I grab her and shake her. My fingers cutting into her flesh, and God that feels so good.
“How could you fuck with Corinne?” I growl at her. I shake her again, and her teeth snap together. I’ve never put my hands on a woman in such a way, never never never, and I don’t care now. All I want to do is hurt her like she’s hurt me, like she’s hurt my wife.
“You wanted me so much?” I ask, shoving her backward, and my fingers cut into her waist as I spin her around and push her against the table. Her thighs are pushed against the wood and she bends, shoving her skirt up to her waist.
“Yes...” she moans. “Do it. Fuck me. Make it hurt. Make me hurt.”
I do want to make it hurt. I want to punish her.
It’s about punishing now. And I want to.
She has to know.
She has to know she’s wrong.
I grab her neck and push her face into the wooden table, pushing it into the wood, hard harder harder.
I don’t feel sexual.
I feel vengeful.
In this moment, I feel powerful, like I’m inflicting punishment or revenge. I push against her, pondering for one moment, the idea of fury-fucking her. Of making her hurt. Of pounding into her until she begs me to stop.
I push against her hard, through our clothing, harder, harder, and then, from the haze of my anger, from the rage, I realize she’s moaning.
The sick bitch likes it.
I stop moving.
I’m still.
I’m frozen.
She looks over her shoulder, up at me, and blood streams from her lip, from being forced against the table. Her cheekbones are red and scraped, and her lipstick is smeared all over her face, making her look grotesque.
“Fuck me,” she says, breathless. “Do it, Jude. More. Slap me across the face. I like it hard.”
“You don’t deserve to like it,” I tell her, and I’m coming to my senses now.
But then she slaps me again, hard.
And I slap her back.
God help me, I slap her back.
Her head snaps to the side, and her hair is askew. A patch of blond shows through against the brown. It shouldn’t surprise me that her long hair was a wig all along. She smiles slowly, a grin that makes its way across her clown mouth.
“Again,” she whispers.
And I don’t know what happens or why, but I do.
I slap her again, harder this time.
Her cheekbone is red, and it will bruise, and I like it. I like knowing that.
It’s when she asks for it yet again that I catch hold of myself.
I take a breath.
I let it out.
I’m out of control.
I’m out of control.
I don’t want to be here.
I don’t want my dick anywhere near this girl.
Not anymore.
She smiles, and she looks more fucked up than ever, her red lipstick a slash across her chin, her hair crooked and mussed from my fist, her cheekbone starting to swell.
“Fuck my mouth, Jude,” she breathes, and she shoves her face into my crotch. Her mouth seeks me out, warm and hot and needy, and tries to suck me, tries to lap at me, to pull me into her mouth, but I stagger backward, trying to clear my head.
I suck in a cold breath.
“Stop,” I snap at her as she tries to touch me. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“Fuck my mouth, Jude. Punish me. You know I’ve been terrible. I’m a terrible, awful person, and I deserve to be humiliated. Show me how pathetic I am. Do it.”
She grabs at me again and tries once again to pull me into her mouth, her mouth warm on my pants as she scrambles for my zipper.
“You’re fucking pathetic,” I tell her, and I’m so so angry. I’m so sick to my stomach. “Never come near me or my wife again.”
I whirl around to leave, but her next words leave me cold.
“I own you, Jude Cabot.”
I turn back around, slowly, slowly.
She’s watching me, waiting, satisfied.
“You will do what I want. I own you. I have bruises on my face, scratches on my arms. You have my skin under your fingernails, I’m sure. One wrong move from you, and I’ll call the police. And tell them you attacked me. I barely fought you off.”
I can’t wrap my mind around that.
I’m stunned.
I’m so fucked.
She sees it when I realize. I open my mouth and then close it.
“I’m not a rapist,” I tell her, and I’m so numb.
“I know that, and you know that. But that’s not what it looks like,” she says, and she’s so smug that I want to slap the expression off her face.
“I’ll have a bruise on my face from you, too,” I tell her. “How will you explain that?”
She shrugs, not concerned. “Defense injuries. I was trying to fight you off.”
“You’re a cunt,” I tell her.
She smiles. “I’ve heard that before.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” I ask her. “Why would you want me, when I don’t want you?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she answers pleasantly. “Just know that I do. I want you. And if you know what is best for you, you won’t argue.”
My options fly through my head with lightning speed, and I quickly come to one conclusion.
I don’t have any.
“You can do whatever you want to do,” I tell her. “You’re an unbalanced bitch, and I can’t control that. Just know this, I don’t want you. I’ll never want you. You’re pathetic, and you’re nothing. I feel sorry for you.”
I ignore her shrieks of outrage as I walk away.
52
Corinne
I stare at my phone and wait for Michel to come.
I’ve never in my life felt such pain. It’s like my insides are being ripped out through my mouth, and I can feel every agonizing inch of the gutting process.
