Hyeonverse: Dark Reflections

A thousand thank yous to cw5523729 for editing my very first submission to Literotica, I treasured your suggestions and I really appreciate the effort you've put into making this little story of mine readable.

'Tis the season of All Hollow's Eve, so I'd like to invite all you fine gents to join me in this tale of Katherine Osmond-Hart, a hardworking wife on her journey to rediscover true love.

*

The porch light was flickering as I walked in.

When was Frank gonna fix that? My euphoric mood took an instant dive, that light represented all that was wrong with our marriage.

The years I poured into this man who couldn't be bothered to move a finger around the house. When was the last time he took me out to dinner? Years ago.

With our daughter NaDana breezing through college, I once again wondered what was I still doing with this excuse of a man.

"I'm home, " I yelled. There was no answer. It was dark inside the house. Where was he? I'm sure I saw his rusty Astra parked in the driveway.

"Frank?" I called. A silent dread replied. Maybe the idiot fell in the bathtub and knocked himself dead. If only...

I found him sitting in the kitchen, beer in hand, staring at the tile floor. Had he always been this small and pathetic?

Frank was once a giant. I'm sure of it. He had this glow about him that drew in all the girls in high school. He was witty, charming and his naughty sense of humor made even the cheerleaders moist. I had to punch Molly O'Hare's nose into a pulp at the back of the gym to get them skanks to take a hint and take a hike.

Where had he gone to, so many years ago, leaving me only this husk?

Frank's eyes didn't register my presence.

He was lost in his own private little world, holding a photo.

There were others, spewing from inside an envelope on the kitchen table. It read Hyeon Peters, Private investigator.

My heart skipped a beat. He knew.

Even before I grabbed the picture from his hand, I knew he knew.

A deranged woman was howling like a Banshee.

Travis Maynard fucked her from behind, pounding his monster of a cock into the farthest reaches of her sphincter while his fingers slapped her pussy, toying with her clit.

The woman was me.

One of the best orgasms he'd given me in the last six months since he joined Dawson & Reid. Travis was a lover almost as gifted as Perry or Owen before him; I remembered this well, it was at the Miller reception, the week prior. Frank had refused to accompany me. Said he was tired. Now I wondered if he already knew. Anger replaced fear. There is nothing as sacred to a woman as her secrets. How dare he invade my privacy?

"You... you hired a detective to spy on me?" I lashed out. Frank jolted, realizing I was there. There was shock in his eyes as I screamed at him.

"I can't believe you'd do something like this to me. How could you stoop so low?" I continued. Frank regained his bearings, got up and collected the pictures, putting them back in the envelope.

"How can I trust you again after this, Frank? How much did it all cost?" I continued on the offense. "Do you know how far behind we are with the student loan payments?"

He snatched the picture from my hand, making me flinch. I had forgotten how huge his hands were. Frank stumbled out of the kitchen and I doubled down on the assault.

"This is all your fault! If you had been more attentive and caring to my needs, I wouldn't have to go out and look for cocks!" I vented out. "Nineteen years and you let me slip away, Frank!"

He turned at the door and finally said, in a low, harsh tone:

"Kate, you have ten minutes to pack your stuff and leave or I'll kick you out the door myself. We are through." There was fury in his eyes. For a moment, I was sure he was going to hit me, but Frank just walked off, up into the bedroom.

Silence enveloped me in my empty kitchen. Eerie shapes loomed in from the corners of my eyes. A dark shape slithered from behind the fridge. Its auburn hair vanished under the kitchen table. Mom had given us that table. My fingers traced Its dented corner, a souvenir from when I cut my thumb cooking.

Skillet pork chops with cabbage.

Frank had sprung into action, shoving the table to the side to get to me. He was so fast, cleaning my wound and bandaging it. He had soothed me by humming Tokyo Mew Mew's theme song, NaDana's favorite show on her 4th grade. I found hard to believe there was once a time when the sound of his voice could cure all my ills.

Something green drew in my eyes. An old parrot fridge magnet. Had it always been there?

Lightning pierced through my brain.

"I am the very model of a modern Major General."

Frank, NaDana, and Rosamund had spent endless evenings reciting and preparing for the school play. I had chided them. NaDana didn't have to know the lines by heart, students were allowed to bring their sheets to the stage. No, not NaDana, ever the perfectionist.

