I think about all the movies I’ve seen where someone slits their wrists in a bathtub, and I know I’m not going to let her out of my sight until I know she’s okay. I’ll fight for this, fight for her until she’s willing to fight beside me for it. Until she sees it as something worth fighting for.
I turn the knob and step into the bathroom. Eliza whirls on me from her position in front of the mirror. “Get out!”
“I’m not leaving,” I say. “I know I fucked up, Eliza. I’m not going to do it again. But I’m not leaving you alone right now. If I can’t make it up to you, let me make it better.”
I plug the clawfoot tub and turn on the water.
Her eyes move to the tub and back to me. “You think a bath will make it better?”
“It won’t make it worse,” I say. “Talk to me, Eliza. Tell me what I can do to fix this. To show you I’m sorry.”
She blinks at me a few times, like she wasn’t expecting that. And why would she? She already hated me, and now she knows exactly what kind of asshole I am.
“What are you apologizing for?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.
“For fucking you even though I knew you didn’t want to.”
She stares a me a minute, and then her shoulders slump. “You can’t fix that, King.”
What the fuck is wrong with me? Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve had sex, and I was frustrated as hell that I can’t fuck my wife, but that’s no excuse. She was obviously not okay. I told myself she wanted it, but did she really?
That was the absolute worst way I could have gone about it. I already knew she was scared of sex, and taking her virginity so roughly isn’t going to help that any. I should have treated her like a princess, like something precious, because that’s what she is. I’ve screwed up during sex before, but not like that. If I start to doubt it, all I have to do is replay her reaction. She all but screamed behind the fabric I used to muffle her when I entered her. She was crying the whole time. When it was over, she couldn’t get away fast enough.
The drunken mistakes or married women who woke up and took one look at me and realized they’d ruined their marriage for a taste of youth were bad enough.
Okay, so I’ve always been a complete dick, not just tonight.
But this woman…
This is my wife, and I treated her like… Like an enemy.
Just when we’d started to have some kind of breakthrough, I managed to immediately fuck it up beyond repair. Because she’s right. There is no going back from this. I took her virginity, something she can never get back, and I claimed it for myself, with no concern for her.
I rake a hand through my hair as I sit on the edge of the tub, watching her dab a tissue between her legs. It comes away red. I can see my face in the mirror beyond her. Blood rings my mouth like a fucking cannibal from how deep I drove my tongue into her cunt. I don’t want to wash it away, though, to erase the only taste of her I’ll probably ever get. It wasn’t enough.
I’m beginning to realize I’ll never get enough of her. Knowing it now, when she’s done with me, is a torment too cruel even for the likes of me.
“Get in the bath,” I say, turning off the water when the tub is full enough.
She meets my eyes in the mirror, her expression guarded. “You won’t touch me?”
“I promise. I won’t even get in if you don’t want.”
She nods, and to my relief, she steps into the tub. Then she slumps down, sliding into the warm water. Her whole body looks defeated, smaller and more fragile than it was before, as if I’ve broken the spirit that animated her. My stomach twists, and I know she’s right. I can never undo what I did, can never take it back, can never make it right. It’s not fair of me to ask her how I can repair the damage. I fucked up. I have to figure it out myself, figure out how to move forward after a violation like that. The truth is, there is no moving forward. We’ll be stuck here forever.
A warm bath to relax her and ease the soreness is so inadequate it’s almost insulting.
She sits in the tub, staring miserably at the first swirls of red threading through the water. “I just… I’m messed up, King.”
I crouch next to the tub, but I don’t touch her. I lost that right when I forced her to take me when she wasn’t ready. “That’s not true,” I assure her. “I’m the one who fucked up.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she says quietly. “But I never would have been ready. It was the only way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I just… Don’t like to be touched.”
“Anywhere?” I ask.