Chapter 2 — Staged #2
Then I heard it. The quiet, almost inaudible sound of the shower running in the ensuite bathroom. The door was ajar, steam curling out into the bedroom.
Relief flooded me, so potent it felt like a vice around my heart. He was still here. I climbed out of bed, my body sore in the most delicious ways. I padded naked to the bathroom door and pushed it open.
The glass shower enclosure was fogged, but through the haze, I could see the powerful silhouette of him—the broad shoulders, the taper of his waist. He had his head tipped back, water sluicing down his face and chest. My mouth went dry.
He must have sensed me. He wiped a hand down the glass, clearing a patch, and saw me standing there.
He didn’t smile. His gaze traveled over my nakedness, over the marks his beard had left on my inner thighs, with a possessiveness that made my skin prickle.
He reached out, his hand wet and warm, and pushed the shower door open.
“Join me,” he said. It wasn’t a request.
I stepped into the spray. The water was almost too hot, a near-scalding cascade that woke up every nerve ending.
He pulled me against him, my back to his front, and I felt him, already half-hard, press against the curve of my ass.
He reached for my shampoo, poured a dollop into his palm, and began to wash my hair.
His fingers worked into my scalp, massaging, possessive.
It was an act of such startling, mundane intimacy that tears prickled behind my eyes.
Ben had never washed my hair. This was a lover’s gesture.
He rinsed my hair, his hands gentle. Then he turned me around to face him. Water plastered my hair to my skull, streamed into my eyes. He cradled my face, his thumbs wiping the water from my cheeks.
“One more time,” he said, his voice low under the drum of the shower. “Before I go.”
It was a statement. A final claim.
He kissed me, deep and searching, his tongue mapping my mouth as his hands slid down my back, over my ass, lifting me.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he pressed me against the cool, wet tiles.
There was no gentle buildup. He entered me in one fierce, driven motion, the water cascading over our joined bodies.
This was a goodbye, and we both knew it.
Every thrust was a punctuation mark on a sentence we couldn’t finish.
I clung to him, my face buried in the crook of his neck, biting down on my own arm to stifle the sounds he was wrenching from me.
My climax came quickly, a sharp, desperate peak that left me trembling.
He followed moments later, his body locking, a guttural groan swallowed by the sound of the shower.
He held me there, pinned between his body and the wall, until our breathing slowed. Then, carefully, he let me down. My legs were weak. He steadied me, his hands on my shoulders.
Without a word, he turned off the water, stepped out, and grabbed a towel. He dried himself briskly, then wrapped another one around me, rubbing my arms through the thick cotton. The silence was heavy, final.
He led me back into the bedroom. He dressed in the clothes from last night, which looked crumpled and out of place in the soft morning light. I stood there, wrapped in my towel, watching him, feeling a hollow opening up inside me.
When he was done, he came to stand before me. He didn’t try to kiss me again. He just looked at me, his gaze tracing my face as if memorizing it.
“Thank you, Talia,” he said quietly.
For what? For breaking the rules? For showing me a version of myself I didn’t know existed? For leaving this wreckage behind?
I couldn’t speak. I just nodded.
He leaned in, pressed a soft, closed-mouth kiss to my forehead—a benediction, or an apology—then turned and walked out of the bedroom. I heard his footsteps on the stairs, deliberate and unhurried. A moment later, the faint sound of the front door opening and closing.
He was gone.
The house was utterly silent. I stood there, dripping onto the rug, listening to the nothingness. Downstairs, Ben was presumably still asleep in the guest room. Or maybe he was awake, lying in the dark, listening just as I was.
I walked to the window, pulled back the edge of the curtain. Leo’s car—a dark sedan—was pulling away from the curb. It turned the corner and disappeared.
I let the curtain fall back.
The bedroom smelled of sex and steam and him. Our bed was a tangled mess. The scene of the crime.
I mechanically set about erasing the evidence. I stripped the bed, piling the sheets into a hamper. I wiped down the shower, opened the window to let the steam out. I picked up the empty wine glasses from the nightstand. I was a ghost cleaning up after her own wake.
I was pulling on a robe when I heard a door open downstairs. Then footsteps, slow and heavy, on the stairs.
My breath caught. I froze, my hand on the tie of my robe.
Ben appeared in the doorway. He was wearing the same clothes from last night, now wrinkled. His hair was mussed, his eyes shadowed and red-rimmed. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all.
