Hindsight (8 page)

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Char? Why did you answer the door?”

“I – I – I didn’t realize…” I had nothing else. I had no idea what to say to him; my brain was refusing to work. I think it had died of fright and wished I had as well. I had nothing to offer and just wanted to be transported out of this bad situation, which I had a feeling would become much worse.

“You are such a stupid cunt, Char! I cannot believe how dumb you actually are.” He pushed his hand through his hair with such force that I knew he was angry and it was only a matter of time before he began to take his anger out on me. Things started to get bad after he decided to take on this high profile case… and then got worse after Christmas. I could only image where it would go from here.

“Come with me,” he said sternly while grabbing me by my upper arm. He grabbed me aggressively and I instantly knew it would bruise. “I’m beyond pissed right now and I need to be calmed down. I don’t trust you down here by yourself.”

I cried out as he dragged me behind him.

“You too, Laurie. I need you,” he called out over his shoulder. Again, I was stunned by the different tone he used when he spoke to her. It was as if any word he uttered in her direction was dipped in honey. I couldn’t believe the difference. He had never spoken to me that way. Every word he spoke to me was dipped in acid.

I started to shake as he reached the top of the stairs and turned toward our master bedroom. That was when I noticed Laurie obediently following. Was he going to beat me in front of her? That made everything so much worse. I didn’t want anyone to witness how he treated me. That was private, and having someone watch the horrific things he would do to me brought everything to an appalling level.

He sat me on one of the two armchairs we had in our bedroom. “Do not even think of moving. If you do, you won’t live to regret it. I will get my belt out and beat you within an inch of your life. Understand?” He said the threatening words with such severity that I just pitifully nodded in response. I couldn’t even answer with words. I knew what he meant, and knew how serious his callous words were. It wasn’t a threat when he said those things; it was a promise. He had used the belt a handful of times before and I didn’t want that to happen again, especially in front of Laurie. I wouldn’t have been able to bear it—the beating or the witness to it.

“Come here, you,” he demanded, but his voice held an almost playful tone as he said the words, which immediately identified who he was speaking to. It definitely wasn’t me. “I need you to calm me down, babe. I need you to make this better. Take away my anger.”

Laurie went to him, and once again, he began to kiss her sensually right in front of me. I felt heat rise to my face at the thought of witnessing them together this way. I didn’t want to see this. I had never felt the desire to watch anyone have sex in my presence, let alone my own husband with his mistress. I knew I was having an affair as well, but I never flaunted it. He was keeping me prisoner in this relationship
and
flaunting his affair in front of my face. I was astonished by the situation Tony had placed me in.

Tony abruptly stopped kissing her and glanced my way. “Oh, no. You’d better keep your eyes fully open if you know what’s good for you. I want to show you what it looks like to fuck a real woman. One who doesn’t freeze up and act like a cold fish. One who doesn’t flinch every time I come near her. You could probably take a few notes from Laurie. She knows how to make it good.”

With that, he began to kiss her again. Both of them were making sensual noises as he started to unbutton her blouse and she froze.

“Tony,” she gasped, halting his passionate kisses. “I can’t do this in front of her. Why don’t we just leave her here and we can go back to the office to continue this. Or we can stop by my house or get a room at our hotel. I don’t want her to see what we have. This, what we share together, is special.”

“Come on, baby. Do it for me. You’ve always said this is one of your top five fantasies. To fuck in front of someone that’s forced to watch,” he encouraged. “Do it for me. I need you to calm me down. You’re the only one that can do that.” He kissed her again and she sighed as he took her into his arms lovingly.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked calmly and it shocked me. Had I asked him a question like that, he would have backhanded me. But when she did it, he just smiled at her and touched her cheek gently with the backs of his fingers.

“Because I love you, Laurie. And she needs to see that. She needs to see what real love is. And because I’m about to face another meeting with the judge and I need to be in the right frame of mind when I do that. You’re the only one that can do that to me. I can’t go in there all hyped up and pissed off because of her.” He kissed her lips softly, as softly as he was speaking to her. “I need you, babe. I love you,” he practically crooned.

“I love you, too, Tony.” Her admission was felt clear to my bones. It was evident that their love was very real. She really did love the bastard, and he really loved her in return. I couldn’t even remember the last time he had said those three special words to me, not that he ever meant them when he had said them. But when he said them to her he said them with such passion, it was undeniable the way he felt.

My eyes filled with tears. Was he really going to fuck her in front of me? Part of me couldn’t fathom what was happening. I couldn’t think of a worse punishment than this. My heart literally broke in two as he deepened the kiss and she began to moan as he reached into her shirt. I wanted to look away so desperately, but I couldn’t. It was kind of like when you passed a car wreck on the side of the road. You shouldn’t gawk or stare, but your natural curiosity gets the best of you and you stare away until you pass it. The things he was doing to her, he had never done to me, the looks of love, tender touches, and sensual sounds. It made me stare in wonder. Who was this man with Laurie? It wasn’t the Tony I knew or ever experienced. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He did kind of look at me like that when we first met.

I remembered that day we met. At the grocery store. I had recognized him from a newspaper article I had read in our local paper. He was a well-known defense attorney and had just succeeded in getting a guy off from the death penalty. Not only had he succeeded in in getting his death sentence revoked, but he also ended up getting him off scot-free. It had been the talk of the town. He was a hero in our area, and I couldn’t believe he was talking to me. I was a nobody, a lost girl with no family. I had a few friends, but mostly kept to myself. I didn’t care too much about the way I looked or having anyone pay me any attention. But when he approached me and asked me out, I had suddenly felt the need for his attention. I felt special that someone like him was even talking to me, let alone interested in me on another level. I found that I craved his affection, and desired his love. For the first time in my life I felt as if I was somebody that mattered.