I collapse into Michel, crying when he arrives. The whole story comes out, as much of it as I know, and Michel stares at me in horror.
“He wouldn’t do this,” he says softly. “He wouldn’t.”
“He did,” I insist, twisting my hands. “I feel like he stabbed me in the heart, Michel. He might as well have.”
My husband.
My love.
The beautiful man I fell in love with.
I see him in my head when we got married...when he smiled at me from the end of the aisle, when he smiled at me from our bed on our honeymoon. His eyes were like gold, like caramel, and his arms were strong and mine, and he loved me, he loved me, and he’d never have hurt me. He’d have died first.
But it changed.
Over the years, it changed.
“We grew apart somehow,” I whisper to Michel. “I don’t even know how it happened. My schedule, and he got distant, and then he... I guess he sought out solace from someone else. She stroked his ego probably. He was flattered, and he wasn’t getting that from me.”
I choke on my words and Michel grabs me into a hug. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“It can’t be okay,” I whisper. “It will never be okay.”
Michel hugs me, and he smells good and he’s strong, and he’s so very much like Jude. I close my eyes.
The pain slices me like a knife.
“Jude screwed up,” Michel tells me. “No matter what issues your marriage had, he chose to cheat. This is on him, not you.”
“I know,” I all but whimper. “But God, it hurts. How could he do this to me?”
“He was making a selfish choice,” Michel answers, patting my back. “I doubt it had anything to do with you, and everything to do with himself.”
“But we’re marrie
d,” I tell him. “That means that everything he does affects me. He had to know what it would do to me. And he didn’t care. Look, I don’t want to bash your brother to you. I just don’t want to be alone, and...”
“Hush with that,” Michel replies, looking at me sternly. “You’re my sister. I’m here for you. We’ll work through this. Let me get Jude on the phone and—”
“No,” I interrupt sharply. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
Michel holds up his hands. “Okay. Don’t worry. It’s just you and me here.”
I slump into him and he holds me, and we stay like that for a very long time.
“Fuck you, Jude,” I eventually growl.
“Let’s go to Reflections,” Michel suggests. “Let’s take care of you now. I’ll go talk with Jude, and Zoe, too. She’s a member of my church. I’ll get this sorted.”
“It’s not yours to sort,” I point out.
“Hush,” he tells me. “Just get your purse. I’ll go get your bag.”
I nod, and I can’t swallow because of the pain, and within a minute, Michel is back with my bag.
“Let’s go, sis,” he says. “I’ll call Jackie and explain everything. You don’t have to worry.”
I climb into his old truck, and he buckles me in, and then he drives silently to the clinic. When we arrive, he does the paperwork and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“It’ll be okay,” he tells me again. “I promise. You go rest. I’ll go knock some sense into your husband.”
I don’t answer. I just let the nurse lead me down the hall so I can take a nap.
I’m so tired.
So so tired.
When I get up, maybe none of this will have happened.
Maybe it will have just been a nightmare.
53
Now
Corinne
Reflections Mental Facility
I open my eyes.
“Oh my God.” My words are a whisper, and Dr. Phillips studies me again. “Jude was having an affair.”
He nods and looks away.
“You’ve known all along,” I say, remembering. “When did I... When did I block it out?”
He clears his throat. “Michel brought you and checked you in, and you were lucid in the beginning. But we gave you a sedative to help calm you, and you took a nap. When you woke, you had no recollection of anything. Not of the affair, not of trying to kill yourself, and not of still being pregnant.”
My hand flies to my belly. “I’m still pregnant.”
The doctor nods. “Yes. Part of our job here was to ensure the safety of your baby. We thought seeing Jude might jog your memories of...his affair, and might make it overwhelming for you when you actually did remember. We weren’t even sure if you would. Your brain has become very efficient at disassociating.”
“When I do something, I do it,” I say weakly. And my knees are weak. My hands are shaking. I can’t think. “How long have I been here?” I ask, trying to think.
“Five days,” he answers quietly. That hits me hard. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.
“Is Lucy here yet?” I ask him.
“I’ll check.” He picks up his phone and calls the receptionist.
I need someone.
Anyone familiar.
Anyone familiar to tell me that everything is going to be okay.
This is all too much.
“I’ll go get her,” he tells me. He gets up, and he leaves, and I stare at my hands, at my wedding ring. I want to take it off and throw it against the wall. How could Jude do this to me?
My Jude.
My beautiful Jude.
I twist the ring and twist it.
A few minutes later, Lucy comes in with Dr. Phillips.
Her face is dark and she knows.
“He told you?”
She nods. “That fucking prick.”
I close my eyes and she sits next to me, her arm around my shoulders.
“Thank you for being here,” I murmur as I bury my face in her sweater. “I don’t know what to think.”
