by RM Johnson
When Nate got home, it wasn’t quite eleven o’clock. He walked in the door to find his wife sitting up, reading a novel on the living room sofa.
He glanced up at her, still trying to imagine her under that table, then looked away. She would normally be in bed by now, and if not asleep, watching TV. But he knew she was sitting up, wanting to quiz him to see if he really had seen her tonight.
“How was your day?” Monica asked, looking up from the book.
“Like every day,” Nate said, walking toward the stairs. “But I feel sick. I must’ve gotten hold of some bad Chinese food.”
“Can I get you anything?” Monica called to Nate, but he was already halfway up the stairs and didn’t bother responding.
In his office, he pulled off his suit jacket and tie, pushed back in his chair, and turned his fluorescent lamp to low.
He thought about how things were now with his wife. How because of his plan, he barely spoke to her, never touched her anymore, and treated her as though he didn’t love her, had never really loved her.
What was worse was, she treated him the same way now, and it wasn’t any plan of hers that had her treating him this way.
Because of his behavior toward her, she no longer tried to entice him to have sex, never touched him when they were in the same room, never kissed him good night like she used to, and always slept with her back to him.
He had to believe that part of the reason she was responding to him like that now was that the affection she used to have for Nate might now be going to Lewis, and he didn’t like the thought of that.
No, Lewis hadn’t slept with his wife yet, but they were sharing a lot of time together, and Nate was sure that they had probably kissed. That man’s hands had probably been up Monica’s shirt, down her pants, if for no other reason than for Lewis to try to inch closer to the point where she would allow him to have her.
Nate saw those images flash across his brain, and he threw his hands to his eyes, as if to stop himself from seeing them.
He pressed the butts of his palms into his eye sockets, until he nearly felt pain, and no longer saw the images.
He could still end all of this right now, Nate thought, glancing at his desk phone. He could call Lewis, tell him everything was off, and still possibly salvage his marriage. It wasn’t too late.
But no, he told himself, lifting his briefcase from the floor and setting it down on the desk before him. He had good reason to start all of this, to have carried it as far as he had, and he just needed to continue on.
Nate popped open the case and pulled out the list of private investigators’ numbers Tori had compiled for him. He sat there, staring hard at it, and decided it was what he must do. In the morning, he would call, and finally start the ball rolling.
It was noon, lunchtime, and the morning had been so busy that Nate hadn’t had the opportunity to make his calls to the investigators, even though he had taken the list out and placed it in his top desk drawer, ready when he did get a moment.
A knock came at his door. It was opened, and Tori walked in, carrying a wide brown envelope in her arms. She closed the door behind her.
“Yes, Tori. What is it?” Nate said, not taking his attention away from his work.
“You don’t want this to go forward, do you?”
“What?” Nate looked up at Tori.
“You must not want this to happen, do you? I ask you if your wife was sleeping with this guy yet, and you say no. I give you the numbers to some PIs, and you don’t call them. Meanwhile, your wife is out there traipsing about town, having sex with this man you hired, and you’re sitting up here as though everything is just fine.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nate said, standing from his desk. “And I’m tired of—”
“Oh, I don’t,” Tori said, opening up the envelope she was holding, and tossing the contents onto Nate’s desk.
What was spread out in front of Nate was photos of his wife and Lewis. Photos of them walking hand and hand in the park, hugging just outside his door, laughing, walking out of a movie theater. Then there were the other photos, the ones Nate could not believe, no matter how hard he stared at them. Those were the pictures of Lewis fucking his wife.
“They like to screw on his deck,” Nate heard Tori saying, as he continued to stare angrily at the photos. “Seems by the big smile on her face that she really like that, hunh?”
Nate didn’t say anything. Couldn’t, he was feeling so much rage. He just reached out, further fanned the photos, so he could see all of them.
“Oh, and that one there, him all stretched out over that deck chair, your wife blowin’ him. Now, he seemed to like that. Did you know your wife gave head like that?” Tori said, as though all of this was a joke.
“How did you get these?” Nate said from behind clenched teeth, his head spinning, pounding with fury.
“Since you weren’t hiring a PI, I knew someone. I had him follow your wife and that guy, get the pictures. I got them back today. Now you have what you need to file for divorce.”
“You had my wife followed?” Nate said. And he knew that she had gone too far. “What if they had seen him?”
“But they didn’t.”
“But what if they had! What if she would’ve seen him, and picked up on what was happening, somehow got Lewis to tell her everything. Do you know what you put in jeopardy?”
“Nate, I only did it for us,” Tori said, her voice a little more timid.
“There are tens of millions of dollars at stake here, and you think you’re going to decide to take control of this because you don’t like the pace at which it’s moving. You’re going to fucking have my wife followed, tail her as though you have the right!” Nate said, yelling, grabbing the photos, waving them furiously about in his fist. “You throw them in my face, rub my nose in this shit as though it’s going to push me into activity.”
