Right? I asked my heart.
Right? I asked my restless body.
The dark didn’t answer. And my heart was beating so fast and loud, I couldn’t hear anything it was trying to say to me.
And my body…
It throbbed, not understanding why it hadn’t been thoroughly sexed today. Throbbed to the point that I didn’t think I would be able to fall asleep. Not without…
Sigh. I turned on the nightstand lamp and threw back the covers as I always did when I had trouble sleeping. But I refused to grab my back massager. That big boy was for when I deserved to get off. At the end of long days, filled with work and accomplishment.
I hadn’t done anything but wait all day. So I slipped my hand beneath the band of my panties and punished myself with my fingers.
What was wrong with me? Why did I imagine Victor on top of me? Not like he’s been at any of our past anniversaries. But like that night in Tokyo.
“Victor. Oh, God… Victor.” I groaned his name out loud, imagining his hot breath in my ear as he desperately drove into me on the floor of his apartment.
“Victor…Victor…”
I hadn’t come that time, but thinking of it, thinking of a time when he loved me….
“Victor! Victor! Oh God, Victor!” I came. I came so hard, calling out his name.
And only then was I able to turn off the light and fall asleep.
I woke up with a gasp when a set of hands seized my body without any warning, and I found a shadow looming above me.
The shadow smelled like cologne and alcohol. And it flipped me over on my stomach before I could even think to scream. But even if it had occurred to me to scream, I wouldn’t have. I knew who the shadow was immediately.
Victor.
My monster had shown up for our anniversary, after all.
14
VICTOR
This would be the anniversary when he didn’t go to her. Victor was sure of it.
On the seventh May 25th of their marriage, he put everything in place to maintain his willpower. He, Phantom, and Han decided to throw a party on that date to celebrate a record sales quarter for the high-end baijiu company they’d acquired five years ago. And they invited all of their friends and associates.
They closed down Kuang’s club in Chelsea for the night. Out of deference to Han, no pros were invited. But there were beautiful women on standby, willing to assuage Victor’s every whim and distract him from thoughts of the woman he refused to go to in Rhode Island.
The president of the baijiu brand they’d bought gifted Victor, Phantom, and Han with a 50-year-old bottle of their premium product. And Victor proceeded to get very, very drunk.
So drunk, the world began to spin. So drunk he felt on the verge of passing out when he went to take a piss around…he wasn’t sure what time it was. Late.
He’d probably have to leave the party soon and retreat to his hotel room to sleep all the sorghum liquor off. Even this May 25th detail hadn’t been left to chance. Victor had booked a room in New York, a city three hours away from Providence, just to make sure he wouldn’t go to her before the morning of May 26th.
He had been trying and failing not to go to her for seven years now. Seven years!
Victor thought he’d learned his lesson the second year. And, he’d put in place a promise that he was sure would inspire him to finally acquire some willpower when it came to Dawn.
He couldn’t take her art school away from her until he managed to go one anniversary without visiting her. It should have worked. But no, he’d caved on the third year.
He’d tried and failed not to show up on their anniversary for all four years of her undergrad, rendering the deal he’d made with himself mute (some pun intended).
Or so he’d thought.
His blood had frozen over in early May when he opened up her bank account to find an even larger deduction taken out from RhIDS than the one for her senior year. This time the money was going toward grad school.
The little minx had decided to get an MFA. It seemed to Victor both a challenge and a chance to redeem himself.
An opportunity he would not let slip through his hands this time.
Thus, he teetered into that bathroom, feeling like a winner, despite his inebriated state.
However, standing proved to be difficult, bordering on impossible. He could barely keep his eyes open after pulling himself out for his leak. He swayed dangerously, threatening to topple into sleep right there at the toilet.
He needed something to distract him. So he brought out his phone. He would check the feed just one more time, Victor told himself. Then he would go back out to the party, say goodbye to Han and Phantom, and retire to his hotel room.
Victor rarely made use of his voice. But he laughed out loud with triumphant glee when he saw her on the screen. She had already gone to bed, and her room was completely dark. Problem solved.
Until…
For many years afterward, he wondered what would’ve happened if she had continued to sleep.
If she hadn’t switched on the light, flipped onto her back, and thrown off those covers.
If her hand hadn’t slipped underneath the band of her panties.
If after a few languorous strokes, she hadn’t begun to moan, “Victor. Oh, God… Victor.”
Shock, not 50-year-old baijiu, flushed his body with heat. A few moments ago, he’d been on the verge of passing out. But now, he was completely awake. The formerly soft flesh in his hand became a steel beam as he stared at what was happening on the security camera.
He watched. He watched her on that bed in a place three hours away from where he was now. Her body writhed under her hand, and her face was helpless with need as she moaned his name.
Calling for him.
She was calling for him.
And that was all it took.
“Victor!” Han yelled out when he emerged from the bathroom. He was standing with Phantom and held up three stemmed shot glasses filled with the ultra-vintage baijiu they’d been drinking all night.
Victor took the shot from Han but didn’t pause his strides. He threw it back with one scalding gulp and tossed the glass against a black stone column. The resulting shatter seemed to echo what was happening inside of him.
“Victor! Victor! Where you going, cuz?” Phantom yelled after him.
Victor ignored Phantom and all the other people calling out to him as he walked out of the party. And as for his drunken state. Well…
He sobered up during the three-hour taxi ride to her prison.
The night guard came scrambling out of the parked Audi when Victor suddenly came through the gate on foot around 3 AM.
“Boss, you made it,” he called out. “I didn’t think you were going to come this year.”
Victor didn’t answer him, just walked into the house and straight up the stairs. He didn’t stop…
He didn’t stop until he reached her room. Where he flipped her over, fell on top of her, and then savagely buried himself inside of her.
She was already wet. Why was she wet? And why did she moan at his forceful entry, her legs widening and one arm reaching up to cup the back of his head as he began driving into her. Why could he feel her relief as he finally filled her up, the same as if it was his own?
No, his willpower hadn’t been a match for her this anniversary either, just like it hadn’t been for all the others. He rutted on top of her, mindless as an animal.