by K T Morrison
He nonchalantly added: “Chelsea’s here, too.”
Lib darted closer to the camera. “What was that?”
He said, “Chelsea’s here.”
“Here where? In our house?”
There was a changed pitch to her tone, and he recognized a measure of tizz. “With me, we’re waiting to get a phone call from you and Finn. You can pass the phone to him in a second,” he said.
Her brow had grown troubled but smooth. She said, “My parents though, they still there?”
“No, they took off, they were going to go see a movie.”
“So, you’re just there with Chelsea?”
“Yeah, she just got here. She’s going to go after our phone call.”
“Okay,” Lib said, showing a low level of mitigation. "Why don’t you just come up? Come up anyway, meet me at the hotel room...”
He said, “I miss you, but it’s crazy to drive all that way just so we can sleep in the same bed together...”
“I’d like it,” she said and her face sank into forlorn. Then somebody was touching her arm. She said to the camera, “I gotta go, hold on,” then turning, the camera dipping and showing only feet and concrete floor, he heard her calling, “Finn, Finn...”
Then the phone was passed to him, Lib saying, “Your wife’s with my husband...”
22
They ordered a pizza and finished off the rest of the Jack Daniels, cutting it now with Coca-Cola. They watched a movie together on their separate couches, not saying anything. It was a horror movie, an independent one filmed in Toronto. Chelsea knew some of the people in production. The movie wasn’t very good, Chelsea was good at cutting it to ribbons. At quiet points in the movie, sometimes he would ask her things like, “What are they going to do after the show?”
Chelsea would shrug, say, “I don’t know. Finn doesn’t have to do any breakdown or anything, you know it’s not like that...”
He would give a Whatever shrug.
23
Chelsea said, “Finn really wants to do this—I imagine he’ll want to get Libby back to the hotel as quick as possible. He’s going to be dying to fuck her.”
Ben hissed, lightly bounced his fists on his knees. It wounded him to hear it. But he knew the release of his guilt would be on the horizon. All he had to do was let this ship sail its course.
At almost 11:40, Finn finally texted. Chelsea’s phone lit up, and she related to Ben what Finn told her.
“Your wife’s freaking out.”
“Why?” He nipped forward eagerly.
“They’re going backstage.”
“How was the concert?”
She smirked at him over her momentarily lowered phone. “Really, Ben, how was the concert?”
“Is she having fun?”
She raised her eyebrows but lowered her gaze to the phone. “Finn says Libby had a blast.”
“That’s good,” he muttered.
“Finn’s having a good time, too. He really does like Libby, you know...”
“Okay,” he said, not knowing how to qualify that statement with a response. Was it good? On the one hand, sure. At least the guy that was going to tempt her into infidelity wanted to be with her. Would it be better if he just threw her down and pounded into her?...
And there presented the flip side: what if Libby really liked it? Liked it because Finn was into it. The question formed on his lips: is Finn good in bed? It seemed stupid. Of course he was. That confidence, that charm, the fact that he was with Chelsea fucking Cunningham… Finn was the guy who scored Chelsea Cunningham, got her to marry him. He had to bring something to the table...
His heart rate kicked up a beat, and he rubbed his palms on his knees so they burned. “What’s Finn saying?”
“They’re going to go backstage and Libby is shitting her little pants right now.”
He drew a long inhale, staring off and picturing Lib and how happy she was right now. Happy, but nervous. He wished he could tell her to relax and let it happen. He said, “You know she bought shorts...?”
Chelsea murmured, “I’ll let the papers know.”
“No, I mean short ones.”
“Most people buy shorts for just that reason.”
“Shorter than what she would normally buy,” he said.
Chelsea’s eyes were turned to her screen, but he could see it light up the smile that peeled her cheeks back. “Libby, Libby, Libby—I told you, Ben. I bet she’s creaming those new shorts she bought just for my husband so she could show off her can...”
He clutched at his stomach. It was confirmed. Chelsea saw it, too. The dark thoughts that had jumped out at Ben seeing Lib in that new clothing. God, and that sexy pink bra. This was so wild. The wildest part wasn’t the fear but the lust that came behind it. Presented a year ago with a scenario where someone might be coming onto his wife, and that his wife might respond favorably, would’ve been at once unbelievable and enraging. It would’ve been something he had to put a stop to. Put his foot down, roll up his sleeves and consider dealing with it man-to-man. Only now here he was letting it happen remotely. Curled up on his couch with his companion—the hottest girl from his high school dreams... This could never have been predicted…
“Yeah,” Chelsea said, “they’re backstage. Finn’s about to introduce her to the band…”
Part 4
Shout
Sunday, July 14
24
Four images of Libby appeared at almost one in the morning. Each one a side-by-side shot with a sweaty handsome member of Dorchester. Cheek to cheek with the drummer, the bassist, that mysterious guy who played lead guitar, and the cute little boy-toy who sang lead. Not such a little boy-toy anymore, Van Waters was the same age as them. Now the lead singer was a handsome twenty-five-year-old talented multimillionaire whose poster used to stare down on Lib from her teenage bedroom wall. Van still had cool hair. And he looked very much like he enjoyed having his cheek pressed up with this flirty little blonde with the cute glasses who appeared backstage. Libby’s cute little butt was on display, her shirt tucked into her shorter-than-usual shorts. The neck-hole had stretched, and she was definitely letting some of the guys see the bare northernmost point of her beautiful bosom.
