Seven days, eleven hours until Halloween
Jude
What am I doing?
I stare into my rearview mirror, and my eyes are hooded and closed.
What am I doing? I’m meeting a woman who isn’t my wife for dinner.
The muted lights from Olive Garden shine onto the hood of my car, and I wait for her to arrive. Every time headlights swing into the parking lot, I think it’s her.
Every minute, I try to talk myself into leaving.
I almost do, in fact. I’m just starting up the Land Rover when she pulls in next to me, as stealthy as a shadow.
I don’t know if I’m pleased or disappointed.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I admit as we meet on the sidewalk.
She smiles confidently. “You’re here to see me.”
She’s dressed in a tight skirt and tight top, the top two buttons undone. I can see the swell of her breasts and the top of a lacy red bra.
“I shouldn’t be,” I say simply. “It’s wrong.”
“Don’t think about it,” she advises, and she pulls me through the doors. “I’m hungry, you’re hungry, and we’re across town from anyone who might know us. Everything is all right, Jude. We’re just having dinner.”
“We’re just eating,” I tell her pointedly, and she rolls her eyes.
“A booth for two,” I tell the maître d’.
He glances up. “And are we celebrating anything in particular?” He looks from Zoe to me.
Zoe nods. “Yes. It’s our anniversary.”
I want to elbow her, but don’t.
“Oh, happy anniversary, my dear,” our waiter tells us as he guides us into the restaurant. “What number is this?”
“It’s our second date of many to come,” she says as she sits down, and my stare pierces her. “I’m celebrating them all.”
The waiter smiles like it’s the most romantic thing he’s ever heard, but all I want to do is bolt from this place. This was a mistake. A big one.
“Two long islands, please,” I tell the waiter. “And make them strong.”
My thumb taps the tabletop. I’m nervous, and I hate that. I’m letting a twentysomething kid intimidate me?
But it’s not that.
It’s the knowledge that I’m risking my marriage to be here, and how fucking dumb is that? Zoe looks at me.
“What’s your middle name, Jude Cabot?”
“That’s an odd question.”
She shrugs. “I just want to know about you. Is that wrong, too?”
I shake my head. “No. I suppose not. It’s Ashton.”
“My, isn’t that fancy!” She laughs and our drinks arrive. She holds up her glass. “To Jude Ashton Cabot. Maybe I’ll call you Ash.”
I clink my full glass to hers and take several long drinks.
“They used to call me that, actually,” I tell her, and I stare across the room. In my head, I see my old football field, and I hear the chanting crowd. “In high school. Ash, I mean. It was on the back of my football jersey.”
“You were the quarterback, I presume? King of the field?”
“Of course,” I snort. “If I do something, I do it right.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” She’s glib now. “Did you play in college, too?”
“Only for a while. I got injured sophomore year and Corinne didn’t want me to play anymore. It worried her too much.”
“You quit playing football for your wife?” Zoe is incredulous.
“Well, she wasn’t my wife at the time,” I amend. “But yeah. It worried her too much.”
“Do you always stop doing things she worries about?” Zoe arches her eyebrows, and her question seems sarcastic, and I know she’s talking about being here with her right now. I look away and she laughs.
My belly churns with a dark sort of excitement, and I hate it and love it at the same time. My desires are so dark and seedy now. It’s new, it’s novel.
“Look,” Zoe says, as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking about. “The best thing about this dinner is that reality is out there.” She motions toward the window with a fluttery hand, and her bracelets jingle. “We’re in here, and we don’t have to acknowledge it or think about real life. Isn’t that awesome?”
I’m still silent, undecided.
“We can be what we want in here,” she adds softly. “I won’t judge you, and you won’t judge me, and we’ll just be. No expectations, no rules. You’re not a therapist and I’m not a waitress, and we’re just Jude and Zoe. Does that sound good?”
I hate to admit that it does. I don’t have a wife who has issues and is never home. I’m just Jude. I can separate the aspects of my life. My dinner with Zoe doesn’t affect my marriage with Corinne. I’m just passing time. I’m not really going to do anything.
She raises an eyebrow. “Does it?”
“Yeah, actually.”
She smiles.
“Good. Let’s get another drink.”
I order two, one for each of us, and she studies me.
“You know, you look exactly like your brother. What’s it like being a twin?”
“Come now. Surely you’re more original than that. Everyone asks that question.”
“Okay. What’s it like to have a priest as a brother?” she amends. “Does he judge everything you do?”