“Nate, I thought—”
“You thought! You thought!” Nate yelled, walking from around his desk. “Who told you to think? Who is paying you to think? You aren’t anything more than a damn secretary, and you do this!”
Nate turned his back on Tori.
“Get the fuck out of my office. You’re fired.”
“What!” Nate heard Tori practically scream. “You’re firing me!”
“You heard what I said.”
“I need this job,” Tori said, walking around Nate’s desk so she could face him. “How am I supposed to live?”
“I’ll make sure you receive a more than adequate severance package, and a personal recommendation that will get you on at any firm you want. I just don’t want to see you in my office ever again.”
“I could always sue you.”
“Yes, you could. And you might even win. But if you don’t, you’ll get nothing from me, and I guarantee, no one in Chicago will ever give you another job. Your choice.”
“Then what about us? Are we still getting married?”
Nate turned his body to fully face her. “No,” he said. “You won’t have to be worrying about that either.”
42
The next afternoon, when Lewis picked up his phone to call Monica, he knew how important it was that he convince her to see him. If he did not, there would be the chance that, like Mr. Kenny said, he could lose her. And if that happened, he would lose the job, the money that came with it, and any chances of getting his daughter.
He still hadn’t devised a way to get custody of her, but he knew it would be a hell of a lot harder if he didn’t have a job, or the money he was making right now.
When Monica picked up the phone, she didn’t sound as bad as he thought she would.
“So you’re okay?” Lewis asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Did you talk to your husband last night?”
“Yeah, and he didn’t see us.”
Lewis paused. “Will I see you tonight? I really need to see you tonight.”
“Yeah. I really thi
nk I need to see you, too.”
43
Nate stood in the elevator where he lived, as it carried him up to the sixty-fifth floor. Countless times after he had seen those photos, he had picked up his office phone with intentions of calling Monica, but there was nothing to say to her.
He had set her up to sleep with this other man, and she had done just that. He just wished he had time to prepare himself, so when he finally saw evidence, he wouldn’t have been so shocked.
That was why he explicitly told Lewis to tell him when he was planning to try to sleep with her. But he disobeyed him.
After all that Nate did for him, after all the money he was paying him, the boy couldn’t even follow simple instructions, and that infuriated Nate.
When the elevator doors opened, Nate stepped off and headed toward his door. It wasn’t even 8 P.M. yet, but he couldn’t stick around the office another moment. He wondered, upon walking in the door, seeing his wife, would he be able to cover the fact that he knew about her and Lewis? He wondered, would he be able to fight the urge to throw open his briefcase, pull the photos out, and push them in her face, force her to see the filth that she participated in?
But again, he had to tell himself, if it wasn’t for his efforts, she never would’ve done it.
Nate opened the door, stepped in, and called out for his wife.
“Monica.”
There was no answer.
He remembered when there was a time when he would call her, and only a moment later, he’d hear her feet padding across the floor upstairs, and then he’d see her smiling face in front of him, giving him a hug, telling him to sit and relax so she could make him a drink and start preparing dinner.
Now there was just silence.
He walked into the kitchen, took out a short glass from the cupboard, filled it with a little scotch, brought it up to his lips, then kicked it back. He set the glass down hard on the counter, and was thankful for the burn on his palate, the tiny jolt he felt in his brain. It helped him calm down, if only the slightest bit.
He wondered just what Monica was doing, wherever she was, and one of the images from the photos flashed across his mind again. Nate shut his eyes tight, quickly poured himself another drink, kicked it back. He looked over at the clock. A little after 8 P.M., it read. She was with him, Nate knew.
Nate poured himself one last drink, brought the glass to his lips, and thought that he still couldn’t believe his wife had been with that man; the photos had to be a lie.
He tilted the glass back, letting the alcohol spill into his mouth, and decided there was only one way to be certain. He would go over there and get the proof for himself.
When Nate circled around the front of the place he was renting for Lewis, he saw both the Cadillac Escalade and his wife’s Cooper parked out front.
Nate parked half a block up, and walked the distance back to the house. He stood out front on the walk, just before the stairs, staring up.
He thought about reaching into his pocket, calling Lewis from his cell phone, but decided not to.
He climbed the stairs, wondering if either his wife or Lewis was looking out one of the windows, seeing him approaching. He felt vulnerable for some reason.
Nate stood outside the door, wondering should he even continue with this. He knew what could be going on in there, so why did he have to see with his own eyes? He should just go home, deal with his wife when she came in.
Nate turned, thinking that might be best, when he heard a noise. He stopped there on the top stair, and listened. Again he heard it, and realized it wasn’t a noise, but a scream. A scream from a voice—his wife’s voice.
It was faint, muffled by distance, doors, and windows, but he knew his wife’s cry.
Nate spun around, quickly sank his master key to the place into the door, and as quietly as he could, pushed it open.
Immediately, he heard another cry. This time louder. It was coming from upstairs. Nate stepped in.
