Unfaithful (11 page)

Ryan stares at his illuminated watch for the hundredth time that evening. Reese lays beside him, the covers tousled and pulled back to their knees, hand on her chest, her breath rising and falling in waves. Both are silent, bodies moist, heated after frenzied sex, an afterglow painting them.

It is just past one in the morning.

Ryan feels the buzz that is in his testicles, circulating through his lower extremities like boiling water. Reese feels it, too, her own post-orgasmic tide—the ebb and flow soothing her.

Without opening her eyes or turning to face him, she senses him glancing at his watch again. In the near-darkness, Reese says softly, “Why don’t you go?”

A moment passes.

“I don’t want to.”

“But you should.” It is a statement, not a question.

Ryan doesn’t respond.

He has been thinking about Carly all night. Knows the party was tonight, knows he needed to show—if not for his company, certainly for his wife. Yet…he is here…with Reese.

Afterglow of lovemaking…

A stronger intoxicant than that of his wife’s…

Except…

He thinks of her.

Carly.

Ryan knows he needs to leave. Go home. Find sleep in his own bed.

Their bed.

He’s married.

His wife with child…

Jesus!

Reese can sense his discomfort in the way his body tenses. It is slight, almost imperceptible, but she is growing to know him, this man who brings her joy when the sun is down.

So she reaches across to his belly, slides her finger down until she is cupping him, feels him beginning to rise. She then turns toward his form, eyeing Ryan as he lays there, eyes closed and breathing unhurriedly.

Runs her palm against the length of his shaft. Feels him engorge. Moments later, he is rock hard, and she marvels at her power, this ability to make this stranger sprout in her hand. She smiles, feeling herself grow wet again.

“Who are you?”

The question comes from out of nowhere. Ryan has turned to face her, his hand cupped over hers.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Simple question. I don’t know you. I yearn to know more about the woman with whom I lay.”

“Okay.” Reese turns onto her back. Her hand remains on him, fingers clasping the shaft as if it were a railing on a darkened stairway.

“I’m just a regular woman. Not much beneath the surface.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Reese exhales slowly.

“I was born and raised in a small town in Ohio. Came East to go to school at Hampton—wanted to be closer to our people and get all cerebral—but after two years, I dropped out. Couldn’t find my groove, you know? So I hung out in Virginia Beach for a while, bartending at some of the Atlantic Avenue hot spots. That, too, got to be a drag, so I packed up my shit, and me and my hooptie headed here—to D.C. That was two years ago.”

“Family?”

“My mom still lives in Ohio. I go back every blue moon or so. Father’s been gone forever. One brother. Who the fuck knows what happened to him? Dead? Jail? AIDS? Don’t know. Don’t really care.”

“Wow. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. That’s life; shit happens. Everyone I know has a dysfunctional family. So, to me, it’s normal.”

“Okay.” Ryan pauses to consider her words. He runs a finger along the ridge of her navel, enjoying the feel of her soft, black skin. His hand descends, traveling over coarse pubic hair, experiencing her wetness.

“Gonna finish school?” he asks, fingering her flesh.

Reese’s eyes are closed. Her tongue emerges from her mouth; it touches her top lip, making it moist before disappearing.

“Perhaps. I’ve learned that education doesn’t make one smarter. And it sure as hell doesn’t make one happier. Look at you!”

Ryan plunges inside her using a finger. Reese moans.

“Touché!”

She grins, then cups his balls lightly in her palm as she rocks to his rhythm.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Finger slows. “Shoot.”

“What’s your fantasy?”

Ryan eyes her.

“Come again?”

“Simple question—what do you yearn for? Everyone has a fantasy or two. What’s yours?”

Ryan ponders a bit.

“I guess it’s being with a woman who will do whatever I ask of her. Satisfy me in whatever way I choose.”

“Hmmm.”

“What?”

“You want someone submissive.”

“Not submissive.”

“Then what?” she asks, squeezing the bulbous head of his cock between her fingers.

“I want a woman to whom I can just say—do this—satisfy me in this way. And she’ll do it willingly. No questions asked. You know, sometimes it’s not about foreplay, not about loving. It’s about satiating one’s desires, getting rid of the tension that threatens to bind you up. Sometimes, I just want to cum hard without explaining the details of how and when.”

“Understood.”

“Do you?” he asks.

“Yes. Most of us cannot ask our partners for what we truly want.”

“Why is that?”

“Because we’re afraid they’ll look at us like we’re crazy—that they won’t understand our private passions; and that will drive a wedge between us and them. So we keep our fantasies to ourselves.”

“True, true.”

Reese jerks him measurably; Ryan slowly works her with his fingers. For a moment, they are lost in the actions of each other.

“Tell me your fantasy, Reese,” Ryan finally utters.

