A Rush of Blood to the Head Ch. 03

___________

The doorbell rang an hour before Mark was due home. I straightened my dress and peeked out the window. It was Luke.

My stomach churned as my wrist turned the doorknob.

I was shocked when we were face-to-face. He had a black eye and his nose had been bleeding. His suit was all wrinkled and torn in a few places, as well. He'd had the shit kicked out of him, apparently.

"He knows," was all he said.

I leant against the doorjamb. "I see."

"I thought I'd warn you..."

"Very noble of you, Luke."

And then he knew I knew his own nasty surprise. His body straightened. "And I see that you know, too. About Sarah."

"I know about a girl. I didn't know her name was Sarah."

He wiped a bit of blood from his lip. "I didn't think it would end up like this, or I would have told you." When he saw my confusion, he added, "I thought I could ignore you. I didn't think an affair would be possible. I told myself it wasn't, anyway."

"Was the story about Ramona true?"

His face twisted in confusion. "Of course it was. I loved her."

"What was this, Luke? Between you and I?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "A distraction. Escape, maybe."

My heart broke a little more. "You're moving to Boston?"

He stared at his feet. "I didn't see any other choice. We can't keep our hands off each other and—"

"The rats always flee a sinking ship."

Furious fire ignited his black eyes.

"Fuck you, Lucy. Fuck you. I can quote shit to you, too. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned', right?" He snorted, but from his flinch I could tell the action hurt him. "Like you have anything to say. You're married. You have a ring on your finger. It's fucking different for you."

It was amazing we could stand here and talk like this. I'd almost convinced myself we were soul-mates, that I loved him, that we could make each other happy. We'd had such deep conversations, I'd thought, but I supposed it didn't mean I knew him, the Luke beneath the flesh and bones. I didn't know him at all. The spell was broken now.

I stepped out of my house, closer to him. "You're right. It is. And it's different for you, too. How does it feel to fuck another man's wife? A man you probably laughed with throughout the day. Talked about sports with, or some TV show. It must have been exhilarating for a time or you wouldn't have done it. God, I really pity Sarah if she has to face a life with a fickle, weak, sniffling piece of shit like you."

His lip curled with disgust. "This conversation is over. You're sick. I'm leaving. Don't come after me, don't do another stunt like yesterday. I don't even want to hear your name after this." He snickered. "I probably won't have to worry—Mark is going to divorce the shit out of you. You'll be back to living with your parents, and you'll have to get knocked up by another rich asshole. Wonder if you'll be able to succeed with that this time around."

He turned his back on me and headed back for his car.

"One good thing came out of this," I called out.

He stopped and heaved in a deep breath before turning to face me. "What?"

"I'll never have to wonder what it would have been like to be with you, really be with you, because you're a spineless, conniving loser who isn't one-tenth the man my husband is. And God knows he's full of flaws." I turned but not before giving him one last disgusted look. "And you're right. I'm furious, and scorned. I'm no better than you. But at least I wouldn't kick you when you're down. You're lucky Mark got to you first today, otherwise I'd have kicked the shit out of you so hard that when Sarah fucked you it would be like scissoring each other. I'd have eviscerated you. Think about that at night and thank God serendipity intervened."

I went back inside and slammed the door behind me.

_______

Mark came home exactly on time. He had a cut on his cheek and walked with a bit of a limp, but he otherwise looked perfect.

I sat on the couch. The TV was on but I wasn't watching it. He didn't look at me as he set his briefcase down and sifted through the mail.

And then it seemed he made a decision to look at me, because he turned his head slowly and caught my eyes. He was expressionless. Blank and seemingly innocuous, and still frightening just the same. His abilities to hide his emotions, to wait things out, to always scheme, were what made him an excellent attorney.

"I'm sorry," I said. "A thousand times, I'm sorry."

He came over and sat on the other side of the couch, resting his head against the back of it. He stared at the ceiling.

"Bruce told me what happened. I gleaned bits of the truth from what he didn't say." His head turned my way but he wouldn't look at me. "Did he try to seduce you with the cock in the face thing?"

"How do you know about that?"

"It's worked on greater women than you. I'm impressed."

"Mark, please. We need to talk about this. Really talk about this. Please."

His dark eyes met mine and he let me see the pain. I was astonished how much agony he held there. Never, ever in our years of marriage had he ever let me see him so emotive, so broken. I reached out for his hand but he snatched it away.

"You wanted to leave me for him, didn't you?"

There was no point in lying. "For a while."

