Chapter 27: The New Toy
The silence in the car on the way home was a physical thing, thick and suffocating, broken only by the hum of the engine and the soft pop station Margot had tuned to. Jake sat in the passenger seat, one arm dangling out the open window. His other hand rested high on Margot’s thigh, his thumb tracing idle circles on the bare skin above her stocking.
In the back, Derek sat perfectly still. Every nerve ending felt scraped raw. The memory of the machine’s mechanical rhythm was a phantom percussion in his bones. The cage was a familiar, aching weight, but it was the drying stickiness trapped inside it that truly shamed him. He stared out the window at the blur of darkened suburban houses, each a tidy box of uncomplicated lives.
“The crème brûlée was actually decent,” Jake said, breaking the quiet. “For a place with tablecloths that stiff.”
“The sommelier hated you,” Margot replied, a smile in her voice.
“He hated that I called the pinot ‘juicy’. Guy needs to relax. It’s fermented grape juice, not a holy sacrament.”
Margot laughed, a genuine, light sound that twisted in Derek’s gut. It was the laugh she used to have with him, about stupid TV shows or their neighbor’ obsession with topiary. It belonged to someone else now.
Her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, finding his. The amusement in them cooled into assessment. “You’re quiet back there.”
Derek said nothing. His jaw ached from clenching it through dessert.
“Cat got your tongue?” Jake asked, half-turning in his seat. “Or just still thinking about the show you put on earlier?”
“Leave him be,” Margot said, but it wasn’t a defense. It was a dismissal. Her fingers, which had been resting on the gear shift, dipped into her open purse on the console. He saw her hand close around the small, black remote.
A fresh jolt of panic, electric and cold, shot through him. The restaurant. The buzzing. The way his knees had knocked against the linen-draped table during the seared scallops course, drawing a sharp look from the waiter. He’d clutched his wine glass so hard he was surprised it hadn’t shattered. The memory was a hot blush across his chest and neck.
She didn’t press the button. She just held the remote, a dark talisman between her fingertips, as she turned the car onto their tree-lined street.
The garage door groaned open, swallowing the car into the sterile, oil-scented darkness. The engine cut. The sudden silence was profound.
“Out,” Margot said, not to him, but to Jake.
Jake leaned over, kissed her deeply, a slow, possessive thing Derek was meant to watch. Then he slid out, stretching his broad back with a satisfied groan. “I’m gonna grab a water. That wine’s got me parched.”
He let himself into the house through the side door, leaving it ajar. The light from the mudroom spilled out, a yellow rectangle on the concrete floor.
Margot turned in her seat. She looked at Derek in the back, her face etched in the dashboard’s faint green glow. “Come here.”
He moved slowly, his body stiff, and opened the back door. He stood awkwardly beside the car, in the space between the bumper and a stack of plastic storage bins.
“In the house. Now. Don’t make a sound.”
He walked toward the open door, each step a surrender. The kitchen light was too bright. It felt surgical. Jake was leaning against the counter, drinking from a bottle of water, watching him enter.
“Assume the position,” Margot said from behind him, her voice clipped. “By the table.”
He knew what she meant. He walked to the heavy oak kitchen table, his place of morning coffee and paid bills, and bent over it, pressing his palms flat against the cool wood grain. He heard the soft click of her purse opening.
“Still so obedient after all that,” Jake mused, taking another swig. “It’s kinda remarkable.”
“Shut up, Jake,” Margot said, but there was no heat in it. Her footsteps approached. He flinched when her hands touched his waist, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his trousers. They pooled at his ankles. The cool air of the kitchen hit his exposed skin.
Her fingers, impersonal and efficient, found the base of the plug. With a slow, deliberate pull, she removed it. The sensation was a strange, hollow relief. He heard the soft, wet tap as she set it on the table beside his hand.
“Look at that,” Jake chuckled. “All dressed up for a fancy dinner with a little secret. Hilarious.”
Margot ignored him. “Stay.”
She walked to the sink. He heard the run of water, the squeak of the faucet being shut off. She returned with a damp dishcloth, still warm. Without a word, she began to clean him, wiping away the lingering lube with the same methodical attention she might give to a countertop. The cloth was rough. The domesticity of the act, performed in their bright, normal kitchen, was utterly deranging.
When she was done, she tossed the cloth toward the sink. It missed, landing on the floor with a soft slap.
“You can stand.”
He straightened, his back protesting. He pulled his trousers up, fumbling with the belt. His fingers wouldn’t work right.
Margot had picked up the plug. She held it under the tap, rinsing it, then dried it with a paper towel. She looked at Jake. “You staying?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Jake’s grin was wolfish.
“Then go make yourself useful. There’s a bottle of vodka in the freezer. Pour three.”
Jake pushed off the counter and obliged, the freezer door sighing open.
Margot turned back to Derek. She held up the clean, sinister device. “This isn’t going in a closet. This stays on the nightstand. A reminder. Your access to me is now a privilege I grant. Through him.” She nodded toward Jake, who was clinking ice into glasses. “You understand the new rules? After tonight?”
Derek finally found his voice. It was a rasp. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
He swallowed. The taste of silicone and shame was back. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good.” She placed the plug on the table. “Now, you’re going to go take a shower. You smell like fear and restaurant air conditioning. Then you’re going to come to bed. You’ll sleep on your side. You won’t touch me.”
Jake brought over the glasses, handing one to Margot and setting one on the table for Derek. He kept his own. “A toast,” Jake said, raising his. “To new arrangements. And to not coming in your pants at a five-star joint.”
Margot clinked her glass against his. She didn’t look at Derek’s untouched drink.
Derek stood there, a ghost in his own kitchen, as they drank. The vodka was probably cold and sharp. He wouldn’t know. He turned and walked toward the hallway, leaving his glass sweating on the oak.
Under the blistering hot spray of the shower, he scrubbed until his skin was pink. He couldn’t get clean. The water drowned out the low murmur of their voices from the living room, but not the shape of their laughter.
Later, dressed in thin cotton pajamas, he slipped into the darkened bedroom. The plug was indeed there, a sleek black silhouette on her nightstand, next to her book and her lip balm. Margot was already in bed, her back to his side. The room smelled of her jasmine lotion.
He slid under the covers, keeping to the very edge of the mattress. The space between them was a canyon. He lay rigid, staring at the faint light around the edges of the blackout curtain.
Some time later, the bedroom door opened. Jake stood there, a broad shadow, backlit by the hall light. He was barefoot, wearing only his unbuttoned jeans. He didn’t say a word. He walked around to Margot’s side of the bed.
Derek closed his eyes, pretending sleep. He heard the soft rustle of sheets, the whisper of fabric being pushed down. He heard Margot’s sleepy, welcoming murmur. He heard the low, familiar creak of the bed frame taking a new, greater weight.
He kept his eyes shut tight, but he couldn’t block out the sounds. The wet, rhythmic sighs. The headboard tapping a slow, consistent rhythm against the wall. Jake’s muffled grunts. The sharp, gasped “yes” that was unmistakably Margot’s, a sound he hadn’t heard in years, if ever.
It went on for a long time. When it was over, there was more whispering, another soft laugh. Then quiet.
Derek lay frozen. The cage felt like it was burning a brand into his flesh. After a few minutes, he heard Jake’s heavy, even breathing from the other side of his wife. The sound of a man spent, comfortable, and asleep in his bed.
Derek opened his eyes. He watched the digital clock on his nightstand change minute by minute, the red numbers blurring into meaningless symbols as the dawn light, gray and hopeless, began to bleed around the curtains.