He stopped, taking in the scene: the stripped bed, the open window, me standing in the middle of it all, clean and scrubbed and hollowed out.
He didn’t come in. He leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. He studied me for a long, silent moment.
“So,” he said finally, his voice flat, devoid of its usual warmth. “How was it?”
The question hung in the space between us, loaded and cold.
It was the question he’d always asked after, part of the ritual.
How was it? Usually, it was a prelude to his own arousal, a way to bridge the gap between the spectacle and our private life.
The answer was a performance review, and I’d learned to give a good one—enthusiastic, detailed, focused on his enjoyment of the show.
Now, the words stuck in my throat. How could I describe the second, secret time? The shower? The way Leo had looked at me when he said You?
“It was… fine,” I said, the lie brittle. I turned away, busying myself with straightening a pillow that didn’t need it. “The script worked.”
“Did it?” Ben’s tone was dry. He pushed off the doorframe and walked into the room, his eyes sweeping over the stripped mattress. “You didn’t sleep in here.”
“No. I thought… I thought you might want the bed. After.” The excuse sounded pathetic even to me.
“I slept on the couch.” He stood by the window, his back to me. “I heard his car leave.”
Of course he had. He’d heard everything. The thought was a cold splash. How much? The creak of the bedsprings after we thought he’d gone downstairs? The shower running at dawn? The silence that followed?
“He had wine,” I said, the defense automatic. “It wasn’t safe to drive.”
Ben turned, his expression unreadable. “So he stayed. Here.”
“In the guest room,” I lied again, the words tasting like ash.
A faint, humorless smile touched his lips. “Right.”
He knew. He had to know. The air in the room was thick with the unsaid, with the scent of another man that I hadn’t managed to scrub away.
“Ben,” I started, but I had no idea what to say. I’m sorry felt wrong. It wasn’t about you felt catastrophic.
“Don’t,” he said, holding up a hand. He sounded tired. “Just… don’t. We’ll talk later. I’m going to shower.”
He walked past me, not touching me, and closed the bathroom door behind him. The lock clicked, a soft, definitive sound. He never locked the bathroom door.
I stood there, listening to the water start, feeling more alone than I ever had in my own home. The arrangement had always had rules, a container for the chaos. I had just blown the container apart.
The day passed in a tense, silent fog. We moved around each other like satellites in a decaying orbit. Ben was polite, distant. He made coffee. He asked if I wanted some. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t look at me for longer than a second.
I tried to force normalcy. I made eggs. They sat congealing on our plates as we picked at them in the breakfast nook, the only sound the scrape of forks.
“He was… good?” Ben finally asked, not looking up from his plate.
The past tense. As if Leo were a product we’d tried and were now evaluating.
“Yes,” I said, my voice quiet. “He was.”
“You seemed… engaged.”
I flinched. “I was performing. Like we discussed.”
“Mm.” He took a sip of coffee. “Your performance was very convincing.”
It was a knife, thinly veiled. I put my fork down. “What do you want me to say, Ben?”
He finally looked at me. His eyes, usually so warm, were flat.
“I want you to say what you always say. I want you to tell me how hot it was for me. How turned on you were knowing I was watching. How much you loved being my good girl, putting on a show.” He set his cup down with a sharp click.
“But you can’t, can you? Because last night stopped being a show. ”
The accusation, spoken aloud, made my heart hammer against my ribs. “It was what you wanted.”
“Was it?” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “I wanted to watch my wife fuck another man. I did. And then I wanted it to be over. I wanted him to leave, and I wanted to come upstairs and reclaim you. That was the script, Talia. You rewrote the ending.”
The unfairness of it choked me. “You left the room! You gave us privacy!”
“To catch my breath! To get a fucking glass of water and come back!” He ran a hand over his face. “When I came back upstairs, I stood outside our door. I heard you. I heard you with him. Again.”
The confession hung in the air, ugly and exposed. He had been there, just on the other side of the wood, listening to the sounds he usually orchestrated from his front-row seat. Only this time, the seat was in the hallway, and the show wasn’t for him.
“Why didn’t you come in?” My question was a whisper.
His laugh was short, bitter. “And do what? Join in? That wasn’t the deal. You two… you sounded like you’d forgotten I existed.”
I had no defense. Because in those moments, I had.