DITW 11-6: Shortcomings

“I didn’t show it to him. But he saw me in it.”

Disbelief and outrage intertwined, and his lips popped. He shook his head. “He watched you change?”

She nodded, lips pursed, knowing it was wrong, and knowing he had a right to be angry, but unbothered anyhow.

He bolted up to stand. “Like, what the fuck is going on, Kimmy? How can you tell me that? You can’t work for him anymore. And you can’t expect me to accept you working there. I haven’t fucking said anything—and you know I should have.” He stomped away like he would leave the room, but instead circling, pacing. “You should have quit. I didn’t tell you to quit. I didn’t tell you, but no one should have to tell you. Something in your head should have told you to do it.”

These were things he should have said a long time ago. But it was still good saying them now. He felt real. He felt whole.

Kimmy stood studying him, shoulders even, her legs even, feet parted. Confident in her attire. Not shy, not demure. She crossed the space between them, her muscles moving under her flawless skin. Sexuality crackled on her surface like electricity. Kimmy had always been beautiful, but since the summer, it was like he was seeing it anew. Or like Kimmy was seeing it in herself for the first time.

He had been on a roll and saying the things he’d wanted to say, but once she moved and those long legs brought her to him, he went mute, waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to determine the rest of the conversation.

Now face to face and eye to eye, she said, “I’m being honest with you, Josh. I’m being honest because I love you. And you won’t believe me, but because I respect you.”

He clucked his tongue and lamented with disdain the word, “Respect.”

She touched his arms, held them. “It’s true, Josh. But I’m not going to cry anymore and I’m not going to beg for you to see it.”

It surprised him—alarmed him—and he asked her, “Why not?”

“I’m just going to show you. I’m going to prove it to you. You won’t debate it.” She cupped his jawline in her fine hands. “Because I love you.”

For some reason, amidst this whole unholy terror he’d mired them in, he believed her. Her eyes told no lie. Everything in him softened. While he’d been so sure of himself, launching into the tirade that needed to be spoken, now he was unsure. “Well, I love you, too.”

“I don’t doubt it, Josh. I know it’s true.”

But the anger flared again, and he brought his arms up to push her hands off his face, stepping back, his eyes moving up and down her incredible body. “Take it off.”

She stared at him for a moment, but then complied. One long arm folded behind her and she unzipped the bodysuit. Arms pulled out of the thin straps, she shimmied it down her body, tugged it from where it had cinched in her venereal creases, and stepped out. She tossed it on the bed, and regarded him, plain and naked, hair still slicked back, eyes like a raven’s.

“I don’t understand how you could wear that.”

“Do you want me to explain it to you?”

“Are you being facetious?”

Her brow lowered, her mouth softening. “No,” she said, honest and emphatic.

He was quiet, still, then moved to the foot of the bed and picked up the lacy fabric Devlin had bought for her to wear. It smelled like Kimmy. Had hugged her body all day. Devlin gave it to her. A strong and powerful image blossomed in his mind, one of him taking the gossamer fabric and ripping it apart, like Hercules breaking his chains. But the truth was such a bold move could end with the tragic image of him discovering the undergarment’s trim proved too tough to break, and Kimmy would see him as powerless as he felt. He handled the fabric, ran his thumb on its silk, then tossed it further up the bed. He sat down where it had laid.

Kimmy approached him, silent, naked, standing right before him. Her bare legs straddled one of his thighs, her thin knees on either side, her pussy right before his eyes. Her fingers wove through his hair, caressed his head, pulled him to lay his cheek against her hot, flat tummy. She whispered, “I’m sorry, Josh. I’m sorry it’s like this.”

“How can you work for him?” The question came from his pouting lips with no spark or instruction from his mind, just a placid evocation of his emotion while his eyes stared out their bedroom window at the September sky.

“I know you don’t trust me, Josh, but I’m asking you to. On this one thing, I’m asking you to trust that I know what I’m doing.”

He rubbed his stubble on her feather-soft skin, disbelieving the deep love he still felt for her. How could he trust a woman that he knew his bully had fingered behind his back? Maybe because he was the one to blame? Was that it? That it all fell at his feet. He was responsible. If he was responsible for getting them into this mess, would Kimmy be the one with the best sense of direction to get them out of it?

His arms circled her hips, pressing his face further into her belly, and Kimmy rubbed his head with care. He looked up then, and said, “He watched you dress?”

She nodded. “He did.”

“You didn’t stop him?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

He closed his eyes and pushed away the images that wanted to loom in that darkness. He opened his eyes again. “How does it work?”

“He gets what he wants, Josh. Inch by inch, minute by minute. It’s inexorable.”

He fixated on “inch by inch.” Found disgusting hidden meanings in her word usage.

“He’s boiling you, Josh. Minute by minute, he’s turning up the heat, and he’s boiling you like a frog.”

Had Devlin told her of his humiliation? Did Devlin tell Kimmy her husband showed up to see naked pictures of her and he’d worn her panties to do it? Her husband was a pervert. Her husband was a cross-dressing pervert, manipulated by his high school bully into doing the unthinkable.

