© 2017 D.S. Little
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. Copyright law.
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Christian
The minute Dee closed her eyes to go to sleep I got up and walked to our room where her purse was. I sat down on the edge of the bed and began to go through the big bag, hoping and praying that I didn't find anything out of the ordinary like any unexplained receipts or hotel cards.
In the front pocket I found a napkin with the name Gryphon on it.
"Gryphon?" I said to myself out loud. Other than the napkin I didn't find anything.
I walked back towards the living room where her little purse that she carried with her that night was and pulled her phone out. I held my breath as I scrolled through looking for anything that had Odell's name on it. I wanted to know if they still talked or if they had seen each other since that night.
After checking though her text messages and emails, I went through her social media pages, I didn't find anything there.
Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief I went to her contacts and found his name and number there, I wanted to crush the phone in my bare hands.
Were they still talking? How often? When?
I put the phone back in her bag and then walked towards our room to take a shower to help me calm down. As I washed my body off, thoughts and images began to float through my mind.
I tried to shove the images out with memories of our life together but they weren't as strong as my curiosities. I could see him on top of her, having sex with her and I could also see her liking it!
In the past month I tried to throw myself into my two new temporary jobs while also still sending off my resume to firms around the state of California. I was willing to relocate if I was offered the right position. I worked my fingers to the bone hoping that time would erase what had went down in Vegas.
It hadn't.
Every waking hour I thought about my wife being with that man and anytime one of his commercials came on our tv, I wanted to smash it with a bat. We couldn't seem to escape him, the public and the media seemed obsessed with him because he was everywhere!
I tried to let things get back to normal but every time I looked at her I wanted to ask her about the night. It was really bothering me and I wanted to know details.
When she wanted to make love, I would try to block out the torturous images and try my best to please her but I always spent most of that time wondering if she was comparing us.
I noticed that there were a few little things that she did differently in bed and I wondered if he taught her those things. Whenever she recommended a new position I would refuse because I could only see her learning that from him.
She seemed to be able to move on as if none of this was bothering her at all and I couldn't see why not because it was driving me crazy.
After getting out of the shower I went back to the living room and picked up my naked wife from the floor and though I wanted to wake her up and demand answers I didn't want it to go down like that.
As I carried her down the hall I looked down at her delicate sleeping face and thought of all the reasons why I loved her.
I loved everything about her and I couldn't imagine my life without her, but something had to give in order for me to move on. I couldn't keep going on like this.
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I walked into our apartment after finishing work at the pizzeria and found Danielle cooking in the kitchen talking on the phone. When she saw me she hung the phone up.
Red flag.
"Hey papi, I didn't know you would be home this early." She walked around the counter and opened her arms to hug me but I moved out of her reach.
"Who was on the phone?" I asked her outright.
"My mother." She responded looking at me with confusion.
"Your mom? And what did mom have to say?"
"Nothing, she wasn't there," Dee answered with hestitation, "I was about to leave a message but you walked in."
"You just said that you were talking to her?" I jumped on her with the details, "how could you be talking to her if she wasn't even there?"
"I was trying to talk to her," she explained moving back behind the counter to finish cutting up the meat she had laid out on a cutting board, "but I didn't reach her."
"Your mom didn't answer her phone?" I asked her skeptically.
"No, and if you don't believe me, would you like to try and call her yourself?" She shot back pointing the knife in my direction as she talked. "What's the matter with you?"
"What's Gryphon?" I couldn't help but ask her.
"Gryphon?" She asked her hands paused from slicing the meat. "Where did you hear that name?"
"You had a napkin in your purse."
"We said we wouldn't talk about it." She said her voice becoming shaky as she put down the knife and began to wash her hands in the sink.
"Yeah, well, now I want to talk about it," I walked into the kitchen to stand next to her. "Don't you?"
"No." She said walking around me and out of the kitchen.
"Dee." I pleaded with her as I followed her to the living room, "I thought I could forget about this, but I can't." I searched her eyes and found so much fear there, "maybe if we just talk about it we can finally put it all behind us."
"Gryphon's a boat." She said quickly.
"He took you on a boat?" I asked completely shocked by this, "in Nevada?"
"We flew to Santa Barbara."
