Chapter 2: The Impossible Fantasy
The silence after the screen went dark was a physical thing. It had weight, texture. It was the scent of her cheap, drugstore body wash clinging to the robe she’d thrown on, the distant laugh track from the television downstairs, the cold dread hardening in her stomach. She could still feel the ghost of her own fingers inside her, the clenching aftershocks of a climax that felt like a crime scene. A lie on top of a lie.
She cleaned up in the ensuite, scrubbing her hands under cold water until they felt raw. In the mirror, a forty-year-old woman stared back, her face flushed, her eyes wide with a terror that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. You’re a fucking cliché, she thought. The accountant. The good wife. Touching herself while her husband watched a game show downstairs, thinking about another man, planning an infidelity so baroque it belonged in a French farce. She pinched her cheeks, hard. The color wouldn’t go down.
When she descended the stairs, he was still on the sofa. He had his feet up on the ottoman, a half-empty beer on the side table. He looked at her as she entered, his gaze lingering on the cinched belt of her robe. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice a fraction too high. “Just a headache. Took something for it.” She drifted towards the kitchen, needing space, needing to put a counter between her body and his perception.
“Your phone buzzed,” he said, not looking away from the screen.
“Just Julie from work. Budget projections.” The lie slid out, greased by years of practice.
He grunted, taking a sip of his beer. The silence stretched, filled only with the inane chatter of the host. Then, without turning his head, he said, “So. This plug I found.”
Julie’s hand, reaching for a glass, froze. She poured water slowly, the stream unnaturally loud. “It was a joke. A stupid joke.”
“Why did you keep it then? It doesn't look like a joke. Maybe deep inside you want to try?” He muted the TV. The sudden quiet was deafening. “Sounded like you’d given it some real thought. "Spicing things up".”
She turned, leaning against the counter. He was watching her now, analytically, like she was a spreadsheet with an anomalous entry. “I was just… thinking. Maybe we could invite another man in. You know. And he could do that or other things.”
“I do know.” He put his beer down. “But I'd rather be the one doing that. If we’re talking about spicing things up, about exploring… I’m not against the idea. In principle.”
Her heart thudded once, a heavy, sickening beat. In principle.
“But,” he continued, “your version seems a little skewed. You, me, and another dude? Some guy we haven’t ever met” He shook his head, a faint, dismissive smile on his lips. “That’s not a fantasy for me, Julie. I don't want to be near another naked guy. I don't want a guest star in my wife.”
“It’s not—”
He held up a hand. “If we’re doing this—if—it should be something for us. A shared experience. Not you fulfilling some… whatever this is.” The words were calm, reasonable. A deadly sort of reasonable. “So, my counter-proposal. We find a woman. Someone for us. Together. That’s the deal.”
The world narrowed to the granite edge of the counter pressing into her spine. A woman. Of course. The classic male fantasy. The one that didn’t threaten him. It was a veto wrapped in the guise of participation. She felt the carefully constructed fiction of Option 11 splinter, the jagged edges cutting into her.
“You’re serious,” she said, barely a whisper.
“As a heart attack.” He unmuted the TV, the sound flooding back in a wave of false cheer. “Think about it. Could be fun.”
She stood there for a long time after he turned back to the screen, the water in her glass growing warm. The victory of a few minutes ago—the shared fantasy, the palpable heat with Mark—was ash in her mouth. She’d been outmaneuvered. Not with anger, but with bland, domestically-sanctioned curiosity. But she had to keep the apperance.
"Yeah Why not. Let me think about that.
The next day, at work, the glow of her phone between two meetings was a confessional.
JulieMar: Mission failed. He vetoed the thought of another guy. Called you a ‘guest star.’
Mark: What does that mean?
JulieMar: He wants a threesome. With another woman. ‘For us.’ Not for me and my internet pen pal.
Mark: Fuck.
JulieMar: Yeah.
Mark: So we’re back to square one. No trip. No hall pass. Just a used plug and a suspicious husband.
