly pleasant curve restrained by pain.

“You love them,” she reminded him.

“I know I do,” he said. “That’s why I’m smiling. I do love them. I always did.”

She closed the lid and dipped her chin. “Hyun made them. I was . . . I was in Cambodia for the whole last week.”

Josh looked away. She saw the strange injury her husband suffered from her proxy-made dumplings and reached out to hold his wrist, showed him her most earnest expression describing the demanding week she’d just endured. “I wanted to make them for you, but I couldn’t. It’s my recipe. My mother’s.”

“I don’t mind that, it’s . . . Dumplings are the last thing we need to talk about, don’t you think?”

Her hand slipped from his wrist and she sat back in the chair. “We have a lot to talk about. There’s Colleen...”

Josh’s mouth tweaked to one side, the sign of a smile. She leaned forward again and touched his arm, rested her hand on it. She smiled as well, so deeply relieved that Josh accepted his daughter. Saw that she was his daughter with no extracurricular convincing.

Josh turned her way. “It’s a beautiful name, Kimmy. You must be happy about it.”

While not intended as an insult, there was a twist in what he’d said, one revealed in his tone; an unthreatening snideness. “Yes,” she admitted. “Eileen . . . Eileen had a baby boy. Andrew. He’s gorgeous.” Colleen was their mother’s name. If Eileen had given birth to a girl, Eileen would have been the one who named their daughter after their mother. She’d got there first.

Josh lifted the lid on the casserole dish and loaded two dumplings onto his plate. “You’re good at getting what you want.”

“Just luck, Josh,” she said, hurt by his barb. Benign as it was, Josh still had shields up, wanting to resist her. Maybe still hating her.

Josh bit into Hyun’s dumpling. “Someone’s looking out for you, I guess.”

She studied his profile, watched him chew. Josh had endured a terrible year. All the things his wife had done to him, then, according to Meyer, Josh had to take a leave of absence from Swanson. For mental health. Sophie had reported back that Uncle Josh was fine, but Sophie also conveyed a hidden worry. While Sophie reported Josh was “fine,” Sophie didn’t like how Josh had changed. And he had changed, she could see it herself now. His eyes betrayed a lot of concealed wounding.

She moved some dumplings onto her own plate, but had lost her appetite. “Meyer said you’re going back to work.”

Josh nodded. “Yeah. It’s time. I’m going back in on Wednesday.”

“The same as before?”

“I don’t think I’ll be going to Rome anytime soon, but, yeah, the same as before.”

Josh would have to earn their trust again. Have to show them he was still the solid and dependable guy he had been. Swanson couldn’t change his employment terms, not when he’d suffered a breakdown of sorts. He’d been in Rome for almost four months after they’d separated. That meant the last eight months he’d lived on disability. “It was your mom who told me you were going back. Meyer only confirmed it.”

Josh chewed and swallowed. “You talked to her this week?”

She nodded. Josh’s mother only knew they were separated, not that she’d been pregnant, and not that she’d borne her granddaughter. “On Facebook,” she said.

“Yeah. Your dad messages me on Facebook, too. Just checking in with me. Or he used to. I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

“He doesn’t like being online,” she said, turning her eyes down. “He asks me about you all the time.”

Josh leaned back from the table, sighing, his brow looking heavy. “I don’t think . . . I don’t think I want to eat.” He lifted his glass of sparkling water and sipped. When he put the glass back down, his eyes looked across the table, away from her. “How about your work? Meyer said you went back right after you gave birth.”

“I did,” she said.

“Says you’re not a lawyer anymore. Hyun told him you’re an executive.”

Her stomach tightened. Her own brow slumped, an oncoming storm on the horizon set to rock this table with some pretty big waves. “That’s right.”

“It looks like you’re doing well.” His eyes roamed the room.

“We can figure out the money later. I don’t want to talk about that tonight. I want to talk about us.”

“I don’t care about the money, Kimmy. You took the money to buy a house. Buy a house for our daughter. That’s what we saved that money for.”

She exhaled, bowed her head, determined not to sully the evening with talk of money. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“I bet it is,” Josh said, nodding.

“Okay,” she said, voice faded to a whisper. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “I’m at Stone. Stone Brokerage.”

Josh didn’t blow up, didn’t storm out. He accepted it, rolled it over in his mind then closed his eyes. “You told me you left and burned your bridge.”

“I did. All of that was true.”

Josh opened his watery eyes and regarded her. “Doesn’t sound like it was true.”

She didn’t respond right away, letting Josh rebuild his confidence after the news she remained at Stone, determined there would be no fight between them. She said, “It’s not the way it was before.”

Josh rolled his head away, looking like the urge to flee had hooked him. “That’s good,” he said, crackling with dry sarcasm.

“I’m not in my old position,” she said.

Josh groaned, the groan dragging out to a breathy chuckle while he shook his head. She saw the insinuation now, the dirty double entendre: we all know what position you used to have. Josh picturing his wife on her back with her legs up.

“I run it, Josh. I run Stone. I run Stone in Toronto.”

Josh stopped wagging his head, the attitude of the long-suffering man fading for a moment as he contemplated the pronouncement, his eyes darting over his plate and the untouched food. “But that was Devlin’s job.” He looked her way, brow crinkled.

“Devlin moved away, Josh,” she said. “Very far away.”

Josh eased a little but there was no mood for relief. He nodded his head, pursed his lips. “How far?”

“Vancouver, I think.”

Josh sat back from the table, stored energy building up and riling him. “Oh. I was just there a few months ago, I could have visited him.”

A small snuffling laugh escaped her and she smiled. Josh didn’t. Josh didn’t see any humor right now. But it wasn’t that there was anything funny, it’s just that there was no other more fitting response from the man she’d married. It was the perfect “Josh” response.

But Josh grew sombre. “That explains you and him.”

“Me and who?”

“You and Stone,” he said, jaw muscles flexing. He regarded her. “You and Devlin’s dad.”

“Oh,” she whispered, retreating from the table now, too, sitting back and crossing one leg over the other. “It does.”

  *

Kimmy reacted with calm control; somewhat bothered, yet ready to address the hardships of life to her long-suffering and milquetoast man. “I heard about the picture,” she said. “The $14,000 picture.”

Josh snorted, bothered, annoyed, not finding any humor in Meyer’s callous labeling of his own cousin’s heartbreak. And hurt that Kimmy would. “Well, it was a strange way for me to find out.”

“Should I have called you?”

He grumbled, annoyed with her, studying her, divining her attitude from the words she used. They were challenging and dismissive. Before he could even consider a response, Kimmy had a follow-up.

“Did you call me when you dated Karina?”

He thumbed his cheek, looking near her but not at her. He hadn’t expected her to say that. “Maybe you have a point,” he said, regretting the sharp turn dinner had taken. Maybe she didn’t think he had the right to question her dating choices. They were married but separated. But not legally separated. They had a child together. And yet, he hadn’t talked to her. He hadn’t come to see his baby. But now that he had come, it was so clear: the longer he stayed away, the longer it was possible Colleen was his child. By staying away, he’d preserved the fondest of his possibilities: that something was salvageable from what he’d considered the most important aspect of his life; a sound, loving relationship with the woman he married. He said, “I don’t want to fight.”

Kimmy put her elbows on the table and intertwined her fingers, regarding him through slimmed eyes. “How is Karina?”

He shrugged. “We’re not dating.”

“You were, though.”

“Kind of. Yeah, I guess. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t think about it, Josh. We’ve been apart. I have no right to make any claims of dismay I might have about it.”

“So, Stone, huh? How did that happen? I mean, the last time we talked, you know, face to face, you told me you burned the bridge, you started something you couldn’t stop. You told me I’d try to save you, and you didn’t want that. Yet, here you are.” He gestured to the table, then the house. He gestured toward her. Looking beautiful. Nestled in a perfect house. With their baby. Wearing fine clothes. Back to work. No maternity leave. No maternity leave because she had Hyun. “How did you end up with everything? How did you wind up with everything and I have nothing? What was it that I might have tried to save you from? Because, you know, I didn’t save you. I stayed away. Far, far away. For months. In Rome.” He scoffed, remembering the hateful resentment he could sometimes feel toward her, all of it racing back now, just when he’d thought they could find some reconciliation. There was something clear now. He slumped, felt the sick swirl of jealousy. “Someone else saved you. He did. Devlin’s dad.”

Kimmy lowered her hands, still interdigitated, but more like prayer now. She looked at the food on her plate. She nodded, almost imperceptibly at first, then enough for him to recognize it as affirmative.

She’d told him to stay away. She let another man save her. A savage pain bloomed in his heart, fat petals of sick jealousy unfurling inside him, bloating under pressured turgor. He groaned, unmanned, easing back from the table and looking away from her.

How could she still hurt him so badly when they’d been apart so long?













DITW 15-6: The Longhouse (Patreon)

Kimmy pushed her plate away. He did the same. It was a mistake to come for dinner. He should have come a long time ago. Come to see Colleen.

Elbows on the table, he rubbed his cheeks then cupped his hands on his face and breathed. He said into his hands, “I want to be in Colleen’s life. If that’s all right with you.”

“Josh, of course,” she said, her tone superior, chafed by his request.

He dropped his hands. “Do you think I’m being dramatic?”

Kimmy retreated, stung by his defense. She looked down, nodded, realizing maybe her tone was equivalent to rolling her eyes. Dismissing him.

She said, “We’re not going to eat. Can I show you around the house?”

“I’d rather talk.”

Kimmy looked away, to the door that would lead them out of their stuffy confinement. “Then let’s take a walk. We can go outside and have privacy. You can yell at me.”

“I’m not yelling.”

“Raise your voice,” she offered and shrugged. “Do whatever. You can tell me what you think of me.” 

She wasn’t taking no for an answer, standing now, touching his arm, encouraging him to go with her. He stood and followed her out the door, into a hallway beside the room where he’d first met his daughter. Now he was rubbing his brow, wincing from the emotional overfeeding and all the sick hurt in his heart that it conveyed.

Kimmy exited the house and held the back door for him. The colder night air hit his cheeks with a welcome snap that widened his eyes and woke him up. Kimmy closed the door and walked past him, out into the grass in her slippers. He followed her, staying on the brick walkway because he was wearing socks and the grass would be cold and wet. Kimmy turned, saw him a few arm lengths away and looked down at his feet. She corrected her path and met up with him on the walkway. She looked fantastic. Healthy, but a little worn out. Her eyes were tired, but nothing could stop the beauty showing in her cheekbones and jawline, and the easy grace in her long limbs and lithe body. Even under the unstructured pajamas and the robe, she showed a gentle poise.

She said, “How do you want it to be with Colleen?”

“She’s my daughter. I want to be her dad.” He shrugged, not feeling confident enough to set forward a time structure or make any demands. He didn’t have the willpower right now to fight her if she rejected any of his claims. “We should work that all out later. Not tonight.”

“This must be big for you.”

“That’s an understatement,” he said.

She turned her face to his and he looked down. Kimmy reached for him and plucked a hair from his sweater. Her fingers were long and fine, pulling the hair away, long and black.

He sighed, said, “I just, I’m blown away how you’ve moved on without me. You have everything and I have nothing and I’m an afterthought.” 

Kimmy tugged on his elbow, both his hands stuck in into his pockets. “That’s the old woe-is-me Josh.”

He looked to see her smiling, those tired eyes showing warmth and not disappointment.

He said, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

She nodded her head to the side, toward a carriage house at the end of the driveway, the driveway extending from the road, past the main house, and along one side of the backyard. He checked to the right, saw his Nissan still parked there, not a lot of car thefts in Unionville, and followed in Kimmy’s path to a door at the back side of the carriage house. She pulled a key from her robe’s pocket and unlocked the door, stepped in and turned on a light. She encouraged him to follow her in.

The carriage house was a two car garage with a second floor, and the back door opened into a tiny foyer and a set of narrow stairs that led up to the second floor. The small space smelled like paint and drywall.

Kimmy walked up the stairs and he followed. The top of the stairwell opened to the right onto an open living space and a kitchen. She flicked more light switches and the room lit up. There was a leather couch and a TV, a table to eat at, and the kitchen was warm and inviting with under the cabinet lighting and terra cotta backsplashes, the amenities in glossy black.

“This was the renovation,” she said, gesturing to the room, putting her hands in her robe pockets. Her head angled to the side, lips pursed, watching him.

He stared back.

Kimmy rubbed her neck like it was sore, grimacing, then speaking very quietly, saying, “I did it for you. I want you to live here.”

Josh rolled his head on his neck, feeling for the first time today some sort of tugging heartstring, some sort of connection to the woman who’d gutted him. When he regarded her again, he could see her eyes were wet and shining.

She said through sad-garbled speech: “I want you to see our daughter every day of her life.” Her voice broke up, and she had to wipe tears away with the back of a wrist. She sniffled, trying to restore her facade, extending an arm and holding out the carriage house key for him to take. “There’s a bedroom and a bathroom behind that door.” She jingled the key. “Come, I’ll show you.”

Josh took the key, one part of him fighting against her, wanting to reject it, another part so relieved, so happy he wouldn’t be excised so easily from Colleen’s life. And, god damn it, happy that Kimmy wanted him. Or at least didn’t want to make their daughter’s life difficult.

Kimmy turned away, walking to the door beyond the kitchen table, pulling from the other robe pocket a scrunched up tissue. She wiped her nose, put the tissue away, and opened the door at the back. Josh trudged behind her, wanting to live here, wanting to be in his daughter’s life every day, but hating this supportive aspect; of being in his wife’s house. Of being an add-on to his busy wife’s fabulous lifestyle. Of sitting in this fucking apartment and watching some luxurious motor coach pull into the driveway, Kimmy trotting off in high heels to go into the city with her billionaire boyfriend. And here her husband would sit; a voyeur. A loser.

The bedroom was furnished, a queen-size bed, masculine bedding, a chair, some dark furniture, and windows at the front of the carriage house looking down onto the driveway. He entered the bedroom, hands in his pockets, heart heavy, mood growing dank and swampy. He walked to the window and looked out to see his Nissan parked where Devlin’s father would park when he came to pick up Kimmy. Maybe it wouldn’t even be Devlin’s father, maybe Devlin’s father would send a service to pick Kimmy up, escort her into the city where he probably had his own skyscraper condo that showed all the twinkling lights of the city like sparkling jewels.

He turned away and faced Kimmy, not wanting that scenario to play out in his imagination to its lurid conclusion.

Kimmy stood with hands clasped at her front, looking hopeful. Like this in-law apartment would suit him; this was the fitting place for her husband; a prison cell where he could sit in purgatorial reverie, watching his wife live an amazing life, and he would be relegated to house duty, taking care of Kimmy’s offspring like Hyun. Hyun stayed here for free, Meyer said. Hyun had her own room, rent-free, and Kimmy even leased her a car. Hyun didn’t work. Hyun went to college at night and took care of Colleen during the day.

When he said nothing, Kimmy stepped to the side and pushed open another door, showing him the bathroom. Then she resumed that hopeful pose, tall and thin and elegant in her satin robe, hands clasped at her front.

Josh walked back to her, looked into the dark bathroom. They stood close together, almost touching; he could hear her breathe. She smelled amazing; like pale perfume and something else. Something motherly. He leaned his shoulder on the bathroom’s door jamb and regarded her. Her eyes looked weak and tired, the hopeful shimmer fading. He leaned his head to the side until his skull touched the sharp corner-edge of the jamb, eyes staying on her. The apartment offended him and yet charmed him as well. 

His daughter Colleen lived in the main house; the new, sole importance in his life. And this gesture of Kimmy’s was kindness, not antagonization. He’d love to tell her to go fuck a duck, and he’d get an apartment nearby. But he couldn’t afford that. He’d been on disability for months now. He’d gone through his personal savings buying Meyer his birthday gift and taking that exorbitant cross-country bike trip. Kimmy had taken their house fund and bought a house.

In that case, the apartment was rightfully his.

But to sit here and watch...? Sit here and watch his wife...?

He said, “What’s it like with him?”

“Who?” Her voice cracked when she spoke and she touched long fingers to her collar.

“You know who. Stone senior.”

She nodded and looked down. “Keith.”

“Keith Stone, huh? You and him. He’s a billionaire. Least that’s what the article said.”

Kimmy looked up and regarded him plainly. She said no more.

He said, “Were you with him when you were pregnant? Or is this a new thing?”

Kimmy exhaled, wincing, like she didn’t want to talk to her husband about the man she was dating.

“Does he ever come here? Does he come to the house?”

Kimmy stepped away, showing him her back, head bowing. “No, Josh,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“I want to know what I’m getting into.” The question was reasonable.

Kimmy rubbed her brow. “I’ve only gone out with him a few times.”

“How old is he?”

“Fifty-six.”

Now he wished he could stop asking questions. That old rolling angst began swirling in his guts, racing his heart with something like hate and lust. Keith Stone was a fucking asshole. His parents had talked with Keith Stone back in those olden days about his son’s bullying and come home saying it. “What a fucking asshole.” And his mom almost never swore. And that’s the man who was in his life now. Without his say.

He lurched away from the door jamb, a surprising swell of old fears and passions pushing past the cobwebs the medication had spun in his brain. His heart raced and his muscles swelled with the rush of adrenalin.

He had closed the distance between him and Kimmy, looking at her slender shoulders, wanting to grab one and spin her around, demand from her an explanation on how one woman could be so terrible.

“I can’t stay here,” he said in a low growl of simmering anger.

Kimmy turned now, expression harrowed. “Josh, you have to. Please...”

He shook his head, “He’s fifty-six, how can you even...” His hands went to fists, his jaw clenched and his brow lowered, his mind’s eye flashing all kinds of wicked and dirty scenarios he didn’t want to see. Kimmy held her throat and watched him, eyes glimmering with wet.

He wanted to claw away his own skin and climb out of himself. But Kimmy regarded him with earnest hope. Like she needed him here. But what about him? What about what he needed?

How about what Colleen needed?

He rubbed his brow, pumping the brakes on runaway emotion, nodding, huffing air through his nose like a bothered bull. The anger rose again. “Are you fucking him?”

Kimmy closed her eyes and looked away. Then stepped away. He wanted to grab that shoulder again and spin her to face him.

“Tell me,” he said, demanding to know what he was getting into.

Even though she faced away, he could see Kimmy nodding.













DITW 15-7: Acherontic Winges (Patreon)

This time when he wanted to spin her around, he couldn’t stop himself, putting his hand on her shoulder and making her face him. “Just fucking tell me, Kimmy.”

Kimmy turned up her palms, like she didn’t know what he wanted to hear or didn’t know how to tell him. Or maybe didn’t think any of this was his business. This made him the maddest.

She paused, mouth open as her brain searched for impossible words. “It’s nothing, Josh,” she said, looking away. “It’s nothing real.”

He shook his head, looking away as well, an acid coal beginning to singe the center of his chest. There it was. The finale.

No hope now, is there, Joshy?

Hope for what? 

He said, “I didn’t know what would happen when I came this weekend. Didn’t know if I should come at all. Not because I didn’t want to, but maybe you would scream at me for not coming already, for—”

“I’m not angry, Josh,” she said softly.

He ran his hand through his hair. “I know. I know you’re not.” He dropped his hand to his thigh. “I didn’t know that it would be like this. If I came this weekend, that it would be like, like this...” He gestured to the room and then toward her. “And that you’d ask me...”

