That was quite the non-sequitur, but Ed rolled with it. “Oh, yeah. That.” He smiled. It had taken a month of running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but seeing her teary eyes at the vision of the custom portrait recreating the photo of them taking their vows was worth every minute spent haranguing the hapless artist incessantly. The things that Michelle had done to him that night were… memorable, and she still claimed that she owed him. “I guess I just like doing that kind of thing.” He chortled. “Believe me, she’s worth it.”
Katja’s face was stone as she rose to her feet. “Forgive me, Edward, but I must… to the restroom…”
Ed nodded. “Of course.” At the woman’s hasty exit, he was left fully alone then, and he didn’t like it. Weird ass birthday, I gotta say. It took all of two minutes before he decided that he could make better use of the time and rip the band-aid off. Time to meet mysterious Dominik Novak. All right, future best bud, here I come.
Laughing to himself, Ed made his way through the door the two women had used. He crossed the folksy dining room and approached the closed kitchen door, having to admit that he was digging the smells coming from beyond. Whatever recipe she’d found, Michelle was living up to her reputation as being a meticulous researcher, and he knew he was going to love what was on the other side. That little idea lasted right up until he had his palm on the swinging door and heard the long, guttural moan issue from inside.
He knew that moan. He’d been the genesis of that moan more times than he could count, and the fact that he wasn’t now made him feel like he’d jumped naked into the Arctic Ocean.
Unconsciously, Ed held his breath as he slowly, silently cracked the door open to see what was waiting for him, telling himself that he was wrong. That it just couldn’t be what he thought. Inside, to a backdrop of steaming cookware and scattered foodstuff, Dominik Novak, his masculine attractiveness a succinct counterpoint to Katja’s pure femininity, was focused on his task, a look of confident determination painting his handsome, Slavic features.
The task in question moaned again.
“No… not yet…” Michelle had her back up against the shining stainless-steel of the huge refrigerator, actively being pressed there by Dominik’s tall frame. The long curve of her breast under that scandalous sweater was obscured by the man’s hand, with the fabric taking the shape of the fingers also beneath it that were massaging the flesh he’d been given access to so freely. “It’s… oh Jesus… it’s not…”
Whatever denial she was trying to make, she wasn’t trying all that hard, and Dominik thoroughly ignored it in any case. His lips were on Michelle’s neck, trailing kisses across her sensitive skin in a way that she loved, and his free hand was hooked under her one of her thighs, pulling it so that her stocking-clad leg curled around his waist while driving her skirt up above her mouth-watering ass. She ground herself down into him with a groan when he pressed his pelvis forward hard. “Dom… oh fuck…” She bit her lip and looked at him. “Okay, maybe just… just a little…”
Like he was watching a horror movie, Ed saw his wife reach down and unzip Dominik’s fly, fishing out his cock in a smoothly-practiced move, and, without preamble, position it while pushing her panties to the side, ready to go. The man took it from there and slid himself in, eliciting a long, satisfied inrush of breath from her as she lowered herself down to meet him, pressing her face to his neck, her black hair contrasting starkly with his blonde, nearly-white mop.
They undulated together for a couple seconds, rutting away with a fevered need, but it was when Michelle looked into her lover’s face, lush lips parted for a kiss, that Ed finally threw off his horrified, disbelieving catatonia and kicked the door all the way open with a reverberating crash.
“What. The. Fuck.” The even snarl, the measured, deceptively calm words, belied the utter turmoil that was wracking Ed’s entire being. Before him, like a bad comedy, Michelle gasped and pushed Dominik away, and he saw the other man’s cock slide out of his wife, wet from her juices. It made him want to puke.
Michelle, eyes completely round behind those fashionable glasses, began walking towards her husband, hand outstretched pleadingly, seemingly unaware that her sweater was still stuck on the bra that had been pushed up over one of her bobbing tits. “Ed, oh my god, I’m so sorry. This… this wasn’t the plan…”
“There was a fucking plan?” Ed’s ragged laugh had more than a little mania to it. “What was it, for me to drop dead and you to cash in on the life insurance?”
