Carlos’s gaze traveled from my face to the iPhone that vibrated and sang out Kem’s ringtone. My hands were trapped in his. “Aren’t you going to answer that, Victoria?” My lips began to tremble wanting to say a million words, needing to get the hell out of there, but I was silent and the phone continued to ring. I was stuck in that dark cave staring into the eyes of the beast. “If you will not answer it, then I will,” he said prying the phone from my fingers and slamming it into the coffee table shattering the glass enclosure that surrounded the device. The ringing stopped after that.
He paced around the table while Sandra remained on the bottom step and I near the couch, then he picked up the gun that almost appeared to be a child’s toy. I wished it was a mere toy. “Have a seat, Mrs. Sutter, por favor. Don’t want to be rude. Would you like something to drink?” He turned, waiting on a response that was never offered. “Of course not. You look very nice today. I love it when women dress and smell nice, muy bonitas. My Sandy dresses and smells nice all the time.” He faced Sandra again, stopping his assault of the carpet. “Come join us my love.” Sandra flitted across the foyer, sitting next to me on the couch. Her eyes beckoned to me as she mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
My heart began to pound as I watched him hold the gun. My day was supposed to be special, spent learning about my baby with the man that I loved so much. Why am I here? Why is this happening to me? I replayed the events of my morning that lead me to that point while he continued to talk about Sandra’s scent and how another man received all the treats that were rightfully her husband’s. His incessant pacing made me fearful that I was not going to leave the horrendous situation unscathed. Of course his fury was directed at Sandra but for some odd reason he kept a constant vigil on me. Carlos and I never really had personal connection. He always gave off the vibe that he didn’t care too much for me, but I never gave him a reason to dislike me. His movements were becoming erratic and his knuckles became white as he gripped the gun. I began to wonder if he would go as far as using the gun on either Sandra or me. Beads of sweat formed on my brow when he turned to me and asked, “Victoria, what do you think of all of this?”
Considering I had tuned out his speech, only listening to my own personal words that rambled from my conscience, I was at a complete loss to his meaning. “I’m sorry, Carlos, what do I think of what?” I blinked my eyes repeatedly, trying to swallow my fear.
“What do you think of my wife being a cheat?” he asked. “A filthy cheat,” he spat. “Whore, slut, tramp, punta,” he shouted picking up the coffee table and hurling it into a wall. Sandra and I screamed upon the impact of the small piece of furniture. Terrified that it was going to turn out worse than my heart wanted to believe, I grasped Sandra’s shaky hand in mine without his knowledge. We needed to comfort each other or things could get disastrous before we knew it.
“So, Mrs. Sutter.” His tone was calm again which chilled me more than the yelling. “What do you think of that?”
My voice was scrambling to escape my mouth, frightened to say something out of turn. “I don’t know, Carlos. I mean, we all make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes in my marriage as well.”
“Did you cheat?” He began to approach me on the couch.
“No. I didn’t,” I plainly stated keeping my eyes on his every move.
“Did your husband cheat?” He reached out for my hand. I turned to Sandra who was silently sobbing at the spectacle, and then I faced him. His face was void of any expression or emotion, so I took my chances and stood, releasing Sandra’s fingers. I immediately knew I was in danger of feeding myself to the beast who hungered for answers.
“No my husband did not cheat,” I muttered as he circled around me, stopping behind me. Bile began to rise up my stinging throat when he slid his sweaty palm with the revolver interlaced with his finger around my abdomen. My baby, I yelped silently on the inside. Carlos was several inches over my height, so he rubbed his face up against my hair. He undid my bun and I became stiff as a board as he turned us toward Sandra.
She began to shake her head, pleading with her husband. “Please, please, Carlos, let Victoria go. She has nothing to do with this. It’s me you want to punish. Mi amor, por favor!” His body almost contracted when her voice rang out. Carlos jutted the gun in her direction, spitting his liquor-infused breath against my ear. “Shut up, bitch! You don’t tell me what to do! I’m the man of this house and you are nothing but the dirt it stands on.”