Her hand settles on his fingers—guiding him over her clit. She traces tiny circles with his hand until he is driving on his own.

“Can you handle the truth?” she asks, closing her hand around him.

“Try me.”

“Okay.” She is eyeing him, her stare riveted to his. For a moment, they please each other without words—watching the movement of their breathing and their irises that seem to flare in the half-light.

Reese moans lightly.

“That’s it,” she whispers. “Right there is where it’s at…”

Ryan’s hand covers hers—gripping her fingers, commanding her to squeeze him tighter.

“My fantasy?”

Ryan waits.

She is silent a moment more.

“I want to be violated.”

Ryan takes her clit between his fingers and pulls. Reese’s breath for a moment is arrested.

“Don’t psychoanalyze the whys…no questions asked. Just take it, and make it yours.”

Ryan checks his watch.

It’s late.

He should be going. He should be focusing on mending his marriage.

But this woman won’t let go. She is tugging on his cock, and her words filling his other head with decadent thoughts that won’t go away.

His fingers descend into the cleft of her plump ass, fingering her there. Reese’s stare is locked with his. She quivers to his touch, holding her breath. She is a river; she is that wet. He fingers her gingerly, and she responds by moving against him, pushing him deeper. It is a new sensation, but one she has yearned for.

Ryan leans in, kissing her hard on the mouth. He devours her tongue. He pinches a nipple, willing her to cry out.

She does.

His finger is gliding in and out of her now, and Reese is relaxing to his touch. She wants more. She wants him inside of her. She moves onto her stomach and spreads her legs wide, raising herself off the mattress. In the half-light she is vulnerable and intensely sexy. Ryan can feel his cock pulsating as she glances back at him with uncontrolled fury. He is rock hard as he mounts her.

Ryan checks his watch again.

Glances down at her loveliness. Oils himself with her juices. And presses himself against her warmth.

Reese reaches behind her and guides him home.

Take me
, she demanded of him.

Make it yours
…

So Ryan does.

This time, he does not experience the rush of silence that normally envelops him. This time, when he steers into the quiet cul-de-sac, Ryan feels wary and drained, and the shadows that peer back from the redbrick colonial appear sinister.

It took Ryan less than twenty-five minutes to drive home. At Reese’s, he showered, to eliminate the fuck-smell that oozed from his pores, and to remove the bite of sleep that tugged at him constantly.
Just a few more minutes,
he tells himself.
Just a few moments before I’m in my own bed, alone.

He has shut off the recent events of his life. There were so many thoughts and images pawing at his consciousness that he was finding it hard to breathe. So he refused to deal with the totality of it all…opting instead for denial; it’s a wonderful thing at half-past 3:00
A
.
M
.

For a split second, he finds peace. His mind is on shut-down, the music in his black sapphire 760Li spreading throughout the luxurious interior the way blood spills from a fatal wound. It seeps into his pores that were scrubbed clean less than an hour ago. But not even soap and a fresh loofah can erase what he’s done—unfaithful too many times now to rationalize.

Ryan trys not to think about that now.

No.

The music serves as a temporary diversion. It is smooth; it is soft. It is nonjudgmental. It doesn’t probe. It doesn’t raise an eyebrow. It just
is
…along with the quiet ride that somehow disconnects him from the road, as if he’s riding above the ground, flying. There is no sound, just a quiet rush in his ears. Is that the music he hears, or does that rush come from deep within his heart, which is trying to speak loudly?

Ryan doesn’t know.

He pushes a button; the garage door rises; and the bile that has retreated like a frightened mouse beneath dusty floorboards rises again in his throat, threatening to choke him. The black Ranger Rover is there, slotted in the left space—which means only one thing…

Carly is home.

He contemplates withdrawing. But of course, it’s too late for that. She knows he’s arrived—Ryan’s certain of it. He drives forward and parks, killing the engine. Sits for a moment composing himself. Willing his nerves to calm down. The peace and serenity have left him as quickly as they came. Ryan exits the car, closes the door, lowers the garage door, and enters his house.

It is deathly quiet. Too quiet.

Lights off, but with slivers of moonlight squeezing between shutter slats and finding the floor, Ryan can make out their furniture. He removes his jacket, leaves it on the breakfast bar, and heads for the stairs, sucking in a breath. His foot taps the first step when he hears the words: “Don’t bother.”

Ryan freezes.

Carly is sitting in the oversize, overstuffed love seat that is sandwiched between two walls facing the windows. She is draped in darkness, but as he stares, her features begin to emerge like tree limbs through a blinding fog. Her feet are folded underneath her, and she is wrapped in a Gabi, a soft cotton blanket with colorful embroidered ends from Ethiopia, given to them as a wedding present five years ago.

He removes his foot and turns, going to her quietly.