Disaster struck on the day of the play, of course. NaDana forgot her lines twice and twice Frank got up from his chair, screaming "Mauser Rifle" and "Aristophanes". The audience burst into laughter while I shrinked in my seat, mortified. At the end, the whole school had converged on us, congratulating NaDana for her dazzling performance. A shy Samoan girl dressed as Mabel held her hands and when she ran away, NaDana was holding that parrot magnet.

"Look, Daddy, now I really am a pirate!"

A blanket of long forgotten memories surrounded me. I saw past Christmas parties. Family meetings.

And then I saw Amber.

Amber Clark, from Research.

She divorced her husband back in '96, hoping she'd find someone better. Crow's feet in her eyes, auburn dye receding from her graying hair, back hunched in an early onset of rheumatism. Still cruising bars looking for some action. One day she got to work wearing shades to hide a black eye.

"Rough loving, huh?" I joked.

"Yeah," she replied with a joyless grin, "that's the price for fucking an Energizer bunny."

I asked if she wasn't afraid. Hepatitis, HIV. Jack the Ripper. Why did she do this at an age when she should be looking after her grandchildren?

"I can't go home alone, I have nothing waiting for me there." Amber broke into tears, bawling like a mad woman. I fled as fast as I could.

We never talked again, but I'd watch her drag herself toward the office building morning after morning, gray, curved, and defeated.

And then one day, she was gone. Sleeping pills, bullet to the head, it was anyone's guess.

A chill ran down my spine, I was Amber Clark. I was gonna be cruising bars at 57 looking for my weekly fix of cum.

It's amazing how fear can wake you up.

How could I have been so stupid? Travis wasn't even that good a fuck. Yeah, he'd given me some stellar orgasms, but looking back, most of it was the excitement of the thrill, the forbidden fruit, doing something for myself for once. Was it worth throwing away 19 years? What was NaDana gonna say? Our friends and relatives? My reputation would be ruined.

I rushed out of the kitchen.

A shadow hid behind the living room couch, propelled by two veiny arms. Its auburn head followed my footsteps up the wooden stairs.

The sound of my feet on the oak wood brought me memories of a kiss under the mistletoe.

The taste of Porto in Frank's friend, Gary's, lips. His startled deer eyes as my tongue glided against his to the tune of Frosty the Snowman. Frank and our neighbour Mrs. Mccormack in the living room staring at me in disbelief. And NaDana. The tears in her eyes. The sound of her footsteps fleeing upstairs, still wearing the brand new pink rollerblades my mom had given her for Christmas. No more hand-me-downs from the neighbors.

She fell, betrayed by the wooden steps. Betrayed by her own mother. A dagger had pierced through my heart as I held her convulsing frame in my lap.

"You're not my mommy!" She had bawled in pain.

"Frank? Frank, we've gotta talk, baby! I am so sorry, please, we have to figure this out. Frank?"

The scent of Bleu hit me first. Frank was standing in the bedroom, all dressed up. He was wearing the tie I had given to him. It was his best one. His lucky tie, he called it. I had given it to Owen first. He had rejected it; his wife would ask questions.

Frank looked at me through the mirror reflection. So much hatred in his eyes.

He walked past me and down the stairs. NaDana had shambled down these same steps when she was fifteen months old, all by herself. I had been so proud.

Frank had stood at the bottom, ready to grab her if she fell. A funny image crossed his mind, watching our daughter's clumsy movements in her little sailor clothes.

His eyes sparkled and Frank burst into laughter: The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

"What did you do, Ray?" Frank grinned.

"Oh, shit!" I joined in. I could read his mind back then.

"There is no Dana, only Zuul!"

"No Dana? NaDana!" We burst into laughter.

That was the last time we had called our daughter Nadine.

The shadow was behind me. She loomed in, urging me to stop him. I sprung into action, driven by fear and purpose.

"Frank, wait, please! You have to listen to me, I can explain everything. Please don't go, I love you, Frank!" I ran after him, tears in my eyes. I was about to lose my Frank. I had scraped my knee fighting Molly O'Hare for him. "It was just sex, Frank! Please, I love you!"

I grabbed his arm but he pulled it away.

"I want you gone when I get back," he snarled. Frank had never talked to me like that in the 23 years we'd known each other. He was my gentle giant.

Frank walked outside and saw the flickering porch light. Casually, he tapped the lamp and it sprung into life, lighting up the night around us.

He turned to me and I saw a stranger in his eyes, filled with hate and pain.

"Gone!" Frank screamed.

