Chapter Six
Zeke
It’s been a long day, and this house is the last fucking place I want to be. I don’t feel like fighting with Meghan, and I know she wants to talk. Maybe if I just work on the case, she will leave me alone.
When I walk inside, Meghan comes around the corner and smiles. Great, she’s going to pretend to be this perfect little wife. Maybe I’ll get some peace and quiet. Really, she’s just desperate not to lose me because then she will actually have to get a job or find someone else to support her.
“Hey. How was work?” she asks.
“Long,” I admit.
“Wanna talk about it? I made dinner,” she offers.
“It’s just a case, so I can’t,” I say honestly.
“How was Mariska’s first day?” she asks cautiously, as she follows me down the hall to our room.
“Please, don’t start,” I sigh.
“I’m actually curious, Zeke.”
“She did amazing,” I say honestly. “This is truly a calling for her.”
“That’s good,” Meghan says, but I know there’s more. I turn and look at her. “What?”
“Say it. Whatever it is, just say it,” I tell her.
“Are you going to have to do like… Stakeouts and shit? Like…”
“She’s my partner, Meghan. Yes,” I say.
“Do you want her?” she asks.
“Do you want me to answer honestly?” I ask.
“No, lie to me,” she says with a heavy sigh. “Yes, I want to know.”
“I’d leave you for her if she said something,” I say. “I do want her, but right now, we are friends.”
“Will you tell me if that changes?” she asks, holding back tears.
“I will,” I say.
“I wish you didn’t hate me.” Tears roll down her cheeks, and I feel like a dickhead for not comforting her, but that’s what she wants.
“I wish you didn’t manipulate me. I wish you hadn’t betrayed your best friend. I wish I had been able to talk to her that day, and maybe she wouldn't have nearly died,” I say.
“I want to do better. I want to fix us,” she sniffles. “We used to be so happy.”
I won’t lie, not all of our relationship has been bad.
If I just did whatever she wanted and she always got her way, things were easy.
Show up. Smile. Pretend. I got my anger out at the gym.
If she caught me before I went to the gym, I would fuck her into actual tears.
She almost always ends up calling a safe word.
Sometimes not, but most of the time I just wake up with her sucking my cock and I just let her do whatever.
What am I supposed to do, hit her? I have no power, and she knows it.
“Yeah?” I ask. “Admit you are cheating on me then.”
“Zeke…”
“No, if you truly want to make things better, tell me. Are you cheating on me, yes or no?”
“Yes,” she admits.
“Same person or multiple people?” I ask.
“Same…”
“Are you clean?” I question.
“Yes, I’m clean… Have you cheated on me?” she asks.
“No,” I say honestly. “Why keep cheating on me? What does he give you that you don’t find here? Everyone does everything for a reason,” I ask her.
“He… I just want to be fucked hard. I always have to lead with you, and you seem uninterested,” she says with a shrug.
“Do you love him?” I ask.
“I do,” she admits. “But I love you, too.”
“Why stay?” I ask. “You love him. He is who you want in a partner. You’ve been fucking him for how long?”
“Uh…” she says slowly.
“Okay, so the whole time. Why not just divorce, Meghan?” I ask.
“Honestly, why are we together? I am telling you that I do not want you; I just don’t feel like fighting.
I don’t love you, and I’m not really sure I ever did.
That’s not me being mean; that’s the truth.
For years, I have been so goddamn depressed and alone.
You filled that space with chaos and stress, and neither of us is happy. ”
“I’m just dependent on you, so I don’t know what to do,” she admits.
“Get a job,” I say. “The house and your car are paid for. I will sign it all over, and you can have it. Whatever is in our joint savings and checking, you can have. That will get you by for a few months. I’ll take my car and the rest of my money and go on about my life.
Be with the man who makes you happy, because we know it’s not me.
Hell, tell everyone you dumped me. I truly don't care, Meghan,” I say, gently holding her shoulders.
For the first time, I think she is actually listening to me.
“Meghan, you can’t sit here and tell me you are happy with me or us.
Any happiness we had was a lie, and only because I destroyed myself so that we didn’t fight.
When we do fight, we both get mean, and it’s just not worth it. ”
“You’ll just go get with her,” she says, trying to be cold.
“First, I don’t even know where she lives,” I say. “Second, we are partners and maybe friends. We haven’t even talked about any of that. Also, why does it matter? Are you afraid of her mocking you or something?”
“I guess. I kinda took you from her and then rubbed it in her face. She will do the same.”
“She won’t,” I say. “If something develops there, or even if we just stay friends, I will make sure she doesn’t feed into the drama.”
“Can I ask you for a favor?” she asks.
“What?”
“Let’s have dinner together one last time. Just one night where we pretend we are a happy couple. Dinner, cuddle on the couch, and then you rage fuck me like you do when I make you mad,” she asks. “And then I’ll file for divorce in the morning.”
“Alright,” I say. “What’s for dinner?”
“Chicken parmesan," she says with a happy smile.
“Are you trying to poison me?” I ask.
“No, everyone would know it was me,” she laughs. “No tricks. Just one last night.”
“Let’s go eat, and then we can watch a movie,” I say.
We go to the kitchen, and she pulls the food out of the oven and dishes up the plates while I open a bottle of wine. This was from our wedding, courtesy of my parents, but I refused to drink it with her. I didn’t even want to marry her, but she and my parents bugged the hell out of me.
We sit and start eating dinner. She tells me about the neighborhood drama, and I tell her about my day, minus case details.
I don’t mention Mariska because that’s not what the final meal is about.
This is saying goodbye to everything we pretended that we were.
Even if I never get Mariska back, this needs to happen.
Seeing Mariska today just made me realize I have put this off for far too long.
