by P. J. Vernon
“Text me where. See you soon.”
“See you.”
When he clicks off, I catch myself in the rearview mirror.
I haven’t slept. How could I when my mind has done nothing but cyclone at blinding velocity? Exploring every possible outcome, hypothetical situations that would unfold after I’ve pulled the trigger. Another decision. Another point of no return, crossed.
My face holds a pallor that rivals Oliver’s. Cheeks sunken, panic present in the darkness encircling my eyes. Simple polo, pair of jeans, but I remove my watch and lock the heavy timepiece in the console while David Bowie puts out fires with gasoline on the radio. My phone’s back on the dash, motel address already typed out as a text.
I need only to send it. Eyes to the mirror for one last glimpse of myself before. I’ve come mostly undone, but not all the way. There’s still enough of me remaining to shoulder the coming fallout. I have no choice. I must break my own rules. My fixation on fidelity is destroying my marriage. I’ll meet an escort with an ice-cold Scandi accent, and then I’ll fix everything. Save everything.
Again.
The outcome warrants the pain. Oliver’s suffering will pale in comparison to what he stands to lose in an alternate future. One where I do not follow through.
Phone back in hand, and it’s now or never.
The pain, sure, a scorpion whispers. But don’t discount the pleasure.
With a single tap, my text rockets into the ether, and I will never be the same.
41
OLIVER
It’s very late when Nathan returns from dinner with Tom and company. He’s haggard. Unkempt and looking exactly how I feel and how I never see him. From where I sit in the kitchen, startling is an understatement.
He says nothing, slowly walking my way. My pulse starts to climb, but when he holds me, it quiets. Notes of liquor and tobacco cling to his polo. They must’ve gone for drinks after.
“I love you, Oliver,” Nathan whispers. But his warm breath is sweet like whiskey Skittles, and I don’t flinch. This time, I don’t mind that he uses my name, because he’s not using it against me. It’s not been weaponized. “I love you more than you can possibly know.”
“I love you too.” I smile and his lips linger on my cheek. As he walks down the hall, I note the time: half past midnight.
I’d lost track of the hour after falling into this seat. After flushing every pill I’d stolen in Nathan’s name. Here I sat, a petrified extension of a hand-carved chair, sinking teeth into my next—and perhaps final—confrontation.
What to tell him. How to tell him.
My mind traveled any number of twisty paths into unknowable darkness. From coming right out with it like a mercy killing—a knife into his heart, threads of cherry syrup thoughtlessly flared across our life together—to an unfolding revelation. A gentle edging to the cliffside. A couching of the mind in pleasantries and strategic reminders of love and lives inextricably linked. Then the push, and we both go over. Maybe he lives, but the slow dissolution of my charade lends a few more moments to be happy—because I certainly don’t survive the fall.
I trace Nathan’s footsteps to our bedroom. My mask comes off tonight. Or at least begins to slip when I start to tell the truth. Set the stage, move pieces into place. Commit to crossing a gasoline-soaked bridge I’ll set aflame behind me.
Nathan’s pajama bottoms are silk and hang low at his hips. His bare chest exposed as if he knows what’s coming and hopes my knife finds its mark. Haven’t I endured enough, Oliver? Bring my suffering to a quick end.
In the bathroom, I draw in breath and splash my face.
“Confront,” I whisper to the man clenching his jaw in the mirror. The man I hate with unbridled fervor. You’re no fucking martyr. I dry my cheeks. When I return the embroidered hand towel to its place, a string tied round my heart tightens. Embroidered in threaded gold: NK & OP.
“How about we get out of here,” Nathan says from the bedroom.
“Huh?” I round the corner to find him on the bed, legs crossed, glasses resting on his navel. “Get out of where?”
“Here.” His eyes lift. “What do you think about heading out of town?”
“Kimberly likes more notice before I—”
“I already talked to her,” he says. “She’s fine with you taking the week.”