“Nah. Michel doesn’t judge. He doesn’t even seem like a priest, to be honest.”
“Does he take your confession?”
I snort into my glass, and the ice cubes tumble against each other. “Uh, no. Not for real. Every once in a while, I’ll do it for a joke. But my real confession might scare him.”
It’s her turn to snort. “Whatever. I can see in your eyes...you’re not scare-worthy.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. This girl doesn’t know me at all.
“Whatever makes you think that?”
“I’m a good judge of people,” she says.
I laugh at that. “You’re too young to have acquired that particular trait,” I tell her. “You’re still wet behind the ears.”
She rolls her eyes. “Seriously. I’ve learned from the school of hard knocks. I know people, trust me.” She pauses and looks at me. “For instance, you. You’re unhappy in your marriage right now, and you don’t know how to fix it, but you still love your wife. On the other hand, you’re still here with me because you’re curious. Yet you’re torn about it because the guilt is eating you up.” She pauses again. “Am I close?”
I look away. “Maybe.”
She snorts. “Okay, Mr. Therapist. If you’re so experienced, read me.”
I gulp at my drink until it’s half gone, and I signal for another from the waiter.
“You’re a girl who requires a lot of male attention, probably the result of daddy issues from your youth. You like to appear confident, but on the inside, you’re insecure. You put a lot of stock in your looks and your ability to get male attention. Without that, you’d be bereft.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Maybe. Maybe not. I do have issues. You’d have a field day with me, I’m afraid.”
I laugh, and it’s a jaded sound. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”
“Can I try?”
“Sure. Go for it.”
“You’re not going to judge me, right?”
“I would never,” I assure her. “There’s no judgment here, remember?”
My wedding ring gleams in the soft light, and I wonder if the waiter noticed it? Zoe isn’t wearing one.
“I lost my virginity to my foster father when I was fourteen.” She states it casually, like she’s talking about the weather. “My foster mom worked second shift, and I always went to bed early because I had to get up early for school. Every night, he would stand in the doorway and watch me sleep. I would wake up sometimes and see him, but I always pretended that I was sleeping because I didn’t know what else to do.”
She pauses and waits for my reaction.
“Did you tell your mom?”
I shake my head. “No. Because I liked it.”
That does shock me, although I make a point not to show it. Instead, I ask a simple question, something that I would ask in my office if I were talking to a patient.
“What did you like about it?”
“I don’t know. It gave me sort of a sense of power, I guess. He was a grown man, and apparently my mom wasn’t enough for him, because he was coming to me for his kicks.”
“Didn’t that make you feel trivial?” I ask her curiously.
“No.” Her answer is simple and immediate. “I felt powerful.”
“How long had you lived with them?”
“Since I was nine. They were like my parents. If they had the money, they would’ve adopted me. As it was, they wanted to keep the government payments they got from taking care of me.”
That part doesn’t surprise me. “Go on.”
“One night, I woke up to find my dad there, watching me like usual. Only this time, I was prepared. I had gone to bed naked. I pretended like I was flinging my sheets off in my sleep, but I was wide-awake. I arched my back and showed him my boobs, and moaned like I was having some sort of erotic dream.”
She looks at me, waiting for permission to continue, and I nod, curtly, once.
“My eyes were closed, but I could smell him. His penis. It was right in front of me. He’d apparently pulled it out and was holding it in my face. I started sucking it with my eyes closed, because somehow, I knew that’s what he wanted. It was instinctual. I’ll never forget the taste of it. Like salt and...him. I never opened my eyes, even when he came all over me.”
“And the whole time, you pretended to be asleep?”
She nods. “Yeah. That went on for a while. Night after night, I’d give him blow jobs ‘in my sleep.’”
“But it escalated.”
“Yeah. One night, instead of standing next to my bed, he climbed in with me,” she says softly. “I pretended like I was sleeping, like always, but I wasn’t. He slid his hands everywhere, along my breasts, along my thighs. He kissed my nipples, and I didn’t know what to think. I’d never done that before, and it turned me on. He pressed his hard dick into my side, and I wiggled against it, and then he had sex with me. I never opened my eyes.”
My fingers are steepled on the table in front of me as I process this. “What happened the next day?”
“We both pretended like it didn’t happen,” she answers. “I pretended like I didn’t know—because remember, he thought I was sleeping. We acted like normal. He teased me about this and that, and gave me shit about not doing my homework, but that night, he came back.”
“Did you tell him no?” My question is solemn and quiet. “He was an adult and you weren’t. Regardless if you liked it, it was wrong, and illegal.” I shake my head.