“I just want you to know I want you in my life. I want you in Colleen’s life. I’m trying to welcome you.”

He looked up, he looked down, his heart wringing out in his chest like a swim towel, the sticky sap of heartache slithering through him like treacle. “Okay,” he said, admitting silently to himself now that this in-law apartment was an act of kindness. It wasn’t her fault she’d begun some other affair with an older man. I mean, he’d stayed away for, like, a year, so what did he expect? And he’d dated Karina—or at least gone out with her a few times in ways that friends didn’t do. But this all felt so unfair. So cold.

But not unfamiliar. Not unfamiliar at all.

It felt like all those old searing prongs felt when she’d last lied and betrayed him to his doom. Pulled the rug out from under him, suffocated him with it, rolled him up and pitched him off a deck into frigid lake water. All to get what she wanted. And now she had it all. If she kept her ex-husband in this apartment like a flower in the attic, then she would have everything.

“I’m welcome,” he admitted, hands out like he was surrendering. “But it’s not fair how you have everything.”

Kimmy wasn’t shocked or offended by his claim, saying only, “I don’t have everything, Josh. You’ve only been back in my life for an hour. There’s so much you don’t know.”

“So, tell me then. Tell me what I don’t see.”

Kimmy chewed her cheek, and the way she’d inclined her head and looked to the bedroom floor a meter away from his feet, he knew she didn’t want to talk about this.

“You have our daughter. You have our home. You have an amazing job. You travel. You have Sophie. You have Hyun as a helper. And you’re with a billionaire.”

Kimmy didn’t look up, but she stepped closer to him, eyes traveling to his chest, her hands reaching for him. She put her palms on him and it made his heart gallop in his chest. His temples throbbed.

“I do what I have to do,” she said, and looked up to meet his gaze. “But I love you. It’s you that I love, Josh.”

That hot coal flared like an ember in a breeze, and though he wanted to grit his teeth and spit vitriol, he held her upper arms. Forgot how fine she was, how wonderful her slender arms felt in his grip. Kimmy was close to tears again, and what he saw in those dark eyes was earnest communication. Like a silent voice begging for someone who held their fate to spare them. To not do what would be so easy for them to do.

And right there a hopeful spark lit a flare that illuminated some of the kinder aspects of his life with her. There were things about her he loved. And it wasn’t long ago. In fact, the time he’d spent hating her was very brief. The time he’d spent loving her was long. And it was good.

His hands stroked her upper arms, his neck swelled with the pounding blood. He felt wide awake and electrified. He felt like he could crush Kimmy if he wanted. Like a pop can. Or spiritually, too. He could walk out on her and she would think of him every day for the rest of her life and it would hurt her. She would think of him every day she looked in their daughter’s eyes and saw a piece of the man she’d ruined. He could kiss her. He could throw her on the bed in this dim bedroom. He could fuck her. He could bend her over and fuck her. His muscles were like cords; he could pick her up and toss her out the window she expected him to sit by while she cavorted with the father of his high school bully. He felt strong like the day he’d thrown the chair at Devlin.

He gripped her skinny arms tighter and yanked her close. It was she who kissed him. It was Kimmy’s mouth who sought out his. Not the other way around.

With their mouths together, their breaths intersecting and finding sympathetic pace, their bodies pressed, a lot of the good and true love they’d felt rang in his mind like a distant church bell. His hands stroked from her upper arms, down to circle her wrists. Kimmy melted against him, his kiss like a port-connection supplying her with power. The lightness of her body raced his heart. It felt wonderful to have her body sealed against his own. She was light and nimble and unique; he’d missed how it felt to hold her.

When he’d held Karina, the dissimilarity ached under his fingers; a foreign terrain daunting him with the demand for familiarity. But conversance required sacrifice and venture, and the journey seemed steep uphill. He’d not been up to the task. Not fit enough for travel.

Kimmy’s landscape was familiar. It was easy travel; touch was informal, unpretentious. And obliged. She was his to touch. Even if another man had entered her life, Kimmy was his by law and by surrender. Kimmy had said so herself on the altar the day they were married.

He broke their kiss, and Kimmy looked up with wounded eyes. He had trouble deciphering the source of her wounding. What would make those eyes hurt?

He said, “You want me to sit here in this room and watch out the window as your life moves on?”

“No, Josh,” she said, brow knitting.

“What do you see in him?”

Kimmy looked up and away, seeking to rest her cheek now on his chest again. To escape his questions. To deny him the truth. He wouldn’t let her hide, taking her shoulders and holding her in place.

“His money? His power? You like being in the paper?”

Kimmy stared back at him with dull, sober eyes. She said nothing, like a woman waiting out a storm. Just watching.

He tilted up his chin, almost sneering. “What else, Kimmy? Does he do bad things in bed?”

She winced, turned away a measure like his words disgusted her. He asked her, “Is that it?”

She shook her head no imperceptibly, but not enough he didn’t notice. It was a dismissal. Kimmy thought she was so much better than his petty grievances. Was that it?

“Tell me. What can a fifty-five year old man offer you? Money and power. You don’t think that’s it? What else? Does he have a big horse dick like his son?” He sneered again, disgusted by his own words, but loving the juxtaposition of his awful wife and her lover and now her lover’s father; sin upon sin. Sin with no end.

Kimmy closed her eyes and breathed. When she opened them again, quiet and stony, she said, “What if it’s all of those things?”

He let her shoulders go and made a satisfied sound in his throat. His wife’s depravity confirmed. She was the wicked woman he knew her to be.

But he hated her unbothered acceptance; her casual dismissal of his complaint, the arrogant establishment of how low she would go to get what she wanted.

He shook his head, showing her contempt and a dismissal of his own. If he was braver he would tell her in words. Tell her how she was nothing to him. Tell her how she was beneath him.

“You wanted to know, so now you know,” she said. “What are you going to do about it?”

“What’s there to do?” He jabbed his hands toward the bedroom window. “I guess I’ll sit here to make you happy. I’ll sit here and make your life complete. How does that sound to you?”

Kimmy looked down, put her hands out and touched his waist. “You don’t have to, Josh. It’s up to you.” She slipped her thumbs into the belt loops at his hips and pulled his pelvis into hers. She whispered, “You can always close the blinds.”

His jaw dropped, and he regarded her with awful reproach. He shook his head with comical disbelief, amazed at how she could coil and strike like a snake, when she’d been so sweet and innocent since he first arrived in her lair.

She tugged the belt loops again, instigating, bullying. Challenging him. “It’s up to you what you want to do.”

Their eyes met again. All the things he’d wanted to say to her in his darkest times tumbled on his tongue. It felt good to imagine saying them, but even the smallest actual utterance would put a barrier between them that maybe he couldn’t afford if he wanted to raise a child with her. But saying nothing felt like letting her win. Letting her get away with it.

He stood upright and strong, not backing down from her even though he bit his tongue.

She knew it, too. Smiling wanly, eyes hooded, lips pursing. “I know you hate me.”

“I wish I cared enough to hate you.”

She flashed him a degree-wider smile. “You care. You know you do.”

“Why do you want to torment me?”

She showed grave concern now. “I don’t, Josh. I don’t want to torment you. I want to love you and I want you to love me.” Her hands left his belt loops and pressed on his lower back, just above his ass. She stared into his eyes. The look was deep and probing.

She kissed him again and he let her, twisting his head on his neck to form a better seal against her plump lips. He pressed his pelvis into her. She was soft and receptive, hips moiling against him, locating his hardness, pressing into it. 

The kiss broke as her stomach squashed his rock hard erection, and she looked in his eyes with a hunger he hadn’t seen in over a year. He pressed his brow to her brow, both of them breathing heavy. Pure liquid hate rushed through his ears with a whoosh. Hate not for her but for his own weakness. His sexual reception to the worst his wife offered.

He shook his head no and stepped back. Kimmy was undeterred, untying her robe’s satin belt and letting the folds fall open. He kept shaking his head side to side, simple defiance against her inexorable progress. She tossed the robe to the bed. 

“You’ve been with him?” His voice was a low and mean rumble.

Kimmy showed no reaction to his question, cocking her head like a wise corvid, studying him, pursuing him, stepping into his personal ring, past his shields and armor and where she could sink her poisonous blade into where he was soft and squishy and most vulnerable. He looked away, turning his mouth corners down, like the sight of her disgusted him. She kissed his chin, kissed his neck. Her hand smoothed between his legs, long palm and fingers soaring over his aching denim bulge. He said, “What are you doing?”

“You’re my husband, Josh.” Her hand stroked up and down, squeezed. His knees jellied and the room swooned. He inhaled a sharp intake.

He turned his head farther but she kept kissing his neck and jaw. She said, “You think you’re just going to sit and look out the window?”

All sorts of freaky endeavors flashed in lurid porno clips; Devlin’s cock against his own cock, Kimmy taking Devlin deep inside her while he watched; an old man with white hair and a sagging scrotum under his decrepit horse cock pounding into her while Kimmy squawked in time with his thrusts.

Her hands came together at his waist and undid his belt. She was looking in his eyes. She said, “You’re my husband, Josh.”










DITW 15-8: Into the Void (Patreon)

Josh gripped Kimmy’s wrists, stopping her from getting what she wanted. “What are you doing?”

Kimmy closed her eyes, and her shoulders slumped in a way that convinced him of her disappointment.

He said, “You can’t just drag me into bed. You can’t steamroll me that way. Fuck, Kimmy...” He shook his head, dismayed. “We used to have so much fun together—and now it’s like this.”

Kimmy slipped her arms from his grasp, stepping back and smoothing her hair. “We did.”

“And now you summon me here and I see my, my fucking daughter...” He grabbed a handful of hair, a touch of madness seizing him. “And you want me to live here. Want me to sit and watch your life, but you also want me in bed...? I have fucking whiplash.”

“Good, Josh,” she said. “Have whiplash. Live here. Love Colleen. That’s all I ask. I don’t expect you to give the tiniest care for me, I don’t deserve it, but don’t—”

“Don’t what? Not live here? Not love Colleen? Why would you think I want you to touch me like that, to, to...?”

“I’m sorry,” Kimmy said. “That was unfair. I shouldn’t have kissed you, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s not that. I mean, I feel it too. I feel like...”

“You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t feel anything for me. I went too far right now. I love you. I can’t help how you feel about me, but I don’t want you to hate me. I want you to be happy. You say I have everything, but I want you to have everything. You. I want you to have it all. I . . . I came on too strong.” She held up her palms, showing she would pump the brakes.

He turned away, walked to the window, looked out at streetlight filtering through a fading maple canopy to rim light his Nissan. The driveway. The house. The home. The place where everything he’d ever wanted in this world resided. A family. A daughter. He touched his forehead to the window’s chill. “You’ve got it all. You can try to make me feel better by bringing me to bed, but can’t you see how I feel? Fucking me is patting me on the head, telling me I’m a good boy for coming to your house. You’ve got everything. What do you need me for?”

Kimmy took a long time to answer. Someone walked a Scottie dog on a leash past her house. At last she said, “I need you because you’re my husband. That’s why I need you.”

He let the curtain fall and turned to face her again, hands in his pockets. She stared back, hopeful, hurting, desperate. The pale light shone past his shoulders and bathed her in a lunar glow. He said, “You just want your daughter’s father around so your daughter won’t hate you.”

Kimmy’s eyes widened. Instead of rearing from his attack, she nodded, eyes on the verge of tears. “That’s it, Josh,” she said, “let me have it. I deserve it,” batting her fist on her slender chest.

Her harrowed look lured him. Now he said, “You want me around because if I wasn’t around you worry people might think you’re a failure.”

“That’s true,” she said, nodding, eyes wet. “I would think that. It doesn’t mean I don’t want you around for other reasons.”

“Like what? What is it that Keith fucking Stone can’t give you that I can?”

Kimmy shook her head in that way that people do when they knew so much more than you, chuckling now and stooping to retrieve her robe from the foot of the bed. She lifted it, poised like she would don it, but then holding it to her chest and staring at him. Her eyes shone wet, but there was something else there, something sparkling amongst the dullness she’d shown him with those eyes since he’d arrived. She said, “He can’t always get it up.”

The answer shocked him, coming at him unexpected and unwanted. It disgusted him. “He what?”

“He’s not reliable, Josh. How about that?”

His eyes narrowed, a certain measure of indignation soiling his view. Kimmy of the high-paying job, of the high IQ and the littlest beautiful baby girl and the big house. But she was Kimmy of the wicked darkness, too. The sexually depraved woman he’d married. The one who’d ruined him, broke his heart and broke his trust like a china plate on a granite floor. She’d fucked Devlin Stone and gaslit her husband up and down and sideways. She’d lied to him and manipulated him and toyed with him. She’d fucked Devlin Stone in Cayman, fucked Devlin Stone in his apartment, fucked him right in front of her husband when it came down to the wire.

His heart beat stronger and his nostrils flared. He stepped closer to her.

Kimmy raised her chin, unafraid. “Yeah. He can’t get it up.”

Josh stepped into her space, the two of them eye to eye.

She said, “What if I need you for your dick?”

When he stepped back, Kimmy dropped her robe to the floor and clutched his sweater, not wanting him to flee. Echoes of arguments past arrived; how he was the one who was so quick to run away. Run so far away it took a year to come back to her even though she bore his child. But no one could condemn him. The betrayal had been so stark and punishing, his retreat was for the preservation of life. Devlin and Kimmy had pushed him to the borderlands of madness.

“You don’t have to sit here,” Kimmy said, nodding her chin to the window. “It’s your house. Take any room you want.”

His hands went to her wrists again and this time he didn’t pull her hands away. He let her hold him in place.

Kimmy’s lure was impossibly strong; up close like this, her body touching his, looking deep into her quavering black eyes. They were married; he’d just discovered a precious pink bundle in the main house that was definitely his. Falling into bed with her would be so easy. Voices spoke to him in whispers, telling him he ought to do it. That it would be wrong not to. 

You’d have a home. A wife. A baby.

Everything he’d ever wanted.

He said, “What if I want the bedroom?”

“Take it,” she said. “Kick me out. I’ll stay here. If it means you’re in Colleen’s life—in my life—this room is where I’ll stay.”

It was all too much. It was all too much and coming all at once. If only he hadn’t run so far away. If only he’d adjusted to her rise from wickedness in acceptable increments. Maybe then he could trust her words. Trust she told him the truth. 

He turned with her, putting her back to the bed and sitting her down. He stood above her, and she regarded him with the pleading eyes of a pauper.

“Banish me,” she said. “But don’t abandon me. Please.”

He cupped a hand to her cheek, angled his head, looked in her eyes, deeper this time, wanting to connect with her, wanting some way to know when the words she spoke were the truth. Kimmy held his wrist with both hands, letting him in her black windows, like she wanted him to know nothing hid there in the dark, waiting to pounce on him.

He lowered and prowled over top of her, Kimmy surrendering, easing onto her back while he got over her. His face hovered over hers, studying her, Josh now assuming the pose of the studious raven.

“I love you, Josh,” she said, and he believed her.

But he did nothing, stayed over her, Kimmy with her hands at her chest, wringing them with worry. He pushed them apart. 

Pushed them apart and then unbuttoned her pajama top, slowly exposing that ribbed plain between her breasts. Putting his hand on her bare skin, looking in her eyes, wondering how the hell he was here in this room with her, doing the thing he was doing. Considering the things he considered.

“You’re with another man,” he said.

“I’m not with him, Josh,” she said.

He flinched with surprise as her hand palmed his arousal over his pants. It felt so good. So right. So fucking sexual. Sexual in all the worst ways.

Sexual in the way that had fizzled his feelings for Karina.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said, and once again he believed her. “I need you, Josh. I need you.”

She raised her chin, showing him her long and vulnerable throat. He couldn’t stop himself if he wanted. His mouth went to that spot under her ear and kissed her there. A place he loved to kiss her. Kimmy moaned an unbelievable sound of whimpering satisfaction. She squeezed his dick. He kissed her harder. Her two hands came together again, moving fast to undo his pants, to free his aching hardness.

This was the last thing he’d expected coming here tonight.

A grim part of him had accepted he would come here and find Mr. Stone here, some of Mr. Stone’s friends, a bunch of unfamiliar faces. A wife moved on. A woman from his past. And he thought he might take one look at Kimmy’s baby and hand it back. Not seeing his mother’s eyes there, but seeing the eyes of her new beau’s son.

But this wasn’t anticipated. How could he imagine everything trying to fit back in place this way? How could he anticipate the overwhelm he’d feel when he held a tiny life that was one-hundred percent of his loins?

“Oh, god,” he sighed, that overwhelm manifesting, swooping away with his consciousness like a mouse in the beak of a large flying predator. Kimmy’s warm hand had closed around his naked cock. His breath came in heavy panting. He flexed his cock in her grip, a sexual eagerness swelling his being, a long-forgotten joy quashed by betrayal and corruption.

His kisses traveled from that sweep spot on her neck along her sharp jawline, finding the wet dampness of her perfect mouth. He kissed her, pushing her head back into the bedding she’d set up for him to stay in her life. 

Kimmy jerked his cock, and the pleasure stole away his forethought, turned him to meaningless goo.

He hadn’t had sex in a whole fucking year. No one had touched his dick but himself in that time.

His hand circled her throat and caressed her collar while he kissed her and his consciousness held on for dear life. The idea that she wanted him ached in his heart. Kimmy wanted him. Desired him.

His kiss retreated and he struggled to manufacture a plan of sexual attack. Kimmy controlled him with her hand on his erection, gone slick now, too, his balls overflowing with wet need.

“I need you, Josh, I need you,” she whispered, thumbing the slippery groove on the underside of his cock head, putting white blobs of lust into his dark vision.

“You just need a hard dick,” he growled, loving the way Kimmy could rob him of reason, flood his senses with the darkest syrup.

“I do,” she gasped. “I need my husband’s hard dick so bad, Josh.”

He thrusted his cock through Kimmy’s grip and she knew how to handle him the way he liked. “He can’t get it up?”

Kimmy sighed and gasped, bit her lower lip. She moaned, then whispered, “He can fuck with it, but it’s limp. It’s big but it’s floppy, Josh. I need a young man. I need my husband. I need the man I fucking love.”

“You don’t love him?”

“Josh, I’ve never loved anyone else but you. Never.”

And suddenly the idea of Kimmy having sex with Keith Stone didn’t seem so surreal or so terrible. It seemed like everything was fitting back into place.

He swatted open one side of her pajama top, exposing her swollen teat, the nipple darker, fuller than he’d ever seen it. His hand went down the front of her pajama pants, and holy fuck, she wore no underwear. Just her pussy, wet and needy. Shaved. Shaved for Keith Stone, but it felt amazing just the same.








15-9: Root Congestion (Patreon)

Josh was beautiful. Beautiful, but so vulnerable. Despite his sojourn and his exile, he still showed aversion to her touch. Timid. Like a victim. Gun shy. The harm she’d caused him was heartbreaking.

His hard cock was in her hand, his mouth on her skin, her aching nipples aching even harder, hurting and wet—now, of all times, leaking when she had the man she wanted in her bed.

A sojourn of her own, an exile of her own, had brought her to this point, and now she was prepared to ruin it all by lying, by deceiving, doing all the things that had sent her into lonely and deserved despair.