A jarring question, but not because the ask is strange. It’s that he took the liberty of asking my boss and Kimberly took the liberty of answering. My life decisions do not require my input and—Jesus. I rub my brow and try to reset. This is a nice thing, Oliver. No more a cabal than a surprise birthday party requires.
“Want to go?”
It’s also a surprise that contrasts violently with the hurricane inside my skull. I’m contemplating the Category 5 destruction of our relationship, and he’s talking about vacation?
“Oliver?”
“Yeah,” I say blankly. “Yes, but why? I mean, where?”
“We’ll drive down to South Carolina.” If the chop in my voice unsettles him, he ignores it. “Take a breather. Gain some space. Recoup what we’ve lost.”
The lost in his last sentence ices my neck. He could mean a million different things. He could mean the sanctity of our burgled home. He could mean the pain of Tilly’s absence. He could mean—
“They never summer there. It’d be me and you.”
By they, Nathan means Victor and Kathy. By it, he means their sprawling beach “house” south of Charleston. A lone estate on an island they wholly own themselves. I avoid Bald Island whenever possible because said invitations always include Nathan’s parents. That place is second only to their East Side co-op in misery—the Gossip Girl world where Nathan cut his teeth. Among people who use summer as a verb.
“What do you think?” Nathan prods. “Tom and Jeff might come down too. Just for a night. I invited them over dinner.”
“Sure,” I whisper before clearing my throat. I spin my wedding band off my finger and into my palm. Seems everyone got the invite before me. My fist closes around the ring’s coolness.
“We’ll pack first thing.” In the dresser mirror, Nathan’s peculiar face grows eager. “Leave before lunch.”
“Sounds like a plan, Nat.”
When I crawl beneath the duvet, my brain’s numb. Lobotomized from turning too fast and in far too many directions. Going to his parents’ is quite the turn of events, but perhaps it’s a good thing. Kristian will be physically, geographically separated from me. The ones that matter most, the ones I stand to lose, will both be safe.
With us gone, Kristian can break as many windows, ransack as many drawers as he wants. He can piss and shit all over our things, smear feces on the walls like a fucking zoo primate, and it won’t matter because things don’t matter. Unlike people and pets, things are replaceable.
It also buys time. I will tell Nathan, confess all of it, carefully, diligently, but now is no longer the right moment. Or even tomorrow or the next day. I’ll call Detective Henning from Bald Island, tell her about Kristian and the Jefferson hotel, the credit card he must’ve used, his room number, and where he’s allegedly from. When I do, I’ll be out of her reach too. Not truly out of reach; no one is ever that, but the timetable has lengthened. It suddenly works in my favor, if only slightly.
Victor and Kathy Klein have bought me time.
Nathan’s bought me time.
Like oxygen. Tiny amounts, but enough to gasp.
To interrupt an asphyxia drawing to an inevitable end.
42
NATHAN
There’s no sleeping. Not tonight.
When I returned home, when I walked through my own door, I was a different man than when I’d last passed through it. The other version of myself Tom is confident exists and Oliver hasn’t met, and I know is quite possibly the only version of myself.
It might be a little trite to define a human being by any one thing, but I’m grasping for a second. Anything other than what I crave most: control.
Now I’ve broken my own rules. Ones that won’t rebuild easily—if at all.
Oliver sleeps, though it doesn’t look restful. A leg juts from under the duvet, and moonlight traces shadows on his calf. He lies on his side, head on one pillow, arms cradling a second. I draw the covers back and watch goose bumps crawl his thighs. Barely-there briefs contour an ass that just won’t let go of me. A far cry from his old baggy boxers and tight like all the others I buy him.
I slip my own underwear off. Somewhere deep in my gut, an appetite’s been stoked. I imagine this is what they all feel after crossing that line—Father included. The first indiscretion making the second that much easier. And so on and so forth. Oliver’s felt it. Maybe after so long, so much that my own husband has withheld—physically, romantically, truthfully—I’ve simply been reminded what living feels like. Now we’re all insatiable, huh?
