The rumors were true, I know it now. I’m watching it with my own eyes. I’m watching my wife cheat on me.
Eliza has been a dominant force in my life. As my wife and my partner she pushed me to be my best. I had a suspicion that she always found me lacking, but I never knew she would go this far.
Both of her bosses at the same time, one in front and one behind. Their hands are on her body and they are driving her crazy with their touch. She’s begging them for more.
Is this my fault? Did I do something to deserve this? Eliza isn’t the only one of my partners who has put me in this position. Is it possible there is a part of me that wants this to happen?
Because this hurts me. This makes my body ache. It makes my heart sore, but I can’t look away.
And while I’m watching I feel a surge, a need inside of me. I can’t help myself.
I need to see this for myself.
Excerpt
I heard my Eliza. I heard her moan.
My world froze.
The pounding in my heart drowned out any other sounds beyond that. There was just me standing alone and the memory of my Elizas moan echoing again and again in my ears. It ricocheted in my head, giving me a splitting headache that sapped the very strength from me.
I needed to pause.
Slipping to the ground. Lying there on the rough carpet that had been ground down by the thousands of footsteps that had walked over it I felt that within myself.
I felt like someone had taken out my heart and walked a marathon over it, then another one again. I felt trampled, my breathing coming ragged through my hand clenched over my mouth as I stifled a cry.
But the tears came to my eyes anyway.
Burning. Burning hot in the corners and then running down my cheeks. The words repeating in my head with a certain, coming to a roar and keeping time with the pounding of my heart.
She is cheating on you.
Jaw shaking. Body shaking. Trembles that threatened to rock through me, to shake through into the floor beneath me and to rattle this whole building. To bring it toppling down around me and crashing to the ground killing me and killing everyone inside of it.
My lips mouthed those words over and over again, tracing them on the inside of my fingers as my hand clenched tighter. As my body clenched tighter and the panic reduced my sight to a tiny circle of vision directly in front of me.
A shoe knocked over beneath a desk.
A ball of paper discarded but fallen out of the trash can.
A momentary pause.
My hand relaxing.
The words forming on my lips and spilling forth, so quiet they were barely a whisper.
She is cheating on you.
What happened next I cannot understand or comprehend. It was like the whole world reduced to darkness and then burst into light with a furious fire that consumed me and pushed back the darkness.
But rather than rage or anger, there was this sense of calm that took me over. This moment of stillness that stretched forward into an eternity as I felt my whole body relax.
It was an answer, and with it came a sense of finality and a need to move past it. The only question was what happened next.
I think I might be a broken man.
A whole person would look at this situation and know it is enough. They would crawl back the way they came and drive home and pack their things and call a lawyer. They would end this, fully and completely.
A clean break.
A whole person wouldn’t do what I did next, but I wasn’t a whole person. I was a person on fire, a person who had in this moment let go.
And a demon within me took control from that point forward.