DITW 13-9: Ambrosial Fragrance (Patreon)

Josh sneered at her. “You think it’s that easy to control me? You have no respect for me at all.”

“Tell me why your dick is so hard then, Josh?” She palmed his cock, wanting him to surrender, needing his resolve broken, needing his passion ignited into a lustful inferno.

“You must be so happy my dick gets hard when you’re so fucking evil. Because you are evil.”

She retreated. Let his dick go, lay back on the bed, and closed her eyes. Josh stayed over her. “I don’t want to control you.”

“You want me to give in, to fuck you, to forget it all and abandon everything you’ve done to me.”

She nodded. “I’m so terrible. What a bad person I am.”

With her eyes closed, it was hard to read Josh, but he said nothing. She listened to him breathe.

“I’m so terrible I’d do anything for you. I’m so terrible I’d do anything to have you back. I’m so fucking terrible, all I want is for us to be together at the end of all of this.”

“And you get everything. You get your affair, you get my absolution... What else do you want? I guess you still want to work for Devlin, too? Want me to believe nothing will ever happen again?”

Now she opened her eyes, tilted down her chin so she could see him. She could spin new tales, give him a sales pitch that would sway him. He wouldn’t believe her—or at least, certainly not trust her. And there was so much more bad he would see in her.

“You offered absolution. I would do anything to have it. I showed you. That was a show, Josh. That was a show I put on for you. I know you won’t believe me, but I hoped you would like it. I sure didn’t.”

“You squirted.”

She clucked her tongue, closed her eyes and let her head drop. “Don’t be gross.”

More silence. Then Josh said, “He taught you or something, didn’t he? It wasn’t me. You made me think it was me.”

“I wanted it to be you.”

“I don’t ever want to see you squirt again. That’s yours, that’s his.”

She scooted back and sat up. “Josh, I don’t want to talk about squirting or sick things. Please. Okay? Please, tell me what I can do to make it better. To apologize, to convince you that I hated my time with him.” She rolled her eyes, knowing Josh would only think of the pleasure she’d shown today, the ways her body reacted to Devlin’s skills. “You’re my husband. I betrayed you, I know. I know it. When I found out some of this turned you on, I used it. I used it to soothe the bad things I did.”

“You used it to keep doing the bad things you did.” Josh’s stare was serious.

They looked into each other’s eyes for a long while and Josh didn’t bend, didn’t look away. He was wide awake now. She looked down first. She said, “Do you think I love you? Or do you think that’s a lie, too?”

Josh sighed, pulled away, but didn’t leave. He sat on the bed beside her, his back facing her.

“I do love you, Josh. How can I prove it?”

He didn’t answer, only put his head in his hands. It was a time machine shunt to the awful mire of her trip to Rome. The first time she’d ever thought he might leave her because of something she’d done. Something she knew was wrong, something she couldn’t stop herself from doing. She looked at his handsome cheek, his cute ear, the way his new haircut swept around his ear shape. His hands looked good, his neck. He looked nothing like the man she’d married. They’d been kids at their wedding. They didn’t think they were kids, but they were. Anyone who could see them now would see the difference.

She said to his buried face, “It was only for the money. Is that what you want to hear?”

He huffed a defeated breath. “Not the first time,” he said, looking up and out their bedroom window, his expression sad and lost. Then he regarded her. “When was the first time? What did you do at Tiffany’s?”

She looked down. “We didn’t have sex.”

“Are you lying?”

She shook her head no. “Almost. But no.”

He asked her again. “Kimmy, are you lying? Look at me.”

She looked up, restraining irritation at his disbelief. “I did not have sex with him at Tiffany’s. I almost did.”

His eyes narrowed with scrutiny. “Then what did you do?”

“I told you. We fought. I wanted to claw his eyes out. I really don’t like him. And then we... I don’t know, we, like, ended up messing around.”

Josh made a disgusted sound and looked away. “And he didn’t get his dick in you?”

Saying no would be so easy. She said, “A little. But not all the way.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Josh hissed, got up and walked to the window.

She said, “We tried, but I didn’t want that to happen. I guess... I guess my body did, but...”

“You know he came into my tent to tell me he did that? Did it right away. I was still drunk. He put his dick in my hand.”

Her mouth slimmed. She’d been so dumb to think she had control over Devlin. Though she had it at one time, he was a deceptive animal who loved trouble.

“He asked me if I could smell your pussy on it.”

Her stomach turned over, knowing how cruel that was, how awful. The torment it would provoke.