There are a thousand things sprinting through his mind right now. There is so much to say. It’s been a week since they’ve laid eyes on one another, and yet, he can’t speak. He feels an outpouring of emotions. He wants to lean down and kiss her, envelop her with his arms, feel her warmth against a body that has grown cold. He knows what he’s done is very, very wrong. On some level, he wants it to all end—for his life to go back to the way it was. Back when it was just the two of them. Before Reese. Before Olivia.

Olivia…Jesus.

He’s tried not to think about her these past few days. Reese has been instrumental in that regard. When he was lost inside Reese, fucking this woman he barely knows, it was as if Olivia has receded like the tides; she disappeared for that moment, beneath the waves, and he liked that. Not thinking about her all the time. Not feeling consumed by thoughts, feelings of her and what could be.

But now, he stares at his wife. In near-darkness, she presents herself the way she always does: regal, unpretentious, beautiful like some long-ago Egyptian queen, his very own Nefertiti. He observes her features: the sharp nose, the curve to her cheekbones, thin, sculpted lips, dark eyes that stare at him unblinkingly, smooth, silky, short chestnut hair. She doesn’t need studs bisecting her flesh nor flashy tattoos to define her. No. Carly is simply a woman who inspires confidence with a glance…a nod…a sensual whisper his way.

“Come sit.” Her words are clear, carrying across the expanse of living room. There is no trace of scorn in her voice. Ryan takes a seat on the carpet in front of her. She continues. “It’s been a week.”

“Yes.”

“Expected a call from you.”

“You walked out on me, not the other way around.”

She pauses. “You missed your own company party—not very brilliant, if you ask me.”

“Yeah? Well, with everything that’s going on, I didn’t feel very social.”

Carly leans forward. “Okay, Ryan. Tell me about you and Olivia.”

The words hit him like a steel door slamming on his teeth. They reverberate in his ears. They sting his cheeks.

“Excuse me?”

“Ryan,” she says quietly, “you and Olivia have something between you. Tell me what it is. I’ve heard it from her. Now, I need to hear it from you.”

There it is.

Laid out in front of him.

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

He notices she is shivering. Body quivering. She works to control her rage. Anyone, including him, can see that.

“I—”

“Please, Ryan,” she says, interrupting him, “it’s late. I’m beyond exhaustion, not sleeping, not eating, living with this—not knowing if my husband desires me anymore—”

“Baby, of course—”

“Let me finish.”

“K.”

“I want honesty right now. I could become a straight-up ghetto bitch, tearing to shreds everything you and me built; I could be screaming at you right now based on what I know, but I’m not. So, please…I’m asking you…tell me the
truth
.”

Ryan feels like crying. He knows he has hurt her deeply, understands that his actions are cutting straight to bone. He reaches for his wife to console her, but she pulls away.

“Don’t. Simply tell me.”

“Okay,” he says softly. “What do you want to know?”

Carly sits forward, soft, thin hands on her lap, eyes burning into his.

“Tell me everything.”

It is so easy to lie to the one you love. We tell ourselves we’re doing it because we care. Because of the need to protect them from further harm. We rationalize our actions, convincing ourselves that letting them know the God’s honest truth would only drive a wedge deeper between us, or worse, place us on a collision course that could only end in a horrific, fiery crash without any survivors.

So we lie.

Small ones. Remove the details. Edit out the specifics.

We know, on some level, what we’re doing is wrong. But we’re trying to do the right thing. What’s best for them…we want the hurt to end. We don’t want the ones we love to suffer any further. So, we spare them. Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves…

“It started the night of party,” he begins.

Carly sighs.

“No, Ryan, it did
not
.”

He pauses.

“Please don’t tell me your defense consists of way too much food and alcohol. I’m much too smart for that.”

Ryan nods.

“Okay, Carly.” He sucks in a breath and exhales quickly. “I’ve been attracted to Olivia for some time now—”

“Do you love her?”

“What?” Ryan’s voice croaks. He utters a half-laugh. Carly’s lips are pressed together in a scowl.

“It’s a simple question.”

“No, Carly. I love you.”

She processes his words and nods for him to continue.

“At the party, things got out of hand. I had a lot to drink. We all did.”

“Yes, but I did not forget that I have a husband and fuck someone else’s man.”

“Is that what you think went down?”

“Why don’t you tell me.”

Another sigh.

“As I said, we allowed things to get out of hand. We”—face toward the ceiling, searching for the right words—“we…I guess
we
acted on our attraction.”

“You guess?”

“Alright. We did—we acted.”

“So what exactly happened?” she asks.

“Carly, why are you doing this? If you’ve spoken to Olivia, then you already know.” Sweat is pooling in his armpits, and he prays the beads that have formed on his forehead are not yet meandering down his face. Ryan resists the urge to wipe them away.