He smirked. "All you women, fluttering around him like idiots. You had no idea who he really was."

"No. I didn't. I was an idiot."

He rubbed his face. "I'm at a loss at what to do here. I've gone over different possibilities since Bruce told me. I'm not going to lie—some of these fantasies involved my gun."

My body froze and he nearly smiled.

"On one hand, I want to strangle your little throat. On the other, I want to drag you over to me by the hair and figure out how the hell this happened. Luke. Someone I parked next to almost every morning. I keep thinking about how he would smile at me and I swear to God there was smugness in his face."

He turned his whole body towards me. "Do you regret it?"

God, how I wanted to lie! But this was the most important moment, the most important conversation, we'd ever had in our marriage.

"Yes and no. We couldn't keep on going the way we were, or at least I couldn't. We were due for an explosion."

He slapped my face and I flinched backwards, putting my hand atop the flushed skin.

"I'm sorry," he rasped. "I've wanted to do that since I walked in. I kept trying to talk myself out of it. I didn't want to hit a woman. Even you."

He got up and paced. "So instead of trying to talk to me, or doing anything productive, you fucked Luke. So I would—what? Notice? Get jealous? Confess my undying love for you? I don't fucking buy it, Lucy. Tell me a different story."

"It was everything! It was that, and it was envisioning something different. It was about me being bad, it was being with someone who I thought was good. Goddamnit, it's too complicated to look at one reason and go 'There, that's why I did it!' because it would be a lie, or it wouldn't be the whole truth. And who cares why?!"

Mark exploded. He threw the glass coffee table over and it shattered into billions of shards. "I care! I fucking care!"

I brought my legs up and sat on my feet, staring at the fragments of glass now imbedded in the carpet.

He stomped over to me, shoes crunching the glass, and put a hand on my chin. He roughly pulled my face up so that I had no choice but to meet his eyes.

"Why?"

"I fucked up."

"Why?!"

"Because I was greedy. Because for the first time in seven years there was someone around who could seemingly see through my bullshit. Because I needed a break and an escape. A fucking vacation from this artificial life we lead. I was so tired of it..."

"Poor you, Lucy," Mark whispered. "Poor you. Life is so difficult for you as you sit there in your designer dress, your hair perfectly done, nails manicured. Should we drive to the bad side of town so you can see what your life could be like?"

"Stop it," I whispered.

"And what do you think of Luke now? Packing up to go back to a never before heard of fiancée?"

My eyes shut tightly.

"Like goes with like, Lucy. We were the exception. Maybe he liked you, maybe he didn't, but a guy like that would never like you for long. You'd embarrass him at parties. He couldn't control you. If I couldn't, he'd probably die trying. He never would have gotten that far with you, though, married or not."

A tear slipped down my cheek.

He stepped back from me. "Get up."

I looked down at the pieces of table all over. I was barefoot. "I can't."

"Get. Up." He pulled at my arm.

I did, immediately feeling a sliver of glass pierce my foot. A dozen others cut my feet. I could feel the burn and the flow of blood coming from the wounds.

He lead me over to the table against the wall where a great mirror hung on the wall. He roughly pushed me against the long table and yanked up my skirt. He tore my panties in his rush to get them off me.

"Mark," I breathed.

We stared at each other's reflections as he hurriedly pulled down his own slacks and boxers. Then he was inside me and it hurt because I wasn't ready, because his cock was demanding and angry, because seeing us in the mirror—me, in particular—was tearing me apart.

"I almost fucked your friend Angela years ago," Mark said between thrusts. He slowed down when my eyes widened.

His arms reached around and he toyed with my nipples. I felt myself grow wet. My body began to enjoy his ministrations and I hated it for it.

"That's why she stopped speaking to you, you know. Your last friend from the outside world and I ruined it because I flirted with her." He pulled out of me and slammed back inside. My whole body jolted forward, and I had to throw out my palms on the table to stop myself from going headfirst into the mirror. "She was so sexy, and she had these little dimples that drove me wild. She was a poor man's version of you, but God I wanted to fuck her. She knew it, too, and she became obsessed. She was going to tell you we were having an affair. She wanted me to run away with her and I wanted to. I wanted to divorce you and marry her, because it felt like I was finally going to be able to make a decision about my own life for the first time ever."

His mirrored eyes dropped to my mirrored lips. "And then we went to some party, probably at Denise's, and you brought Angela along because you thought she really was your last friend in the world. And someone was talking to you and you were being hilarious—I think it was Bruce, actually—and you were destroying him. And he was laughing but we all knew he didn't think it was funny and that made us laugh even harder."

