Chapter 6: Kathryn's nails dig into the sizzling grill as Richard rams into her from behind, her sundress hiked up around her waist and his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise - the scent of charcoal and sex mingling while David calls out 'Honey, how do you want your burger done?' just as Richard's cock pulses deep inside her.
The silence in the house after Richard’s departure was geologic. It layered itself over everything, a fine sedimentary dust of shame and complicity. Kathryn spent a week swimming in it, feeling it settle in her lungs. David, now a ghost in his own home, moved from room to room trailing a quiet, syrupy desperation. He would look at her with eyes that begged for an explanation she refused to give, or for forgiveness she couldn’t conceive of offering. He’d soiled himself watching her degrade herself. The memory was a stain no detergent could touch.
He tried to talk, once. “What… what’s happening to us, Kat?”
She’d been wiping the already-clean counter. Her hand paused. “Nothing’s happening, David.” Her voice was flat. “Everything’s already happened.”
The sentence seemed to shrink him. He nodded, accepting it as his due. Kathryn realized, with a clinical coldness, that their dynamic had fossilized. Richard was the earthquake. David, the chasm left behind. And she, the artifact buried within.
When David suggested a neighborhood barbecue at their place the following Saturday, she knew, in the marrow of her bones, why. It was a peace offering to Richard, a public ratification of whatever strange covenant now bound them. “It would be good,” David said, his eyes fixed on the weather forecast on his tablet. “Normal.”
“Invite Richard, of course,” Kathryn replied, her tone devoid of inflection. She was met with a grateful, flinching smile.
Saturday dawned oppressively bright. The backyard, with its sculpted shrubs and cheerful tulip borders, felt like a parody of suburbia. Kathryn set out citronella candles and platters of potato salad with detached precision. She wore a simple, sleeveless sundress of soft cotton, yellow. It felt flimsy.
Richard arrived late, a masterful entrance. He brought a bottle of single malt whisky “for the hosts,” a gesture that felt like a ceremonial seal. His wife, Eleanor, a small, neat woman with anxious eyes, fussed over the dessert she’d brought. Richard clapped David on the back, a friendly, possessive thud. His gaze swept over Kathryn, lingering at the neckline of her dress, before moving on. He mingled with other neighbors, the model of geniality. He spoke to the Roberts about their planned trip to Tuscany, to young Mrs. Callahan about her fussy infant.
Kathryn watched, a tight ball of dread and anticipation coiling in her stomach. David played the eager host, firing up the propane grill, lining up patties and buns. He was pouring himself a large whisky, Richard’s whisky. Liquid courage for the performance.
The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows. The air grew thick with the smell of charcoal and seared meat. Richard eventually drifted, beer in hand, toward the grilling station. He made a show of examining a sizzling burger. “Almost perfect, David. Just needs a touch more char. A man’s art, isn’t it?”
David beamed, a child receiving praise. “Thanks, Richard!”
“Kathryn, could you bring me a plate?” Richard asked, not looking at her. “This one here looks ready.”
His tone held a command disguised as a request. The coil in her gut tightened. She picked up a paper plate from the patio table and walked over. The three of them stood by the heat haze of the grill—David focused on his task, Richard hovering, Kathryn holding the plate.
David used a spatula to lift a burger. As he did, the fatty juice dripped, causing a small flare-up of flame.
“Whoa, careful!” Richard said, laughing. He placed a casual, steadying hand on David’s shoulder, turning him slightly away from the grill’s edge. It was a move of absolute control, positioning David with his back mostly to them, his attention now on the volatile flame. The space between Richard’s body and the broad stainless-steel back panel of the grill became a tiny, private arena.
In that same fluid motion, Richard’s other hand, hidden from the yard, found the hem of Kathryn’s dress. He didn’t fumble. He simply gathered the soft fabric, bunching it in his fist and lifting it up to her waist in one quick, ruthless motion. The warm evening air hit her bare thighs. She wasn’t wearing underwear. She’d known.
