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CHAPTER1
3years ago
Mark
“You forgotto mention that you’re married.” Lauren holds her phone up as she pulls the sheet over her tits. When I glance at her screen, the “about” page of Walker Industries is pulled up. Two faces smile back at me from the picture. Mine and Whitney’s.
The picture was taken almost five years ago, and yet my wife looked just as beautiful yesterday morning when I left the house.
An aching heaviness pulls at my chest. Where has the delight gone? I used to enjoy thinking of Whitney while I was in the arms of another woman. I sometimes even called her face to mind in the peak of ecstasy. The resulting rage made my orgasm much more potent. But lately, that rage has cooled, and I know what awaits me.
Despair.
I’ve been fighting it off since that December morning twelve years ago when Whitney confessed her affair. It’s always lingering in the distance, ready to pounce when I let my guard down. It jerks me awake in the middle of the night, ready to wrap its wiry fingers around my throat.
I knew this day would come, and yet I’m still unprepared for it. A part of me wants to head home right now and throw myself at Whitney’s feet.
“This is the first time you’ve ever looked me up?” I ask, able to keep my voice even.
Lauren grunts. “I have a lot going on in my life.”
I tug the sheet up over my hips, for some reason not wanting to talk about Whitney with my dick in full view. Am I finally growing a conscience at forty-five years old?
“I’m not really married,” I say. “Not in that way. My wife knows I’m… She knows I see other women.”
Lauren snorts. “Sure she does. Is that what you’re doing right now?” She twists around to face me, and her gaze drops to my bare chest. “Seeing me?”
I can make out the shape of her perky tits underneath that sheet, and coldness fills my gut. I don’t want to fuck Lauren again, even at the sight of her beautiful body.
This feeling had better pass. I’m not ready for it.
“You’re an idiot,” Lauren says, snapping me out of my daze.
I swallow. “It’s much more complicated than it looks on the surface.”
“Obviously. You’re working through something and using me to do it.” She twists around to lie on her back again. “How like a man. You can’t deal with your emotions, so you go out and fuck over your marriage. I hate to state the obvious, but ruining your life isn’t going to make you feel better. You’re going to feel just as shitty, but you won’t have a wife anymore.”
Her words hit me in the chest, and the breath leaves my lungs. She said it like it’s nothing. Like it’s inevitable.
No. I can’t lose Whitney.
I won’t lose her.
Even if she’ll never love me, she’s all I’ve ever wanted in a wife. It makes me want to scream. I want to beg her forgiveness for letting my rage consume me, for letting it turn my ability to reason into ash.
She’s paid enough. Any reasonable person would say she’s paid enough.
As if by the hand of God, that email flashes in my mind. The one she sent to her lover all those years ago. The one I printed and keep tucked under the metal divider in my top desk drawer. The one I pull out every few months.
It’s become a ritual when I need a fresh fix of euphoric rage. I always wait for an evening when I’m at the office late and almost everyone has left. I pour myself a glass of whiskey and down it fast. I wait for the warmth to settle over me, and I pull out that email.
As I read it, the heat of the whiskey turns to fire in my gut, and my teeth clench. By the time I get to the end—that final line—my rage is so big it could obliterate the world.
My love for you has never wavered. It’s always been you.
I grab Lauren by the hips. As I lean forward to kiss her, she shoots me a scowl.
“I don’t want to kiss a married man. Go shower and get your pathetic ass back to your wife. I’m not ever doing this again.”