She let go of his cock, slipped her hands around to his bare back, hugged her cheek to his chest, and closed her eyes. If she let him go and he departed, jumped out the window and flew off into the night, everything would be over. Nothing would ever be the same. She kissed the warmth of his sweater, knowing the risk; stopping now when the ball was rolling would cease their progress and could cast them apart again. And she couldn’t bear that.

But Josh sensed the change, coming to his senses, swimming up from the dark depths where she had sunk him, words like heavy chains dragging him down where the light couldn’t reach. A place she knew he liked. A place he wanted to spend time in. But not like this. Nothing could be more roundly wicked than taking his game piece and pushing him back to the start when he was so close to freedom.

Josh abandoned her, but not the bed, falling off to the side, laying on his back and blocking his eyes with an arm. His cock stuck up out of his open pants, hard as steel and shining wet.

She palmed her forehead, closed her eyes. Getting what she wanted without coercion was a path that would take time to learn. Tonight the stakes were high, but deception was too great a risk. She imitated Josh, resting a forearm over her brow, her other hand closing her pajama top. Two married people who’d faced sheer devastation, laying in bed together, hiding from each other though they were touching.

She lowered her arm, cleared her thoughts, scooted up onto the bed, drawing her legs underneath her; she curled her body around Josh’s head and shoulders, caressed his hair and stroked his beard. Josh removed his arm and opened his eyes. She thumbed his chin, loving every angle of his perfect face. Josh tucked his erection into his fly and closed it. She kissed his temple.

But sensing he could sit up and abandon the moment, leave her swimming in its sweet wake, alone again like she’d been alone for a year, had her surging forward, not even having a plan. Acting on honest instinct. 

But then again, just a crafty angler giving a trophy fish some more line.

She said, “I lied about Devlin’s father.”

Josh nodded, expression somber still, mouth tucking to one side—a sign of the psychic wounding she so casually reintroduced to his life just because she wanted him to stay.

“We’re not together,” she said. “We’ve never been together.”

Josh’s brow crinkled. She stroked her palm over his jaw, liking the beard under her touch. He said, “What do you mean?”

She told him she was sorry; Josh sat up, and she was sure he would bolt to the door. How would she even stop him? He regarded her over his shoulder, bewildered and bothered. She sat up as well, cross-legged on the bed’s center. She intertwined her fingers and hooked her thumbs. She said, “I’ve attended a few functions with him. It’s for work, but also he doesn’t want to go alone. He’s not interested in me. Not in that way.”

“Why would you tell me...?”

“I, I don’t know, Josh.”

“You were just, just what?—trying to get me in bed?”

She shrugged, feeling foolish, but grateful he hadn’t walked out of the room.

Josh looked away, puzzled, struggling to make sense of her inane actions, getting him in this room and practically seducing him. “Am I that predictable? Do you think I still want that?”

She stopped twiddling her thumbs and held her head instead, both hands on her brow and temples. “I’m ashamed,” she said. “I just . . . Meyer told me about how you saw the photo...”

“And how I reacted. And you think, what? That means you can play me like you used to?”

She swore he was looking to leave, and she scooted closer, putting his back and rump into her crotch, long legs on either side of him. She threw her arms around his shoulders and hugged her cheek to the back of his neck. “Don’t leave me, Josh.”

Josh slumped, but she detected no seizing of muscle or tendon, no preparation for flight. Only slump-shouldered defeat. The last thing she’d wanted tonight. The very last thing. She’d foreseen wonderful things. Seen them with crossed fingers. Like Josh with his baby. And Colleen would look in his eyes and Josh would right away be a changed man. He would stay in Unionville tonight. He would sleep in her bed. She would wake up with him.

She said, “I haven’t been with a man, Josh. Not since the last day I saw you. I’ve been so busy. So busy trying to make things right.”

“I... I wasn’t with Karina... I wasn’t—”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I just couldn’t... I didn’t want to do anything with her. I think I just needed a friend.”

That was like a knife in her heart. Josh had gone to Karina and Karina had been there for him after all the harm his wife had done. She’d almost killed him.

“I don’t want to talk about bad things, Josh. I don’t want to talk about the past. Tonight, can we just talk about the future?”

Josh’s chest and shoulders expanded in her clutch as he drew in a deep breath and let it out. She accepted it as an answer in the affirmative. “Stay, Josh. Stay the night. Stay here. I’m so glad you came.”

“You should hate me for how long I stayed away.”

She dug her chin into his back. “I don’t.”

“But you’re punishing me.”

While she surmised his proposal, her grip on him lessened and Josh stood up from the bed, leaving her there alone. He crossed to the dresser and braced himself, two hands on it, hunched over in a way that reminded her of the time he’d hurled the office chair at Devlin Stone.

“I’m not trying to punish you.”

Josh tossed his hands up like he was tired of arguing the same point. “You could have told me you weren’t seeing Devlin’s dad, but you used it against me instead.”

“I’m not against you, Josh. I want you to be happy.”

“By lying to me?”

“Josh...” Now she was exasperated too. Wishing Josh could see into her heart and know she meant him no harm. She only wanted good things for him. “I... I pass you a crayon and you just start coloring. I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to manipulate. You do it all. You take it to the endpoint, running as fast as you can.”

The way Josh stared back, hollow-cheeked, showed her how hurtful her words were, even unintentionally. Josh wasn’t ready for this conversation. None of this was what she’d wanted for this night.

Josh sighed and leaned his backside against the dresser. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I sure don’t know who you are.” He tossed his hands up; letting fate make his choices, adrift at sea. “That’s my fault for staying away for a year.” He regarded her. “But look at you now. I don’t even recognize you. Do you recognize me?”

She nodded. “I know what you’re saying, but I do see you, Josh. I really do. I recognize you.”

Josh smiled, a weak one, but she was happy to see it. But its presence also summoned another thought: this man is so done with you, his smile is his way of showing how you can’t hurt him anymore. You don’t mean anything to him.

But Josh said, “You’re persuasive. You could persuade me to do anything.” He gestured toward the bed; the place where she’d tried to seduce him with words from their dreadful past. She looked away. He said, “Is that what you want for yourself? Is that what you want for me? To ease me into satisfying place? And then when I’m there, what then? What do you see for yourself when I’m no longer a problem?”

She wiped at her eyes, then regarded him. “You’re not a problem.”

“A wrinkle,” he said. “A wrinkle you need smoothed.”

“Do I make you feel like that?

“Of course. Can’t you hear me saying it to you?”

“You’re not a wrinkle.” Anger had tightened her voice, raised it. “You’re not some imperfection in my life. You’re the only thing that I want. That I desire.”

Josh shook his head, lips slimmed to a thin line. “I’m not worthy of your desire. Don’t you see it? What could I ever offer you? I’ve seen what turns you on. I’ve seen the things you like. You showed me how you measure a man.”

They had both raised their voices. Josh’s body tightened, and she saw him like a coiled spring, ready to bounce right out of Unionville and away from danger. She couldn’t even be mad at him anymore for his tendency to flee. It had been a life-saving mechanism.

She bolted from the bed, wanting to be close to him before he disappeared, putting her hands on him, touching his arms, looking into his eyes.

“No one could ever hurt me like you hurt me,” he said. “No one ever.”

A cold knot formed in the center of her chest. It was an awful thing to hear. Most awful because it was true. There was nothing to say. She said, “Maybe no one would love you enough to try.”

“You wanted to hurt me? I always thought that.”

“No. I wanted to hurt you in the way you flirted with.” She let go of his arms, waved her hand, dismissing the ugly alley the conversation kept finding its way to.

“That’s a lie. A year-old lie. You know that. It was camouflage. You wanted it to hide the evil you did.”

And that was true. This wasn’t an ugly alley they had to avoid. It was incontrovertible truth that neither of them could escape. She’d just lied again—anything to avoid the sharp edges of their past. Just not tonight. Not the truth. Another time, yes. But tonight she wanted him to be happy. Happy to be here. Happy for his gift.

She said, “Okay. Yes, you’re right—”

Josh held up a hand to stop her, expression uninterested and dispassionate. It tightened the frigid knot; she’d never felt more distant from Josh than right now. In the last year, he’d been physically removed from her life, but she conjured him in her thoughts every day, motivation while trying to build the scaffolding of repair that could unite them again. But tonight was the launching ceremony, and things weren’t going well. Her ship would sink. The craft she’d fashioned for them wasn’t seaworthy at all.

“That’s it,” Josh said, waving his hand now, the one to dismiss their entanglement. “I don’t want to talk about this. Not now. Not ever.” He dropped his hand, stared at her a moment longer, eyes watery and mournful, brow creased. He shook his head, like he’d almost wanted to continue, but knew there was no point. He turned to leave.

The sight of his familiar back broke her resolve, and right now, she would do anything to make him stay. She’d thought teasing him with his obvious interest in some relationship with Devlin’s father could tickle him, lure him into their old games—done now only in the safety of their own home. But that was an awful mistake. Apologies formed on her tongue, pleading arguments appeared in her foggy fore-mind. Anything, anything to make him stay. She would fall on her knees, she would fall on her sword. She begged him. 

“Please, Josh. Please, don’t go. I can’t go on without you. You don’t even know what it’s like. You don’t know what I would do for you...”

Josh turned his face over his shoulder, puzzled and perplexed by her sudden wheedling cries. “I’m not leaving, Kimmy,” he said, low and plain. Calm. “I’m going back to the house. I don’t want to be in here with you right now. In this prison. Sophie...” He pinched the bridge of his nose, pausing for a moment. “Sophie made me ice cream. I don’t want her to think I forgot about her.”









DITW 15-10: (Untitled) (Patreon)

Content

They ate Sophie’s homemade ice cream in awkward silence. The sounds of spoons clanking on pottery were too loud. Josh sat in the same spot where he’d first met his daughter, Hyun sat on the other side of the table, and Sophie sat with Josh, peppering him with questions, while Josh asked her again how she made such good ice cream. And Sophie would answer with amusing insight, telling her uncle how it was all in the quality of the ingredients, that there were no additives in her ice cream, only real cream and real candied walnuts her mom let her buy at the grocery store and how she put in real maple syrup, not that flavored corn syrup. Josh was playful with Sophie, but still somber. She could practically feel in sympathy the hurting of his stomach, the uneasiness he felt being reunited with the woman he believed had caused him the greatest harm in life.

The urge to express herself whole and heartily was sedated by the history of her harm. She would come on too strong; she would spook him; she would say the wrong thing; fuck, she would try to seduce him into bed with lurid talk of another man, like she used to. 

But Josh had enjoyed those times. It wasn’t her imagination.

Once Josh finished Sophie’s ice cream she was convinced he would announce it was time for him to go home. She set her spoon down, unable to finish.

From the other room came the cries of a waking baby. Kimmy set her unfinished bowl on the table. Hyun moved like she would go, but Kimmy told her she would get her.

“She’s had a big day today. I thought she might sleep straight through.”

Hyun insisted. “Let me go. You sit with Josh.”

Kimmy said, “I think she might be hungry.” But Colleen wasn’t hungry. Just bored or restless. But if Hyun left her alone with Josh, Josh would take that opportunity to depart. He wouldn’t if she’d left the room; he would wait to see her again.

Wouldn’t he?

  *

Kimmy left to take care of Colleen, and Josh set his empty bowl of ice cream down on the table near Kimmy’s. He said, “I have to say, Sophie. That was one of the finest ice creams I’ve ever had.”

Sophie beamed, and Hyun said, “And Josh has been to Italy.”

He smiled and said, “So, I know what I’m talking about. You, Sophie, have a talent for frozen desserts.”

Sophie went through a series of deflections, bashful, saying her mom helped her and how the machine did most of the work, but Josh persisted. “Thank you, Sophie. I enjoyed it immensely.”

She shrugged one teeny shoulder. “I know you like maple walnut.”

“Thank you for thinking of me,” he whispered.

Hyun said, “We should get these bowls in the dishwasher, Sophie. And it’s almost your bedtime.”

Sophie looked to her mother, then back to him, her face frozen in a slack kind of worry. She said to him, “Are you going to stay over?”

He smiled, held her arm. “Another time, Sophie.”

Sophie seemed undeterred, asking her mother if she could get them drinks. A heartbreaking distraction from a little girl living a disjointed life.

Why don’t you stay, asshole? Your baby’s here. Your wife is here.

Hyun said, “I’ll have a green tea. Can you take the bowls and put them in the dishwasher, please?”

Sophie agreed and stacked the ice cream bowls on one another, all the spoons in the top bowl and then held them precariously at her waist, toddling out of the room. Hyun stayed seated.

Josh said, “She’s so grown up now. She can load the dishwasher?”

“She doesn’t do it at your place?”

“I guess we all just pitch in,” he said, leaning forward, clasping his hands together, feeling uncomfortable alone with Hyun.

“I think you should stay.”

Josh looked up and regarded Hyun. Hyun usually quiet and one to keep her opinion to herself. There was a certain disgruntlement evident in her gaze. Like maybe she didn’t like Josh as much as she used to. And why the hell would she? Hyun sat in his place. Hyun had been with Kimmy when she gave birth. Hyun witnessed his disregard for Kimmy and his own baby, but without the knowledge of why.

“You do?”

“If you don’t want to be here, you should go. But you’re here. You’re here for a reason, right?”

“Of course, I—”

“There’s nothing for you at Meyer’s.”

Josh closed his mouth. “I know.”

“There’s everything for you here.” Hyun checked over her shoulder before speaking again, as if wary of Sophie returning with green tea. “You’ve been gone too long.”

Josh rubbed his face and took a deep breath. He steadied his gaze on Hyun. “And how about you? How would you feel about that?”

“If you stayed over? Why would I care?” She stared at his steadily but her jaw muscles rippled as she clenched her teeth.

He thumbed over his shoulder, out the window behind him to the carriage house. “And what if I stayed here for good—stayed out in the apartment?”

Hyun looked away, troubled, pursing her lips. “What if she didn’t care about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if she didn’t want you here? How would you feel?”

“Not good.”

Hyun looked his way again. “What if Kimmy moved on without you?”

“It’s like she has.”

“It’s not like that at all. . . . Imagine a time where she stops trying so hard to win you back. I don’t think you would like that. I don’t think you’re willing to watch her move on without you. You just like punishing her.

“You think that’s what I’m doing?”

“What other purpose does it serve? I don’t see any reason a man would act like you are.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you’re not seeing something.”

Hyun sighed and crossed her arms, checking over her shoulder once more to make sure Sophie wasn’t returning. “I know what she did to you. I know everything she did. I know that as much as you hate it, there was something in there that you liked. Or at least something you had Kimmy believing you liked.”

Josh stood abruptly, anger rising in his blood, looking to bolt. “And the money for a house like this? Where did she get the money? I don’t care how much Stone is paying her, this house is out of her budget.”

“Ask her yourself. Don’t ask me. For once in your life, confront her. Make her tell you what you want to hear.”

Did he hide from the truth? Did he let her get away with lie after lie, and in time she thought telling lies her husband wanted to hear was better than telling the truth?

Now Sophie was returning, with teacup on saucer, blocking the easy exit from the hallway. Hyun got his attention before he could consider fleeing from the room’s other doorway, saying, “Kimmy punished herself Josh. I saw it. I held her hand through it.”

“Hey, Sophie,” he said, acknowledging his niece, arriving with an expression seeking praise for her dutiful nature. “You’re allowed to use the kettle?” Steam rose from the teacup.

Sophie said, “We have a machine.”

Hyun said, “She’s allowed to use the Keurig.”

Sophie set down her mother’s tea and Hyun ran her hands over her daughter’s shoulders, turning Sophie to face her. “Your Aunt Kimmy works very hard, doesn’t she?”

Sophie nodded, confused but agreeable.

“She worked hard to make this home for your Uncle Josh to return to. She’s done a lot to win him back.”

Sophie agreed with this as well. Hyun circled her arms around Sophie and hugged her from behind, her chin in Sophie’s collar. She said to Josh, “You should be flattered. I would be.”

  *

Kimmy wasn’t in the other room, nor was Colleen. He paused at the crib. Empty, a blanket folded over the rail. A humidifier ran in the corner by a rocking chair, and the mobile above the crib still spun, geometric shapes in bright metal splintered the lamplight into sparkling reflections that danced on the walls.

He headed up the stairs, no one in the kitchen or in the office, up to the second floor, following the hall to the only room with a light on. Kimmy stood in the room at the end of the hall, the master bedroom, rubbing lotion on her wrists, looking at herself in the mirror. She acknowledged his presence as he leaned a shoulder on the door jamb, nodding his way but returning her attention to her reflection.

On the far side of the room, a small bundle kicked feet against the silk-case of a fuzzy pink blanket, obscured by the spindles of a white crib. A white noise generator set a low and peaceful fizz by the bedside.

He stepped into the room, circling behind her toward the crib. Photographs set in folding frames lined the dresser at his side. Black and white photos from their wedding. A photo of them together in color taken in Kingston when they were practically kids. Kimmy looked like a kid; so did he. He’d known her a long time.

Colleen mewled in her crib. He stood over her watching her, those beautiful eyes closed, whatever disgruntlement had her complaining ceasing and she began to settle. He turned to Kimmy, her back to him, but aware of him, her eyes tracking him over her shoulder’s reflection. Crossing the room to her, seemed inexorable. She was tall and lean, her hair pulled back, working lotion between long fingers.

All of this could be his. This house was his. That beautiful baby was his. This gorgeous, cunning woman was his. How much, though, did he like playing with fire?

He kissed her neck, her head tilted aside, eyes closing. He loved kissing her here. Loved it. His hands caressed the robe’s silk where it touched her hipbones.

“You smell amazing,” he said, and she did; talcum and musk and sugar.

She smiled in the mirror, and something gave way inside him, something like wire or cord; a tether. Seeing her smile at his kiss so honestly encouraged a swell of hope into his darkened heart. He hugged his cheek to her neck and held her for a long moment.

“What happened, Kimmy? What happened when you left me? You left me.”

“I left you because I love you.”

“I know. You said that. But what happened? You stayed away. You broke me and then you stayed away.”

“Because I was ashamed, Josh,” she whispered. Her nails stroked through his hair.

“You should have ended it.”

“I was pregnant with our baby. I didn’t want to end it.”

“You just needed time away? Did you think I would hurt less that way?”

She palmed his cheek, and he lifted his head, looking at her reflection. There was a lot unsaid in her shimmering eyes.

“What am I missing?”

“I was ashamed. Ashamed of the things you know I did.”

“Yeah?”

Her lips pursed, parted, then pursed again. At last she said, “And ashamed of the things you didn’t know.”

He stepped back, letting his touch fall from the silk, a hot and sick feeling tightening his belly. Those old blasts of betrayal battered his shields. His heart raced. Another step back; Kimmy turned to face him.

He said, “What don’t I know about?”

Kimmy looked down, lips slimming, biting them, then looked up. She said, “I stole money, Josh. A lot of money.”







DITW 15-11: The Way That Runs Among the Lost (Patreon)

Content

She continued. “I told myself it wasn’t stealing. I deemed it as reallocation.”

Josh was far behind enough she took it as proof he had heard no rumors beforehand. He frowned, brow crinkling in complete bewilderment. “Stole money from who? From me?”

He thought she’d meant the money she took from their account to buy a house. Not a heist. She’d told him. But that was the only thing Josh could conceive. Not what she’d really done.

“From Stone,” she said. “From Devlin. Him specifically.”

