“I haven’t celebrated my birthday since I turned twenty-one.” I ignored the cool tone.
“Well, maybe we can start a new tradition…I brought you something.” I placed the tiny birthday cake I made for him on the desk. When he didn’t even bother to glance at it, I knew I was in for an uphill battle.
“What exactly is there to celebrate?” The apathy with which he spoke killed the last shred of hope I had that this would work.
“Sebastian––” He held my gaze but didn’t indulge me further. “Why are you making this difficult?” For this, he had no reply. “I miss you. Don’t you miss me?” His narrowed eyes moved away to the window. When they returned to me, they were no longer shuttered. They were bright with a fresh dose of anger that seemed out of character, even for him. It confused me.
“I have a lot to get done today.” He glanced at his watch then. “If you don’t mind…” He was fighting this, fighting me.
I walked around his massive desk to where he sat. His eyes languid, unblinking, followed every move I made. By the time I leaned my rear end against the desk, he looked starched, uncomfortably stiff, so much so that I felt awkward reaching for him. My husband––I felt awkward touching my own husband. He looked almost scared to have me so close. The first crack in his resolve appeared. A tick below his eye.
I glanced at the tiny chocolate cake and said, “I didn’t know what to get the man that has everything.”
His head swiftly turned to face me. “Not everything,” he said cryptically. However, what really snagged my attention was the sharp, accusing glare he tacked on the end.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He stood then, and without hesitation, grabbed my face and kissed me. The kiss was forceful, meant to dominate, maybe even intimidate. There was no pleasure in it––there wasn’t meant to be. His lips smashed mine, his tongue thrust down my throat. I tried to pull back and got nowhere. Only when I stopped fighting him did he come up for air.
“I don’t have this,” he said, his voice ominously low. He pushed his hips against mine. The unmistakable shape of his turgid and solid sex pressed into me. “I don’t have my wife in my bed because she’s too busy fucking her ex-boyfriend.”
He might as well have struck me. It certainly felt that way. All the air left my lungs at once. Squeezing my hands into the sliver of space between us, I shoved harder at his chest this time. Not an inch, not even a centimeter. Trying to break loose of his hold was as an exercise in futility.
“Get off of me!”
“Are you denying it?”
“There’s nothing to deny! You’re being absurd,” I nearly spat in his face. “Get off!”
“The problem with that, Lover––” he said, practically snarling the pet name, “is that I know what you look like when you’ve been fucked––I saw the pictures of you coming out of his hotel room.”
Scanning my memories of that day, all I came up with was the bloody lip and the messy hair. The fight left me all at once. I went limp in his arms. As soon as I did, he let go of me and stepped back, hands on his hips, his eyes still twitching from the effort it took to contain all that emotion.
“I told you I was going to see him,” I said in a much more subdued tone.
He stopped trying to control his anger. It boiled up and over, apparent in the hard lines of his body, the fire in his eyes threatening to consume him. “You didn’t mention you planned on letting him stick his dick in you.”
My breathing turned shallow. “You actually believe that?”
The moment of truth. It always came back to this. Trust…the third rail between us. Would he trust me, or his own eyes? The look on his face told me that doubt had gotten a foothold.
“I saw the pictures,” he repeated, softer this time, with much less convictions. Dejected, my entire body sagged under the weight of defeat. Because if I thought his controlling ways would inflict damage, then what would the lack of trust between us do?
The silence stretched eternal. He looked like he wanted to say something. Though he never did. In the end, I’m the one who spoke. “Happy birthday.” He didn’t answer––and he made no attempt to stop me when I walked out.
I didn’t know what to do about us. Therefore, it was easiest to push my problems onto the back burner and funnel all my energy into my job. All I’d gotten for my attempt to heal this rift between us was an accusation of adultery. That he would believe that about me stung––I won’t deny it. Three days later, I was leaving the clinic after a long and fulfilling day of work when I received his text.