“You think of a good divorce attorney,” she advises. She pats my back, and my mind is empty, and it’s nice to have one person I can count on.
54
Now
Jude
I slam my car door and stride for the entrance, and when I walk into Dr. Phillips’s area, his receptionist startles.
“I’ll tell him you’re here,” she stammers. I shake my head.
“Don’t bother.”
I open his door without hesitation.
He’s in front of me, his leg crossed, his notepad on his lap.
And Corinne is on the couch with Zoe.
Zoe’s arms are around her shoulders, and her face is buried in Zoe’s shirt. Zoe looks different... She’s wearing a baggy shirt and her hair is shorter and darker...but it’s definitely Zoe.
I stop.
My mouth falls open.
Shock and utter horror pounds through my veins.
“What the hell is going on here?”
55
Corinne
“What the hell is going on here?”
My husband stands in the doorway, stunned, disheveled and covered in blood. He looks from Lucy to me, and back to Lucy.
I sit up.
“I think I’m the one who should be asking that,” I say icily. “I remember, Jude. I remember everything.”
He’s stunned and astounded, and we all wait for him to speak.
“If that’s true, then why are you sitting there with her? This is Zoe.”
I pause, and I look at him, and I look at Lucy, and as I do, all of it falls into place.
The holes are filled.
With Zoe’s face.
I inhale sharply and yank away from Zoe’s arms. And I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. I’ve never been crazy.
It was her all along.
She made sure I never saw her face at the diner. She’s been angling for my husband. To hurt me.
Jessica. Lucy. Zoe.
They’re all the same.
She looks up at me now, and she bursts into tears.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobs. “I’m so sorry. I... Jude...he fooled me. I got sucked in, and I can’t believe I fell for it, and I’m so awful. I’m terrible.”
“Why have you done this?” I demand, ignoring everything else she said. “I never did anything to you. What happened wasn’t my fault. Why have you done this?”
She’s silent and then whimpers.
“He...kept saying he wanted to leave you and wanted to have a baby with me, and I thought he was using protection, but he wasn’t. And God, Corinne, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s a lie,” Jude snaps, and I hold up my hand.
“He never slept with you,” I tell her, and the mere words stab my heart.
“Is that what he told you?”
“Yes. And I believe him.”
“He’s lying. I want to apologize. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” she protests. “He said he was tired of waiting for you to have a family. I had no idea that he was going to go this far. You don’t know what he’s really like, Corinne.”
“Fuck you,” I tell her, because I’ve been married to him for fifteen years. “You don’t know anything.”
That’s when her expression changes, and her eyes narrow and they turn stormy and dark, and she spits her next words.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I know everything. I know everything about you, and what you did, and what you deserve.”
I’m stunned and quiet, and she laughs in my face.
“Did you really think I liked you all of these months? It was all I could do to pretend. You’re such a pathetic pers
on, Corinne. God, I could barely stand being around you. Do you want to know something?”
I’m silent and she stares at me, studying me.
“I loved hurting your dog. Why? Because I knew everyone would think you did it. How did that feel, Corinne? Did it feel like shit? Because that’s only a small taste of what you deserve.”
She’s maniacal, and I can’t imagine why the men in the room haven’t rushed to subdue her, until I see the answer for myself.
A flash of silver in her hand, and I see it only as she grabs for me, and then I feel the cold metal against my throat.
It happens so fast, and I had no idea she was so strong.
“Don’t,” she tells Jude as he reaches out for me, “move.”
He looks from her to me, and he’s as helpless as I am, because one small move on my part, and the knife will be buried in my throat. I’ll bleed to death and no one can help me.
“Don’t hurt her,” Jude says cautiously, his hands in the air. “Put the knife down, Zoe. I’m the one you’re mad at. Not her.”
Zoe laughs and her teeth glint, and she’s insane.
“You silly boy. Don’t flatter yourself. This has never been about you. It’s been her all along.”
56
Jude
There’s nothing I can do as Zoe pushes past me, a knife held at my wife’s throat. I outweigh her by a hundred pounds, but if I misjudge a single thing, Corinne would be dead in an instant. I can’t risk it.
I can’t risk it. I fight to stay calm, and I have to force myself to let them go. Corinne looks over her shoulder at me as they disappear down the hall, and the look in her eyes is haunting and raw, and, Jesus, I have to do something.
Dr. Phillips is already calling the police, and I chase behind the two women, sprinting through the hall and emerging into the parking lot just in time to see them get into Zoe’s car.
I get into my own truck, and the engine roars to life. I stay close on Zoe’s tail. The rain falls so hard that I can barely see her lights, even at a close distance.
It all feels surreal as I drive, as I watch their heads in the car in front of me. It feels like a dream or a nightmare. Not something that is truly happening. My phone rings, and Zoe’s name flashes on the screen.
Such Dark Things Page 24