Josh’s face went through elastic movement as he showed off an impressive range of contradicting emotions, rage through humor. Then put his hands on his hips, turned away, shaking his head. He faced her again, gesturing with jerky hands, wanting to know more, saying, “What are you talking about?”

“I took money, Josh. I took money from Stone.”

“You mean...”

“Money that wasn’t mine.”

Disgruntled Josh returned. Bothered Josh. Maybe there was something masculine about him when he did this that she secretly enjoyed. Rubbed his brow and made that pained face. It was almost paternal. Like a bothered father. He was going to be a noble father. Colleen was a lucky girl. 

But right now Josh had this other problem. This woman in his life who caused him much consternation and worry, but a woman he loved anyway, as much as he didn’t want to sometimes. Josh had an enduring love. She wanted him to see it in her, too.

At last, he said, “Why? Why would you do that?”

“I don’t even know,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “I never hoarded it or, or kept it. Not cash or anything. I diverted money Devlin had stolen himself, and—”

“Wait, Devlin stole money?”

“Again: diverted. He . . . he just copied some things his dad did. Moving money to avoid tax, moving it to shell corporations, and, and . . . the money goes to these corporations, stays a while, moves to another . . . I moved it to buy clothes and dinners and—”

Josh palmed his forehead, full realization coming to him. “That fucking suit you bought me.”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding.

Josh paced. She let him work out what he was feeling, gave him space. “You would buy shoes, and I would know they were, like, a thousand dollars, and I would think that seems dangerous. And then . . . Sometimes I would think I should stop you. That you were spending money you hadn’t earned yet. But you know what? I trusted you. I . . . I always think you know what you’re doing. I should have said something. I should have—”

“No, Josh. You’re right. I knew you trusted me. I knew you wouldn’t say anything about it.”

“And if I did, you’d just talk circles around me.”

She raised her eyebrows, an instinct to defend herself spiking up, but ultimately failing to launch, pulled earthward by the lies she’d spun around the man she loved. “I would.”

“I’d get mad you were spending our money and that the only reason you were even working at Stone was so we could afford a house.” He paced again and Colleen grew agitated, sensing her father’s perplexity. He stopped and looked at Colleen in her crib. “You were supposed to get in and get out, make enough money we could be halfway to owning a home.”

“I know.”

He braced himself on the crib’s rail, hands gripping the wood. Colleen eased. “But it wasn’t our money,” he said.

“No.”

“It was Devlin’s.” He turned. “And what was Devlin doing with it? Avoiding taxes?”

She chuckled. “He had his own accounts. In Cayman. His war chests, as he called them. He wanted to start his own company.”

“Doing what?”

“Shipping.”

Josh didn’t get it. Just staring at the floor between them and shaking his head, not one to indulge in conspiracies of nefarious business behavior, not one to see far ahead into the schemes of the wicked.

“That’s what his dad does,” she said. “He wanted to take money out of Stone and start a competing boutique, handling some specific lines.”

“Like illegal things? What?”

“No. That wasn’t the plan. But I wouldn’t put it past him. Land lines up into the north. Not terrible ideas, but he’s just not the man who could do something like that.”

It was too much for Josh to contemplate. And he didn’t care, anyway. Didn’t care about Devlin anymore. “You’re telling me you were just Robin Hood? Is that how come you’re not in jail?”

At the mention of the word jail, all that dread she’d experienced when she’d first split from Josh came rushing back. Her hand went to cover her stomach. Some nights she’d cried thinking she would go to jail pregnant, or worse, that all her worry and suffering would end her pregnancy. That her own actions—her sins—would end her baby’s life. That the punishment for what she’d done would be another miscarriage. She would roll on the bed clutching her belly praying and crying and swearing to God she would make things right. That she would never do wrong again.

“I’m not in jail because I made everything right.”

“You gave the money back?”

She rubbed her brow now, acting like Josh. Josh thinking it was as simple as that. “No, I, uh, showed them what I’d done, and . . . they were more interested in, in...”

“Who’s they?”

“Stone. The real Stone. His lawyer, some other executives. They...”

“You ratted Devlin out?”

She nodded. “Yes. I did.”

Josh smirked and chuckled, though showed no humor in his eyes. She wasn’t sure what amused him; Devlin’s demise or his betraying wife’s endless treachery.

She said, “It was the right thing.”

Josh nodded, saying, “I guess.” He turned away, stood over Colleen now.

Their daughter had fallen asleep during her mother’s terrible confession. She shouldn’t be so lucky as this: to admit all her wrongs from such a wonderful location; a warm room in a quiet house, shared with her husband and baby girl. But perhaps doing the right thing brought its own rewards.

“He told me everything. He showed me how all of it worked.”

“You ratted him out?”

“I did. His punishment will be severe and long-lasting.”

Josh found no joy in that, staring empty-eyed at sleeping Colleen.

She said, “At some point, you know, diverting that money, I think I just wanted to hurt Devlin. I wanted to sabotage this thing I had going on. A good job, good pay. I never thought Devlin was a good person. I never liked him. Maybe I had a hopeful glimmer every so often that I was wrong and maybe we could work something out, you know...?”

Josh turned his head toward her. “Stay at Stone?”

“Do what we were doing. Which would mean you had to be willing to—”

“Suffer?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Then at some point I... I just wanted to hurt him. Really get him back.”

“For giving you a job?”

She turned to look at Josh, his expression stony and unconvinced of her virtuous retelling of the summer she’d done all the worst things imaginable and no one stopped her. “For offering me a job that was more than just a job. For offering me so much, for luring the darkest parts of me to the surface, wrangling that evil amphibian out of the water just so he could present it to you like a trophy.”

Josh said nothing, only cocked his head and showed her more stoniness.

“I know,” she said, voice soft and airy, unafraid to admit his unspoken accusation. “It was in me. I did those things. I did all of them. No one made me do them.”Josh looked down again at Colleen, and she was happy to stand at his side and not say anything. He smiled, admiring eyes washing over his baby daughter.

He faced her then, and held her neck, his hand warm, peaceful. “That’s why you’re still there?”

She leaned her head into his touch, loving his palm on her skin. “I showed them Devlin’s plan. Showed them why it wouldn’t work. Showed them how it could work.”

“Keith Stone’s not in love with you?”

“No. He’s divorced. He doesn’t really date. Not that I know of. . . . He’s not like how you’re thinking.”

“He’s not like Devlin?”

“No. He’s scary. He’s not all talk. . . . It’s long hours; it’s no fun. No fun at all. It’s nothing like it was before. Now it’s all work, no play, and it’s hard. The hours are long. Nothing is as glamorous as Devlin made it, but . . . the pay is good. The pay is great. I’m good at what I do.”

“And that’s kicking Devlin out of the nest. Taking his spot. Making his money.”

She didn’t react to Josh’s harshness. She said, “But I will not fuck it up like he did.”

Josh heaved himself off the crib, rubbing his head and walking away, back to the dresser, looking at his own reflection. “And I see this picture in the paper. You and Keith Stone.”

“Meyer said Steve sent it to you.”

Josh said, “The $14,000 picture.”

“At least it got you to my door.”

Josh looked offended in his reflection. She joined him at the mirror, putting her hands on his shoulders, pressing her chin to his back. He said, “That’s what you think?”

“Am I wrong?”

“I should have been here before,” he said. “Did you pay Steve to send me that picture?”

Her eyes darted up to meet his in the mirror. He was joking, smirking to one side. “I knew you would come when you were ready,” she said. “And I would wait.”

“Your message made it all the way to Mexico,” he said. “I opened my phone, and I saw you had moved on and anything I’d hoped for passed me by.”

She slunk her arms around him, hugged his shoulders harder. “It was business. I attended as his guest, not his date.”

“You weren’t wearing your wedding ring.”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was married to him. I had no idea anyone would take my picture—”

“It was right out front of the venue. It was an event where they take pictures. It’s the whole point of going.”

“I had no idea the paper would print my picture.”

“You looked incredible.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry you saw it. I’m sorry it upset you. I’m sorry it ruined your trip.”

“It didn’t. Meyer just says that. I bitched and moaned the whole morning and maybe I bitched at him, too. We squabbled. He was mad at me. Then he goes over the handlebars and he blames me.”

“He’s only joking.”

“I know, Kimmy. I know.”

“You had to end your trip, sell the bikes . . . I know all about it.”

“It was an adventure,” he said.

“You needed an adventure.” She pressed her cheek to his collar, and he held her wrist. 

They stayed like that and the moment was long and peaceful before Josh said, “Keith Stone didn’t give you money for the house?”

She let him go, amused by Josh’s attachment to male involvement in her affairs, but disappointed that there were things he wouldn’t let go. She’d done it to him, yes, but he did it to himself, too. She stepped back and sat on the bed, and Josh turned to face her.

“No, Josh. Keith Stone has nothing to do with our house.”

He huffed a breath, looked around the room, brow pinched. “Then how the hell can you afford a place like this? How much is Keith Stone paying you?”








DITW 15-12: Let Them Wait Here (Patreon)

Content

Kimmy scratched her neck, stalling before she would answer. It was too good to be true anyway, that his wife had done so much to bait his return when he should have run to the hills and never stopped after her betrayal. He stepped away, lured now by the real bait that had bargained his return. Colleen slept in the crib by the bed, where he should lay his head every night. Kimmy turned her head to follow him, then sat up on the bed, crossing her legs.

“We had a lot saved,” she said.

“I know how much we had,” he said, then lifted Colleen from the crib mattress and held her to his chest. Those darling eyes opened and scanned his for a second. Then she screwed up her face. She didn’t cry, though, and he assumed she liked him. “And it wouldn’t be enough to get a loan for a house half this value.”

“And then, uh, I had a bonus from Stone.”

“A bonus?” He turned with Colleen in his arms, and Kimmy smiled at the sight.

“The money I took from Devlin was his father’s money. I reallocated from Devlin’s theft. I, I convinced Keith I’d done it on purpose.”

“Why would you do something like that on purpose?”

“To send up a distress call, you know, a smoke signal.”

“And he believed you?”

Kimmy bowed her head, played with the lapel of her robe. She was a liar. A weaver of webs. And she’d done it again to get out of the theft. Maybe she’d worked Keith Stone in circles like she’d done to her husband.

She said, “I had to convince them I wasn’t doing it to test the system before I stole a much larger sum of money. But since I took quite a bit, and I could account for what I’d spent, and it was all on work-related, well, luxuries . . . Anyway, in time, yes, he believed me.”

“How much did you take?”

“A lot, Josh.”

“A million dollars?”

“God, no, Josh. No, it wasn’t like that. It was, it was 75k.”

Josh braced Colleen and reeled. That was a serious crime. A felony amount. Worse than that. “How are you not in jail, Kimmy?”

“I did it in the open. It wasn’t a secret, really. Sometimes I thought Devlin knew I was doing it and didn’t care. He loved doing wrong things.”

“They gave you a bonus? You stole from them.”

“A bonus minus the 75k,” she admitted, showing an expression acknowledging they were right to hold it back.

“You stole from them. They hired you. They fired Devlin—Keith’s own son. And they pay you well.”

“It didn’t fall in my lap, Josh. I did the wrong things. Very wrong. And for a while I was pretty sure I would give birth to that little bundle”—she nodded to Colleen, held in his arms—“behind bars. But I worked my ass off to make it right with Stone. I worked my ass off to make it right with you, too. I did it all for you. All for us.” She nodded to Colleen again, smiling this time. “I want us to be together. It’s the only thing I want in life.”

He sighed at the weight of her words. All the things a man like him would want to hear. But trust was something he could never afford with Kimmy again. He’d surrendered trust to her when they married, and she’d done the worst things imaginable. He could never be vulnerable with her again. He came to the bed with their baby and sat at the edge, Kimmy near the center, cross-legged and surrounded by the shimmering folds of her robe.

“So a bonus got you the house?”

She didn’t answer, and he turned his attention from Colleen to her. She shook her head no.

“No?”

“It wasn’t that much money. But it helped. And, uh, I, um, I got help elsewhere.”

Whatever it was, it bothered her. But this time he didn’t jump to the conclusion she was on her back for the money. That wasn’t her. She didn’t fuck Devlin for money; she fucked him for the dark thrill. And Kimmy here tonight didn’t seem like the same woman pleased by dark thrills. He asked her where she got help.

Now she compressed, taking the robe’s lapel and tightening it around her collar, drawing up her knees. “I wanted a house for us. Not just any house, but a house of our dreams. You know?”

He nodded and waited for her to continue.

She exhaled, long and drawn out, taking her time with this. “And to make it right with us, um, I couldn’t have lies, you know, surrounding us. Where we have to pretend certain things when we’re with friends and family. So, uh, I went to my, to my dad.”

He frowned with sharp disbelief. “You told him?”

She raised her eyebrows, gaze cast out long across the room. “I did. Not everything, Josh. But I confessed to him. Told him what I’d done.”

“The money?” He tried to picture her father hearing she was a thief.

She cringed her brow, like his remark surprised her. “No. No, not that. That was just business. I sorted that out.”

They stared at each other and both could acknowledge their disconnected perspectives. But Kimmy defended herself no further. “I told him I’d been unfaithful, and that we split up and that I was pregnant, but I had ruined my marriage.”

“Was that when he stopped talking to me?”

“I don’t know, Josh. But listen, he loves you. He thinks you’re better than me. I broke his heart, Josh. He wants us to be together.”

“He bought the house?”

“No. No, it’s not like that.”

“Then tell me.”

“I told my dad what I did. I even told my sister. I wanted them to know. I failed.” She shrugged, smirking a wounded smile, taking some enjoyment in her ability to admit her defeat. “I failed, but I’m going to make everything better. I had enough for a down payment and my future earnings are good. But the job is new, and the bank didn’t think I, uh, qualify.”

“So your dad did what? Gave you money?”

“No, just cosigned. No money. It’s not his house, Josh. It’s our house.”

Now her smile seemed purer, and she leaned closer so they could both look at Colleen’s sleeping face.

“You could have bought another house on your own.”

She looked up at him. “Yeah. I could have.”

“Why here?”

“For you. I want us to have everything. I want our daughter to have everything. I want family.”

Colleen opened one eye, gurgled, then fidgeted into a more comfortable position. He carried her off the bed and returned her to her crib without rousing her. She settled, and he watched her for a moment before turning back to face his wife, sitting like a queen on their bed. “It’s all too perfect,” he said.

Kimmy looked disappointed and rubbed a shin under her robe.

He said, “I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Ask me, Josh, and I’ll tell you the truth.”

He rubbed a hand through his hair, knowing he was missing something, but not trusting he had the mind to track it down. He said, “Your dad, he just, what, accepted what you’d done? What you’d told him you’d done?”

“Well, he’s very angry with me. Worse.” She looked around, then sighed. “He’s disappointed. But he loves you. And he loves me. And my god, he loves Colleen.”

Josh rubbed the back of his neck, but came up with nothing. He shook his head. “I just still don’t understand how you ended up with everything.”

“I didn’t, Josh. I didn’t end up with everything.”

“Look at all you have.”

“When I convince you to stay, then I’ll have everything. And so would you.” She smiled again, showing much affection and hope.

He came to the bed, knelt on the mattress, then sat across from her. “If you had me, then you would have everything. Is it because you want me or is it because without me you can’t hold your head high, you can’t be proud of your daughter in front of people who know you because they’ll always think in the back of their head that the baby is Devlin’s?”

It injured her, hearing claims like that again from her husband’s mouth, but she took a breath and nodded, reached for his hands. He gave them to her. “I want you, Josh. And no one would think that. Just look at her. She’s as sweet and innocent as you are.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a while. So much of what she said seemed true. And if it were true, this was a personal triumph. For your wife to see her badness and her betrayal and concoct the grandest gesture for her husband’s return. Doing everything right and by the book. All for him. All for his return.

He leaned closer, and she did too, coming together until their heads touched. He smoothed hands over her shoulders. Their mouths grazed, and this time, he wanted her. Wanted her back, wanted to return, wanted every gift she’d arranged for him. He kissed her slowly, and her lips trembled against his own. She touched his face, her fingertips going through his beard again. It felt so good to have her mouth on his. To touch her shoulders and to have her touch him.

But an unstoppable nagging distraction waved in his periphery. This was Kimmy doing her thing again. Ask me anything and I’ll tell you, Josh. Knowing her simple husband wouldn’t have the nefarious mind to ask the right question. The right question for him to ask her would be: will you tell me the thing you don’t want to tell me?

Their kiss broke, and she smiled, loving eyes looking deep into his. He let go of her shoulders and sat back.

She said, “That was nice. I’ve missed that so much.”

Colleen coughed and murmured, then mewled a little, but she settled. They both regarded the crib, waiting to see if their daughter would need help. She settled.

Tales of stolen money, of subterfuge, of high-level corporate gamesmanship; betrayal, wickedness, infidelity, humiliation. His wife humiliated him. His bully humiliated him. They worked together to do it. He’d broken his brain. He’d had a daughter and never came to see her. He suffered panic attacks. He rode a motorcycle down to Mexico and bought himself a leather jacket. And now they were together again. In a beautiful home with a beautiful baby. And no one punished Kimmy Chang. Not even when she stole $75,000. It was like she was untouchable.

He regarded Kimmy, then looked to the crib. Back to Kimmy. Kimmy rested her fingertips on his kneecaps in gentle claws.

He closed his eyes and groaned. Something slithered in his viscera, a creature from another time a year ago. “Oh no,” he sighed.

“What?”

He looked at her with her mock concern, her pretty face showing innocent puzzlement, her delicate brow showing the tiniest crinkle.

He said, “Does Keith Stone think Colleen’s his granddaughter?”









DITW 15-13: The Quiet Shade of Verdant Groves (Patreon)

Content

He knew her answer before she spoke it. The way she paused, held her tongue for as long as she could—all the familiar traits of his deceptive wife. The stalling was a sign. Betrayal still sung in her choir. But at least he could detect it now. Whatever charm she’d had over him before had waned; he was no longer so eager to lap milk at her feet, to seek equilibrium and acquiesce to insanity in order to establish it. Before she spoke, he smiled.

Kimmy saw his smile, and guilt and shame burned on her cheeks. She lowered her head and closed her eyes. “I never told him so, but he may think it. Yes.”

At last, some dam upstream broke, and floodwaters swelled his riverbanks. He covered his mouth with a hand to stifle...

Stifle what?

Laughter came. Real honest to god laughter. Totally and completely unexpected. And the more he held his hand against its swell the more the laughter’s flux taxed the restraint. He blurted air around his hand and could no longer contain it. 

Kimmy showed pure offense. Kimmy showed the expression of an insulted aristocrat. Now he laughed hard enough he bent at the waist and put his hands on his knees.

But as quickly as it came, it subsided; like a quick summer rain swamping runoff over sun-baked earth until the beaten land remembers how to drink it down. He regained his composure and stood upright again, Kimmy still offended but subdued. Colleen woke and babbled, and he wiped his eyes.

Kimmy regarded him, beginning to accept the deserved reaction. Colleen’s babbling became another sound. Laughter. Kimmy said, “At least we know somebody likes your laugh.”

He looked over at his daughter in her crib, awake now and happy, kicking legs and moving arms, making a sort of rolling reedy chuckle in a manner mimicking her father’s. Now he laughed again, but small and quiet; more the sound of someone in awe. He said, “She’s got my laugh.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Kimmy said.

