1
I WANT YOU SO BADLY.
My hands tremble as I scroll breathlessly through the messages on the phone that I was never supposed to see.
Naked. Thinking about you.
No. It’s not possible.
The room shifts sideways as the spectre of nausea wraps its fingers around me like a vine, constricting my throat and overwhelming my body until my already shaky legs turn to mush.
Please come over later.
I’ll be your slave.
As I scroll down to another text message, my knees buckle, clumsily hitting the floor of my husband’s closet as I stare in frantic disbelief at his phone. Or at least his second phone—one that just five minutes ago I didn’t know existed.
Flicking through message after pornographic message from someone Jack has named L, I realize that they go back months and months. My nerves jangle like beads in a rattle as I scour the messages for signs as to the identity of the person texting the man I love so much.
Spotting a message with an attachment, I steel myself as I prepare to see something I know could hurt me badly.
Please, God, no.
My heart races frantically as my fingertips brush the screen causing an image to unfurl as if in slow motion: a naked woman on a bed—a beautiful brunette, late twenties, slim waist, plump lips, ample breasts and generous curves. My stomach hits the floor on a sharp inhale and my mouth suddenly feels like I’ve swallowed a spoonful of sawdust.
I know her.
The come-hither expression on the woman’s face sears into me as the panic I feel turns to rage. And disbelief.
Lydia.
Lydia Bulgova.
No.
It can’t be.
Please.
Not her.
A woman I know. A woman I’ve worked with. A woman I’ve spent months in the same building as, for God’s sake! It can’t be. It just can’t.
I try to calm my breathing as I scroll shakily through more messages, each one sending a jolt of pain through me as if skewering me with a knife.
I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever u want.
I’ve been dreaming of you all morning.
My body is your property Jack.
I flick through a litany of texts—some graphic, others tender, even desperate-sounding from Lydia.
I’m sorry.
You’re right.
Please let me make it up to you.
You own me Jack.
Wondering why she sounds so uncharacteristically submissive, I turn to the Messages Sent folder of Jack’s old-fashioned flip phone to see what the hell he has been writing to her.
Not tonight.
Don’t look at me like that in public ever again.
You’ll do what I tell you to do.
You will show me how sorry you are. I expect you on your knees tomorrow.
You’re going to be naked and gagged when I arrive.
I’m going to leave without saying a word and you’re going to like it.
Your mouth is for one thing only. Don’t speak to me outside work unless I address you.
A shiver trickles down my spine and insidious black energy seeps into me like mold spores infesting a room. I know that Jack is—to say the least—assertive in bed, but I’ve never heard him sound so cold before. As I keep reading, one message leaves my heart stalling:
Don’t EVER say my wife’s name again.
I stare at his merciless words over and over again.
Don’t ever say my wife’s name again.
Fat tears trickle silently down my cheeks. Hearing Jack, the man that has always made me feel so safe, be protective of me while talking to his mistress is too much to bear.
As if observing some terrible car crash that I can’t wrench my eyes away from, I scroll through more pictures of Lydia—her surgically enhanced breasts, her shapely curves, her striking face, her pale, naked skin, the large mole on her shoulder. A few of the pictures were clearly taken while she was pleasuring someone with her mouth, her glassy eyes staring straight into the lens. One of the pictures is of a man’s back while he’s lying on a bed looking the other way. Jack’s head isn’t visible in the shot, but very few men have an indecently hard, muscular body like his, and I recognize every sculpted line of it.
As my trembling fingers explore further, I notice that some of the messages in his inbox come from a different number. There’s no name attached to it—just three letters:
AAA
“Who is that?” I mutter, my voice small.
AAA’s messages bear a distinctly assertive tone that contrasts with Lydia’s pitiful submission:
Pick me up at 8, usual place.
Maybe. It depends what you’re willing to do for me.
You don’t give the orders, Jack.
Your tongue can do the talking.
Do not let me down this time, Wilder.
QN tonight?
I swallow past a rock in my throat.
QN? What is that?
The message has an attachment and I pause, breathing deeply as I prepare to open it. My stomach lurches once more as the image of another naked woman assaults me. Her head is just out of shot, but the slim female body lying on a bed with a man’s hand grasping her inner thigh is in clear focus. The hand looks strong and is connected to a densely muscular arm—Jack’s arm without a doubt. As my gaze wanders to a wisp of golden hair caressing the woman’s heavily tanned shoulder, I frantically scan the photo for more clues as to her identity. The woman’s body is lithe and athletic, her breasts small and pert. I don’t recognize the four-poster bed nor the hint of beige carpeting and there are no tattoos or other distinguishing features other than a delicate gold chain just about visible around the woman’s neck.
As I reread the graphic promises that my husband and his lovers have been exchanging over the last few months, the raw brutality of his betrayal overwhelms my body, keeping my bent, listless legs pinned to the floor. I bring a quivering hand up to my chest and wonder for a second if my heart could pull apart at the seams as it sinks in that life as I knew it is over, and that the man I love—a man who minutes earlier I believed was the love of my life—is now a stranger.
Suddenly there are spots, like lights flickering on and off, as a violent wave of nausea consumes me, propelling me to my feet and into the en-suite bathroom a few feet away. Thrusting my head over the toilet just in time, I heave, vomiting over and over until there’s nothing left in my stomach and my throbbing eyes are strained and watering. Flushing the toilet, I lie down and cry quietly on the cool tiles of the bathroom until the muscles of my belly ache and spasm and I can’t cry anymore.
Long minutes pass in a haze of messy tears as I lie against the marble tile of the bathroom Jack and I designed together. My weary eyes stare vacantly, but somehow manage to zoom in on every tiny detail around me: the plush turquoise bath mat in front of me, the beige and grey swirls in the tiles on the wall, the tiny imperfection in the otherwise perfect calking around the bathtub.
This must be a nightmare.
My fingers interlock as I pray quietly, pleading, waiting for someone to jump out from behind me and tell me this is all just a bad dream or some late April Fool’s joke that went too far. But deep down, I know. I know that it’s true. No matter how much I wish it weren’t, I know. As I contemplate the fact that my marriage is over, the air around me turns to frigid ice as the safe, smug little world I inhabited so contentedly suddenly feels alien and broken.