Chapter 6

The grey light of morning seeped through the living room blinds, striping the worn fabric of the sofa where Jake lay, staring at the unblinking eye of the smoke detector on the ceiling. Hours had passed since sleep had offered any escape from the previous night’s torment. The apartment was too quiet. He heard the faint click of the bedroom door opening.

Lily appeared in the doorway, a silhouette against the dimmer light of the hall. Even in her distress, wrapped in a short silk robe that did little to hide the long, elegant line of her legs or the soft curve of her hips, she sent a familiar, unwanted ache through him. Her dark, glossy hair was tousled from sleep, her face pale. Her green eyes, usually so bright, were wide and red-rimmed.

“Jake?” Her voice was a raw whisper.

He sat up, the movement stiff. “I’m calling him, Lily.” His own voice was a rasp. “He needs to fucking hear it. He needs to know what he did to you, to us.”

Tears welled in Lily’s eyes, genuine and overflowing. She clutched the lapels of her silk robe tighter around her, her shoulders trembling. “Okay, Jake. Yes.” Her voice broke. “He ... he needs to understand. What he did was ... monstrous.

Jake grabbed his phone from the coffee table beside the sofa, his fingers jabbing at the screen. He found Barry’s number and hit dial, then slammed the speakerphone button. The tinny ringing filled the tense silence of the living room. Lily crossed from the bedroom doorway, perching on the edge of the sofa near him, her bare arm brushing his as she leaned in, her gaze fixed on the phone as if it were a venomous snake.

“Yeah?” Barry’s voice, when it finally came through, was thick with sleep, casual.

Jake’s control snapped. “Barry, you fucking psycho! Do you have any idea what you did last night?”

A pause. Then, “Jake? What the hell are you on about?”

“Faking my account, you son of a bitch!” Jake surged to his feet, pacing the small space in front of the sofa. “Typing those things ... tricking Lily into believing it was me ... making her ... making her do those things with you! That was sick, Barry! You violated her! You violated us!”

Lily leaned towards the phone. “Barry ... how could you?” Her voice was raw with tears, with a genuine, cutting anger. “You used me ... you made me think Jake wanted ... all those things we did. You took advantage of my trust ... you made me feel ... disgusting!”

Another pause, longer this time. When Barry spoke again, the sleepiness was gone, replaced by a defensive edge. “Alright, alright, calm down, both of you. Look, maybe faking the account was a bit much, okay? I’ll give you that. But let’s not pretend this came out of nowhere.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Jake spat.

“It means Lily plays these games all the time,” Barry’s voice was sharper now, an accusatory undertone creeping in. “She teases, she shows off that incredible body of hers ... she practically begs for attention with those dance clips and suggestive photos. And you, Jake, you eat it up. You love watching her push boundaries, don’t you? I just took it a step further. Gave you both what you were clearly hinting at, what you really wanted, even if you won’t admit it to yourselves right now.”

Lily gasped, shaking her head, tears streaming down her face.

“So, yeah,” Barry continued, his voice hardening, “maybe I misjudged how far to take the method, but the desire? That was all you two. Don’t try to pin this all on me.”

Jake’s face was flushed, his fists clenched. “Save your bullshit excuses, Barry. You’re a sick fuck, and you crossed a line you can never uncross.” His voice was cold now, hard, dominant. Lily looked up at him, her tear-filled eyes wide, a flicker of something unreadable in their depths as she took in his unyielding anger.

“You will never contact either of us again,” Jake bit out. “You will delete our numbers. If I ever hear from you, or hear of you near Lily again, you’ll regret it. We’re done.”

He stabbed the end call button, his hand slamming the phone down on the coffee table with a crack. With sharp, angry movements, he snatched up Lily’s phone as well, his fingers flying across the screens, blocking Barry’s number, his profiles, erasing him. The digital purge was swift, aggressive.

When he was finished, he turned to Lily. Her bare shoulders were shaking, her beautiful face streaked with tears. He pulled her into a fierce, possessive hug, his arms a steel band around her. Her firm, perfect ass pressed against his groin as he held her close, the scent of her skin, her hair, filling his senses even through his rage.

“He’s gone, Lily,” Jake growled into her hair. “He won’t bother you again. I’ll make sure of it.”