"What kind of boat?"
"A big boat."
"And then what?"
"And then nothing." She said moving around him again and walking down their hall.
"Why do you still have a napkin from the boat?" I asked trailing her.
"I don't know," she kept walking towards our bedroom, "have you been going through my bag?"
"No," I lied. "Why? What's in your bag?"
She turned around to face me once we reached our room, "I'm not gonna talk about this. I'm not gonna do it." She pointed a finger in my face as if I had crossed the line.
"Why is his number in your phone?" I finally asked the question I wanted to know the answer to.
"His number isn't in my phone." She shook her head. "Have you been going through my phone, too?"
"Dee, his number is in your phone." I told her confidently, remembering what I saw the night before.
I watched as Danielle walked back towards the living room and snatched her phone off of the coffee table. She opened it and began to scroll through her contact list then her eyes widened with shock.
"I didn't put his number in my phone," she looked at me with panicked eyes, "I don't even know how it got in my phone."
"Have you been talking to him, Dee?"
"No." She stressed her eyes now welling up with tears.
"Have you seen him since that night?"
"No, Chris," she said shaking her head vigorously, "I wouldn't do that to you."
"Do you think about him Dee?" I asked not sure if I wanted the answer to that question.
"No, I don't."
"You can't stop thinking about him can you?" I tried to convince her my voice now growing louder.
"You won't let me!" She screamed back at me. "Why were you even in my bag in the first place?"
"I don't trust you!" I said finally admitting the obvious elephant in the room.
"Well, I don't trust you either!"She returned with just as much anger.
"Well then, I guess we're even." I seethed. "Do you wanna fuck him again?"
"I don't believe you." She said turning around and walking back towards our room.
"Tell me what happened on that boat Dee."
I followed her down the hall. I wasn't going to let her escape telling me the truth.
"Chris, don't do this." She said with warning in her voice.
"Why not?" I asked looking skeptically at her, "I wanna know what happened."
"Fine, I'll tell you," Dee whipped around and stood directly in my face. "Yes, we fucked!" She said her chest heaving up and down. "We fucked all night all over that damn boat. Does that do it for you? Is that what you want me to say?"
"Is that the truth?" I asked around the tightening in my chest from her last answer.
"You don't wanna know the truth you want me to lie," she said walking away from me and towards the bathroom, "so even if I tell you that the sex was lame, you still won't believe me."
"Just tell me the truth Dee!" I yelled at her.
"It was sex Chris," she said her voice lowered, "it was just sex, not love."
"Was it good sex Dee?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Can you at least tell me that?" I asked her and watched her shift. "What are you hesitating for?"
Her eyes begged me not to keep asking her questions but I pressed on anyways.
"Just tell me Dee. Was it good?" I asked her and reached for her at the same time but she pushed me away. "Was. It. Good?"
"Yes!" She finally yelled then she looked like she regretted saying that answer, "Chris...I'm so sorry." Her hands went to her mouth.
"Don't fucking tell me that it was just sex!" I yelled stepping away from her. "You were attracted to him all along weren't you?"
"That's not true," she returned as tears streamed down her face, "I did this for you...for us."
"Don't tell me that you did this for me," I called her out, "you did it for yourself. You were probably dying to do it from the moment you saw him."
"That's not true." She said and more tears flowed down her face but I didn't feel any sympathy for her at all.
"Don't lie to me!" I yelled, a month's worth of frustration finally coming out, "you were always attracted to him."
"Chris." She pleaded now crying so hard that her entire face was wet with moisture.
"I knew something like this was gonna happen," I yelled kicking the nearby wall, "I guess you make a deal with the devil and you will eventually pay the price."
"Chris," Dee cried, "please just calm down and let's talk about this."
"There is nothing to talk about Dee." I told her looking at her with disgust. "I'm leaving, so now you can go fuck him as much as you want now."
"Chris , don't do this," she grabbed me, "it meant nothing to me, he doesn't mean anything to me."
"Dee, I can't stay here." I told her.
Then I walked out of the room hearing the sounds of her cries carrying down the hall. I was too angry to cry or to feel, my adrenaline was pumping so fast. I snatched my wallet off the counter and left our apartment.