DITW 12-3: Interregnum

Friday night, alone in the apartment with a glass of wine, Kimmy called Hyun. Hyun answered right away.

“I was just thinking about you.”

“You’re psychic.”

Hyun snuffled a laugh against the phone’s mic. “Maybe I am.”

“How are you?”

“Good. You?”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Right now? Cleaning the kitchen. Sophie and I just had dinner.”

“Aw, Sophie’s back from Chloe’s. Did she have fun?”

“She really did. . . . Sophie says hello.”

Her heart swelled, feeling acknowledged by something so good and innocent. “Say hi back for me.”

Away from the phone, Hyun said, “Aunt Kimmy says hi.” Sophie said something in return, but Kimmy couldn’t make it out.

“Did she eat lots of ice cream?”

“Mr. Wu promised me they monitored the sugar intake.”

They laughed about that, then the conversation got awkward. What they’d shared last night had huge implications, and now that the passion had simmered and they were separated, they walked the aftermath like stepping on glass. After some more strained but friendly patter, Kimmy asked, “When does Sophie go back to Meyer?”

“Sunday afternoon.”

“Do you take her?”

“Yeah,” Hyun said, laughing lightly. “Of course I do.”

Kimmy laughed too, picturing Sophie telling an Uber driver to take her to her dad’s place. “Right up to his apartment?”

“We meet in the lobby.”

“Can you go up to his apartment?”

“Why?”

“Oh, just curious.” Her words sounded lame and grew lamer in the quiet after she’d said it.

The apartment felt cold and dim without Josh in it. She’d been alone a thousand times in the apartment before, but even with Josh absent, his presence felt close. His impending. He’d always be home soon. When he went to Rome, he’d abandoned her, left her trapped in some gloomy cloak. And that’s where she found herself now; swaddled in uncomfortable mopery. And the whole time she treaded in this mire, she fought the terrifying notion he was active behind her back. Snooping through her secrets from afar; determined to hound out her sins. He’d asked her today, point blank: did you fuck him? He’d gone to Devlin. She was sure of it. That fucking slick bastard, that wretched betrayer, would love to fill Josh’s innocent head with all sorts of villainous prompts. And without her to temper them, Josh would be wounded. Devlin would injure Josh.

Voice quieter, more questioning, Hyun asked her what she was doing tonight.

“Josh isn’t here. He’s not coming home tonight. Why don’t you come over? You and Sophie. And we’ll watch movies and make popcorn.”

“Really? Oh... Oh, shoot. Kimmy.”

“What?”

“I’m taking Sophie to figure skating tonight. You can come with us. I’d like that.”

There was hope in Hyun’s voice, the nervous kind, not wanting to stoke a fiery expectation only to have her secret maybe-lover to douse it with a bucket of frigid water. Kimmy set the wineglass on the coffee table and palmed her forehead, leaning forward.

The idea Hyun and Sophie could rescue her from loneliness and anxiety tempted her enough she almost smiled. “I... I’m already on my second glass of wine. I shouldn’t drive.”

“We could pick you up. How about it? Sophie would love that.”

Sophie squealed sounds of encouragement somewhere in that kitchen where Hyun had served her breakfast this morning. After your shower. After you spent the night in bed with her.

“I don’t know...” But now the smile came, and with it a swelling of wet in her eyes that she blinked away, before rubbing them with the heel of her free hand.

Going to the arena with Hyun and Sophie would keep her mind off Josh, and keep her from doing something crazy, like going to Devlin’s apartment to see if Josh was there and then dragging him out of that devil’s domain by his ear.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”

#

Seven slices of a Little Caesar Meat Lovers pizza and two cans of Brio had Josh sideways on the couch with his knees drawn up to protect his stuffed and swollen belly. Meyer played Forza on the big screen.

Without looking over, eyes on the screen, Meyer said, “Any time you want to talk, you know I’m sitting right here.”

Josh said he knew, watching Myer’s Corvette race through the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. He’d wanted to talk with Meyer tonight, especially since he felt guilty for kind of wrecking Meyer’s date night with Quinn. He’d pictured bringing the pizza over, and they’d crash and start talking, and maybe he would confess some of the sins for which he was guilty. Maybe there could be light at the end of the tunnel. But once they’d started eating, his urge to confess had fizzled to ether. And now the idea he might expose some of his most sensitive vulnerabilities seemed ludicrous. He said, “I know.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

It was an easy out and he took it. “Not really.”

“Can you tell me why you’re here instead of at home—did you guys fight?”

“No. No, we didn’t. I just need some space.”

Meyer paused the game and looked over. Josh angled his head so they faced.

“This isn’t in your head anymore,” Meyer said.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re always thinking the worst, but this time you know something.”

Josh shrugged and looked away and Meyer said, “Just talk to me.”

“When I’m ready.”

“That’s fine. Totally fine, Josh. You want to finish this race while I run to the can?”

“No, just keep it paused.”

Meyer said nothing and Josh listened to him heave out of the couch and head down the hall to the bathroom. Josh sat up and rubbed his face, picked up the pizza box and brought it into the kitchen, shoving it as best he could into the crammed fridge. Meyer met him coming out to the family room again. They exchanged an awkward look and then returned to their couches.