Mark's other hand moved to my clit and my hands clenched as the pleasure set fire to every cell in my body.

He pushed his cock into me in slow, deep plunges.

"Then I looked at Angela," he continued, "and she was suggestively sipping her martini and looking at me like I was hers. In that moment I knew I could marry her and I could control her and she'd fit the mold. I'd never be able to control you. You tamed yourself over the years but you still can flay people alive with that attitude."

His breath was starting to pick up. His cock swelled inside me, and I thought with alarm I might come soon.

"I picked you. I told Angela to go away. I bought her a sapphire necklace and she vanished. You were devastated, and officially isolated. You were only mine."

Mark moaned when he felt me tighten around him.

"You're going to come, aren't you?" he asked me.

He fucked me harder and I let out a long whine. "Mark, please."

The fucking turned basic and brutal as he thoroughly thrust in and out of me. My hips would surely be bruised after enduring being slammed into the table every second.

Then I was coming, spiraling out of control as consciousness scattered into millions of tangled threads. He cursed as I came, muttering things I couldn't hear and didn't want to understand.

When my body settled down, I watched Mark's expressions in the mirror. They went from smug and confident, to helpless and desperate, to strong and lustful and back again.

He moved back a little and squeezed my ass with greedy hands. "I thought you were special," he grunted. "Like a little protégé. I knew you were bored. So was I. I thought we had each other. I found someone who was exactly like me, entirely accidentally."

He slipped out of my soaked pussy and let his cock slide between my ass cheeks.

"I hated you when you told me you were pregnant. I had to have five shots of tequila before we got married. I hated my father for throwing words around like 'duty' and 'honor'. It was the right thing to do, everyone told me. And I hated everyone for it, especially you. Mostly you. I felt trapped."

He rammed back into my pussy and I let out a cry.

"You can't imagine my surprise when it occurred to me one day that I actually liked you. That I thought we could do this marriage thing, this long haul, and do it well. I thought you felt the same."

He glared at my reflection in the mirror. "I want to watch you watch yourself get fucked. I want you to see me use you. I want you to know this is the last time you'll ever have the honor of feeling my cock inside you. I hope it was fucking worth it, your little foray into a cheating wife's world."

His pace grew frenzied. His face was red with effort, his eyes crinkled with pained pleasure, his mouth open with a soundless groan. He made me see it all, and I watched, entirely enraptured. I always loved his face when he came. To see my own expression—awed, respectful, proud—as he came was startling.

Then I felt his cock stiffen and pulse, stiffen and pulse. He pulled himself out of me and I could hear the slick sound of his hand furiously jacking off his slippery cock. He pushed the head against my ass until his cum exploded all over my skin and he was able to moan out loud again. He pushed against me a few more times and my body swayed with the movement like a rag doll.

His hand ran over my ass, smearing his cum all around, and then he slid his sticky hand up my back. I could feel him dripping down my ass, over my thighs, to the floor and undoubtedly on my clothes.

Mark's lips touched my ear and he stared at our reflections. "You'll leave tomorrow. I don't care where you go. I advise you to get the best attorney you can. I'm going to be relentless. I'll tear you apart. I'll bring you to your knees, Lucy."

Then he moved off of me. He thoughtlessly wiped his messy cock on my thigh and then pulled his pants up. He peered at his reflection only to smooth his hair back. He might have even been whistling.

He moved back out towards the front door. I heard him pick up his keys.

"I'm going out for a while. By the time I get back, I expect most of your shit—and most importantly, you—to be the fuck out of here. My lawyers will be in touch."

Mark slammed the door. Only then did I notice my erratic breathing, which sounded much more like wheezing. I felt frozen, like if I moved all of my body parts would disassemble and I wouldn't exist anymore.

Slowly I pulled my soiled dress down over my bottom. My destroyed panties lay next to me on the glass-filled carpet. My feet had bled all over the place. I wondered if Mark wanted me to clean that up. I decided against it, and figured it behooved me to get my shit together.

My eyes caught my reflection in the mirror. I looked awful. Entirely annihilated. Wrecked. Over.

I took giant backwards steps, desperately eager to get away from myself. I didn't care about pushing more glass into my feet. The tangible pain was welcome.

My mind rolled around and slowly absorbed every word said.

I let out a sharp burst of air, my best attempt at a laugh that could have been a laugh. The things we did to each other. The ways we loved to hurt the other. What broken people we were.

I got up, body aching, intent on bandaging myself up and packing away a life I'd hardly lived.