“I told myself I’d dreamt it. Kimmy wouldn’t mess around with Devlin. I must have dreamt it. But no, my wife did mess around with him. Messed around with a guy who only fucked her because she was married to me.”

As far as insults went, that one was light and only a fraction of what she deserved. She let it go.

She said, “They got us.”

“What do you mean?”

She said, “It was both of them. Devlin and Amy.”

Josh shrugged, eyes still cast out over the autumn tree line beyond their apartment. “Maybe.”

“You said it was Amy who texted you.”

“I don’t know it was.”

“I believe it. You’re not the only one who was bullied.”

He regarded her over his shoulder, eyes pinched with disdain. “When? This summer?”

“In high school, Josh.”

“Amy bullied you?”

She didn’t like the tone of his voice, the arrogant questioning, as if she was making this up. Now it was her standing up, moving past him, going to the closet. Josh followed her, standing in the doorway while she took off her jacket and unbuttoned her shirt. Since Josh said nothing, she spoke. “You’re not the only one with trauma, Josh. I wish it were only you, and maybe the rest of the world could make it better, but all of us suffer in our own ways.”

“Even Devlin? You and him talk in bed when you’re done fucking?”

Head cocking side to side as she pulled out her earrings, she said, “That’s your big fear? That after we had sex we made fun of you? It’s so specific.”

“That’s what bullies do.”

“So you’re just taunting me?” She turned, topless, only wearing pants and regarded him. His eyes darted over her bared skin, but his face remained grim. She said, “Amy was cruel. Amy taunted me. Made fun of me. Did it in ways I explained away, but then in later years I remembered it all differently. Realized some of those things she said were at my expense. That, yeah, behind my back, she might have made fun of me with the other girls. I was the unwitting butt of some of her jokes.”

“You’re saying it like that’s just life and I need to get over it.”

“Get over it or don’t, Josh. You looked a lot better throwing a chair at Devlin than laying in bed and asking me to fantasize with you that I’m in love with his cock.”

Josh pinched the bridge of his nose like he was disgusted with her, done with her cruelty. “You don’t think I’m a man.”

“No, I think you’re a man,” she said. “I think I like it better when you stand up for yourself. I know I liked it when you came in the suite today and said do it with him like you wanted me to. If you’d have been honest with yourself, maybe we could have all avoided what happened today.”

“Then when the fuck would I have thrown a chair at Devlin? Don’t try to manipulate me.”

She rested an arm on the top of their closet dresser and leaned closer. “In your dream, the one in the tent, at Tiffany’s...? Devlin put his cock in your hand...”

Josh grumbled, flinching from the insinuation. That he’d let it happen, that he hadn’t ripped his giant dick off. That maybe his wife even thought her husband enjoyed holding his bully’s cock. His eyes flashed, and he said, “There weren’t any chairs to throw at him in the tent.”

“And you were drunk,” she said. “And Amy whispered instructions in your ear. Oh, and Devlin’s always had it in for you, and that’s been in your head since high school. You’re just a Manchurian Candidate. None of this is because of you.”

Josh flinched and looked away and for the very first time, she thought she might have got through to him.

She said, “Amy thinks it’s funny to fuck with me. Devlin thinks it’s funny to fuck with you. Amy probably did whisper something in your ear. But you’re not hypnotized. You’re not dosed with LSD or something. It turned you on. I don’t hate that it turned you on, Josh. I hate that you pretend it didn’t. I hate how you think I’m the only person responsible for it getting this far.”

Josh stared at her; he tried to menace her, then his eyes would cloud with doubt. He looked away; he tried it all over again. His defenses had crumbled. His outer wall had been breached. The first dawning light shine through to his bailey, lighting her advancing army from behind.

She undid her waistband clasp and brushed past him. “If you’ll excuse me, someone offered me a way out this afternoon, a way to bring us back together, and now I have to wash a disgusting man off my skin.”

In the bathroom, she ran the faucet and waited. Josh didn’t show. But she was committed to the shower now. She unzipped her pants.

Josh appeared in the doorway. She let her pants drop and stepped out of them. Naked now, no underwear. Josh watched her, expression morose, cheeks hollowed, brow low and heavy.

“I would do anything for you, Josh. I know you don’t believe me. If you think about it, you’ll see.”

He breathed, watched, breathed. He said, “You betrayed me.”

She bowed her head, apologetic. She’d already apologized. She stepped into the tub and left the sliding door open. The water was scalding hot; it burned her skin. Her face went under and she ran it over her hair, letting the tangles go heavy and drape on her shoulders. In the space of the opened door, she saw Josh’s shirt drop beside the bath mat, followed by the movements of his shadow that told her he was getting undressed.