Lily clung to him, her body pliant against his, her sobs muffled against his chest. He could feel the rapid beat of her heart, the warmth of her skin. His anger was a shield, a necessary fire. He was her protector, the one who would keep the wolves at bay. He had to be. The alternative, the truth of his own dark excitement during parts of the previous night, was a thought he couldn’t afford to entertain, not now, not while Lily was this vulnerable, this exquisitely his to defend.

Several days crawled by. The raw, immediate anger of that morning phone call had faded, leaving behind a brittle quiet in the apartment. They moved around each other with a careful sort of politeness, the air thick with things unsaid. Lily, when Jake looked at her, still seemed fragile, her usual vibrant spark dimmed. Sometimes he’d catch her staring off into space, a distant look in her green eyes, and a cold knot would tighten in his gut.

He tried to be the attentive husband, the protector. He’d bring her coffee in the morning, his hand lingering perhaps a fraction too long on the soft skin of her arm as she reached for it. She’d give him a small, wan smile, but her eyes wouldn’t quite meet his.

Their bed, once a place of playful teases and escalating intimacies, became a landscape of unspoken tensions. One night, perhaps a week after the call, Jake reached for her. The moonlight, slicing through a gap in the curtains, illuminated the curve of her back as she lay turned away from him. He traced the line of her spine with his fingers, feeling the silken texture of her skin.

“Lily?” he whispered.

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t pull away. He took it as an invitation, his hand moving lower, cupping the firm, perfect swell of her ass. It was a magnificent handful, as always, round and high from her dancing. He pressed himself against her, his erection already hard, needy.

He kissed her shoulder, his lips trailing up her neck, into the soft fall of her dark hair. “I miss you,” he murmured, his voice rough.

Lily finally turned, her body moving with a languid grace that still made his breath catch. Her breasts, full and exquisitely shaped, pressed against his chest as she faced him. Her nipples, he knew, would be hardening at his touch, those perfectly pink buds so responsive. He lowered his head, his tongue flicking out to taste one, then the other. She let out a soft sigh, a sound he couldn’t quite decipher.

He tried to lose himself in her, in the familiar scent of her skin, the way her body yielded to his. He pushed into her, a desperate need driving him. But something was off. Her movements beneath him felt ... dutiful. Her moans were soft, almost too quiet, lacking the uninhibited cries he’d grown accustomed to, the ones that used to signal her pleasure, her surrender.

Afterward, as he lay there, his body still thrumming, a profound dissatisfaction settled over him. He looked at Lily. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even, but he sensed she wasn’t asleep.

“Was that ... okay?” he asked, the question feeling clumsy, inadequate.

Lily’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at him, a faint, unreadable smile on her lips. “It was fine, Jake.”

Fine. The word landed like a stone.

He tried again a few nights later, this time attempting to be more dominant, to stoke the embers of the wildness he knew she possessed. He pinned her wrists above her head, his mouth rough on hers, his hips grinding against her. He wanted to see that spark in her eyes, that look of wanton abandon he’d seen when ... when other eyes were on her.

She submitted, her long, toned legs wrapping around his waist, her body arching. He could feel the wetness between her thighs, the heat of her. But again, it felt like a performance, a well-rehearsed dance rather than a raw, spontaneous eruption of passion. He came with a frustrated groan, the release offering little solace.

Lily, too, seemed adrift. He’d find her sometimes late at night, curled on the sofa, the glow of her laptop screen illuminating her face. She’d be scrolling through dance forums, she said, or looking at choreography. But the set of her jaw, the way her eyes would occasionally flick towards him with a guarded expression, told him something else was stirring beneath the surface.

One evening, he found her in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, wearing one of his old t-shirts that barely covered the curve of her ass, her long dancer’s legs bare. She was staring out the window, a glass of wine in her hand.

“Everything alright?” he asked, coming up behind her, his hands settling on her hips.

She leaned back against him, her head resting on his shoulder. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

She was silent for a long moment. Then, “Do you ever ... miss how things used to be, Jake? Before ... all of this?”

He wasn’t sure what “all of this” meant, or how far back “used to be” went. The lines had blurred so much. “Sometimes,” he admitted, his voice low. He kissed the side of her neck, inhaling her scent. He wanted to ask her what she missed, what she truly wanted, but the words wouldn’t form. The chasm between them felt too wide, filled with too many unspoken truths, too many dangerous memories. He just held her, the smooth, warm skin of her hips beneath his hands a familiar comfort, yet a reminder of a deeper, more troubling hunger that neither of them seemed able to satisfy, or even acknowledge.

