Coined-up wife (Patreon)

-----------

PREVIEW only. For the full story, I highly suggest you check out the Discord server included with your member benefits! 😊 If you don't have Discord access, please DM me for an invite link!

-----------

...“My boss wouldn’t stop staring at my ass all day. Ugh, I swear he calls me into his office just to be a pervert.

“Mmhmm.”

“Oh, and don’t get me started on that bitch from HR. She burst into my cubicle like she owns the place and…”

“Uh-huh,” you murmur back to your wife, Lara, while you poke around your teriyaki bowl. The mouthful you manage to scoop barely tastes like anything, and you can’t really tell if the restaurant’s cooking is ass or if your own grueling shift has dulled your palate past the capability for flavor. You are so busy with your tasteless food that you miss the moment her voice stops flowing into your ears and the extended silence after it.

“You clearly don’t give a shit about what I’m telling you. Do you, Kenneth?”

“Huh?” Your eyes snap to meet hers, narrowed and unmistakably pissed. She’s crossed her arms over the modest neckline of her black spaghetti-strap top, her chopsticks left forgotten in what you assume is supposed to be a plate of orange chicken. Oh, you fucked up. Scratch that; first name usually means you’ve royally fucked up. “No, Lara. I’m—” You don’t even try to finish your defense as she stands, smooths down her jeans, and stomps past the other booths on her way to the bathroom.

You slouch back, arms slack by your sides as you stare ahead at nothing in particular. “Fuck.”  Now you’ve done it. Four years you’ve been married to this woman. You should know better by now; Lara will not tolerate you ignoring her, especially if she’s venting her after-work frustration. Jeez, the whole reason you brought her to the restaurant in the first place was to have a relaxing dinner for once. How could you fuck this up?

“Trouble with the missus?” 

A stranger’s voice comes from the booth behind you, gruff, probably an older man, though you don’t really bother to confirm it. Why should you even care? He’s got no business snooping in, and yet you still find yourself answering back.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Maybe he’s got some advice; you could definitely use some, given how amazingly your date night is going.

“From the sound of it, one could guess you’re not all that happy with the current state of this relationship.”

“What?” Okay, that’s an opinion he has no right to voice. “I’m happy, thank you very much.” You find yourself leaning into the conversation. Why? You’ve got nothing to gain from this. Even so, engaging him feels miles better than internalizing your grievances as you wait for Lara.

“So you wouldn’t change anything, anything at all?”

“I—” A sudden lump catches in your throat. “Things have been… rough recently.”

“Oh? How so?”

Your fingers tap away at the table, debating what to say when you’ve clearly dug yourself into oversharing already. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Lara. But her recent promotion has certainly been doing wonders for her mood. It’s the small fights, for the most part. They happen so often nowadays that I—

“Wish you could fix it, change that about her? Change her?”

His phrasing raises one of your eyebrows. Still, you mutter back, “When you put it like that. Yeah, I guess.” 

“Nice answer,” he chuckles. A moment later, you catch the sharp clink of something landing by your tableside, doing a few spins before it clatters down on one side. A coin. Curious, you pick it up: it’s made of silver, about the size of a quarter, bare of any details besides some ornamental engravings in its outer rim and— “What the hell?” A face stares back at you. Plump cheeks, the same filled lips she got done a week or so ago, and the same shoulder-length cut she’s kept since you met her. It’s Lara. Even with the minimalistic style of the engraving, you can tell it’s unmistakably her, or at least meant to resemble her.

You lean aside to peek at the booth behind you, understandably upset. “Hey man, I don’t know how you made this, but it’s creepy as hell, and—” But there’s nothing there. Not a trace that anyone was there at all.

“What are you doing, Ken?”

Lara’s voice pulls you back to reality. You were so preoccupied with your mysterious neighbor that you kinda, maybe, forgot about her for a second there.

“Nothing, babe. Just waiting for you.”

“Don’t ‘babe’ me, mister. I just want to finish my food and leave. Now let me.” She sits, going back to fishing pieces off her plate. Looks like she touched up her makeup a bit, but that glare she’s giving you stays as firm as before she left.

“Y-yeah, okay,” you gulp, digging back into your own food. All too aware of the eyes burning holes through your head. “God, I wish I didn’t have to look at her pissed-off face.” The words slip by, and not a moment sooner, the coin in your palm grows uncomfortably warm. ‘What is up with this thing?’ You toss it aside onto the seat without a second thought, picking up your chopsticks once again, looking ahead at your angry… “Huh?”

“What are you looking at?” Lara sneers...

-----------

My take on an old story from a certain choose-your-own-adventure site. I was so short on time during the week that I ended up physically writing half of this during my hospital consultations. It's a pretty funny experience to pretend you're writing down a patient's info and to have, well, this in your notebook. Hope you enjoyed this and see you on the next one! : )

----------