Josh turned again and hefted the little pink-swaddled bundle into his arms. “I guess she doesn’t want to sleep. Is she hungry?”

“No, not now. Maybe just curious. She hears us talking.”

“She’s never heard that before.” He returned to the bed with her in his arms, lively and wriggling, her squirming body surprisingly strong. He bounced at the knees lightly, rocking her in his arms. When he looked up, he saw Kimmy watching them, her eyes wet. She smirked and blinked, looked away and wiped her eyes. It swelled his heart to see the happiness he and his daughter would give her. He twirled with Colleen, and Colleen liked it, squealing and gurgling, and he made baby sounds at her, still rocking and bobbing, then sat with her on the bed beside Kimmy again. He kissed Colleen’s brow. 

He said, “You’re going to let that man think something so awful?”

Kimmy said, “Keith believes it’s possible but he’s never asked me outright. He’s afraid of the answer. . . . It benefits me for him to think it.”

“So you let him.”

“So . . . I let him.”

He said, “What about me?”

Her lips slimmed, and she nodded. “I know. She’s yours. You want everyone in the world to know she’s yours.”

He admired his giggling daughter for a while longer. He said, “I don’t know what to do, Kimmy.”

“Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He sighed, and hesitated, knowing it was all so tiresome now, and despite the pain of the past and the promise of the present, the future seemed so unclear; a point of stasis, a point of balance on a beam, where lost footing could produce the pain of the before or the promised hope of the present’s thereafter. He said, “It’s all so small and far away. When I think of him—and I don’t—the lasting image of him isn’t as some asshole jock bully, it’s him on his hands and knees, crawling around on the floor after I hit him with a chair.”

“I’m so glad for that,” Kimmy whispered.

“And Rumble, too. Why did I ever waste my time worrying about any of them? They’re sad. Pathetic. Useless! So far away from who I am or who I want to be. Or anyone I would want to associate.”

“That’s so good you think like that, Josh,” she said, leaning closer like she might touch his hand or his arm, or Colleen.

He said, “It’s you I’m afraid of. You’re the reason I stayed away so long.”

Kimmy retreated with a heft sigh and gathered the satiny fabric around her legs. Her chin turned down, and her brows bowed in glum arrows.

“I’m sorry,” he said. But facts were facts.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t even deserve you being here tonight.” She looked up, eyes wet again, brows still straining to support the weight of her emotion. “I want a chance. That’s all. I want a chance to prove myself to you. I want you to let me try.”

They regarded each other for a long moment, their daughter gurgling, making noises like she’d like them all to get that laugh going again if they could because laughing was fun. And, fuck, what Kimmy asked was reasonable. And what she’d done in preparation for the request was noble and honest. And difficult. She’d fought jail, she’d fought Devlin, she’d fought with Keith Stone. Done it until she got her way. Done it until she had everything she wanted. But the ultimate prize was him. And god damn it that was starting to feel really good. He looked around the room again. This could be his bedroom. This baby was his. That wasn’t going to change. But this beautiful woman, as frightening as she may be, could be his, too. If it were up to her, the deal was done. She’d pass him a pen right now and he could sign his name on the bottom line.

This was the place where he should be.

“I don’t want to stay in the garage,” he said. “If I stay.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Why did you offer that first?”

Kimmy considered it, lips moving around, trying to form how she’d phrase it. “I don’t want to be presumptuous. I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to scare you off.”

Josh closed his eyes, trying to conjure in his imagination a bright and happy future. It was easy to grab referential pieces of his past to paint the picture; there’d been the happiest times with Kimmy. But there was the black veil of betrayal deeding the light from those golden memories.

He said, “Uh-oh.”

Kimmy said, “What?”

“I think she might have just pooped. I felt it on my arm.”

Then there was no need for further consideration; the smell revealed the truth.

“Oh, yes, she did,” Kimmy said. “Pass her to me. I’ll go change her.”

Josh withheld Colleen, hesitating, unsure. “Uh, maybe, I could...”

“You want to?”

He said, “I do.”

Kimmy smiled and gestured toward the bedroom door. “Be my guest. Everything you need is in the bathroom, first door on the left, opposite side of the hall.”

Josh admired Colleen, aggravated by whatever had messed up the comfort of her diaper, scrunching up her pretty face and getting ready to complain. Kimmy asked him if he’d like some help and he told her he’d be okay.

“I’ll figure it out.”

#

Josh returned with Colleen, grinning, Colleen babbling softly, wearing a new onesie under her blank. She asked him how it went.

“I wasn’t prepared for that,” he said, returning Colleen to her crib.

She covered her mouth with a hand, watching Josh get their daughter settled. He stood over the crib, hands on hips, still grinning. She said, “It’s surprising sometimes.”

“The diaper?” Josh turned to the bed. “Yeah. It was crazy. I had to bath her a little. Is that going to be a problem?”

“With her sleep? No. She’ll settle.”

They stared at each other again, but this time the barrier that had existed between them softened. Josh’s humiliating laughter had changed something. Once he’d laughed, it looked like it might come a lot easier the second time. And though she’d been angry at first, tension had eased in the time she’d sat in the room alone listening to Josh in the bathroom, hearing the water running, knowing he would take his time and get to know the many moods of Colleen. And like them all.

“I’d like you to stay,” she said. “We can . . . We can talk in the morning. Have some breakfast. You don’t have to take the apartment. We have one more guest room. It has a pullout.” But it would be so much better if you accepted my bed.

Josh’s lips slimmed and he showed a graver expression. “I had Colleen in the bath, and I was thinking...”

“Go on.”

He sat on the bed with her again. “You were worse than him. You know that?”

“I do. Of course.”

You were worse than all of them. You were supposed to be on my side.”

“I know.”

“You’re just like them. You’re no different.”

She exhaled a wounded sound. “I, uh, yeah. But I’m not. I was. I was for a while. But . . . I saw myself in them. I saw myself in them and that’s what broke me. Broke my spell. Shook me awake.” She shook her head and looked around. “Everything here, everything I’ve acquired is all the reason I did it. They’re not things. You know that, right? I don’t mean I did it all for some stuff. I did it to provide. I would do whatever it took. Maybe it was because after we lost our first . . . I would do anything to make a family, like the ultimate lashing out for a nest. I wanted everything Devlin had. He didn’t deserve it. We deserved it. I wanted to take a piece of it. I wanted to take all of it. But I wanted it for us. And for some possibility that’s slowly getting sleepy in her crib.” She looked aside to Colleen, legs still kicking gently, but her babbling gone away.

She looked back at somber Josh, lips plump and misaligned, eyes turned down but still aware of her, staring at her lap. “The depravity I could have sunk to with Devlin was bottomless. What we did might only have been the tip of the iceberg. Maybe, just maybe, your reluctance saved me.”

Josh grunted and looked up, soured by thinking of the awful things he knew she’d done with Devlin Stone. He leaned to the side then, putting his legs out, shifting so his head lay on the pillow. Laying on her bed in jeans and a sweater, his shirt collar disappearing under his beard. He looked up at the ceiling. She lay down beside him, putting her head on a pillow and laying on her side. Her hand crested his woolen shoulder.

“It would be too easy to think that.”

“There’s truth in it,” she said.

Josh closed his eyes. She said, “I saw myself in them—Devlin and Amy—and I hated what I saw. I finally hated myself. That’s why I left. I saw Amy for what she really was. Dumb. Privileged. And all the trimmings amounted to nothing. Shoes, clothes, trips. All the affectation of big business. And the depravity. A whole wardrobe just for depravity, something in every style and color.”

Josh’s eyes stayed closed. He said nothing for a moment, then, “I just want to go to sleep.”

She smiled and her breaths went shaky. Maybe he would stay.  Her cheek slipped down the pillow until her chin touched his shoulder; her hand still caressed his arm. 









DITW 15-14: A Thousand Voices and an Effigy (Patreon)

Content

He stayed overnight. Then he stayed every night for a week.

On the first Sunday, he’d gone back to his apartment and packed a few things, telling Meyer he didn’t know what he was going to do yet, but he was in love with his baby and he had a lot of lost time to make up for. Meyer’d said and what about Kimmy, and he’d took a deep breath and held it. He didn’t know. He said, “I want to be in that house with my daughter.” If living with his daughter meant living with Kimmy, that’s what he would do. So despite only packing a single bag for the next week, it was kind of unsaid between him and his patient cousin that their roommate love affair would now end. No more late-night movie binges, no more video games to the dawn’s early light, no more cracking beers and shooting the shit. Meyer would be all alone again. It was too bad things hadn’t worked out with that girl Quinn. Josh had really liked her.

Josh bid Meyer farewell, and although they both knew they’d see each other all the time, the last six months with Meyer had preserved Josh’s sanity, and he hoped he’d been good company for Meyer.

He stayed with Kimmy in Kimmy’s house, bought for them. His house. He stayed in Kimmy’s bedroom. His bedroom. They went to work, and they came home and they had dinner with Hyun and Sophie and Colleen. They watched TV together. All of them. Having the larger group in his house made the transition of living with Kimmy once again a little easier. There hadn’t been much pressure on having things to say or working things out anymore. There were chores and there was a baby, and there was always something to do. Then they went to bed together and went to sleep.

They weren’t intimate during the week, though he’d considered it twice.

That changed on Friday.

#

On Friday, Josh went home early from work. The first week back at Swanson had been a wild success. He’d come back home to the gang at Swanson and found them exactly where a guy like himself would want them: missing Josh Waters and needing his return, and the return of his expertise. At lunch on Monday, Harmeet ordered pizza for a lunchtime party, welcoming his return. And the best part of his return was how it felt right. He returned to Swanson healed. It would take some time to figure out how it happened. One thing was for sure, coming home from work every day to a beautiful home in Unionville, and his wife and his incredible baby certainly aligned all the facets of his broken psyche. Nothing about it felt wrong.

Since he’d come home early, it meant he could care for Colleen and Hyun could spend time with Sophie before she delivered her to Meyer for the week. And Hyun had an evening class tonight. Josh had thought about it a lot. Last night trying to sleep and today at work. Tonight would be the first time he and Kimmy had an evening together. Just the three of them.

Hyun took Sophie out for dinner and would head to class after she dropped Sophie at Meyer’s, so Josh said his goodbyes to Sophie and told her to say hi to his dad. Hyun and Sophie left.

Now it was him and his baby.

He fed Colleen in the kitchen, still wearing his suit pants, the jacket and tie off. Putting her on a high chair like his dad had done with him. Breast milk was in the fridge, and he warmed the bottle in a saucepan, bringing it to body heat temperature. After she was fed, he walked around the main floor with his daughter, looking out all the windows with her, telling her how leaves changed color and they fell from the trees but that they would return the next spring, better than ever. Then it was upstairs for a nappy exchange, getting her into clean diapers, and taking her to the crib so he could get in the shower and clean himself up.

In the shower, his mind wandered to the evening ahead. It was him and it was his wife and it was their baby. A real family. It was exciting.

And another thing: they would have sex tonight. He and Kimmy would re-engage in the intimate arts. He could feel it in his bones. One bone in particular, already responding, preparing for the duties ahead.

Only thing was, the more he thought of being with Kimmy, the more frightened he became. Not scared of the Kimmy of old, but scared to reunite with the Kimmy of before. The mild-mannered one. The kind one. The one he married. That Kimmy made him feel uncomfortable now. He wouldn’t know how to act with that one. The Kimmy who’d set him on fire last year and burned him to a crisp...? Now that one excited him. He knew how to behave with that one. That Kimmy took the lead and told him to do what she wanted. Lied to him when they both deep down knew she was lying. That was the Kimmy he wanted to have sex with.

But that was something he knew to keep to himself.

#

Out of the shower, he found Colleen awake and babbling, and he went to her, lifted her and took her downstairs, brought her to the room with the window to the garden. She played for a while, taking things he handed to her and studied them or tossed them aside for some new object for perusal. He could get her to giggle by making the right face. And sometimes when she wouldn’t giggle at a face he made, he could get her to giggle with a tickle. It was cheating, but he liked the sound of her giggle. When he exhausted her, she fell asleep sitting up, then teetered to the side, like a sawn tree. He called out Timber and held her before she toppled. Then he took her to the side room with the main floor crib and set her in for a nap. It was past four, and Kimmy would be home in an hour or two. He could nap as well, sit down in the chair where Kimmy would feed Colleen, and drift off. In his own home. With his baby at his side.

But sleep never came. He dwelled on thoughts of reignited intimacy. It worried him now that the time was closing in. The TV watching would be easy. Making and eating dinner, also easy. But intimacy?

The idea unnerved him. The discomfort intimidated him.

When she’d tried to engage him, seduce him practically, in the garage apartment, he’d almost crawled out of his skin. Was it that Kimmy showed weakness? A weak Kimmy didn’t interest him. Not when he knew it was all an act. Maybe that was it. Dishonesty in intimacy.

Then, before he contemplated it, he was checking to make sure Colleen still napped, then sneaking back upstairs to the master bedroom. He slowed, hesitated, as the truth of his sudden quest dawned on him. But why deny it?

His finger tried along the edge of Kimmy’s dresser, going to the top drawer on the left. The one where she stored her underwear. Her panties.

Sexy things? Lacy stuff? He opened the drawer to find a disappointing array of underwear that looked to be based on comfort over sex appeal. All of Kimmy’s underthings were folded in small, tight rectangles, stuffed in neat piles along the Y-axis so she could index through them and find what she was looking for.

And what are you looking for?

A pair of green satin things. Panties she’d worn to a tryst with one well-hung sexual dynamo named Devlin Stone. 

His riffling fingers found no trace of the panties he sought. He pulled the drawer out further. Still no sign of his prize.

And that had to be for the best. Wasn’t it?

There was a box at the back of the drawer and he was pretty sure he’d hit pay dirt. This box would contain her more impressive undergarments. But as he wriggled it out of its nest at the back of the drawer, he could tell it didn’t contain underwear. Too heavy. And by the sound of it, the box contained only one thing sliding around inside. The box was long, like a box sent with flowers. Maybe Keith Stone secretly sent her flowers. Maybe she liked them and kept them preserved as a memento in the back of her underwear drawer.

But again: the box was too heavy.

He placed the box on the dresser’s top and lifted its lid. The item inside shortened his breath. He gasped, horrified. Revulsed. 

Inside the box lay dormant an enormous rubbery dildo; flesh colored, molded sack. It had to be ten inches long. A thick, veiny monster that resembled the thing that Devlin had. The thing Kimmy loved. He shoved the box away to the far side of the dresser, then with gritted teeth and angry movements, he covered the disgusting phallic effigy and shoved it in the drawer where he found it.

#

The discovery aroused him. As much as he hated it, sitting by himself in the window room with his arms crossed and muttering to himself, the arousal was real. Now tonight couldn’t get started fast enough. But with heightened arousal came heightened wariness.

Yes, he was aroused—but now had convinced himself Kimmy had left the grotesque dildo there for him to find in order to spark his arousal. When he was aroused, Kimmy was in charge and he couldn’t lift a finger to stop her. And that was his own doing.

There was one piece of his jumbled puzzle to set back in place. A thing he always shooed away or wandered around. There was no denying how it still turned him on. Not the betrayal. No way, not that. The things she did to hide her betrayal. Those fun times he thought there was a game going on, and Josh and Kimmy Waters were the only players. Those times where the things Kimmy told him were tabulations meant for a shared thrill. A husband and a wife figuring out what made each other’s darker parts tick. A thick, veiny cock about a foot long; a cock that would touch a hidden trigger, a place only whispered of in hushed tones among the mere mortals. Most of them not even believing such a place existed. But, oh yes, it existed. It did, at least, within his wife. It existed inside Kimmy. And she needed the thing in the drawer to get that scratch itched. But did she think of Devlin when she used it to make herself come? This last year, when they were apart, why would she masturbate with a huge dildo thinking of her husband? No, she would think of the man who gave her the real thing. Then maybe later, when her heart rate came back down to normal and she wished she had more help with the baby, then she would think of Josh. Her husband.

He heard her car arrive in their driveway.










DITW 15-15: Dim Suffusion Veiled (Patreon)

Content

She arrived home on a Friday night, stomach knotted with dread. There was a chance for a good evening with Josh, but uncertainty gnawed away. Hyun was gone for the night, taking Sophie with her and dropping her off with her father. Then a night class. She and Josh would be alone tonight for the first time. Intimacy would occur. 

Should occur.

And what if it didn’t?

Josh rejected her advances. Although they’d been subtle—perhaps Josh required stronger prompting.

Out of the car, crisp evening air nipping at her cheeks, she approached the front door and pushed it open. The house greeted her with warmth and welcome. So many times when she’d done the worst things with Devlin Stone, she’d told herself—and told Josh—that a family home like this was why she worked for Devlin. And that was where they ended up. Where she’d intended all along. 

Josh sat in the main floor baby’s room, beside Colleen’s crib. Colleen slept peacefully, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath. The sight of her husband and their baby, bathed in a soft autumn glow, sent a swell of contentment through her. She leaned on the doorframe, smiling. It had been a good week, having Josh back in her life, yet every moment felt like walking on eggshells. Josh was sensitive, brittle even, and she worried about handling him with the care he needed. She couldn’t bear the thought of breaking him again.

“Hey,” Josh said, voice quiet. “How was your day?”

“Tiring,” she told him. “But I’ve been looking forward to tonight all week.”

Hurt still lingered in Josh’s eyes. It was a familiar sight, one that both pained and determined her. She loved him, and she was willing to do anything to make this work again. It had been so good for so long.

“I’m going to go get out of these work clothes,” she said, pushing off the doorframe. “Put something more comfortable on.” With one last glance at Josh and Colleen, she turned and headed to the stairs. She stopped and called back, “Do you want to order in?”

Josh called back that he did. That encouraged her. This week had been wonderful, but with Hyun here, it wasn’t like the way her and Josh’s life had been like before Devlin Stone re-entered their lives.

Once in the bedroom, she slipped off her suit and hung it up, untied her hair, and removed her shirt and threw it in the laundry hamper. In the bathroom she brushed her teeth and rinsed with Scope, but was too exhausted for a shower. There was a chance nothing would happen between her and Josh tonight. She unhooked her bra, breasts tender and full, a reminder of the life that now depended on her. She’d pump before dinner.

Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror, a stark contrast to the woman she used to be. Stoop-shouldered, eyes heavy with fatigue, hair disheveled—a far cry from the polished, killer woman who would have been stepping out for a night of whiskey and laughter at the Royal York a little over a year ago. But that life, as thrilling as it had been, held no substance. This—the sore back, the aching head, the desperate need for a pumping session—this was real. She wouldn’t trade this for anything. A fresh swipe of deodorant, then she slipped into her silk robe. She tugged open her underwear drawer, looking for a fresh pair, and recognized right away that someone had been through her underthings. Someone looking for a green satin pair, she was sure. 

Back in the bathroom, she slipped off the robe and the panties she wore all day and ran the hot water for a quick shower. Tonight would be the night Josh returned to her.

  *

Josh was in the kitchen when Kimmy returned about a half an hour later. Obviously showered, wearing that long silk robe. She looked revived; she hadn’t seen so lively when she’d first come home, but now she moved with a renewed fluid grace, swishing into the kitchen and coming right to him. She touched his shoulder as she reached for the fridge, saying, “What did you order?”