I lie next to Oliver, big-spoon-style, and reach into his briefs. I take him in my hand. When he starts to stiffen, I whisper in his ear.
“Nat?” He stirs. “You awake?”
“Fuck me.”
He doesn’t hear me at first: “What?”
I say it again: “Fuck. Me.”
He rolls over, wipes his eyes, and after a passing moment, sees I’m naked and ready. He’s awake now. Enough.
A pause as he gathers his thoughts, runs a palm over his face. “You wanna—”
“Fuck.” I draw in breath. “Me.”
“Okay,” comes his throaty reply. He pulls his briefs to his knees because he knows I’m not asking. If nothing else, I’ve instilled in him an ear for tones. Oliver knows when I give him a choice, and when I do not. This will happen because I’ve never needed it more. He starts to climb on top, to rest his groin between my legs, but I stop him.
“Not like that.”
I flip on all fours, hands and knees. Arch my back. We’re both feral now, and we’ll fuck that way.
“Sure.” A drawer opens, lube uncaps.
I hold my breath and wait for it.
My eyes fix on the tufted headboard. I don’t want to see Oliver’s face because whether he knows it or not, this isn’t sex. I’m masturbating with his body. Nothing more.
When my husband enters me, it’ll be Kristian’s hip bones pressing into my ass.
43
OLIVER
Morning breaks and when sunlight finds my face, I can’t help feeling good.
Aside from Nathan’s demand to be topped in the middle of the night, I’ve mostly slept. No frowned-upon sleeping pills or night terrors. If I’m being honest, the sex probably helped.
That and a light mind and a clean conscience.
No, that can’t be it. I’ve yet to admit to anything. My mind can’t possibly be lighter because intending to come clean doesn’t unburden the heart. No. I slept because we’re leaving today—shortly after lunch. For Nathan’s parents’ place on the Carolina coast. We’re leaving, and it’s instilled that all-too-familiar pleasure of getting away with something.
“We gotta get up, sleepyhead,” Nathan whispers while tracing circles on my hip bone. His eyes say he’s replaying the fuck I’d given in to. After he came, he’d gone for a long shower. He’d found it primal and hot like something had gotten into him. Dinner with Tom and Jeff?
“I’m up.” Last night’s spent condom lies on the floor beside my socks, and I roll over to pull them on. When the toilet flushes, I gather my strength and stand. As we pass in the hallway, he presses his lips to mine. Tilly’s trailing, bobbed tail whirling fast enough to send her rear airborne.
Nathan’s sudden affection is different.
I rest my phone on the toilet tank and lift the lid. As I do, it flames to life with blue light and a buzz. I have a message.
From MeetLockr.
A sharp pain springs in my groin. Kristian. It could only be him. Christ, did I really forget to delete the app again after our second encounter? And is being slammed into an elevator wall called an encounter? Kissed. Choked. Nearly knifed. I’m never back in control for more than an hour before it all buckles under the weight of a tiny, buzzing iPhone.
I swipe it open. The message is a surprise because there’s no profile pic. Just the generic placeholder with MeetLockr’s logo.
No name either. Who is Anonymous and what does he want?
Hi Oliver.
Cold fear climbs my spine, and a second message confirms the worst.
It’s Kristian.
Like the pills before it, dropping my phone in toilet water strikes me as a good idea.
He must’ve deleted his profile. Cut one head off and the hydra spawns another. I’d done the same. Countless men have done the same countless times.
A one-night stand lingers too long, and a hookup becomes the scaffolding of a relationship. MeetLockr profiles come down. Only to be reborn from the ashes of anonymous sex once the scaffolding collapses amid infidelity or undisclosed addictions or fetishes or wives or bad taste.
A third message chimes.
Let’s make a deal.
This isn’t a game show. This isn’t a fucking game where Kristian sets rules only to flippantly change them. I follow Nathan’s rules because I choose to. They’re the right ones to follow and—in a vast departure from Kristian’s—increase my life expectancy. I don’t abide by your rules, Kristian. Not anymore.
