Chapter 6: The Suggestion
The espresso was bitter on Emily’s tongue, a harsh counterpoint to the saccharine memory of Nathan’s voice. Roman sunlight streamed through the café window, painting everything in a deceptively cheerful glow.
“He asked about you again last night,” Sarah said, not looking up from her phone. A text notification chimed. She smiled, a tiny, private thing. “Nathan. Said he’s got tickets to that gallery opening next week. The immersive one.” She finally glanced at Emily, her eyes sharp. “He suggested I bring a friend.”
Emily’s spoon clinked against the porcelain saucer. “Sarah, I can’t. It’s Mark’s birthday dinner next week.”
“So reschedule. Tell him a work thing came up.” Sarah shrugged, as if suggesting a change in dinner plans. “Mark won’t mind. He’s been checked out for months. You said it yourself.”
The words landed with the precision of a scalpel. Emily stared at the creamy residue in her cup. She had said that. In this very café, just days ago, she’d spilled her frustrations about Mark’s silent detachment, his physical absence even when he was in the room. Sarah had simply collected those confidences and was now assembling them into a weapon.
“It’s not about minding,” Emily whispered. “It’s wrong.”
“Is it?” Sarah leaned forward, her perfume—something expensive and smoky—cutting through the aroma of coffee. “What’s wrong is letting yourself wilt. What’s wrong is being taken for granted. You think Mark isn’t having his own private thoughts? His own… distractions?” She let the question hang, a poisonous bloom in the air between them. She was, of course, artfully reframing her own secret, twisting it into a universal suspicion. “A little secret,” Sarah murmured, echoing her earlier lure, “isn’t a crime. It’s sustenance. It’s what reminds you you’re still alive.”
The phone on the table buzzed again. Sarah glanced at it, and her smirk deepened. She tapped out a reply, her thumbs flying.
In the quiet apartment, Mark’s phone vibrated on the kitchen counter where he was washing dishes. He dried his hands, a dull ache in his lower back from a long day of pretending everything was fine.
The preview text glowed on the screen.
Sarah: Thinking about last time. My kitchen floor was cold. I want a repeat. But I want you on your knees this time. Begging for it. Come over. Emily’s with me for another hour.
His stomach lurched. The water from the faucet suddenly sounded deafening. He saw her townhouse, the stark modern kitchen, the cold tiles. He felt the ghost of her grip in his hair. Shame was a hot, immediate flush up his neck. And beneath it, a treacherous, humiliating pulse of need. He hated that she could summon him with a text. He hated that his body reacted before his mind could form a protest.
He typed, deleted, typed again.
Mark: I can’t.
Sarah: You can. And you will. Or should I call Emily and tell her we need to have a sisterly chat about where her husband’s mind really is? 30 minutes.
The dishes were left in the sink. He drove in a kind of trance.
Sarah’s townhouse was silent. She opened the door before he could knock. She’d changed since the café, now wearing only a long, silk men’s dress shirt, unbuttoned enough to show the shadow between her breasts. Her hair was down.
“You’re late,” she said, not moving to let him in fully. He had to sidle past her, brushing against her body. She closed the door, the click of the lock final.
“Sarah, this is–”
“On your knees,” she interrupted, her voice cool. “You didn’t beg in your reply. I want to hear it.”
He stood, paralyzed, the hum of the refrigerator the only sound. Her expression didn’t change. She simply waited, a queen expecting obedience.
A wave of something like defeat washed over him, scalding and complete. Slowly, his joints aching with more than physical strain, he lowered himself to the polished concrete floor. It was, as promised, cold.
“Good,” she purred. She walked a slow circle around him. “Now. Tell me what you want.”
His throat closed. He stared at the dark seams between the tiles.
“Look at me.”
He raised his head. She had stopped in front of him, the silk of the shirt brushing his forehead.
“Use your words, Mark.”
“I…” The word was a croak. “I want…”
“You want what?” She put a hand on his head, not a caress, but a claim of territory.
“I want you,” he forced out, the confession tearing something inside him.
“Not good enough.” Her fingers twined in his hair, tightening. “Be specific. Be crude.”
He swallowed, the memory of her taste, her scent, flooding him, overriding every shred of dignity. “I want to taste you,” he whispered, his face burning. “I want to make you come with my mouth.”
A smile touched her lips. “Better.” She kept her grip in his hair and with her other hand, she slowly unbuttoned the remaining buttons of the shirt. It fell open. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. She guided his head forward. “Then do it. And you don’t stop until I say.”
The first intimate contact was a shock of warmth and salt. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the sensation, to her direct, uncompromising control. His world narrowed to this: the feel of her under his tongue, the sharp little pulls on his scalp, the soft, approving sounds she made above him. He was a instrument, and she was playing him with ruthless expertise. His own desperate arousal was a distant, unimportant ache. This was about her pleasure, commanded and taken.
She came with a muted, shuddering gasp, her thighs tightening against his ears. She held his head there for a long moment, then pushed him back. He knelt, breathing heavily, looking up at her.
She gazed down at him, her expression one of serene satisfaction. “See? That wasn’t so hard.” She refastened her shirt, covering herself with a casualness that was more degrading than the act itself. “You can go now. Emily will be home soon. Wouldn’t want her to wonder.”
He climbed to his feet, his knees protesting. He felt hollowed out, used.
“One more thing,” she said as he reached the door. She picked up her phone from a console table. “I sent Emily a picture. Of the gallery tickets. She hasn’t replied yet.” She met his eyes, her gaze bright and malicious. “Be supportive, Mark. If she decides to go. It’s just a night out with her sister, after all.”
He drove home, the taste of her still on his lips. The house was empty. He stood in the shower until the water ran cold, scrubbing until his skin was raw, but the feeling of contamination remained.
When Emily returned, her cheeks were faintly flushed from the sun, or perhaps from something else. She avoided his eyes.
“How was the café?” he asked, the question ash in his mouth.
“Nice,” she said, too quickly. “Just… nice. Sarah sends her love.” The lie was like a thin pane of glass between them. She busied herself putting her bag away. “Hey, listen… something came up. Next Thursday, that gallery opening I mentioned? Sarah has an extra ticket. It’s a big deal, she really wants to go. Would you mind awfully if I… rescheduled your birthday dinner?”
The air left the room. He saw Sarah’s smirk, heard her voice. Be supportive. He was shackled by his own secret, gagged by his shame.
“Sure,” he heard himself say, his voice flat and alien. “Of course. Go. Have fun.”
She turned then, and for a second, he saw a flash of something in her face—guilt, yes, but also a thrilling, nervous anticipation. It was the look of someone stepping onto a high wire. “Thank you,” she breathed, and she almost meant it.
Later that night, lying back-to-back in bed, the silence was a living thing. Emily’s phone, face-down on her nightstand, lit up with a notification. She snatched it up, angling the screen away.
Nathan: So? Is Thursday a yes? I’ve been thinking about that dress you wore at the bar. The blue one. I want to see it on the floor of my studio.
Emily’s heart hammered against her ribs. She glanced at Mark’s still form. The guilt was a knot in her stomach, but it was tangled now with a wild, unraveling thread of desire. Sarah’s words echoed. Sustenance.
Her thumbs hovered over the screen. The city lights outside painted shifting shadows on the ceiling. She took a breath that felt like her first in years, and typed her reply.
Emily: Thursday is a yes.