“Whatever is going on, I hope to god you guys can work it out. You’re the best couple.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t you think?”

He thought of it in ways Meyer couldn’t even comprehend. The ways he thought of him and Kimmy together, the way their puzzle pieces connected, weighed heavily on him, his brow lowering as if he was angry. But he wasn’t angry; all he felt was emptiness. “I miss her,” he admitted. “But I need some time to think.”

“I actually think that’s really healthy, Josh.”

“You do?”

“Getting needed space and reflecting? Fuck, yeah.”

Josh sat up again and rubbed his face, groaned and said into his hands, “Buddy, I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“What? It’s Friday night, Josh. Play some games with me? Or why don’t we go see a movie? If we skedaddle, we can make a nine-thirty show.”

“I’m not up for it. We can do that tomorrow. Unless you’re going out with Quinn.”

“She works this weekend.”

“I’m just exhausted. I feel so worn out.”

Meyer’s lips pursed, and he nodded—like he couldn’t argue with Josh’s enervated visage. “Okay,” he said. Then, “Hey, I talked to Quinn about her cousin.”

“The private eye?”

“Insurance investigator. He said he’d help if you want. Quinn can get you the family discount.”

“I’ll think about it,” Josh said and stood.

“Promise me it’s not for Kimmy.”

“It’s not.”

Meyer studied him. “If it is, Quinn will know.”

“It’s not. I’m not spying on her.”

Meyer accepted the answer. “I wouldn’t feel right about that. I don’t know why, I just wouldn’t.”

#

Josh lay in his little niece’s oversized bed and stared at the ceiling, waiting for passing headlights to send shadows chasing away in a slow sweep before the darkness swallowed the light again. He drifted to sleep and when he woke a while later, he was shocked he’d managed to find any slumber at all, given the dreadful circumstances. He checked his phone on Sophie’s night table, surprised and disheartened to see it was 12:34. Now he couldn’t go make coffee and watch TV as the sun came up. He’d have to try to chase sleep again. And he had a fucking aching hard-on. Absolutely throbbing.

He tossed and turned, but couldn’t escape the thoughts his strange arousal brought along.

The strong arousal rode in on a greenish wave of shame. Absolute and pure shame. His temples throbbed in time with the racing pulse in his erection. His heart pounded lust for debasement, for humiliation, for sheer, depraved indignity. That’s what aroused him. It was in him, and it was in Kimmy, too. Fucking Meyer pointing out how they were good together. Yeah, but why Meyer? Because we’re both degenerates who present like unsuspicious normies? He rolled to his back and folded hands under his head, his cock bowing out the quilt.

How could he ever broach this subject with his cousin without looking like a weakling or a pervert or a fucking loser? The only way he could broach it would be to cast all the aspersion, or at least the majority of it, onto Kimmy. To paint her as the devil, when deep down he feared it might be him.

At least he’d had the courage today to utter the words that had clouded his mind all these weeks, but had never before found the courage to convene on his tongue. As soon as he’d asked it, he regretted it. And was glad Kimmy had obviously repeated what he’d asked her to say. There was no convincing truth in her claim: “Josh, I didn’t fuck him.”

You did. I know you did.

And...

I don’t know how I feel about it. I only know how I should feel about it.

The only thing that mattered was clear. I’m not a chump. I’m not a loser.

But if that was all that mattered, then where did his sorrow bloom from?

Kimmy thinks you want that. Kimmy thinks that turns you on. Devlin has convinced the woman you love—the woman you married—that you are helpless, hapless; a victim. And Kimmy wants to victimize you because she loves you.

“Bull shit,” he whispered to Sophie’s pink and childish room; his common refrain these days. “I’m not a victim. Devlin is a victimizer, but that doesn’t have to make me a victim.”

He raised his knees, sliding his feet soles on the mattress and squeezing his thighs together. This throbbing iron wasn’t going to go away.

In the moments his inner voice subsided and left him alone, all that kept him company were images stoking the fire in his loins. A photo of his wife with her legs open and showing Devlin Stone her glistening pussy. Things he hadn’t seen. Devlin standing with a hard-on as hard as his own current horn, rubbing it and clicking away pic after pic while Kimmy Chang writhed in horny conflagration on a pallet of agricultural supplies. Her hot and aroused pussy smell mixing with chemical fertilizer; nitrates and potassium and earth minerals. Did she moan? Did she squirm? Did she squeal when he fingered her?

Did it hurt when she took his huge cock?

Or did she like it?

If she liked it, did she now crave it?

“Fuck sake,” he said, dropping his legs down and hand-heeling his boner to the side. There was nothing he could do about it. He would never in a million years defile Sophie’s bed with his evil, even if no one ever, ever found out. He wouldn’t go to the bathroom and take matters elsewhere, either.

No. He would lie and suffer all night.

That’s what he deserved.

For over an hour, he lay with his eyes open and stared at the ceiling, no more sweeping headlights to keep him company. In that time, temples throbbing, eyes dry and aching, he thought he saw something that made sense. At least something that restored his essence. He could never do it—but at least he could picture it. And in picturing it, imagine his own restoration.

The only way out was through. It was only once he was through that he could look back and see where he was. See who he was. Who he’d been. And in that cold and unforgiving illumination, he might discover whatever good existed that had been spoiled.