Chapter 6: Down the Stairs

I made my feet work. I walked past him without lifting my head, still unable to look him in the eyes. My shoulder almost brushed his chest, and I felt his heat and hated how much I still wanted to stop and lean into it. The hallway felt longer than it had last night when Ryan had carried me up it. At the top of the stairs, I paused for half a second. Behind me, Nick had not moved. I could hear him breathing. I started down.

With every step, I wondered how it had all gone so wrong. Twelve years. Two children. A life we had built carefully and then watched crack open in a single night. I had said no. I had put my hand on Ryan’s chest. And then I had stopped saying no. I had let him take me on our couch and in our bed and on my knees in our kitchen. I had swallowed what he gave me. I had come harder than I had ever come for the man walking down the stairs behind me. And now that man was pretending he didn’t know, so I wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

My panties were even wetter from the thoughts I had been having at the window, and now that I was walking, I could feel more of Ryan’s cum working its way out of me. I knew they must be a mess. I could not stand the idea of how pungent the smell would be, the thick, viscous fluid sticking to the fabric as proof of my infidelity. The soreness between my legs reminded me with every step I took. Ryan’s taste still lingered faintly in the back of my throat. I knew that taste.

I remembered when Roxie had kissed me in the pool after having had Ryan’s cum in her mouth only minutes before, making me recall that unique and disgusting flavor after fourteen years of avoiding it. I remembered the 4^th of July pool party when she had done so much worse. I remembered the nights Roxie took me dancing for fun while Nick and Ryan worked late or stayed home watching games, and the horrible thing that happened the last time we had gone out. Roxie had held me afterward as I had cried, sure that my life and marriage were over. She comforted me and told me these things happened, and it wasn’t the end of the world. She had promised to help me get through it and to keep it secret while I figured out what to do. But it had been living inside me, and the guilt and shame of what I had done were eating me alive. I couldn’t tell Nick because I was sure it would end our marriage. How could it not? But all of those terrible things I had done or allowed to be done to me were nothing compared to what had happened last night.