Page 7 of Brutal Vows

The one I should delete.

Photos. Of a woman. His mistress. The cyber scrub I’d done incognito for Ivan Petrov months ago. Some woman in Russia because all the photos point to her being on that side. Plus, the anonymous upload site where the content originated from is also Russian.

There’s also one video I’ve found buried deep, uploaded on a Russian porn site. I scrubbed it off but claimed it as mine.

My dirty secret.

My silent obsession.

I’m a fucking decrepit loser, because I can’t get enough of her. For someone like me, jaded beyond repair, it’s surreal. But she came into my life like a siren, and I’m addicted to her call. Probably because it’s the opposite of porn. It’s a glimpse into a lover’s life. Into domestic intimacy like I’ll never experience myself.

The video is in black and white, artistic, shot while the woman is unaware, one late afternoon more than eighteen months ago. The light is spring-time soft, and even though it’s monochrome, I can sense the warmth of the afternoon.

The footage starts at her toes, peeking out from under the duvet, the few inches of her beautiful feet, sliding up her calf to the fold of her knee. The duvet glides off her legs, and the camera travels over her body, the subtle incline of her thigh, to the hillock of her perfect ass, then higher to the dimples on her back. Whoever pulls at the cover is exposing her skin inch by inch.

She’s in deep sleep, her long dark hair falling in strands over her shoulder, unaware. No hand comes into view, keeping the camera man completely anonymous, but the focus shifts to the elegant curve of her shoulder as he strokes some strands away, revealing her face up close.

Full lips on a fuck-me mouth that hardens my cock every single time I watch this video. A button of a nose, pert with small nostrils, that makes me think of a porcelain doll. Closing in on her eyes and the thick lashes that throw a shadow on her one visible cheek as she’s lying on her stomach.

She stirs, inhaling a deep breath, and the camera shifts away, bringing more of her into the picture as she rolls onto her back, revealing her breasts as she brings a hand up, curving it to rest in the hollow formed between her neck and shoulder, her other hand coming to rest on her flat belly.

There’s no sound, but I can imagine her moaning in protest. I pause the video, needing a moment to take her in, as if I don’t know every part of her intimately already. Her long, delicate fingers, unadorned and almost ethereal. The translucent purity of her skin in the light falling from a window onto the bed.

I press play again, and for a long moment, nothing seems to happen. Then her nipples slowly harden, and when I zoom in and look close, goosebumps spread over her skin. Here, I’m hazarding a guess: her lover is blowing a cool breath over her skin, letting it flow over her nipples, waking her up.

Arousing her.

Maybe even touching her lower, stroking his hand to the apex of her thighs, nudging her to open for him. Slipping fingers between her legs and finding her wet.

She smiles first, slowly, a soft tease of her lips as she wakes up, eyes still closed, revealing she feels safe, she trusts whoever is caressing her, familiar with his hands, his scent, his touch. Her chest rises and falls as she seems to push into a sensation somewhere else on her body.

Fuck. I reach for my cock, fisting it over my jeans, because it isn’t only the visual of her giving me a hard-on, it’s my imagination building a picture of what’s going on off-screen that gets to me every single time.

And then, her lashes flicker a few times as she presses her head back into the pillow, her mouth opening as she inhales a sharp breath, and then she stares directly at the camera, arresting me with the look in her eyes. Love. Pure, beautiful, uncorrupted love for the man who is touching her, filming her.

Nobody has ever looked at me like that.

My pulse rushes to my cock but also feeding oxygen to the part of my brain begging to experience this, to have this precious connection with one other human being out there, with a woman, the one I now seem to be waiting for.

I know she isn’t looking at me, but the footage is so intimate, so heartfelt and unfiltered, it hits me in the chest. As if I’m the person holding the camera. The weirdest part of it is that I’m so jaded—Matteo isn’t wrong there—but at the same time, I can feel this desperation, this soul-crushing need for this one thing I’ll never experience.

The deep cleanse started here, with her. With this video. My life on hold, my mind circling with only one thought: if I die tomorrow, my biggest regret would be that I’ve never truly loved. Never been loved by a woman like this.

This is how a wife should be loved. Generous, with care and tenderness, fully and beyond the limits of what a man thinks he is capable of. Not with the cruelty we’d witnessed for years as boys.

I let go of my cock, drop both hands to my sides, forcing myself to disengage with the content on my phone. As much as the video is pure, I feel like I violate her privacy every time I watch it.

This video was supposed to be private. A treasured memory of two people who just made love, who fell asleep in the afterglow. Except the fucker who took this video—and I know it’s a man because his dumb Rolex is on the nightstand in the background—put it up on the internet, threatened to expose this beautiful woman and her secrets to the world, with a bunch of erotic photos he took of her. I bet he also took photos without her consent with hidden cameras, with the sole mission of blackmailing her.

It makes my fucking blood boil. I don’t know who she is or what has happened to her, because despite every single piece of technology at my disposal, this video and the photos I scrubbed are the only images ever surfacing on the internet of this woman.

She’s a ghost.

And I need to move on.

A wife.

I’m getting married.