DITW 10-19: Heavy Cargo

The shock found him at last, looping off the 401 highway into Ajax, moving along Kingston, the Tim Hortons sign lit up on his right, twenty-feet high.

What had just happened?

How low had he sunk?

He pulled into the Tims because his hands were shaking. Fuck, everything was shaking. First thing he thought, driving near the end of the drive-thru lineup, was he had to get the panties off. He had to get them off right fucking now. He didn’t need a coffee, and sure as fuck didn’t need a goddamn donut at this moment. So he bypassed the lineup and backed into a parking spot where he’d be hidden behind the hulking metal cargo container the Tims used as their trash storage.

When the car was off, he stayed posed like he was driving, with his hands gripping the wheel, jaw flexing, and his eyes laser focused straight ahead, looking at parked cars glimmering under the parking lot lights.

The texts that had lured him to Devlin’s.

Do you still have the panties?

Josh: yes

bring them

Josh: Why?

I want to see them. I want to see you wearing them.

He unlatched his seatbelt and climbed into the back of the Qashqai, where no one would see him—where he hoped no one would see him. He undid his jeans and took them off, cursing under his breath, cursing himself for the weakness he showed.

Those textual taunts had come to him in his weakest, most unseeing moment in his entire life. And he behaved like the fourteen-year-old automaton Devlin conditioned him to be, all those years ago. Complete compliance. To do otherwise would result in pain and destruction.

He slumped in the back of the Qashqai, a man wearing no pants, only his cheating wife’s underwear. Devlin fingered Kimmy. That wasn’t a lie.

And what about the other stories Devlin told you?

It was unbelievable. Unbelievable to have arrived at this point, lying in the Qashqai’s cargo, looking at the unlit dome light and feeling like he had nowhere to go. Back home? Back home with Kimmy?

He thumbed the panties off, getting naked in a Tim Hortons parking lot, like a pervert. Like a masochistic pervert.

Like the masochistic pervert that he was.

Then he scrambled to get the jeans back on before someone caught him. That would be great. Right on his criminal record. Harmeet bringing him into the office and reading back the police report.

Josh, were you naked at a Tim Hortons?

No, I was wearing panties.

Women’s panties?

They’re my wife’s panties.

Like that would make it better. Well, maybe it would. He could say, “My wife and I play a little game. The cops just showed up at the wrong time, Harmeet.”

But tonight’s game was between him and his wife’s boss. Not Kimmy. Kimmy was home alone, probably sleeping, maybe watching Netflix. And she knew nothing about what he did tonight. What he did behind her back.

Just like Kimmy crept behind your back.

And, holy fuck, if Devlin showed Kimmy a small percentage of the cruelty he showed Josh, how much had Devlin made Kimmy suffer?

Bad enough she came running to find you in Rome.

He put a hand over his heart, still staring at that blank dome light, thinking of the torture Devlin had put Kimmy through. He’d blamed himself. Blamed himself because he liked the blame; liked to be the center of attention. But he and Kimmy were just puppets in Devlin’s marionette show.

“Fuck’s sake,” he said, alone in the cargo space, the hand on his heart forming a fist and thumping down on the Qashqai’s cargo carpet—then he was climbing into the front again, sitting, angrier, the shock dissipating. He buttoned up his jeans and put on his seatbelt.

That fucking asshole.

Devlin had lured Kimmy. He’d lured Josh as well. Devlin had moved them around like toys on an airbrushed battlefield.

Now he wiped his brow with the back of his hand, admitting something awful: He’d liked it. He’d liked it, and Kimmy liked it, too.

Whatever had happened between Kimmy and Devlin, Kimmy had liked it.

Kimmy liked getting fingered.

Out loud, he said, “Liked getting that deep pocket stretched,” then belched and held a fist to his mouth, plugging an acidic retch that wanted to whisk up his lunch all over the Nissan. Once the fire’s heat abated, he muttered, “She fucking liked it.” He thumped the steering wheel. “She fucking liked it,” he said again, louder, the slogan becoming his new mantra.

Fucking bitch.

He started the Qashqai and revved the engine. Then stopped, let it idle, and thought some more.

He unplugged his phone from the stereo system and swiped it to life, going straight to the texts. The ones that came from the unknown number. He read them again.

I want to see your little cock in them.

Why had he worn them? If Devlin said something so cruel, what kind of man would comply?

One who wanted to wear them already. One who wanted to submit.

Had Devlin known? Had Devlin known the obsession he held for the sultry satin fabric that caressed his wife’s privates? The ones she’d stripped away for another man?

He’d wanted to wear them, wanted to feel the satiny tightness on his hard cock. Devlin making the request had been his license. He’d shown up before the very man who’d stripped them from his wife, like a dutiful and willing soldier in some wicked war game.

Again, only one question: what kind of man are you?

“One who hates himself,” he answered, and kept reading through the wicked texts.

