Chapter 6: The Second Meeting
She didn't last three days. She lasted two.
Thursday morning, Beth woke up with Hughes's name already on her tongue, the taste of him phantom and real all at once. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, Victor's side of the mattress empty and cold, and she listened to her own heartbeat. Too fast. Too loud. It was as if her body was trying to beat its way out of her chest and walk itself down Maple Street.
She got through the school drop-off on autopilot. She drove home. Parked. Sat in the car again with the engine idling, and heard his voice in her head.
You're lying to yourself.
She shut off the engine. She went inside. She walked past the kitchen, past the stack of Victor's mail, past the little framed photo of their wedding that she'd never bothered to move. She went upstairs and pulled down her suitcase and began to pack.
It took her twenty minutes to realize what she was doing. She stopped, mid-fold, a pair of dark jeans dangling from her fingers, and laughed. Laughed out loud, a dry, broken sound, and tossed the jeans on the floor. She wasn't going anywhere. There was nowhere to go.
But her hands were still shaking.
By late afternoon, she'd made a decision. It wasn't a good decision. It wasn't even a sane one. But the decision was made, and it had Hughes written all over it.
She waited until dark. She wore an old pair of jeans and a thin sweater, no bra, because she wanted him to see that she'd known. She wanted him to know that she'd come prepared to be undone.
The yellow door on Maple Street was waiting for her. It seemed to pulse in the jaundiced light of the streetlamp, and the peeling paint looked like a disease. Beth stood at the bottom of the steps for a full minute, her breath fogging, her legs shaking, and she almost turned around.
Then the door opened.
Hughes stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the dim, flickering light inside. He was wearing a white t-shirt, threadbare and stained, and his jeans hung low on his hips. He looked like he'd been waiting for her. He looked like he'd been waiting for her for years.
"Hello, Beth," he said. His voice was calm. He was unsurprised. There was no question in his eyes, only a slow, spreading satisfaction.
"I hate you," she said.
"I know."
He stepped aside, and Beth crossed the threshold. The door groaning shut behind her swallowed the streetlight, and then there was only the faint, flickering bulb over his desk, and the smell of stale coffee and old paper and dust.
She didn't look at him. She stood in the middle of his cluttered living room, amid the stacks of books and the half-eaten takeout containers, and she waited.."
He didn't speak. He reached out and grabbed her by the hair—not hard, but firm, a fistful of the dark strands—and he pulled her head back, forcing her to look at him. His face was close, his grey eyes dark, and the smile was gone.
"You came here for something," he said. "Don't pretend otherwise."
Beth's breath was coming fast. She could feel the heat of him, the predator's stillness, and her body was betraying her again. The ache was back, low and wet and demanding.
"Fuck me," she said. It wasn't a request. It was a surrender.
Hughes smiled. Slow and wolfish.
"Bend over the table."
Beth looked at the kitchen table. It was littered with papers and a chipped coffee mug, but the surface was clear enough. She walked to it, her legs unsteady, and placed her hands flat on the edge. She could feel him behind her, watching.
"Jeans down," he said.
She pushed them down, along with her underwear, and hooked her thumbs in the waistband, wedging the fabric to her knees. The air hit her bare skin and she shivered.
Hughes didn't touch her. He stood behind her, and she could feel the heat of him, and then she felt the cold leather of his belt as he unbuckled it. The hiss of the zipper. The weight of him against her ass.
"You want this?" he asked, his voice low in her ear.
"Yes," she hissed.
"You're a liar, Beth." He grabbed her hip with one hand, held her tight, and with the other hand he guided himself to her entrance. "Say it."
"I'm a liar," she gasped.
"I know you are." And he pushed inside her in one savage stroke.
Beth cried out, a raw, broken sound, as he filled her completely. He did not wait. He began to move immediately, a brutal, pounding rhythm that rocked her forward into the table, made the papers rustle and the mug rattle. His hand left her hip and fisted in her hair again, yanking her head back, and he drove into her from behind with a possessiveness that made her feel owned entirely.
"Yes—fuck—" she moaned, her mouth open, her legs trembling.
"You like that?" His breath was hot on her neck. "You like being used like this?"
"Yes," she panted. "Yes, Hughes, please—"
"Please what?"
"Please don't stop."
He didn't. He kept fucking her, hard, and his free hand came down on her ass. A sharp, loud slap that made her gasp, and the sting bloomed into heat, into a wave of pleasure that made her cry out again. He slapped her again, the other cheek, and Beth's knees buckled. He held her up with his grip on her hair, drove deeper, and she felt the orgasm coiling in her, vicious and demanding.
"Come on," he grunted. "Come on, let go."
He flipped her without warning, spinning her around, and lifted her onto the edge of the table. The papers scattered beneath her, and he was between her legs, pressing her jeans down further until they were off, and then he was inside her again, driving up into her, the angle deeper, dizzying.
He grabbed her chin with his hand, forcing her to look at him.
"I want you to watch," he said, his voice ragged. "I want you to see the face of the man who's taking you apart."
Beth's eyes locked with his. She watched his jaw clench as he fucked her, watched the sweat bead on his brow, watched his dark eyes devour her. She saw the frame of her photo on the desk behind him, catching the flickering light, and she thought how strange it was to be here, in his cluttered sanctuary, being destroyed by this man she'd briefly once accused of terrible, false things.
But the thought dissolved quickly.
He was touching her clit with his thumb, rubbing her in rough circles, and the orgasm shattered her. She screamed his name, and he slammed into her one last time, and she felt him come inside her with a shudder, heard his own broken groan, and then there was silence, filled only with their panting.
Beth lay beneath him, his weight pressing her into the scattered papers, her body limp and trembling. She was a mess. Sweat and his spend, slick between her thighs, her hair tangled and damp, her skin marked with the imprint of his hand.
He pulled out of her slowly, and she felt the loss immediately.
He didn't speak. He stood up, tucked himself back into his jeans, and walked to the desk. He lit a cigarette. The flame flickered in the dark room, catching the glass of her photo frame, and he smoked in silence.
Beth sat up. Her leg was tingling. She looked at her jeans on the floor, her underwear tangled in their leg, and for a moment, she considered simply leaving them there.
"Victor asked me about you," she said finally. "He told me you lied. He told me you said I was meeting you every week."
Hughes didn't turn around. "I did lie."
"I know. I know that." She slid off the table, wobbly, and picked up her jeans. "Why? Why would you do that?"
He took a drag from the cigarette. "Because I wanted to see what you'd do. I wanted to see if you'd fight for him, or if you'd run to me to punish him." He finally turned around, and his face was unreadable. "You're here, aren't you?"
Beth pulled her jeans on, the fabric scratching against her skin. She looked at him—at the mess of his apartment, at the photo of her on his desk, at the flickering bulb—and she felt the weight of what she'd done settle onto her shoulders.
"This doesn't mean anything," she said. "Whatever this is, it stops here."
Hughes just smiled. It was a slow, wolfish smile that made her stomach drop.
"Sure, Beth," he said. "You keep telling yourself that."
She walked to the yellow door. She opened it, let the cold night air wash over her, and she walked out without looking back. But she could feel his gaze on her, burning into her back, and as she got into her car, she knew. She knew she'd be back. She was already thinking about how soon.