He drove away in his Astra. It was over. Nineteen years of hard work to buy this house. To raise a daughter who hated me. Nineteen years of Measles, Parent-Teacher meetings and diapers. I was gonna lose the house. I was gonna lose NaDana's respect. Our neighbors and my colleagues' respect.

"I can't go home alone, I have nothing waiting for me there."

My knees failed me and I crouched on the stairs, bawling like an abandoned baby in a trash bin. What was gonna become of me?

The scent of Bleu still hovered in the house when I got to the bedroom. I picked the envelope. It had reports of my infidelities. Motel record printouts. A pen drive. Two burnt CDs. And pictures. Oh, my God, so many pictures.

All of them plastered with my face grinning in wanton joy. Riding Travis at the Westhouse Motel. Travis going down on me in the back of his Ford Fusion. Travis pounding me missionary style in our marital bed. How could I have done this to Frank? To us? In the pictures I was squealing, holding for dear life as Travis held me in his arms. I had asked him to carry me over the threshold like Frank did on our wedding night. I had told him I wanted him to impregnate me. The cruel excitement of imagining Frank raising Travis' love child had sent me over the edge into a riveting orgasm. For a moment, it was better than Owen, even better than Perry.

The last picture brought me back to the dim reality. I was sucking Travis' cock in the office bathroom. The distinct Dawson & Reid logo on the stall mirror and the golden faucets. How did the P.I. manage that? This picture could have us both fired.

My immediate instinct was to break cheaters' protocol and call Travis at home.

His wife answered.

"Travis' phone, it better be good at this hour," Mindy sneered.

I stammered, my wheels spinning on empty.

"H-hey, Mindy, it's Kate. Kate Hart," I blabbered. "I... is your husband there?"

"Yeah, he's in the bath... no, wait, he's here. Travis! It's Kate!" I could hear her shout.

"Is everything alright?" She knew something was wrong.

"N... no, everything is cool, thank you," I strangled my sobbing.

"Yo, Kate, what's up?" Travis' dashing voice boomed over the airwaves, reinvigorating me.

"T-Travis, Frank knows. He, he hired a detective, he has photos of us. Reports, CDs, videos," I spilled into the phone. Travis was quiet, listening to our worst nightmare scenario. We had often talked about this, his cock still buried in me leaking his seed. His silence only made me scream louder. "Are you listening to me? He has photos of us fucking in the Dawson & Reid bathroom, we could get fired!"

"Have you checked on your drive?" Travis replied, finally. "Yeah, it can't have vanished, talk to Rosamund, she has copies of every report. It has to be somewhere."

He hung up. My life was over.

I sat on the floor thinking of Amber Clark. Took me ages to finally get up and go take a shower, wash the rest of Travis' cum from my pussy.

When did I become so low, selfish and stupid? How could I ever have brought myself to do this to my life? My husband? The man who had held me and filled me with hope when my parents died, leaving me with nothing but debt as the cosigner on their credit cards? He had stayed awake all night sorting through piles of rotting papers, trying to find a solution for me. He dented his Astra on a fire hydrant the next morning, driving to work. I had screamed at him when he stumbled back home. Gary Nordquist was with him. An old platoon friend turned accountant. They stayed awake all night and in the morning, Gary had found me a way out of the hole. Frank paid him with a grenade pin. They both smiled like accomplices.

A cold, unfinished bowl of soup stared at me when I heard keys rattling on the front door.

A biker came in, clad in leather, tattoos on his colossal arms.

"You still here?" He turned to me with an annoyed tone. "Frankie told me you'd be gone."

Fear took hold of my limbs while my eyes travelled to my purse lying on the kitchen floor. From the depths of its yawning maw, the barrel of a Smith & Wesson stared back at me.

"Calamity", the pride and joy of Jackie's husband. I had bought it for fifty bucks. Jackie had cried when I offered to pay more. Five bullets rested in its cylinder, awaiting their kill order. We all knew the whereabouts of the sixth. Jackie's eldest had picked the wrong room to play Hide-and-Seek and had found something she shouldn't have.

The biker turned back and I leapt to my feet, sizing the distance to my kitchen.

Maybe I could...?

In he came again, carrying an inebriated Frank. The idiot had drank himself into a stupor. There was cheap pink lipstick all over his face, his fly was open and his lucky tie was nowhere to be found. Owen's tie.

"Get out! Get out! Get out!" Frank screamed at me, his drunken eyes red with anger.

"I am going nowhere, this is my home!" I yelled back. I would not become Amber Clark.

