There was no starving it while Greyson was in my life. The Thing hovered back in the ambience until I thought of her, then it smiled. When she beeped me, it made its presence known. And when I recognized her voice, I felt it listening.

Leaving her was not an option. Cutting her out wouldn’t make me sane any more than pretending the Thing didn’t exist would. I needed her. Before her, I had been made of broken glass in a padded bag. Everything looked fine on the outside, but I’d been cutting myself. She opened the bag and put the shards together.

I loved her too much to choose this Thing over her. That much I was sure of. But outside the OR, I couldn’t think clearly. Couldn’t create a solution or make a decision in the thick swirl of jealousy and panic. Every thought walked a razor’s edge between sanity and insanity, and the edge kept moving until I didn’t know which side was which.

Every day, it got worse. Even if the Thing wasn’t fully present, I felt its pressure against the skin of my mind, pressing against the membrane like a fist punching a latex wall. When I woke in a sweat, the pressure increased, and when she called, it burst through. My emotions were getting sucked into the black hole of this nightmare and I couldn’t shake it. The glue got stickier every day.

The treatment wasn’t a cure, but I craved it.

It was a perversion.

To quell the Thing, I had to hurt Greyson. I had to fuck her like a fighter. Mark her like a vandal. Break her like a champion.

I could make her come over and over while I did it too. That satisfied every part of me and made the Thing howl. It separated me from it. Severed the tie.

If I could take advantage of that opportunity long enough to talk to her, maybe we could fix this. All I had to do was get over the humiliation of not being in control of my own mind.

I had a million excuses to avoid the opening and only one reason to go. The reason was Greyson. So I went.

Seeing my wife in a public place meant I could put off the inevitable long enough to change my mind, chase her away, talk myself into some other course of action. By the time I got there, I had my full mental facilities only by way of making sure my emotions were not engaged.

When I saw her standing in a little black dress and heels, her fingers curved around a wine glass, I felt something.

But desire wasn’t an emotion. Possession wasn’t an emotion.

I kissed her cheek, and as expected, the Thing jumped into the space between us.

I wasn’t angry as much as I wanted to battle it and win.

Combativeness wasn’t an emotion either. Or maybe it was. I didn’t care.

“Congratulations,” I said to Jenn. When I kissed her cheek, I kissed her cheek. No third party slid in on the action.

Tina approached and introduced herself, as expected. I smiled and shook her hand. Same thing as Jenn. Nothing jumped between where we touched.

“I’ve been wooing your wife,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“It depends on what kind of wooing you’re talking about.”

“Professional wooing,” Greyson said.

“Did they legalize that?”

Tina laughed. Greyson slapped my arm playfully then looped her hand inside my elbow. The Thing felt good about that but couldn’t find a way in through the fabric.

“I hope you don’t have to work as hard as I did,” I said. “She drives a hard bargain.”

Tina clicked my glass. “Thanks for the tip.”

“I’m sure no one will have to work as hard as he did,” Greyson said.

“Sounds like quite a story.” Tina sipped her water.

“Not really,” Greyson said. “My unit went to Balad to assist the combat support hospital. I had to assess their fitness—”

“She decided I was unfit.”

“I did not!”

“You did.” I looked down at her, checking her status. Raised eyebrows. Relaxed mouth.

I wanted to fuck her everywhere. Hard. Later. I would have to. Nothing was getting starved tonight. Not my hunger for her and not the Thing.

She smiled. If I wasn’t fooling her into thinking I was all right, I was at least charming her into believing it. Good.

I turned back to Tina. “She said I was overworked. She said I needed rest or I’d make a mistake.”

“Which did you do? Rest or make a mistake?”

“Neither.”

“Of course,” Greyson chimed in. “He beat the odds. It’s what he does.”

I nodded, satisfied that she thought that. Winners had an easier time winning.

Danny came by. I shook his hand. He kissed my wife in an appropriately platonic manner. “It’s like a fucking hospital reunion. I try to get away from you people at night.”

“Do your patients know you have such a potty mouth?” I said.

Greyson slipped her hand into mine. I took it away.

“Half of them can’t figure out how to use a potty. So no.” His orbicularis oris tightened slightly above his left lip. A sneer of a smirk so faint I would have missed it if I wasn’t paying attention so coldly. Or maybe that was the reason for the sneer in the first place.

“We’re going to look at some masks, if you don’t mind,” I said.

“Have at it.”

I took Greyson to the side where we could see a mask painted blood red and clamped with a vise. The patient’s story was typed onto a framed piece of paper next to it, but I was sure I knew it. We slid sideways to the next one. It had been painted by a skilled hand in Islamic geometric patterns.