My tensed jaw, my grinding molars, my knotted brow—they all relax with the reminder that yes, Oliver, this is a game. This is, has always been, always will be a game. Until one of us is dead.
I answer: ?
The single question mark is all I can muster. The lid falls shut, and I take a defeated seat on pricey porcelain. His reply is instant.
Tell him.
Kristian gives a moment for his demand to sink serrated teeth into my heart. The truth is, I don’t need any such moment, and my throat squeezes. What he’s saying is clear as daylight in a mind as dark as mine.
Tell Nathan what you’ve done.
Behind my busted screen, Kristian’s words scream with all the inevitability in the world.
Tell him & I’ll leave you alone forever.
44
Nathan takes us down I-95. Hands fixed at ten and two because he follows rules too. Each and every one from the non-negotiable to the trite or banal. Crated in the back, Tilly whimpers while I steep in the passenger seat.
Why would Kristian give a goddamn if Nathan knows? Why smoke me out just for the hell of it? It’s another mindfuck. He knows I’d never deliberately meet up again, so this is the next best thing. A new way to needle, to tug loose threads of my psyche until he catches me alone on a street at night. Or until I’m washing my hands in some rest-stop sink only to find his eyes staring in the mirror when I look up. From behind, and the last thing I ever see.
Tell Nathan what you’ve done.
I didn’t reply to that. My singular question mark was all the confirmation he needed.
Fuck him. Fuck Kristian.
Hours later, we’ve passed south through Charleston proper and close in on Bald Island. Air rushing through my open window grows salty. Still hot—maybe even hotter than DC—but the ocean breeze is comforting.
Washington is a city with all kinds of baggage. It stifles the air there and its absence makes breathing easier. We exit the interstate, travel pastel towns of bungalows and palmetto trees, and onto an empty stretch of asphalt crossing inlet marsh. All saw grass and stalking herons and drifting crab traps.
“God, I needed this.” Nathan offers a smile as we turn onto Nags Road. A gravel causeway that unspools across a jetty to Bald Island. So long and so narrow it barely holds space for a single car. In the rearview mirror, dust is whisked
away by sea winds. Ahead, the island and the house loom large. Kathy and Victor might not be here, but my heart rate still climbs as if they were.
“Looks like the roofers finished,” Nathan says. “Last year’s hurricane wrecked the shingles. Speaking of, is Darryl getting the bathroom done?”
“Shit. I forgot to call him.” I slip Nathan’s black iPhone from the console and catch a glimpse of that damn app—lime-green Wealth Wallet—as I scroll for our contractor. “I’m sorry.”
Nathan says nothing, but Darryl answers with “Hello.” And before I get a word in: “Reckoned you guys got caught up in something bad. Cops asked me about my crew.” I jolt when he says this. Of course Detective Henning questioned him, but what did Darryl learn from her? I try to muffle the call with wind from the window. Nathan doesn’t know the man who broke into our house had already been inside it. Darryl’s a loose end now.
“To be honest, it got me worried,” he goes on. “Lots of folks need jobs, but not many pay a fair wage and don’t ask questions. I don’t run a charity but I’m protective of my vulnerable workers. When cops poke around, bills go unpaid and kids don’t eat.”
“No need to worry. Everything’s fine now.” I swallow. “We appreciate your patience until it got sorted.”
“Worry? Got what sorted?” Nathan asks, clearly listening.
I shift uneasily in my seat and ignore him. “I’m actually calling because we’re gone for the week. Think you could get the work finished while we’re out?”
“Tell him I left a new key in the mailbox,” Nathan says, which I do.
“Roger that. Where you boys off to, anyway?” Useless small talk, but anything’s better than discussing police interest in Darryl’s crew mere feet from Nathan’s canine ears.
“Charleston area. Nathan’s parents have a place.” I regret my answer the second I’ve given it.
“Used to go crabbin’ with a buddy just off Folly Beach. Great food down there.”