Carson and Cash laugh it off.
Henry and Aspen’s marriage is a sham. The thought numbs me inside and out. Aspen’s heart is an uninhabited wilderness I’m ready to claim as my own.
“Dude”—Cash calls for another beer—“we shouldn’t be seeing this. This is none of our business. You shouldn’t be screwing around with her future.”
“He’ll be bringing diseases home. Now I’m obligated to tell her. If he goes home and sleeps with Aspen, she could get some hybrid STD. I’m not screwing around with her future. I’m saving her life.” I nod at my brothers before taking off.
I’m not into hanging around for the magnificent climax. Henry with his tongue, perhaps other far more incriminating parts, sunk where they don’t belong.
I didn’t think I was going to see anything tonight. Didn’t think I should have been sitting in front of their home making a deposit to the lending library while waiting for her to shoot off a flare. But I’m damn glad I did.
I may not have seen the authorities hauling Henry off screaming in the night, but I think I did just witness the dissolution of their marriage.
But it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would.
And my heart breaks for Aspen.
The Evolution of Us
Aspen
Treason, adultery, incest, and witchcraft were the primary reasons for the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. Pity. Things started off with so much promise.
The next few days trickle by with the winnowing of my bank account. I leave just enough to pay the rent and toss the rest into my new personal savings at a bank across town. I open two new accounts, one for my new life post Henry, and one on the behalf of the Maritime Widows Association, an entirely fictitious club of women whose husbands were gunned down in the night by the underworld that thought it was a good idea to lend them money in the first place. Although, in reality, I’m the only Maritime Widow in question—that is if I don’t meet up with an errant fender in the meantime. I’m guessing that this branch of the Cosa Nostra uses equal opportunity bullets. Henry and I are both fair game. It’s open season on the O’Tools. It’s big game hunting, and we’re the game.
Carter flashes through my mind, sending a pang of grief straight to my heart. I’m not sure why. We visited two new restaurants since we fell literally head over heels at the beach. He’s been nothing but a gentleman ever since. I thought for sure I’d have to fight him off with a stick since we got off to a such a wet and wild start, but he’s been kind, consoling, as if he were offering me grief counseling. It’s almost as if he knows Henry and I are about to hit a plate glass wall at sonic speed, ridiculous pun intended. A part of me wishes I could tell him everything. But he would kill Henry before the lords of the underworld could ever lay their homicidal hands, or eight-liter engines, on him.
My hand slinks over the copy of Romeo and Juliet that mysteriously showed up in my lending library the other morning. I believe I know who made the deposit. I’ve been thinking about confronting Carter with it, but I’ve kept silent.
My fingers curve around the spine as I pull it to my chest. The gesture is so achingly romantic it makes my heart bleed for all the wrong we’ve done each other over the years. Mostly him to me, but my vengeful heart has only managed to add to the misery. And let’s not forget the ever-calculating, and to our undoing, ovulating, Cher. She added to the heartbreak. Cher was the hammer that crashed down over us.
It’s early morning. The sun has yet to break over the horizon, but I can’t sleep. I’m still ruminating over the pallet full of company dollars I’ve moved and transported into the charity account that I pray I don’t go to prison for one day. Accessorizing with a pair of silver cuffs was never really my style. I’ve made a few test deposits of funds earlier this week, but I was afraid too many transactions might set the alarms off, so I girded my balls and moved an inexcusably large chunk of cash before leaving work yesterday.
I’ve briefed my mother on the sorry state of my matrimonial union last night. Needless to say, it’s been a busy, stressful week. She says I’m welcome to stay with her and Dan (husband number four) as long as I like. They have twin girls, thirteen, Justine and Jordan. Just the thought of disrupting their lives makes me feel guilty for having such disarray in mine.
Henry is snoring loudly from the bedroom. He came home last night—correction, early this morning, and crashed, smelling of cigarettes and booze. The faint scent of sex emanates from him and makes me wonder.