Ben looked at each one, recycled to the beginning and started over, each successive time paying closer attention to every detail. “She looks so… Happy.”
Chelsea saw it, too. “Yeah, she’s happy.”
“Bubbling,” he said.
Chelsea said, “Imagine if she bangs the band...”
He scoffed. “Not in your wildest dreams.”
Her lips slunk into a sleazy smile. “I bet they’re in yours...”
He scowled, said, “No. They are not.”
“You’ll let Lib be with Finn, why not one of those hotshots? Bang her in the back of a tour bus, maybe let her ride in his lap behind the wheel of a Ferrari. Libby just swiveling, her little butt going up and down...”
“You paint a picture,” he said.
“Why not, Ben? You let Finn.”
“That’s for a reason.”
She rested her cheek in a palm, staring at him. “We’re still talking about the guilt, right?”
“That’s the reason.”
Chelsea sighed, raised her eyebrows. “I like you, Ben. I didn’t know how it was going to go with you living so close. It’s even better than I thought...”
“It’s worse than I imagined,” he told her.
“You’re gonna tell me it hasn’t been fun? You didn’t like my tongue in your butthole?”
He growled, rubbed at his temples.
Chelsea stretched, continued: “Yeah, this whole relationship is taking a life of its own. I like where it’s headed.”
“I can still cancel it.”
“There’s a hundred percent ‘zero’ chance of that. I’d put money on it. Sure, you get rid of your guilt... But I have a feeling there’s a dark curiosity in Ben Todd, Mr. High School Nice Guy—the only thing still left up
in the air is how low that angel of a wife of yours wants to fly. If it was up to you I guarantee you’d want her titties scraping the ground.”
“I just want it to be done and over. I don’t want to worry about it anymore, whether it’s going to happen...”
“It’s going to happen.”
“Then just happen already...” he said, thrusting his hands toward her phone resting on her long denim thigh. “The waiting is driving me crazy.”
“The first time is gonna be a real trip, Ben. You might want to slow down and enjoy it. You’re going to look back on this night later—and you’d be surprised—but you might even smile...”
“If I make it. My heart rate is already way too high, like seriously, do you have a Fitbit or anything?—something to take my pulse...”
Chelsea laughed. “Seriously, relax, Ben. Tonight is just the beginning...”
25
Half an hour later, Chelsea gave Ben the horrible news: “Finn says they’re at the hotel now. They’re going up in the elevator.”
He’d been laying on his side, one hand between his knees, the other under his cheek, as his eyes vacantly circumscribed the items on the far side of the room. The TV with its patient Netflix menu, the framed print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, the dead black fireplace, the side table, the lamp, the framed wedding photo, the framed collage pictures on the wall showing when they went to Europe for their honeymoon. Now he was upright, heart pounding.
Chelsea said, “I told Finn to call me and leave the line open.”
“Leave the line open?—what do you mean?”
She scornfully presented the obvious: “So we can listen in...”
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
“Stop me if you want to,” she said, raising her brows as her eyes returned to monitor her screen, acting as if he’d be crazy to.
“I don’t know—it doesn’t matter if I want to or not, it’s Libby’s privacy...”
“Libby is your wife and she’s with another man.”
“I know what’s happening, Chelsea. That still doesn’t give me the right to listen in on her.”
She swung her head his way. “Won’t it be a lot easier if you can hear it for yourself? You want to make Finn break it down for you... Or me?”
“I just don’t think it’s right,” he said, crossing his arms then his feet at the ankles, looking sullen to show his disgust to Chelsea—and yet somehow also not doing a single thing to stop her.
You could storm out of the room. Leave her to the nefarious Machiavellian methods she might want to use, but you aren’t going to sully your wife in that way. Now, that was a different story last weekend—you sullied all over those two girls...
The moment between his proclamation of offense to the time when Chelsea’s phone rang grew so long and torturous he thought he would burst out screaming before it ended. At last, her phone jangled (another one who kept the ringer way too loud).
“Shit,” he said, and thumped the seat at the fright it gave him.
Chelsea shushed him, answered her phone, didn’t say a word and set it down on the coffee table between them, face up.
Libby was mid-sentence, saying, “...you doing?”
“Just a sec.” Finn’s deep voice.
There was an echo as though they were in a narrow space, and he could tell by the footsteps and their breathing that they were walking. Walking the corridor back to the hotel room...
Libby said something else, her soft mousy voice too quiet to decipher the words. Finn laughed, said, “Sent Ben and Chelsea good night texts. We’ll see if they pop back, but they must be in their beds by now.”
Libby made an ‘aw’ sound, said, “Ben’s going to be so mad he missed that show.”
“All for a boat...”
“Can you believe it?”