This unspoken ache festered. Days later, one particularly tense evening, after a dinner eaten in near silence, found them in the bedroom, the air thick enough to cut.Jake lay on his side, his back to Lily, the space between them feeling miles wide. Minutes ago, they’d been entangled, a clumsy, fumbling attempt at intimacy that had left him feeling more hollow than satisfied. He could still feel the faint, lingering scent of her skin, a perfume that usually drove him wild but now only served as a reminder of what was missing. He kept his breathing even, feigning sleep, though his mind was anything but still.

He heard her shift, the rustle of sheets as she slipped out of bed. There was no lingering touch, no soft kiss goodnight. Just the quiet padding of her bare feet on the wooden floor, then the soft click of the bedroom door closing.

A knot of something cold and unpleasant tightened in his chest. Where was she going?

He waited a minute, then another, his curiosity warring with a sense of dread. Finally, unable to stand it, he eased himself onto his elbow, peering through the darkness towards the thin line of light seeping from beneath the bedroom door. He rose slowly, silently, his own bare feet making no sound on the rug. He crept to the door, pressing his ear against the cool wood, then risked cracking it open just a fraction of an inch.

The living room was dim, lit only by the flickering blue glow of a laptop screen. And there was Lily, curled on the sofa. She’d pulled on a short silk nightgown, a deep crimson that barely skimmed the tops of her thighs. Her long, toned legs were drawn up, one foot resting on the edge of the coffee table. Her dark hair cascaded over one bare shoulder, and he could see the delicate curve of her neck as she stared intently at the screen, headphones covering her ears.

His stomach plummeted. He recognized the website, the grainy, illicit look of the video player. It was the recording of that night at Barry’s apartment.

As he watched, a sick fascination rooting him to the spot, he saw her hand, pale in the blue light, disappear beneath the hem of the crimson silk. Her fingers moved, a subtle, rhythmic motion against herself. Her head tilted back slightly, her lips parting on a silent sigh. The laptop screen reflected in her wide, glazed eyes, images of her own body, Barry’s body, flickering across their green depths.

Her other hand drifted up to her breast, the silk of her nightgown pulling taut across the full, high curve. He could see the dark circle of her nipple, a perfectly pink, exquisitely sensitive peak, hardening, pushing against the fabric as her fingers teased it. Her breathing quickened, shallow little gasps he could see rather than hear.

The scene on the screen must have been reaching a crescendo. Lily’s hips began to move, a slow, sinuous grind against her own exploring hand. He saw the muscles in her thighs tense, the elegant arch of her dancer’s foot. Then, a shudder ran through her, a visible tremor that started deep within her and rippled outwards. Her head fell back completely against the sofa cushions, her mouth opening on a silent O of release. Her body went lax, her hand falling away, a sheen of sweat glistening on her exposed collarbone.

A wave of something hot and furious washed over Jake. Humiliation, sharp and biting. She couldn’t even wait. Their lovemaking, if it could even be called that tonight, had been so meaningless to her that she’d immediately sought this out, sought him out in this degrading, second-hand way.

And yet, beneath the fury, beneath the hurt, a darker, more shameful current stirred. The sight of her, so lost in her secret pleasure, so uninhibited in her solitude, touching herself to the memory of another man ... it was undeniably, hideously arousing. His own cock, which had been soft and dormant moments before, began to thicken, to ache with a forbidden, unwanted life.

He pulled back from the door, his heart hammering against his ribs, his mind a chaotic whirl of conflicting emotions. He slipped back into bed, pulling the covers up, his body rigid. He lay there in the darkness, the image of Lily on the sofa, her face illuminated by the glow of her illicit pleasure, burned into his retinas. This wasn’t just a casual curiosity on her part. This was a need, a hunger, that he was clearly failing to satisfy.

The days following Jake’s silent discovery were a torment for Lily. The image of Barry, the feel of him, the raw, transgressive power of their encounters – it was a constant thrum beneath her skin. Her secret viewings of the recording became more frequent, a desperate attempt to recapture that intensity. Each solitary climax, achieved while watching herself be taken by him, only left her aching with a deeper, more profound dissatisfaction. Jake’s touch, when he offered it, felt tentative, almost foreign. Their attempts at intimacy were hollow charades, leaving her feeling empty and increasingly frustrated.