I open his laptop. No password, so I head to his mail. Zero messages. Since the incident, Henry has become a master of clearing his inbox. His phone sits next to his keys on the counter, and I scoop it up. It, however, does require a password. Nothing Lincoln can’t handle I’m sure. I drop both his phone and the copy of Romeo and Juliet into my briefcase without giving it another thought. Perhaps today at lunch, Carter and I will engage in some light reading.
The toilet flushes, and I gasp while fumbling for the coffee maker, just business as usual on, this, the final day of my marriage. Yes, the cons far outweighed the pros and I’m calling it. Game over. Done. Finished. I will go to God one day with a divorce in hand and bow my head in disgrace. I’ve made the decision, and I’m praying I have the balls to stick with it. There was a time last summer when I toyed with the idea, but here I am, three miserable seasons later, still trying to work up the courage. Not to mention, there is one more thing I desperately need from Henry—information on how to pay back those underworld assholes before they chop both our heads off. Damn boat. I’d like to take Henry out for a ride and tie an anchor around his waist. Note to self: do not board that boat with Henry. At this point, it’s too tempting to push him over the side.
“Morning,” he grouses as he heads to the fridge and pulls out a beer.
“I can make you coffee if you want?” I try my best to sound cheery. It’s pretty much solidified that you’re an alcoholic when your morning beverage of choice is packaged in a tall, brown bottle. I’d start the intervention now, but I really need that contact. There’s no way I’m buying that Henry is capable of repaying anyone with anything short of the gas in his belly.
He grunts in lieu of a response, but I crush two cups from the Keurig anyway.
“Here you go. Black the way you like it.” The color of your soul, but I hold back the commentary.
He swipes it from me and grunts. “You’re up early.” His face is knotted up with the remnants of sleep. His eyes are reduced to glassy slits.
“Just getting ready for work.” I sink next to him on the sofa. If I’m lucky, a little kindness might get me all the way to a seedy alley somewhere out on the docks. “So where did you head to last night?” He’s gone just about every night now. It used to be far more sporadic but lately it’s become routine.
“Out with the guys. Went down to Junior’s and played pool until three.” He jams his fist in his eye. “My head’s all fucked up today.”
“Well—I have some good news for you.” I slip my coffee on the sofa table behind me. “Jinx has opened up its wallet, and I finally got that bonus I was telling you about.” There is no bonus, and I’ve never whispered a word, but Henry is so jacked up half the time, I’m sure it’s believable. “A hundred and fifty grand. Sign-on bonus.” I add that last part to make it sound official. Who the hell would get a sign-on bonus from their own company? He’s a dimwit if he believes me. “Just tell me where to move the money. Do they want cash?” I try to sound casual. This is Henry for God’s sake. I doubt an Oscar worthy performance is necessary.
His head twitches as if considering it. “I got this, babe.” He pulls me over his lap, and I’m greeted with his blooming hard-on. The tangy scent of sex and sweat exudes from him.
Not where I wanted this to go. At all.
“I know you’ve got this, but now I’ve got the money.” I try to wriggle off, but he increases his stronghold.
“I have the money.” His demeanor hardens. Those dark eyes that spell
out I hate you sear into me. Why in the hell is he even with me? “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Aspen.” He breaks my name in two pieces, sarcastic, mocking, and it scares me on a primal level. His fingers twist through my hair, yanking my neck back a little too rough, and I laugh trying to make light of it while untangling myself from this Henry-sized knot.
I do not want to fuck Henry. I do not want him touching my hair, skin, lips, or my shoes for that matter. But his ego has entered the room, and the only way to safely leave is to please it. The last time he owed the Prince of Darkness cold hard cash he was adamant I help him track down funds. The problem with Henry is that he’s a spoiled rotten brat who was given whatever he wished for all his life—the only child with a genie of a mother. Make a wish, Henry. I’ll make it come true. Those were his truths. He doesn’t know how to qualify the word no, and he’s never been denied a single whim. My ties with Jinx were seen as nothing short of a cash cow. But this resistance to a fistful of dollars? Even I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it.