"Yo, Frankie, you want me to stay?" the biker chimed in.

"Yes, please, Mickey, will you stay? Please? I can trust you, you're my wingman, Mickey!" Frank blurted out. "Super Mickey!"

"That won't be necessary, I can look after my own husband, thank you very much," I asserted, staring at "Super Mickey." The biker committed every pore of my face into memory, convinced that I was gonna murder Frank in his sleep.

"What's the word, Frankie?" he finally asked Frank. Frank was snoring.

"He'll be alright, thank you, Mickey!" I shooed him out the door before turning to my slumbering husband. He looked so pathetic there on the floor, and yet somehow adorable. This was the man who had driven six hours to go check on my mom when she fell down in the kitchen. Stayed at the hospital overnight, sleeping in the emergencies' waiting room. He gave her carnations when she woke up. How did he know she loved carnations? My heart ached. It took all my strength to drag him to the couch. I had never noticed how big and heavy he was up until just now, but I didn't care. I felt righteous, heroic and brave. I was salvaging my marriage. The cheap smell of perfume filled his clothes. The moron had banged a hooker. I felt insulted, betrayed. A cheap fifty dollar hooker he met at a sleazy biker's bar.

I barely slept, it was the worst night in my life.

Staring into the ceiling, I tracked the passing cars' headlights.

I was back to the night NaDana came out. We had an argument, I was worried I'd never have grandchildren. She ran out the door, screaming. Frank followed her. I spent the night counting cars on the ceiling. NaDana came back with Frank in tow shortly before dawn. She'd taken him to the Swingin' Sappho club by the docks. He joked, dead drunk:

"At least they'll never fight over toilet seats."

That was my Frank, silver lining on everything.

I decided to wake him up with a blowjob, give him a taste of what he'd be missing if he decided to walk out of my life. When his cock slipped in between my lips, I realized I had never sucked Frank in all these years. That was something I had reserved only for Perry, Owen and Travis. They deserved the best Kate, the wild Kate who liked anal. Not this bumbling tool who was always exhausted from working two jobs to help me pay my college student loans.

Was that when I had started to despise and hate Frank? Knowing he was out there busting his ass for me while I sat pretty, back at the office with air conditioning and gossip? I resented him. His sacrifice. Each time he smiled at me, every gesture of kindness from him became an accusation.

Tears glided down my cheeks. I continued sucking Frank until his erection took shape. Not as big as Perry's, but this one was all mine. I had fought Molly O'Hare for it and it would not be stolen from me by some syphilitic prostitute. He shuffled on the couch. Frank was awake.

"What do you think you're doing?" His words stabbed at me. Pushing me away, Frank got up and waddled upstairs toward the bathroom.

"Frank, please, we have to talk. Let me explain." I followed him, trying to keep up. I had always struggled to match his stride, especially on the dance floor.

It was Autumn. Out of the blue, Frank had decided to take dance lessons. Apparently, it was my lifelong dream and I had pestered him about it since the 10th grade school ball. I don't remember. What I did remember was that Saturday afternoons were Owen time.

I should be in a motel room on my back being pounded by his veiny cock, not learning quickstep in some rundown gymnasium filled with geriatric relics. A couple bumped into us in the middle of a bounce fallaway. I had found my pretext. My tantrum was legendary, worthy of an Oscar. I stormed out, straight back into Owen's arms and onto his cock. Frank was humiliated; it took him a month to return, now with NaDana and her Samoan friend as his dance partners. My guilt was smothered by the unrelenting onslaught of Owen's devilish tongue.

"What could you possibly have to say that would make me forget about Travis Maynard, Owen Graham and Perry Hill?" Frank's words hit me like a punch. He knew about the others too.

I stood there listening to him wash himself and shave, then drifting into the bedroom.

Three minutes later, he was dressed and walking out the door.

"Frank! Frank, please wait. Please. I love you! You're going out on an empty stomach again?" I asked him. "At least let me make you..."

He stopped there, looking for his car keys, before the events from the previous night hit him. He turned to me.

"Why are you still here?" he hissed. "Go back to your loverboy! We are over!"

"You're my loverboy, Frank. You were my first one. You are my only one. We've got to talk, please!" I begged him. "It was only sex, you're the one I love. The one I married. The one I wanna grow old with."

Frank stared at me before grabbing his phone and walking out.

"Whore," he mumbled with pain in his eyes.

He stood outside for a good five minutes before an Uber picked him up.