 He turned to regard her, now no longer touching his shoulder, pulling out a bottle of mineral water. He said, “I didn’t order anything. I don’t know any of the restaurants around here. I don’t know what you like. What’s good?”

 Kimmy pulled down a glass from the cupboard and came to the island next to him, setting both items down on the counter with a heavy knock. She sighed and pondered. She said, “Do you want Chinese?”

“Sure,” he said. “Whatever’s good.” His eyes stayed on her, studying her. She hadn’t washed her hair, but she’d brushed it while it was damp. Though it was long and she still sported bangs, the hair at the sides of her head swept around her ears. She had a long, beautiful neck, and he loved her jawline. He reached out and touched it, running his thumb from the edge of her chin to just underneath her ear. Kimmy covered his hand with hers and regarded him. They stared at one another for a long moment without saying anything, and for the first time this week back with her, he felt a little like in those days between the miscarriage and the high school reunion where his wife had messed around with Devlin Stone. That wasn’t a perfect segment of time, but he’d loved her in it; the miscarriage had changed their relationship. It had made them—or at least him—wary of the other. For the first time, he’d felt unsure of their future. He’d forgotten about that because that feeling had become insignificant about eight weeks later when he’d begun suspecting something was going on behind his back.

 Kimmy inched closer and closed her eyes, lowering them first and regarding his mouth. He kissed her and held her neck. When their kiss broke, she said, “Get me the phone. I know what to order.”

  *

Kimmy ordered from a Chinese restaurant in Unionville. The menu was in Chinese and she spoke the order to the restaurant in Chinese. They ate dinner—amazing jelly fish and shredded turnip, and soy-stewed egg and salted duck—then cleaned up and watched TV. They brought Colleen out to the family room and Kimmy watched while he showed Colleen toys and played with her and got her on her feet by holding her hands.

And in that moment, with the sun gone from the sky, leaving just yellow trees against a sky like dark denim, there was sacred beauty. Kimmy sitting and watching him, looking incredible with her hair framed around her face, no makeup; a mother. A working mother. A woman that had done terrible things to him. But a woman that had done hard things to earn him back. And he deserved all of this. He deserved the home; he deserved his baby, and he deserved Kimmy. Kimmy was a product of his own machination. The things he had done made Kimmy who she was. He’d considered Kimmy quite a bit this afternoon, sitting here with their daughter and waiting for her to get home from work. He’d tried last year making her into something he desired. He tried, and she’d played along. But the whole time, the worst things she’d told him in fantasy were true. She’d done them behind his back. They’d played with some of the darkest fantasies he could imagine, and they’d been incredible. Kimmy made them real. And when they were shown to him as real, he’d rejected it. He’d even run away thinking he would never return. And if it weren’t for this baby daughter whose tiny little hands gripped both his index fingers, maybe he never would have come back. What was certain to him was how much the fantasy had played in his mind. How much power those fantasies had. And who was responsible? Josh Waters was. Josh Waters was his own worst enemy. Kimmy had said it many times, and it was true. Kimmy was evil and wicked, and she’d betrayed him—but he’d framed the playground they’d played in. He’d given Kimmy the ingredients, and she’d cooked the meal he’d asked for. The one she’d already been cooking.

He lifted Colleen now and held her. He said to Kimmy, “I’m going to stay. I’m going to stay here in the house with you.”

Kimmy nodded, slow and unemotional at first, then her eyes welled and she moved to the side table and snatched up a tissue to blot them.

He said, “I’d be crazy not to,” then looked down at Colleen, so in love with her. Yes, she had his mother’s eyes, but she had Kimmy’s cheekbones; she had Kimmy’s mouth, had her smile. 

When Kimmy spoke, her voice was shaky and unsure. “I want you here, Josh. I want you here with me so badly. I’d do anything to have you here.”

“I know you would,” he said, and thought of the toy she’d set up where she knew he’d look. That was on him. His first reaction was anger at her manipulation, but sitting in the house she’d bought for them with his daughter in his lap, his righteous indignation paled. 

Kimmy slipped off the couch and sat on the floor, scooting to close her arms and legs around him, their daughter in his arms. “I love you, Josh. I love you so much. I’ll never betray you again. I’d die before I did it.”

He didn’t know what to say, but he liked hearing the words. His lips slimmed, and he nodded along with her words.

She said, “I’m sorry, Josh. I’m sorry for the lies and all the bad things I did to you. I loved you the whole time I did it, but that changes nothing. You didn’t deserve that. And I don’t deserve you here with me after what I did.”

No, she didn’t, but she’d sacrificed a lot to prove herself to him. It would have been so much easier for her to move on without him. It would have been easier for him, too. But what was easy wasn’t what was best for Colleen. The two of them together, with renewed devotion, was the best thing. As hard as it was, it was worth it. It was the only thing that mattered.

Now he sighed long and hearty, bowing his head until his brow touched Kimmy’s cheek. He kissed her neck; soft and slow at first, then slower, with more lurid implication, sucking hard on her skin, pulling it away from her tendon, suckling. Kimmy moaned. “Let’s wait,” she said, touching his jaw, pulling back so she could look into his eyes. “Wait until Hyun gets home.”

His heart sank, remembering even though he was reunited with his wife, their life wasn’t as simple as it had been. They had a roommate, and they had a baby. At least they could rely on their roommate to watch the baby when they needed time alone.

“Okay,” he said, kissing her cheek one last time before he returned his attention to their daughter, babbling away in his lap.

Kimmy reached in his lap and hefted Colleen up to her bosom, cradling her for a moment before standing, then padding out of the family room and to the room down the hall where they kept Colleen’s crib. He sat on the floor still, weight back on his hands, staring at the space where his wife and daughter had just been. His heart pounded behind his ribs and his temples throbbed. Not hurt, not pain; no, excitement. That woman who’d birthed his daughter had so many dark ways to rip orgasms from him. And now that he’d kissed her, sucked on her neck, told her he wanted her and wanted to stay, that dark part of his mind knew the bad things he loved would soon come his way. Hyun couldn’t get home fast enough.

Kimmy returned without Colleen while he was still on the floor. He looked up and Kimmy unified her robe, showing him she wore nothing underneath. Bare tawny skin. A shaved mound. Her body toned and sleek, her nipples hard enough to catch the weight of the robe’s silk and keep the lapels from closing.







DITW 15-16: The Touch of that Sacred Spear (Patreon)

Content

(So sorry for the delay. I was listening to an interesting interview with someone and they talked about something that changed how I wanted this conversation to go. I adjusted some of the conversation here in this chapter and I'm happier with what it sets up now.)

***

When he first fell in love with Kimmy, she had been nothing but a skinny teen—no bumps or knobs to consider. Tall, slim, but unnoticeable. With his hands roaming her skin now, Josh wondered how he’d never seen what Devlin saw. Devlin Stone had perverted her, opened up something inside her that was dark and sexual. But Devlin Stone didn’t put it there. It was inside her already. Kimmy herself had said that Devlin encouraged her darkness to the surface. And she groomed herself in a manner that revealed all those wicked tendencies. Under his hands right now was the exact same woman who he’d married and committed himself to, and built a life with.

They were on the couch, making out like lusty young people. Kimmy wore nothing under her robe. The robe was open, and he lay on his back with his wife on top. Kimmy humped her bald sex against his aching member. His hands coddled, smoothed, and squeezed her ass and the backs of her thighs. She was warm under his touch.

They were waiting for their babysitter’s return. He’d never been more eager to see his cousin’s ex-wife.

At last, they heard Hyun’s arrival home. It was after 10:30. His hands were on Kimmy’s round but narrow ass, riding it up and down and guiding her hips to hump against his own. She was soaking wet. He was hard as a rock. Kimmy broke off their kiss and slunk away from him, her eyes turned out behind the couch and past the garden to the garage, where he once thought she’d wanted him to live. She closed her robe and tied it at the waist. Her eyes were watery, her cheeks blushed, her lips swollen and puckered. Desire burned on her skin. Josh sat up and looked out to the garage to see Hyun’s hatchback pulling in.

“Finally,” he said with comic indignation.

Kimmy smiled but then showed him one of those faces that served to remind him to mind his manners.

“Only joking,” he said.

Kimmy left him on the couch, moving back to the chair. Josh adjusted his erection under his pants and sat upright, crossing his legs. They’d been making out like that for a whole hour, with only one interruption from Colleen. They listened as Hyun came in through the side door and into the kitchen, and now Kimmy said to him, “Why don’t you go upstairs, and I’ll talk to Hyun?”

That was fine with him. He was ready to blow. The last thing he wanted to do was sit around and try to act casual and make small talk with Hyun, when all he wanted to do was get his wife upstairs and relive some of the better moments of their devilish desires. He told her to go on ahead, that he needed a minute. With the pants he was wearing, there would be little chance of hiding his arousal. He’d rather wait for Kimmy to go in and talk to Hyun, and maybe he could sneak up the stairs without having to say a word.

Kimmy smiled in a way that sparked that dark fire in him again. It was a wicked smile. The smile of a wrongdoer. She got up from the chair and came to him, putting her hands on his thighs and her knee between his open legs. She kissed him fully. Lips soft and fattened with passion. She moaned while she kissed him and that drove him wild. She wanted him. She really wanted him. This was no put-on, no act. He was darn certain that Devlin Stone was gone. Long gone. Kimmy never mentioned him. He wasn’t hiding upstairs in their bedroom to jump out and torment him like he did in those high school showers with his oversized organ swinging between his legs. And Kimmy wasn’t going to set him up to be humiliated. No, this was them in it together again. Whatever strange sexual proclivity had metastasized in him during Kimmy’s affair with Devlin could now be explored. His greatest fears had been laid bare. They’d been made real. But everything was in place again. And with everything in place, they couldn’t just go back to the mundane. Kimmy loved her wickedness, and he knew it. Kimmy would use her wickedness to light up the tenderest parts of his battleground with military-grade guidance systems.

While they still kissed, her hand went down and grabbed his turgid column and squeezed. She made a satisfied sound that had his core tightening. She couldn’t wait to get it out of his pants and do things with it he could only imagine. They’d been apart for so long, but when they’d been together, there had been no greater satisfaction in his life.

She slipped away from him, still showing that wicked smile, saying, “Meet me upstairs.” Then she put on her slippers and swished from the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen.

Josh lay back on the couch, feeling his body shake with the beat of his heart. His cock ached. His pulse raced. He wished he could teleport into the bedroom. His erection did not subside. He stood up and found out he was right. The front of his pants were tented out, his knob end trying to poke a hole through the fabric. He couldn’t walk around with a pillow held to his lap. Even his untucked shirt did nothing to conceal his frenzied state.

“Fuck,” he moaned, his voice a whisper. He squeezed his own hardness, then followed Kimmy’s wake, going down the hall and around the corner, pausing and listening. He heard Kimmy talking in the kitchen. He could slip upstairs unnoticed if he tried. He got around the corner unseen, made it to the stairs, then stopped. They were talking low, but now they weren’t talking at all. He edged to the end cupboard and peeked into the kitchen. Kimmy held Hyun in a strange embrace in front of the fridge. Hyun looked sad. Like she might have been crying. Her face was downturned, and Kimmy rested her own forehead against Hyun’s temple. It was strangely intimate, but they’d been together during a trying time and he was glad Hyun had been there for Kimmy when he couldn’t. He left them alone and slipped upstairs without them even noticing.

  *

Hyun’s tears traveled her porcelain cheeks. She hid her face from Kimmy, ashamed. Kimmy rubbed Hyun’s shoulders, soothing her, needing her to maintain composure.

“I’m sorry,” Hyun said, pinching her brow, squeezing the tears from her eyes like she wanted them gone. “I knew it was coming. I’ve been expecting it.”

“I know,” Kimmy said. “You just came home from class and—“

“I’m fine,” Hyun said again and sniffled, but she wasn’t.

Kimmy stroked Hyun’s neck and hugged her. “You know this is the way it has to be,” she whispered.

“He’s Colleen’s father,” Hyun said. “I know, Kimmy. I know. I’m fine.” This time when she looked away, Hyun sobbed once, a mournful sound. Kimmy hugged her harder and rubbed a circle on her back.

  *

Josh was in their bedroom, sitting on the bed and waiting for her. She’d expected him to be under the covers and ready for sex, not wearing anything, but he was still dressed. Elbows on knees, hands clasped together and facing the dresser. She stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind her, stepped towards Josh and saw what he was looking at. There on the dresser was the rubber-flesh facsimile of Devlin’s size. Cartoonishly large, looking almost unreal. But the measurements were not quite far from reality. It wasn’t two-toned like Devlin’s cock was, and it never could do the job the way Devlin did it, but it represented Devlin nonetheless. She stopped short, surprised to see it there. She hadn’t expected Josh to be so bold. She would have suspected that Josh would have found it and put it back and never mentioned it again. Maybe not never, but not this way. Not so abrupt or confrontational.

He said, “You left that for me to find.”

She relaxed a little. “If I wanted to hide it from you, I would put it with my paperwork.”

Josh finished for her, saying, “Not with your underwear.” He was expressionless and not like the man she’d been making out with for the last hour. He looked up now to meet her gaze. “Do you miss him?”

She continued to the bed, stood before him, and brushed his cheeks with the backs of her fingers while he looked up at her. She untied her robe and showed him her naked front. Josh kissed her stomach, and she pulled his cheek to rest there. She said, “I thought we were done talking about the past.”

“That can’t be true,” he said. “If it were true, I wouldn’t be sitting here asking you about that thing on the dresser. You put it there.”

“You looked for it.”

He said, “I wasn’t looking for that. You know what I was looking for, and you wanted me to see it.”

She gripped the hair at the back of his head and guided him to look up at her again. She said, “Because I know you like it, Josh. I want to give you the things you like.”

Josh sighed, but not from exasperation or frustration. It was a happy sound. A satisfied sound. He kissed her belly, brushing his beard against her sensitive skin. He said, “I made myself so vulnerable to you.”

“You did,” she said, playing with his hair.

“I confessed things that were so sacred. And you accepted them. But you still lied to me.”

“I did,” she said, thumbing his hot cheekbones, feeling love for him despite the truthful accusation. 

“You lied to me when I was at my most open. There’s nothing to lie about anymore, Kimmy. I know what you did. I know you hated what you did, but I also know you didn’t hate every minute of it. There were times you really liked what you were doing—what Devlin was doing—so don’t lie anymore. Just tell me the truth. Everything will be so much better if you just tell the truth.”

She lifted a leg and dropped a knee on the mattress between his open legs, nuzzling it into his crotch. “What do you want to know?”

He looked up at her, steadfast, sure of himself. “I want to know if you miss Devlin.”

She exhaled, looked down between them, then back into his eyes. “I miss the good times.”

“There were good times with him?”

“There were incredible times, Josh.” She flashed a sad smile. “There were times he did things to me I couldn’t believe.”

Josh’s jaw slackened, his cheeks hollowed. He couldn’t believe she would tell the truth—and he didn’t like the truth. The truth offended him. It jarred him. But they both knew the truth turned him on. All those times she’d lied were good times. All the times she’d spoken Josh’s fantasies were good times. Sometimes they were truths and Josh turned them into fantasies. But no matter the anguish he’d suffered, he couldn’t shake the way his fantasies tickled him.

She thumbed his jawline, the sad smile turning upbeat and reassuring. “You’re safe now, Josh. The boogey man is long gone. I’m all yours. You’re all I want.”

Josh stared up at her, calm expression, but eyes blazing with lusty expectation. “Tell me when it was incredible.”

She brushed her fingers through his hair. “The first time he fucked me, I passed out. He fucked me senseless. When I came to, he order me IV hydration and a B12 booster. Bedside at the Royal York.”

Josh paled in exquisite, blood-draining horror. She guided him to his back and got over top of him.









DITW 15-17: Now We Know Good & Evil (Patreon)

Content

Kimmy got over top of him and his hands went inside her open robe and onto her naked waist. Husband and wife alone on a Friday night, their baby with a sitter. Date night. This scenario’s implication was ripe with kink and debauchery. This was marital playtime. And it was only the two of them. It was intimate. A time for two married people to explore some fantasy realms for their own pleasure.

But why did it have to be that way? Why did it have to be so sinister? So kinky; so debauched? 

Because he liked it that way.

Scar tissue had grown over the wounds of the past. Maybe the new and thicker tissue strengthened him. How could harm come to him with Devlin so far away?

Kimmy’s mouth slipped apart from his, and she stroked his cheek. She said, “I miss you more than anything. I’ve missed you so much this last year. I miss the times we shared more than any of the times I shared with Devlin.” The hand that stroked his cheek moved to his chest, and Kimmy ran her nails down his stomach, then grabbed his erection through his pants. “And I miss this dick more than I miss his.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said.

Kimmy looked at him, unsure, fondling his hardness—then smirked as if she decided he was joking. She said, “I think you miss it more than I do.”

“Miss what?”

She said, “I know you, Josh. I know that time when you thought it was just me and you, and Devlin was this sexual thing lurking outside our perimeter, you were at your happiest. You love the dirty talk. You love the things we did.”

“I know—I’m the one who said those things to you. But you made them true behind my back. Twisted reality with my kink to serve yourself. Not me. You served yourself.”

“You loved the things I did when they were fantasy.”

“You lied. You betrayed me,” he said.

“I did,” she said, studying him, sucking her plump lower lip and running her teeth across before letting the lip pop back out again. “But that’s all gone now, Josh. Washed away; the debris sent down the river. Right here and now is all that matters. I want to give you everything you want. And I know what you want.”

He closed his eyes. “I don’t even know what I want.”

“I’ll show you,” she said. “And you stop me when I’m wrong.” The hand that had stroked his cheek lay flat on his chest, then she dragged her nails down his stomach. She raised up and backed off of his body. She grabbed his belt with two hands, unbuckled it, opened his fly and drew down his zipper. With one strong movement, she pulled his pants down to his knees. His rock hard erection pointed to his chin, throbbing and aching. The fresh air touching the hot skin got him hissing a deep inward breath. Every iota of his being rushed between his legs like that was all that existed.

She lowered her eyes to his erection. His wife seeing it for the first time in a year. Measuring its inadequacy with her eyes, measuring the shortcoming in the task she needed it for. Her pleasure spots were tucked inside her where her husband couldn’t reach.

She said, “You miss Devlin’s cock more than I do, Josh. You love the idea of him fucking me. You love the idea of the pleasure his size would give me.”

He groaned with strange pleasure and a rising anger. No, not anger. Umbrage. A year later and he still had to hear about Devlin Stone. Still had to hear about this other man who’d done things to his wife her husband couldn’t do. Had to hear about it and hear his wife twist it into something for him to enjoy.

She gripped his thighs just above his knees, then ran her nails up to his hips and he almost passed out. He shuddered and his fingers trembled. He could feel her breath against his cock.

“You wish you could do to me what he did.”

Josh groaned again, louder now, hating her words. Her words angered him. But while they did, they also brought something slick and oily that coated his skin and seeped into his pores, nourished parts of him with an indescribable pleasure.

Over her shoulder now he could see on the dresser that Devlin replica. That enormous fleshy cudgel. The effigy of the real over-sized implement that had fucked his wife senseless countless times last summer. The one his wife had come on over and over again. The one that had touched some trigger inside her. He closed his eyes tight and rolled his vision upward. Kimmy’s tongue pressed between his testicles, shoving them to the sides, then running a flat swath up the middle of his shaft and to the tip of his cock. Her hand took the base, two fingers and a thumb, angled it upward and sunk him inside her mouth. The most heavenly feeling he’d ever had. Her mouth was warm and wet, and when it moved against his turgid arousal, his whole body tightened and bright blobs of light danced in the charcoal landscape of his shut-off vision. She drew her mouth up and down, her cheeks hollowing with the exquisite suction.