“Because I want to hear it from you. So just tell me.”

She is remarkably calm. Too much so, Ryan reasons. He knows how he’d react if the tables were turned. He quickly shuts these thoughts down, not wanting to even consider the possibility of Carly with another man.

“It was late. Everyone was asleep. I was thirsty, so I went upstairs to get something to drink. That’s when I saw her.”

“Olivia was waiting for you.”

“No. It was nothing planned. Whether she heard me up or just happened downstairs at the same time, I don’t know. But she appeared.”

“And?”

Ryan wipes his brow.

“We, uhhh…”

“You touched her.”

Carly’s voice is near a whisper.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Carly.”

“Where, husband?”

Ryan swallows hard.

“Her breasts.”

“And?”

He sighs harder.

“Please.” His voice is wavering.

“AND?” Louder. “Where else did you touch her?”

“Between her legs.”

Soft whisper.

“I didn’t catch that,” Carly says.

Ryan’s hands are fumbling with one another.

“Between her legs.”

Carly nods.

“You touched her pussy. Let’s call it what it is, Ry. I mean, when you and I are fucking, that’s what you call it—right? You’ve had no problem uttering that word before, so say it now.”

“Why are you doing this, Carly?”

Carly laughs. “You’re fucking pathetic! I’m not doing anything. You are. So say it, goddamn it!”

“Pussy.”

“No. Don’t just say, ‘Pussy.’ I want to hear you say, ‘I touched our best friend’s pussy.’’’

“I touched our best friend’s pussy. Happy?”

Long pause. “Ummm-hmmm. What else?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh?” Carly feigns surprise. “She didn’t tug on your dick? You didn’t fuck her that night?”

“NO! Did she tell you that?”

“So you didn’t fuck her?”

“No, Carly, I did NOT!”

Ryan stands, needing to distance himself from her. He’s used to being in control, but things have, in an instant, flipped. He finds himself vulnerable. Weak. It scares him beyond words.

Carly jumps up, the Gabi tossed onto the floor like table scraps fed to a hungry dog. Ryan heads toward the windows, but his wife intersects him, finger in his face, stopping him cold.

“Perhaps not, but you wanted to. You were
so
ready to fuck another man’s wife, my best friend…hell,
your
best friend, while I lay asleep on the floor below. Right?”

Ryan is silent.

“RIGHT?” Inches separate their faces. Carly does not move, standing her ground. Her hands are back at her sides. “Be a fucking man for once in your life and tell me the truth!”

“Yes,” he hisses.

“Alright.”

Carly moves to the window, peeking through the slats before turning around. “So, that was it?”

Pause.

“I’m waiting.”

“Yes, Carly. That was it.”

“Nothing else? No further physical contact of any kind since then?”

Here, Ryan spies the abyss opening up before him. He stands on the edge, glancing downward. He can come clean, right now—tell his wife the truth—cleanse his soul—and God help him, there’s a part of him that wishes to do just that. Cleanse himself of this awful secret he clutches close to the vest, this thing that threatens to destroy not only him, but his marriage and friendship, as well.

It would be so easy.
Just tell her,
he muses.
Tell her the truth. Get it over with. The pain will only last a second. Then comes peace.

“No, Carly…nothing else.”

Just like that, it’s done. And Ryan knows there’s no turning back.

Carly considers his words for a moment. She nods silently, returns to her seat, picking up the Gabi, wrapping it back around her shoulders.

“Where have you been tonight?” she asks suddenly.

“Out.”

“Obviously. I mean,
where
?”

“Nowhere. Out driving. Clearing my head.”

Carly is silent. She is watching him, and he can feel every pore contracting, screaming, it seems, against the lies that conspire against him.

“Driving…” she repeats.

“Yes.”

“Not
fucking
?” she asks, her head cocked to the side.

“No. Not
fucking
.”

“You sure?”

His stare drops, then returns to her a split second later.

“Yes.”

“Ummm-hmmm.”

Carly suddenly rises and brushes past him towards the stairs. Ryan’s eyes grow wide.

“Where are you going?”

She spins on her heels to face him.

“I will not spend one more second in your presence. I’m sickened by what I’ve learned. Sickened, humiliated, and crushed by your actions.” Carly shakes her head petulantly. “I never in a million years thought my own best friend would try to fuck my man. But what’s worse is the knowledge that you would let things go that far. You would have fucked her—while her husband and I slept a few feet away. I shudder to think you are capable of
that
. I shudder to think what else you are capable of doing.”

“Baby, I am so—”

“Ryan,” Carly says, holding up her hand, cutting off any further conversation, “I do not want your apology. I don’t want to hear how sorry you are. You can’t fathom how much you’ve hurt me, nor can you begin to make it up to me. So save your words, because they are meaningless to me now.”