Chapter 4: Morning Confession
The taste of her was familiar and foreign at once. A saline tang edged with the cloying sweetness of her jasmine body wash, but beneath it, lurking in the deeper musk, was something else. Something darker, earthier, a note that didn’t belong to him. Arthur focused on the mechanics, the soft, responsive nub under his tongue, the way her thighs tensed on either side of his head. He tried to lose himself in the service of it.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, not guiding, just holding. He heard her breath catch, shift from sleep to waking awareness. He didn’t stop. This was his currency, the only tender he had to offer.
“Mmm. Good morning,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep.
He hummed in response, a vibration against her, hoping it felt like devotion and not interrogation. His mind was a forensic lab. The texture, the scent—it was different. More pronounced. Used. The ghost of Darius was in his mouth, in his nose, a phantom he was paying homage to with every lick.
She arched her back slightly, a soft sigh escaping her. It wasn’t the frantic, begging gasp from the video. This was quieter, languid, almost lazy. A woman enjoying a morning courtesy. The difference lanced through him.
After a minute, her grip loosened. She patted his head, twice. “Okay, honey. That’s enough.”
He pulled back, his jaw aching. He looked up her body, past the flat plane of her stomach, the slight swell of her breasts, to her face. Her eyes were open, watching the ceiling. She looked placid, unmoved.
“Was that… was that good?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“It was fine,” she said, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn. “I have that big open house on Elm at ten. Need to get moving.”
She swung her legs out of bed, her naked back to him—pale, flawless, the skin he had just been worshipping. She stood and walked into the master bathroom without a backward glance. The door clicked shut. A moment later, the shower hissed to life.
Arthur lay on his side, the taste of her—and him—still coating his tongue. ‘Fine.’ The word echoed in the empty space she’d left behind. It was the word she used for his pasta salad, for the movie he’d picked, for their entire life together. Fine.
He got up, his body stiff. The room smelled of her perfume and sleep and sex-that-wasn’t-his. He dressed mechanically: tan slacks, a blue button-down, the uniform of an invisible man. In the kitchen, he made coffee. The island stood mute and accusing. He avoided looking at it.
Vivian emerged forty minutes later, a vision in a cream-colored sheath dress that hugged her curves. Her hair was a perfect, blow-dried sheet of gold. She smelled of clean skin and ambition.
“Did you feed Bruce?” she asked, sliding her feet into heels.
The cat. “Not yet.”
“Could you? I’m running late.” She grabbed her portfolio and a travel mug of coffee, already scrolling through her phone.
“Viv.”
She paused, one hand on the front door knob, and looked at him with an expression of polite impatience. “Yeah?”
His mouth was dry. The question he wanted to ask—Who were you with last night? Do you taste him on your skin like I do?—lodged in his throat, a cancerous lump. Instead, he heard himself say, “Do you need me to pick anything up for dinner?”
She blinked, then offered a quick, bright smile. “Surprise me. Something light. I’ll probably be home by seven.”
And she was gone, the door closing with a soft, final click.
The silence of the house condensed around him. He fed the cat, the dry kibble rattling loudly in the porcelain bowl. He washed the two wine glasses from the sink, his thumb rubbing over the lipstick stain on the rim—a deep plum, not a shade she usually wore at home. He put them away in the cupboard, their cleanliness a pathetic lie.
He stood in the quiet kitchen. Surprise me.
An idea, terrible and clear, crystallized. He walked upstairs to the home office, a small room they used for paperwork and storage. He booted up the old desktop computer, the fan whirring like a tired insect. He opened a private browsing window.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He typed “cuckold wife psychology” and hit enter.
There were tons of results, and he spent the first few hours at work reading through material. He was particularly interested in finding things about cuckold relationships where both partners were happy and in love. How could he use this information to keep Vivian married to him?
It seemed like all these relationships had a common theme. The husband worshipped and served his wife and enjoyed seeing her with other men. In return, the men were allowed to watch and participate in sexual activities and achieved gratification from it.
Arthur felt the stirring in his pants again. He had clearly been turned on by watching his wife pleasured by another man. Watching her give her body to someone else. Even the humiliation turned him on. Was he a natural cuckold? A "beta-male"?
Just then another email hit his inbox just as another notification chimed—the familiar, dread-inducing sound of a new message from the anonymous sender.
His heart hammered against his ribs. This one had no text. Just a video file, timestamped last week.
He put his headphones on. The footage showed Vivian’s BMW, parked in a dimly lit underground garage. The camera was outside, looking in through the passenger window. She was in the driver’s seat, her head thrown back. Darius was beside her, his hand moving under her skirt. Her face was a mask of urgent pleasure, her mouth forming words he couldn’t hear. Then she turned, kissed him with a ferocity that made Arthur flinch, and her hand went to his lap, unzipping him.
Arthur stopped the video. He didn’t need to see more. He stared at the frozen image: his wife’s profile, etched in desire, lit by the dashboard lights.
He opened a new email. He typed the sender’s address. His fingers were cold.
Who are you? he wrote.
He deleted it.
Why are you doing this?
He deleted that, too.
He sat back, the office chair creaking under his weight. The sender wasn’t just torturing him. They were documenting a truth. They were showing him the man Vivian wanted. A man who took her in kitchens and cars. A man who didn’t ask permission. A man whose size was an act of violence and a gift.
Arthur looked at his hands, soft and pale on the keyboard. He thought of the silicone sleeve winging its way to him. A costume. A prop. A pathetic imitation of the real thing.
The real thing had a name. Darius.
He opened a search engine. He typed “Darius” and the name of Vivian’s realty firm. Nothing. He tried social media, scrolling through her connections. A hundred faces, none that matched the man from the videos.
Then he remembered the cologne. The spicy, sandalwood scent on her skin, in the kitchen. He took out his phone, the one that held the videos, his shame, his only window into his wife’s real life. He found the clip from the kitchen island. He zoomed in, screen-grabbing a blurry image of Darius’s forearm. There was a tattoo. A black, geometric shape, maybe a stylized bird or a dagger, just above his wrist.
It was a start. A clue in the hollowed-out mystery of his own marriage. He saved the image. For the first time that morning, Arthur Rogers had a purpose, thin and desperate as it was. He would find him.