20. Oz
20
OZ
W atching my wife puke her guts up all over the sidewalk shouldn’t be a proud moment, but oddly it is. Dragging her hair out of her face, I rub her back while she throws up again, and I try to swallow down some of the pride that is urging me to lift her into the air and spin her around.
Despite her current condition, I’m hard as a rock because my usually timid, soft-spoken wife just scolded my asshole of a father and her doormat of a mother in the most poetically brutal way. I wish I’d had a camera, because the look on both of our parents’ faces when she lost her shit and started yelling at them was fucking priceless.
In the month since she stepped off a bus and back into my life, I’ve watched her find the confidence to occasionally stand up to me when my overbearing need for control gets to be too much. But even then, she’s never raised her voice or ever been particularly forceful.
I don’t want or need her to push back against the rules I’ve enforced on her life. I love her naturally submissive personality, but I only really need that obedience to extend to me. If she wants to sass and yell at every single other human on the planet, then I’ll stand at her side and back her up. So watching her dress down her family was quite possibly the biggest turn-on ever.
Even barfing on the sidewalk, she’s still fucking sexy, and if she’d let me, I’d drag her to the nearest dark corner and fuck her till she was screaming my name. But obviously, I can’t. Right now, I need to get her away from this very public situation and take her somewhere private so I can make sure the adrenaline crash I think she’s experiencing isn’t going to turn into full-blown shock.
When it seems like she’s stopped vomiting, I gently stand her up, then lift her into my arms and carry her down the street until I reach Tori’s shop. Pushing open the door with my shoulder, I march straight for the kitchen, stepping behind the counter without even glancing at the guy who is serving.
“Tori, I need to use the apartment!” I shout as I enter the kitchen.
“Oh my god, is she okay?” Tori rushes to ask.
“She will be. You good with me heading up?” I ask, pausing before I start to mount the stairs.
“Of course, Nero’s up there, but just send him down if you need privacy.”
“Thanks,” I call, already halfway up the stairs.
“Yo, bro,” I shout as I step into the apartment.
“Oz?” Nero calls, stepping out of the small room Tori uses as an office.
“Hey, sorry to barge in. Tori said it was cool if we used the apartment for a bit. There was a scene on the street with our parents, and Etta got sick,” I say, striding toward the bathroom without waiting for him to agree.
The moment I picked her up, Etta buried her face into my neck, and she’s been softly inhaling the scent of my skin while she clings to me, her arms wound tightly around my neck ever since. Even though I’m worried about why she got sick, I have never felt more vital to anyone than I do now, while my wife breathes me in like I’m the only thing she needs in the world.
“I’ll be downstairs, give me a call if you need anything,” Nero shouts as I close the bathroom door, shutting us in.
Peeling her arms from around my neck, I slowly place her down on the small countertop, spreading her legs and positioning myself between them. “Etta, look at me.”
Slowly lifting her chin, she looks up at me through wide, shell-shocked eyes.
Pinching her chin between my finger and thumb, I inhale sharply. “I am so fucking proud of you,” I growl.
“Why?” she croaks weakly, all of the fire and sass gone for now.
“Because you were fucking amazing back there.”
“I made a scene in the middle of the street outside the grocery store. The whole town will be talking about us in an hour.”
Chuckling softly, I shake my head. “No one will give a crap, plus who cares if they do?”
“I can’t believe I did that, but everything he was saying just made me so mad. I wanted to speak, but as usual, my voice wouldn’t work, and then I got madder and madder and I was just yelling.”
Her eyes look vacant as she recounts everything that happened. Smiling, I rub my thumb over her cheek. “I love you so much.”
“What?” She blinks. “Why?”
“Because I know how hard that was for you. I know that standing up for yourself after everything I put you through as a kid must have been so fucking tough, but you did. You stood up for yourself, and you defended me and us. You were so fucking brave, and I’ve never been more proud to call you my wife.”
“I threw up,” she says, looking down at her hands like she’s expecting them to be covered in vomit. “My mouth tastes like puke.”
“Let me see if Tori has any spare toothbrushes in here,” I say, reaching down to open the cabinet beneath the sink. There’s a toothbrush still in the packaging next to a pile of unopened toiletries stacked neatly in a tub, and I grab it, open it and coat it in toothpaste from a new full tube.
Instead of offering her the brush, I hold it up, arching an eyebrow at her as I silently order her to let me take care of her. The look of endless trust that stares back at me in her eyes is fucking perfect, and when she opens her mouth and lets me brush her teeth, I know there could never ever have been another woman for me.
I hated Etta for eighteen years. From the moment I first met her, she was my enemy, my victim, my walking, talking target, and the prey to my predator. I hated her because I was a messed-up kid who aimed all of my anger at the easiest target.
Back then, I had no idea how what I did would impact her. I didn’t care. But then she got on a bus that brought her back to me.
Our path was set the moment I saw her again. I thought I understood hate until I experienced love. Now I see that she was always destined to be mine, I just didn’t know it back then.
It’ll take me a lifetime to replace all the hurt I caused with love, but eventually I will. With every day that I shower her with rules, orders, and unadulterated pleasure, I erase one of the moments of pain I inflicted on her. Maybe when she only ever feels happiness, contentment, and joy, I’ll stop trying to make things up to her, but I doubt it.
Loving her is my penance and my greatest achievement. She’s mine, for better or worse, till death do us part, and even then, I’ll find her in the afterlife and spend the rest of forever showing her just how much I love her.
I wasn’t looking for a happily ever after, but I’ll never stop being grateful that it found me.