DITW 10-9: Spycam (Patreon)

For a long while in the morning she watched Josh sleep, sometimes touching his hair, careful not to wake him. He’d had a bad week. The man she’d married had gone far from home, thrusted into a stressful position with his career’s future at stake, and meanwhile bearing the burden of the horrible things his wife may have done behind his back. And they were only his imaginings, inspired by finding her panties in his boss’s couch. What horrible things had he imagined? The truth was worse. The truth was something even his imagination would stay far, far away from.

The way the sun shone in the window lit up his hair, showing the gold in his auburn curls. He looked boyish and innocent, and a lot like the college kid she’d fallen in love with. How could she treat him with such disregard? The whole thing seemed like a blur—no, a greasy smudge on the soot smeared window of an abandoned factory. Six months ago, they were pregnant and were about to begin a family. What happened to that? How did her life veer so far away?

The tears came again, and she slipped out of bed, wiping her eyes, telling herself she didn’t want her sobs to wake him, but knowing she was a coward who couldn’t sit and watch the sun light up an innocent man being punished for her crimes.

She dressed and went to the kitchen, at first thinking she would make Josh all his favorite foods and then realizing that would be a bad idea. The family room blinds were down and the kitchen dim. She stood with the fridge door open, cool air batting her calves, her head in her hands as she found herself in a mirrored maze conundrum. There was no easy way out, no straightforward path to peace and restoration. There may be no path at all. Josh was broken. When she’d played games with Devlin, her steadfast rule was to never hurt Josh. Now Josh was more than hurt. He was emptied, scooped out like a tub of ice cream, just a sodden cardboard husk. And she’d done it. Emptied him. She’d thought she was on top of the game, she thought she knew all the angles. Devlin had been bold and played a one-in-a-million trick shot that left the crowd gasping.

Didn’t Devlin respect her worth? Didn’t she do wonders at Stone Custom Brokerage? Was that a lie?

No. No way. She knew it wasn’t. She’d tracked her predecessor’s work before he’d left and she’d replaced him. The guy played more golf than analyzed contracts. Devlin needed her. Needed her at his father’s company, and she knew he needed her for anything he wanted to do on his own. He wasn’t smart enough without her. Devlin knew her value. Why he’d gamble that value on humiliating her husband made no sense.

So now the fun was over. No matter how much Devlin said the fun was only beginning, Devlin was wrong, and the fun was over. None of this turned out the way she wanted it. Not with Devlin, not with Josh, and not with her job at Stone. She had nothing left but a broken husband, shattered like fine porcelain by his high school bully, and she was left picking up the pieces, on her knees trying not to cut her fingers on Josh’s shards, a tube of super-glue in one hand and the murky instructions for reassembly spread out on the floor. She had nothing now. Nothing but smashed love, heartache, regret, and a burning passion for vengeance.

As much happiness that images of her serving Josh breakfast in bed might inspire, they were happy fantasies that looked nothing like reality. She’d love to do it, ached to, but couldn’t because doing so would hurt him further, a focused revelation of her guilt. Like showing up in Rome. But Josh deserved care. Deserved nothing but the best of care. This was a tightrope act of tender mercy and support and love without playing the hand you’d love to play because it would illuminate your betrayal.

It’d been a long time crying last night. To watch your husband hurting the way Josh was, to let him rest his head on your chest while you milked his erection, knowing in his fevered mind he was watering the tiny sprouting plant bursting from the nefarious seed you’d planted. But she wasn’t alone in that act; Josh’s soil was rich with the nutrients needed for that terrifying plant to grow.

That was a terrible thing to think.

Josh was blameless. She knew he was blameless. It was she who had eroticized the sadistic art of betrayal, polishing those dull surfaces in Josh’s mind that would fantasize about something so cruel until they gleamed like gold.

She sighed, her brain seeking relief from her own torment, a fraction of what she’d heaped upon her husband, snatched a wad of paper towels and dried her cheeks. When she’d pushed the oppressive thoughts back like a lion tamer with a chair, she got to work making a regular, no-big-deal Saturday morning breakfast, one they’d eat before she’d turned their world upside down.

* * *

She queued up an episode of The Office and set the volume a little too loud, balancing her plate on her lap, a mug of tea in one hand on the couch’s arm, her head leaning back to watch down the hall for Josh to emerge. It took a while, half an episode, but at last new light shone in the hallway as the bedroom door opened and she sat forward like she hadn’t been waiting for his arrival, and bit into her cold toast.

Josh came into the family room, eyes dopey, hair in cute disarray, dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants, looking toward the TV.

She paused it. “You really slept in. You must be so tired.”

He nodded and scratched his head.

She said, “I made some breakfast. It’s in the kitchen. Come sit with me.”

He muttered, “I smelled bacon,” and headed into the kitchen.

She said over her shoulder, “There’s scrambled eggs with cheese, too. You can pop it in the microwave. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Josh went through a series of kitchen noises, followed by the hum of the microwave. Soon he came in to join her. She’d imagined the horrible scenario where he would stay in the kitchen, eat at the counter because he couldn’t stand to sit on the couch with her. The relief flooded her fast and hard, making her eyes blurry for a second.

