DITW 11-2: Bonjoubar

Devlin revolted her. The snide look on his face showing the arrogant domination he played at. But what she hated most was how he’d beaten her. She’d gambled so much, risked it all—and lost. Losing the sanctity of her marriage and the vigor of her husband was only one component to her misery. She’d also lost the battle with this man she thought little of. The realization brought a chuckle to her throat, but it was quashed by the sudden horror that Devlin knew she had been in his apartment—not from the report of his cleaning service, but because he had cameras, and had watched her play around with a Devlin-sized dildo in his bed while he was away. Devlin would see that as a victory, as another folding over of his opponent. She was smarter than Devlin—so much smarter Devlin didn’t even see it. And yet here she was, shame-faced and admonished. Humiliated. Humiliated by a man only good for one thing: sex.

Devlin laughed at her stony reaction. “Look at that face,” he taunted. “It makes you mad, does it? You don’t have to be mad, Kimmy. You’re welcome to my apartment, even when I’m not in it.”

She still showed him no expression, no reaction.

Devlin played with his napkin, touching the corner of the linen, thumbing it over like he was lost in thought. Then he looked up, not at her, but around at the busy restaurant. They sat at a booth, her with her back at a half-moon banquette, and Devlin seated in a chair across from her on the other side of the table. He lifted his muscular bulk from his chair and swung into the banquette crowding her to one side.

She regarded him as coolly as she could even though her mind scrambled to assemble a defense if he’d seen her in his bed, watched her masturbate with an oversized dildo on his laptop. He would probably masturbate as well, watching her do it, dick in his hand and watching his security camera playback. No retort or warning came to her lips, no taunt or superior display—she was too afraid he’d seen what she did. He didn’t stare at her or smirk or anything she’d thought he would do. He ran his teeth over his bottom lip, still looking around the restaurant as if he was trying to find the right way to word something.

At last he regarded her. “I want to hope there was a good reason for you to be there. A good reason for my sake. I’d like to think you miss me. Miss our time together.”

She stayed firm, no smile, no facial tic, only lifting one eyebrow a centimeter. “You’re nostalgic?”

Devlin stroked his face, his large hand pinching his cheeks and drawing down, contorting his handsome face into something harrowed for only a moment. Then he let his face go and smiled. “What terrible things did you get up to in my apartment, I wonder?”

Her nostrils flared and she was sure he knew; sure he’d watched her fuck herself with a cock that imitated his. In his bed. In bed with his suit. Her eyes narrowed and she grimaced, hating that she could give away something of her emotion, but helpless to it now, picturing what Devlin would have seen, remembering her self-humiliation: she’d put the enormous dildo through the unzipped fly of his empty suit and sucked it.

Devlin looked away, then looked at her again, his eyes showing some humor, not intimidation. “Did you molest my toothbrush, put it in the toilet?” He scrutinized her. “That doesn’t seem like your style.”

She lifted her napkin from the table and folded it into a triangular sail, her hands nervous and needing a task, putting the napkin on her lap with no purpose, flattening it on her thighs, looking down to avoid Devlin’s dark gaze.

“Plus, you probably know you couldn’t put that toothbrush into any hole in your beautiful body that my tongue hasn’t already explored.”

She muttered, “You’re disgusting.”

His hand went over both hers and her folded napkin. He said, “Hey,” and she looked up to meet his gaze, any sort of defiance she wanted to show cowering in shame. Now he said, “I’m trying to make you laugh, Kimmy. Not disgust you. I know I fucked up. Okay?”

Her eyes darted over his, looking for any tell that this was a manipulation, that he’d seen her play with herself in his bed, that this was a ruse meant to lower her guard so he could get the blade near her throat.

“I don’t always get it right.”

She said, “You did what I told you not to do. The one thing that I said was a deal breaker. One thing.”

He wanted to fight back, wanted to defend himself, inhaled a breath to arm his argument, but then exhaled. “I see it a different way. I see it your way too—but, yeah. I did what you said not to.”

She nodded her chin across the table. “Go back to your side.” His hand was still over hers.

“I was really... I was really hopeful when I heard you were in my apartment. Okay? I thought it might mean something. I know you don’t believe it, but I have feelings. Real human feelings.”

“You should can the sales pitch, Devlin. I will never fall for your bull shit ever again.” Now she looked his way and met his gaze with the strength she’d been missing before.

“You don’t believe I have feelings?”

No hesitation: “I don’t.”

Devlin was uninjured by her remark, still regarding her, those black shark-predator’s eyes trying to portray a man of deep and complicated emotion. “I can’t convince you if you don’t believe. But it’s true that I miss you. I miss seeing you, I miss being with you. When I heard you were in my apartment, I hoped maybe you missed me, too.”

“I needed a nap.”

“When you’re on the clock?”

She smiled a cold smile. “I like that you miss our time together, Devlin. I like that a lot.”

He smiled as well. “What if you’re the cruel one? You think it’s me and it’s really you.”

She showed mock sympathy. “Oh, am I cruel to you, Devlin? Do I make you miserable?”

He frowned, his thumb stroking her wrist. “Don’t tell me I make you miserable. Don’t make things up.”