JulieMar: Pretty much.
Days after days, the conversation degraded into a circling despair. They revisited the list, the old, impossible options. Paris, Montreal, the sick relative, the missed flight. Every door was locked. The air in her bedroom was suffocating. She could hear her husband's steady breathing beside her, a rhythm of normalcy she was hacking apart with her thumbs.
Days bled into weeks. Tense, performative weeks. She was hyper-aware of her phone, of her time, of the way Paul watched her sometimes when she thought he wasn’t looking. The weight of it was a constant pressure behind her eyes. The fantasy they’d shared felt like a dream from another life, a feverish, impossible detail.
Then, on a Tuesday evening, as she was mechanically chopping vegetables for a salad she didn’t want, her phone vibrated with a unique, double-chime she’d programmed years ago. The private app. Her breath caught. She wiped her hands, fumbling for the device.
A new message from Mark. No text. Just a screenshot.
An airline itinerary. Charles de Gaulle Airport. Arriving tomorrow, 7:20 AM. A return a days later.
Below it, he finally typed.
Mark: My brother just had a baby. Early. I’m the godfather. It’s a last-minute thing, I'm alone. Reims
Her vision blurred at the edges. Reims. She was 4 hours away. 8-hour drive minimum. More, with traffic. Middle of the week.
Mark: I just have 22-hour. I couldn’t… I couldn’t not tell you.
The numbers swam on the screen. 7:20 AM arrival. A 4-hour drive for her, if she left at 8 am. School pick up at 4. They had 0 minute. It was ludicrous. It was impossible. It was a window, cracked open in a wall she’d thought was solid.
Her fingers were cold, slippery on the screen.
JulieMar: That’s 8 hours of driving. In a 8 hours days.
Mark: I know.
JulieMar: It's middle of the week. I have work and family arrangements.
Mark: Leave 15 min earlier than usual. Drive fast. I'll meet your somewhere 30 min away. Cuts you an hour.
She leaned against the kitchen counter, the cool granite a shock against her skin. The lies were coming fast now, piling up, each one more precarious than the last. A ledger of deceit. Her professional life, her family, all twisted into service for this.
He walked in, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “What’s up? You look pale.”
She didn’t look up from her phone. “Work disaster. There's an early call tomorrow.” The words tasted like tin.
He opened the beer with a hiss. “Ok - I ll drop the kids. But you ll do the pick up then.”
Fuck. Another lie that gets her nowhere. Worst now she has a week alibi.
“It’s a mess. The file’s a disaster. The lead auditor is incompetent.” She was layering it on, adding believable texture to crumbling foundation.
“Huh. Well, do what you have to do.” He took a swig, seemingly indifferent. The banality of his acceptance was more chilling than suspicion.
When he left the kitchen, she looked back at the screenshot on her phone. A window. 8 stolen hours in the middle of a her perfect life. The cost of it was vertiginous—the drive, the lies, the risk of total collapse.
She typed, her decision crystallizing the moment her fingers moved.
JulieMar: Ok - let's do it. Got us 30 more minutes with a fake work emergency.
His reply was instantaneous.
Mark: 1hr 30? I ll take that. Meet at La Cheppe. Noon. It's by the Highway exit.
She didn’t type yes. She didn’t type no. She simply googled the town, memorizing the road, imprinting it on a part of her mind, safer than typing it on the car GPS.
She put her phone down and finished making the salad. Her hands were steady. The panic had subsided, replaced by a terrifying, electric clarity. She had a story for her husband. She had a destination. She had a man, not a memory, waiting for her in a room she could already picture: the generic art on the wall, the heavy curtains blocking the runway lights, the muffled hum of the freeway.
She would go. The math was insane. The risk was catastrophic.
She would go.
Later, she couldn't sleep. She pretended to go work on her emergency. She didn't need to pack for 1h30. Not even the plug. Especially not the plug. But, in her lunch box for tomorrow, hidden in a zippered pouch, she placed the black lace thong. The one he said he could tear with his teeth.