She pressed play, and they watched TV together until they were done. She took his plate, cleaned up, and loaded the dishwasher. When she returned, she found Josh lying on his side, eyes looking somewhere near the TV but not at it. She sat down again and muted the TV.

“What do you want to do today? Let’s go do something fun,” she said.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, flopping down to sit by his bare feet. “I know you’re tired, so we could go see a movie or something. How about that?”

He said yeah, and her heart leaped. She held his ankle, then rubbed his calf. “Hey, you know what we could do?”

“What?”

“Does Meyer have Sophie this weekend?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe we go see a movie with Soph, how about that? Or what if we all went to the drive-in tonight?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t feel like it.”

“Not up to it?”

Josh didn’t answer, then pulled his feet away and sat up, looking straight ahead. He ruffled his hair and leaned forward with his head in his hands, elbows on his knees.

“Okay. Just the two of us,” she said. “Afternoon movie, go get dinner. Just you and me. Maybe we can see Sophie tomorrow.”

Josh breathed into his hands, then sat back again, slumping in the couch, his face red, his eyes bleary and tired. He looked her way, but not at her. He said, “Kimmy, I told Meyer.”

Something deep inside began to grow cold. “Told him what?”

Josh finally met her gaze, and she could lose herself in his eyes, swim in the bountiful absence of the spark that made her husband who he was. He said, “Did you know he was watching you?”

“Meyer? Watching me when? What do you mean?”

Josh looked down, and it occurred to her he thought she’d known she was being watched—did that mean he thought that was why she followed him to Rome?

“When I was gone, I told Meyer to watch you for me.”

“Follow me? Josh...”

“No, just see if you came and went from the apartment when you should be.”

The revelation stunned her, knocked her senseless. She stood, mad and wanting to stomp away, but then plopped back down. How could Josh do that?

Because of what you did to him.

She touched her own face and her fingers’ iciness shocked her. She said, “You had him watch me?”

Josh said nothing and when she turned to face him, he turned to face her. He was silent and unreadable, but those empty eyes killed her.

She nodded, tears coming fast and hard, looking to fill her eyes. “Okay,” she squeaked. Yeah, she deserved that. Nothing to say about that. She stood again, this time not falling, hugged herself and left the room as quick as she could before blubbering in front of him, proving her guilt to Josh in further certain terms.

So Meyer knew.

Would Sophie know?

Her pace quickened as she neared the bedroom.

Would she be exiled from the family, have a niece that would ask later Whatever happened to Aunt Kimmy? she was so nice, and no one would answer poor Sophie, and that little girl would be left with the pervasive dread of some unnamed tragedy that would make no sense to an innocent child.

Would the name Kimmy be forever unspeakable?

* * *

Kimmy padded down the hall and the bedroom door closed with a quiet click. She would cry again and knowing that hurt his heart. Hurt because he didn’t want Kimmy to suffer, but couldn’t stop it from happening. He turned the TV off and sat in silence, looking at the blinds blocking the pale September sunlight.

Maybe they’d go see a movie. They could do that. Dinner sounded good.

Maybe he shouldn’t have told her about Meyer.

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Meyer to spy on her.

Who fucking knew anymore. Even Kimmy stopped her watery denials. There was no point pretending anymore. Kimmy had done something with Devlin.

But you told her not to deny it. You told her to act like nothing happened. How else is she supposed to act now?

Maybe he was the bad guy. Maybe this despondent display held some measure of drama, of theatrics. If he tried hard enough, maybe he could shake and shudder and find some shape of smile to spread his face.

It didn’t come.

Not the shakes, not the smile. Nothing.

His phone chimed somewhere behind him. He struggled to stand, never feeling so heavy in his life, and searched for his phone, finding it where he’d left it in the front hall when he’d come in late last night.

A text.

Not from Kimmy down the hall, not from Meyer to see how he was doing.

Another unknown phone number, the beginning words showing a lure to get him to swipe the message open.

The text snippet he could read: Do you recognize this beautiful thigh?

Already his heart hammered. Echoes of how this started: dreams of Devlin tormenting him in a tent, of dreaming Kimmy slept with Devlin at Tiffany’s party, of the taunting texts thereafter that seemed to know so much but said so little. Texts that told him he’d find Devlin’s business card in his own front hall.

The text opened, and he read it, aware of the photo below, but not scrolling high enough to make it out yet. Knowing it would be his worst nightmare. Anticipating it with heart-stopping mania.

Do you recognize this beautiful thigh? How would one get such an intimate picture as this?

Then the photo.

Cropped. Zoomed in and blown up. Almost wall to wall flesh in the color of Kimmy’s skin. He tightened his stomach, his breath wheezing with fire. It was the inside of a woman’s leg, from knee to near the crotch. The knee was closest to the lens, in focus, the pattern on the skin there as definable and unique as a fingerprint. Kimmy’s knee. His wife’s knee.

Text me back if you want to see more, Josh.