DITW 11-7: Revelations

Kimmy told him she’d done nothing. “It was Devlin.”

It was always Devlin. Even Kimmy could blame him. But that was better than her blaming her husband. If she accused him, it would be too much to bear. He wanted so much to know it all. Wanted to ask her, but was he really ready for the truth?

He caressed her neck and thumbed her strong jawline while Kimmy’s face turned away from the window, away from the light, her eyes closed. She said, “He undressed me.”

It was like a gut punch. Right away, he wanted to stop her, tell her that was enough. “He did?”

“Undressed me, made me look at myself.”

He frowned, his stroke slowing, his cock inside her throbbing like a molten beam, harder than he could imagine, hearing how another man had subjugated his wife. If he’d shown up to Devlin’s apartment in his wife’s underwear, what kind of temptation prompted Kimmy to allow him to undress her?

What had been passionate sex turned now to confession. Cold gray confession made red and lurid by the circumstances, by the dreadful shame of it all. He wanted to fuck Kimmy and hear how Devlin had squeezed her juice.

“You let him undress you?”

“I didn’t stop him. He was making a point.”

His eyes pinched closed in disbelief. It didn’t make any sense. What kind of point could license a married woman’s boss to violate her that way?

“Kimmy, what are you talking about?” He reared back, his cock still inside her, on his knees now, Kimmy on her back below him.

Her head rolled on the mattress until she faced him, her eyes narrow, looking beautiful on her back this way, her skin tight, her hair loosening from its bun, but still swept away from her incredible face. “I’m telling you the truth. I want to tell you. If you want to hear it.”

Did he? Or did he not?

The truth was he didn’t want to know. Not out of fear, not out of sanctity. If he knew the truth, it would devastate him. And if he knew, this would end. It would be over. As terrible as this was—at times unbearable—there had never been anything in his life more exciting than this. Nothing had been more electrifying than the existential horror of Kimmy’s fidelity with a man who terrorized him.

If she told him what he feared, if she confirmed the darkest conjurings he imagined, he couldn’t stay, couldn’t forgive. The marriage would be over, wouldn’t it? And not just the marriage, the incredible bonds that lashed them together through this wicked storm—they would rot away. The closeness he’d felt to her in this misery would dissolve. They would separate, move farther from each other. And that hurt his heart more than the knowing would. Wasn’t that true? They’d gone through this ordeal together the way tribal cultures arrange ceremonies of passage. Ordeal poisons. Or trials by fire. They were meant to cement resolve, to test fortitude and conviction. Was his conviction such a gossamer thing that a man like Devlin Stone could breathe on it and it would zephyr away like the finest talc?

He got down over her again, his face close, his hands on the bed on either side of her head. “When was this?”

Kimmy looked at him, puzzled. “Today. At the hotel.”

His words rushed from him. “This was today?”

“Yeah,” she said, brow still furrowed.

Honesty for today. Today he could handle. Couldn’t he? A clean slate to begin with. “What happened?” Now those words didn’t rush, they whispered and trembled.

She breathed in and out at a calm pace, angling her head in reptilian study, her eyes looking deep into his. Her hands went to his neck and caressed. “He undressed me, and I ignored him.”

The urge to detonate, to tantrum and rail, sizzled, but his doomsday clock never hit midnight—held at bay by Kimmy’s calm and candid mien. Sincerity. Cold sincerity beaming his way like some ghostly golden spirit, warm and tender despite its frigid core; rich with warmth and fuggy womanhood.

“You ignored him?” He sounded hypnotized.

She traced her fingers through the hair above one of his ears. “Yes.”

At one time, she hadn’t ignored Devlin. He sensed it, heard it in her voice. But he already knew that to be true—had seen the proof with his own eyes, a photograph of his wife’s legs spread for another man’s enjoyment.

His hips began to rock, and wicked pleasure zipped along the plump flesh of his engorged cock head, plugged in a woman he loved with angst and disquiet, her liquid grip tight but so slippy.

“He saw you naked? You showed him?” Kimmy nodded, and he asked her now, “Was he naked?”

Her eyes narrowed further, into black, unreadable slits. “Yes.”

“He was? You were naked together?”

“No,” she said, palming his cheek.

“Tell me then,” he pleaded, tired of summoning questions, of prompting her step by step through this black mire. “You want to tell me, anyway.”

“No, I don’t. You want to hear it, but you’re afraid to ask.”

They stared at each other, and while her challenging words annoyed him, he couldn’t argue that she didn’t want to tell him. He only wanted to believe she didn’t tell him. But he believed that because there was much she hadn’t told him before.

The coldness of her tone, the blatant and brutal unambiguity, unnerved him. Like the value of his righteous contempt for her betrayal had declined. Like over a space of ten days, inflation had risen dark waters up his righteous shoreline and reduced his acreage. He’d had his chance a week ago to set things straight, to prune the shape of his lust and love with his wife, but he’d let another man shape it. Let his wife shape it. He wouldn’t describe for her what he wanted, and now she and Devlin told him.

