Chapter 3 - The Intruder
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"So..." Rachael was saying; "you overall think it's my fault everything went to shit."
I grimaced. "No! It was mine, and it was Aaron's, is what I'm saying." But she wasn't really having it.
"Your part in being the henpecked husband had no part in it, then?" Rachael crossed her arms, her mouth twitching as if it fought back a frown. "Which, if I'm hearing right, is because you felt so stifled by me. Despite--despite everything."
There was a long, long pause. "You did take Bailey to see her grandparents without me." At that, Rachael looked away. "Were you still so ashamed of me, Rach? That I couldn't come around to your family?"
She sighed, rubbed her knuckles together. I saw that she still wore the ring I'd gotten her, despite it all. She rubbed the jewelled silver band absently, and took a difficult breath. "That week...look, dad was already dealing with cancer and grandma was dying," she muttered. "I didn't think I needed to make things harder."
"I'd make things hard, huh." Rachael chanced a sidelong glare at me, and the cracks in her armour glinted through. Just a little bit. "Rach, you gotta know how that sounds. What that made me feel."
Just a beat. "And that...feeling...it was enough to make you do what you did. Was it?"
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Now that I had Mr. Rodriguez's phone number, it burned a hole in my pocket. I must have gone another three weeks, maybe a month in between having him in my car and discovering he'd left his number for me, and me finally using it. I knew exactly what I needed to do with it. I just didn't have the courage.
Those weeks were torture for everyone involved. Like a man possessed, all I wanted was Mr. Rodriguez. The image of his handsomely curved dick, that skyward slope of his cock; the way he smelled and tasted. His entire aura. How he leaked into my mouth. It burned itself into my memory.
All the worse for poor Rachael. My Rachael, who I knew wasn't stupid; the woman with whom my sex life had never used to slouch, even at our big age. The nights she climbed on top of me and I would roll over and feign deep sleep. I would hear her sigh in heavy disappointment, and try to go back to sleep. I went to sleep each night with the taste of guilt heavy on my tongue.
So it was to nobody's surprise that when she took off on a trip at the end of that month, there was a sense of relief in the house. It wasn't like it came out of nowhere; she had been planning a vacation back to the west coast to see her family anyway, and she had always planned to take our daughter with her. It's just that now, with both Rachael and Bailey gone, the only thing left in the house was me.
And Mr. Rodriguez's number.
As it turned out, I didn't need to use it myself.
Rachael had barely been gone an hour, when I heard a knock at the door. Naturally, I assumed that it was a package, or maybe Rachael had forgotten something. Imagine my shock when I saw none other than Aaron Rodriguez at my doorstep. Smiling at me. My personal demon, having crawled out of hell to taunt me.
I wanted to be mad. I wanted so badly to be angry. But I couldn't be. When I saw him standing there in a business casual shirt and pants, his handsomely lupine features etched in the shadows of evening, his tantalising woody smell...I was losing the battle. Fast. Why did he have such an influence over me?
"Hey, Mr. Aguinaldo," he said in that slow, coy way that I couldn't stand. "Rachael still here?" That was when I noticed he had a brown paper bag by his feet.
"Mr. Rodriguez," I said with a guarded nod. "No, afraid she and Bailey have already left for the airport."
He frowned. God, he was still handsome then. "Well, fuck me. I was stuck in traffic on the way here--I wanted to give her something before she left." He rustled his bag somewhat.
"Ah." I put my hand on the door frame, already so eager to shut him out. "Can it wait till she gets back?"
"Afraid not. It's perishable. I told her I owed her dinner for helping me smooth out a blunder I made at work." His smile was just a touch embarrassed. "Maybe...you'd like it? That is, if you like Peruvian food."
My hand stilled on the door. "Afraid I've never had it."
"Would you like to try it?" And he shuffled somewhat closer. "I'd, uh...hate for it to go bad, is all. It's too much for just me. And Nitya...." A vague, hand-spread gesture. I sighed from somewhere terribly deep in me. "Mr. Aguinaldo...would you let me in?"
Fuck me.
When I found myself and him seated at my dining room table, where all manner of folders, documents, and Bailey's homework was still scattered about, I got the distinct sense that he was an intruder. He'd found me, in my moment of solitude, where I thought I would be alone. Safe.
And yet I was the one that let him in. I was splitting a serving of ceviche and rice with him, and I had offered him a beer. I couldn't be a bad host, after all. That was improper. This...this was improper.
"...from what I understand," he was saying with a half-full mouth; "Filipinos got something really similar to ceviche. What's it called again? Kinny...uh...?"