“Come here.” He pulls me to him rather abruptly and skims off my sweats in the process. “You want to get fucked, don’t you?” His hand dives between my legs, and his finger penetrates me rough without warning. “You’re dry. What’s the matter, Aspen? I don’t do it for you anymore?”
“Henry, stop.” I try to crawl off the couch, but his hands dig into my hips. “I have to get to work. I’ll be late.”
“I’ll be fast.” His penis is buried in me before I can protest, and I choke on my next breath from the burn. He’s on top of me from behind, my fingers clawing into the leather sofa leaving deep-welted tracks as he saws into me fast and hard.
“Henry!” I cry out in pain, but his laughter fills the room as he pumps away freely. My body stings with white-hot pain. My insides pinch with gnawing lacerations as he rips himself in and out, rough and greedy, as if he were impaling me with a serrated knife. “God,” I hiss, trying to escape. He pushes my head down until my face is crammed under the wing of the sofa. Something purple catches my eye, and it momentarily alleviates the thrashing he’s implementing. My hand fumbles for the purple distraction as his thrusts become more violent. My face pummels the sofa in rhythm as if it too were getting a beating. Shit.
Henry grips me hard, and the thought of his semen spewing into me makes me want to vomit. I twist my hips so fast, I send him and his ectoplasm sailing hot over my back.
“Oh, God,” I hiss trying to escape his grasp. Gross. I pluck the purple fabric from the corner of the couch as Henry pants over me.
A pair of—underwear? I sit up and pull them closer for inspection. La Perla? I turn toward Henry as his life giving seed, albeit unwanted, drips down my spine.
“What the hell is this?”
He glances over groggily before reaching for his beer. “Hell if I know.”
“They’re underwear, Henry.” I flog them in his sweaty face. “Women’s underwear, and they’re not mine!” I happen to know this as a fact because, for one, I’m the proud owner of a vast sea of black and nude organic cotton thongs, and two, La Freaking Perla.
His eyes enlarge for a moment. His body tenses as he examines them briefly.
“They’re yours, Aspen. They’re not fucking mine.”
“They’re not mine, Henry.” I hold steady as if a miracle had bloomed in my hand. As if a world without the weight of this marital mess had spontaneously come to fruition like some adulterating big bang. I can throw out my esoteric list of pros and cons. I now have a solid reason to file for divorce. “You’re having an affair.” I inch my way off the sofa, backing out of the room like trying to escape a rattled tiger.
“I’m not.” He buries his face in his hands a moment. “I’m not cheating on you. I wouldn’t do that.”
“The hell you’re not!” I run into the bathroom with the underwear still clutched to my chest. “These belong to her, whoever she is.” My body goes numb from shock. Here it is, the exact out I’ve wanted, that I secretly prayed for, the only dissolution possible in God’s eyes, handed to me on a purple panty platter. These lacey disasters are giving me the exact narrative my itching ears have longed to hear. He cheats.
I start the shower and stare blankly at the stupid panties while the room fills with a cleansing steam. Stevie was right about him all along. I’ll have to call Lincoln to help me move my things. Maybe I won’t have to borrow the money from Jinx? I can put it all back. Although I doubt the rocky state of my marriage will get a loan shark off my back. Hell, maybe I should call the cops on everyone involved.
The door jumps as he gives it a few violent kicks. The beast has been roused, and he’s coming to hunt me down.
“Let me in!” he thunders.
“No!” I shout back with the panties still clutched to my chest. I jump into the shower in an effort to rinse these two long hellish years off me, and, as I’m getting out, the door bursts open with an angry snap. Henry lurches for me, backs me against the cold tiles as he slams me to the wall with my hands by my head.
“What are you doing, locking me out?” His eyes are red and wild. His neck veins dance like worms. “You think you’re leaving me?” Henry’s face opens with disbelief. His teeth clench as if ready for a fight.
“Yes,” I whisper, my chest heaving uncontrollably.