He was so handsome and his confidence practically bounced off the aisle of items as he spoke. I instantly fell in love with the stability he could bring to my life. I never thought that his confidence would turn in to a life consisting of punishments by his hand. That wasn’t the kind of man he seemed to have been. He exuded passion, but I never imagined that his passion could’ve been so dark and daunting.

I thought back to the first time we had sex as I tried to block out the sounds of sex in front of me and reminisced of my past. I was a virgin and he had been so gentle. He was definitely turned on by the fact that he was the first one to enter my body. But he had loved the fact that he could teach me to do things the exact way he liked them done. He had made the comment about not having to undo any bad habits. I had taken it as a compliment back then, but I knew now what that really meant. It made me wonder if Laurie had any bad habits that he had to undo, or if she too was trained to fuck the way he liked.

He had been so persuasive about everything. Looking back on it now, I see it for exactly what it was. He had completely taken advantage of my innocence. At the time, however, I felt like a princess, as if I were the most important person on earth. That’s how he made me feel at least. Even after things started to go bad, when they were good, he still managed to make me feel special. I was special because no one had ever gotten to him that way. I was special because I held the ability to change his moods, like a light switch, as if I alone held the control over him. He made me believe that I had the upper hand in the relationship. I learned too late that it was just another ploy of his. Another way to hold me prisoner in his grasp.

I remembered one time in particular when he had made me feel so special I actually felt bad for every other woman on the face of the earth for not having a man like Tony in their lives. He had come home from work to pick me up for a date and had surprised me with a necklace that held the most exquisite diamond. We were already engaged by then and a week away from marrying. After two weeks of dating, he insisted I move in with him, saying he couldn’t bear to wake up without me. It was another week before he asked me to marry him, saying he couldn’t stand the thought of me not being his forever. I questioned what occasion the necklace was for since I hadn’t been expecting anything from him and had never been gifted something so lovely. He had told me that it was our one-month anniversary, that it had been one month since meeting at the grocery store, and wanted to mark it with something special. That he wanted to celebrate every moment that we spent together. I had believed every word he uttered, hopelessly in love with the gorgeous, confident, older man in front of me. He knew exactly how to play me. It was only the start of his ultimate goal to break me.

I heard Tony growl and looked up to see him finish with what looked like an intense orgasm. His strong back glistened in sweat as I stared at it, admiring it for its beauty, but having no urge to ever be near him again.

Laurie made breathy sounds as he finished her off with his fingers until she, too, achieved orgasm. It was enough of a reminder of the difference between us. He would have never done that for me. When he was done, we were done.

I sat in the chair as he had directed while they started to clean up. My mind was all over the place. I couldn’t stop thinking about the beginning, of all the things I should have noticed but didn’t. I also couldn’t help but think about how everything went wrong, how it went from bad to worse so quickly. It made me worry about when it would go from worse to worst. I just sat there, lost in my own head, waiting for them to leave.

They finally finished getting dressed while murmuring words of love to each other and sharing tender glances. They left me in the chair in the corner of the bedroom without a single word to me. Laurie was quiet, uncomfortable almost, but she did hold an air of confidence as she paraded around
my
bedroom, naked with the afterglow of sex on her skin. She had a familiarity about her, almost as if she had been there before, and that didn’t surprise me one bit. The only thing that surprised me was how I felt about it. I didn’t care that she had been there, fucking my husband in my bedroom. The only thing that bothered me was that it meant I no longer had anything that was truly mine. Nothing belonged to me, not even my bed. It made me want to claw Tony’s eyes out in frustration. Why wouldn’t he let me leave? Especially since he seemed to truly love Laurie?

Tony hadn’t even looked my way as they made their way out of the room. He just took Laurie by the hand and walked her out, closing the door behind him. They worked together. She was his paralegal and that’s how they met. She had told me all about it at one point, not that I cared to know the details. So he left with his mistress after fucking her in my bed and took her back to the office. Was I relieved? Angry? I didn’t know how I felt. I just knew I was alone and numb.

I was still in shock that he had done that in front of me. The first thing I did was strip the bed and bleach the sheets while washing them on the hottest water setting there was. I never wanted to sleep in that bed again. Assuming it was happening was far better than witnessing it with my own eyes. It just made it all the more real.

As I walked back into the living room, I spotted the paperwork the repo guy had given me. It was lying on the coffee table where I had left it. I picked it up and began to read it. It looked like Tony had missed several payments, more than three. I couldn’t understand why he had done that. He had always been good at paying the bills in a timely manner in the past.

I started to think back over the last couple of months and the pieces of the puzzle started to slip together. The countless times Tony had ignored calls on his cell phone. The number of times my credit cards had been declined. Tony had put me on a budget when buying groceries and given me cash instead. In fact, the end to the cash flow seemed to stop because instead of adding cash to the safe, I noticed it had been disappearing at an alarming rate.

Was it possible that we were almost completely broke?

I was finally comprehending the full extent of our money situation.

It had all started about three months ago. Tony had been approached by an influential case. It was a case that had succeeded in making national headlines. Tony had been convinced that this would be the case to blow his career out of the water. I had told him that he was already successful and had already made a name for himself, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Nothing was ever good enough or big enough for Tony. It was supposed to be the next OJ Simpson case and he had been determined to take it, not caring about the time it would take to defend the guy. Because all of his time had been spent preparing his defense, it left little to no time left for additional
paying
clients. It left him with no money coming in, and the money we had dwindled.