“This is nice,” I said, but had no follow-up. I usually had reasons to like things. I couldn’t find one.

“You should see this one over here.”

Again, she tried to hold my hand, and again, I took it away.

“Caden.”

“Which one? This one?”

“What’s happening?”

She had a hand on each of my elbows, but I couldn’t look at her. She was too earnest. Too honest. And all I wanted to do was rip that black dress in two and shove my dick inside her. I wanted to fuck her mouth so deep she choked. Get my cock so far up her ass I—

“I think he used a stencil—”

“To us,” she said. “What’s happening to us?”

All I had to do was say, “nothing,” but I still couldn’t lie.

Both hands in my pants pockets, I bent so only she could hear me. “I want to be fucking you right now.”

“No. No, that’s not true.” Her eyes filled. They sparkled so brightly when she was about to cry. She blinked. One fell.

Reaching inside my jacket, I snapped my handkerchief open and handed it to her.

She didn’t take it. It was poison. Electrified. A pat on the shoulder from a clinician. A slap in the face from a stranger. I didn’t have the sense or the will to hold her or whisper reassurances, because the Thing was punching through again, and resisting it took everything I had.

She brought her right toe behind her left heel, spun on the balls of her feet for a clean about-face, and forward marched out the door.

I caught the cab door before she closed it and slid in next to her, barking the 87th Street address to the driver.

“Greyson, listen to me.”

“Why were you assisting on a surgery you’ve led a hundred times?”

I looked at her as if she was crazy, but she wasn’t. Not even a little. “Kate was out sick and Eleanor needed me.”

“Bullshit.”

“You can ask her.”

“Are you having an affair?”

“What? With Eleanor?”

“With anyone.”

“No!”

“So what is it then?”

I needed to know what she was perceiving without me dropping hints. “What is what?”

“You’re the same as you were at the fundraiser, but worse. You’re so cold. You won’t touch me. It’s like you’re somewhere else and I can’t take it. I can’t take it.” The last three words rumbled deep in her throat. It was sexy as hell.

I let my desire for her out of its cage, and it filled me like a balloon. I thrust my body in her direction, leveraging myself on the window behind her.

“You’re going to take it.” I spit the words like a threat. “You’re going to take more of it than you ever took before.”

She swallowed. The tears dried up, but not the feelings that caused them. “It’s not that easy.”

“No, it won’t be. I promise you that.”

I didn’t touch her on the cab ride home. I liked watching her squirm. I liked seeing her body’s composure fail as I fucked her mind, leaning close to whisper in her ear.

“Look ahead, and don’t say a word. Keep your knees apart. The blood is rushing to your clit. Filling it. It’s hard. Feel the way your underwear is rubbing against it. When I fuck you, I’m going to be deep enough to push against it.”

I had a raging hard-on the whole way home. When we were alone in the foyer behind a locked door, she put her jacket on the hook. Her lips were parted and I’d bet my medical license she was wet.

I let go of everything. My defenses. My armor. My rage. My fear. When I reached for her, I didn’t hold her. I took the edges of the neck of her dress and pulled, tearing it open at the center seam.

She gasped. “Stop.”

I had to stop. I felt something then. Relief.

I could stop.

She stood with her hands on her breasts, holding the dress up. “What’s happening?”

“You wanted me to touch you. I’m going to touch you. I’m going to touch every inch of you. Just me, my dick, my mouth, you, your mouth, your ass, your tits. I’m leaving nothing on the table.”

“There’s no one else?” Her arms relaxed and the dress fell a little.

“No. Never.”

“Why do you get like this? Like tonight? Like a few weeks ago?”

“Because I need this.”

That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. I couldn’t think about the whole truth. Not with her torn dress and her pheromones invading my mind.

“Take it.”

She let her dress drop. Black lace bra. Garter. Stockings. A ribbon of underwear. She must have been expecting something tonight.

Oh, how the Thing screamed incoherently when it saw my intentions. How it quivered in fear and impotence.

I undid my belt.

“Nervous?” I asked, taking out my cock.

“A little.”

“If you say stop, I stop.”

She nodded.

I grabbed her, pressing her body to mine, mouthing her cheek, her lips, her throat, her ear. I nipped her shoulder but didn’t bite. Not yet. The Thing was there in the connection, but it was scared.

I pushed her to her knees.

“Open.” I squeezed her cheeks and put my dick in it, pushing deep past her gag reflex. “Come on. Take it.”

When I pushed again, she opened her throat.

The Thing wept, but wasn’t scared away. Not yet. Not when I fucked her face or grabbed a fistful of hair to guide her rhythm. Not when I came in her mouth and it dripped from the corner of her lips.

