Chapter 12 - LEO
Ican still feel the way he looked at me.
The way he whispered in my ear before I left.
Fucking psycho asshole. It follows me home like a second shadow, impossible to shake.
By the time we reach the apartment, my hands are trembling.
Not visibly, I hope, but enough that I have to curl them into fists inside my coat pockets.
We haven’t spoken since we left, and I didn’t want to because it would make what just happened become true.
Sarah unlocks the door too hard. It sticks like always. She swears under her breath, shoves it open with her shoulder. The apartment smells like old coffee and lemon cleaner. Normal. Small. Safe.
I drop my keys into the bowl by the door and just stand there, heart still beating too fast, Ethan’s voice echoing in my head.
I want Leo.
Not flirtation. Not drunken bravado, just a simple statement.
Sarah doesn’t even take her shoes off before she starts.
“A million dollars,” she says, turning on me, eyes bright and feverish. “Do you understand how much money that is?”
“I understand,” I say quietly.
My voice sounds wrong to my own ears, like I’m underwater.
She paces the length of the living room, stepping around the coffee table like it’s an obstacle in a race.
“That’s more than we could ever dream to make, Leo. We could pay everything off. Move. You could quit that stupid hotel job if you wanted.”
“That’s not the point.”
She stops and stares at me like I’ve spoken another language.
“I would do it, for us,” she says, and I laugh loudly at how shameless she is.
“Oh how big of you. I feel so loved. My wife loves me so much, she would be willing to sleep with the hot rich guy for us to get out of debt. Stop…your words move me,” I say, removing my shoes and walking over to the bedroom, removing my clothes that feel dirty on my body.
“Well he didn’t ask me, did he? He didn’t even look at me.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He acted like I wasn’t there,” she continues. “Like I was… background decoration.” Her offense is making me offended. It’s nice to know where I stand.
“Awww poor thing,” I say sarcastically, as I aggressively fight with the button on my shirt.
I think of the way Ethan’s eyes never left mine. Not once. Not when Sarah spoke. Not when she got angry. Not even when the air in the room changed.
He looked at Sarah like she was furniture. And he looked at me like I was a food source, his craving. It makes my stomach ache.
“Stop being insecure, Leo. We need to talk about this,” she says, her arms crossed while she watches me undress down to my underwear.
“He’s not right,” I say. “Didn’t you feel that? The way he talked?”
Sarah scoffs.
“He’s rich. They’re all weird.”
“No,” I whisper. “It was different, like some cyborg. I’m telling you, the more time I spend with him the more I’m convinced he’s crazy. Nobody is that lifeless.”
I get straight into bed and I close my eyes. I see him again, perfectly still, perfectly calm, like emotions were things other people carried for him. His voice wasn’t seductive. It was level and so matter of fact. Careful. Like he was choosing tools to use, and not words.
God, the way he looked at me. Goosebumps flare up my skin, so I pull the cover up over me to stop my body from responding.
It’s clear that Ethan sees me as an object and not a person. There was no admiration or heat about the idea of being with me. It was more like I was a rare antique placed behind glass that he wanted to play with.
“He looked at me like I was… food,” I say. Sarah rolls her eyes.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I?”
She steps closer, lowering her voice, persuasive now as she sits on the bed next to me.
“Leo, this could fix everything. You hate your job. You hate worrying about rent. You hate feeling stuck.”
She’s right and that’s the worst part.
“I don’t want to be bought,” I say.
“It’s one night.”
“How can you be so relaxed about this? Do you not care? Would it not bother you that I would have to sleep with another person? Touch them? That you are technically trying to pimp me out,” I rage, disgusted at how easily I’m being cast aside.
“Of course I care. But what about what I want, Leo? Do you really think I want to be stuck in this shithole apartment, barely making ends meet? No. But when you are offered something like this, you at least consider it. It’s about both of us.”
“No, you’re making it about you. I told you I didn’t want to move here and how expensive it would be. And now you want to turn me into a rent boy for a night so you can have your dream home? What about us?”
“You would be doing it for us, why can’t you get that! I would do it.”
“Oh, I’m sure you would. I’m beginning to notice the lengths you will go to for the money.”
“Thats not fair.”
“Fuck fair. Its not fair that I’m being expected to fuck a guy. A guy! I’m not even gay.”
“It’s…”
“If you say it’s just a night one more time, I swear I will walk out right now.”
I press my fingers into my temples. My skin still feels tight where Ethan’s gaze touched it.
“But we need to talk about it, Leo. It’s not gonna just go away,” she says softly, trying to manipulate.
“Didn’t you notice?” I say.
“Notice what?”
“He didn’t want sex, Sarah,” I say slowly. “He wants me. I’m sure he’s dangerous. This is some psychological bullshit. The guy wants to break me down. Can’t you see how unhinged he is?”
Sarah hesitates just for a second. But the lure of the high life takes over and I realize I’ve lost my wife. That I’m laying here on our bed, arguing with her, trying to defend myself and about to listen to my wife convince me to sell my body to another man for the night.
“So what?” she snaps. “People want things. That doesn’t make them monsters.”
I don’t answer because I can’t be bothered to tell her that she’s wrong. Ethan is a monster who hides it well. Sarah turns away, arms crossed.
“I’m your husband,” I say, thinking it would make any difference.
“I know,” she replies. “I just thought…” She doesn’t finish. The unfinished sentence fills in the rest. She thought it would be her and she wanted to be the one desired.
I sink into the pillow, suddenly exhausted down to my bones. I don’t know what it means to be wanted like that. To be claimed as a prize, and part of me feels sick.
But there is another part, a hidden secret part that’s quiet and traitorous as I remember how it felt to be the center of someone’s world for the length of a heartbeat. To be sitting at that table knowing I was the only thing he saw.
That scares me more than Ethan ever could.