“No, I didn’t. Because I liked it. I liked the feeling of power, I liked having him inside of me, and I liked knowing that he wanted me and not his wife. He came back again and again, and for a long time, I pretended that I was sleeping. Every night, he pretended he didn’t know I was awake. It was our own wicked little game.”
She pauses for effect and reaches for her drink, but it’s empty. She orders another, and then we order our meals. I order lasagna and she orders soup and salad.
“Was that meant to shock me?” I ask finally. “Because it doesn’t.”
“I was just sharing. I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“Because you feel ashamed?”
“No. I’m not ashamed. I just don’t feel like it’s anyone’s business.”
“Did your mother ever find out?”
“No. I’m very good at keeping secrets.”
I eat my bread stick and analyze her.
“Did you ever stop pretending that you were sleeping?”
She nods. “Yeah. After a couple of months. I opened my eyes up wide when he was fucking me and stared right into his. He didn’t know what to think, but I just pulled him close and told him to fuck me harder.”
Lord, this girl. She’s trouble. I know it right now, yet I can’t seem to stand up and walk away.
“I started getting what I wanted around the house, though,” she admits. “If he told me to do something and I didn’t want to, I would just raise my eyebrow and look into his eyes, and he knew. He knew that I could blow his life out of the water if I wanted to.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Did you ever?”
“No. I liked fucking him too much. And my life got really easy after that. He intervened whenever my mom gave me a hard time, and he always took my side. It was awesome.”
“When was the last time you had sex with him?”
“A couple of years ago. I went home for Thanksgiving and fucked him in the laundry room while my mom cooked in the kitchen. That was hot. But he’s getting too old now. He doesn’t turn me on anymore.”
It’s rare that I see a woman who seems so detached by the sexual act. Generally speaking, they tend to assign much more emotion to it than men do. But not this girl. It’s fascinating.
“I’m not bad,” she insists. “I just know what I like. And it was nice to have an older man teach me the right way to do things. I still like older men. They’re established and confident, and they’re over all the bullshit that younger guys are into.”
I can’t help but ask. “Such as?”
“Such as...playing video games or having penis envy. Older guys know what they want and how to get it. You do, don’t you?”
Our food is delivered, and I don’t answer. We’re quiet for a time while we eat.
I finish mine before she does, and the whole time, I analyze her. She doesn’t have attachments, she doesn’t form emotional bonds. That means she wouldn’t have any qualms about breaking up my marriage for her whim.
I push away from the table.
“This was a mistake,” I tell her, motioning for the waiter. I hand him my card. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”
“Jude, stop being a child. We’re just having dinner. You’re helping me with my issues. Isn’t that what friends do?”
“You’re not my friend.” I sign my name to the bill and stand up.
She stands up, too, leaning up to whisper in my ear. “But I really want to be. I don’t have that many. Please.”
She sounds sad, and I have no idea if it’s an act or not. If it is, it’s a damn good one. But this girl’s issues have issues. It’s time to go. I turn around and walk to the door without waiting to see if she’s following.
I look when I reach the door, and she is, so I hold the door for her.
She walks through.
“I really hope I didn’t offend you,” she says meekly. “I wasn’t trying to.”
“Of course you didn’t.” I’m curt now. What was I thinking coming here? I’m a dumbass. “Have a good night.”
I turn to walk to my truck, but she grabs my arm and moisture is pooling in her eyes.
“Please, wait.”
I pause without looking at her again.
“Can we just talk for a few minutes...about anything else? I feel really shook up. I haven’t thought about that stuff in years. I’m rattled.” Her hand is shaking on my arm. I can’t help but notice, and something tugs at my gut. My conscience, I guess. The therapist in me can’t leave her like this.
“I guess that wouldn’t hurt. Just for a minute. Until you gather yourself.”
Without another word, she opens the passenger door to my Land Rover and gets in. I hand her a tissue, and she dabs at her eyes.
“I thought you liked it.”
I stare at her and I feel like I’m dissecting a puzzle, and she shrugs.
“Maybe that’s just what I tell myself so that I don’t feel so disgusting. Or maybe I did like it, but I don’t like the way it makes me feel now. I just don’t know anymore.”
She thrusts herself into the crook of my arm, burying her face in my sweater, and her shoulders shake as she cries. I finally cave in and wrap an arm around her, giving her as much comfort as I can.
After several minutes, she sniffs again.
“Can you make me laugh? I don’t want to think about ugly stuff.”