“That’s a terrible mistress.”
“Hey,” Lib comically scolded, and he could tell she’d slapped her hand on his arm.
“A boat, Libby, come on...”
“Don’t say things like that...” They both laughed.
Finn said, “You’re full of beans still.”
“I’m pretty jazzed,” Libby said.
It sounded like they rounded a corner, their voices’ echo changing in texture.
“I know, I’m wide awake. Watch a movie with me,” Finn said.
“I should go to bed.”
“Fall asleep while we watch a movie. You’re just gonna sit and stare at the ceiling...”
“I know,” she laughed, “listening to the ringing in my ears.”
“It gets louder in the silence. Trust me, kick back, put a movie on, you’ll be out ten times faster than if you try to lay in bed.”
“It’s so late, though. What time are we leaving?”
“Whenever we get up.”
“We don’t have to be out at a certain time?”
“We can sleep in, long as we leave before one, we’re—”
“One in the afternoon?”
Finn laughed, and it sounded like they brushed up against one another. “It’s already past one, of course one in the afternoon, who would ask a guest to leave in the middle of the night unless they were too loud or something...”
Libby giggled, Finn chuckled. “Oh, shoot,” Libby sighed. “It’s so late...”
“Come on,” he heard Finn say, and now their footsteps stopped. “Come in and have a water, put your feet up. We can watch horror movies until we pass out.”
There was a long silence, then he heard the swipe of a key card, a beep and metallic clack. The door opened. Finn said, “You coming in?”
Another long pause that went on forever, then he heard the door close. Nothing had been said. Did Libby go to her room?
Now Finn said, “Put on the TV. I need a drink… you want a water or something more lively?...”
“Fuck, turn it off,” Ben said, and rubbed at his cheeks.
Chelsea said, “It’s just getting good, Ben. I’m not turning it off, why don’t you put your hands over your ears...”
There was no way he would do that. If this lifeline to his wife was open and available, he would cling to it no matter how immoral it might be. There was a whole heap of wrongs, and if he were ever discovered, listening in would be a drop in the bucket of bad he’d done.
He heard the tinny sounds of television voices now. A clatter came that made it seem like Finn’s phone had been put down on a table. Far from the speaker, Libby called out loud, “How do I work this?”
Finn’s voice, also distant: “I’ll be there in a sec.”
More dreadful silence, then the flicker of fresh sounds as the channels were switched. Footsteps came, something was slid, then he could hear Libby say, “I figured it out. What do you want to watch?”
Finn’s deep voice: “I brought you a drink.”
Libby thanked him.
Now there was the sound of Finn sitting down, and Libby was changing channels again.
Libby said something quiet that couldn’t be heard. Finn didn’t even hear it and asked her to repeat herself. She cleared her throat, said, “I should have changed.”
Finn said, “I like what you’re wearing...”
26
For a long time, he and Chelsea sat hunched forward with elbows on knees, eyes staring blankly across the room with their ears practically perked outward to hear anything that might happen. Mostly they heard the sounds of a movie. It was an old one, he figured, because of the pervasive creepy organ music. There was the occasional bang, a loud clap, and stiff static ‘fifties’ speak from the leads.
When the moment grew too long and uncomfortable to bear, Ben smirked and whispered to Chelsea, “What movie is that?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s a Hammer, but I don’t know which one...”
They listened in on more of the movie, catching occasional snippets of dialog, listening to the soaring music as action took over. He complained to Chelsea: “There’s nothing happening.”
She shushed him again, got closer to the phone, eyes narrowed. Ben listened too, could hear only the movie, but seeing Chelsea’s focused expression had him imagining he heard more. Maybe there was. Maybe a low sort of grumbling.
He asked Chelsea, “Is that Finn talking?”
“I think so...”
“What’s he saying?”
“I can’t hear, Ben. Be quiet...”
Now he could clearly hear Finn say, “Put a pillow there.”
Put a pillow where? An obvious, disgusting image jumped out at him: Finn angling a nice armrest pillow under the small of Libby’s back to keep her pelvis tilted at the right angle for his entry.
Then Finn said, “How’s that? You comfortable?”
A soft compliant murmuring came from his sweet wife. A sleepy high-tone affirmation. She was comfortable. She was at ease and sleepy next to Finn.
Chelsea raised her butt off her couch, swung around and dropped next to him. Now they were side by side, and she tapped her phone’s curved corner with an index finger to bring it closer to them.
They listened intently.
More movie. No more voices.
Ben said, “Is it a vampire one?”
Chelsea appreciated the humor, but whispered, “Shut up.”
Minutes went by and both of them worried teeth over their lips as they anticipated what was going to happen. Chelsea let out a quick impatient sigh.
“Come on already,” she insisted.
“This is killing me...”
More movie, more hand-wringing.
“Vampire Circus,” Chelsea mumbled.
“It sure is,” he agreed, thinking it was some term for a convoluted plot.
“No, Ben, the movie.”
“Vampire Circus?”
Chelsea nodded, eyes turned up. “I’m pretty sure.”
“Never even heard of it.”