His Third Wife

“I never danced at Magic City,” I said. “You know that. You met me there. I was not a stripper. That reporter just found my name in the permit book and he’s sniffing the wrong pot of piss.”

“No one’s going to care that you never stripped. They’re just going to care that you were going to and that you’re married to me now,” Jamison said. “I can’t believe I got myself into this shit!”

He banged the steering wheel again.

“Into what?” I looked down at my belly. “This?”

“Yes—that. And you. This whole thing. It never should’ve happened. You were my assistant, Val. That’s a fucking cliché. I’m going to be a fucking joke. And I’m trying to get ahead of this, but I can’t seem to keep things in line. Someone’s working against me.”

“Well, it ain’t me,” I said, feeling my eyes get hot. Every time Jamison looked at my stomach, the regret in his eyes made it seem like he’d do something drastic to get rid of me and the baby. He wasn’t the only one sleeping with one eye open. I was just holding out for things to get better once the baby got here. Jamison loved his son, and if he loved my baby that much he’d know that I had given him a gift and just maybe he could love me for that gift. Just enough. Love me just enough.

I put my hand on Jamison’s knee and started talking softly about him needing to let go of all of the tension if he was going back to the office to handle the situation with the reporter. He couldn’t go in there angry. He needed to be calm. Relaxed. He resisted me, but then I started moving my hand in closer to his crotch and joking about us needing to consummate the marriage. I reminded him of the time I gave him head in his office just before he had a press conference to discuss plans to launch the city’s first meth addiction hotline. He’d gone to the podium and one of the reporters had immediately pointed out that Jamison’s zipper was open.

Jamison laughed at the memory and by then my hand was on his hard penis.

“Pull over,” I whispered in his ear.

“Where?” he asked with his voice just as soft as mine then.

“The next exit. I can calm you down.”

We stopped at the end of a long driveway that led to the back of a thick wooded area behind a farm. I tried to unzip Jamison’s pants in his seat, but he pushed me away and got out of the car before slamming the door so hard the thing shook.

“What are we doing here?” I looked around.

“Get out of the fucking car,” he ordered, walking to my door with threatening steps.

“Get out here? But I thought we were—”

“Get out of the fucking car!” He pulled the door open and grabbed my arm before I could get my cellphone from my purse.

“Why here? What are you doing?” I struggled to get away from him, but he managed to get me out of the car and pushed me, chest forward, into the back door. “What are you doing?” I asked and I could hear the fear in my voice.

He came up behind me and started pulling at my skirt with one hand as the other held me in place by the back of my neck.

“This is how you’re going to calm me down,” he whispered in my ear as I heard him undoing his pants.

My skirt was up over my hips then and he tore through my underwear angrily. I could hear birds chirping in the trees around us; the car’s open-door indicator blaring because he’d left it wide open.

“You think you’re running this shit, Val?” he said after he’d entered me and was squeezing my neck so tightly I couldn’t think of moving. “I control you. You don’t control me.”

He stroked me in a fight and I panted to control the intense sensations of fear and mysterious pleasure storming through my body.

“You hear me? You fucking hear me?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I said in a soft pant.

“Say that shit louder,” he ordered. “Say it.”

“Yes.”

He stopped and pulled me toward the open car door and cocked my right leg up onto the empty seat where I’d been sitting.

“You’re gonna scream that,” he said, entering me again and stroking harder. His hand went to my hair and he pulled it. “I control you,” he said. “Say that shit.”

“You . . .”

“Louder!”