Josh: why would you want to see that?

because you want to show me

Josh: is that your fantasy?

you know it’s yours, Josh

He heaved a hurting sigh and tapped his forehead with his phone edge, reliving the brutal humiliation that seemed like a dream now. An unreal event. But he’d done it. It wasn’t done in a dream. He’d shown Devlin he wore Kimmy’s panties.

He sniffled and sighed more, overfilled with terrible emotions he couldn’t name, wallowing in existential dread and watching cars creep along to the menu board to order their late night coffees.

you know it’s yours, Josh

But when he’d showed Devlin he wore them, Devlin didn’t know what to think. Devlin took a look like he didn’t know what he was looking at. Devlin said he was surprised.

In his head, he had screamed, “You fucking told me to, you asshole!”

He read the text string again, starting from the top, bypassing the photos of Kimmy’s inner thigh. Then he read through them once more.

“Holy shit,” he sighed, turning off his phone and laying it in his lap.

Did Devlin have an accomplice?

Did Devlin’s accomplice prank Devlin, telling their prey to show up in Kimmy’s panties, and Devlin didn’t even know?

Two bullies. Rumble and Devlin. As usual. Rumble and Devlin together, Rumble laughing later when they played over Josh showing up at the apartment, Rumble saying to Devlin, “Did our little buddy show up in women’s panties?” And Devlin punching his arm, laughing, saying, “You fucking asshole, it scared the shit out of me, I was like, ‘Dude, why are you wearing panties, and why the fuck are you showing me?’” Rumble laughing, saying, “Next time I’m gonna tell him to suck you off,” and they collapse together in masculine hysterics, beating their fists on Devlin’s leather couch—where he’d fingered Kimmy—and Devlin can barely breathe, wheezing, “Dude, his little dick was so fucking hard in those women’s panties.”

“What a fucking loser,” they’d say together.

He’d worn the panties as an act of defiance, not compliance. At least that’s what he’d told himself.

Show him the panties, humiliate Devlin for even asking. Is this what you wanted to see, a man in women’s panties?

But in the end, what mattered was he’d complied. That’s all that mattered.

And now in the aftermath, what he’d done was even worse than compliance. It was a whole tenth level of humiliation and manipulation.

Had Devlin been the one to ask? Or was he the butt of someone else’s joke?

He undid his seatbelt, got out and opened the rear hatch, that dutiful dome light on now, bright and eager, and finding the panties bundled up in a ball, casting a sharp black shadow under their satiny shine. He grabbed them, marched to the sea-can, took a half minute to figure out the lever, then opened it and threw them in.

You’re such a wimp. You’re such a fucking wimp.

He slammed the door closed and re-locked it. Then, back into the Nissan, driving out of the Tims, less than five minutes from home. Less than five minutes from Kimmy.

But as soon as he pulled out, he growled and flicked his indicator, cutting across oncoming traffic to pull a U-turn, and headed back to the Tims.

There was an awful truth he had to recognize here: only Kimmy knew he’d obsessed over those panties.

* * *

Josh woke her coming into the apartment after eleven o’clock. She lay in bed with her eyes open, listening and waiting for him to make it into the bedroom.

For the first time in weeks, Josh had gone out tonight to do a normal thing. A thing he would have done on the regular before the summer. Before everything in their lives had been cast in shadow. She hoped he’d had a good time with Meyer, and that he kept his mind off his burdens. They were moving their game piece back to where they’d been happier, and there would be no deviation, no questionable playing.

When the bedroom door opened, Josh didn’t enter, only stood in the doorway, like he watched her. She lifted her head to see him standing with stooped shoulders, a shrouded figure in the dark. It scared her at first, so she called his name, worried for a second the man wasn’t her husband at all.

Josh answered. “Hey.”

She stretched her legs out straight under the covers. “Did you have fun with Meyer?”

“Uh-huh,” he said, entering the room, pulling off his shirt.

Had he been drinking?

If he drove drunk, she would kill him. She lifted her head higher from the pillow and watched him. “Did you drive yourself home?”

“Yeah,” he said, unbuttoning his jeans.

“Were you guys drinking?”

Josh shook his head no.

She said, “Were you?” Like she was unconvinced.

Josh pushed his pants down and stepped out of them. He turned to regard her.

No, he wasn’t drunk. Was he angry?

Her eyes went down his naked body to between his legs, where his cock stood at full, throbbing attention. She raised her eyebrows, surprised but not dismayed. She began to smile. The moonlight came in their apartment window and the way it slanted occluded Josh’s face, kept it in the dark, but his body was lit, his penis sticking out and casting a shadow across his hip like a proud sundial. She said, “What were you guys up to?” Trying to keep it light, wanting to make him laugh, pretending she didn’t notice his obvious arousal.

He came to the foot of the bed, then climbed onto it, naked.

“What are you doing?” she said, laughing, protecting herself, but her heart swelling with happiness to see her husband return to her, hard as a rock, out having fun with his cousin tonight, returning home to have sex with his wife. She cupped his cheek and tilted up her chin, exposing her neck, looking to accept his kiss.

Josh’s hand smoothed her collar, then snatched a tight grip on the back of her neck.