Chapter 2: The Walk of Shame
The image would not leave her. It played behind her eyes as she washed the dinner dishes, the sound of the running faucet morphing into that other, wetter sound. It flickered in her mind as she said goodnight to her sons, her gaze briefly landing on Léa’s silver-ringed hand tucked into Hugo’s. It lingered, heavy and hot, as she climbed into bed beside Philippe’s sleeping, snoring form.
She lay rigid in the dark, the duvet too warm. Her body felt alien to her—alive in a way that was uncomfortable, humming with a frequency she’d long ago tuned out. The respectable mother, the reliable wife, was a shell cracking under the pressure of a single, stolen glance. She thought of Abdou’s hand fisted in blonde hair, the raw command in his groans. She thought of the terrifying, magnetic size of him. A shudder that was not revulsion coursed through her.
Sleep was a shallow, fitful thing. She dreamt of dark corridors and open doors.
The soft click of the front door closing woke her. The digital clock on the bedside table glowed 2:17 AM. Philippe slept on, undisturbed. The house settled into a new silence, one punctuated by the faint, deliberate tread of socked feet on the staircase. Abdou. Returning very late, as promised.
She held her breath, listening. His door did not open immediately. Instead, she heard the quiet creak of the hallway floorboard outside the bathroom. Then, the distinct, hollow rush of water through pipes. The shower.
The sound was an invocation.
Before her mind could counsel reason, her body was moving. She slid from the bed with a care she hadn’t known she possessed, the cool air raising goosebumps on her skin beneath her simple, ivory-coloured satin nightdress. It was thin, knee-length, something Philippe had bought her years ago and she rarely wore. She didn’t glance back at her husband.
The hallway was a tunnel of shadow. A sliver of light and a plume of steam escaped from the bathroom doorway, which stood ajar. The air grew damp and warm, carrying the clean, athletic scent of his soap and something else, muskier, beneath. Her heart was a frantic animal in her chest. Every step was a transgression, a step away from everything she knew.
She paused at the threshold. The room was filled with a dense, milky vapour. The glass door of the Italian shower was a frosted panel, but the outline behind it was unmistakably male, powerfully built. The water hissed. She could see the blur of his movement—a head tilted back under the spray, broad shoulders rotating, hands sweeping over his body.
She should leave. Now.
Her feet carried her inside. The door sighed shut behind her, the click drowned by the shower’s roar. She was committed. The steam clung to her skin, dampening the satin of her nightdress, making it cling to her breasts, her stomach. She stood frozen, a statue in the haze, watching the silhouette.
His hands moved down his chest, over the defined plane of his stomach. They vanished for a moment, then she saw the rhythmic motion of his right arm, the tightening of his shoulders. He was soaping himself. All of himself. The act was utilitarian, but in this context, in her forbidden observation, it was the most intimate thing she had ever witnessed.
Then he turned slightly, and the profile clarified. His head was back, eyes closed against the water. His left hand was braced high on the glass. His right hand was gripped firmly around the base of his erect cock, working up and down the thick shaft with a slow, steady rhythm. It was a partial silhouette, but the size was clear—the formidable length, the heavy weight of him. A soft, pained sound escaped Christelle’s lips, lost in the steam and water.
Memories of Philippe, of their cautious, predictable couplings over twenty-three years, flashed through her mind—soft, familiar, accommodating. This was different. This was Leviathan. This was the flesh-and-blood truth of what she had only glimpsed in the dim light of his bedroom. Her mouth went dry.
The water shut off abruptly.
The sudden silence was deafening. Christelle didn’t move. Couldn’t move. She watched, paralysed, as the blurred figure behind the glass toweled his head, his torso. The door slid open.
Steam billowed out, wrapping around him like a cloak. Abdou emerged nude, water droplets cascading down the carved ebony terrain of his body. He was drying his neck, his eyes downcast. Then he looked up.
He saw her. He stopped. But he did not startle. He did not cover himself. His gaze travelled from her face, down the dampened satin plastered to her nipples, and back up. A slow, utterly calm recognition settled in his dark eyes. It was the same look he’d given her in the kitchen—knowledge without judgement, possession without demand.
Christelle’s eyes, against all her will, dropped. They locked onto his cock, which hung heavy and semi-erect between powerful thighs. It was, even in its softened state, immense. Thick as her wrist. The broad, dark head was prominent, the veins tracing its length like roots. She had a sudden, visceral memory of Léa’s stretched lips, the sheer physical impossibility of it, and a fresh, shocking wave of heat pooled low in her belly. It was twice the size of her husband’s. More. It was a fact, not a comparison, stamped into her brain.
“Christelle.” He said her name softly, not a question. A statement.
She couldn’t speak. Her throat had closed. She was still staring, her face a furnace of shame and wild curiosity.
He finished drying his chest with a slow, deliberate motion, then draped the towel around his hips, tucking it loosely. The act was more obscene than his nudity; it was a concession to a modesty he clearly didn’t feel, and it drew her eyes to the vee of muscle leading down from his hips.
“I could not sleep,” she whispered, the lie pathetic even to her own ears.
A faint, knowing smile touched his lips. He took a step forward, then another, closing the distance between them. The heat from his body radiated through the damp, cool air. The scent of him—clean skin, warm male—was overwhelming. He stopped when he was mere inches from her. She could see the individual beads of water clinging to the tight curls of his chest hair, the lingering steam on his skin.
“The house is quiet at night,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “It plays tricks.”
He didn’t move for a long moment, letting her feel the sheer physical presence of him, letting her drown in the silent, screaming tension. Then, with a casualness that shattered her, he reached past her for the doorknob. His forearm brushed against the damp satin over her nipple. The contact was electric, a jolt that shot straight to her core. She flinched, a tiny, involuntary gasp escaping her.
He paused, his face close to hers. “Bonne nuit, Christelle,” he murmured.
Then he was gone, the door swinging quietly shut behind him, leaving her alone in the steam-choked bathroom, trembling violently, the ghost of his touch burning on her breast, and the colossal, unforgivable image of him seared permanently into her hungry mind.