When they’d first reunited last week, Kimmy had seduced him in the apartment above the garage. She’d tried luring him to bed with nefarious conjecture and innuendo. All day today, he’d anticipated tonight’s intimate possibilities, wondering if it would happen. Knowing it probably would. But he hadn’t anticipated how it would happen. The default fantasy would be him and his wife rolling around in the sheets, kissing, and then making love. Instead, it was the same sadistic games they’d played a year ago. 

He hadn’t been with anyone in over a year. He’d come close to it with Karina, but nothing ever happened. They’d kissed, he’d handled her breasts; he’d even slipped a hand down her pants. But nothing had progressed. Everything had been stunted. Muffled.

Kimmy’s mouth worked masterful pleasure. She knew exactly how to bring him to the brink of ecstasy and then pull him back, teasing him until he couldn’t take it anymore. Her lips were slick cushions, her tongue nimble. She took his hardness deep, sucking and swirling her tongue around the base, then pulling back slowly, drawing the ring of her lips to the tip, before plunging him into her mouth again.

Josh’s eyes rolled back in his head as he let out a low moan. He couldn’t believe how good it felt, how skilled Kimmy was at this. And . . . how she’d done this kind of thing for another man. Wicked thoughts teased him. She’d been sucking cock for the last year. Sucking other men’s cocks. She’d sucked off everyone at Stone; every lawyer, every client, every foreign businessman. Kimmy landed contract after contract for Keith Stone because no one could suck a cock like her.

His hands went to trembling fists as this awful imagined scenario did the work he liked, got his balls climbing into his body, getting ready to gush their load into his delivery systems. He held his breath tight in his quaking chest, sucking in his stomach, reeling those perverted thoughts back, not wanting to come so soon, not wanting to disappoint his wife and ruin her night of sex with a premature release.

But Kimmy moved her head up and down, picking up the pace. His hips bucked involuntarily, his body responding without his approval. Tension doubled inside him. The pressure mounted as she brought him closer and closer to the edge and seemed willing for him to go over.

Now he rushed to push away the thoughts of her sucking off clients, sucking cocks for financial gain. But it left him thinking of Kimmy sucking Devlin’s cock. Sucking Devlin off in Cayman while her husband waited for her in the hot tub. A chump. A cuck. A man whose wife ran games around his impotent ass.

His breathing went ragged as he rumbled closer and closer to the knife-edge point of no return. He tried to hold back, to make it last as long as possible, but it was no use. Kimmy’s mouth was too good, her skill too perfect.

With one final, deep thrust, this time of his own propulsion, he let go, his body convulsing as he began to ejaculate in Kimmy’s perfect, beautiful mouth. Kimmy pulled away, smiling wide with her wet lips, a satisfied sound in her throat as she watched him come. Her hand stroked his cock as his semen spurted, painting creamy lines on his trembling stomach. The moment was incredible, the release so powerful. But as it receded, he was left with guilt and shame. Kimmy stroked his dick. It looked so unimpressive in her hand. He’d seen her wrap those long and elegant fingers around Devlin’s beefy girth. His head fell back, the crown hanging between his shoulder blades. The happiness and feelings of explosive joy waned to nothing, and his eyes fluttered open to stare at their new bedroom’s ceiling. Kimmy played with his softening penis, but he was too sick to look at it again, see its size in her hand, knowing the size that turned her on, knowing the size she liked.

He sighed, anguished and saddened by the state of things. Kimmy would have kept sucking Devlin’s cock. He bet she let him come in her mouth. Bet she loved the taste of his semen on a Wednesday afternoon lunchtime fuck session behind her husband’s back. The fading of his hardness ceased. These awful thoughts piqued his cock’s interest.

Maybe Kimmy was right. Maybe she knew what he liked and maybe surrendering to her wickedness would bring him satisfaction he couldn’t imagine. As long as she was faithful.

He sighed again, but the post-orgasm ennui had settled, and he didn’t feel so bad anymore. He raised his face to see Kimmy standing now, letting that silky robe fall off her smooth shoulders and show him her body. His wife was a mother now, but she looked much like she had during last summer’s horror. Her lean body and long limbs; the perky little breasts, the tawny skin. He smiled, seeing something in her eyes that he liked. For the first time, maybe not so ashamed of his own desire.

He didn’t have to ask her for this. He didn’t have to skirt around the ways to frame this kink he’d developed. It was out in the open. It was fair game, and shame was observed at a different scale than it had before. The details of his bizarre arousal were known to all. She knew what he liked and she could deliver.

He could lament how now when they’re united in intimacy, they’re not making love and writhing in the sheets, they’re playing games and toying with the darkness that separated them in the first place—but he could also accept the state of his being and move on. 

Pearly islands scattered on the flat plain of his stomach.

Kimmy, totally naked now and fully aware of how good she looked, said, “It didn’t take very long, did it?”

The answer was obvious. He would say, Did Devlin last longer? And then Kimmy would tell him about the marathon fuck sessions she and Devlin used to embark upon. His cock hardened further. He kept the question from his tongue, still wary of embarrassing himself.

Kimmy turned to the dresser, and he thought for a second she would bring over that Devlin replica and compare it to his own erection, so they could both see the dimensional difference between her husband and her accomplished lover. The way she’d done with the actual flesh and blood cock monstrosity in that Yorkville hotel room. But Kimmy returned with a pair of pale yellow cotton undies from her drawer. She hip-sat beside him on the bed, smiling an honestly happy smile, and patted up the splatter, wiping his evidence away before tossing the underwear toward the bathroom door. She said, “You’re still hard.”

“I took a year off,” he said, like an explanation for his immediate arousal in case she knew the perverted thoughts that has quickened his pulse and flooded his erectile tissue.

“We have a lot to catch up on,” she said, slinking along beside his body and beginning to remove his shirt and sweater. He assisted her, and they got him as naked as she was, both of them on top of the sheets and bedding. She began kissing him again, and though he still felt stiff and awkward with her, he could feel his joints warming up and his heart beating faster, wanting more and more from her. Kimmy rolled so she was on top of him, straddling his hips, the point of his erection touching an ass cheek. Her long, silky black hair fell around his face as she lowered her mouth to his, kissing him lovingly and touching his face. 

Then they worked the bedding out from under them, getting themselves under the sheets and cozying against each other. There was an indescribable joy and homeliness to feeling her naked against his nakedness. The places where she was cool; the places where she was warm; the places where she was hot and wet and sticky. His hands went all over her body, finding their way to the top of her thighs, just below the crease of her buttocks, the place that used to get her excited. She squirmed and sighed and moaned and she kissed him some more. Her hand found his genitals, and she caressed and coddled his sack and stroked his hardening cock.

She asked him, “You came so fast—you’re ready to go again?”

He nodded, looking into her eyes, seeking courage to ask what he suspected she wanted him to ask. He said, “You didn’t want me to come in your mouth?”

“I wanted to see you come, baby,” she said, and kissed his chin, stroking his cock underhanded.

He said, “Did he come . . . Did he ever come in your mouth?”

Once the question was out, his cock went to steel. She hadn’t even answered him yet. 

Kimmy chuckled an appreciative sound, feeling his cock swell in her hand. She said, “Yeah, he did, Josh. He came in my mouth.”

His knees squeezed together, and his cock spewed slippery excitement into Kimmy’s grip. She stroked him faster.

She whispered, “Devlin came in my mouth and you tasted it.”

He groaned with the most awful, exciting joy. His heart pounded and disgust flooded his mind. He said, “What? What do you mean?”

She said, “I’d suck off that huge cock and then I’d come home and kiss you on the mouth.” Her grip tightened on his cock, electric pleasure thrumming from his pleasure point and throughout his body. He coughed and groaned and writhed while she jerked his cock and followed his twisting head, whispering some more wickedness in his frightened ears. “And he’d fuck me, too, Josh, and blow his thick load so deep inside me. . . . And I’d come home and let you eat my pussy.”

“What?” He gasped, horrified. “You did?”








DITW 15-18: Hearken to His Wife (Patreon)

Content

Josh didn’t say to stop, so she continued. “He came in my mouth, and I liked it,” she said, studying her husband’s profile, getting off on his poignant disgust. Her hand measured his resultant arousal; his cock hard as steel in her grip. “You know you liked it, too.”

Josh shuddered, his head pressing back into the pillow, his back arching. What she said was true; Josh couldn’t deny it. She should have told Josh sooner. Told him all the things he feared were true. Instead, she’d sought some sort of endpoint where Devlin had been subdued and she had better control at Stone. That’s where it had ended up. She had control. She had what she wanted. But if she’d invested in Josh’s kink and sealed his desirous deals earlier, maybe she could have spared him the hurt she’d caused. “I wish I could have told you, Josh. I wish you could have enjoyed it. I wish so many things.” His cock had returned to full hardness, and the way she spoke to him and the way he reacted, they might as well have been in Cayman or in the old apartment, whispering nasty things and playing games. Those had been fun times; intense and exploratory. In the bizarrest way, it had opened her eyes to Josh and his psyche and the worry and fear her husband held. Those times had been an erotic catalysis; and it had been wasted on Devlin Stone and the job she ended up taking from him, anyway, without the need to tread further down his ridiculous paths. “I never should have kept from you the things I was doing. I should have told you.” Josh’s cock flexed in her grip, his lips sucking into his mouth as he fantasized who knew what, weaved whatever tormented web, using her supporting words for his spider silk. “We really could have had so much fun together. You wanted the things I did, and you’re right, I took them from you and did those things for selfish reasons. I stole it from you. I stole all those things you wanted and I ruined it all.”

Josh groaned and nodded, his eyes closed, sealing himself alone with the dark chimera behind his lids. His body felt so good and homey against hers. His body blessed her bed. Her leg slid up his, her inner thigh coasting over the top of his; she straddled him, reached behind and palmed the base of his cock, pressing his length along her wetness, sliding her sex up and down with a curl of her pelvis. His cock was perfect; his cock had performed the designed function. He’d given her Colleen. “This is the cock I’ve missed, Josh,” she said, easing her hips back, angling him to enter her body. She sank his erection a few inches inside her. “Not Devlin’s. Sex with Devlin was nothing without you. You made me like it. You made me want it. You gave it value.”

Josh stared back in wide-eyed awe. His eyes trembled with the edging of horror, but she showed him with her expression and the rolling of her hips how she meant what she said. None of what she’d done had any meaning without Josh. She caressed his cheek and sank his cock all the way inside her. It had been more than a year without real sex. More than a year without a blood-pulsing cock inside her. Toys weren’t even close to equal.

Her hips rolled and roiled with his cock seated inside her. She moaned real moans and breathed deep, loving the feel of his arousal. Loving the knowledge that her lurid words could command Josh. She hunched closer to him, his beard brushing her cheek as she whispered in his ear, “I know you can’t love me the way you did before.” Josh groaned with emotional hurt, but she lured him closer to her, continuing, “But I want you to love me. I want you to love me in some new way that works for you. Works for us.”

Now she rose to sit squatted on Josh’s hips, running her nails on his chest. Josh joined the action now, his hips responding to hers, beginning to moil, his cock like a hard bar inside her. His hands came to her hips, held her there, bracing her as his thrusts gained fervor. She rocked with him, both of them building a pace they liked, their connection wet and slippery and so, so good.

She arched her lower back, leaning away, Josh’s hands spreading onto her hips and over the plain of her belly. The pleasure grew stronger. She rolled forward, thrashing him with her hair. She slowed, gripped his chin, held his handsome face steady, saying, “We can’t go on with me apologizing every day. That won’t work. I’ve apologized. I’ve done what I could to bring you back to me. Just love me; hear my promises and love me.”

Josh’s eyes stayed open, his hands going up and down her ribs, expression blank, bearded cheeks hollowed; his lips parted. “I love you, Kimmy. I do.”

She gasped a satisfied sound, lunging forward, one hand bracing her weight on the headboard, her chest over Josh’s face. She arched her back and sighed as Josh suckled her nipple. The new angle of entry was exciting, and as Josh sucked her sore nipple, she bucked frog-like on his spear, each little thrust blipping white pleasure in her brain. “I know I was bad,” she said. “I know I did everything wrong. But you have to know: I would have gutted him for you.” She withdrew her offered nipple, Josh wild-eyed, blown away and hot as a glass furnace now, any misgivings or reluctance turned to a molten, vitreous state. “I would have served Thanksgiving dinner with his head on a platter. Just to make you smile. Just to make things right.” She smiled and then bit her lower lip to quash it.

But Josh saw her in that moment in a way she hid. His eyes quivered.

She curved over him, her face over his, both of them rocking faster now, their thrusting squeaking the expensive mattress. “I would have broken him,” she said. “If you wanted, I’d make him do things to make us laugh. To turn us both on.”

Josh believed her. “You would have,” he whispered.

His faith restored her. If he could believe she would do that, he would also believe none of the harm she’d caused him was for the purpose of harm. “I hurt you, Josh. But what I wanted most was your transcendence. I wanted you to shrug off Devlin’s juvenile mantle. You’re so much more than he is.”

Josh’s mouth opened and closed, trying to say something but not knowing what to say. She had strayed too far from fantasy and dosed him with emotional concepts that he would argue against. But she couldn’t stop talking.

She said, “I would have got Devlin on his knees and made him suck your cock.”

Josh grimaced, nowhere near as turned on by the idea than she was.

She retreated from vivid imagery, saying now, “I would have broken him. I did it all wrong, but I wanted to break him for you.”

Her posture slackened, her rump squashed down on his thighs, his steely hardness not fading, still raging straight and stiff in her pocket. Josh studied her, his soft eyes roaming her naked body, wondering if she told him the truth. And what would he think of her if he deemed her truthful? That she was good? That she was noble? Maybe he would hear this confession as sin. As a promise of her powerful malice. It could frighten him.

“I did it, anyway,” she said. “But it was too late to be any good for you.”

Josh’s voice was a whisper. “You really did that?”

She bit her lower lip again, her hands fanning on Josh’s sweaty chest. Fuck, she liked that beard. She nodded, her hips sticking on a nice point near her G-spot, doing swift jerks on it, her eyes closing.

“You kissed me with his come in your mouth?”

Her eyes opened again, her features relaxing to an inscrutable mask, assessing Josh’s judgment before she spoke. The sparkle in his eye showed ignition—Josh’s motor ran at speed and the greased clutch fit right into place. She furrowed her brows in an impish arc;  a cartoonish representation of the dimwitted moll, worried she’d done her Dapper Dan wrong.

Josh’s brow lowered and he grumbled with some locomotive desire, heaving her to her back with his hips and getting on top of her, her legs falling wide to accommodate him. His hand closed on her collar, then stroked her throat, his thumb caressing her tendon. There was anger in his eyes. Anger and disgust; but Josh sweetened that emotion with lust’s coarse sugar.

“You have to be kidding me,” he said, voice low and disbelieving.

She humped up her hips, wanting him back inside her, feeling the light weight of his upright organ slip along her membranes. She mewled with need, showed him her frustration.

Josh’s hand closed on her neck and pushed her back into the pillow. She writhed on the bed, humping her hips higher, Josh not giving her what she wanted. She chuckled and rocked her head side-to side.

Josh’s mouth found hers, his grip loosening, his thumb caressing. He put his hand between them, angled his point to hr slit and slid himself inside. She cooed and put her hand over his, both of them holding her throat, looking into each other’s eyes, gazing deeply. Josh plunged hard and rocked her. She yipped, then bit it back. He withdrew and plunged again, hard enough to make the bed bounce and rattle the wall. The corners of his mouth turned down, a sneering anger twisting his brow.

Josh didn’t fill her or stretch her, touch terrible deep places; Josh was comfort and safety and never danger. Not until now; not until she felt his anger’s grip, felt his frustration and rage. She gritted her teeth, snarled at him, bared her fangs. Josh showed her the same face. He pounded into her again and again, stabbing deep into her—deep as Josh could go.

And she met his thrusts with her own. The bed shuddered with their movement. The headboard banged. Josh arched his back and pushed himself to the hilt and held it. His cock twanged with stunning stiffness. His hand left her throat and grabbed a fistful of hair, pulling her head to the side and the back until she squawked.

“You’re worse than Devlin ever was,” he said, jaw clamped.

She smiled, found relief from her pulled hair by twisting her head to the side and up to the right. She said, “I hurt you like he hurt you, but he never loved you. He never cared about you.”

Josh roared and withdrew his cock from her hot scabbard, hoisting her to one side, scrambling to get her on her hands and knees. He’d let go of her hair, and she complied.

Josh palmed the back of her head and pushed her face into the pillow.






DITW 15-19: Orbital Mechanics and Entry Windows (Patreon)

Content

That she would do such a devilish thing! Kimmy would do the worst things she could imagine; had done the worst things, thinking meager Josh might fantasize it; did it because whether it was for Josh didn’t matter; Kimmy loved it. Loved to torture him in secret. This mild woman he’d married, this woman of once plain sex, and a kind, clean home, was wicked. Perverted. She wore a black crown of poisonous thorn, and wore it with grace. He would never know if Devlin or Amy had started last summer’s treachery, or even if it had been Kimmy who'd started it. He’d never know the truth because he’d stepped away from consciousness that night at Tiffany’s; had over-indulged and paid the price. Hell, maybe it had been Kimmy who’d put it in his ear he wanted to have Devlin fuck her.

Or maybe it had been him all along.

But he possessed Kimmy now. Of that he was sure. A baby and a house. And sex. Awful sex. Amazing sex. The return of whispered treasures, of diabolical sexual exploits that sent his delight into the stratosphere.

He pulled her face from the pillow, hand on the back of her neck slipping to her collar, and guiding her upright, his cock popping out from inside her, Kimmy's back pressing to his chest. He kissed her neck and stroked her shoulder. This was Colleen’s mother, and he wouldn’t mistreat his daughter’s mother. And deep down in his chest’s host rock, past the gangue and under the overburden, lay unexpected and undeserved love, a thin vein of still-sparkling ore. He said, “How can I still love you?”

Kimmy moaned and rubbed between her thighs, like she needed him. Or needed it. “Because you know I love you. You know it. And knowing that means everything.”

The idea rolled in his mind and found no dip nor abscess that would halt it. The idea had racy momentum, and all he knew was he needed an answer why he could love her; and her response was as good as any. Fear peeked past the veil when his preconscious whispered he hadn’t the courage to hate her. “You did those terrible things because you loved me.”

The hand Kimmy held between her thighs reached deeper underneath her and found his hardness. She angled his return and guided her hips back so he would enter her again.

He said, “I want to make love to you. I don’t want it like this.”

Kimmy stilled, his length only in her a shallow depth, and what he sensed as disappointment pierced his psyche. Wounded him. Frightened him. “Just one time, Kimmy. I want you as my wife. I want you like how we used to be.”

“I want that, too,” she said. After a moment, she eased forward, let his dick slip out of her, and knee-walked around to face him before reclining on the bed, head on a pillow. Her long legs parted, knees out to the sides, and she wiped her cheeks and then motioned for him to join her. To get on top of her.