When we get done eating, we wash the dishes together before we go to the living room. At first, she sits on the opposite side of the couch, but when I motion her over. She snuggles into me, and I start the movie.
About halfway through, her hand starts inching up my thigh.
I let it happen instead of knocking her hand away like I usually do.
When she gets to my belt, she stops. I unhook it, and she immediately turns and works my cock out of my pants.
I sit back as she starts stroking me. My body responds instantly, and she licks her lips.
She wants rough, so I grab her by the hair, and she opens her mouth so I can shove her down on my cock.
“Suck me,” I growl as I fuck her throat.
She gags but strokes and sucks me, making me ram into her mouth harder.
She reaches between her legs to touch herself, and I let her get started, but then I stop and shove her back on the couch to yank her shorts off.
She is fucking giddy when I push her knees to her chest, but that flips instantly when I slam into her cunt without warning.
“Fuck!” she screams and starts fighting me.
I put her legs on my shoulders and start quickening my pace, enjoying the way she screams in pain.
Even in pain, her cunt is tightening around me, and her legs are shaking.
Right before she comes, I stop again. “You asshole,” she whines, making me chuckle as I put her on her knees and push the side of her face into the couch.
This time, when I surge into her, she moans through her scream. I want this to be over with, so I grab her hips and start fucking her as hard, deep, and fast as I can. Her hand is between her legs, rubbing her clit.
“Fuck, that’s good! Oh, Mark. fuck. Yes, fuck me harder,” she moans.
It suddenly feels like someone has dumped ice water on me, and I stop.
She knows why, too, and scrambles up from the couch and away from me.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I ask, seething, as I get up and immediately corner her.
Anger explodes out of me, so I scream it directly in her face. “What did you say?!”
“Mark,” she says, her voice trembling.
“My brother? You are fucking… You know what he did to me. You know this. You know how cruel he was to me,” I say, baffled that he is who she’s been fucking since the beginning.
I decide this isn’t worth it. Screaming at her doesn’t change that she’s been fucking the same brother who held me down at five years old and raped me bloody because I told him I hated him.
I turn and walk down the hall to the bedroom. I start by getting dressed first, and then I get bags out of the closet and start packing everything into them. I take everything I want, knowing I can replace anything I leave behind.
By the time I have everything loaded into the backseat of my truck, Meghan has stopped crying.
I think I scared her, because I never scream at her or anyone like that, but oh well.
I go to the office and make sure I have everything: my devices, important files and documents, and anything I might need, so I don’t have to come back.
I take the house key off my keyring and set it on the kitchen island before walking to the door. “I’m sorry, Zeke,” Meghan says. I stop and look at her, and she closes her mouth.
“If you were sorry, you never would have been fucking my rapist,” I say hatefully before turning and leaving the house.
When I get into the truck, I am on autopilot as I drive.
I have no idea where to go, so I just go until I get to the grocery store and park in the very back of the lot.
I shut the engine off and lay my seat back.
My phone dings, but I ignore it. A few minutes pass, and I get another, so I sigh and grab my phone.
I can’t help but grin when I see that it’s Mariska.
Mariska
Hey. So, I might have locked myself out of the system…
Hellooooo. Please don’t make me call Kevin! Help!
Me
Hey, sorry. I was driving. Give me a second.
Okay. You should have an email. All I did was click through the forgot password thing.
Mariska
Really? I did that. Lame.
Oh, Hell. I have 15 password reset emails ?? Whoops. Thank you.
Me
You’re welcome. What are you doing?
Mariska
Reading over the files again. You?
Me
Sitting in a parking lot with everything I own in the backseat…
Right away, Mariska calls me. I ignore it, because I know what she is going to do. Seconds pass, and I get a text.
Mariska
Bitch, answer your damn phone. I will find you.
Me
Damn. Trauma made you mean.
Mariska
Please?
Me
Alright…
She calls again, so I answer this time. “Hey,” I say with a sigh.
“What happened?” Mariska asks.
“We had a real conversation for once. She admitted to cheating on me the whole time. I told her I didn’t love her and that she was just a space and time filler.
I told her she could keep the house and her car as well as everything in our joint account.
She asked to have dinner and just pretend for an evening that we were a normal couple. And uh…”
“She wanted you to fuck her. You can say that,” Mariska says.
“Yeah, well… So I decided to just rage fuck her… And then she fucking moaned my brother’s name. I packed my shit and left.”
“What the fuck? That fucking bitch. No, she didn’t? You should have hit her.”
“I am not going to hit her,” I laugh.
“I’ll do it for you. Fucking bitch. Who the fuck does that? He hurt you, and she knows that,” Mariska says, almost protectively.
“Riss, they’ve been fucking since before she raped me that night,” I say.
“Ew. He was like twenty-five and… Oh, fuck,” she says with a gasp. “You don’t think… Why would he… Fuck, that would make so much sense… Can you come over?”
“Are you trying to trick me into staying with you, Riss?” I ask, and she gasps dramatically.
“Now, why would I do that, Zee? It’s not like you are homeless,” she says. “Get your butt over here. Please and thank you.”
“Is this because you want to help or to be petty toward Meghan?”
“Yes. I texted you my address,” she says.
“Mariska,” I say with a sigh.
“Please, Zeke. I want to hate you, and I would love to hold strong and say that I feel nothing for you but friendship, but that’s not true, and we both know it. We need to do this slowly and really talk about this shit. If your family is the reason I nearly died… I can’t get hurt like that again.”
“No one will ever hurt you like that again,” I say firmly as I shift into drive. “I’ll be there in five minutes. I’m close by, apparently.”
“Ah, shit. Okay. I’m going to go panic clean,” she says, and we both laugh.
“See you soon, Riss,” I say sweetly.