Corinne is still fast asleep in the bedroom, and I pass through to the bathroom. In my hurry to disrobe, my fingers fumble the string to my shorts, and I forcibly shove them down over my rock-hard penis. The need for release is almost pathetic. I feel it, the pressure, building in my balls, and as soon as the water is hot, I jump in the shower.
As I masturbate, I replay the whole scene in my head.
“God, Zo,” the girl had moaned, her fingers reach, reach, reaching. Her fingertips had circled Zoe, and she was tight and small and perfect, and... Jesus.
I stroke myself, my eyes so tightly closed that I don’t notice my wife watching me.
She clears her throat, and the sound breaks through my concentration and I drop my dick.
“Errrr, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Corinne has the luxury of being glib, because she’s caught me quite literally with my pants down and my dick in my hand. “I heard the shower and thought I would join you, but I see you’re busy.”
She’s annoyed, but I defuse the situation as best I can.
“You can join me,” I suggest, and God I hope she does. I need release right now. Standing here talking when I need to cum is killing me. “I didn’t want to wake you because you worked so late, but I’d always rather have you than this.” I hold up my right hand and she smiles now.
“Really?” She’s surprised.
“Of course. Get your pretty ass in here.”
She drops her robe and joins me, and I hate to admit that I have sex with my wife against the stone shower wall all while thinking about Chelsie and Zoe.
I can’t help it. I’m normal, right? Any man would’ve been turned on by what I just saw. Any red-blooded man.
It’s evolution. Or genetics. Or whatever the fuck it is that causes men to be men.
I’m thinking about them as I cum into my wife, but of course Corinne doesn’t know that. She thinks this is all about her, and I should feel guilty, but I’m overcome with my climax instead. She smiles when I’m finished, her wet fingers clutching my shoulders.
“Well,” she murmurs, “this was a nice way to start the day.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
But a part of me isn’t talking about sex with my wife.
It’s talking about watching a lesbian sex scene in the park, because that’s really how I started my day.
I can’t look Corinne in the eye as I get ready for work, although I kiss her goodbye when I leave. It’s chaste, but it’s still on her mouth.
“I’ll call you tonight,” she promises. But she won’t. I know that. For the first time in a long time, I’m okay with that. I’m not annoyed, because I’ve got something else to focus on. Maybe this weird flirtation thing with Zoe is actually good for my marriage.
Ha. That’s rationale at its finest.
I drive down the road, and I get the first text when I’m sitting at a stoplight.
Did you like that?
It’s Zoe.
I stare at the words, knowing that the girl who just licked another girl is typing them. She’s focused on me now, and she’s wild and unrestrained. It’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.
The light turns green, and I don’t text her back, because I might be perverted, but I don’t text and drive. It’s another five minutes before I hit another red light and I can answer.
Of course. Wasn’t that the point?
Because I truly think it was. Something tells me she did it on purpose. She somehow figured out where I would be—did I mention to her that I jog in the morning?—and made sure that I’d see. It should make me uneasy, but instead, it turns me on. She went to all of that trouble just for me? The blood pulses through me, and I feel alive for the first time in months.
There are three bubbles now. She’s replying. But the light turns green, and even though I hear the ding of a new text, I fight the temptation to look until I pull into my parking spot at the office. I’m barely parked before I yank the phone up to read it.
It was—it was all for you. Smart boy.
I was right. She meant for me to see them. The exuberant feeling carries me through the morning, fueling me through my appointments. The memories of what they did together keep me hard on and off, and I have to fight to keep my focus on my patients.
At lunchtime, I’m like a little boy at Christmas when I pull my desk drawer open to check my phone.
There are two texts from Zoe, and none from my wife.
God, it turned me on to have you watch us.
I’m going to show you how much.
As I hold the phone, three bubbles pop up, and I’m practically shaking in anticipation when a third text comes through.
A video.
Zoe is in her waitress uniform, standing in a public restroom. She’s fingering herself, and the camera zooms in to her fingers. She’s so wet that I can hear it as her fingers move.
God, I want you, Jude, she murmurs in the background.
I swallow hard, because all of a sudden, this is real.
I’m really in my office watching a girl masturbate while she whispers my name.
I’m married.
I’m married.
Yet Corinne hasn’t called or texted all day. If I’m out of her sight, I’m out of her mind, and that’s so fucking frustrating.
This girl, though... This girl is making it difficult.
I watch the video again, then again.
God, I want you, Jude.
The whisper imprints in my head, and I hear it again and again through the rest of the day. The feeling it invokes is like a drug, and I can’t help but want more of it. It lights a fire in me that I haven’t felt in such a long time, and it’s no excuse, but I want to feel more of it.
That’s why, after work, when I get another text from Zoe and it says, I want to see you tonight, I answer her.
What time?
I lay my phone down before I can change my mind, before I can ponder what an asshole I am.
And then my phone rings. I startle, thinking Zoe is calling. But it’s not her. It’s my wife.