Tears dropped one at a time down my sienna cheeks as his gunned grip returned to my abdomen. My baby. My baby. Then he began swaying against my back, humming an unknown tune while running his free hand up and down my hips. “Do you like that, Mrs. Sutter? Of course you do,” he said, answering his own question. Sandra was shaking so badly that she bit her own lip, as if fighting the need to scream out. He worked his touch over my thighs, then cautiously near my chest when I saw movement outside of the bay window. Cream curtains blocked a clear view, but there was something or someone outside of the windows.
His hand slowly groped at my breast, and then I felt his head turn to Sandra while I fought the need to pass out in his arms. “You see what it looks like for me to touch a beautiful woman in front of you? She smells like manzanas.” He turned his nose toward my neck taking a deep breath, growling, “Mmm. Does she taste like manzanas? We will soon find out.” He is going to rape me! How can this be happening to me? He continued to groan and hum, swaying and twisting me. His focus was no longer on giving Sandra a show of him touching her best friend and boss in an inappropriate manner, but grinding his hardened flesh into my back. Numbing myself to what was occurring, I mentally blacked out because the last thing I wanted to do was fight and get someone or all of us killed.
He danced a dance that I did not want to be a partner to, but he moved my body around nonetheless. The sound of my zipper didn’t pull me out of the trance I was in, staring idly at the bookcase flush against the wall. He danced on. His palm slid against my bare flesh running over my rib cage and he murmured, “Soft.” I was gone to another plane mentally, unable to decipher any words. We moved and he hummed, swayed, and danced. Then I heard a loud thump. He slid down my body like the maple syrup that had run down my thighs just that morning. My brain was gone. I was absent. Mentally checked out. Because I could have sworn I heard a woman’s scream, then those green balls of fire pierced into me. I fainted, falling next to my attacker.
Epilogue
After waking in a hospital bed, Kemington told me he had received my text message that I was at Sandra’s house when he was walking out of his meeting. When he made it to the doctor’s visit, I wasn’t there, so he called my cell phone, the same cell phone that Carlos had smashed against the table. When I didn’t answer, his instincts kicked in and he raced down Interstate 114 in the direction of Willoughby Estates.
When he neared Sandra’s home, he saw that my car was blocked in by a Ford pickup in her driveway, so he parked a few houses away. Once he stalked to the bushes beneath the bay window in Sandra’s living room, he saw Carlos “pawing at my body”—his words not mine. He also witnessed Carlos point a weapon at Sandra, making him completely panic. Before he crept into the house while Carlos had his back turned, Kem called the police who arrived minutes after Kem cracked Carlos in the head with a decorative stone he’d found on Sandra’s lawn.
Apparently, I passed out shortly thereafter. The hospital reported that the shock of my traumatic experience severely elevated my blood pressure to epic proportions and the baby was in the danger zone for a few days, but thankfully the doctors were able to stabilize both of our vital signs. I left the hospital after a week in great shape and our baby was strong, thriving inside of me.
Our world almost went back to normal, but a few minor changes occurred. Completely shaken from my hospitalization, Kemington vowed to never lose me again, so he proposed marriage for the second time on the day before my discharge from Baylor Medical Center. He had the nurses in the unit assist him with the prep
aration and performance. He was dressed in the sexiest three-piece suit singing “Kiss” by Prince and dropping rose petals all around my hospital bed. By the time he was done with his mini-flash mob, a small crowd had gathered around my hospital doorway and my ribs hurt from all of the laughter.
The remodeling of our estate came a month or so afterward. Two of the three bedrooms were combined into one resulting in a massive nursery for the baby. Matching his-and-her rocking chairs were placed near the Egyptian-inspired crib centered in the middle of the bedroom. The room had an Egyptian theme with pyramids, camels, and a desert motif painted, making the space perfect for our special little boy to enjoy. Yes, we were having a baby boy!