“Dammit.” He slams my arms against the wall again and again until my knuckles bite with pain. “You think you can fucking walk out the door? Nobody says it’s over but me!” He roars the words over my face like a nuclear wind, and I taste last night’s vodka, last night’s vagina on his breath. His face is red as a flare. Henry is so hopped up on rage, I’m afraid one of us won’t leave this shower alive. “You’re a little fucking bitch. You know that?” His fingers dig into my wrists so hard my bones beg to snap from the pressure.
He grabs my hair and yanks so hard my feet slip from under me. In one fell swoop I knock him down like a bowling pin as I crawl out of the bathroom. I scamper toward the bedroom, and he catches me by the foot.
“You stupid little bitch!”
I claw at the wooden floor, twisting my foot right out of his grasp. Stumbling to my feet, I run to the kitchen. My phone goes off, and I see Stevie’s smiling face pop up on the screen. I scramble to pick it up as Henry staggers into the room.
“Stevie!” I scream just as Henry plucks it from my hand and pitches it across the room. My hand slaps over the counter until I hit a steak knife and sweep it through the air. “Touch me, I will cut you.” The words jump from my throat like an order as I struggle to catch my breath.
He lunges forward, gripping my head with both his hands, his face next to mine, and I do it. I run the blade over the length of his neck so hard, a thick seam of crimson erupts.
“You fucking cunt.” He pulls back incredulous as a few throbbing spurts burst from his neck. “I have never hurt you,” he thunders. It’s a lie from the pit of hell. Henry has hurt me from I do. He’s vindictive, and nasty, and mean, and he hurts me physically with his wrist wrenching, his ass raping me in my sleep, his face fucking me until I vomit. Henry hurts me. There, I’ve said it. I own it. I will fucking write it in his blood if I have to—on the refrigerator like some vapid horror movie.
I jump past him and snatch my cardigan off the rack, my briefcase off the floor, and dive out the door.
Henry doesn’t come after me. Instead, I hear the lock secure. The final nail in the coffin of our marriage bolting shut.
Shit. The iced morning breeze feels as if it’s peeling my skin back one layer at a time as I pound on the door a moment.
“I need my fucking keys!” I scream into the virginal air as the sun begins to magnify its strength over the city.
A sharp, maniacal laugh emits from the other side. Henry is getting his jollies off on the fact I’m shivering in the nude—in public no less.
I quickly pull my cardigan on, tugging it low to where it just covers my bare bottom and slink down the walk. There’s always someone i
n the community center. I’ll ask to borrow their phone. Of course, I have nobody’s number memorized, so a lot of good that will do me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
A car comes crashing down the street, and I jump to the steps in the event the Sonic Glass Company is in need of a hundred points for mowing down a woman at this early hour. But it’s not the imbeciles from Sonic Glass. It’s not Stevie. It’s Carter.
I give a quick distressed wave with my breasts bouncing free, and hop into his passenger’s seat, sopping wet, my sweater open in the front, my briefcase covering my lower half with the copy of Romeo and Juliet peeking out as if to witness the startling event.
Carter’s eyes dip to the book before enlarging in horror—as if in some way his seemingly innocent deposit was responsible for this morning’s horror.
I buckle up quickly as he speeds down the street just enough to get us both out of harm’s way.
“Aspen, I—”
“Just please”—I cut him off, pleading—“don’t say a word.”
And just like that, Henry and I are over with a bang, quite literally.
* * *
Carter parks in haste in what I’m presuming is his driveway. He carries me up the stairs bouncing against his chest, his fingers sliding over my bare legs, his heart rioting against my shoulder. Selfishly, I don’t want him to let go. He leads us through a door that’s partially ajar and lands me safe on a dark chocolate sofa as he kneels beside me.
“There’s blood.” His speech is pressured. He’s panting, so afraid of what’s happened he can’t get his bearings. “Where’s it coming from? Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt.” I extend my arms a moment, glancing down at my naked torso to confirm this to be true. That dark triangle of hair stares up at me from between my legs. And as if on cue, Carter pulls forth a knit blanket and covers me with it. “It’s Henry’s blood. I cut him.”