Chapter 6
Daniel has been in the bathroom for a while, or maybe it just feels like that because of our fight. I decide to go into the master bedroom and cry, because I feel so alone.
The door opens, and then there's a weight on the bed. Since I'm lying on my stomach with my arms crossed and my forehead resting on them, I can't see who it is, but I know it's Danny. What the hell does he want?
There's a kiss on my back and then on my shoulder, and then I feel the full weight of his body on me.
"I don't wanna fight with you," he says.
He didn't even apologize. Didn't even take blame for anything.
"I want to fuck you," he says.
For some reason, I don't believe him. Turning over onto my back, I look at him. He lays his full weight on me, wiping a tear from my eye. Both of our stomachs are pressed together, and then he kisses me.
Kissing him back, I run my hands over his blonde hair.
It's not naturally blonde. He always wears it like that, with the faded roots on either side of his head showing his dark brown color. His mom is one of those Korean women who has light brown hair naturally, but she dyes it darker.
But I've always loved that about him. His mother, to me, is very gorgeous.
Even though she's going to be turning 60 this year, she still looks like she's 40.
With makeup on, she looks even younger. He definitely got all his good looks from his mom.
Not to say his father is ugly, per se, but his father looks like any other regular old Japanese man. My man is very handsome.
Very, very handsome, to the point where it feels like I'm gonna wake up and this is all a dream, that I'm married to a rich man with great looks, who I thought had a great personality. He was brave and commanding and assertive. It's one of the things I love about him.
We're both completely naked now. His dick is sliding inside of me. That delicious feeling... oh, how I've missed it so much. My neck arches back as I close my eyes and enjoy every single sensation of his penis going in and out.
Part of me wonders if he had to take a pill or something, but I know my man has no problem getting hard.
Whenever we do sleep together, which is rare when he's home, he gets erections regularly throughout the night.
Sometimes, I'll suck him in his sleep. I like teasing him, letting his cum leak out while he's half-asleep, moaning, not fully aware that his wife is pleasuring him.
And when he gets hard, he gets rock hard.
The sound that his breath makes as it hitches with every thrust inside of me.
It's very gentle, but yet powerful. His muscles, all of it, it makes me feel as though I'm floating in a river of ecstasy.
Like my body is the canoe and my soul is just the passenger. I love him.
"I love you so much," I say, with tears falling down my face and soaking into the pillow behind me.
My heart breaks for a second when I think he's not gonna say it back.
"Love you too," he says.
He finally pulls his face out of the pillow, looks at me, and kisses me.
He grunts and then moans something that sounds so beautiful to me.
It almost makes me feel like I wanna be pregnant by him.
Not that I don't want kids, but I just don't feel like I'm ready, especially because of everything I've been feeling.
I have no support structure here. We more than have the money to take care of kids, but I don't know. I wanna make sure we're okay first.
We're not getting any younger. I'm not getting any younger.
And part of me is scared that the older I get, even though people still tell me that I look great for my age, the more he's gonna get bored.
He's gonna see other women who are way younger, way prettier, and he's going to lose interest. I shouldn't have to worry about that, but I do.
As a woman, I worry. This June, I'm gonna turn 31.
I know I'm not old. I know 31 is still young, but it's getting there, and my eggs are not gonna last forever.
Should I ask him?
No.
That's a bad idea.
Gasping, I arch again as he thrusts into me even harder.
"Pussy feels so good," he says, and I happily try to buck my hips back into him.
"Rena," he says.
My heart stops.
"What?" I ask him.
"I miss you, baby," he says as he kisses me.
What the actual shit was that?
A part of me doesn't want to stop this because maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I misheard. I don't know.
"I'm close. I'm getting close. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," he says fast, his eyes closing.
He buries his face into my neck, holding his forehead against the right side of my face.
He grunts, and he stops moving as his dick kicks inside of me. It feels amazing. Then he lets out this sexy laugh that tapers off as he continues grunting out his semen. He inhales very deeply and releases a final, heavy exhale of pleasure.
He kisses my breasts, sucking them lightly.
Then he moves down backwards, and suddenly his mouth is on me.
My legs quiver as they open even wider to let his tongue have its way with me.
My breath picks up its pace, and then there is that beautiful feminine cry, the one that still surprises me when I make that sound, as I come almost immediately.
That's what his dick does to me. That's what having him inside me does to me.
My mind tries to kick me, telling me that whatever that name was that he said, or whatever that word was, it wasn't another person he was talking about. It can't be. It's just a mistake. It's just a mistake, right?
But now that I've come down from my orgasm, I can't leave it alone. He lies down beside me, and a part of me is worried that if I bring it up, this little bit of a good feeling that he has right now is going to... I don't know.
"Hey," I start to say, my heart beating fast. I feel more scared that he's gonna get mad at me than I am about the actual news.
"Yeah," he says gently.
He lies down on his right side, putting his left arm around me to pull me close, kissing the side of my shoulder while I just remain flat on my back.
I'm the kind of person that if I don't say something, it will stew. So I have to.
"Who is Rena?" I ask.
"What do you mean?" Daniel asks.
"You called me Rena," I tell him slowly, so there's absolutely no misconstruing what I said.
"No, I didn't."
"Yes, you did. Don't do that. I heard you."
"Really, Melody?" he says, putting a hand over his face as he rolls onto his back. He exhales in pure frustration and gets right up from the bed.
"Danny," I say.
"No. I'm not doing this. I'm not entertaining this."
"You called me another woman's name, and you expect me not to be mad?"
"No. Why didn't you tell me right there and then when I did it?"
"Because—"
"Because what?" he snaps.