A pang of guilt shudders through me, and I let the call go to voice mail. I can’t talk to her right now. Not right after I set a date with another woman.
She’d hear it in my voice. She’d know.
And that would kill me.
19
Seven days, twelve hours until Halloween
Corinne
Jude doesn’t answer his phone.
I don’t know why. But something feels odd, something nameless is heavy in the pit of my belly. I can’t place it, I can’t name it. It feels like something is wrong. Only, I have no basis for that feeling whatsoever.
I guess it’s because he’s never not answered his phone before.
I leave him a voice mail, then look around the ER.
It’s quiet for once, almost still. Brock comes out of exam room one, and he pauses to look at me.
“You look like shit, Cabot.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, you do.” He sits next to me, opening a chart. “You should go lie down. I’ve got this.”
I don’t argue, because while I might look like shit, I guarantee that I feel five times worse. I head for the doctors’ lounge, to the soothing darkness, and collapse onto a cot. My stomach is rolling, uneasy and nauseous. Saliva pools in my mouth, and I fight the urge to vomit.
Surely it’s not just because my husband isn’t answering his phone.
That’s dumb.
“Jude is fine,” I whisper to myself. Nothing is happening to Jude. He’s safe. He’s just busy. There’s no reason to worry.
I close my eyes and try to ignore the feeling of foreboding in my gut. After a while, I open them again to distract myself, to watch the crack of light under the door, to watch the shadows pa
ss by with the nurses as they walk, allowing it to lull me into sleep.
Before long, I’m dreaming. Only, my dreams are memories.
“Your father was supposed to be home for dinner,” my mother tells me, pacing by the phone. “I don’t know where he is.”
Jackie and I look at each other, nervous and edgy. I think I know where he is, and I can tell Jackie does, too.
My mom stops at the sink, her worn dress hanging from her thin frame. She’s been smoking too much lately. She’s losing weight.
“Mom,” Jackie starts out, and she’s hesitant. “I saw him earlier. He was in the park with Melanie Gibson.”
I kick her under the table. We did see him, when we were walking home from school, and he was too close to Melanie, way too close, but we shouldn’t tell my mom. I don’t know what’s going on, but it can’t be good. Not with the way Melanie was looking at him with stars in her eyes.
My mother’s head snaps up, and she stares at Jackie intently.
“What do you mean, Jacquelyn?”
Her words are abrupt, pointed. I kick Jackie again and she winces.
“Nothing, Mama,” she says now. “I thought I saw him, but I don’t know.”
“You were mistaken,” my mom says. “He was at work earlier. He couldn’t have been in the park, you silly girl.”
She paces again, though, and she lights one cigarette after another, smoking them in a chain.
She dishes macaroni out onto two plates and hands them to us. “Jackie, are you trick-or-treating tonight?” she asks, trying to sound normal.
Jackie nods. “Yes, Mama. I’m going with Trish.” Her best friend.
My mother nods. “Good. And you, Corinne? Are you still babysitting for Melanie?”
She tries her best to sound casual, but her words are loaded. She knows that I am, and she knows that something is going on with my father and Melanie. I can see it in her eyes, and I can hear it in her voice. I know I should tell her what we saw, but I can’t. Because she’ll hate us for it.
“Yes, Mama,” I answer instead.
“Well, see that you’re not late,” she tells me. “Hurry up and eat your dinner.”
The dream morphs and changes and I awaken with a start, and as I try to calm down, I force the images from that night out of my head.
I had eaten my macaroni, and I had not been late.
I didn’t say a word to my mother about what I knew...or what I feared I knew.
And I’ll always wonder how things might’ve been different if I had.
A bit of vomit rises in my throat, and I swallow it down, the bile bitter and gross. I gulp some water and curl up on the cot, my skin clammy. I wish I were home with Jude, curled up in our soft bed instead, where he could hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay.
Because for whatever reason, I feel like it’s not.
As crazy as it might sound, I feel like something terrible is about to happen.
20
Seven days, eleven hours until Halloween
Jude
What am I doing?
I stare into my rearview mirror, and my eyes are hooded and closed.
What am I doing? I’m meeting a woman who isn’t my wife for dinner.
The muted lights from Olive Garden shine onto the hood of my car, and I wait for her to arrive. Every time headlights swing into the parking lot, I think it’s her.
Every minute, I try to talk myself into leaving.
I almost do, in fact. I’m just starting up the Land Rover when she pulls in next to me, as stealthy as a shadow.
I don’t know if I’m pleased or disappointed.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I admit as we meet on the sidewalk.
She smiles confidently. “You’re here to see me.”
She’s dressed in a tight skirt and tight top, the top two buttons undone. I can see the swell of her breasts and the top of a lacy red bra.
“I shouldn’t be,” I say simply. “It’s wrong.”
“Don’t think about it,” she advises, and she pulls me through the doors. “I’m hungry, you’re hungry, and we’re across town from anyone who might know us. Everything is all right, Jude. We’re just having dinner.”