David cursed softly at the flames, poking at the burgers. “Damn thing...”
“Hold on, you’ve got this,” Richard said, his voice calm, conversational. His free hand fumbled with his own fly. Kathryn heard the zip, the rustle. She stood frozen, the paper plate trembling in her hand. He was not inside her yet. He was letting the anticipation, the sheer audacious risk, become part of the act. His body shielded her bare lower half from the view of the yard, his back a wall to the other guests who mingled thirty feet away. He pressed her front against the side panel of the grill. The metal radiated a dry, pleasant heat against her belly through the cotton of her bunched-up dress.
He spat into his palm. Then he pressed the head of his cock, blunt and already slick, against her entrance. He leaned in, his mouth at her ear, his breath smelling of whisky and grilled meat. “Stay very still, darling,” he whispered, the endearment a vile thing. “Don’t drop the plate.”
He thrust.
The invasion was deep and shockingly abrupt. She bit down on her own lower lip, her teeth drawing the faint, coppery taste of blood. Her free hand flew back, grasping desperately at his thigh. The metal of the grill pressed against her.
David muttered, “There we go. Got it under control.”
Richard began to fuck her. Short, deliberate strokes that buried him to the hilt each time. Each thrust rocked her against the warm steel. The friction was intense, a raw glide inside her. She was tight, from fear, from the brazenness of it. He grunted softly with each drive, the sound lost in the crackle of the barbecue and the murmur of distant conversations. Lois from next door was laughing about a book club misadventure. A child squealed near the sprinkler.
He angled himself, changing the pitch. The head of his cock ground against a place that made her see bursts of white behind her eyelids. A moan escaped her, a ragged gasp she muffled by turning her face and pressing her open mouth against her own bicep. The fine hairs on her arm were damp with her spit.
“That’s the spot, isn’t it?” he rasped. His pace quickened, becoming more ragged. The slap of his hips against her ass was a quiet, rhythmic counterpoint to the sizzle on the grill. He reached around her front, his fingers finding her clit through the thin dress. He rubbed hard, in punishing circles. The dual assault, the covert public degradation mixed with the sharp, specific pleasure, unraveled her.
Her orgasm approached not as a wave but as a sudden, silent detonation. It clenched her from the inside, a series of internal spasms that milked his cock. She shook, her knuckles white on the paper plate, her vision swimming. She made no sound.
He felt it. His thrusts became brutal, punishing, piston-firing into her sensitive, convulsing channel. “Take it, you filthy backyard whore,” he growled against her neck, his voice choked with effort. “Take every drop.”
He didn’t warn her. He buried himself, his body stiffening, and with a harsh, guttural sigh, he emptied himself. The hot, sudden flood inside her felt violent, a claiming. He pulsed, releasing deep into her cunt as David proudly flipped a burger onto the clean side of the grill.
Richard held still for a long moment, panting against her shoulder. Slowly, carefully, he pulled out. The immediate sensation was a lewd trickle down her inner thigh. She felt swollen, used, soaked. He let the hem of her dress fall back down. It settled against her sticky, tender skin. His hands, steady, went to his own clothes, tucking, zipping.
He stepped away, taking the paper plate from her limp hand. He placed the perfectly grilled burger on it. “Thank you, Kathryn,” he said, his voice loud, normal, as he turned to face David and the yard. “Looks delicious.”
David turned, his face flushed from the heat and the whisky. He saw Richard holding the plate with the burger, saw Kathryn standing by the grill, her face perhaps a little flushed. He smiled, a wide, vapid, relieved smile. “Looks great, doesn’t it?”
“The best,” Richard said, his eyes locking with Kathryn’s over David’s shoulder. “A true masterpiece.”
He walked toward the patio table, plate in hand. Kathryn couldn’t move. The warmth between her legs was a grotesque secret.