I helped her stand and kissed her hard, tasting bitter cum on her tongue. “Upstairs.”

I watched her go, gartered ass waving as she climbed. Alone for a second at the base of the stairs, I put my hand on the bannister to steady myself.

“You ready?” I whispered. “I’m going to fuck her so hard you disappear forever.”

For the second time, the ambient hush of its voice made words.

I’ll never leave her.

“We’ll see about that.”

She was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands folded between her knees. The part of me that I’d let loose, the emotion and uncertainty, wanted to take her right there. But I didn’t. I had another piece, a cold, calculating piece. He was more methodical.

She watched me undress and put my clothes on the chair.

I stood in front of her, already erect as a fucking flagpole. “You’re the only one, Greyson.”

Her brown eyes were sad, open, honest. I couldn’t comfort her. Not now.

“You’re different sometimes.”

“I know.”

I pushed her down and jerked her legs open. I could smell her sweet pussy through the strip of underwear. I ripped them open. She tried to get up on her elbows, but I pushed down on her chest, leaning my weight on her as I put two fingers deep in her cunt.

“Get your knees up. Show me everything.”

She did it, and the Thing’s rage and sadness mixed with desire.

“You’re so fucking wet for it.” I rubbed her until my fingers were lubricated, then I stuck them in her ass.

The Thing ran from between the place we touched as if it was burned.

“Oh, God,” she cried.

We’d had anal sex before. Gentle, slow anal. I couldn’t guarantee this would be either.

I held her down and twisted my fingers deep inside her. “Beg for it.”

“Please, Caden. Fuck me. Please.”

“Where?”

“My pussy.”

I flipped her over and yanked her to the edge of the bed until her toes were on the floor. Then I wiped my fingers on the handkerchief she’d refused earlier.

I couldn’t believe what I was about to do.

No. I could. The Thing couldn’t.

She saw me hesitate. “What are you doing?”

Holding her arms together behind her back, I kicked her legs wide open. “Say stop if you want me to.”

“I just want to know.”

I slapped her ass. She yelped.

I expected the whirlwind with the shredding of another boundary, but it didn’t show.

Gripping her arms hard, I hit her bottom hard enough to leave a red mark. “Where do you want me to fuck you?”

“My pussy.”

Slap. And again, harder. She yelled again, wiggling.

“Here’s a hint.” Four fingers gathered moisture, circling her cunt. She rotated with me. “It’s not this.”

Three fingers in her ass. She tightened down.

The Thing was in deep distress. It felt so good to beat it, but there was no whirlwind. I needed it. I didn’t know what it did or why it was important, but without the second of spinning confusion, the Thing wouldn’t hide completely.

I took her by the throat. The winds appeared and waited, like gods called by an offering.

“Beg,” I demanded.

“Fuck my ass, Caden. Take it.”

I tightened my grip on her neck. “You want four fingers in your ass?”

“Please! Please put your cock in my ass.”

“Good girl.”

I took her cunt instead.

She made a sound between a gasp and a grunt.

Letting her arms go, I pulled the lube from the night table drawer and let it fall from her back to her crack as I fucked her.

“You want to come?”

“Yes.”

“Later.” I pulled out and slid the head of my cock along her ass.

She was nervous. I didn’t want her to be nervous, but the whirlwind spun into my perception, whispering promises.

“Breathe.”

She nodded.

“Inhale,” I continued.

She did. I watched the four-inch scar on her chest rise to expand with the air, and on the exhale, I slid inside her, watching her pucker expand into an O around the head. Maneuvering myself deeper, I stretched her into a tight ring around my shaft. Her face contorted in pain.

I stopped.

The Thing was still there, confused, using my love as a vulnerability.

The centrifuge slowed, waiting.

I pulled out and turned her over, pulling her knees up. She exposed herself willingly, and the love I’d been hiding was nearly crushed by the spinning in my mind.

She pulled her cheeks apart, mouthing, “Fuck me.”

That was it. I didn’t need to be told twice, but I needed to take more than was offered. Mercilessly, I took her ass with every inch, burying myself in her.

She closed her eyes.

“Beg or say stop,” I said.

“Please. Take it.”

I put her hand between her legs. She circled her clit. I slid all the way in, burying myself in her. Wrapping my arm around her, I put my weight on the base of her throat, just above her sternum, until she was immobile.

I spun, a slave to my sickness, flipping from the man I was to the man I am.

To ring that throat.

To hold her high.

To own her completely.

I lost it. In a swirl of me, her, my love, my control, and the Thing I couldn’t name, screaming out and away.