Chapter 6: Marital Disconnect
The drive home was a blur of streetlights and rain-slicked asphalt. Litza sat stiffly in her car, the ache between her legs a persistent, throbbing reminder. Every shift in the seat sent a fresh jolt through her—a mingling of soreness from the brutal anal stretch and the raw, chafed feeling from her front. She could still feel the ghost of him inside her, a fullness that had long since emptied onto her stockings but lingered in her muscles, in the deep, bruised places.
She had changed her clothes at the clinic, bundling the soiled underwear and stockings into a plastic biohazard bag, of all things, and stuffing it deep into her medical waste bin. The absurdity hadn’t escaped her. She’d scrubbed her skin raw in the staff shower, but the scent of sex, of him, seemed embedded in her pores.
Pulling into the driveway of their neat, two-story house, she saw the warm glow from the kitchen window. Yuri’s silhouette moved behind the glass, stirring something on the stove. A normal Thursday. The sight should have been a balm. Instead, it felt like a provocation.
She took a steadying breath, fixed a smile on her face, and went inside.
“You’re late,” Yuri called from the kitchen, his tone light. “Traffic bad?”
“A bit,” she lied, hanging her coat. The familiar smells of garlic and roasting chicken surrounded her. It smelled like home. It felt like a costume she was putting on. “Sorry. Long day.”
He emerged, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He was a handsome man, her husband. Kind eyes, strong shoulders from his work as an engineer. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. His lips were soft. They did not demand.
“You look tired,” he said, brushing a curl from her forehead. His touch was gentle. It made her skin crawl with a guilt so acute she had to force herself not to flinch.
“I am,” she said, pulling away under the pretense of getting a glass of water. “Just… drained.”
Dinner was a quiet affair. She pushed food around her plate, listening to Yuri talk about a breakthrough on his bridge project, the solutions to load-bearing equations. His words were logical, orderly, clean. They washed over her without meaning. All she could think about was the chaotic, filthy slam of her body against the examination table, the screech of metal on linoleum.
“Litza?” he asked, his voice pulling her back. “You’re a million miles away.”
“Am I?” She took a sip of wine. “Just… a difficult patient. It’s on my mind.”
Later, in their blue bedroom, the tension built like a static charge. She was perched on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair, watching him in the mirror’s reflection as he undressed. The mundane ritual of marriage: dropping trousers over a chair, folding socks. The normalcy of his body, lean and familiar. She felt a sudden, desperate need for him to want her. To prove that this, what they had, was real and enough.
But when he came to bed, when he rolled towards her and kissed her, his hand sliding under her nightshirt to cup her breast, her body reacted with a confusing dissonance. Her mind recoiled, but her flesh responded, her nipple hardening instantly against his palm. Her own treachery sickened her.
“I’ve missed you,” Yuri murmured against her neck, his breath warm. He’d been working late all week. They hadn’t made love in days.
“I’ve missed you too,” she whispered, the lie tasting like ash.
He moved over her, his weight comforting, known. He kissed her with a tenderness that made her eyes sting. She wrapped her arms around him, clinging to the man she loved, trying to anchor herself in his goodness.
He entered her slowly, carefully, letting her adjust. It was a sweet, practiced fit. A homecoming.
And it felt like nothing.
A pleasant pressure. A gentle rocking. The emotional love was there, swirling in her chest, a desperate, sorrowful affection. But the physical sensation was muted, distant, as if her nerve endings had been scorched away and only dull messages could get through.
She closed her eyes.
Yuri’s thrusts were measured, loving. But in the darkness behind her lids, another face materialized. Harder eyes. A crueller mouth.
She imagined it wasn’t Yuri’s comfortable length inside her, but that brutal, overwhelming thickness. She felt the ghost of that stretch, the burning fullness that had bordered on pain. Her hips lifted, seeking a deeper angle, a harder contact. A soft moan escaped her lips.
“That’s it,” Yuri whispered, encouraged, picking up his pace.
But in her mind, the room wasn’t blue and soft. It was sterile, bright. The smell wasn’t lavender, but antiseptic and sweat. The sounds weren’t loving murmurs, but filthy promises and the screech of table legs.
She saw Mark’s hands, large and rough, gripping her hips not with Yuri’s care, but with ownership. She felt the slap of skin, harder, faster. She imagined his voice, growling in her ear. You think about this at work, Doc?
“Yes,” she breathed into Yuri’s shoulder.
You’re a desperate, cock-hungry slut.
Her breath hitched. Her inner muscles, lethargic with Yuri, clenched around the memory, sparking a real, physical tremor.
“God, you feel amazing,” Yuri gasped, his rhythm becoming less polished, more urgent.
He was close. She could feel it in the tightening of his muscles, the shortening of his strokes. She chased her fantasy, throwing herself into it. She arched her back, not for her husband, but for the phantom behind her eyelids. She pictured Mark flipping her over, bending her on the table, taking her other entrance with ruthless force. The memory of that pain, that violation, twisted into something darkly erotic. Her moans grew louder, not cries of pleasure but of frantic, shameless need.
“Litza… I’m…” Yuri’s voice was strained.
“Don’t stop,” she begged, but she wasn’t talking to him. She was begging the ghost, the memory, the thick, impossible cock that had ruined her. “Fuck me. Please.”
The vulgar word, so alien in their marital bed, seemed to push Yuri over the edge. With a final, deep thrust, he groaned and spilled into her. He collapsed, sweaty and spent, nuzzling her neck. “Wow,” he panted. “God, I needed that. You were so… passionate tonight.”
She lay perfectly still, his weight a leaden blanket. The fantasy evaporated, leaving her hollow. The warmth of his release inside her felt like a trespass. Her own body hummed with an unsatisfied, debased hunger. The contrast was a chasm. Yuri had made love to her. She had been fucked, violently and completely, by a man who wasn’t there.
He rolled off, already half-asleep, his hand finding hers. “Love you,” he murmured.
She stared at the ceiling, the soft light from the lamp casting gentle shadows. The lavender in the air was cloying. The metallic scent she’d smelled earlier—it wasn’t old coins. It was the tang of blood, from where he’d torn her.
“Love you too,” she whispered to the darkness.
The words echoed in the quiet room, a pathetic epitaph for the woman she’d been a week ago. The good doctor. The faithful wife. She was now a container for secrets, her body a map of hidden bruises and corrupted memories. And as Yuri’s breathing evened out into sleep beside her, she knew, with a cold, crystalline certainty, that she would go back. Next week. Same time.
The decision was not a resolution, but a surrender. She closed her eyes, and the ache between her legs, now just a dull throb, felt like the only true thing left in the world.