He shook that thought away and pushed back from her, his hands staying on her waist. She said, “Let me protect you,” and touched his face again.

His breaths came shaky and his lips trembled; like all he’d ever wanted in his life was protection from a bully like Devlin Stone.

But he had to be a man before her, not a child. He said, “I don’t need you to protect me.” But he did. And he wanted her to. He tried to tell her with his eyes, looking up at her with love and longing. In this moment, he was sure he could ask her what happened. She would tell him the truth. She still caressed his cheek and played with his hair. But instead of demands for truth, all that was empty inside him, dying to be filled with the nourishment of truth, wanted to be filled with love, with intimacy. He lay back on the bed, taking Kimmy’s arms and guiding her to follow, and she did, laying over top of him before rolling to his side. They faced each other, and he touched her face now. He said, “You love me?”

“I do,” she said. “I have no doubt. I love you.”

There was no lie, no manipulation, no deviousness. He kissed her mouth, held her neck, went soft and slow, savoring the stickiness of her lips, their supple cushion. His lips would be red.

Red from lipstick Devlin bought.

A sudden tightness seized his belly and he could feel his cock twitch and thicken. Had Devlin also made her put on the lipstick? Was this Devlin’s favorite color on his wife’s mouth?

He held her face back, thumbing her cheekbone, biting his own lips so she wouldn’t see him wearing Devlin’s color. He wanted to ask her if Devlin chose the lipstick, but knew he shouldn’t mention Devlin now. Not now.

He kissed her again, his hand sweeping all over her warm, firm body. Grabbing her ass cheeks, sweeping her thigh, cupping the narrow of her waist. She pushed his sweats down and palmed his underwear-shrouded erection. “I want to make love. Make love to me.”

A moment ago she’d told him she’d changed before the man who had corrupted their marriage, and now she wanted to make tender love. And he believed it, was sure it was real. He shrugged off his shirt, pushed his underwear down, got to the foot of the bed, and stood to admire his wife. She lay on their bed without a stitch of clothing, bathed in golden autumn light.

But all he could think of was the bedspread’s pattern around her. Could picture her now as the way she was, only she lay not on their marital bed but on some packages of potting soil or something, maybe in some filthy lakeside warehouse downtown. Or in Hamilton.

It made him harder. Made his cock throb stronger. “Spread your legs.”

Kimmy looked puzzled, but she complied. She parted her legs and showed him her pussy. She gleamed wet. The wetness made him smile. Her husband aroused her. Not just asshole big-dick Devlin. But Devlin had shared this view. Devlin had looked down on Kimmy this way and been comfortable enough—and so was Kimmy—to take a picture.

He fell on top of her and thumbed the point of his erection into her hot velvet interior. Kimmy lifted her knees and clamped his waist with her thighs, caressing his head again. They kissed. Kissed while he thought how Devlin’s fingers might be as big as the erection he’d slid into his wife. Devlin had fingered her. Did Kimmy orgasm? His first thought was to ask Devlin. Why ask Devlin when he could ask Kimmy?

“You feel so good,” he said, thrusting in and out of her. He buried his face in her neck, eyes squeezed shut, compelling awful mysteries and quashing them at the same time, reminding himself how bad an idea it was to flirt with nihilism. But they were stubborn and stalwart ideas, and voices asked him why he would push them away when he wanted them so much.

It made him so hard. He was a stony battering ram inside Kimmy. Her hips rolled against his, her doing as much of the fucking as he was. She wanted it. Kimmy got horny sometimes. Sometimes she got horny around Devlin.

And he’d put the game they played in Kimmy’s head.

He took her hands from around the small of his back and held her arms out, kissing her neck and her collar, thrusting deep inside her in short strokes. Kimmy moaned and whined, writhing underneath him.

“I love you no matter what,” he said.

“I love you, too, Josh,” she whispered, head rolling around as he suckled on her long, beautiful neck.

“No matter what you do.”

“I know, I know, Josh, we’re together.”

“Even if you lay out like this for Devlin.”

She whimpered. But she didn’t stop. She still rolled her pussy into his stroke. His eyes roamed up to her troubled expression, eyes closed, turned away.

“I don’t blame you. I love you.”

“I know, Josh,” her voice was pinched with shame and sadness.

“Even if you showed him your pussy. Even if you got wet for him.”

Kimmy gasped and whimpered, head rocking back and forth like saying no, but all the while still humping his cock, still wanting sexual pleasure.

“Even if you showed him how wet you were. Even if you lifted your skirt in some Hamilton shipyard and showed him this perfect pussy, I still love you with all my heart.”

Her whimpers grew louder, more agitated. He liked taunting her with her own crimes, liked pummeling her with the harsh facts of her infidelity, of her wanton ways. Liked how it bothered her, liked how it riled her. Her beautiful face contorted as if in pain. Her lips trembled.

He slowed his thrusting, going easier, shallower, rousing her from ecstasy, returning her to their bedroom with her husband. Did she think of Devlin when they fucked?

“Tell me, Kimmy,” he whispered. “Tell me what you did.”