“We’re just eating,” I tell her pointedly, and she rolls her eyes.
“A booth for two,” I tell the maître d’.
He glances up. “And are we celebrating anything in particular?” He looks from Zoe to me.
Zoe nods. “Yes. It’s our anniversary.”
I want to elbow her, but don’t.
“Oh, happy anniversary, my dear,” our waiter tells us as he guides us into the restaurant. “What number is this?”
“It’s our second date of many to come,” she says as she sits down, and my stare pierces her. “I’m celebrating them all.”
The waiter smiles like it’s the most romantic thing he’s ever heard, but all I want to do is bolt from this place. This was a mistake. A big one.
“Two long islands, please,” I tell the waiter. “And make them strong.”
My thumb taps the tabletop. I’m nervous, and I hate that. I’m letting a twentysomething kid intimidate me?
But it’s not that.
It’s the knowledge that I’m risking my marriage to be here, and how fucking dumb is that? Zoe looks at me.
“What’s your middle name, Jude Cabot?”
“That’s an odd question.”
She shrugs. “I just want to know about you. Is that wrong, too?”
I shake my head. “No. I suppose not. It’s Ashton.”
“My, isn’t that fancy!” She laughs and our drinks arrive. She holds up her glass. “To Jude Ashton Cabot. Maybe I’ll call you Ash.”
I clink my full glass to hers and take several long drinks.
“They used to call me that, actually,” I tell her, and I stare across the room. In my head, I see my old football field, and I hear the chanting crowd. “In high school. Ash, I mean. It was on the back of my football jersey.”
“You were the quarterback, I presume? King of the field?”
“Of course,” I snort. “If I do something, I do it right.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” She’s glib now. “Did you play in college, too?”
“Only for a while. I got injured sophomore year and Corinne didn’t want me to play anymore. It worried her too much.”
“You quit playing football for your wife?” Zoe is incredulous.
“Well, she wasn’t my wife at the time,” I amend. “But yeah. It worried her too much.”
“Do you always stop doing things she worries about?” Zoe arches her eyebrows, and her question seems sarcastic, and I know she’s talking about being here with her right now. I look away and she laughs.
My belly churns with a dark sort of excitement, and I hate it and love it at the same time. My desires are so dark and seedy now. It’s new, it’s novel.
“Look,” Zoe says, as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking about. “The best thing about this dinner is that reality is out there.” She motions toward the window with a fluttery hand, and her bracelets jingle. “We’re in here, and we don’t have to acknowledge it or think about real life. Isn’t that awesome?”
I’m still silent, undecided.
“We can be what we want in here,” she adds softly. “I won’t judge you, and you won’t judge me, and we’ll just be. No expectations, no rules. You’re not a therapist and I’m not a waitress, and we’re just Jude and Zoe. Does that sound good?”
I hate to admit that it does. I don’t have a wife who has issues and is never home. I’m just Jude. I can separate the aspects of my life. My dinner with Zoe doesn’t affect my marriage with Corinne. I’m just passing time. I’m not really going to do anything.
She raises an eyebrow
. “Does it?”
“Yeah, actually.”
She smiles.
“Good. Let’s get another drink.”
I order two, one for each of us, and she studies me.
“You know, you look exactly like your brother. What’s it like being a twin?”
“Come now. Surely you’re more original than that. Everyone asks that question.”
“Okay. What’s it like to have a priest as a brother?” she amends. “Does he judge everything you do?”
“Nah. Michel doesn’t judge. He doesn’t even seem like a priest, to be honest.”
“Does he take your confession?”
I snort into my glass, and the ice cubes tumble against each other. “Uh, no. Not for real. Every once in a while, I’ll do it for a joke. But my real confession might scare him.”
It’s her turn to snort. “Whatever. I can see in your eyes...you’re not scare-worthy.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. This girl doesn’t know me at all.
“Whatever makes you think that?”
“I’m a good judge of people,” she says.
I laugh at that. “You’re too young to have acquired that particular trait,” I tell her. “You’re still wet behind the ears.”
She rolls her eyes. “Seriously. I’ve learned from the school of hard knocks. I know people, trust me.” She pauses and looks at me. “For instance, you. You’re unhappy in your marriage right now, and you don’t know how to fix it, but you still love your wife. On the other hand, you’re still here with me because you’re curious. Yet you’re torn about it because the guilt is eating you up.” She pauses again. “Am I close?”
I look away. “Maybe.”
She snorts. “Okay, Mr. Therapist. If you’re so experienced, read me.”
I gulp at my drink until it’s half gone, and I signal for another from the waiter.
“You’re a girl who requires a lot of male attention, probably the result of daddy issues from your youth. You like to appear confident, but on the inside, you’re insecure. You put a lot of stock in your looks and your ability to get male attention. Without that, you’d be bereft.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Maybe. Maybe not. I do have issues. You’d have a field day with me, I’m afraid.”
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