My workload was dramatically lightened during the pregnancy. I was not medically high risk, but I did have a previous miscarriage, so my OB and I settled on a plan that would prevent me from needing bed rest in the long run. Jessica had previous experience as a marketing executive, so she was allotted a few more responsibilities, giving me the ability to work three days out of the week while resting, working a light load from home on the other days.
Jessica was great. She became a really close friend and her fashion designs were to die for. We invited her and Tifa to our annual Christmas dinner that involved Kemington orchestrating a symphony of sous chefs and caterers to assist him in his master creation. Kem entered Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute and loved it from day one. His time devoted to the family business was reduced to minimal, because his dream of becoming a chef was being fulfilled before our eyes. We began scouting out a building in the historic Sundance Square of Fort Worth that will house the future “Nan’s Place.”
Sandra came to Christmas dinner as well. She came alone due to her husband, Carlos, spending a little time in prison for his actions that fateful day. Just as she predicted, her family cut her off, leaving her to deal with her life, pregnancy, and picking up the pieces all alone. Well, she wasn’t really alone, she had me…and Kemington. Yes, Kem was there for her as well. All it took was a fried-catfish dinner and apple-cinnamon muffins when she was having one of her hard days sniveling over her life changes.
Sandra reconnected with the one-night stand that forever changed her life. Manuel is his name, and he is hot, hot, hot! Caliente! Mouthwatering, dripping wet, drop-dead-and-come-back-to-life gorgeous. After Christmas, all the days were just a number in the countdown to the birth of the two babies on the way with Sandra’s mystery baby being due in late January and my baby boy in May. Kemington was so cute, rocking in his appointed rocking chair in the nursery. I felt awful that I hadn’t clued him in on the previous baby. A little part of me died inside when I saw his reaction, but this baby was going to be his world.
Sandra gave birth to a healthy, eight-pound ten-ounce baby boy name Duece Domingo, and his name was perfect for him. He kept his fists balled like a miniature boxer duking it out in the ring. He had Sandra’s loops of dark brown curls running amuck on his head, but that was all she could claim on that baby. I was at the hospital with her every day, keeping her company and secretly spying on Manuel bonding with his son that was gifted to him by a stranger from a night of intoxication. There was something about Manuel and the way he looked at the smaller version of himself that gave me goose bumps and good vibes. Sandra’s glowing face confirmed it for me, too.
A few months later the hectic night came when my water broke. Kemington lost it, running around our personal castle like a chicken with his head cut off as my grandma would say. We barely made it out of the house with him wearing pants. It was a long, painful night of beeping, graphics, ice chips, fleeting seconds of sleep, and people in and out. At ten thirteen in the morning, May twelfth, Kemington Alexander Sutter Jr. was welcomed into the world at exactly seven pounds.
Tears ran from my eyes when the nurses put my angel from heaven in my arms and those bright emerald eyes sparkled at me. Kemington was a wreck, having recovered from his fainting spell when I extended his son to him. I saw his chest expand as he held his breath applying his lips to our baby’s brow that was covered with long sandy strands of hair that curled at the tips. I got a cool chill watching Kemington cradle our baby in the soft light. My grandma was there in spirit, if only to live in that moment. And the Sutters, Kemington’s parents, were there as well, crying over their first grandchild. It’s funny what will bring a family together. Kemington Sutter vowed to love, provide, and protect his family at all cost with the added bonus of our son, Kemington Sutter Jr., growing up surrounded by love that was forever the truth.
The End
About the Author
Lillian MacKenzie Rhine is a writer who weaves stories in her mind, creating an articulate quilt patched together with interesting characters and riveting plots. She has an open approach to genre writing where the pen dictates the theme written on the pages. Each chosen word that Lillian MacKenzie Rhine engraves into her stories will connect with her readers’ reality at some point in his or her past, present, or future.
Wronged Desires Page 14