Before this time had come, he had power. Now, once again, he had little. He hadn’t capitalized on his opportunity.

He asked her, “Why was he naked?”

“Because he wanted me, and I don’t want him. When he was naked, I left.”

“But you saw him naked?”

“I did.”

Fuck. Here it was. Frigid reality; a wicked wind against his face. “You’ve seen him naked before?”

She inclined her head in the silky locks framing her face, still touching his cheek. “You know I have, Josh.”

Though he knew she’d seen him naked before, this time her answer was different. She answered his question plainly with an answer he’d already heard—and she answered the question he’d really asked her but was afraid to form into words, to conjure into reality: there are times you’ve seen Devlin Stone naked that I don’t know about.

The truth crushed his heart, but remained wrapped in ambiguity and plausible deniability. He could keep lying to himself to protect his heart and his marriage. Even when Kimmy told him the truth, she afforded him dignity, if he wanted it. He’d pushed her over the edge and she still loved him. And no part of his heart didn’t love her.

For the first time since his Roman reverie, he felt like there was a glimmer at the end of the tunnel. For so long now he’d stayed mired in the muck of Kimmy’s and his transgression, and he hadn’t even known he was lost in it. He hadn’t known he was lost until a way out showed itself like light through a rainstorm.

His mind moved toward the light, stumbling and unsure, wary even, as though the light itself was a trap. What was the light? What was the hope?

Kimmy didn’t hate him for the darkness he’d cast on their marriage. He loved Kimmy, and Kimmy loved him. She would stay working for Devlin Stone, but she could refuse him. But now the hope closed on him like a Venus flytrap, poisonous tines coming down all around him. He could still enjoy his fantasy. He could still skirt the fine lines of right and wrong and stew in the sour deviant urges that consumed him. But when exactly had this fantasy ever come to him? Was it his own, or was it a planted seed? Was Devlin Stone his wicked gardener?

And did it matter when Kimmy was here with him in marriage and not running away with Devlin Stone, not abandoning him and removing from her husband her love and tender care?

His heart swelled with overwhelming relief and love. Not just of love for Kimmy, but the love he received from her. It was undeniable. It beamed from her. Not bright and ecstatic, but low and throbbing, like something real and enduring. She didn’t hate him, and he didn’t even realize he’d worried about that. It was like a suffocating veil had been lifted, and he felt united with Kimmy again. And, even if their reunion was delivered on a serving tray surrounded by the vile condiments of Devlin Stone’s lust for Kimmy and his terrible manipulations, he received it well. Received it well because he needed it.

“He wants you, doesn’t he?”

“His desire is strong, Josh.”

He heard what she meant, but also heard the reference to Devlin’s vitality, his male essence. And the challenge: how strong was his own desire for Kimmy and did she know it?

Kimmy’s clear statement, the acknowledgement of Devlin’s desire for her, the knowledge she’d allowed Devlin to photograph her naked pussy and finger her roared in his chest, sent his engine thundering. The longing to make love to her became something new, something baser, something dirty and challenging and wild and electric. Smooth strokes turned to pugilistic thrusts, and his pleasure soared.

His face hovered nearer hers and she didn’t look away, Kimmy accepting the violent stabs of his cock inside her, absorbing it and showing him she could take it. But the violence had nothing to do with his feelings for her, it came from the incredible degenerate surge of his strangest kink, of the reality that his tormentor Devlin Stone wanted Kimmy, wanted to fuck her, had maybe already fucked her, and for sure had fingered her. All behind his back.

But he couldn’t bear to have Kimmy think he was angry with her, so he relented, returning to a slower pace, breathing deep, staying connected to her.

Then, out of the blue, her voice soft and sibilant: “I told him to jerk off.”

The hair on his neck bristled and his eyes widened with shock. “You what?”

“He wanted to have sex, but I’m not going to do that, so I told him to jerk off. Then I left.”

Simple, matter of fact. And astounding.

This very afternoon his wife was in a hotel room with the worst man in the world, one who’d manipulated them both, one who tortured him, had him wearing women’s underwear just to get a glimpse of a photo he’d taken of Kimmy’s pussy. And yet, they were two married people in bed with each other a few hours later, working together, loving one another and finding ways they could make the best of the awful things that had happened. In the midst of this disgusting revelation, he almost could laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.

He said, “Do you think he did?”

“I know he did,” she said, flat and monotone. Just the facts, ma’am.

“How— Wait, how do you know?”

“I didn’t watch him. But I know he did.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw him doing it while I dressed.”

“You said you didn’t watch him.”

“I didn’t. But I saw him doing it. Heard him. He ejaculated.”

Every male cell in his body screamed for him to burst into anger, yet he still couldn’t do it. Some other part of him wanted to ignore it, ameliorate her words into something else, something he could stomach. And a big part of him wanted all the dirty details.

Instead of pulling out and telling her once and for all that this kind of life wasn’t for him, instead of storming into the closet and packing an overnight bag and heading to Meyer’s, instead of throwing table lamps and screaming at the top of his lungs, he asked her, “Did you . . . see him come?”