He walked across the hardwood floor, heading toward the stairs. He was about to mount the first when, again, he heard his wife. This time it wasn’t just a scream, but words.
“Fuck!” He heard her say. “Shit! Fuck me! Fuck me!”
Nate quickly reached out and grabbed the banister, needing to steady himself at the sound of hearing what was going on.
“You like this. You like this dick!” And that was Lewis, obviously, Nate thought. He looked up the stairs. His first thought was to grab something, a fireplace poker or something, run up to that room, and beat the man bloody to near death. But no, that wasn’t part of the plan.
He thought about turning, just leaving, but something inside him wouldn’t let him, was actually forcing Nate slowly up those stairs. He had to see this.
On the second floor, he pressed himself up against the hallway wall leading to the bedroom.
He heard them even clearer now, but not just the screams and the shouted words, but each moan, pant, and heavy breath.
It sounded as though his wife was getting beaten, sounded as though she was enduring heavy blows, but that couldn’t be the case, because as Nate inched closer to the partly closed door, he could hear her asking for more, begging, telling Lewis how much she loved what he was doing to her.
Just outside the door, Nate felt himself wanting to vomit, but he suppressed that, and the fingertips of his left hand slowly gave the door a push. It opened, giving him a view to the bedroom. But they weren’t in the bedroom, but on the deck, outside the bedroom patio doors, where Tori said they liked to screw.
He saw them there, and he wished he hadn’t, for what he witnessed was his wife’s body thrown over the deck’s banister like an old rug, Lewis behind her, grabbing a fistful of her hair, pounding himself into her, both their backs to Nate.
It wasn’t real, Nate told himself, as he walked out in plain sight, right through the middle of the bedroom, and stepped up to the glass of the patio doors.
It wasn’t real, he kept telling himself, as he placed a hand up against the glass, but he knew it was; his eyes, his ears, his heart told him that.
He stood there, witnessing this man he hired from the street, fucking his wife, pulling at her hair, grabbing at her body, her ass, her hips, manhandling her in a way that Nate would never do, and he realized all this was happening because he planned it that way.
Nate lowered his head, was just about to turn and walk away, when all of sudden, for what he believed no reason at all, Lewis looked over his shoulder and caught sight of Nate watching.
Lewis didn’t stop as Nate thought he would, didn’t cower, try to cover himself, or the fact that he was fucking Nate’s wife. But what he did was continue. Continue pulling at Monica’s hair, continue forcing himself into her, but harder, still looking over his shoulder at Nate, a sick smile on his face.
“You like that dick?” Lewis said.
“Yes!” Monica moaned.
“Say you love that shit!” Lewis yelled, yanking at her hair like she was some animal at his service.
“I fucking love it!”
“That’s right,” he said, smacking her ass, then winked at Nate.
It was all Nate could stomach. He had to leave.
44
After Monica and Lewis were finished making love, they lay out on one of the patio reclining chairs, looking up at the stars. Monica was quiet, and by the look on her face, he knew she was deep in thought.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
He knew she wasn’t telling him the truth. From the moment she walked into his house, even when he had called her earlier at the store, he knew that something was bothering her.
“Can I get you something?” Lewis offered.
“No. I’m all right.”
Things had changed just that quickly between them. She had always seemed carefree before, but after the incident in the restaurant, Lewis was telling himself, she was probably wondering if this was worth continuing. At that very mo
ment, she was probably comparing him to her husband. If he allowed her to do that for too long, Lewis knew the decision she would make.
Mr. Kenny had too much on him. With the history they’d had, the fact that she had loved him, and not to forget, she was still his wife, she would most definitely decide in his favor if Lewis didn’t give her a reason not to.
“I was thinking,” Lewis said, shifting some so he could look into Monica’s eyes. “I know we’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of weeks now, but I think this is good. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure,” Monica said, not seeming as committed as Lewis.
“Not that I’m wishing anything bad on you, but I’m just putting something out there. If things don’t work out with your husband, I think you and me should actually see how much we can make of this.”
Monica immediately looked away, which Lewis knew was a bad sign.
“I know you like me. I know you care for me, Monica.”
“Yes I do, Lewis. But—”
“And we have nothing but good times together.”
“That’s true, but—”
“And you wouldn’t have started seeing me if there wasn’t something wrong going on at home.”
“There were things wrong at home, but that didn’t give me the right to start seeing you.” Monica squirmed out from under Lewis and pulled herself up from the recliner. “I should’ve never agreed to this.”
“What do you mean?” Lewis said, quickly standing himself. They both stood naked on the outside deck.
“If my husband would’ve caught me yesterday,” Monica said, as if she was seeing the moment in her head, “if he would’ve seen me, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I felt so ashamed hiding under that table like that. Yeah, we were having some problems. He was ignoring me, but what should I have expected? There were serious things he was going through, things that I haven’t told you about. How else should I have expected him to act? But instead, I think of only myself, go out and sleep with another man. I shouldn’t be seeing you anymore, Lewis.”