In a moment of complete insanity, instead of answering, Michelle decided to shoot her gaze over Ed’s shoulder at the dining room beyond, a look of abject despair on her face. “God… where’s Kat?”
“Where’s Kat? Where’s Kat??” Ed backed away from her as she continued to approach, unable to be anywhere near her. “Who the fuck cares?”
“She… we were supposed to be…” Michelle looked lost. Confused. It was maddening.
“Since I don’t want to go to prison, I’m leaving.” It took every ounce of control to say that. Ed prided himself on being a patient, thoughtful man. He was a fucking surgeon, after all; every moment of nearly every day had to be planned and executed with precision. He knew, with everything in him, that he wanted to snap Dominik Novak’s neck, after breaking every bone in his body, but also knew that the man wasn’t worth spending years behind bars.
No… the real issue was the creature closing in, the mocking titty still wiggling in his face while she looked at him like she could actually make things right. The real issue was that he was still in this… place. This hell.
Not anymore, fuckers. Ed turned on his heel and made his exit, maneuvering through doors and around furniture as quickly as he could. He was about five feet from completing his escape when Katja reappeared, emerging from a hallway and staring at him with a look of deep, deep regret. Neither said a word though, and Ed burst from the home like a man freed from a torture chamber.
He took one look at his own house then, poking up over the fence dividing the two properties, the place he and his wife had made into their oasis from a world that demanded so much of them, and shook his head once. He fished in his pocket for his keys, made straight for his car in his driveway, cutting across the Novaks’ immaculate lawn, and jumped in.
A second before he slammed the door shut, he heard a plaintive wail screeching out from the house he’d fled, Michelle’s unmistakable voice pleading for him to come back. His answer was to slam on the gas and peel out of there, undoubtedly disturbing his neighbors. That was okay. After all, at least some of his neighbors had already disturbed him plenty. As Michelle would say; even Steven.
__________
Any other man in Ed’s situation would have expected his phone to blow up with texts and voicemails. Pleas of regret and a string of apologies. He knew that none of that would be happening to him. As he sat in the rented room of the first motel he’d come across, he had a clear picture of Michelle, in that very moment, making a plan. Formulating exactly what she’d say and how she’d say it. Writing out a list of her points, a list of what she’d assume were his points, and how she’d make the two meet in the middle. It was what she did.
That was why, when his phone rang, he just stared at it in surprise. When he saw that it was an unknown number, well, he couldn’t resist. Curiosity may kill the cat, but satisfaction brings it back, he told himself.
Wrong cat, it turned out.
“Edward?” The smoky voice on the other end was spider silk, ready to crumble at a breath. “I am so sorry.” He could hear Katja choke down a sob. “This is my fault. Could you–”
Ed hung up.
__________
He didn’t go back home for three days. Call it petty, call it obstinate, call it necessary to regain a bit of his agency… but he vowed not to budge until his wife did first, and he stuck to it. Three days, that’s what it took for her to grow concerned enough that she finally reached out. First by text; assuring him that she knew she was the one in the wrong, and that she could make it right once they were face-to-face. When he didn’t answer, she called. He didn’t answer then either, but he told himself that he could work with it. It was a gesture. Forgiveness was the furthest thing from his mind, but the act was enough for his ego to allow him to face her. To step back in to that phantasmagoria and see what his life was going to look like going forward. One way or another, he had to get on with it.
He just wished he could stop torturing himself with memories of how happy they had been before the woman he loved got her personality flipped by a Martian “fuck you” death ray. His jaw quivered as he pulled into his driveway, and he sat there, staring long and hard at his fancy blue front door. Shit. Today’s definitely going to be one for the books.
Michelle was waiting for him on their sofa, dressed in a thick bathrobe, a small, hopeful smile and a look of infinite gratitude on her face as she watched him stare her down. He didn’t know if she’d accurately guessed when he’d come home, or had rushed to meet him when she heard his car pull in, but she looked ready. Nervous, to be sure, but prepared. She got to her feet when he didn’t take any further steps in and held out her arms. “Sweetest, I am so glad to see you.” When Ed did nothing, she nodded like she expected it, and even gave him a cheeky, playful grin. “Believe it or not… it’s not what you think.”