She pulled her hands out from under his, and his hand remained on her lap. “If you hurt Josh, you hurt me. If you you make Josh miserable, you make me miserable.”

“And if I turn you on, I turn Josh on. If I make you come, I make Josh come.”

She scoffed, disgusted by him. “Go back to your side, please.”

He stayed where he was, his hand heavy, resting high on her thighs. “You’re symbiotic. You and Josh are one thing. You think I don’t know that?”

“We’re not one thing, Devlin.”

“You just said it yourself. One organism, one unit, sharing a life, sharing emotions. It’s you who did the wrong. It’s me doing the right.”

That hurt. The wrongness he’d reminded her of weighted heavy now, dragging on her heart. “I’m going to make it up to him. I’m going to make him love me again.”

“He loves you, Kimmy. He loves you more than anything. Maybe he loves you more now. The real you. Just give him what he wants. Don’t deny him.”

She grabbed his hand but didn’t pull it away, didn’t want to make a scene in the busy restaurant. “Go back to your side, Devlin.”

His thumb hooked over hers, and his fingers parted. Her slim fingers worked between his, holding his hand, wanting to pull it away and wishing he hadn’t pulled the plug on their devious fun.

He said, “If you stop what we were doing, explain to me how you aren’t the cruel one?”

“I didn’t say I’m not cruel.”

“Are you careless?”

She nodded.

“If what we did was wrong, you’re cruel. If what we did was wrong, Josh would be long gone.”

“He doesn’t know what we did.”

“He knows, Kimmy. Trust me, he knows.”

Josh knew but wouldn’t face it, wouldn’t ask her to come clean, wanted to shy away from the truth and live in some manufactured place of contrived peace.

“He knows, and he loves you more than ever.”

“He hates me.”

“Hate isn’t indifference. Indifference is the opposite of love. Josh hates in you the part of himself that he hates. You’re giving him what he hates that he wants. You don’t want him to hate himself, do you?”

She shook her head no.

“Josh misses you. Not the woman he married—he loved that one, too, that one was his buddy—but you showed him you could also be the woman of his darkest, wildest fantasies.”

“I don’t ever want him to hurt.”

“It’s not up to you how he hurts. He hurts himself. He likes the hurt sometimes. Craves it. He likes how you scare him. . . . Kimmy, you make more money than he does. You’re taller than him. You’re beautiful. Your IQ is thirty points higher. You’re fucking savage. And you guys are one thing. A unit. It’s you who is fucking up the unity. It’s you denying your husband all the things he wants. And it’s crazy, because you want it, too. You have to miss what you became. For like six weeks in your life, Kimmy, you were on top of the world. You had everything you wanted. You miss that woman. Josh misses that woman. I fucking miss that woman.” He sighed with heavy lamentation and shook his head.

She scowled, her neck throbbing and her pulse pounding hot blood into her cheeks and temples.

He said, “Look, if I fucked that up, I’ll own it. You don’t have to listen to me. I don’t expect you to. I want you to consider a different perspective. You did nothing wrong. You never did a single thing wrong, Kimmy. It was fun to think it was wrong, fun to sneak around and play devious games, but that was a ruse to heighten our pleasure, to raise the stakes because the real stakes were low. Low because both of us know Josh isn’t allergic to what we were doing. Not one bit. Deep down you know it. You really do. That’s why I say you’re the cruel one. But I know you’re not cruel, I know everything you did you did with the hope your marriage could survive it. And here’s the truth: Josh knows everything and Josh will be home when you get home tonight, and you’ll eat dinner together and you’ll climb into bed together, and before you guys go to sleep you’ll both play a fantasy behind your sleepy eyes, one where Kimmy is in charge, Kimmy is kicking ass, Kimmy is making all the money, and her daddy loves her more than her sister, and she has the best sex of her life three or four times a week, and she goes home and her husband orders take-out and rubs her feet, and they watch movies together and cuddle, and every ion in Kimmy Chang’s life is humming along, vibrant and incandescent, and Josh is happy and Devlin is happy and—”

She whipped her hand out from under his, snatching the napkin along with it. Tears swelled and she squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the napkin against them. She said, “Can we not do this now, please?”

Devlin removed his hand from her lap and rested it on the table. “I need you back, Kimmy.”

“I’m here. I didn’t go anywhere. What do you want from me?”

“Confidence.”

She shot him a cold look. “I am confident.” Then saw herself reflected in Devlin’s obsidian gaze; wary and cornered, harassed, defending herself now like a hissing, cornered animal.

Devlin reached in his jacket and pulled out the money clip she’d seen on his dresser the day she’d snuck into his apartment to masturbate with a rubbery facsimile of his enormous penis. He plucked out two one-hundreds and tossed them to the center of the table. He held out his hand to her, assuming she would take it.

She frowned, unsure. “What are we doing?”

“Getting out of here.”

For the longest moment she stared at him with her hands in her lap, hating him, hating herself. Her lips trembled, her head ached from resisting the urge to cry. She put her cold hand in his and he guided her out of the banquette, out of the Bonjoubar, and into the alley.