I think for a minute.
“What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?”
“I don’t know.”
“Frostbite.”
She rolls her eyes. “Seriously?”
I shrug. “I’m bad at jokes.”
“But you smell good.”
She looks up at me, and I look down at her, and I see so much in her eyes, things that shouldn’t apply to me, things I shouldn’t even be here for. Lust. Want. Need.
“Jude...” she whispers, and her hand flutters to my chest.
“Zoe, I can’t do this. It’s wrong. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but fucking you isn’t going to be one of them.”
I’m so blunt that it’s almost painful.
“It’s not that you aren’t beautiful,” I rush to say. “Because you are. But it’s just wrong.”
“You don’t have to fuck me,” she says slowly. “I just want to feel close to you. Please. If we don’t have sex, then we aren’t doing anything wrong, right?”
Where is she going with this?
“I just want to spend some time with a decent human being,” she adds. “My life sucks. It would be nice to have a bright spot in it.”
She puts her hand on my knee. I purposely pick it up and lift it off.
“Okay,” she says quickly. “I won’t touch you. And you don’t have to touch me. Is it okay if we touch ourselves, though?”
That was unexpected, and the rush of adrenaline that courses through my veins is shameful. The very thought of masturbating in this truck while someone watches and masturbates at the same time is a turn-on like I’ve never felt before. And I wouldn’t be touching her. So that means I’m not cheating on Corinne.
She digs through her purse and pulls out a condom. “Put this on.”
“Um,” I start to say, but she holds up her hand.
“Trust me, we’re not having sex, and I’m not going to touch you.”
Curiosity is getting the best of me, and I seriously consider it.
“Just do it, Jude. I promise. I’m not going to touch you. But if you touch yourself while I watch, that’s not wrong, is it?”
I’m quiet as I turn the condom over and over in my hand.
“Right?” she pushes.
I’m silent.
“Look,” she says, and her voice is very small, very quiet. “I want you, Jude. I do. But I respect your marriage vows, so I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But I’m here. Your wife isn’t. Please. Let’s just... It’s not wrong.”
She isn’t wrong. She’s here and Corinne isn’t, nor does Corinne seem to want to be.
“I’m here, Jude,” she murmurs. “I’m here because I want to be here with you. Touching yourself isn’t wrong. I want to watch you. I want to pretend that your hands are on me. Can we please do that? Please?”
“Uh. Maybe.” I’m wavering. The moonlight glints on the red lace of her bra, and the swell of her breasts is creamy soft. I want to touch it, but I don’t. No touching.
“Please?” She reaches over and lifts my hand, placing it on my dick. “Touch yourself for me. If you won’t let me touch you, at least let me pretend.”
I can’t help it. My testosterone kicks in, and I’m doing this.
“Now what?” I ask when I’m big and stiff. She smiles.
“Put the condom on.”
I do.
“Keep playing with yourself, and watch me while I watch you. It’s basically porn, Jude. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
She strips off her shirt and pants and slides her hand through the side of her underwear. I play with myself and she watches, her eyes hungry. I stroke myself and she watches, her tongue sliding along her lips. I get harder and harder, and she breathes heavier and heavier. Her eyes are heavy-lidded as we fog up the windows.
“Jude, I want to watch you cum,” she whispers, and her voice is husky with want. She arches her back and closes her eyes. “Jesus, that’s good.” She moans as she orgasms, and she says my name as she cums, and it’s my undoing.
I spurt into the condom. I’m silent, and I’m still.
What the fuck did I just do?
After a minute, I slide the condom off.
“Don’t tie it,” Zoe says quickly, taking it from my hand.
“What?” I’m confused.
She holds the full condom, eyeing it.
“It’s still warm,” she observes.
And then she drinks it.
She fucking drinks my cum.
She licks her lips when it’s gone and then throws the empty condom out the window.
“See? I told you we didn’t have to touch each other. So we haven’t done anything wrong.”
She smiles victoriously. “I’ll see you soon.” Without another word, she gets out and closes the door behind her.
At a stoplight on my way home, I check my texts. There are a couple from Corinne, wondering where I am, and two missed phone calls. I feel instantly guilty. I’m very seldom out of reach when it comes to Corinne.
And then a text from Zoe comes in.
You are delicious.
Call me in the morning?
I don’t know what to say. All I can think of is Zoe playing with herself in my truck and then drinking my cum. I hate myself for it.
I don’t answer for another two stoplights.
But on the third, even though I hate myself for it, I do.
Ok.