"Who is Rena? You still haven't answered the question! As a matter of fact, most of the time—"
"I'm not fucking doing this with you!" he yells at me suddenly, taking a hard step toward the bed.
"I don't have fucking time for this! Do you know how much shit I have to deal with?
I don't wanna be out there doing that shit and come home and have to deal with your fucking shit!
Despite how stressed I am, I made love to you.
I calmed down. I got my mind right, and I came and I gave you what you wanted. "
My eyes tear up as I sit up straight. "So you didn't wanna have sex with me?"
"To be quite frank, no. I wasn't in the mood," he says angrily.
Then he blinks twice, realizing probably that he was a bit too harsh. He looks down and shakes his head. "You should've let me leave the house when I wanted to leave."
"Daniel, I..." I start to say, but I realize nothing I say is gonna work.
All I can do is cry.
"You know what? You wanna leave? Go. Fucking go. Just go," I say as I get up, run past him to the bathroom, and lock the door.
I just bawl my eyes out. I feel so trapped, and I feel helpless, and I feel like my husband doesn't love me. I feel like a pathetic asshole because what am I supposed to do right now? I love this fucking man. I hate him too.
All I can remember are the times when we were dating. When we were going through things together, and I was all in my head about something with my mom or my dad, and he was right there.
"Hey," he had told me.
I cry harder just remembering how gentle he had been.
"I'm fine," I had said to him.
"No, you're not," he had replied. He was gentle… more gentle than I remember hearing his voice in a very long time. "Baby, come on. Talk to me."
"It's fine. There's nothing you can do."
I had walked away from him. I don't even remember where we were, but we were outside somewhere, maybe outside some restaurant or something, and he came right up behind me and hugged me.
"I love you," he had said softly, kissing my face and holding me tight.
"I'm so sorry that you're hurting, and I know that today is especially hard for you.
I'm gonna do whatever I can to make you happy for the rest of your life.
You understand? I can't change the past, and I can't take away that hurt, but we're gonna make new, beautiful memories together.
Okay? I love you so very much. You hear me, Melody? "
I was crying harder at that moment because I realized that I actually did have someone in my corner.
"I love you. Look at me," he had said, turning me around. He was taller, of course, so I had to look up at him. And he looked into both my eyes and smiled. His eyebrows were soft. His face was so tender. "I love you."
He told me, and I could feel it. Even if he hadn't said the words in that moment, I would know exactly what that face meant. I kissed him and hugged him, held him close, felt safe.
And now, it's like he can't get away from me fast enough.
It's quiet for a while. When I finally leave the bathroom after cleaning up my face, I look around. He's not there. He's not in the master bedroom. He's not downstairs. I check the basement, and he's not there either.
I check the garage, which is where I should have checked from the beginning.
Surely enough, his red car is gone.
The Vermul.
It looks like a Lamborghini or a bunch of sports cars mixed together; a beautiful ruby red with an iridescent finish, very large wheels, and a spoiler in the back that sits completely flush with the body.
It's his favorite car, his daily. And usually, when he takes it, there's no telling where he's gonna go.
Doesn't really matter. But he usually likes to go into the city or something to hang out with his friends.
All he does is work mostly. The only friends I know of him having are other rich men he's in business with, just so they can do dick-measuring contests.
At least, that's what it looks like whenever I'm around them.
I'm pretty sure when I'm not around, it's a completely different scene.
I wanna call out his name, but I don't. Looking at the surveillance system, I rewind back a few minutes.
He had left shortly after I went to the bathroom, as if he was just waiting for an opportunity to escape.
I don't want him to leave like that, not with us angry at each other.
And I don't want... I don't even know what I want.
I guess I just wanted him to talk to me.
To come to the bathroom door and tell me everything was gonna be alright.
Is that so much to ask? God, my stomach hurts so much.
I'm hurting, and I just want someone to hold me and hug me and tell me it's gonna be okay.
Even though he's acting like this, I want him to tell me it's gonna be okay.
All I can think about right now is getting a divorce. I'm not gonna lie, that thought has crossed my mind so many times.
I call his phone. It rings and rings, but he does not pick up. Once again, you know what? I feel like being an asshole. He didn't tell me where he was going, but whatever. Fine. Sure.
I'm gonna order a ride service, not the one on his payroll, but a completely different one.
So I order a ride. They come to pick me up, I pack the gerbils with me in their carrier cage, and I just tell the driver to drive out to Boulder.
That city is far enough away for me to be away from him.
Of course, he can rent a plane to go wherever he wants.
Technically, so can I. My husband gives me so much freedom that it feels insulting. It actually does.
He doesn't care what I do.
He doesn't care where I go.
There are times I've been out for nights just enjoying the wilderness, and he never once called to see if I was okay. I made it a point to stop calling him or checking up on him every night to tell him goodnight, and he never called me, and he never text.
What is the point of being here in this marriage if it's no longer a marriage?
Do I let go?
Do I fight?
I don't know. I can't be the only one fighting.
I check into a hotel. It feels good being away from the house. Crazy enough, this hotel room feels better and more homey than actually being at home feels.
"It was a woman," Germany says from the carrier. "You know it was."
"Stop," Ghana murmurs.
"It was a woman. It's another female," Germany insists. "You know that instinct that tells you that it is. If you have to ask that question, you already know the answer."
"Now, Germany, that's not nice," Georgia chimes in. "How is that helping?"
"I think you're right," I whisper to them. "I don't know. I can't prove it, though."
"And because you can't prove it, you're gonna obsess over it," Germany fires back. "And the reason you obsess over it is because there's a part of you that knows it's true."
I don't have any more tears left to cry. I feed my gerbils, getting ready to just go to sleep.
"Are you okay?" Greece asks softly.
But I'm not okay.
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