A huge feeling of inadequacy seized his heart. A true and primal fear of not being enough. Not satisfying her. Of loving her and suffering under her cruelty, and yet once reunited, failing to please her in the way she liked—a perpetual failure that may have led to their catastrophe. Worry that his wife had gone to Devlin not just because of Devlin’s big dick and money and good looks, but because her husband wasn’t dirty enough. Wasn’t nasty enough. How couldn’t he think Kimmy loved all that depraved sex? How couldn’t he believe that she would miss it again in the future?

She didn’t love Devlin. She loved sweet Josh. 

But she’d loved the wickedness more—and wickedness grew in unimaginable measure when applied in her husband's naive proximity. Being with Devlin alone would never do it for Kimmy. She would just be another wicked widget in the wicked widget factory. And now he could see the betrayal for what it was and how she’d worked so hard to have him back. The act of betrayal and the stark humiliation turned her on. Drove her wild. She’d even wanted to humiliate Devlin. And what would that have looked like? Would it have raised Josh Waters’ esteem in her own eyes? Or would she have reveled in humiliating them both at the same time? Maybe she loved disparity and would have experimented in exchanging one man over the other, waging them against one another in value, making sure each of them both equaled the same amount, but struggled in endless turmoil on their designated pans, wanting to make a difference in her measure.

How would he ever arouse a woman like that? How would he do the things that made her go crazy? Without a question, he wanted her to have that sexual satisfaction. To have that erotic joy.

What if she likes other men to come in her mouth and then have her kiss you? Would you do such a thing?

You already did such a thing.

He dropped over top of her, his face hovering over hers. "Why the fuck do I still love you?" Kimmy said nothing and he said, "Why don’t I hate you?"

"Do you want to hate me?" She touched his cheeks.

He shook his head. "I want to love you. I wish it was easier."

"It will be." Then she kissed him, holding his face, lying on her back. Just the way he'd asked her to. Like the way they were before everything went wrong.

Like the way that provoked Kimmy's disenchantment. The way he'd bored her before.

His hand trembled now, gripping his hardness and swiping the tip of his throbbing hardness along Kimmy's slippery seam. He thumbed it downward and sank inside her hot interior. He went halfway, withdrew and coated his tight cock skin with her slick lubrication. And she moaned. And while she moaned all he thought was she lied. She betrayed. She made the sounds she thought she should to appease his bruised ego. But so what? Hadn't she done enough? Kimmy had done so much to restore them, to bring him back to her bed. Did he want her to stay silent while he fucked her?

But now he moaned too, and the feel of her tight wet-velvet squeeze on his member was delight in the purest form. Light bloomed in his mind and he closed his eyes, rolled into her deeper, pulled back and did it again. Kimmy roiled against his intrusion. Wanting him. Perhaps wanting him deeper. Wanting him harder and dirtier, wanting him to do the kinds of things Devlin Stone did to her behind his back. The two of them fucking and sucking and laughing. Luxury hotel suites and fancy restaurants, and Prada shoes and Mercedes Benz convertibles.

Kimmy's pelvis rocked with his thrusts, giving him easy access and eager supplication to his turgid cock. He plowed her with ease. The pleasure was enormous. The fear was greater.

She'd given it all up for this? Given it all up for her okay husband with a mediocre job and soft body and average dick? When she'd had it all? There were things Devlin didn't have that she wanted. There were things about him that made Kimmy whole.

He grunted and groaned, watching his wife's upturned face, positive she feigned that look of ecstasy he witnessed. But she overflowed with wet. She made the sounds he liked. And he loved to be in bed with her. Their bed.

He fucked her faster, getting the bed squeaking, feeling his cock steeling harder; he'd lagged at those awful thoughts of inadequacy. But now he was iron again. Rock hard and wanting to come inside her. Wanting to go all night but knowing he wasn't that man. He could be what she wanted since she insisted so much she would do the same for him. He gripped her hair, not with anger or hatred, but out of sheer frustration. He growled at her, "Devlin came in your mouth and you kissed me?"

Kimmy shook her head no, wincing at the pull of her hair in his shaky grip.

He fucked her harder, and with urgent need. A man out of control with sexual excitement. "You sucked his big cock and let him blow his load in your mouth."

Kimmy gasped, eyes closed with intense lust, loving his words. freed by them.

"And then you kissed me."

Kimmy shivered with cruel excitement. “I wondered if you could, mm, taste him. Did you taste his, ah, come, Josh?”

Josh's balls climbed high. Disappeared up inside his body. Afraid and belittled and diminished. But swelling with impending release. Filled with seed enough to make them Colleen's beautiful sibling. Their connection slicked with a generous spew of his grease, thrusting into her, wishing he had a monster between his legs so he could punish Kimmy's sex the way it deserved. Stretch her sex to the limit, an enormous cock head reaming her guts before it exploded inside her like a hand grenade, flooding her with an orgasmic payload that rounded her belly once more.

Fuck, they’d come close to enormous destruction.

Colleen could have been Devlin’s.

It wasn’t impossible for it to have happened.

Colleen was all his, but it was close.

"You’re so fucking awful," he said, caressing her throat, racing thoughts of murder flittering over the surface of his mind. Yet so fucking in love. So renewed. The complex thing between them simplified in theoretical equations, chalk on a blackboard. Two sides of an equation. No matter how one changed, the other must follow. And after all the harm, all the betrayal, somehow she’d restored what they had. Had proved to him not only her love but her dedication. 

The risk!

Kimmy had risked it all. Risked it all for the thrill. Fucked around without proper protection and almost bore another man’s child.

And the thought scared the shit out of him and drove him wild at the same time.

  *

It felt incredible to have him inside her again. To feel his hardness thrusting in and out, to hear his breath and feel his body. No man had been inside her since Devlin. It took almost a year for this reunion but it was worth the wait and worth the effort.

She asked him again if he tasted Devlin's semen on her kiss and Josh rewarded her with liquid delight and quivering limbs. He shivered with his orgasm's hasty approach. He sought to rage and rail, but succumbed to his own delight. Easy surrender. For Josh was fictile, and the world around him chose his shape.

And like that, he stiffened, and she closed her legs around him, held him close and held him tight. He bucked and grunted with wonderful release and the woe of completion. He hid away his face in the pillow, their connection warm and sweaty now, but still very nice. She rubbed his back as his seed leaked from their union and his hardness faded. It would return.

She told him: “I’m not me without you. I’m nothing. I wouldn’t know who I am.” And there was more truth in that than she could describe to Josh. A slippery phantasm pastiche would sometimes flicker behind her eyes like a zoetrope, showing trips to Taiwan and high school and happier times at Dalton High and in Kingston, of going to university, of marrying Josh and wanting a family. That’s who she was and she never wanted to forget that. Without Josh, she would be a woman she hated. Who most everyone she knew would hate. Her father, her friends. Even her mother wouldn’t like that person. And Colleen Chang had loved everyone.

Josh stirred, kissing her neck and jaw, showing his face once more. She smiled, patted his bearded face. He was handsome and boyish, and though he said Colleen had his mother's eyes, she saw only his when she regarded their daughter.

Josh withdrew, and a stream of semen spilled from her, getting her legs closing while Josh rolled away and lay next to her. He gripped her hip and pulled her closer. Then his hand slipped down her thigh and up the back, sending her into shivers, hardening her nipples and making her gasp. He smiled, knowing her spots. —And it made her think of how she'd shared that with Devlin. Intimacy. Not always raw sex, but sometimes a dark closeness she regretted.

There was sadness though in his eyes, and she could imagine a few things that would bother him. The thing she had said and his own regret for enjoying it. When she'd said it, he couldn't hold his orgasm back for long. And the shortcoming. Worried how much bigger Devlin's penis was, and how quickly he'd ejaculated.

He sat up and left the bedroom, walking naked to the bathroom. He looked good leaner. When he returned he delivered a towel and she fixed it between her legs, remaining on her side and watching Josh's eyes. He settled beside her, laying the way she was, the two of them close and confidential.

He said, "What would you have done to him, if you could?"

She snuffled a small laugh. "Who, Devlin?" She snuffled again, looked away and then looked back. Josh still stared, undeterred. She said, "I would have broken him. I told you. I was so close to owning him."

Josh smiled too, a sparkle in his eyes. "Tell me."

She breathed deep, adjusted the towel between her thighs. "I . . . I made him as obsessed with my panties as you. Maybe even more." She cupped Josh's cheek and thumbed the corner of his mouth.

He frowned but his smile stayed. "Why?"

"To break him, Josh. He thought it was so funny to do it to you. So I did it to him."

Josh closed his eyes and chuckled. "What did you do?"

She hesitated, unsure of what to say. Then: "I made him wear them."

Josh laughed. "They wouldn't fit him."

"They did," she said. "And I filmed him in them."

Josh's smile and frown faded and he licked his lower lip. The frown returned.

Cold fear formed below her heart and she opened her mouth to speak but didn't know what to say.

Josh sat up, cheeks hollowed and eyes staring.

"I'm sorry, baby," she said, sitting up, following him, touching his back. "I don't want to talk about those bad things. I shouldn't have said anything."

Josh turned his face to hers. "Did you really?" His expression was softer, but she remained expressionless.

Josh looked down and then back up again. "Do you have the video?"









DITW 15-20: Plasma Formation (Patreon)

Content

It was almost impossible to read Josh’s expression and decipher his motive. Deciphering was one thing; what challenged her most was the suddenness of his surprising apparent surrender; his quick and dedicated return to the fire that had burned him. But, though Josh’s features showed tragic lines of worry and the heaviness of existence, there was a familiar gleam in his wounded eyes. Long ago a bad young man had bruised Josh’s tenderest part, and sometimes, though the wound had healed, Josh found some strange joy in pressing the old spot and feeling something awful there that maybe reminded him he was a living, breathing man. Yet, she told him, “I don’t think it’s time for that.”

Josh’s eyes showed he was undeterred, but he licked his lower lip in nervous preparation before asking her, “Why not?”

She ran her hair back and looked across the room, not sure why she would want him to deviate from his own need—when it would suit her well. The time wasn’t right. “You’re not ready.”

Josh nodded once, lips slimmed like he was somehow offended by her rejection. “No,” he said, “I think I am.”

She inclined her head, regarding him with soft compassion. “How could you be?”

Josh paused, calm, but his eyes flickering. Looking for a reason. He said, “It was a long time ago,” then looked down.

She smiled and cupped a hand on his bearded cheek. “I thought you wanted me as your wife tonight—remember?”

Josh angled his head away, looking up at her, her hand still on his handsome face. He sighed, brow crinkling, concocting an answer. He said, “You wanted to show me how you did it for me. Made the video. If it’s so bad you won’t show me now, what am I to think?”

She withdrew her hand and held her knees. Possible scenarios played out in her mind; ways Josh might react, how the video might anger him. How it might arouse him. How it might set so many wrongs right again. She turned her face to his. “You know what you’re going to see.”  He couldn’t be ready for that.

“I’m ready, Kimmy. If I’m hurt watching it, it’ll be my own fault. You know you’re going to show me some day.”

“How do you know that?”

“You still have the video?”

She sighed, hugged her knees, lowered her chin. She’d kept the video for Josh.

Josh leaned closer. “Did you keep it for yourself, Kimmy, or did you keep it for me?”

She nodded. “I made it for you. I kept it for you.”

Josh said nothing and they sat together in silence for an achingly long time. Then she slipped off the bed and stood. “I kept it to arouse you. Just you.” She stooped to touch his chest. “You know that, right? I took the video for you. It’s the only reason I took it. And it wasn’t easy to do.”

Josh closed his hand around her over his heart. “But you did it for me, I know. I told you I’m ready.”

She stood again and regarded Josh, seeing his steady gaze, faltering only to flash over her naked body. The phone was kept secure, and she turned away now from Josh to retrieve it. Into the closet, kneeling under her hanging suits, opening the fireproof safe where she kept all the paperwork, some mementos from her mother, some finer jewelry, and one old iPhone. She thumbed the screen, a little disheartened to see it come to life. If the phone had died, the choice whether to show Josh the video would have been chosen by the Fates. But no, the phone was well and good—the only promising arbiter a red empty-battery sign up in the corner. Time might be on her side. She held the phone to her breast a moment, staring into the hanging suits zipped up in their garment bags before rising to stand again. She lingered in the closet doorway, smiling at Josh, who sat up in bed, back against three stacked pillows, the lamp on, half his body lit in warm light. “Battery’s almost dead,” she said. “Not sure how much you’ll be able to watch.”

Josh’s brow scrunched and his mouth went to one side the way he did when he performed math in his head. He said, “How long is it?”

She regards him and he smiles, waiting for him to hear the double entendre, before deciding the double entendre wasn’t funny, anyway. She walked to the bed on her toes and sat beside him, feet on the floor. “More than we have battery for.”

Josh told her to get a cord and plug it in. “Cords are downstairs,” she said. “I think fate’s working against us.”

“I’ll get the cord,” he said leaning forward, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“You’re staying here. We’ll watch a little first. Okay?”

Josh nodded and eased back into the pillows. She smiled, holding the phone between her breasts. Her nipples had hardened and her tummy livened with this precipice of danger and excitement. This was dangerous sex. This wasn’t mundane. This was electric. She said, “Show me you’re hard first.”

Josh’s eyes widened with confused amusement, his head falling back. “What? Why?”

“I want to know your motivation. Prove your intent.” Now her hand moved to the bed covers he’d folded over his naked lap, and peeled them back. They both regarded his penis, half hard, inflated but not turgid, sticking out at level.

She moved her gaze from his penis to his eyes. “I’m not showing you until you prove to me you want it.”

Josh’s expression grew troubled as he tried to comprehend her demand, knowing the demand made sense but just wanting to see the video without restriction. He looked down, his stomach pulling in, his penis lifting.

But when he reached for his penis, she held his wrist. “Don’t touch it,” she said. “Close your eyes and think about what you’ll see.”

Now Josh’s expression showed a fearful amazement. This small challenge engaged him, locked him in and riled his desire. He closed his eyes as his breaths began to race, coming in heavy chuffs. Her hand caressed his inner thigh. “What are you picturing?”

A deep crease furrowed above the center of his pinched brow. “I don’t know yet. . . . Tell me what I’ll see.”

The caresses on his thigh turned to light nail-raking. “I got Devlin to wear my panties,” she said. “The ones you loved so much. The ones you wore for Devlin when you went to his apartment because you wanted to see the pictures Devlin took of my pussy. Wanted to see more of what Devlin saw of me.”

“You got him to wear them?”

“I got him wanting to wear them, Josh. He never should have messed with my husband.”

Josh chuckled and his hardening member nodded between his legs. His head rocked back and he must have gone to his dark fantasy land because she watched his cock rise and lengthen, grow fully erect, pointing straight up at her. She sighed a satisfied sound he would love to hear, wanting her husband to know how much his arousal aroused her.

Josh chuckled again, breaths quick, eyes open but blinking. He looked down between his legs to see his erection. He snuffled a laugh and flexed his thighs. “I think I’m ready.”

“You’re not tricking me? getting me to show you this so you can use it against me?”

“I swear, Kimmy,” he said, voice quiet. 

Her hand left his thigh to rub her chin and neck. “I’m in the video, too, Josh. . . . Are you sure you want to see it?”

Josh’s doubled look was exquisite. The delays frustrated him, the indecision, the belief that she could give him this or take it all away, too. Her hand returned between his thighs but this time she caressed his scrotum with her fingertips, then drew a pad up the length of his trembling arousal. Josh’s flesh quivered. Her own heart raced with abundant delight. She’d wanted to show Josh the video but didn’t think it would be so soon.

Josh groaned with pleasure at her slippery touch. He said, “Why else would I want to see it? You think I want to see him?”

“You’re going to see him. You’re going to see him in my underwear. . . . You’re going to see more than that, too.”

“Like what?”

“Do you think Devlin’s equipment fit in my small panties?” Josh’s brow compressed like in anguish. “Oh,” she said, soft and embarrassed.

Josh knew why she’d made the sound. He said, “Mine fit.”

She nodded, pursing her lips, showing him a compassionate expression. “Devlin is a much bigger man than you are. He’s taller; he’s a thicker guy. . . . And what he has between his legs is so much more than yours.”

“I already know,” Josh said, swallowing with some difficulty, his Adam’s apple going up and down.

“You’re going to see it, Josh. See Devlin’s naked manhood. Are you really sure you want to do this?”

“Just show me, please. Please.”

She showed him one last wavering look before bringing the phone up so he could see it. She held it in both hands between her breasts. Josh touched her haunch with the backs of his fingers, too worn out with greed to meet her gaze. Embarrassed by his own desire. “I did this for you,” she said. “I wanted to show you, wanted to show you in my own way, in my own time. But if you want to see it now, I’ll show you.”

Josh squirmed, electrified by the knowledge of a video she held to her chest, writhing with dirty needs. She dropped her hands between her naked thighs, shoulders slumping. She said, “Tell me you wanted it, Josh.” Josh didn’t understand. She said, “Tell me the truth. Tell me you wanted it from the beginning. Tell me you wanted it before I did it anyway.”

“I couldn’t have,” he whispered, eyes pleading for release.

“You must have, Josh. I didn’t want it to happen. Just tell me. Tell me because I want to hear how it would sound if you confessed.”

“I wanted it,” he said. “I wanted it before you did it.”

“Did you tell Devlin to do it? Did you tell Devlin you wanted him to fuck me?”

Josh shook his head no, but she could see cracks forming in his resolve. He’d structured much to bolster his own psyche in infidelity’s aftermath, afraid too much truth would tremble the earth and reduce him to ruins.

“Look at me,” she said, raising his chin with a finger. “I love you. I love you and this arouses you. Look between your legs and tell me it doesn’t. We didn’t do a single thing right, but here we are, together again and still loving each other. Tell me the truth because you love me.”

A vein rose in Josh’s temple; the cords of his neck stood out. He would never admit his own complicity; she would bear the blame because she was the stronger of the two. He shook his head in tiny increments, his brain racing with conjecture.

“You want it more than me, Josh. You want it more than me and there’s nothing wrong with that. I love you. I’m so happy to have you in my bed again.”

With that, she released him from the confrontation, stroking his neck and cheek and hair. In real love with him. She eased up onto the bed and slipped in behind him, kissing his collar as she got herself into place, the two of them naked in their bed, him between her legs, his hot back on her chest, her chin on his shoulder. She held the phone up so they could regard the screen and opened her photos, scrolling back.

Josh held her wrist and she stopped scrolling. She waited, and soon he spoke, saying, “I think I asked him. I think I asked him and I’m afraid all of this was my own fault.”

She hugged her arms around his neck and kissed the back of his ear. “None of it’s your fault, Josh. It’s all my fault. I did everything wrong.” But here you are with everything you wanted, and I’m the only one to blame. Josh had it all. The house, a baby, a career. His darkest sexual fantasies. His wife working her ass off to give them all they’d ever want. She could take the blame. It would be nice to hear him admit it, but he might not ever know how much wrong he’d done along the way, too.

She lifted the phone again and scrolled to the series of thumbnails showing the afternoon she’d spent in Devlin’s apartment, on one of the days before all the fun with Devlin Stone had ended. She thumbed the correct video and it zoomed to take up the entire screen. Devlin Stone, gorgeous and built and hung like a horse and an absolute savage in the bedroom. 

“Here it is,” she whispered in Josh’s ear.